Commons Sitting of 2 July 1902

Preamble
The House met at Two of the clock.
UNOPPOSED PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.

  PRIVATE BILLS [LORDS] (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 Bill, 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.:—
  Brompton and Piccadilly Circus Railway (New Lines, etc.) Bill [Lords].
  Ordered, that the Bill be read a second time.

  PRIVATE BILLS [LORDS] (STANDING ORDERS NOT PREVIOUSLY INQUIRED INTO NOT 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 not been complied with, viz.:—
  London United Electric Railways Bill [Lords].
  Piccadilly, City, and North - East London Railway Bill [Lords].
  Ordered, that the Report be referred to the Select Committee on Standing Orders.

  KNARESBOROUGH IMPROVEMENT BILL.
  Lords Amendments considered, and agreed to.
PETITIONS.
  EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.
  Petitions against: From Hunslet; Alcester; Leicester; Sileby; Connon; Mexborough; Keighley and Halifax; to lie upon the Table.
  MARRIAGE WITH A DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER BILL.
  Petitions against: From Aikton and Wigton; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  UNIVERSITY COLLEGES (GREAT BRITAIN) (GRANT IN AID).
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 1st July; Mr. Austen Chamberlain]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 252.]
  PUBLIC WORKS LOAN BOARD.
  Copy presented, of Twenty-seventh Annual Report (for 1901–2), with Appendices [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 253.]
  DEATHS OF CHILDREN IN METROPOLITAN WORKHOUSES.
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 25th March; Sir Walter Foster]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 254.]
  TRADE REPORTS.
  Copy presented, of Index to Reports of his Majesty's Diplomatic and Consular Representatives abroad on Trade and Subjects of General Interest (with Appendix), 1901 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  CRIMINAL LAW AND PROCEDURE (IRELAND) ACT, 1887 (PROSECUTIONS).
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered. 9th June; Mr. Delany]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 255.]
  FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACTS (BUTTER MAKING, ETC).
  Copy presented, of Order, dated 27th June 1902, made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department under section 49 of The Factory and Workshop Act, 1901, with regard to the overtime employment of women in the making and mixing of butter, and the making of cheese, and revoking the Order made on 18th August, 1893, under section 56 of of the Act of 1878 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
  Copies presented, of Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Annual Series, Nos. 2834 to 2838 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  TRADE REPORTS (MISCELLANEOUS SERIES.)
  Copy presented, of Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Miscellaneous Series, No. 577 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Glengevlin (Cavan) Postal Arrangements.
  MR. M'GOVERN: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, if he will say whether inquiries have been made into the question of changing the conveyance of the mails to Glengevlin from the present route via Carrick-on-Shannon and Dawra to Enniskillen and Blacklion as affording a better delivery; and, if so, will he state the result.
  (Answer.) Inquiry has been made on the question of serving Glengevlin by way of Enniskillen and Blacklion, as suggested by the hon. Member, instead of from Carriek-on-Shannon and Dawra as at present, but it is found that such a change would not admit of the provision of so good a service as the existing one. Letters from Blacklion and Swanlinbar posted in time for the day mail despatch at 11.40 a.m. and 12 noon respectively should reach Glengevlin on the following morning, and letters and newspapers posted in Dublin in time for the night mail despatch should also reach Glengevlin on the following morning. —(Post Office.)

  Navy—Shooting Prizes.
  MR. YERBURGH: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he can state the amount of money that has been expended annually since 1890 upon shooting prizes for the Navy, and the manner in which such amount has been allotted.
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  (Answer.) The following Table gives the amounts expended and the mode of allotment during the years referred to:—

  Total Amount expended.

  For heavy guns, quick-firing guns, and machine guns.

  For small arms and revolvers.

  £

  £

  £

  1890–1

  3,808

  868

  2,940

  1891–2

  3,968

  898

  3,070

  1892–3

  4,364

  942

  3,422

  1893–4

  5,253

  836

  4,417

  1894–5

  4,977

  1,070

  3,907

  1895–6

  4,643

  1,151

  3,492

  1896–7

  4,262

  1,257

  3,005

  1897–8

  3,529

  1,396

  2,133

  1898–9

  3,009

  1,386

  1,623

  1899–1900

  3,085

  1,519

  1.566

  1900–1

  3,531

  2,252

  1,279

  It should be added in explanation of these figures that the decrease in the amounts expended in prizes for small arms is due to the introduction of a more difficult course under more stringent rules. while the increase under the heading of heavy guns is due to the introduction of quarterly in addition to annual prizes.—(Admiralty.)

  Army and Auxiliary Forces — Shooting Prizes.
  MR. YERBURGH: To ask the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether he can state the amount of money that has been expended annually since 1890 upon shooting prizes for the Army and auxiliary forces respectively, and the manner in which such amount has been allotted.
  (Answer.) Between ten and eleven thousand pounds have been expended on musketry prizes annually for the regular forces, and about £3,000 for the militia, except in 1900, when the figures were £8,000 and £5,900 respectively. It is not practicable to give the detailed figures allotted. Roughly speaking, in the royal artillery individual prizes are granted ranging from 10s. to 30s., and in the other arms and in the militia the money earned for each man exercised is pooled and distributed according to the discretion of the officer commanding the

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  corps. The militia permanent staff have a special prize for the best shots in each battalion.—(War Office.)

  Uganda, British East Africa, British Central Africa—Financial Position.
  MR. EVELYN CECIL: To ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can state the revenue and expenditure of Uganda, British East Africa, and British Central Africa respectively, comparing the revenue and expenditure of the first year of administration by Great Britain in each case with the Returns of the last financial year.

  (Answer.)

  Uganda

  †1894–5

  Revenue

  .

  £7,577

  Expenditure

  .

  £63,937

  ‡1901–2

  Revenue

  .

  £52,050

  Expenditure

  .

  £224,731

  British East

  1896–7

  Revenue

  .

  £39,191

  Africa

  Expenditure

  .

  £147,641

  1901–2

  Revenue

  .

  £83,619

  Expenditure

  .

  £180,118

  British Central

  1891–2

  Revenue

  .

  £16,919

  Africa

  †Expenditure

  .

  £12,951

  ‡1901–2

  Revenue

  £52,785

  Expenditure

  .

  £104,612

  —(Foreign Office.)

  Board of Trade—Local Labour Correspondents.
  MR. BROOKE ROBINSON: To ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will say whether the local labour correspondents are appointed annually, or upon what terms they hold their appointments.
  (Answer.) All arrangements made with trade and local correspondents for the supply of information are terminable at any time at the discretion of the Board of Trade.—(Board of Trade.)

  Westmeath Local Rates.
  MR. DONAL SULLIVAN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the time allowed for the full collection of their warrants to the collectors of rates in the County Westmeath is four months; that the Local
  †Figures taken from the Annual Accounts laid before Parliament by Comptroller and Auditor General.
  ‡Figures taken from the Estimates of the Protectorates for the year 1901–2, the completed accounts not having yet been received.
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  Government Board refused admission to the Westmeath County Council to pay one of its collectors, Mr. John Coughlan, his full poundage (6d. in the pound) on the amount of his warrant, £583 6s. 1d., for the half year ending the 30th September last, on the grounds that this sum was not lodged by that date; that Mr. Coughlan only got his collecting hooks from the Secretary of the County Council on the 18th July, 1901, so that he had only then two and a half months to lodge the amount of his warrant; that Mr. Coughlan lodged by the 30th September £488 9s.; and that he only received as poundage £7 13s. 4d., instead of £12 4s. 3d.; whether, on the uncollected balance of £94 17s. 1d. on the 30th September, £6 13s. was stopped from him when the correct amount should be £2 7s. 6d.; and, whether, under the circumstances, he will direct that Mr. Coughlan be paid the amounts withheld from him.
  (Answer.) The time allowed for the collection is six months, provided that the County Council strike their rate at a sufficiently early period to enable the warrants to be in the hands of the collectors at the beginning of the half year. It appears that on the 17th April last the County Council of Westmeath required Collector Coughlan to enter into a fresh bond for the collection of the rates, but as the collector did not enter into the bond until the 16th July, the warrant, which was ready on the 3rd June, was not taken up by him until the 18th July. As the delay was due entirely to the negligence of the collector in not perfecting his bond at the proper time, the Board were unable to assent to poundage fees being paid to him on sums collected after the close of the half year ended 30th September, 1901. The Board have no particulars showing the exact amount of poundage fees received by Mr. Coughlan for the collection in question, but he is entitled to fees on all sums lodged by him on or before the 30th September in respect of the levy for the half year ended on that date. It is essential for the proper carrying on of the business of County Councils that the rates should be collected with due diligence, and the refusal to sanction payment of poundage fees upon sums uncollected within the time prescribed is the only effective means of securing this result.‡(Irish Office.)

  Killyleagh (Down) Police Barracks.
  MR. WOOD: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if complaint has been made to the Inspector General of the Royal Irish Constabulary in reference to the alleged annoyance created by the lock-up of the police barracks at Killyleagh, County Down, to the occupiers adjoining the same; and when will steps be taken to abate the same.
  (Answer.) A complaint was made by the occupier of the House which adjoins the building used as a police barrack. Before the building was rented by the constabulary the complainant had the use of the present barrack yard and of other conveniences in the building. The Inspector General having made inquiry, is satisfied that there are no sufficient grounds for the complaint. ‡ (Irish Office.)

(2.15.) QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

  Boiler Committee's Report.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty when the Report of the Boiler Committee will be circulated.
  THE SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Mr. ARNOLD-FORSTER,): The Report of the Boiler Committee is in the hands of the printers, and will be issued to hon. Members as soon as the printing is completed.

  Abandoned Naval Review.
  MR. LOUGH: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the amounts paid for railway tickets and sleeping accommodation in connection with the Naval Review will be returned to Members.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I am not yet in a position to give a definite reply to the question, but the Admiralty are in communication with the companies concerned, and hon. Members will be informed as soon as possible as to the course decided upon.

  Naval Works Acts.‡Annual Statement of Progress.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I beg to ask the Civil Lord of the Admiralty when the usual Statement of progress under the Naval Works Acts will be circulated.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I hope that the usual Statement of progress will be in the hands of hon. Members in the course of a few days.

  Transvaal Administration.
  MR. BLACK: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been called to a statement by Lord Milner, made upon 20th June, in response to a deputation from the Chamber of Mines in Johannesburg, to the effect that it is the intention of the Government that the people of the Transvaal should be consulted as to legislative measures; and whether effect is being given to this promise in the constitution of the legislative bodies for the Transvaal and Orange River Colonies respectively.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. J. CHAMBERLAIN,): I have seen a press report on the subject. If Lord Milner is correctly reported, he does not appear to have given any promise affecting the constitution of the legislative bodies of the Transvaal and Orange River Colony but merely that the usual publicity would be given to the projected measures of the Government.

  Hong Kong —Sanitation.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies, in view of the prevalence of plague at Hong-Kong, will he consider the expediency of calling for a Report as to whether it is practicable to remove some of the slum property in the Chinese quarter of the city, with a view to secure improved drainage and sufficient ventilation; and, seeing that, besides 10,000 foreigners, the city contains upwards of 280,000 Chinese, the majority of whom are located in insanitary dwellings, will he consider the advisability of increasing the sanitary staff at the disposal of the Government.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I must await the full Reports of the medical and sanitary experts, Professor Simpson and Mr. Osbert Chadwick, who have specially visited Hong Kong in connection with the plague.
  MR. WEIR: Can the right lion. Gentleman say how long the experts will take to report?
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I hope they will take all the time necessary.
  MR. WEIR: Are they still at Hong Kong?
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I cannot say without further inquiry.
  MR. WEIR: I will put another Question.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: That is not necessary. I will inquire, and let the hon. Member know.

  Indian Railway Administration.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, in view of the inconvenience which must necessarily arise through corresponding with the officials in India on questions affecting the administration of Indian railways, will he say why the India Office declines to give information, or make inquiries in regard to such matters, in response to Questions to the Secretary of State placed on the Paper by Members of this House.
  THE SECRETARY of STATE for INDIA (Lord G. Hamilton,): It has always been the practice for the Secretary of State in Council to leave to the railway authorities on the spot a large discretion in respect of details of working, which could not be controlled from this country without serious disadvantages to the service. To this practice I propose to adhere.

  Natu's Claim.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India, seeing that the claims made by Sirdar Balvant Ramchandra Natu of Poona were set forth in a letter dated 25th August, 1901, addressed to the Secretary to the Government of Bombay, will he ascertain the cause of the delay which has taken place in giving these claims the consideration promised.
  LORD G. HAMILTON: I am satisfied that the responsible local authorities are giving full consideration to the claims referred to, and that there is no necessity for my intervention in the matter.

  Port of Alexandria—Quarantine Regulations.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will ascertain why the quarantine officials at the Port of Alexandria allow certain persons to go on board vessels in preference to the general public; and will arrangements be made for the application of quarantine laws to all persons alike.
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE for FOREIGN AFFAIRS (LORD CRANBORNE,): The attention of His Majesty's acting agent and Consul General has been drawn to the matter.

  China—Russian Taxes at Newchwang.
  SIR CHARLES DILKE: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any protest has been made by the British or Japanese Governments against the collection of Likin by the Russian Provincial Administration of Newchwang on steamer-borne imports and exports; and, having regard to the fact that in the last year reported 454 of the ships concerned were British or Japanese, as against three Russian and eighty-one of all other nationalities, he will say whether transit passes are given to clear goods against all subsequent exaction of Likin.
  LORD CRANBORNE: No protest was I made by His Majesty's Government against the levy of Likin by the Russian authorities at Newchwang, because when it was brought to the notice of His Majesty's Government, negotiations were proceeding between the Russian and Chinese Governments for the evacuation of Manchuria by the former, and it was expected that this would shortly be carried into effect and Newchwang restored to Chinese control. It was, moreover, found on inquiry, that the Russian authorities in levying duty and Likin simultaneously were continuing a practice which, though contrary to our Treaty rights the Chinese had followed for some years His Majesty's Government are

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  unaware whether the Japanese Government have made any protest to the Russian Government on the subject. The right of merchants to obtain transit passes should they wish to do so, is in no way affected.

  Glasgow Electric Tramway Fatalities.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will state the number of accidents which have occurred on the Glasgow Corporation Electric Tramway system during the year ending 1st June last, distinguishing fatal accidents to persons from injuries to persons not resulting in death; and will he quote the number of accidents causing damage to goods, vehicles, animals, and other property.
  THE PRESIDENT of the BOARD of TRADE (Mr. Gerald Balfour,): I am informed by the Corporation of Glasgow that during the period mentioned by the hon. Member there were on their tramways, apart from trifling occurrences, 215 accidents. This total was made up of nineteen fatal accidents, 111 cases of injury not resulting in death, and eighty-five cases of damage to property. The number of passengers carried during the same period exceeded 163,000,000.

  Foreigners and British Pilot Licences.
  MR. JOYCE: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he will say how many foreign masters and mates hold pilot licences for ports in Great Britain, and also how many hold licences for ports in Ireland; how many of those, licences were granted by the Board of Trade and how many by port pilotage authorities respectively; and whether he will consider the advisability of putting a stop to this system with the view to prevent danger to this country in case of war with a foreign power.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: In only one case has a pilotage certificate been granted by the Board of Trade to the master of a foreign ship. The Board have not the numbers granted by pilotage authorities, but I shall be happy to take steps to obtain them. In 1888 a Select
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  Committee of the House of Commons recommended a renewal of the practice of granting pilotage certificates to the masters and mates of foreign ships, and the recommendation was given effect to in the Merchant Shipping Acts of 18891 and 1894. Legislation would be required to change the system, and on the information before me I am not prepared to re-open the question.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: What is the one case in which the Board of Trade granted a licence?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I cannot say exactly. I think it was a case in which the local authority refused it.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: A case of overriding the local authority?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: Yes.

  Prison Officials—Hours of Duty.
  MR. TULLY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Homo Department whether he will state the number of hours per week that chief warders, storekeepers, clerks, and ordinary ' warders respectively are on duty in local prisons in England.
  THE SECRETARY of STATE for the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Ritchie,): The average number of hours is respectively, 61¾, 40¼, 40¼, and 61¼.

  London Water Bill.
  MR. LOUGH: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether the Minutes of Evidence taken by the Joint Committee of the London Water Bill, ordered by this House to be printed on the 17th June, will be distributed before the Committee stage of the Bill is taken.
  THE PRESIDENT of the LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. WALTER LONG,): I understand that the Minutes of evidence will be delivered on Wednesday of next week, but, as I stated in reply to a previous Question on the subject, I cannot undertake to defer the Committee stage of the Bill until the evidence has been distributed.

  Port of Ness Harbour.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether the petition from the fishermen of Port of Ness, Island of Lewis, pointing out that they are unable to use the harbour on account of the accumulation of sand, has yet received the consideration of the Congested Districts Board; does the fact that the harbour trustees are bankrupt and the harbour works in charge of a judicial factor appointed by the Court debar the Congested Districts Board from removing the sand; and, if not, will early steps be taken in the matter, in view of the fact that the harbour was constructed out of a Government grant in order to aid the fishing industry of the district.
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. A. GRAHAM MURRAY,): I have nothing to add to my reply of the 6th May last† The situation, which is difficult and complicated, is still under the consideration of the Congested Districts Board.

  National Gallery-Coronation Stands.
  MR. TREVELYAN: I beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works whether it is his intention to demolish at once the whole of the wooden structures adjoining the National Gallery; and, if so, whether he will secure the expeditious execution of the work by employing a larger number of workmen than at present engaged.
  THE FIRST COMMISSIONER of WORKS (Mr. AKERS DOUGLAS,): The reply to the first inquiry is in the affirmative. The removal is in the hands of the contractor, whose interest it is to expedite the work; but he has been instructed to use all fusible despatch, and it is expected that he will have finished this week.

  Cloonacool Excise Prosecution.
  MR. O'DOWD: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been drawn to the case of Patrick Henry, Cloonacool, County Sligo, who was prosecuted at the Petty Sessions Court of Tubbercurry on 6th February, 1902, by the excise authorities for an alleged breach of the
  † See (4) Debates, CVII., 805.
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  Excise Law; and whether, seeing that the case against Henry was unanimously dismissed by the magistrates, and that, on appeal, the decision of the court below was unanimously upheld, can he arrange that this man should be refunded the cost of his defence.
  THE CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Sir M. HICKS BEACH,): The case came before the Magistrates at Tubbercurry on 6th February, 1902, and was dismissed "without prejudice," which would appear to signify that the case admitted of being reopened at a subsequent date. The Board of Inland Revenue then appealed, and the case was heard at Ballymote on the 2nd of April, 1902, when, after a lengthy hearing the Judge and his colleagues dismissed the appeal. There was stated to have been a strong conflict of evidence on this and the former occasion, and it does not appear that the case is one in which a refund of the defendant's expenses is necessary or desirable.

  Kenmare Pier.
  MR. BOLAND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the memorial and accompanying correspondence submitted to the Congested Districts Board on 25th May by the representative ratepayers of Kenmare, County Kerry, with reference to the condition of the pier at the port; whether he is aware that the weekly sailing-; of the Clyde Shipping Company's steamer have been discontinued in consequence of the difficulty of approaching the pier; and whether the Congested Districts Board will render the necessary assistance to restore the efficiency of the port.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Mr. WYNDHAM,): The matter will be considered by the Congested Districts Board at its next meeting.

  Irish National Board of Education Building Contracts.
  MR. MOONEY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the contract for the new buildings to be

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  erected for the National Board of Education (Ireland) in Marlborough Street, Dublin, has been given to a Belfast firm; and why the two local firms, whose tenders were lowest, were passed over.
  MR. WYNDHAM: I am informed by the Commissioners of National Education that the firm whose tender was accepted has building works in Dublin as well as in Belfast, and that the Commissioners in selecting the tender of this firm acted in the exercise of their discretion under the terms of the advertisement calling for tenders.

  Purdysburn Smallpox Hospital.
  MR. WOOD: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been drawn to the application by the Belfast Corporation for a loan for the erection of a smallpox hospital at Purdysburn, County Down; and whether, having regard to the practice in England, an inquiry will be held at which the ratepayers will he heard, and the rules of the Local Government Board in England as to the striking distance of smallpox contagion he adopted.
  MR. WYNDHAM: No application has been received for a loan for the erection of a smallpox hospital at Purdysburn; consequently no inquiry will be held in the matter. In February last an inquiry was held in respect to an application by the Belfast Corporation for a loan of £50,000 for the erection of a permanent Infectious Diseases Hospital on the lands of Purdysburn acquired by the Corporation for Hospital purposes. At the inquiry all persons interested had an opportunity of being heard, and no objections to the proposal were made. This loan was sanctioned in May. The question of providing a temporary smallpox hospital was not raised when the inquiry into the application for the loan was held.

  De Freyne Estate Evictions.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the final notice for eviction has been served upon a certain number of the De Freyne tenants; and if he can take any steps to
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  arrange a settlement on the terms suggested by more than one of the Roman Catholic clergy, before a step is j taken which, whilst working great hardship, will also embitter feeling.
  MR. WYNDHAM: Evictions are impending on the estate of Lord De Freyne. It is not in my power to intervene in the manner suggested in the question. Even if it were, I could not anticipate that my offices would succeed if those of the Clergy should most unfortunately fail.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I beg to give notice that I shall call attention to this matter later on.

  Armagh and Monaghan Foresters.
  MR. JOHN CAMPBELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the Irish National Foresters of Armagh and Monaghan were informed on the eve of their excursion to Moville, county Derry, for Sunday 29th June, that it could not take place as an information had been sworn before Colonel Tynte, R.M.,; Derry, that there would probably be a disturbance between the Apprentice Boys and the Foresters, and that the Great Northern Railway Company refused to convey the excursionists to Derry; and, whether he will state when and by whom the information was sworn and its grounds; at whose instigation the railway company refused to carry out their part of the contract; and why the authorities did not draft into Derry a force of police sufficiently strong to protect the members of these societies.
  MR. M'KEAN: May I, at the same time, ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the fact that an excursion to Moville, county Derry, fixed to take place on the 29th June, by the members of the Armagh and the Monaghan Branches of the Irish National Foresters, was prevented at the last moment from taking place, to the disappointment of the excursionists, owing to the fact that an Orange demonstration was fixed to take place in Londonderry on the same day; and

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  whether, in view of the action of the police in preventing this excursion from taking place, instead of providing for the preservation of the peace, he can take steps to prevent such occurrences in Ireland in the future.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The Foresters arranged an excursion to Londonderry by train, and thence to Moville by steamer, for the 29th June. This was the date previously selected by the Orange Society for the annual inarch to church of its members in Derry. One steamer only, with accommodation for 400 passengers, was engaged to convey the Foresters' party to Moville. A much larger number would, as a result, be left behind in Derry, and these, it was understood, would be re-inforced by local Nationalists. At this juncture a serious breach of the peace was anticipated, and an information to this effect was sworn by the District Inspector of Police. The leaders of the Foresters were informed of the apprehended danger to the peace, and, it was also suggested to them by the police authorities that the excursion: should be postponed. So far as is known, the railway company did not refuse to carry the excursionists to Derry, but they offered to make the tickets available for another date, or to convey the party to some other destination on the date mentioned. The Roman Catholic clergy in Derry, moreover, urged the Foresters not to proceed to Derry on the occasion. They agreed in the end not to do so, but to make an excursion to Bundoran instead. By so deciding, the Foresters gave a valuable example of self-restraint and consideration for the feelings of others; thus promoting the prospects of amity and goodwill and saving the public the cost of a large police force.
  MR. M'KEAN: Why were not sufficient police drafted into Derry?
  MR. WYNDHAM: I think the Foresters, by pursuing the course they did, obviated the necessity and set a good example.

  Irish Land Purchase—Morley Estate.
  MR. TULLY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has received a resolution
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  from the Leitrim County Council praying to have peasant proprietorship established on the Morley Estate and other estates in the West of Ireland; and what steps, if any, he proposes to take to give effect to this resolution.
  MR. WYNDHAM: Yes, Sir, the resolution has been received. The steps necessary to be taken with a view to effect sales to the tenants under the Land Purchase Acts are locally well known; but it does not rest with the Government to initiate such steps.

  Board of Trade Vote.
  MR. RUNCIMAN: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, in view of the large number of topics which await discussion on the Vote for the salary of the President of the Board of Trade, the Government will refrain from taking this Vote until more than one Evening Sitting has been devoted to it.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): I do not propose to press the Vote for the salary of the President of the Board of Trade to a final issue tomorrow, though I cannot promise to give another opportunity for its discussion. I am aware of the hon. Member's desire to discuss the question of the shipping combination; but I think that tomorrow would be an inconvenient time to raise the discussion.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: Will the right hon. Gentleman give another opportunity for that discussion?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I recognise the importance of the question, and that point will have to be considered.
  CAPTAIN NORTON: Will the right hon. Gentleman refrain from taking the Vote until the long-promised Report on the hours of railway servants is in the hands of members?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am afraid I cannot promise that.

  Committee on National Expenditure.
  MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL: I beg to ask the First Lord of the. Treasury what steps have been taken

  539
  in the selection of members of the Committee to inquire into the means of supervising the national expenditure.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The names of the Committee will be placed on the Paper in the course of the present week.

  Business of the House.
  MR. BRYCE: Can the First Lord say what the business will be on Friday?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I propose to take the Licensing Bill as the first Order, and the Naval Prize Bill as the second Order. On Monday we shall take the Education Bill.

  Evictions on the De Freyne Estate—Motion for Adjournment.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL, Member for South Tyrone, rose in his place, and asked leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, viz., "The impending eviction from their holdings of a number of tenants on the De Freyne estate in County Roscommon, the circumstances attending the said evictions, and the action of the Government in connection therewith."
  MR. SPEAKER: I must point out that it is the latter words of the Motion that make it one for me to submit to the House.
  MR. WYNDHAM: On a point of order, may I ask what the words "the action of the Government" mean?
  MR. SPEAKER: I have spoken to the hon. Member who brought the Motion to me, and he assured me that he was in a position to connect the Government with it.
  MR. WILLIAM JOHNSTON: You should make this Motion from the other side of the House.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I hope that Christian charity is not confined to one side of the House.
  The pleasure of the House not having been signified, Mr. speaker called on those Members who supported the Motion to rise in their places, and not
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  less than forty Members having accordingly risen, the Motion stood over, under Standing Order No. 17, until the evening sitting, this day.

EDUCATION (ENGLAND AND WALES) BILL.
Considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
[Mr. J. W. LOWTHER (Cumberland, Penrith) in the Chair.]
Clause 4:—
MR. GODDARDmoved to leave out sub-section 1. He said that this sub-section made it impossible for a local education authority to require that any school or college assisted by them should be undenominational. That raised the whole question of whether the State should pay for religious instruction. As a Nonconformist he would take that first opportunity of contending for this fundamental principle that it did not fall within the right—and he would go so far as to say within the province—of any Government to teach religion to the people, and he did not see how any Government could undertake to do so without falling either into injustice or into immorality, on the ground that either the State, assuming to be a higher judge of religious truth, must make a selection of the church or churches to be established, and must, in so doing, discountenance and injure other churches in proportion to the favour shown to the members of the selected communion—and he said that was manifestly unjust—or else, assuming that all doctrines and rites are of equal value, it must patronise all alike, and that would be eminently immoral. He thought he had very good grounds for this contention, and he would like to support his contention by a very short quotation from a speech delivered by an authority who certainly would be recognised in the House as a high authority. Though the speech was made some years ago, it was just as true and as vital, and had as great a bearing on the subject today, as it was, and had, the day it was delivered. These were the words—
"Let the State keep to its own proper work and fit its children to take their places as citizens of a great Empire, and let us leave

541
their religious training and fill that concerns their education for the kingdom which is not of this world to the care of the churches and the responsibility of parents."
These were words uttered by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for the Colonies at a meeting of Nonconformists in the county in which he resided, and were words which he had always cherished as exactly carrying out the views which he personally held on this great question. He wished the Colonial Secretary were in the House today to reiterate those words, which came from him then with so much force and would come from him today with greater force. In a great debate in the House in 1847, Mr. Bright made a very strong speech in reply to a charge that the opposition of Nonconformists was "clamour out of doors." He thought he had heard that same charge made in regard to this Bill, and he thought he had heard the First Lord of the Treasury even asserting that such clamour as there was was only on public platforms outside and really did not exist in the House. Mr. Bright said—
"Just recollect, when the whole Nonconformists are charged with clamour, what they mean by being Nonconformists. They object, and I object, to the principle by which Government seizes public funds in order to give salaries and support to the teachers of all sects of religion, or of one sect of religion, for I think one plan as unjust as the other. Either the Nonconformists hold this opinion, or they are an imposture; they object to any portion of public money going to teachers of religion belonging either to the Established Church or to Dissenting bodies; they object to receiving it themselves; their very principle is that the Government has no right to appropriate public funds for the purpose of religious instruction."
These were very strong words. He admitted there were men amongst the body of Nonconformists who did not agree with him wholly, but he thought they would agree that Mr. Bright was considered to have fully understood what were the views of Nonconformity when he spoke these words, and that he earned the cordial gratitude of Nonconformists by the courage and earnestness with which he avowed and defended them in the face of the House of Commons. The principle Mr. Bright laid down in the House was as true today as it was then, and it was an opinion held by millions in this country today. It was the same principle which Nonconformists contended for when they so strenuously resisted the payment of church rates. They contended
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for that, not because the amount of these rates was a burdensome amount; in many cases it was a mere trifling thing. Nor did they contend for that because the money they would have to contribute through the rates was applied to support forms of teaching which they held erroneous, but simply and solely because they disallowed the right of the State, or of any authority empowered by the State, to make compulsory exactions for religious purposes at all. This principle, in their judgment, lay at the very root of the doctrine of religious liberty, for if the State was given the right to compel one man to pay for the teaching of another man's religion, or, as was done under this Bill, compelled everybody to pay for the religious instruction of everybody else, and to enforce this as it must be enforced, or else the Bill would be no use at all, against recalcitrant conscience, by penalties of law, by fines, distraints, and even imprisonments, they passed at once; into the region of religious persecution. If it was said in answer to this contention that this right had been admitted in some directions already, he said that was no reason whatever why it should be recognised and consecrated anew by fresh legislation. It was one thing to acquiesce in an anomaly which had come to us through years, it was quite another thing to re-enact it. That was what they were doing in this subsection. There had been many apostles of the principles he advocated that day, and amongst them there was the veritable pioneer in the great education, war of this country, the late Dr. Dale, He would like to put this truth before the House in words he uttered. He said—
"We forbid no man to give religious instruction to his own children. If we did, we should violate the principles of religious liberty. We forbid no man to pay other people to give religious instruction to his children. If we did, we should violate the principles of religious liberty. We forbid no man to receive religious instruction gratuitously from those who are willing to give it for nothing. If we did we should violate the principles of religious liberty. But we do not acknowledge the right of the parent to require the community to pay rates towards the support of schools not under the control of the ratepayers, in order that his child might be taught a sectarian faith."
That was exactly the position in which they stood in regard to this sub-section. No one denied the right of the Church

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to provide for the religious instruction of its own adherents. What they did deny was the right of the church to demand the assistance of public money in order to enable it to make that provision. He believed these words expressed the feeling which was in the minds of Nonconformists all over the country on this matter, and especially did they feel the hardship in regard to the training colleges which were dealt with under this particular Clause. There had been abundant evidence given of the grave injustice of sustaining denominational training colleges out of national funds. Although about one-fourth of the original expenses in erection was provided by the State, and nearly three-fourths of the annual income came from the same source, yet these institutions had been conducted on the most narrow and exclusive principles. Dr. Bruce of Huddersfield had pointed out that pupil teachers from board and undenominational schools, Nonconformists, and others having a strong desire and evident talent for serving their country as educators of youth, had been prevented from entering upon their profession with full qualifications because they could not be admitted into the existing colleges without violating their consciences by conforming to religious ceremonies and accepting religious creeds of which they did not approve. He held, and he felt sure he was speaking the minds of a great many others, in saying these training colleges ought to be national institutions open to all and absolutely without any kind of tests. Yet it was proposed to perpetuate the grievance which had existed already too long. He would only say in conclusion that it was not they who had raised this question. They had not sought this controversy. They were the provoked party. They were challenged. The gauntlet had been thrown down in their faces, and they would be cowards and traitors if they did not defend themselves and their principles. He was not concerned to defend the personal rights of Nonconformists or their prestige, but what he was concerned with was the rights of conscience, the rights of the people, and the cause of civil and religious liberty. He desired to lay down this broad principle, that education, elementary or secondary, aided by the
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State, paid for out of the taxes, should be popular, unsectarian, free from the teaching of creeds and catechisms, and free from the control of priests and churches.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 2, line 9, to leave out sub-section (1)."—(Mr. Goddard.)
Question put. "That the words 'A Council in the application of money under this part of this Act' stand part of the Clause."
MR. BROADHURSTsaid he joined with his lion, friend in his earnest, eloquent and consistent protest against the Clause. This was a matter which affected the conscience of Nonconformists far more deeply than any other question in the Bill. The section raised the whole religious difficulty, and would create much feeling throughout the length and breadth of the land if insisted upon. It would do injury to the Church of England which was little dreamt of. During the past few years the question of Disestablishment had fallen into the background, but persistence in this section would resuscitate the whole demand for religious equality throughout the State—the demand for the disestablishment and disendowment of the Church of England. He did not know whether the authors of this Bill had contemplated what their work was likely to do in that direction. If they had not realised the never-dying fight which the proposal would provoke in the land, it was time for them to do so. This was a matter which aroused more bitter animosity in the minds of Nonconformists than any other portion of the Bill, and those who thought the Nonconformists were likely to accept the section, knew little of the Nonconformist spirit. The contentions raised by it were such as had not been experienced since the days of the old church rate system. He remembered those days, for his father was one who suffered persecution and loss. The spirit which animated Nonconformists in those days was not yet dead. How could they expect to secure truthful men and women to teach in their public schools if they insisted, as a condition of their employment that they should repudiate the faith of their fathers and the

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church of their ancestors? The, Government were going, by public funds, to teach principles of religion to which probably half the nation did not subscribe. It a poor youth or girl required to go into the teaching world they must either subscribe to religious creeds they die] not believe in, or they would be ejected from their employment.
MR. TALBOT: I rise to order. I wish to ask whether the line of argument of the hon. Member is relevant to the Amendment.
THE CHAIRMAN: I see nothing in this sub-section having reference to tests for teachers. There is an Amendment later on which raises the question of schools for teachers.
MR. HERBERT LEWIS: I understand my hon. friend's argument to be that the section if adopted, would lead to the establishment of a large number of sectarian schools, and students would be excluded from them if they did not happen to belong to a particular denomination.
THE CHAIRMAN: I think that it is a very far-fetched argument. It might possibly apply to an Amendment later on, but it does not seem to me pertinent at the present stage.
MR. BRYCE: I would submit that the Clause is so drawn that it would prevent the local authority from saying that the rules of a particular school or college are so exclusive and illiberal that they ought not to aid it.
THE VICE-PRESIDENT of the COMMITTEE of COUNCIL on EDUCATION (Sir JOHN GORST,)said that that was exactly what this Clause did not say. What the Clause did say was that the County Council was not to give a grant to any school on the ground that some particular form of worship was practised in that school.
THE CHAIRMANsaid that as he understood the matter, by this Clause the local educational authority would take no thought whatever in the distribution of the money as to the particular
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form of religion that was taught or was not taught in any school; in other words, that they should not insist on any religious test being applied.
MR. BROADHURSTsaid he should not enter into any contention with the Chairman on this particular matter.
THE CHAIRMANsaid that the hon. Member's contention would arise on a, subsequent Amendment.
MR. BHYCEsaid that as he understood his hon. friend, his Amendment was to give the power to the local authority to say whether a religious test was to be imposed or not.
MR. BROADHURSTsaid that, in his judgment, under this Clause there would be religious oppression, and that teachers of both sexes of Nonconformist faith would be excluded from pursuing their employment. If the Government intended so to amend the Clause as to make that impossible, then his argument would fall to the ground. His contention was that in pushing a Bill of this kind through the House, the Government ought to say that there was no possibility of a disqualification for the employment of teachers on religious grounds. What was wanted was equal rights to all religionists in regard to employment in the service of the State, and that there should be no disqualification on religious grounds imposed on young people entering the teaching profession. He sincerely trusted that the First Lord of the Treasury, who had shown a desire to conciliate opinion in all parts of the House, would now take this opportunity of giving an assurance that the language in no part or section of the Bill would he applied to disqualify teachers on account of their religious convictions.
MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid it would greatly conduce to the proper discussion of the very difficult and thorny questions, raised by this Clause, if they were as far as possible to dissociate one problem from another, and proceed to discuss them seriatim. That was not a very easy thing to do, but he hoped the Committee would second any efforts ho might make in that direction. He would therefore

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venture to deprecate the bringing in at that stage of the question the question of training colleges. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Leicester had asked for an assurance from him that there should be nothing in the Bill to make it difficult for the children of Nonconformist parents anxious to enter the teaching profession, to have the necessary training without violating their consciences, or giving up the faith of their forefathers. He had spoken very often on the subject of the training of teachers in the course of these discussions, and had insisted, over and over again, that one of the great advantages of the system established by the Bill, as compared with the existing system, was that under it there would be ample opportunity for the training of the children of Nonconformists for the teaching profession—a training which he recognised was not now adequately given in certain parts of the country. So far as the general spirit of the Government was concerned, there should not be any conflict between the hon. Gentleman and them, although there might not be absolute agreement as to the means by which that object was to be attained. Really, the issue raised by the Amendment was whether they should or should not lay down in an Act of Parliament, dealing with a secondary system of education, that no aid should be given to any school in which religion of any kind, sort, or description was taught. That was what the hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment said it came to. The principle laid down by the hon. Member was a plain and simple one, and that was that according to the Nonconformist view, as he represented it—although he thought there were a great number of Nonconformists who would not agree with the hon. Member—no aid whatever ought to be given out of the public funds to secondary schools in which religion in any shape, denominational or undenominational, was taught. He thought that the hon. Gentleman in laying down that principle ran counter to the whole feeling of the community and the whole feeling of the parents, to whatever sect these parents belonged. He would respectfully suggest that, in dealing with the education of children, some regard should be paid to the feelings of the parents of these children. He wished to
548
say a word in regard to the educational aspect of this question. They were now dealing with secondary schools which, to a large extent, were boarding schools, in which the children, having left the immediate guardianship of their parents, were put under the guardianship of the schoolmasters. Were they to lay down that these children were not to be taught any religion at all? [HON. members on the Opposition Benches: No one said so.] Was that doctrine to be preached? He did not want to put up an idol in order to knock it over again; but that was what the hon. Gentleman was really trying to lay down. He did not wish to argue a thing which no one maintained, but he understood that the mover of the Amendment said that no school in which any religion at all was taught should receive aid.
MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: A particular form of religion.
MR. ALFRED BUTTON: There should necessarily be a conscience Clause.
MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid that there was a conscience Clause for the day schools. The question of the conscience Clause could be raised later on. But what was raised by the Amendment was that no school was to be eligible for aid if religion was taught in it. [HON. MEMBERS on the Opposition Benches: No, no! and Ministerial cries of "Hear, hear!"] He had already told the House that that was an outrage on the parents of this country. He now said that that would be the ruin of education in this country. Was that the way to coordinate secondary education in this country? Whether they looked at it from the point of view of the parents, or from the point of view of education, he hoped they would all agree not to lay down so ruinous a proposition as that no public aid should be given to any secondary school in which religion was taught. The hon. Member who moved the Amendment accused the Government of having thrown down the gauntlet and of having raised this controversy; and he said that he and his friends would be cowards if they did

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not take up the challenge. He would most earnestly and respectfully beg the hon. Member to consider whether it was possible, in dealing practically with education in this country, to avoid this controversy. Did the hon. Gentleman think it was within the compass of the wit of man to try to co-ordinate a great system of primary and secondary education in this country without raising this question? The difficulties were very great, so great, indeed, that he observed that the Secondary Education Report, produced by the Commission of which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Aberdeen was chairman, never alluded to it.
MR. BRYCE: It was alluded to.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: You gave no solution.
MR. BRYCE: As the right hon. Gentleman challenges me, I will tell him what was said. We said that we found that under existing arrangements the thing went on quite peaceably, and that there was no necessity for us to discuss it, because, as things then stood, peace reigned.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman thinks that that contradicts what I said just now.
MR. BRYCE: We did refer to it.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: You said you were not going to refer to it.—The right hon. Gentleman's interruption at all events gave him this comfort, it had been found possible, under the existing law, including the Welsh Act, to give aid to secondary schools, in which religion was taught; and the system wo ked smoothly. That was also found possible under the Technical Instruction Act in England. It worked smoothly and harmoniously, [and yet] the Welsh Act was as great a violation of the dogmatic principle laid down by the hon. Member who moved the Amendment as anything in the Bill before the Committee. Under those circumstances he ventured to suggest to the Committee to come to a decision on this preliminary question as
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to whether they were to exclude religion altogether from rate-aided secondary schools. Then the way would be clear to discuss the more difficult, and as he ventured to think, the more controversial proposition as to the precise limitations under which that aid ought or ought not to be given.
SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid that the right hon. Gentleman appeared to him to have misrepresented, not only the speech of his hon. friend, but the Clause in his own Bill, because he put it distinctly to the Committee, with great emphasis, that what was now proposed was that no money should be given to any public school where religion was taught. That had nothing to do with the Clause in the Bill, which said that a council should not require that any particular form of religious instruction should or should not be taught or practised in a school. When one of his hon. friends pointed that out. there was a laugh on the other side; but everyone knew that if religion were taught at all there must be a certain degree of form in it. Everyone knew on the other hand what was meant by such an expression as "any particular form of religious instruction." That was any particular form of instruction in the Christian religion which would exclude or except the members of one particular sect. The whole question lay in that. There were different ways in which one could regard the great question of teaching religion in the schools. There were those who said that it was so impossible to teach religion without trenching upon conscience that it was better not to attempt it at all. That was one class of opinion on the subject. There was another class of opinion which said "Let us allow no teaching according to the exclusive tenets of any particular sect; but allow teaching of such a kind as shall be conformable to the principles, and in accordance with the sentiments of the great mass of professing Christians in the country." That was the solution which had been followed, and had been dictated by the feeling of the people of the country. They were always told that the parents of the children and the general sentiment of the people insisted upon this particular form

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of religious instruction. All the Opposition said was that in the Clause it should not be laid down that a council should require that any particular form of religion should be taught. By abolishing the sub-section altogether, they left to the council power to say that they would not approve of the application of money under this part of the Act where a particular form of religious instruction or worship was practised. That was the principle he approved; and, therefore, he would support the Amendment.
MR. GRIFFITH BOSCAWENsaid he had never heard a more extraordinary speech than that to which they had just listened. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to think that religion could be taught which had no particular form. He should like to ask what religion that was. The right hon. Gentleman said it was to be some sort of religion, of which the majority of the people approved, and apparently the right hon. Gentleman would limit it to the Christian religion. There was no such limitation in the words of the Clause. The religion which the right hon. Gentleman desired to see taught might be any religion whatsoever. It might be Mahommedanism plus Catholicism or Buddhism plus the Baptist religion. It was perfectly clear no such religion could exist. The point simply was that the Clause was one giving absolute freedom. It said that a school was not to be disqualified, either because a particular form of religion was taught, or was not taught. That was simply freedom and equality. Who were in favour of religious equality? Surely it was those who said that a school should not be disqualified from being a part of the educational system of the country, because a particular form of religion was or was not taught in it. The people who were the enemies of educational progress were those who said that a school, which was voluntary in the sense that children were not compelled to attend it, should be disqualified because a particular form of religion, which a large number of people wished to have taught, was taught in it. He could not conceive anything more narrow-minded or bigoted than the attitude of the right hon. Gentleman. For his part, as a friend of educational progress, he would
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allow any parent to give the child an education, whether elementary or primary, according to the doctrines in which he believed. The Clause was perfectly free and open, and ought to be supported. If they wished to make progress they ought to bring all schools, whether elementary or secondary, up to a proper standard; and as long as that was done, they ought to allow the parents to choose what religion was to be taught to the children. He did not see why any school should be penalised because it taught, or did not teach a particular form of religion. He hoped the Government would stand to the principle in the Clause, which was simply an additional safeguard for religious equality and educational progress.
MR. BRYNMOR JONESsaid he thought some difficulty had arisen because the Committee had not fully grasped the true construction of the Clause. When he first read the clause, he thought it was a concession on the part of the Government to the Nonconformist opinion of the country; but he thought a moment's consideration would convince the Committee that the structure of the Clause was such as would not carry out that intention, if that were the intention. What was in the mind of the draftsman? By Part I of the Bill the local education authority was created, by Part II certain powers over higher education were given to that authority, by Clause 3 concurrent powers were given to these districts. That was the position if Clause 4 had no existence. What then could the County Councils do in the districts to which he had referred? There were either endowed schools of a fairly good character or else private schools of a bad character and bad efficiency. Take the case of a very deserving school carried on perhaps by a Roman Catholic which had 100 boarding scholars and 150 day scholars; would it not be in the power of the County Council to give some assistance to that private adventure? If that was the case, then it appeared to him that the very evil which it was desired to avoid did arise, because this Bill gave power to the County

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Council to frankly subsidise schools which were teaching a particular form of religion, and this Clause, which he thought at first was a substantial concession, turned out to be no concession whatever. The Clause simply said the County Council should not act on its own motion as the acting propagator of a particular form of religion. It did not get rid of what they wanted to get rid of, which was aiding a school in which one particular form of religion was practised. He agreed with the right hon. Gentleman that the question of leaving out the sub-section did not enable the Committee to have a substantial discussion on whether there should or should not be aid given to schools teaching one form of religion.
SIR FRANCIS POWELLsaid that he objected to this Amendment because it disturbed that peace which, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Aberdeen had truly said reigned at the grammar schools, owing to the circumstance that the recommendations of the Commission have been carried out to a large extent by the Acts of 1869 and 1873. The Amendment was not in favour of liberty. The Clause said that the Councils should not require that any particular form of religious instruction or worship should or should not be taught or practised in any school or college. The Amendment was to enable the Councils to say that they would refuse grants because in certain schools there was practised a certain form of religion. In Bradford they had a Church institution which had on more than one occasion received honour at the hands of South Kensington, and on one occasion the very highest that institution could confer; and he wished to know why the educational authority in Bradford was to be compelled to take away the grant of £100 given to the Church institution, whilst a grant to do exactly the same thing should be given to another institution. The work was good, and he protested altogether against its being stultified. Leeds Church Middle Class School received a grant of no less than,£500. Why was that school to be penalised because it taught the doctrine of the Church of England as part of its curriculum? At Sheffield a Church of England institution received a £100 grant; why was that school to be fined
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because the teaching was in accordance with the doctrine of the Church of England? To confiscate these grants would be an act of injustice, he might almost say persecution. He thought the Clause was in favour of liberty, and therefore he would support it. Those who favoured the Amendment were not in favour of liberty.
MR. BRYCEdesired to correct a misapprehension into which the two hon. Members who had spoken from the opposite side of the House seemed to have fallen with regard to the nature of the Amendment. What the County Council was not to say was, "we will not give you a grant unless you unsectarianise your teaching." The other part of the subsection was that the County Council was not to be permitted to inquire into or consider the merits of an institution on the ground that that institution was sectarian. The sub-section forbade the County Council to take into consideration the question of whether an institution was denominational or not. The hon. Member who moved the Amendment objected to the second part of the section only. The real question was, ought it to be in the power of the County Council to make a grant to a sectarian institution because it was sectarian. If that were so, the Amendment would not have the effect which hon. Members opposite hoped. This Clause was not a Clause of freedom. It did not, it was true, penalise the schools, but if it penalised anybody it penalised the County Council. He did not intend to discuss the question at this stage, he simply put before the Committee the meaning of the Clause. If the Amend-mend were accepted it would leave the hands of County Councils absolutely free. It was the object of the Amendment to untie the hands of the County Councils, for the reason, he supposed, that they could trust those authorities, if they thought a sectarian school was the best school to aid, to aid that sectarian school, and if they thought it was not the best, then they were not compelled to aid it.
MR. ERNEST GRAYsaid that the effect of the first subsection of this Clause might be divided into two parts, viz., the attitude of the

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new authority towards existing schools and colleges, and its attitude towards schools or colleges it might itself erect. The description given by the right hon. Gentleman opposite as to the attitude of the authority to existing colleges was practically correct. The proposal would set the council free; it might penalise the school. But the attitude of the authority towards colleges it might itself build was a very dubious one under the Clause. With regard to existing institutions, the effect of the sub-section was that, upon an application being made for a grant, the County Council should not take into consideration whether or not religious teaching of a particular form was given. He had in mind a county grammar school of practically world-wide reputation. The County Council at present gave to that institution a subsidy of £50 per annum, but had stated again and again that if they had the funds they would make an increased contribution. That was the attitude of the existing council. But the complexion of the Council might be changed triennially, or annually, and the effect of the Amendment would be to leave every school or college at the mercy of a fluctuating majority on the County Council. That majority might be Church in its tendencies one year, Nonconformist the next, and possibly care for neither in the third, so that the grants might be made one year and withheld the next, according to the character of the majority of the council. Surely that could not be said to be to the advantage of popular education. The clause provided that the council should leave the question of religious instruction severely alone. This was not a question of day scholars. It could not here be urged that the religious instruction should be given in the home or on the Sunday. The children were in these schools month after month, and they would either have to have the religious instruction or be separated from it altogether. The plea put forward was as fallacious as could be imagined, viz., that a form of religion should be devised which might be taught in all schools without offence to anybody. It was the religion known as Undenominationalism. One of the most eloquent speeches he ever heard in the House was delivered by the late
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Dr. Wallace, when he pointed out that it was impossible to avoid being dogmatic unless they were dumb; that the moment they laid down a single tenet of the Christian faith they were as dogmatic as they could be, and that there was no separating religion into two classes—one dogmatic, and the other not. An hon. Member on the other side had said that what they objected to was the subsidising of dogmatic instruction. The instruction in the Board schools today was as dogmatic as anything could be. Did that give peace and contentment to all? Members declared they would be content to aid schools in which the foundations of a common Christian faith were taught. Did they recollect the disturbances in the London School Board a few years ago, when an attempt was made to define the word "Christian"? Where did the Unitarian come in then? If an attempt was made to satisfy one single section, the Committee would be driven to one of two conclusions. One was that they must banish religious instruction from the school entirely. But any House of Commons who attempted to do so would be overwhelmed by public indignation. The great majority of the parents of the country might be apathetic as a rule, but when stirred on this question, they were determined that their children should couple secular with religious instruction. The only other position was fully to recognise the right of one and all. There was no medium plan. There was no common religion which all could accept. Nonconformists protested against Anglicanism, Churchmen protested against Nonconformity, and Catholics protested against both. Moreover, one form of religion would not satisfy all Nonconformity. As a friend of his from Bethesda said, in 1896—
"You people in the House of Commons are dealing with one Churchmanship and one Nonconformity; but we in Bethesda are seven, and if you satisfy one section, the other six will be discontented."
It must be laid down that the authority should shut out of its purview the particular form of religion taught in a school, and give a subsidy if good secular work was being done, whether the school was associated with the Church of

557
England, the Catholics or the Nonconformists; or professed no religion whatever. There was no alternative. What was there unfair in that position? if one section of the community was called upon to help pay for the existence of a particular form of religion there might be something unfair in it. But, at present, all contributed to the various forms, and one told against the other, so that the unfairness did not arise. As the right hon. Gentleman, had said, peace prevailed in these schools. Let them leave the County Council free—[Opposition cheers]—yes, but not free to do ill deeds, to shut out an excellent institution because it taught no religion, or to shut out another because it taught a religion. It was all very well to say that the County Councils were fair, just, and considerate. Doubtless the majority of them were, but clauses of this kind had to be designed to meet unreasonable sections, and he was not prepared to leave these colleges at the mercy of a changing majority, which might give the grant one year and withhold it the next. The Board of Education had no difficulty in paying out of taxation the Science and Art grants to schools in which Church of England or Nonconformist doctrines were taught, and, therefore, he could not see why there should be any difficulty in awarding the grants under this Bill. There was one other point to which he desired to refer. What was to be the attitude of the authority towards a school or college which it might itself build. The clause declared that the council should not require that any particular form of religious instruction should or should not be taught. But if a council built a college it would lay down its own regulations. Could it lay down the regulation that the college should be denominational, or that it should be undenominational? On the strict reading of the clause it could do neither; it could not require that a particular form of religion should be taught, or that a particular form of religion should not be taught; therefore he assumed the principal of the college, when appointed, would teach whatever he thought fit. He was glad to find there was a prospect of this exceedingly thorny question being dealt with with a view to secure fair play all round. From long
558
experience of the work in these schools he knew how little discontent there was among the parents, and how exceedingly trifling was the trouble inside the schools; and he ventured to hope that there would be the same quietude and the same respect for each other's opinions inside the House as was found between the governors, teachers, and parents concerned in the schools.
MR. WALLACEsaid that a great many hon. Gentlemen opposite were mistaken in supposing that by this Amendment they were asking that the County Councils should be prohibited from making grants to sectarian schools. They were asking for nothing of the kind. He was a strong supporter of religious instruction in schools. What they were asking for was that the County Council should have perfect liberty in regard to this matter, and should be enabled to say whether a grant should be made to any particular school, whether it be denominational or not. He should have thought when they were giving such full and complete powers to the local authorities they would at least have granted them this power of discrimination. He felt perfectly certain that, whether the clause or the Amendment stood, or not, the councils would exercise their own discretion and make the grants wherever they thought best. There was nothing to prevent a County Council from refusing to make a grant to any particular sectarian school. Therefore, whether the clause remained or the Amendment was carried was of small importance, but it was important that the Committee should affirm the principle for which both sides had been contending of trusting the local authorities and leaving this question to their discretion.
MR. COHENhoped the Government would stand to their original determination upon this point. He heartily concurred with the view expressed by two hon. Members opposite that they should endeavour to secure freedom of religious belief to everyone alike. He certainly desired, and he was quite sure the First Lord of the Treasury also desired, to achieve that end. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Aberdeen, with his usual clearness, explained what this sub-section

559
would do, but be omitted one very important liberty which would be taken away, namely, the liberty to oppress any particular school. He could not for the life of him understand why those who desired to protect their own communities should support an Amendment, which would take away the particular charter which was calculated to secure and preserve those rights for all time.
MR. YOXALLdrew attention to the attitude of County Councils to schools of a secondary nature which they had partly constructed. It was clear from the working of the clause that a County Council, having built a secondary school which was to be of the nature of a boarding school or hostel, would be prohibited by the terms of the sub-section from declaring that that school should be an undenominational school. At the present time, in all cases in which the County Council had come into play under the Technical Instruction Act, it had been prohibited from constructing a denominational school. There was now a new departure. It might be right or wrong. It was not a question of whether a school should give religious instruction or not. The point was—a public authority hitherto, out of rate money, had not been able to construct a denominational school, but by this section in future the public authority would be able to do this out of public money. A County Council would not be able to prevent itself from constructing or aiding a denominational school. The sub-section prevented them from requiring that any school to which they gave money should not be denominational. Take a school built by a County Council with the intention of being undenominational. A single governor, or a teacher, or a parent could, under this sub-section, compel the authority to make it a denominational school. They would all be willing that an endowed school or a grammar school should receive what it could not now receive if it adopted for all students a conscience clause. He agreed that peace did prevail in existing secondary schools, and he did not suppose that there was much difference in the chapel at Rugby and the Chapel at Mill Hill; but a conscience clause would remove all difficulties.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I quite recognise the importance of the discussion which we are having, but it prevents us from coming to close quarters, and I think it would help us considerably if we could dispose of this Amendment.
MR. CHANNINGsaid his intention was expressed most clearly by his right hon. friend the Member for South Aberdeen. It was to set free the local education authority from any disqualification or disability with regard to this question and leave it absolutely free. He wished to put a question upon the interpretation of those words, which seemed to him to be a very grave matter. This sub-section would practically preclude the local education authority from providing, where it thought necessary,-an undenominational college or school of any kind whatever, including training colleges. It was absolutely, impossible under this sub-section for the local authority to exercise any discretion in the matter. They had all been reading an interesting letter addressed by the First Lord of the Treasury to a Nonconformist within the last few days. In reference to the power proposed to be conferred on the central education authority, he said—
"It enables that authority, when necessary, to supplement them by undenominational schools."
In that letter he could see no reservation that that expression of opinion was confined to elementary education. It seemed to him, if it was not restricted to elementary education, to cover the point which he now laid before the Committee, namely, that these words as they stood would render it impossible for the local education authority to carry out what the right hon. Gentleman had expressed in his letter, as to the intention of the Government to provide undenominational schools, whether technical or whatever kind it might be. It seemed to him that these words would preclude the County Council or the local education authority from using that discretion which he was certain all moderate minded men must wish to see vested in them.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that that is not the intention of the words of the Clause. If there is any doubt I will put them right.
MR. LABOUCHEUEsaid he intended to vote for the Amendment if there was a division, because he agreed entirely with the speech of the hon. Member for Ipswich. His hon. friend spoke as a Nonconformist. He did not flatter himself to be a Nonconformist strictly. He was what he would call rather a universalist. He respected all sects; he was an adherent of none. He stood by the principle laid down again and again on this side of the House, that the business of the State was to deal with secular education, and that the State had got no right to make a grant of money for any species of religious education whatever, he did not care what it was. It seemed to him that the most logical and the most cogent speech that had been made, with the exception of that of the hon. Member for Ipswich, was the speech of the First Lord of the Treasury. In that speech the right hon. Gentleman clearly stated that in his opinion the State ought to concern itself with the religious education of children.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: No.
MR. LABOUCHERE: What? If the right hon. Gentleman was a convert to his views, if he really would get up in this House and tell his friends on that side he was an opponent of the State having anything to do with the religious education of any child, he would welcome him with open arms, but he doubted whether the right hon. Gentleman would say so. He was praising the right hon. Gentleman, he was not attacking him. The right hon. Gentleman had asked, "Do you wish no religion in State aided schools where there are boarders and non-boarders?" The right hon. Gentleman pointed out that when a boarder was placed in a school he was separated from his parents, and he must be given the religion of his parents.
MR. A. J. BALFOUH: The religious education his parents wish.
MR. LABOUCHEREsaid that was all very well, but if that was a State-aided school the money granted was for the religious education in question. He did not hesitate to say that so far as he was concerned he could make no distinction on the broad principle of State payment, for religions education between boarders and nun boarders. If a boarder was sent to a school and his parents wished him to be instructed in a particular religion, some person probably lived in the town who should be, allowed to give him religious education in the tenets hold by his parents. The hon. member objected to the State paying money for religious education, and to the teachers whom they paid giving that religious education, whether it was general or particularly sectarian. He thought the hon. Gentleman, who spoke from the school masters' standpoint, was right when he said there was no such thing as undenominational religion. Religion was a question of dogma. Undenominational religion could not be taught, and he thought that one of the greatest humbugs over palmed on Dissenters—and he was surprised at their agreeing to it—was what might be called, the. School Board religious teaching in this country, he was at Eton. There was a great deal of talk about that college belonging to the Church of England. He received an undenominational religious education. What was that education? Once a week the class to which he belonged went before the master and read the Greek Testament. What happened? Was he taught the tenets of the Christian religion? Not one. If ho had been living on what he learned at Eton, he should have known nothing about it. On a student reading from the Greek Testament, immediately the master shuddered and said, "What Greek is that What would Thucydides have said in the circumstances?" He confessed that he did not know what Thucydides would have said, but he could assure the House that that was all the religious education he received at college, and it was quite equivalent to the non-sectarian religion taught in the board schools. Let those who believed that the State should under no circumstances teach any religion abide

563
by the great principle. Hon. Gentlemen opposite said this was unfair to the parents, and that the parents would not send their children to school. Whom was the money taken from? It was not taken alone from those who desired that their children should receive undenominational religious instruction. It was; levied from the other taxpayers and; ratepayers of the country as well, and -there were a vast number among those, who, rightly or wrongly, did object to the religious education which was given at a particular school. In the case of the training colleges, what was the amount paid by the denominations generally? About one-tenth. Nine-tenths were received by fees from the scholars, or grants from the central Government, the County Council, or the public generally. But in respect of that tenth which the denominations gave, the Committee were asked to say that they had the right in these training colleges to teach the religion of their own particular sect. What was the object of a training college? It was to teach youths who wanted to become schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, and they were, it seemed, to be impregnated with one particular religion at the expense of the entire community. It seemed to him that the hon. Member for Ipswich, the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury and himself, were the only three logical persons in the entire House. The hon. Member for Ipswich and himself objected to any money being given for religious teaching in this country on the broad ground that they considered that the State had got absolutely nothing to do with it. Under these circumstances he did not shilly-shally, as some of his hon. friends seemed inclined to do. When the First Lord of the Treasury asked, "Do you really wish no religion taught by the State in those schools?" they said, "Yes, we want religion to be taught." Where went then the principle which they had been fighting for when they said that no religion should be taught. They might be told that they were in a minority in the country. He believed that he and those who agreed with him were in a minority, but that was no reason why they should abnegate their views, or why they should not state
564
them openly and fairly. If they were in a minority they would accept the fact, having satisfied their consciences by expressing what they honestly believed.
MR. HERBERT ROBERTSsaid the question raised by the Amendment was not whether they desired no religion at all in the secondary schools and training colleges, but simply whether the education authorities appointed by the County Council under this Bill were to have a free hand in regard to the giving of grants to these institutions. The Leader of the House had frankly said that the prevailing sentiment of this country was in favour of religious teaching being given in these schools. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to imply by the form of words he used that there was more interest taken in the question of religion by those who supported this Bill, and especially by the members of the Church of England, than by the great mass of Nonconformists. He seemed to think that because Nonconformists moved Amendments of this kind, and desired that no particular form of religion should be taught in these schools that they took less interest in the vital points of religion. He was certain that was not the impression which the right hon. Gentleman meant to convey. Those who spoke in favour of this Amendment, representing the great mass of Nonconformists of the country, might rightly claim that by their his for, and the facts surrounding the development of their organisation, they could show they had made as much sacrifice for true religion as any other denomination in the State. The First Lord of the Treasury said that no complaint had ever arisen as to the religious teaching given in the schools. That was perfectly true. He had been very much interested in listening to the speech of the hon. Member for North West Ham, who imagined that hardship might be inflicted by enforcing this Amendment. The hon. Member had instanced a school which already received a grant from the county authority, and he seemed to think that if this Amendment were carried that grant would not be given again. He would ask the hon. Gentleman whether that school was open to any lad.
MR. ERNEST GRAY: Open to the world.
MR. HERBERT ROBERTSsaid it seemed to him that there was nothing to prevent a County Council making a grant to such a school. What he and his friends objected to was that when public money was given to a school a religious test was imposed upon the scholars and the teachers. A most important issue was raised by the principle of this Amendment. The question was whether by this Bill, and by this sub-section particularly, the present sectarian system of education in this country was going to be stereotyped in reference to secondary education. Of course he knew that he was not expressing the unanimous view of the House, but he felt very strongly that a perpetuation of sectarian differences in educational matters would be fraught with disastrous consequences. What was wanted was free education, without any barrier, religious or otherwise. He desired to give the Amendment his heartiest support.
MR. LLOYD-GEORGEsaid be was not in favour of giving the County Council absolute freedom in an important matter of this kind. Although he was a strong believer in devolution, he did not consider that that principle necessarily required one to set up a large number of absolutely independent authorities dealing with such important matters as religious instruction without any kind of direction from the Imperial Parliament, or under Imperial control. What was the position? He would like to know whether the word "council" meant the County Council, or the councils included under section 3; because if it did not the position would be a curious one.
MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid that the word "council" referred to all the councils.
MR. LLOYD-GEORGEsaid that that meant, then, there would be about 1,200 councils which would have the absolute right of organising secondary education within their own districts, including
566
higher grade schools. Wherever they set up secondary schools they could, if they liked, support sectarian institutions throughout the country. He thought it a very serious thing to give such powers to a little urban council. It was all very well to give such powers to such a co in by as Lancashire, with its two million inhabitants, but it was quite a different thing to give these powers to a small cathedral town where the clerical interest was very strong. A good deal had been said about Wales, and he would not again draw attention to the Welsh system; but he would call attention to the educational system in New South Wales, where they turned out tine specimens of manhood. He did not hesitate to say that, taking any test whatever, the people of New South Wales were as religious, if not more so, and characterised by as much sobriety of conduct as the people of this country. [An HON. MEMBER: There are denominational schools there.] He knew that, but Church of England teaching was not obtruded on the children. Then he would turn to Manitoba. What was the state of things there? or in Holland, or in Ontario? The school was controlled by the local authority, and secular teaching was given by the teachers, but every facility was afforded to the parents of the children to call in their own minister at a particular hour to teach the special dogmas of his sect. That was a compromise which had the support of all the people in Manitoba with the exception of a few extreme clericalists. Why it could not be adopted here he could not understand. What he objected to was that the appointment of the teachers was still left in the hands of one sect. In Wales they gave no discretion to the County Council; they said, "You will not teach the religion of any sect." He invited the hon. Gentleman to inspect any secondary school in Wales and compare the religious instruction given in it with that imparted in a sectarian school in England, and he ventured to say that he would find as much earnestness, fervour, devotion, and everything that produced a religious tone and temper as in any Anglican school. The mistake that was generally made was that it was assumed there could not be any religion unless

567
there was something to quarrel about, and the religion of some hon. Members began just at the point of contention. It was all very well to say that a parent had a right to have his child brought up in the doctrines which he believed, but he had no right to have the doctrine taught, if it was obnoxious to his neighbour, at that neighbour's expense. The vast body of Christian teaching which really affected the character of a child was absolutely non-contentious. There was no dogma that divided one faith from the rest which was not a dogma held by a minority of the people, and the parent therefore had no right to call upon the majority of the people of the country to teach a doctrine which was obnoxious to them. He thought the best way to make the scheme work was to adopt the system in force in New South Wales, or in the alternative the system of Manitoba, in order to secure competition for teacherships for the secondary schools. It was not an easy thing to find good teachers for the secondary schools, and, under either of the systems which he had suggested, they would be able to pick the very best men, instead of having the worst possible selection, as they had at present.
MR. WHITLEYread the sub section to mean that if a council gave a grant to a school it should not do so on the condition of an alternation in the religious formula or religious instruction in the school. That depended on the preceding "if." It did not remove the discretion of the council to give or with hold the grant from the school if it pleased. A liberal reading of the Clause would show that the only thing the subsection laid down was that if they gave
the grant they must not interfere with the religious teaching. The question still remained as to whether they would give or withhold the grant. That being so he thought the fears expressed by some of his friends were not justified.
MR. GEORGE WHITEasked whether this was the place to raise the question of denominational draining colleges.
MR A. J. BALFOUR: No.
MR. GEORGE WHITEsaid, that being so, and if the question could be raised in another part of the Bill, he would not now occupy the time of the Committee.
MR. HAEWOODsaid he could not support the Amendment because it seemed to him to contravene what he understood to be a fundamental principle of our legislation. It would allow County Councils to lay down the rule that they would not grant these subsidies to secondary schools which taught religion. That was contrary to the whole spirit of the Bill, and to one of the main objects of hon. Members on that side of the House, which was to coordinate secondary education. Though personally he would prefer a system where the religious problem was left out, they must face facts as they found them, and no one there could suppose that within his lifetime the people of this country would be content with schools where religion was not taught.
(4.58.) Question put.
The Committee divided:—Ayes, 278; Noes, 122. (Division List No. 261.)

AYES.

Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.

Bain, Colonel James Robert

Bigwood, James

Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir Alex. F.

Bair J, John George Alexander

Bill, Charles

Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

Balearres, Lord

Blundell, Colonel Henry

Aird, Sir John

Balfour, Rt. Hon. A J. (Manch'r

Boland, John

Allhusen, August's Henry Eden

Balfour, Capt. C B. (Hornsey

Bond, Edward

Ambrose, Robert

Balfour, Rt Hn Gerald W (Leeds

Boscawen, Arthur Griffith-

Anson, Sir William Reynell

Banbury, Frederick George

Bousfield, William Robert

Arkwright, John Stanhope

Bartley, George C. T.

Bowles, Capt. H. F. (Middlesex-

Arnold Forster, Hugh O.

Bathurst, Hon. Allen Benjamin

Bowles, T. Gibson (Lynn Regis

Arrol, Sir William

Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir Michael Hicks

Brassy, Albert

Atkinson, Right Hon. John

Beckett, Ernest William

Brown, Alexander H. (Shrops.

Austin, Sir John

Bentinck, Lord Henry C.

Brymer, William Ernest

Bagot, Capt. Josceline FitzRoy

Beresford, Lord Charles Willi'm

Burke, E. Haviland-

Bailey, James (Walworth)

Bignold, Arthur

Campbell, Rt Hn. J. A (Glasgow

Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

Harwood, George

Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath

Carew, James Laurence

Hayden, John Patrick

Myers, William Henry

Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

Heath, Arthur Howard (Hanley

Nannetti, Joseph P.

Cavendish, R. F. (N. Lanes.)

Heath, James (Staffords. N. W.

Newdigate, Francis Alexander

Cavendish, V. C. W (Derbyshire

Heaton, John Henniker

Nicol, Donald Ninian

Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

Holder, Augustus

Nolan, Col. John P. (Glaway, N.

Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

Henderson, Sir Alexander

Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J.(Birm.

Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T,

O'Brien, James F. X. (Cork)

Chamberlain, J. Austen(Wore'r

Higginbottom, S. W.

O'Brien, Kendal(Tipperary Mid

Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry

Hoare, Sir Samuel

O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

Chapman, Edward

Hobhouse, Henry (Somerset, E.

O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.)

Charrington, Spencer

Hope, J.F. (Sheffield, Brightside

O'Connor, James(Wicklow, W)

Coddington, Sir William

Hornby, Sir William Henry

O'Dowd, John

Coghill, Douglas Harry

Horner, Frederick William

O'Kelly, James(Roscommon, N.

Cohen, Benjamin Louis

Houldsworth, Sir Wm. Henry

O'Malley, William

Colomb, Sir John Chas. Ready

Hoult, Joseph

Orr-Ewing, Charles Lindsay

Compton, Lord Alwyne

Howard, John (Kent, Fav'rsh'm

O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow.

Howard, J. (Midd., Tottenham)

O'Shee, James John

Cox, Irwin Edward Bainbridge

Hozier, Hon. James Henry Cecil

Palmer, Walter (Salisbury)

Cripps, Charles Alfred

Hudson, George Bickersteth

Parker, Sir Gilbert

Cross, Herb. Shepherd(Bolton)

Hutton, John (Yorks. N.R.)

Penn, John

Cubitt, Hon. Henry

Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse

Percy, Earl

Dalkeith, Earl of

Jessel, Captain Herbert Merton

Platt-Higgins, Frederick

Davies, Sir Horatio D(Chatham

Johnston, William (Belfast)

Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

Delany, William

Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex)

Pretyman, Ernest George

Dewar, T. R. (T'rll'mlets, S. Geo.

Jordan, Jeremiah

Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

Dickinson, Robert Edmond

Joyce, Michael

Purvis, Robert

Dickson, Charles Scott

Kennaway, Rt. Hon. Sir John H.

Pym, C. Guy

Dickson-Poynder, Sir J. P.

Kenyon, Hon. Geo. T. (Denbigh)

Quilter, Sir Cuthbert

Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph

Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop.

Rankin Sir James

Donelan, Captain A.

King, Sir Henry Seymour

Raseh, Major Frederic Carne

Doogan, P. C.

Knowles, Lees

Reckitt, Harold James

Doughty, George

Lambton, Hn. Frederick Wm.

Reddy, M.

Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)

Redmond, Jno. E. (Waterford)

Doxford, Sir William Theodore

Lawrence, William F. (Liv'pool

Renshaw, Charles Bine

Duke, Henry Edward

Lawson, John Grant

Richards, Henry Charles

Durning-Lawrence Sir Edwin

Leamy, Edmund

Ridley, Hn. M. W. (Stalybr'dge

Dyke, Rt Hon. Sir William Hart

Lecky, Rt Hon. William Edw, H

Ridley, S. Ford (Bethnal Green

Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton

Lee, Arthur H (Hants, Fareh'm

Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thom.

Emmott, Alfred

Lees, Sir Elliot (Birkenhead)

Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield)

Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edward

Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)

Fergusson, Rt. Hn. Sir J. (Mane'r

Leigh-Bennett, Henry Currie

Robinson, Brooke

Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst

Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

Rolleston, Sir John F. L.

Finch, George H.

Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham

Ropner, Colonel Robert

Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

Long, Rt. Hn. Walter(Bristol, S.

Round, Rt. Hon. James

Fisher, William Hayes

Lowe, Francis William

Rutherford, John

Fison, Frederick William

Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft

Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford-

FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose-

Lucas, Reginald J. (Portsmouth)

Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander

Fitzroy, Hn. Edward Algernon

Lundon, W.

Samuel, Harry S. (Limehouse)

Flavin, Michael Joseph

Macartney, Rt Hn W. G. Ellison

Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert

Fletcher, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

Macdona, John Cumming

Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)

Flower, Ernest

MacDonnell, Dr Mark A.

Seton-Karr, Henry

Flynn, James Christopher

MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

Sharp, William Edward T.

Forster, Henry William

MacVeagh, Jeremiah

Simeon, Sir Barrington

Foster, Sir Michael (Lond. Univ,

M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

Sinclair, Louis (Romford)

Galloway, William Johnson

M'Iver, Sir Lewis(Edinburgh W

Stanley, Hn. Arthur (Ormskirk

Garfit, William

M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire

Stewart, Sir Mark J. M'Taggart

Gordon, Hn. J.E.(Elgin & Nairn

M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)

Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley

Gore, Hn. G.R.C Ormsby-(Salop

Manners, Lord Cecil

Sturt. Hon. Humphry Napier

Gore, Hon. S. F. Ormsby- (Line.)

Martin, Richard Biddulph

Sullivan, Donal

Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon

Maxwell, W. JH (Dumfriesshire

Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

Goschen, Hon. George Joachim

Meysey-Thomson, Sir H. M.

Talbot, Rt Hn J.G.(Oxf'd Univ.

Goulding, Edward Alfred

Middlemore, John Throgmort'n

Thorburn, Sir Walter

Graham, Henry Robert

Milvain, Thomas

Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M.

Gray, Ernest (West Ham)

Molesworth, Sir Lewis

Tuke, Sir John Batty

Greene, W. Raymond-(Cambs.)

Moon, Edward Robert Pacy

Valentia, Viscount

Groves, James Grimble

More, Robert Jasper(Shropshire

Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter)

Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill

Morgan, David J. Walthamstow

Warde, Col. C. E.

Gunter, Sir Robert

Morrell, George Herbert

Warr, Augustus Frederick

Guthrie, Walter Murray

Morrison, James Archibald

Welby, Lt. -Col. A C E (Taunton

Hain, Edward

Morton, Arthur H. A.(Deptford)

Whiteley, H. (Ashtonund, Lyne

Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F

Mount, William Arthur

Whitmore. Charles Algernon

Hamilton, Rt Hn Lrd G. (Midd'x

Murphy, John

Williams, Rt Hn J Powell-(Birm

Hanbury, Rt. Hon. Robert Wm.

Murray, Rt Hn. A. Graham Bute

Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

Harris, Frederick Leverton

Murray, Charles J. (Coventry

Wilson, A. Stanley(York, E R.)

570

571

Wilson, John(Falkirk)

Wolff, Gastav Wilhelm

Younger, William

Wilson, John (Glasgow)

Wrightson, Sir Thomas

Wilson, J.W.(Worceotersh. N.

Wylie, Alexander

TELLER FOR THE AYES—

Wilson-Todd, Win H.(Yorks.

Wyndham-Quinn, Major W. H

Sir William Walrond and

Wodehouse, Rt. Hon. ER,(Bath

Wyndham-Quinn, Major W.H

Mr. Anstruther.

NOES.

Allan, Sir William (Gateshead)

Horniman, Frederick John

Robertson, Edmund (Dundee)

Allen, Charlos P. (Glouc, Stroud

Humphreys-Owen, Arthur C.

Robson, William Snowdon

Ashton, Thomas Gair

Hutton, Alfred E. (Morley)

Runciman, Walter

Banes, Major George Edward

Jacoby, James Alfred

Russell, T. W.

Barlow, John Emmott

Joicey. Sir James

Schwann, Charles E.

Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire)

Jones, David Brynmor(Sw'nsea

Scott, Chas. Prestwich (Leigh)

Beaumont, Wentworth C. B.

Jones, William(Carnarvonshire

Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)

Black, Alexander William

Kearley, Hudson E.

Shaw, Thomas (Hawick B.)

Brigg, John

Kitson, Sir James-

Shipman, Dr. John G.

Brown, George M.(Edinburgh

Labouchere, Henry

Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson

Lambert, George

Spew, John Ward

Bryce, Rt. Hon. James

Langley, Batty

Spencer, Rt Hn C. R. (Northants

Burns, John

Layland-Barratt, Francis

Tennant, Harold John

Burt, Thomas

Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington

Thomas, Abel (Carmarthen, E.

Buxton, Sydney Charles

Leigh, Sir Joseph

Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.

Caldwell, James

Levy, Maurice

Thomas, David Alfr'd(Merthyr

Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.

Lloyd George, David

Thomas, JA(Glomorgan, Gower

Causton, Richard Knight

Lough, Thomas

Thomson, F. W. (York, W.R.

Channing, Francis Allston

M'Arthur, William (Cornwall

Tomkinson, James

Cawley, Frederick

M'Crae, George

Toulmin, George

Crombie, John William

M'Kenna, Reginald

Treveleyan, Charles Philips

Dalziel, James Henry

Mappin, Sir Frederick Thorpe

Wallace, Robert

Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen)

Mildmay, Francis Bingham

Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardigan

Morley, Charles (Breconshire)

Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.

Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh.

Morley, Rt. Hn. John(Montrose

Wason, Eugene(Clackmannan

Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)

Newnes, Sir George

Weir, James Galloway

Duncan, J. Hastings

Norton, Capt. Cecil William

White, George (Norfolk)

Edwards, Frank

Palmer, Sir Charles M (Durham

Whiteley, George(York, W.R.

Elibank, Master of

Palmer, George Wm. (Reading

Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

Evans, Samuel T. (Glamorgan)

Partington, Oswald

Whittaker, Thomas Palmer

Farquharson, Dr. Robert

Paulton. James Mellor

Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert J.

Pease, Alfred E. (Cleveland)

Wilson, Chas. Henry(Hull, W.

Grant, Corrie

Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden)

Wilson, Fred. W. (Norfolk Mid.

Griffith, Ellis J.

Pease, Sir Joseph W. (Durham)

Wilson, Henry J. (York, W.R.

Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton

Perks, Robert William

Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.)

Harcourt, Rt. Hn. Sir William

Price, Robert John

Wood, James

Harmsworth, R. Leicester

Priestley, Arthur

Woodhouse, Sir JT(Huddersf'd

Hayne, Rt. Hon. Charles Seale-

Rea, Russell

Yoxall, James Henry

Hayter, Rt. Hn. Sir Arthur D.

Reid, Sir R. Threshie (Dumfries

Helme, Norval Watson

Rickett, J. Compton

Tellers for the Noes—

Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H.

Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

Mr. Goddard, and Mr.

Holland, Sir William Henry

Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)

Broadhurst.

MR. CHANNINGsaid the Amendment he desired to move was one of very great importance. It was to provide that a council, in the application of money under this part of the Act "for the training of teachers, shall require that in any school, college, or class so provided or aided no pupil shall be excluded on the ground of religious belief." Ho did not wish by the Amendment to raise the question of religious instruction, but to restrict his observations entirely to this question. He hoped the Amendment would be accepted, in the first place because of the letter of the First Lord of the Treasury, which had been referred to, and in which the right hon. Gentleman had disclaimed any idea of crushing
572
the Nonconformists, but had said that the machinery of the Bill would rather increase the opportunities of Nonconformists to obtain a share in the work of education, and would give power to the authority to supply opportunities of training for those desirous of entering the teaching profession, altogether irrespective of Church or creed. Ho would not labour the point; everybody was acquainted with the great grievance of the Nonconformists with regard to their disability to enter the teaching profession. The real difficulty was the regulations which now existed in most, if not all, of the denominational training colleges. The Nonconformist who succeeded in the King's Scholarship

573
examination, even though he might take the highest place, was not, therefore, entitled to access to a training college. On the contrary, such a young man or young woman stood in a relatively disqualified position as compared with a member of the Church of England, the Wesleyan, or the Roman Catholic community, who enjoyed much greater facilities and opportunities for entering on the teaching profession. With the exception of the training colleges of the British and Foreign School Society, there were practically no places available for Nonconformists. The Church of England training colleges required their students to be communicants of the Church; and, in strictly denominational institutions, such a regulation was perfectly natural. Hut in a national system of education, affecting a composite society, in which there must inevitably be persons of different religious faiths, it was altogether wrong that these opportunities for training should be confined to one or two religious bodies. Nobody could regard with satisfaction a condition of affairs in which many Nonconformists were compelled by the necessities of the case to abandon their faith in order to secure access to one of these colleges. A person who began his career by such an act of insincerity, as it sometimes was, could not be regarded as the most desirable teacher of the young. He believed that in some Church of England colleges a somewhat more generous spirit prevailed, and that mere attendance at religious forms and ceremonies was accepted in the case of clever pupils as a personal concession. That, however, was not a satisfactory way of dealing with a question of this kind. He desired to assert the right of those who, by their secular attainments, were qualified to receive the advantages of the training college to secure access to those institutions without those unreasonable restrictions. There was a considerable divergence of interpretation of this clause; but, as he understood it, the local education authority was absolutely debarred from laying down a rule that students admitted to any college or class assisted by that authority must be of a particular faith, or that assistance to any such school or class would not be given without the modification of any such requirements on the part of the managers. Unless, however, some such words as he
574
proposed were inserted, the County Council would be powerless, and the present state of things would remain. That state of things was a grave injustice. By the very breadth of the constitution of the British and Foreign School Society the chances of Nonconformists wore still further narrowed, because no less than. one-third of the students in the training colleges of the Society were members of the Church of England. He had moved the Amendment with a wish to carry out the intentions expressed in the letter to; which he had referred, and he hoped the concession would be made to the largo and deserving class for whom he spoke.
Amendment proposed—
"In page 2, line 10, after the word 'Act,' to insert the words 'for the training of teachers shall require that in arty school, college, or class so provided or aided, no pupil shall be excluded on the ground of religious belief, and.'"—(Mr. Channing.)
Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
MR. A.J. BALFOURsaid it was evident he could not accept the Amendment, because what the hon. Member had done was to endeavour to effect his object by taking a sub-section, general in its form, and intended to apply to all institutions aided by the local authorities, and, by a strange process of inversion, turning it round and making it applicable only to training colleges. On the point of form, therefore, he thought the Committee would agree that the Amendment could not be accepted, and he hoped the hon. Member would not press it. Perhaps the object of the hon. Member would be adequately met if he stated that he fully adhered to the statement made in the letter, an extract from which had been read. In his view, one of the greatest needs was further provision for the training of teachers, and the class who most needed that further provision, for reasons well known to the Committee, and upon which he need not dwell, was undoubtedly the Nonconformists. If there was anything in the clause which would prevent a County Council building an undenominational training college, certainly that defect would have to be remedied. It was never intended that County Councils should be so prevented. On the contrary, he had always held that one of their

575
duties would probably be to erect such colleges. He did not know whether that declaration would be sufficient to meet the views of the hon. Gentleman, and whether, as he had made it in explicit language, he would be content to withdraw the Amendment.
DR. MACNAMARAregretted that the First Lord's Statement did nothing to remedy a very real grievance. Perhaps, as an old pupil teacher, who had to travel a great many miles to enter a college because of it, and as having been for three years chairman of a Pupil Teachers' Committee, dealing with the training of 1,200 pupil teachers, he might be permitted to point out what the grievance was. He agreed that there was no substantial difficulty in the schools themselves, but there was an acute and irritating grievance in the matter of the teachers. With the existing grievance the First Lord did not deal at all. At the end of their apprenticeship 12,000 young pupil teachers submitted themselves to the King's Scholarship Examination. If they secured a place in the first or second class they wore nominally entitled to go to a college largely maintained by the State, and to proceed to the full teacher's certificate by means of State assistance. But what were the actual facts? Of those 12,000, one half might be dismissed as either failing outright or passing only in the third class. With the grievance affecting the remaining 6,000 the First Lord did not deal.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Docs the Amendment deal with it?
DR. MACNAMARAthought he would be able to show that it did. In the residential colleges there were 2,083 places open every year, and in the day colleges 730–2,813 in all, or.3,000 in round numbers. But here was where the acute grievance came in. Not only were there only half enough places for those who secured first or second classes—that might be met by the future authorities if they had the money and the right to provide undenominational training colleges—but, of the existing 3,000 places, all the day places were undenominational, and of the 2,000 residential only 397 were undenominational, so that out of the entire 3,000 available places, only 1,127 were
576
undenominational. This was the way these 2,000 denominational places were distributed: Wesleyans, 117, Roman Catholics, 136, and the Church of England roughly 1,500 open every year. Therefore three-fourths were entirely in the hands of the Church of England; but, over and above that, of the 1,000 undenominational places half of them were filled by members of the Church of England. At the present time at the Borough Road undenominational college 43 per cent, of the students were members of the Church of England, and they were admitted quite freely, although they narrowed down the available accommodation for Nonconformists, who deserved what they had earned. At the Bangor undenominational college, 20 per cent, of the places were filled by members of the Church of England, and at Stock well 41 per cent., Darlington 33 per cent., and Swansea 25 per cent, were members of the Church of England. Out of 3,000 places, 2,000 were in the hands of denominationalists, and of the remaining 1,000 not more than 200 were open at any moment to Nonconformists. That was a problem with which the First Lord of the Treasury did not attempt to deal. The experience of a large number of young people who passed the King's scholarship examination high up in the list was that they had no means of getting into those 200 places. He knew of nine admirable young people in one year who passed very high in the King's scholarships who could not get in at all, and who could have got in, had they been members of the Church of England. He once heard the Rev. A. W. Jephson say that at more than one examination some of these young people had come to him to be admitted by Baptism and confirmation to the Established Church, in order to enjoy the privileges of the scholarship. He was sure that that was a state of things which not a single member of the Committee desired to perpetrate. He would take for the purpose of illustration a Church of England, a Wesleyan, and a Roman Catholic College. H He would mention first the Oxford Diocesan Training College. What was the claim of this college to super-impose over and above the qualifications set by the Government a further claim in regard to religion? Last year the income of this college from subscriptions and all

577
other sources of a private character was £117, which included subscriptions of a general character from the Diocesan Board. The income from grants, from the Government, from fees paid by students, and money charged for books was £1,800. Therefore the claim was that in a college where they got £117 from private sources, and £1,800 from the public, the authorities were entitled to set a ring fence round and exclude persons who did not happen to belong to the same denomination, and this in a college where 94 per cent, of the income came from the public, and 6 per cent, from that particular denomination. He did not think that that was a substantial claim at all. He would consider next the case of the Wesleyan Training College at Westminster, where they also super-imposed a denominational claim over and above the qualification of the King's prize. Their income from subscriptions and private sources was £456, and from Government grants, fees, and books, £7,300. So that 6 per cent, of private subscriptions as against 94 per cent, of public contributions justified the Wesleyan body in putting this ring fence round the college. He protested against this claim. To the eternal credit of the Roman Catholic colleges the subscribed to them handsomely from private sources. In the case of the Catholic college at Hamersmith the income from private sources was not £117, but no less than £1,500, as against £2,700 contributed by Government grants, fees and books. In other words 30 per cent, of the funds came from private sources. He contended that if the student paid he ought to have religious liberty. There was another claim which ought to be examined. It was said that these denominations built these colleges and had sunk a lot of money in them. Supposing that was so? Because a religious denomination forty or fifty years ago, or because some benevolent person or Diocesan Board found the money to build a college, was that for ever to constitute a lien upon the consciences of the people who wished to be trained there? When were they to work off that obligation? These colleges had been maintained year by year out of the public funds, and all that appeared to be necessary in order to maintain for all time out of the public funds, and to super-impose religious tests
578
upon the students, was simply to lay the foundation by building an institution. He did not, however, admit that these denominations built the colleges. The Church of England did not build these colleges with their own money. As a matter of fact, the total cost of erecting Church of England colleges was £293, 160 4s. 5d. towards which the State contributed £97, 474 10s. 3d. People were too ready to forget that very large sums had been contributed by the State to these buildings. What he contended was that there should he a conscience Clause for these training colleges. Then the Church of England colleges would get a better class of student than they now got. He had endeavoured to show that the proposals of the First Lord of the Treasury did not touch this grievance. He did not suggest that these colleges should cease to be denominational, but whore a student desired to enter them who did not belong to that denomination he ought to be admitted under a conscience Clause. Such a student could attend the common form of worship in the college, but on the Sabbath instead of going to the general college chapel he ought to be allowed to go to his own denominational place of worship and produce to the pastor of the college a certificate that he had attended there from time to time. From his own experience he could tell the Committee that this system had worked admirably. It would be an immense improvement in Church of England colleges, instead of practically saying, "We cannot admit you unless you change your religion" That made that person disaffected for all time against the Established Church. If his system were adopted, and if the Nonconformists in the Church training college were allowed to go to the church to which he or she belonged, he ventured to say that at the end of two or three years training that young person, instead of having a sense of injustice and grievance would have a feeling of affection and goodwill towards the church which had dealt so handsomely by them. The Vice-President of the Council knew how acute" this difficulty was. He expected from what the First Lord said on the Second Reading of the Bill that before the Committee disposed of this particular Amendment they would have a statement not only that local authorities might build

579
further undenominational colleges—admirable so far as the proposal went—but that, having regard to the large sums these colleges received from public funds, the time had now come, irrespective of the original claim; set up in respect of the denominations having built the colleges, to admit young teachers to the benefit of a conscience clause, as in the case of children entering school.
LORD HUGH CECILsaid the hon. Member for North Camberwell had made a very interesting speech, which the House had listened to with the greatest possible attention, as coming from one with special knowledge on this important subject. It was certainly true, as he said, that no one in this Committee would desire that there should not be ample accommodation for every person who desired that an undenominational college should be provided. He understood his right hon. friend to say that if, in a proper form of words, an Amendment was necessary for that purpose, the Bill would be amended, so as to allow adequate provision in this respect. But the hon. Member went further and proposed to upset the existing colleges, as well as seriously to alter their character. The suggestion was that no State money should go to colleges which had an exclusively denominational character. He dissented from that principle.
DR. MACNAMARAsaid his view was that, having regard to the large amount which these colleges now received from public funds, they should, while continuing their denominational character, also admit others under a conscience Clause who might not belong to them.
LORD HUGH CECILsaid that the proposal would seriously alter the character of the college and its religious influence; it would also affect those who, supposing the college to be confined to those desiring that religious influence, ought to be let alone. It would modify it by the introduction of a different element in the college in the way of a number of students of a different way of thinking. The question was one for experts in this form of education; but the unanimous opinion of those concerned with Church
580
training colleges was that such an alteration as that which the hon. Member suggested would seriously modify their character, and interfere with the effectiveness of their Church influence by introducing a foreign element, and in preventing them from being distinctly denominational. Churchmen were willing to meet any grievance felt by those who were not members of the Church of England, as he believed were the Roman Catholics or Wesleyans to meet grievances on the other side; and as long as they had not proper training college accommodation, they were of one mind that they ought to have it. But if these bodies were better off in this respect it was not due to any special favour from the State, but because they had come forward with their money, and had been more liberal in its supply than those taking the opposite view. It should be remembered that this money was contributed under an implied contract, and on the understanding that these colleges were to be of a certain character. Now it was proposed to take advantage of this money and to alter the character of the colleges by utilising the money for a purpose for which it was not originally intended. This was treating the colleges, not so much in the way of meeting a grievance, as to urge a hypothetical view and a mere theory that State money ought not to be given because a college had a peculiar denominational character. If an Amendment of that kind were introduced in the Bill he should protest that it was unreasonable and unfair to those who had subscribed for the colleges.
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I cannot think that the noble Lord has even endeavoured to meet the just character of the grievance which the Nonconformists feel in this country. I was hoping that the First Lord of the Treasury, who is in charge of the Bill, had some comprehension, at least, of what I would venture to call the bitter injustice which has been revealed to us by the hon. Member for North Camberwell. In my opinion a more gross and palpable injustice, which deserves to be resented and will be resented by every Nonconformist in the country, it would be impossible to state.

581
Here you have a large number of training colleges, for which a large proportion of money has been supplied and is being supplied from public funds. Here you have a system by which these colleges so existing shall have the power of excluding persons, because they happen to be Nonconformists, from deriving the benefit of education at those colleges with the money supplied by the taxpayers of the country. Then we are told, "Oh! you may build your own colleges." Would they be built? But whether these colleges be built or not, are you going to call upon the County Councils to furnish out of the rates money for the purpose of building new training colleges when there are already colleges in the country able to receive pupils? We know perfectly well that it will not be by this means that the grievance will be remedied. The noble Lord is always betraying the spirit which governs the policy he pursues. He spoke of every one who is not a member of the Church of England as "a foreign element." That is the keystone and the secret of this Bill. The noble Lord is always frank, and we understand thoroughly what he means. The Government, however, are more prudent.
LORD HUGH CECILsaid that the right hon. Gentleman had misrepresented him. He used the word "foreign" in a strictly accurate sense, which the right hon. Gentleman was quite well informed enough to understand. He meant foreign to the character of the school.
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: That is exactly what I understood. In those schools which are paid for by public money everybody who is not a member of the Church of England is a foreign element. That is the spirit of the policy, and that is why Nonconformists are determined from first to last, in this House, and after the Bill has passed this House, to resist a policy which is unjust on the face of it, as well as intolerant and bigoted. Of course we always knew it, but the noble Lord has the happy gift of conveying his views in phrases which are always intelligible.
LORD HUGH CECIL: You have misrepresented me.
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: The "foreign element" will be the label of this Bill. It is its characteristic; and it is because in respect of national education we are determined to recognise no such "foreign element" that we take the line of saying that no form of religious opinion should be treated as a "foreign element." Now, what is it that is asked here? It is not asked that we should destroy the denominational character of the schools, but, as the hon. Member for North Camberwell said, that a man should not be excluded from the schools because he happened to be, not a foreign element, but a member of a denomination that was not the Church of England.
LORD HUGH CECIL: A member of he Church of England might be a foreign element in a Wesleyan school.
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid yes, but he did not want to have a foreign element in any school. He was not speaking of one sect more than another. He maintained that no plan deserved the name of national education in which tests of this character were to be applied to the teachers. That was really the matter at issue. That was the religious difficulty; and it was because this Bill, so far from relieving the difficulty, aggravated it at every point, that they offered resistance to it. He admitted that the great deficiency in education in this country was the paucity of teachers. There was no doubt that, from their greater facilities for higher education, the Church of England had a greater number of candidates for entrance into the teaching profession than the Nonconformist bodies; but still there were a large number of men in the Nonconformist bodies perfectly qualified and highly fitted to be teachers in the schools, but who would be excluded, as the hon. Member for North Camberwell had shown, from earning their living in the public schools in the country by this religious test. Did this House desire that they should make use of every possible source of supply of teachers for the country? He supposed everybody would say so; but why were they to say by this Bill that the source of supply of fitting men was

583
to be excluded by a religious test? A more scandalous state of things than the position in relation to training of teachers it was impossible to conceive. They started with the whole of their system disabled by these religious tests. He maintained that that was unstatesmanlike, unjust, and anti-national; it was denominational in the worst sense of the word. It was contrary to every plan of national education. And what was the alternative? Why, that they should call upon the community for further and unnecessary expense to build new schools when there were schools that might be used for the work. [HON. MEMBERS on the Ministerial Benches: They are all full.] All full! But on what grounds? The right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury laughed, and said he could not understand that there was any grievance.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have said a hundred times precisely the reverse.
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Why then, did the right hon. Gentleman laugh at the grievance that he said he understood? There were many hundreds and thousands of persons who did understand the grievance and who did not laugh at it. He thought the right hon. Gentleman had used language of a character in referring to this Bill very different from what the right hon. Gentleman was in the habit of using. He did not complain of the right hon. Gentleman's laughter if he was in the humour for it, but he hoped the Committee would obtain from the right hon. Gentleman what the view of the Government was in regard to this matter. They knew the view of the noble Lord the Member for Greenwich; and if the noble Lord expressed the view of the Government, then they would know exactly where they were.
MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid he thought the Committee might now be allowed to go to a division. The speech of the right hon. Gentleman was in marked contrast, in more than one particular, with the speech of the hon. Member who spoke second in the debate, in a very interesting survey which he had made with regard to our existing advantages in the way of training teachers. But the hon. Member for North Camberwell knew his subject, which was more than could be
584
said for the right hon. Gentleman opposite, and he was sincerely desirous of finding some method by which an admitted grievance could be met. He was not sure that he could say even that much of the right hon. Gentleman.
AN HON. MEMBER: Christian charity!
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I was speaking of the views of the noble Lord the Member for Greenwich.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The right hon. Gentleman denounced the grievance of the insufficient opportunity for the training of teachers as if it was a grievance introduced and fomented by the present Government. The right hon. Gentleman and his friends had been in office for years, and the grievance was just as great then as now, and he was not aware that he had ever made any effort to meet it.
MR LLOYD-GEORGE: They made great improvements in the educational system; but what we are referring to is the training colleges.
MR A. J. BALFOURsaid that that was not the grievance that the right hon. Gentleman had denounced. The grievance which the right hon. Gentleman had denounced had been in existence for years, and which it was hoped that this Bill would do much to remedy. The hon. Gentleman the Member for North Camberwell had dwelt on the hardships of the existing system on Nonconformists, but these hardships were not confined to Nonconformist teachers or pupil teachers, but were due to the fact that the number of men who desired to enter the teaching profession could not be accommodated in the training colleges. Evidently the grievance would not be cured, even if the remedy of the hon. Gentleman opposite were adopted to its fullest extent. Suppose they were to throw open every denominational training college in this country, Roman Catholic, Church of England, and Wesleyan, they would still leave outside their walls, and would fail to give opportunities to, a very large number of men and women who were qualified for the profession. They would distribute the burden somewhat differently, but the burden would

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evidently remain. It was perfectly clear, therefore, that the only way in which the difficulty could be met was not to redistribute the accommodation in the existing training colleges, but by increasing the number of these colleges. Though there was a general grievance, that grievance pressed more hardly upon Nonconformists because the Church of England and other denominations had taken the trouble, or had thought it to be their duty, to use the opportunities given them by the State to build training colleges. He really put it to the House whether it was reasonable to try to remedy this grievance by a method which would not remedy it even if it were carried out, and which, in the attempt to carry it out, would produce new grievances of an aggravated character. The right hon. Gentleman had spoken with a light heart of depriving Roman Catholics, Anglicans, and Wesleyans of the training colleges which they had partly built. It was perfectly true that the State had contributed very largely to these training colleges. If these training colleges had unoccupied places which members of the Church that erected them did not require, he could understand that it would be worth while to make such arrangements as would enable these vacant places to be used for other purposes; but that was not the case. These various denominations had built these training colleges for persons of their own persuasion, they were filled with persons of their own persuasion, and they were still not large enough to accommodate persons of their own persuasion. Yet it was deliberately proposed by way of producing universal religious peace, without compensation, without taking any steps to mitigate the evil, simply to confiscate all that had been given. That could not be the right method. He thought the proper way to deal with the question was for the education authorities to fill up the admitted vacuum in two ways—partly by the erection of undenominational training colleges suited to the Nonconformist view of these things, and partly by the erection of hostels or boardinghouses from which it would be perfectly possible for persons of any religion or no religion to get the full advantage of the
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training college as it stood. That was not a new suggestion; it was not an untried plan. The plan was being most successfully tried in some of the training colleges in London. He believed that in connection with one of the Anglican training colleges on the south side of the Thames, there was a hostel which was largely used by Jewesses. He was not a special admirer of the system of segregation, but that was not the point. What we had to do was to deal with the practical grievance, and there were only two ways of dealing with it. One was by the system of undenominational hostels; the other was by adding to the number of undenominational training colleges. Nothing else could set the matter right. If we were to indulge in the most extensive system of spoliation tomorrow and deprive Roman Catholics, members of the Church of England, and Wesleyans of their training colleges, the matter would remain pretty much where it was at present. By the plan he proposed, we attacked the root of the evil, left no seed of bitterness, and no one would feel that he had been ill-used or unjustly treated. It was on these lines alone that one of the greatest blots on our present educational system could be removed, and our present educational system improved, and on those lines alone.
MR. SAMUEL EVANSsaid everyone would recognise the difference between the tone of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman in dealing with this matter, and that adopted by the noble Lord the Member for Greenwich when speaking in this debate. The right hon. Gentleman had said quite candidly it was a great grievance and one of the greatest blots of our educational system, but it seemed to him that the First Lord of the Treasury was unable to provide any adequate solution of what he admitted; to be a grievance. It was no use speaking of hostels or adding to the training colleges. It would be the work of years to add to training colleges out of the limited amount to be given to the County Councils. The right hon. Gentleman showed that he was willing to do something, if he was allowed to by the Party behind him, so

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he would not make any further remark upon that matter. The right hon. Gentleman had spoken of spoliation and confiscation. Confiscation of what? Nonconformists only desired that some degree of toleration should be shown to Nonconformist students. These colleges, which had been built out of public funds, were maintained almost entirely by the State, and some toleration ought to be given to the Nonconformists. Something had been said with regard to the amount given to the Church of England for the building of these colleges; but the money was only given in the name of the Church of England; it was subscribed by all sections of the people. If the noble Lord the Member for Greenwich wanted no foreign element to come into these colleges, let him maintain the colleges himself. Why did the noble Lord desire this policy of segregation, which was thrown over by the First Lord?
LORD HUGH CECILdisclaimed having said anything of the kind. What he said was that those who managed those colleges attached great importance to the whole atmosphere being of an denominational character.
MR. SAMUEL EVANSsaid he understood that the noble Lord referred to the atmosphere of the Church of England, and would not allow it to be clouded, contaminated, or disturbed by any foreign element.
LORD HUGH CECIL: The hon. Member has adopted a plan of saying very uncharitable things.
MR. SAMUEL EVANSsaid that in that case he did not understand what the noble Lord had said about the atmosphere of the Church of England.
LORD HUGH CECILsaid that if the hon. Member did not understand what he had said he had better leave what he had said alone.
MR. SAMUEL EVANSsaid that if his poor intelligence was not able to grapple with the statements of the noble Lord, perhaps the noble Lord would assist him. But until he had further enlightenment he was unable to see, except from
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the narrow and bigoted point of view which the noble Lord always adopted, what the noble Lord meant when he said that he desired to keep out any "foreign element." The noble Lord belonged to the set of people who would have no privileges at all extended to the Nonconformists. He would, if he had lived in those days, have voted against the abolition of the tests for the Universities. The abolition of the religious tests had not, however, disturbed the atmosphere of Oxford and Cambridge; quite the contrary. This grievance was of long standing, but the policy of the right hon. Gentleman did not make it more tolerable. The longer it remained the more intolerable it became. They did not look for anything unfair or unjust; they did not ask for the confiscation or destruction of these institutions. The question was not merely one of excluding men who refused to be false to their consciences, but of the destruction of excellent material for teachers which the State ought to have. He had supplied himself with an extract from a great authority, if it was wanted. Speaking on this matter some years ago, from the educational point of view, the Colonial Secretary said—
"Sectarian colleges are mainly supported by public money, and the enormous grants they receive from the common purse are thus devoted to support institutions whose chief effort is directed to the preparation of sectarian teachers. They are unfit on that very account to promote a national unsectarian system."
He would like to adopt another set of phrases of the same authority as expressing his own position in this matter—
"This iniquity I have resisted and will continue to resist, holding the opinion that in schools and colleges supported by rates denominationalists have no right and should not be allowed to interfere."
MR. JAMES HOPEwished to test the solutions which had been submitted for the purpose of dealing with this question. It was admitted that there was some grievance in this matter, and he desired to be a little more clear as to the working of the alternative scheme. As he understood the suggestion of the First Lord of the Treasury it was that the local authority should be entitled to establish hostels at which Nonconformists and

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others might reside and get the benefit as day scholars of the denominational colleges in the neighbourhood. He wished to ask whether the scheme was to apply to existing colleges, or only to new colleges, and also whether it was to apply to colleges whether they got aid from the local authority or not. He should protest against its being applied to existing colleges, and if it was he thought there ought to be some compensating grant from the local authority.
MR. PERKSexpressed the opinion that the right hon. Gentleman had offered no practical suggestion for putting Nonconformist bodies on an equality with the Church of England. It appeared to him that the proposal now made was a postponement for many years of anything in the nature of equality. It was the intrenching of one religious community in a position of authority and power in connection with training colleges which they ought not to occupy. So far as the Wesleyan Methodist Church was concerned, he admitted that in bygone years there was foundation for the charge made against them by the hon. Member for North Camberwell. They did impose a sectarian test on members of other Nonconformist Churches who wished to enter their colleges. But directly the disability was put under the notice of the governing body of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, that condition was swept away. What was the position it was proposed by this Bill to perpetuate? There were thirty-one Established Church training colleges, and two or three Catholic training colleges, which it was not necessary to consider for the moment, because no Nonconformist would care to be educated in them. During the last thirty or forty years the money received by those thirty-one training colleges from the public funds had grown enormously. It had risen from 10 per cent. to 73 or 74 per cent. added to which there were the contributions of the teachers themselves. In the great County of Lincolnshire, which was very largely a Nonconformist county, 80 per cent. of the children attending the national schools belonged to the Methodist Church, and many cases had been brought before him
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where girls had had to submit to confirmation in order that they might obtain training in the colleges of the Church. That was a grievous injustice. What Nonconformists asked was, not that the remedying of their grievance should be postponed until new training colleges had been erected, but that all such establishments, which were so largely maintained out of public funds, should be thrown open to Nonconformist children under the protection of a conscience Clause. Nonconformists did not intend to be crushed. They would be quite able to hold their own under the provisions of this Bill, though they were harsh, intolerant, ungenerous and unjust. While they believed that the Bill would not accomplish the object which the First Lord of the Treasury said he had in view, and while they did not believe the right hon. Gentleman had made any concession of real moment to Dissenters, they were not afraid of the operation of the measure. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman to brush aside the notion that because he made it possible under this Bill that County Councils should in future set up undenominational training colleges, he had therefore remedied on this particular point or in one single degree the Nonconformist grievance.
SIR JOHNKENNAWAYsaid he was glad of the assurance of the hon. Gentleman opposite that he did not mean to be crushed even by this Bill, and that Nonconformity generally had no such intention. But what had amazed him was that so large a body of representative men among Nonconformists had expressed that fear, and had lead the country to believe that they would be practically crushed out of existence, whereas it was shown by the First Lord of the Treasury that Nonconformists would in future have greater opportunities than they ever had before. Turning to the point immediately before the Committee, if they were to come to any satisfactory solution of this question they must try to look at the matter, not only from their own point of view but from that of their opponents. Hon. Gentlemen opposite dwelt almost exclusively on the amount contributed from public funds to those training colleges

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and education generally but they gave very little credit for the large sacrifices which had been made by Churchmen during the last few generations for the purpose of giving good education in the country in accordance with the principles in which they believed and which they desired to maintain. Justice must be done to those who had made those sacrifices. Their efforts must be acknowledged and nothing in the nature of confiscation must be attempted. They had a right to ask with regard to these training colleges that they should be maintained in the atmosphere of the Church of England. As they had been founded and worked by the Church of England, so they should remain, and the Church of England should have the right, without proselytising, to teach their own children in their own schools and colleges in the doctrine in which they believed. The question arose under this Amendment whether the admission of the principle of a conscience Clause would vitiate that just claim. They should go back to the history of elementary schools and the resistance that was offered to the introduction of the conscience Clause then. It was denounced by some as an absolute breath of faith, and as being ruinous to all elementary schools. The result had proved that that fear was exaggerated. The Clause had, in fact, been made very little use of, and he believed it had been honestly carried out, and that parents of Dissenters had had little reason to complain of unfair treatment under it. The question now was whether in view of this plea and of the alleged injustice done to Nonconformists that principle of the conscience Clause could not be extended to these training colleges without injuring the maintenance of the atmosphere of the Church of England, or the teaching of her distinctive doctrines. This was a matter of very great anxiety because of the hot and angry feeling that had been excited. He felt that they on that side and hon. Gentlemen opposite ought to find some eirenicon, as far as possible, by which they would be able to smooth matters without damaging any distinctive principles. He for one, in view of the great length of time that must elapse before new undenominational colleges could be erected, was prepared to concede the principle that children of Nonconformists who had a claim should be admitted under a conscience Clause
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to these colleges, because he believed that the Church of England would be strengthened and not weakened by that being done; and also because of the necessity of settling the matter as far as they could on broad and liberal lines, provided none of their religious principles and just claims were violated.
SIR EDWARD GREYsaid the right hon. Baronet had given one of the best examples of how to practise in debate that art of Christian charity which was so much more often preached to them than practised. While his personal support of the Amendment was exceedingly valuable, the tone he had imparted to the debate was even more so, and he (the speaker) would endeavour to do nothing to disturb the feeling of compromise and conciliation which the right hon. Baronet had introduced into the discussion of this very difficult subject. He could assure the right hon. Baronet that there was not the least desire on that side of the House that there should be anything in the nature of spoliation of money given privately for denominational purposes. That was the fear expressed by the noble Lord the Member for Greenwich. If this Amendment were carried, the denominational teaching would still be preserved. The object of the endowments given to these training colleges was to guarantee a particular form of denominational teaching in them, and that would continue. The Committee had not only to ask whether it was a question of improperly using private money for purposes for which it was not intended. If that had been the whole story the noble Lord's argument might have held good. But it was not only a question of private money; it was also a question of whether public money was being improperly used. On that side of the House they had the feeling that to give public money, and to give it in increasing amounts, to particular institutions to which a large part of the population must remain a foreign element, was to make an improper use of public money. Why was public money given to any institution at all? Because it was doing something in the nature of public work. If it was doing something in the nature of public work it must give up

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to a certain extent its exclusive ideas. Its origin might have been exclusive, and as long as it was supported out of private funds it had a perfect right to remain exclusive; but directly it began to accept public money, and in proportion as it continued to accept public money, it must more and more resign its own exclusive ideas. He agreed that the suggestion of the First Lord would be a way out of the difficulty if it were practicable, viz., that of founding other undenominational colleges and undenominational hostels from which students could be day-students at denominational colleges. But what chance was there of such a scheme being realised soon? The Committee had to deal with the existing state of things, and it was not likely that the present hardship would be soon remedied. Was it likely that such a scheme would be carried out? How was it to be carried out? The County Councils were to have only limited funds The noble Lord wished the scheme to be carried out, and he was anxious to see liberal provision made for undenominational pupils. Under those circumstances, the noble Lord doubtless voted for doing away with the limitation of the county rate, because as long as that limit remained there was no prospect of such a scheme being carried out. If the First Lord, even in making his statement with regard to the public money to be given from the Treasury in aid of education, had been able to state that a portion of the money was to be given for the purposes of higher education, his argument about providing hostels would have come with more force. But the money was not to be available for the purpose of providing hostels or undenominational colleges. It was just for these training colleges that money from the Treasury was wanted, because it was most difficult to say that they served to satisfy a local purpose and should therefore be put on the rate. If a training college was established in a given district, how was it to be ensured that that district should have the, benefit of the pupils trained in that particular college? He could imagine a ratepayer saying, "I am asked to vote rates for a training college in my own county, but the better that training college is the more will the pupils trained in it be scattered over the country, and the more difficult it
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will be to secure that they shall be available for teaching purposes in my own county." It was one of the cases in which it would be most difficult to get support from the rates, and in which, therefore, there was the more need of aid from the Treasury, but yet it was just one of this cases excluded from the benefit of that grant. The situation being what it was, and the hardship being what it was, at the present time the prospect of remedy was remote. He joined entirely with the right hon. Baronet in the opinion expressed that the existing institutions should be taken in hand with an endeavour to make the best and widest use of them for the purpose for which they were intended.
SIR W. HART DYKEendorsed all that had been said by the First Lord of the Treasury in his appreciation of the existing position. There was an established grievance and one which they must recognise. They were in a very difficult position, but it was not an uncommon one. With a little more money from the Treasury, they might be able to tide over the difficulty. He would dismiss the Amendment, because, in his opinion, it would not meet the difficulty they had to face. What had they to face in regard to the training of teachers? This was a most obvious necessity which would stare every County Council in the face, and it would be the very first question which they would have to deal with.
DR. MACNAMAHA: Yes, out of a 2d. rate.
SIR W. HART DYKE: Therefore the very first endeavour of these new bodies would be to secure the further supply of a better class of teachers both for primary and elementary education. They had to ask themselves how that could be brought about by the Bill as it was at present drafted. He acknowledged the Nonconformist grievance. First of all, let them consider what these county authorities would do. In the first place they would increase the system, which was now largely extending, and that was the system of having day scholars in training colleges. He acknowledged that for many years past it had been a great hardship and a grievance among Nonconformists that the only recognised

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colleges for them to enter belonged to the Church of England. He acknowledged freely this old grievance, and no man would more readily vote for any fair and just proposition to remove that grievance than himself. Already they had sixteen or seventeen of these day training colleges in existence, teaching about 1,400 students, and each and all of them receiving grants from the State. So far as the Nonconformist grievance was concerned, he thought it was to the establishment of non-sectarian training colleges that they must look for the removal of their grievance, and not to the existing training colleges which were now full and could admit no more students. The whole solution of the question must be in the establishment of other training colleges of a non-sectarian character. No doubt at first the county authorities would support schemes for the increase of day training colleges, because it would be found to be less expensive. His right hon. friend had referred to the limitation of the rate, but he would remind the Committee that, with the aid of grants from the State, day training colleges might be established very cheaply indeed, because in nearby all the counties now some technical institute or school buildings could be fixed upon where only evening classes were at present held, and the local authorities could easily make arrangements to use such buildings as day training colleges for teachers. Before this Bill passed the Report stage he hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer would give a little more money for this purpose, for no hon. Member would be more pleased than himself to see this grievance swept away from our educational system.
MR. T. P. O'CONNORappealed to the First Lord of the Treasury to approach this question in a broad and tolerable spirit, and to endeavour to find some moans of reconciling the views of his ordinary supporters with the views of hon. Gentlemen on the opposite side of the House. He found himself in a somewhat difficult position. In the first place he supposed most hon. Members heard the very remarkable and impressive figures which had been given to the Committee by the hon. Member for North Camberwell. The First Lord of the Treasury had paid a well-deserved testimony to the lucidity, ability, and moderation of that speech.
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He thought this was a question upon which hon. Members opposite ought to be ready to listen to the voice of compromise. This was a question upon which anybody who spoke should only do so with the very greatest solicitude and consideration for the religious views of their opponents. Take the case of the Oxford Diocesan Training College. In this college the voluntary subscriptions were £117 and the public subscriptions were £1,800 as given by the hon. Member for North Camberwell. Could they wonder at Nonconformists, who constituted at least half the nation, being discontented and feeling that they had a legitimate grievance, when they were to a large extent excluded from a college to which £1,800 was subscribed by the public and only £117 by that particular denomination. He was glad to hear the First Lord of the Treasury declare himself opposed to a policy of segregation in training schools, though it was approved by many hon. Members opposite. If he were a Protestant and an Englishman, he would resent in the strongest manner the anti-national and anti-Christian division of forms of religion by walls of bigotry and prejudice. The practical difficulty was that the colleges were crowded already, and by the force of facts the House was driven in the direction indicated by the First Lord of the Treasury. If the First Lord of the Treasury would make a definite promise that the Nonconformists' grievance, which he admitted, would be really met, the difficulty might be overcome. What was the use of telling them that the denominational colleges were open to Non-conformists? He did not suppose that many Protestants would enter a Roman Catholic training college, and if they did, he believed they would be Catholics before leaving them. The right hon. Gentleman ought not to let this Clause pass without doing something more than he had done to meet the Non-conformist grievance. What was the use of putting this duty on the County Councils? Did they suppose that the County Council of Lancashire was going to spend money to train teachers in order that they might go off to teach schools in London or elsewhere? The First Lord of the Treasury saw the difficulty, and said he was considering

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whether he could devise a way of meeting it, but the Nonconformists were left without a single promise on which they could rely that their admitted grievance would be in any way met by the Government.
MR. SPEARsaid that in supporting the Second Reading of the Bill he appealed to the First Lord of the Treasury to make sonic concession with respect to the matter now before the House. There was no question connected with the Bill on which there was a stronger feeling in the country than that with reference to the pupil teachers. Nonconformists felt it a grievance that they were practically excluded from the denominational schools, and they protested against Nonconformist pupil teachers being kept out of the training colleges. These colleges would receive under this Bill grants towards the education of pupil teachers, and that being so, it was only right that the public of all classes should have access to those colleges if they were in other ways fitted for the work. He was a loyal supporter of the principle of this Bill, and he was in favour of doing justice to the voluntary schools, but he would not be a party to doing injustice to the Nonconformist pupil teachers. He trusted the right hon. Gentleman would be able to make some concession which would relieve them of the necessity of voting for the Amendment.
MR. C. P. SCOTTthought that after the appeals made from both sides of the House the Government could hardly leave matters as they stood. After the admission made by the First Lord of the Treasury he ought to show the Committee some practical means of remedying the grievance—a grievance which was riot merely sentimental but practical, touching both the self respect and the interests of Nonconformists in the strongest possible way. He was bound to offer a remedy as real as the grievance was real. He did not wish to approach this question in a controversial manner. The remedy suggested by the noble Lord the Member
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for Greenwich was no remedy at all. He told them that accommodation could be provided by the education authority under the powers of the Bill, but, as had been pointed out already, not merely was it the case that the County Councils had not the money for the purpose, but it was really no part of their duty. This was a national and not a local work—a work that concerned the whole community—and, therefore, there could not be a stronger case than this for aid from the National Exchequer. It appeared to him that the remedy proposed by the Amendment was admirable so far as it went, and really no adequate argument had been advanced to show why the conscience Clause should not have a place here. The noble Lord opposite said he wished to preserve the present atmosphere of the colleges. He did not think the preference of the noble Lord, to which he had a perfect right, was shared by the First Lord of the Treasury and the majority of hon. Members on his own side of the House. It seemed to him that the argument was irresistible for opening these institutions to the whole nation. This had been done in the case of the universities with infinite good to all concerned. These teachers were public servants, and why in the name of common sense and tolerance should they be compelled to associate with one particular sect only? Such a policy was irrational and illiberal. If a concession were made on the lines of the Amendment which would make these colleges national institutions it would greatly smooth the passage of the Bill. If that could not be done it was the absolute duty of the First Lord of the Treasury to make an alternative suggestion, and the difficulty would be met to some extent by a proposal for assisting the local authorities to discharge a duty which was not their duty, but the duty of the State.
It being half-past Seven of the Clock, the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.
Committee report Progress; to sit again this evening.

EVENING SITTING.

  EVICTIONS ON THE DE FREYNE ESTATE.
  [MOTION FOR ADJOURNMENT.]
  MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid he had hoped it would not have been necessary, on two grounds, to move the Motion of which he gave notice at an earlier hour of the day. In the first place he had hoped that it would have been possible to discuss the whole question on an Irish Supply night. The House had now been sitting for close on six months, and not one hour of that time had been appropriated for the purpose of Irish Supply. He had no security when Supply would be taken, and therefore he had had to give up that idea. In the second place, he had hoped that what had taken place in almost every agrarian quarrel of which he had cognizance in Ireland, viz., something like a reasonable compromise, would have been arrived at in this matter. The sands in the glass, however, were fast running out, without the slightest idea of a compromise, and he was driven to the belief that unless the House intervened, unless the Chief Secretary—who had so much in his power—was able to do something, intolerable hardships would arise, these horrible evictions would be consummated, and an era of trouble and turmoil would be originated in the West of Ireland, where, heaven knew, there was trouble enough at the present moment without it. He moved the Motion under a heavy sense of responsibility, because he did not think there was a public man in the House—and there were very few in the country—who had seen more of evictions than he had. He had gone through nearly the whole of these sad times since 1886, and, if he moved the Resolution that night, it was because of his experience in the past, and because he desired to avoid trouble in the future of the same kind if it could be avoided. He, in accordance with what happened earlier, would undertake to prove that the Government, as a Government, were directly responsible, not alone for the condition of this whole district, but for everyone of the impending evictions in it. Did ho know what previous Governments had attempted? Had he heard of the Vandeleur evictions in Glare, or of the action of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in reference to the
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  Clanricarde case, when he openly admitted that he had put pressure within the law on the landlord? He maintained that in nearly all the great agrarian cases resulting in evictions there had always been attempts made by the Government to avoid the difficulty. Then, again, on the Olphert estate the same thing took place. Terms were offered and refused, and the evictions went on; but whereas in these cases in the past attempts had been made to bring about a settlement, on the De Freyne estate all such attempts had been repudiated, not because Lord De Freyne wished that, but because he was in the hands of a landlord combination who would not allow him to follow his own instincts. Besides, in all the other cases, except the Olphert case, the tenants were comparatively well to do, whereas here the tenants were the poorest of the poor. The efforts of the Roman Catholic Clergy in that direction had been without avail—[A TORY MEMBER: Hear, hear!] Someone cheered that. Well, he was sorry for him. He believed that a word from the Chief Secretary would effect a settlement in this case, and he asked what had been done in that direction? What was the history of these proceedings? The purchase of the Dillon estate by the Congested Districts Board produced a combination on the De Freyne estate to secure the same terms. That demand was refused. Lord De Freyne—who was not a rich man—had to refuse it, and the suggestion of the Rev. Father White for a reduction of 15 per cent, was also refused. Father White had, when making his proposal, pointed out that the people had not been able to sell their cattle; that the country had been ruined by floods, and that the people were in despair, arid he (Mr. Russell) had no hesitation in saying that a 33 per cent, reduction would not have been too much. Then legal proceedings were commenced. The rents were higher for the bog land than they were for good arable land in Ulster. But Lord De Freyne was not responsible for that. The rents were fixed by a tribunal set up by the Government. The House had no right to blame Lord De Freyne for taking legal action to recover his rents or the possession of his land. He was not going to say that Lord De Freyne was not

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  entitled to the support of the forces of the Crown. Lord De Freyne's legal rights were undoubted. But what he complained of was that the Government in fixing the rents fixed unfair rents. That was admitted by the Committee of Inquiry presided over by Mr. Morley. The next step in the recent history of the estate was the sale of the tenant right and interest. The tenant right of five or six acres of bogland was sold by public auction in the Courthouse at Roscommon. The next step was to seek to recover possession of the holdings, and how did Lord De Freyne's, advisers proceed? Let the House mark this. The tenants were the poorest of the poor, and to recover these miserable five or six acre holdings of bogland, Lord De Freyne's advisers went to the superior courts in Dublin for writs, and costs to the extent of £30 or £35 in each case were heaped on the tenants That made a settlement impossible. For those poor people the costs were colossal. The tenants could pay their rents only by means of money they got from America, or from their labour in England, and to put such costs on them was to drive them to despair, and to prevent a settlement. All being thus ready the Sheriff and the, forces of the Crown will do the rest in a few days. Those poor people would be on the roadsides, or overcrowding the already overcrowded cabins of their fellow-tenants on the estate. What would be the result? Did anyone believe that any man in his senses, or that any man outside a lunatic asylum would take the land from which those people were evicted, and pay 15s. or 17s. 6d. an acre for it? It would be the old, old story over again. The people would watch the holdings from which they believed they were unjustly driven, and all the chances were that violent crime would be precipitated and all in order that this combination of Irish landlords, with Lord De Freyne in their charge, should have their way against those wretched people. He had now to state his reason for believing that the Government was directly responsible. As was known to the House, the Congested Districts Board, which was a State Department, had been engaged for nine years dealing with those districts. In a considerable number of cases they had purchased estates from the owners, had dressed the holdings and sold them to the occupiers, and wherever that policy had been
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  carried out it had resulted in peace and contentment. This was the deliberate policy of the Government; but in an evil moment of excitement in the House, the Government had laid it down as part of that policy, and as a fixed rule to guide the Congested Districts Board, that wherever agitation prevailed no purchase should take place, and such estates were to be practically boycotted. Another Minister had said that they would go to the bottom of the list. If it had not been for that the De Freyne estate might be tonight in as happy a position as the Dillon estate. This rule had been universally working ever since it was laid down, and 'wherever there was agitation it had laid a fetter and produced discord. On the De Freyne estate evictions would take place, and the forces of the Crown would be employed to enforce the law, and rightly employed. Two or three English Members had visited the land in this quarter, and they would support him when he said that the land was absolutely useless. No one would settle down there, and crime was perfectly certain to take place. The people were left no option. At the same time that they put down legitimate agitation they armed with a blunderbuss the men behind the hedge. If they were going to deal with this part of the country they must know the kind of people they were dealing with. Why were these people crowded upon these wretched holdings? Hon. Members would find, if they went to Ireland, mile upon mile of magnificent land without a single homestead upon it. It was occupied solely by sheep and cattle. The laws of the House had permitted the poor people to be driven from these fertile lands.
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is going beyond the terms of his Motion. He is discussing the whole land question understood him to ask leave to move the adjournment of the House to discuss some action of the Government. The action which he complains of is a question of general policy in dealing with the Land Purchase Acts. That is not the kind of matter for which the adjournment of the House may be moved.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid his whole point in raising this question was that

  603
  the exclusion of this estate deliberately by the Government from the Land Purchase Act, to which they were entitled by law, had brought about this state of disorder. Ho staked his reputation on the assertion that the rents on this estate had been wrongly fixed. There had been no boycotting, for how could they intimidate a district where everybody believed the same thing? The whole population was banded as one man, and the only agitation that was being carried on was of exactly the same kind which the English Nonconformists had resolved to take in refusing to pay the education rate if the present Education Bill was passed. He wanted the House to understand that while many of the tenants on this estate had paid their rents in full, there were a majority who could not pay. If these evictions took place, and these enormous costs were imposed upon the tenants, the House would have no moral basis to stand upon. Something had been said about landlord combinations. He had had something to do with a landlord combination, which had lost £10,000 by it; and every one of the evicted tenants in the end got back to his holding. He would conclude by directing the attention of the House to this difficult situation. He had spoken because his eyes had seen, and his ears had heard. He had not only seen the trouble and the misery, but he had seen the remedy for it at work on the adjoining purchased properties, and he believed that if the Government chose tomorrow, through the Congested Districts Board, they could stay the hand of the evictors and secure a reasonable and an honest settlement, and bring peace and prosperity to that district.
  Motion made and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Mr. T. W. Russell.)
  MR. SPEAKER: I ought to state that if the hon. Member had developed what his argument was on the face of his Motion, I should have felt it my duty not to let it go before the House, because he has gone into the merits of the question between Lord De Freyne and his tenants I have not interrupted him, because I wanted to hear
  604
  his whole argument, and lie has not mentioned anything as regards the action of the Government, the point on which understood that he moved the adjournment understood from him that he proposed to complain of the employment of the forces of the Crown.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: No, Sir; I distinctly stated to you that could use that argument, but that would not do so. The sole point I raised as to the action of the Government was this rule which forbids the sale of an estate on which any agitation takes place.
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member did not mention that point to me. I only wish to point out to the House, that the argument must be confined to something relating to the action of the Executive Government in the matter; because disputes and litigation between a landlord and his tenants, whatever the rights or wrongs of the dispute may be, are not matters for discussion on his Motion.
  MR. HAYDENsaid that as one of the representatives of the county most affected, he wished to support the observations of the hon. Member for South Tyrone. When this matter had been previously debated in Parliament, the Irish Attorney General declared that such a struggle as this was inevitable. True, it was inevitable, because the rule established by the Congested Districts Board had brought it about. It was his desire, of course, to keep strictly within the ruling of Mr. Speaker, but it was hard to avoid referring to the condition of these tenants, and to the circumstances which had brought about the present state of things. What he and his friends held was that, if it had not been for the action of the Government in making this rule, all this trouble would not have occurred. It was generally admitted that even in the West of Ireland there was not an estate which required to be dealt with by the Congested Districts Board more than the De Freyne estate; and no Irish Member had ever used stronger language as to the awful misery and poverty of

  605
  the peasantry on that estate than the Chief Secretary has done. No wonder those peasants were discontented with their position after ten years of the existence of the Congested Districts Board, while the tenants on the Dillon estate had received the benefits of compulsory land purchase, and they remained the victims of a rule which ought never to have been made. These poor people had been neglected by the Government, although they were the very type of persons for whom the Congested Districts Board had been brought into existence. He thought that English Members of Parliament, who had visited the De Freyne estate, must have wondered how the tenants had ever been able to eke out an existence from their small holdings. If it had not been for the hopefulness of their temperament, and the teaching of their religion, he was sure that disturbances would have occurred long ago. Earlier in the session his hon. friend the Member for East Mayo had stated that if the Government would only relinquish this rule complained of, he would immediately go to the De Freyne estate and appeal to the tenants to pay their rents in full. But the word of hope had not been spoken by the Chief Secretary oh behalf of the Government. The Government was therefore mainly responsible for the state of things which now existed in that part of Ireland. The tenants on the De Freyne estate were not merely struggling for the reduction of their rents by 15 or 20 per cent.; they were struggling for something more—for the possession of land from which they could make a decent living. It should be borne in mind that the tenants on the De Freyne estate were the poorest of the poor in Ireland, and that during the Budget discussion it had been admitted that they had to live mainly on Indian meal, and that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had been compelled to relinquish some of the money which he had proposed to take from Ireland from the corn tax.
  MR. MACARTNEYsaid ho desired to ask, on a point of order, whether the hon. Member was to be allowed to go into the question of the condition of the De Freyne tenants.
  MR. SPEAKER: No I have already stated that the question which this house is invited to discus is not that of the condition of these tenants, or the causes which brought about that condition, but the question of the action of the Government hope the hon. Member will try to conform to that ruling, and not proceed further in the hue of his last remarks.
  MR. HAYDENsaid it was not unnatural for an Irish Member interested in these people, who had come into contact with them, and who knew their horrible condition, should wander somewhat beyond the strict ruling that had been laid down; but he thought that it would be admitted that it was not straying very far a field in order to impress upon the Government their responsibility in regard to the difficulties which these poor people had in fulfilling their legal obligations. The fact that these people were so wretchedly poor should, ho thought, appeal to the House and the Government to do something for them even out of the ordinary. But they were not asking the Government to do anything out of the ordinary. They were only asking the Government not to insist on pressing this rule which ought never to have been passed. It was this rule which had forced the tenants to combine in order to get something like justice from their landlord; arid in the long run he had no doubt they would force the Government to grant them that which they ought to have. At the best an eviction was a horrible thing to contemplate, but it was something terrible when it applied to a whole country side. If these peasants were evicted from their small holdings, where could they go to, except into the already over-crowded cabins of their equally poor neighbours? Up to the present time there had been absolutely no crime in this district; but could it be supposed that if these peasants were hunted out of their homes in hundreds, and were over-run by a military police, that they would remain peaceable? If crime broke out in that district, it would not be on the shoulders of the Irish Members that the responsibility would he, but on the English Government, and the English gentleman who had been sent

  607
  over to govern Ireland. He earnestly asked the Government, not only to give temporary relief to these people, but to come' to their rescue from misery and starvation. His hon. friend said that he did not complain of the forces of the Crown being placed at the disposal of Lord De Freyne. Bat he did complain of the forces of the Crown being placed at the disposal of one man to harass and oppress the whole population of the district.
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Gentleman is not in order; he is not confining himself to the matter before the House.
  MR. HAYDENsaid that, so far as he could understand, the writs were issued, and were about to be put in force, and unless the forces of the Crown were placed at the disposal of the Sheriff, it would be impossible to carry out the evictions. His wish was to connect the action of the Government with that. As far as he could recollect, pressure within the law was used by the present Chancellor of the Exchequer when he was Chief Secretary for Ireland, at the instance of Sir Redvers Buller, to prevent evictions; and if that could be done in those days, he thought the resources of the Chief Secretary should not be unequal to produce a similar pressure within the law, to prevent what would be undoubtedly a calamity. For these reasons, and for many others which it might not be in order for him to refer to, he desired, while seconding the Motion of his lion, friend, to urge on the Chief Secretary that it was his duty to interfere in this case, and that if he did not he would incur an awful responsibility which he might have serious reasons for not forgetting.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (MR. WYNDHAM,): It is my duty, of course, to invite the House to resist the Motion for the Adjournment; but I must confess, at the outset, that I am very much embarrassed as to the manner in which I shall properly discharge that duty, and as to how I am to keep in order. I wish to traverse almost every statement made by the hon. Member for South Tyrone, and I doubt whether it will be possible to
  608
  do that, and keep within the ruling which you, Sir, have properly laid down. I have been mystified during the whole of this day. When the hon. Member asked me this afternoon whether I was prepared to take any steps — similar steps, as I understood, to the steps which have been taken by the local Catholic clergy—and when, in consequence of my reply, the hon. Member asked leave to move the Adjournment of the House in consequence of the action of the Government, I lost my hold of the matter, and rose, in good faith, to a point of order. I thought the hon. Member meant the inaction of the Government. Though I did not believe that the Government had taken any action during the last few days which would justify the hon. Member in his Motion, I telegraphed to Ireland to ask whether some magistrate or police officer had taken any steps, but I find nothing of the kind has happened. The reply I received was that there was nothing of interest of recent date in connection with this estate; that the Members of Parliament who were engaged in organising the resistance of the tenants had been, and were, rather more active than they had been some time ago; and that 1 the evictions were expected to commence on the 7th. That was the answer I got; and I could not find that the Government had taken any action within the last few days that could have prompted the hon. Member to move the Adjournment of the House. I cannot reply to the greater part of the hon. Member's speech; but I do hold it to be a public misfortune that such a speech should go forth unanswered, as it would lead hon. Members and the public to form a very erroneous conclusion as to what was taking place on Lord De Freyne's estate. It is not the duty of hon. Members to be cognisant of all the facts; and many hon. Members opposite who cheered the hon. Member for South Tyrone inferred in their own minds that Lord De Freyne was a careless, arbitrary, harsh man. The general view is that the land difficulty in Ireland is caused by Saxon absentee landlords; but Lord De Freyne is an Irishman, a Roman Catholic, and a resident on his property; and he has taken his good or ill luck with the

  609
  people who live around him. The hon, Member for South Tyrone1 said that it this difficulty existed, and if the people were crowded on the soil, it was because at the time of the famine clearances were made. That was just what Lord De Freyne's ancestors did not do; and his difficulty is that they did not do it. The tenants on the estate are the descendants, of men whom Lord De Freyne's ancestors encouraged to multiply on the property. In those days, Irish landlords were often Members of this House, and they liked to have as many voters as they could. There is no charge against Lord Do Freyne's ancestors for having acted in that manner; and no one can contend that Lord De Freyne himself is responsible for any of the difficulties on this estate. Then it may be supposed perhaps that he had arbitrarily raised rents. On the contrary, the rents were not raised after the famine. They were lowered in 1852; and they were lowered again voluntarily by Lord De Freyne by 10 per cent, before the agitation of 1879. Then after the agitation of 1879–80 the estate went into the Courts and a reduction—not a low reduction as was suggested by the hon. Member, but a reduction of 27 per cent.—was added to the voluntary reduction of 10 per cent.; so that the rents have been reduced 37 per cent, in addition to the reduction after the famine. I feel it my duty to correct an impression, which I think, must undoubtedly have been made as to the voluntary action of this very landlord, and the action of laws passed by this House. It may be said, perhaps with truth, that some of the holdings on this estate will not support a man and his family in decency and comfort. That is true of many other places besides the property of Irish landlords, and why the whole burden of the day and all the animus of this attack should have been directed against this particular landlord, I cannot imagine for a moment. Why are not others to bear their part? Although I admit that Lord De Freyne's property is poor land, and that the holdings are small, owing to the cause I have stated, still, other people make money there. Some of the very persons who have organised the agitation of the tenants have made considerable sums of money. Mr. Webb, who has taken a
  610
  great part in the agitation, has made a great deal of money; Ballaghadereen can support 71 public-houses, and only a few years ago y. trading company was floated in Ballaghadereen with a capital of £25,000. But if the people on Lord De Freyne's estate are poor, and if that is a reason for ruining Lord De Freyne and his sons, why not others? Why are we to proceed in this matter on lines which have never been advocated in connection with poor districts in towns in this country, or of other instances of people unfortunately, and unhappily, being unable to provide that food and raiment which we should desire that they should have. What justification is there for this organised attack on this single landlord? That will be in order I think, although I was rather doubtful as to the mariner in which I led up to it. The challenge thrown out to me is, why does not the Government intervene? Sir, as I said this afternoon, I have no power to intervene. That is true. But even if I had the power ought I to intervene and exercise that power in a case of this kind? This attack on Lord De Freyne has been organised throughout. I deny that the tenants on the estate combined of their own free will and motion. The first idea of such action was thrown out by the hon. Member for Cork City at Westport, and he followed up his advice by a letter published at the end of September, in which he suggested that tenants throughout Ireland should offer as rent a sum equal to the instalments which were being paid by those who had purchased their holdings. No economic considerations could enter into a proposition of that kind. It was a deliberate attempt to override the law, and the rights of property. It was not to confer an immediate benefit on the persons to whom that advice was offered, but to produce confusion and alarm throughout the country. When that advice was acted on in a single instance, would any Government, worthy of the name, treat it as they would a case of strained relations between a landlord and his tenants. Would not the Government see that there, at all costs, the law should be given effect to; and that there, at all costs, they should, if they could, save these unfortunate tenants from acting on advice which could only lead

  611
  them to ruin. At any rate that is the view which I take of the duty of the Government; and that is why, even if I had the power to intervene, I should feel that I was rendering the very worst service to these tenants that any Govern-merit could render them, if I did intervene. My advice to them is to pay up. A great many of them, hundreds of them, have done so. A great many more have told Lord Do Freyne they would like to do so. It may be, unhappily, that after some months of a combination of this kind, the tenants have confided some of their money to what are called trustees, and have lost control over it, and it may be that under those unhappy conditions some of them cannot pay. The advice I would give them is to ask the trustees—the agitators—to return their money, and pay the costs out of it. I feel fully justified in tendering that advice, because it happens to be the very advice given to them by the local Catholic clergy. I understood from the hon. Member that he desired me, as the Minister responsible to this House, to ally myself with the local clergy, in order to make certain representations to the tenants. I hope they will take the advice which has been given to them. All through this struggle, the Bishop of Elphin, Dr. Clancy, has consistently advised the tenants that they were making a great mistake in taking part in this combination, and that they were morally wrong in endeavouring to get people into the combination and in withholding from them Christian charity. I will quote words used by the Bishop of Elphin on the 15th of May. Dr. Clancy, in driving to church, saw a scene which unhappily may be enacted again in a few days. He saw some cattle being seized, and with that sight before his eyes, and knowing that similar scenes were possible in the district, he declared it was a monstrous state of things that strangers and paid organisers should be sent into the district, and he protested against "these strolling organisers" who were only thinking of the salaries they could extract from their dupes, and not of the interests of the people. The Bishop said he had learned from one of his priests how the money which had been subscribed had been expended. In Ballaghdereen the priest had seen the hotel bill of one of
  612
  the organisers, and it amounted to £50 for a month. Then the Bishop, on the 25th of May, received a deputation from these very tenants. They were of two minds, lashed on as they were by the organisers to continue a resistance which they all knew to be hopeless. They came to the Bishop for advice, and he said that he had good authority for stating that Lord De Freyne would consent to no abatement; that the full rent should be paid; and that then lie might consider the question of cost. The Bishop added that Lord De Freyne had the landlords of Ireland at his back, and his advice to the tenants was to pay their rents, and not have themselves and their families thrown on the roadside. He instanced the cases of the Clanricarde and Lugga-curran tenants. There was an ironical cheer just now when I quoted the words of Dr. Clancy that Lord De Freyne was supported by other landlords. But why should he not be supported by other landlords? I have given my account of how this state of things came to exist. Perhaps on another occasion we shall have to discuss it at greater length; but, rightly or wrongly, the landlords of Ireland believe that this is a test case, and that Lord De Freyne has been selected for attack, because he is a poor man with a large family, and that being the case they have come to his assistance. But I have no official knowledge of these facts. Indeed, I never heard that the landlords of Ireland had come to Lord De Freyne's assistance until long after some of the facts brought forward by the hon. Member for South Tyrone had occurred. The hon. Member seems to have put the cart before the horse altogether. He seems to assume that the Landlord Combination was started before the Reduction of Rent Combination. A combination was started to obtain such a reduction as would have reduced Lord De Freyne to poverty, and then only the landlords came to his assistance. There is another point in connection with the remarks of the Bishop of Elphin. He wanted his flock to remember what had taken place on the Luggacurran and other Plan of Compaign estates. I noticed the other day that an hon. Member who has taken part in this agitation said that they had got the young men with them. That is possible.

  613
  Men who were boys in the old days would go into a business of this kind not knowing, as older men did, what trouble there was in 1887, 1888, and 1889, and not knowing, as older men knew, that the men who had fought that fight were left destitute, and not knowing the misery to which they were exposed. Support might be obtained from the young men; but I am amazed at the hon. Member for South Tyrone, who knows more of these things than any man in the House, and who yet, with the recrudescence of such horrors and evils before his eyes, can speak with an ambiguous voice. I do not say that the hon. Member did not introduce qualifications into his speech, but I do say that that speech will not tend to make the men who have joined this combination realise the evil fate which overtook their forerunners and which must overtake themselves. The only other point the hon. Gentleman urged directly was that the whole of this quarrel was due to the rule laid down by my predecessor, or myself, or by both. That, again, has no relation to the facts. I can understand, though I cannot approve, the attitude of hon. Members who sit in this House as Nationalists, and who wish to make the Government of Ireland impossible; who say they do not approve of our laws; who endeavour to bring about a social upheaval; and who are quite ready to go to prison. I cannot be expected to approve of 'that attitude which I think cannot be otherwise than mischievous to Ireland, but I can understand it. I do not, however, understand the hon. Member for South Tyrone, who has been the champion of law and order, and who has accused the forerunners of hon. Members opposite of being guilty o untruth and I know not what else, for advocating the very course which the hon. Member himself is now advocating—
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I wish to say that everything I said in regard to Lore De Freyne's estate was written by me in 1893, when I went across at the request of the Liberal Unionist Association to embarrass the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Montrose Burghs who was then Chief Secretary for Ireland.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The hon. Member was then engaged in embarrassing my
  614
  predecessor; he is now engaged in trying to embarrass me. But the hon. Member did not, in 1893, use language which would suggest that the people were morally justified or wisely advised in entering into combinations of this kind. Now let me test the hon. Member's accuracy. He says all the trouble is due to the rule laid down that the Government would not purchase an estate on which there had been an agitation. Did ho hon. Gentleman now say that there was a right to purchase in Ireland, not because it was expedient to purchase or assist to purchase, but because there was a right to purchase. In 1892 the hon. Gentleman argued on our side against this very contention, and in defending the Voluntary Purchase Acts he compared them with the rent-fixing Acts, and said that leaseholders had a right to a fair rent, but that purchase was not a right; and he added that the Irish tenant farmers could not come to this House and demand money as a right to purchase their holdings. Now the hon. Member says that farmers, more particularly farmers engaged in illegal agitation and combination, have that right; and that the Government who re fuse that right do so at their peril, and that they are guilty of unfairness and in justice in refusing this new-found right to persons who have combined in an illegal manner to put unfair pressure on the other party to the bargain. What has been said by my predecessor and myself is that the Government ought not to sanction by the use of imperial credit the completion of a bargain arrived at when one of the parties has been driven into it by the exercise of undue and illegal pressure. I am pre pared to defend that to the crack of doom. That is the point. It is not a question of purchase or sale. If a land lord cannot afford to take a particular price, are his tenants to combine, and is the adjournment of the House to be moved because the Government has not come in and joined an illegal combination to force the landlord to sell for a less sum of money than he can afford to take? That is not the end of the hon. Gentleman's inaccuracies. The tenants did not ask Lord De Freyne to sell. The tenants, acting on the unfortunate advice given to them, went to

  615
  him in a body and asked him to reduce their rents to the figure paid on another estate; and then, presumably if they wished, to force him to sell at sixteen years, purchase of the reduced rents. Are we really to be asked in all seriousness to join in a movement for taking 66 par cent. off a man's income who has not broken the laws and who, personally and by tradition from his ancestors, has always done his best for his tenants in circumstances which had unhappily proved unfortunate for him. There is no question of purchase or sale to my knowledge I read the other day in a local newspaper that probably Lord De Freyne would be prepared to take twenty-three years purchase, and that the tenants were ready to give twenty years purchase. If that is so the country has been kept for nine months in an uproar, ha; been taxed for an extra force of police, and some fourteen persons have been sent to prison, all over the question of throe years purchase. Then the adjournment of the House is moved, and the Government of the day is condemned because it did not prevent this gentleman from protecting his own property. One step further. It is not the rule which is responsible. The whole credit for purposes of this kind in Mayo and Roscommon has been exhausted by the purchase of the Dillon estate, and last session I brought in a Bill for doubling the credit available for this purpose. The House rose on the 17th of August, and by the end of September the hon. Member for Cork City was throwing his match on the heath, setting it alight, and causing all this mischief. It will be impossible to carry out the policy of purchase if it is to be interrupted in this manner by agitation, and if hon. Members, who have stood up for law and order, who have defended voluntary purchase, who have realised that it is a credit operation which ought not to be vitiated by legal pressure, are to join with those who say that it is their duty to render the Government of Ireland impossible.
  MR. CHARLES DOUGLAS: The circumstances in which this debate has taken place render it impossible that I should detain the House for more than a very few minutes. I wish to
  616
  say, however, that the inability of this House to deal at a critical moment with such a large question as this, is, in my mind, an indication of its inability to safeguard the affairs of Ireland. I do not wish to say anything whatever about the merits or intricacies of this particular dispute. Reference has been made by the hon. Member for South Tyrone to the fact that I visited this estate and the neighbouring estates, but I wish particularly to say that I would not presume, on account of a short visit of that sort, to express any opinion, or to try to impose any judgment of mine on the House. At the same time, I am free to say that that visit, short though it was, greatly increased my own personal interest in the question; and my own view is that it is of far-reaching importance in connection with the relations of this country to Ireland. I should like to state how the. matter appears to me, looked at from the point of view of a tenant on the Do Freyne estate; and how it seems to me that the action of the Government and the attitude of the right hon. Gentleman are not fitted to secure the best possible results, even in these unhappy circumstances. The tenant on the De Freyne estate sees a state of things which may well make him think seriously for himself and those about him. In a very large number of cases the tenants look at everything through an atmosphere of most grievous and burdensome poverty; and I am bound to say it was with sincere regret that I heard the right hon. Gentleman tonight appear to minimise the grievousness and burden-someness of that poverty. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of the public houses in Ballaghadereen, but these houses cannot be called public houses in the sense in which that word would be understood by the House of Commons and the British public. They are houses where a few bottles of whisky-are kept which are probably not opened from fair day to fair day, and the shop is mainly used for the sale of other commodities I regretted sincerely to hear the right hon. Gentleman appear to minimise the burden of the poverty in these districts, although I know he does not minimise it in his own mind. These people know that they are paying and are compelled to pay, a rent which is grossly excessive.
  MR. MACARTNEY: I ask, Sir, on a point of order, whether the economic condition of the De Freyne tenants is within your ruling; and whether, if the hon. Gentleman opposite discusses their inability to pay rent, we may be able to show specifically what their condition is.
  MR. SPEAKER: That question would not be in order. The right hon. Gentleman, by his observation, has, however, somewhat enlarged the scope of the debate.
  MR. CHARLES DOUGLAS: I will endeavour, Sir, not to trespass on your indulgence, but these men know that they are paying a rent which is not only more than the land will produce, but which has to be earned by themselves or their sons and daughters in this country or in America, and which is not really due on account of the land. That is as harsh and as oppressive a bargain as the bargains of money lenders, which this House has set aside. The tenant is not a free bargainer; his rent is the tribute he pays for the right of living where he must live; it is not at all analagous to rent in this country, and it cannot be treated as a private bargain. For my own part, I confess I feel curious to know upon what facts and data these bargains were ratified. I believe they have no foundation in economic facts, and that when the Land Commissioners were sent to fix rents they had to find rents, which wag as difficult as making bricks without straw.
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is now discussing the whole question of the policy of the Land Acts in Ireland.
  MR. CHARLES DOUGLAS: I bow to your ruling, Sir. My contention is that this is not a mere private arrangement, and that the Government has certainly added to the responsibility which it has in respect of the De Freyne estate by the purchase of a neighbouring estate. The moral foundations of the whole bargain have been undermined and destroyed by this action of the Government; and it is not now possible to regard the system against which the De Freyne tenants have struck as a real enduring arrangement. It is all
  618
  very well to talk about agitators; but these tenants are not slow or foolish. They think of very little except their land and the possibility of living on it. They see a change on the estate on which their neighbours live; and they cannot be expected to continue to respect the old bargain which the State has made for them, when one so much better has been made for others. It was inevitable that they should strike against the old arrangement when, looking across their boundary, they saw their neighbours with a reduction of rent, valuable improvements, increased holdings, and above all the prospect of ownership, which they value more than anything else. In such circumstances dissatisfaction was inevitable. For my part I wish to associate myself with what has been said by the hon. Member for South Tyrone about not desiring to make any sort of attack on Lord De Freyne. I think, from his own point of view, Lord De Freyne is a hardly used man. His rents were fixed by the Land Commission, he was not responsible for the new situation created by the purchase of the Dillon I estate, and it is for this country and this House to deal with that situation for which the Government was responsible. I would be very slow indeed to blame the Government for the purchase of the Dillon estate, but I would be more slow to wonder that discontent had been stirred up by it. I do regret that the Government and the right hon. Gentleman appear to have shown so very little sense of what the consequences of their action must be; and that they had been so little prepared to develop the situation in the only direction in which it admits of possible development. What is the ground on which the Government say they cannot intervene? It is that they will not act where there is agitation. Such expressions are shallow, and are not worthy of the right hon. Gentleman. Surely agitation is always an element in such a situation. To act only in response to agitation may he weak and criminally weak—we have done it too often in Ireland—but to let agitation deter or prevent you from action when you know there is just ground for acting is surely weaker still. The weakness of yielding may be bad, but the weakness of obstinacy is to my mind ten times worse. You will not effect a remedy where the evils are

  619
  greatest, but you will try that remedy in districts where the evils are less. Surely that is not the best way of dealing with what is admitted to be a hardship. If there is a remedy it ought to be applied in the district where it is most wanted. One impression of my visit to Ireland remains with me very strongly, and that is the anxiety and hope with which these poor people look forward to the action of British Members of this House; and it seems to me that that attitude imposes a dual responsibility on us. For my part I will vote for the Motion because I believe that this country should deal with the situation in the only way it can be dealt with, namely, by a great measure of purchase.
  MR. MACARTNEY: I feel in some difficulty in rising to speak on this Motion, because the ruling you, Sir, gave earlier in the evening, precludes me from going into the details of the De Freyne estate, and from specifically answering the assertions and insinuations of the hon. Member for South Tyrone. If it had been possible for me to do that, I should have hoped to have shown that almost every one of the hon. Member's statements in relation to this property, and to the character of the property, and to the condition of the tenants, especially the tenants involved in this combination and agitation, is grossly exaggerated. The hon. Gentleman spoke of this property as wretchedly poor property. He attempted to lead the House to believe that no economic rent existed upon it, and that the tenants were unable to pay any rent whatever. The facts of the cases are totally different. It is not necessary for me or for anyone who knows the property to urge on the House that it is a rich property. I do not for a moment say that; but it is far different to argue that there is no economic rent on it, or that the rents which were fixed by the Land Commission are of such a character as to make it impossible for the tenants to pay them. It is perfectly well known to every one who has any knowledge of t he De Freyne property, that the tenants would not have entered into this combination were it not that they became
  620
  the victims of those who find agitation a profitable occupation, and are able to spend £50 a month at a hotel in the district Why should the De Freyne tenants have entered into combination this year or last year? They had probably never been better off in their lives. The price of produce last year was uncommonly high, and the tenants were in a better position than they had been for ten years. The hon. Member for South Tyrone endeavoured to lead the House to believe that the average rent on the property is 17s. 6d. an acre. I am not prepared to say that there is no rent of 17s. 6d. per acre, but I am perfectly safe in saying that that sum is certainly three times the average rent paid per acre. The hon. Member said there was no economic rent on the estate, but there have been several instances in which tenants on the estate have sub-let part of their land for the season at an average of £4 per acre for crop, and at from £5 to £6 per acre for meadow. It cannot be contended for one moment that tenants who, when forced by process of law, were able to pay two years' rent and costs amounting to a very large sum, were not able originally to pay a single year's rent. Lord De Freyne made an offer to every one of the tenants that he was prepared to accept one year's rent and costs which had then been incurred, and which amounted to about £6 on the average. Why was his offer not accepted? Who raised the costs of these unfortunate victims? Not Lord De Freyne, but the solicitor to the combination, who forced Lord de Freyne into the superior Courts, to enter in every case a full statement of claim, and go through every formula demanded by the law, and then, after that, deserted the tenants, made no appearance, and left them, in 90 per cent. of cases, with costs of £45. I should have been glad to have heard more specific allegations made in support of this Motion by the hon. Member opposite. The hon. Member for North West Lanark has been shown over the estate by the hon. Member for South Tyrone, who is not yet a paid organiser of the United Irish League, and the hon. Member has come back imagining that a short visit, such as he has paid to the estate, enables him to set up as a judge as to the case of the tenants.
  MR. CHARLES DOUGLAS: I do not pretend to any such right. An the right hon. Gentleman has referred to the matter, I may say that I was glad to be accompanied over the estate by may hon. friend the Member for South Tyrone, but I also availed myself of the very great courtesy of Lord De Freyne's agent, who gave me his views of the matter in the friendliest way possible.
  MR. MACARTNEY: Then I am at a loss to understand the object of the hon. Gentleman's speech if he has not come to a conclusion as to the economic value of the property. It requires a far larger acquaintance with the capacity of Irish or any other soil to judge of its merits than can be obtained in a visit of a few hours. The hon. Member for South Tyrone has stated tonight that the Government have departed in the case of the De Freyne estate from the course of action which has invariably been pursued by previous administrations in cases of difficulty between landlord and tenant, and he has quoted the case of the Vandeleur estate. I believe what he says about that estate is correct, but he has certainly no foundation for saying that it was so in relation to the Olphert property, or the Dillon estate, or any of the other large estates in Ireland upon which considerable disturbances have eaten place in the past. I cannot conceive in a case like this, with the knowledge possessed by the Government in common with everybody else in Ireland of the relations between Lord De Freyne and his tenantry, under any possible view of the circumstances, any excuse whatever for the Government to intervene on behalf of a body of men who had, in my opinion, very unwisely and unfortunately allowed themselves to become the victims of what will turn out to be one of the most disastrous combinations, so far as they are concerned, that has ever taken place in Ireland. From such knowledge as I possess of the facts, I believe that Lord De Freyne will have nothing to fear from the fullest public investigation into the condition of everyone of his tenants, and the circumstances which have led to this dispute, and I am sure there is nothing that he and those associated with him would desire more than an opportunity of having the whole business fully and freely discussed in the House of Commons. It would be out of
  622
  order for me to go further into detail on the present occasion, but if the matter comes up again, I and others will be glad to assist the House in coming to a just conclusion with regard to what I, in common with everybody else who is interested in the condition of Irish tenants and the prosperity of the country, no matter how we differ as to the merits, must agree to be a most unfortunate state of affairs.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: The speech we have just hoard from the right hon. Gentleman opposite is of no importance, and I do not therefore intend to trouble the House or myself by replying to it. I desire to address myself for a few moments to the speech which was made by the Chief Secretary which, of course, is of importance inasmuch as he is the man responsible with full power for the Government of Ireland and for the maintenance of justice and law and order in that country. I remember when the right hon. Gentleman was appointed to the office he now holds, there were many people in Ireland who looked with hope to his future connection with the Government of that country. There were men who thought that they saw in his personal qualities, and also in his family connections, some reason to hope that his government of Ireland would be animated by sympathy for the people, and by large-minded ideas. I confess I was not one of those persons, and I think that nothing that has happened since the right hon. Gentleman went to Ireland will so completely dispel any idea of that kind as the speech to which we have just listened tonight. I have sat in this House for many years, and I have heard Chief Secretaries of various English Governments defending their system of rule in my country, but I confess I do not think I ever heard from any man in that position so trivial, so paltry, so flippant a speech as that to which we have listened tonight. Let me for a moment state to the House the position. Apart altogether from the question as to who is responsible—and I will deal with that in a moment—for the trouble on the De Freyne estate, at any rate here is the fact, that upon that estate there is a state of things at this moment which affects the very life of thousands of poor people, which menaces the public peace, and which

  623
  ought to engage the serious attention and anxiety of the man responsible for the government of that country. And yet we are told, in the first sentence almost, of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, that having telegraphed to Ireland — it not being a matter apparently from day to day under his personal observation, not being sufficiently important — having telegraphed to Ireland he has received the answer that nothing of interest—these were his words—had taken place on that estate within the last few days. When the House listened to that statement, did they know that within the last few days writs of possession have been put into the hands of the sheriff, which can be executed at any moment, the effect of the execution of which will be to drive from their homes a large number of tenants on this estate, and precipitate thereby immediately a state of things which will directly menace the public peace, and will entail untold misery and suffering upon men, women, and children in that district? Then the right hon. Gentleman tells the House of Commons that nothing of interest has taken place within the last few days! What advice had the right hon. Gentleman to give to ease the situation in this part of Ireland? Does he counsel moderation on the part of the landlords? Does he advise that measures of compromise should be put in operation? No. His only advice, addressing the tenants is, Let them pay up! A more flippant and unsympathetic speech with reference to a grave situation was never made by any man in this House responsible for the peace of Ireland. Who are these tenants that the right hon. Gentleman so flippantly says are to pay up? It is ridiculous for any man in this House to say that the De Freyne estate is anything else but one of the most poverty-stricken estates in Ireland or in the world. Every man who knows anything about the west of Ireland or the history of the land movement in that country, knows that the De Freyne estate is the home of thousands of wretched serfs, living upon little patches of cutaway bog, paying for those patches a rent that they are absolutely unable to wring from the soil. The hon. Gentleman opposite spoke of some tenants who
  624
  were paying large rents and living upon good land. Yes, the De Freyne estate is just like what the Dillon Estate was. It is composed of thousands of wretchedly poor serfs who cannot live upon the land, huddled together, upon the bog; but, at the same time, within eyesight of these people who are starving on the bog, there are large tracts of rich land from which their fathers have been driven, and which are congregated in the hands of a few individuals. The De Freyne estate is populated by people who cannot, and do not, earn their living from the land. How do they earn that living? Go in harvest time to the De Freyne estate, and the thing that will strike you first will be the utter absence of the able-bodied male population. You will find old and decrepit men and women, young women and children, but the young men will be absent. What are they doing? They are migratory labourers, working in the harvests of England and Scotland, and earning a few pounds to enable them to pay the rent for this land. These are the people to whom, in their distress, the Chief Secretary has no more sympathetic advice than that they should pay up—and pay up not only the rent, but the costs of £30 or £40 each, which have been incurred. Somebody asked who was responsible for those costs. I want to know who was responsible for bringing the wretched cottars off the bogs, whose rents amount to a very small sum, and dragging them into the Superior Courts in Dublin, where the costs were necessarily four or five or perhaps ten times greater than they would have been if they had been proceeded against in the ordinary courts. The Chief Secretary has spoken of Lord De Freyne as a landlord. He has told us that Lord De Freyne was not one of the exterminating landlords, and why? What proof has he of that? Because, he says, Lord De Freyne or his ancestors have rather encouraged the multiplication of tenants on his estate. Yes, he has encouraged the multiplication of tenants on the wretched and inhospitable bogs, but he has not encouraged the increase of the population on the rich pasture lands of the estate. As I have said, the people have been driven off these pasture lands and congregated in

  625
  congested districts upon the poor cutaway bog where they are found today. I know very little about Lord De Freyne. Years ago I used to know him as a lad, but I know very little about his personal action on the estate. It is no part of my duty to make any attack upon Lord De Freyne tonight. My attack, if it can be so called, is not upon him, but upon the Government, and the right hon. Gentleman responsible for the Government. The right hon. Gentleman says that these men should pay up. I say that a large portion of them cannot pay, and that if there had never been any political encouragement at all given to the combination on the estate, large numbers of the tenants could not have paid the rent, and that as a matter of fact there have been thousands and thousands of pounds of arrears on that estate hanging around the necks of these unfortunate tenants for many years past. The right hon. Gentleman says that he has no power to interfere. He goes further and says that even if he had the power be would not interfere. He asserts that this is not a voluntary combination on the part of the tenants, and he has quoted again a speech, and I think a letter of the hon. Member for Cork City on this subject. This is the second time in the absence of my hon. friend that he has made this accusation. Now I seriously accuse the right hon. Gentleman of unfair dealing, unfair argument, and unfair debate in this matter. He made this accusation against my hon. friend in the debate on the Address last January, and my hon. friend who was then, as now, to a large extent incapacitated from Parliamentary work by illness and was absent from the House, the moment he read the right hon. Gentleman's speech, replied to it in a letter, giving his answer to the accusation; and I say that for the right hon. Gentleman to repeat the accusation here tonight, and to carefully refrain from alluding by one word to the letter sent in answer, is not fair debating or fair treatment.
  MR. WYNDHAM: Is it alleged by the hon. and learned Member that I put words to the credit of the hon. Member for Cork that that hon. Member said he did not use?
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: I do not understand that interruption. I give the right hon. Gentleman credit for acute intelligence, and for having perfectly understood the charge I made against him. I say he made an accusation against my hon. friend last January in his absence. My hon. friend wrote a public letter in answer to him. Tonight he repeats the accusation, without alluding in one word to the answer from my hon. friend, and he does this again in his absence.
  MR. WYNDHAM: It is not an accusation to quote an hon. Member's words.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: It is an accusation. As a matter of fact, the right hon. Gentleman tonight did not quote the words. I do not know what this kind of interruption means. The right hon. Gentleman did not quote my hon. friend's words at all tonight. He stated that he was responsible for having deliberately started this De Freyne combination. That was the accusation made last January, and the accusation replied to in a public letter, and, ignoring the public letter, the right hon. Gentleman reproduces the accusation a second time, in the absence of my hon. friend, and notwithstanding this irrelevant interruption I again state that the right hon. Gentleman has not indulged in fair debate or fair conduct. Just one word with regard to this combination. I make the accusation against the Government that they are directly responsible for what has happened upon the De Freyne estate. There is an important authority for that. I will quote one of their own judges. Here is a statement made on 17th January last in Boyle, by County Court Judge O'Connor Morris. He says:—
  "There is a large and formidable combination in the Comity Roscommon. I allude to the combination of tenants on the De Freyne and Murphy estates not to pay their rents to the landlords. I say, without hesitation or fear, that they have a great and legitimate grievance. The tenants live close to the Dillon estate, and they see the tenants on the Dillon estate, without a particle of right, have received reductions that the De Freyne tenants have not received. One class is a favoured class, the other is not. The one class is the fat sheep and the other the lean goat, with the result that the tenants on the De Freyne and Murphy Estates arc discontented, and naturally discontented."

  627
  It is difficult to impress the facts of any Irish case upon the House of Commons. The Congested Districts Board purchased the Dillon Estate, parcelled out the large grazing lands of the estate into allotments, and enlarged the holdings of the poor tenants, and transformed this whole estate from one of disaffection and trouble into a little earthly paradise, where the tenants are comfortable and content. Because the tenants on the De Freyne estate respectfully put forward the plea that their circumstances were similar to those of the tenants on the Dillon Estate and ought to be treated in the same way—because they did that the Government came down to this House and declared that the Congested Districts Board, not only would not deal with the case now but would put their case at the very bottom of the list. In my opinion, that statement on the part of the Government explains and justifies the action of these tenants. I say that it is a monstrous thing that because a particular district, which from its peculiar circumstances is the most impoverished, because an estate ought to be dealt with sooner than any other, and because there is a movement amongst the tenants to obtain a settlement, that therefore the Government are to come down and say that that estate must be put at the bottom of the list. I charge the Government by this declaration with being directly responsible for the combination of the tenants upon the De Freyne Estate. But it is not merely that. The right hon. Gentlemen's whole attitude on the land question in Ireland ever since he went there has been of such a character as, in my opinion, to justify a combination of the tenants, not merely on the De Freyne Estate but generally throughout Ireland. The Chief Secretary has asked why agitation has been concentrated on the De Freyne Estate. I do not know. I want to see agitation not concentrated on one estate only, but spread all through the country, and then we shall see what sort of a Land Bill the right hon. Gentleman will introduce, when next year or the year after he comes down to the House with a serious state of things behind him to propose some settlement of this question. I know of no reason why a movement of this kind should be concentrated upon one estate. The right hon.
  628
  Gentleman claims for the landlords the right of combination. Why should they not combine? I do not complain of it. The hon. Gentleman who spoke before me alluded to the fact that Lord De Freyne is not standing alone, and that he has at his back a combination, or what under other circumstances would be called by the Attorney General for Ireland a criminal conspiracy on the part of the Irish landlords. If the tenants have made Lord De Freyne's case a test case, then the landlords are also going to make it a test case, and they are going to fight this matter out. I do not complain of that. They have a right to combine, and let them combine. But what I do claim from the Government is that the same measure of fair play should be meted out to the landlord combination as to the tenants' combination. The landlord combination has the blessing of the Chief Secretary standing at that box; it has his encouragement and good will and praises and his soft words. But what has the tenants' combination got? Why, imprisonment and persecution and harassments of every sort and kind. Every attempt on the part of the tenants to exercise the right of free speech is attacked and defeated by brute force by the Government. Every man connected with the combination of the tenants who has more influence than his fellows is arrested upon mere trumpery charges—
  MR. SPEAKER: This general indictment of the policy of the Government in Ireland is out of order on this Motion.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: I will try to confine myself within proper limits. [An HON. MEMBER: Oh, oh!] That is evidently beyond the power of the hon. Gentleman opposite. The Chief Secretary spoke of a landlords' combination, and he alluded to it as a reasonable and just thing, although he did not approve of it. I do not object to a landlords' combination, but I claim the same right for the tenants, and I claim that both should receive from the Executive and the law the same measure of fair play. I am not now speaking of Ireland generally, but of the particular matter brought forward by this Motion. Here you have a

  629
  tenants' combination on the De Freyne estate, and you have a landlords' combination. The latter receives from the Government praises and soft words, but the tenants' combination receives the full force of the Coercion Act at the disposal of the Government. Beyond that I do not want to go. I say to the right lion. Gentleman that it is in his power to inflict great injury and great suffering upon the Irish people. He has the power to do that, and it looks very much like as if he had made up his mind to exercise that power. But even if he had that power ten times over, he will find when he has done with Ireland that his power has not been effectual for crushing out of existence the combination of the tenants. And if the Chief Secretary pursues his present course, his name will go down, as other Chief Secretaries have done in the past, associated with disorder and misery and disaster in Ireland, followed under happier times after him by the redress of this very grievance which he scoffs at tonight.
  MR. EMMOTTsaid the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Antrim attempted to make fun of the hon. Member for North - West Lanark for posing as an authority upon this question on account of a few days' visit to this part of Ireland. But the hon. Member for North-West Lanark did nothing of the kind. He did not know whether his right hon. friend had visited the De Freyne estate.
  MR. MACARTNEY: Yes, I have.
  MR. EMMOTTsaid that those who had visited this estate had formed a very different opinion to that which was expressed by the right hon. Gentleman. Speaking as one of the British Members who accompanied the hon. Member for South Tyrone on his visit to the De Freyne estate, he thought if more British Members of the House of Commons would visit Ireland, and try and learn the facts for themselves, there would be a much better chance of Ireland receiving better treatment at their hands, and of this difficult problem being dealt with in a wider and a wiser manner. It seemed to him most remarkable that a Motion of this kind should have been moved by hon. his friend the Member for South
  630
  Tyrone. He remembered that years ago the hon. Member was the politician who was most dreaded by the Liberal Party as a platform speaker on behalf of Unionism. And now, by the force of circumstances, he had been driven to move a Motion so remarkable as the one which he had proposed upon this subject. He was not going to attack Lord De Freyne, whose rents had been fixed by a tribunal set up under the laws of this country, and he had a perfect right to expect to receive those rents. But when they came to look at the facts of the case, after visiting that estate as he had done recently, it was impossible to do so without being struck by the poor character of the land, and by the comparatively high rent which was being paid on that estate. The only way by which the rent was being paid was through the money which was being earned in England and Scotland by the tenants, and by liberal contributions sent over by members of their families who had gone to the United States of America. An estate like that ought to be dealt with by the Congested Districts Board. This Board appeared to have made up its mind not to take any action in the direction of purchase on an estate where an agitation was going on. Any one who knew the condition of the De Freyne tenants must wonder how it was possible that an agitation should not go on when two adjoining estates were treated in such a different way. It was plain that the present condition of affairs was intolerable. Either the Dillon estate should never have been purchased, or else the Government were bound to go further in this matter. The one remedy for all this was purchase. They must extend in Ireland the system of purchase, and he did not think they would ever settle this question without adopting the system of compulsory purchase all over Ireland. The Chief Secretary had stated that the landlords could not afford to take the price offered by the tenants, and that was the crux of the whole question. He thought that was a question which it was worth while to solve, and if they could solve it, they would have gone further than they had ever been able to do before towards making Ireland a loyal and peaceful part of the British Empire.
  MR. HEMPHILL: I rise under a great sense of responsibility because I can honestly say that I have had greater experience than any other hon. Member in this House of the condition of Ireland, both as regards the landlords and the tenants. During a very long life I have mixed with both classes in Ireland, and the conclusion at which I have arrived is that Ireland today is no further advanced and no more prosperous than she was some fifty or sixty years ago. I admit that there is in parts of Ireland, among some of the tenants, more material prosperity than there was, but, taking the country as a whole, commercially, educationally, and from every point of view on which the prosperity of a country can be gauged, I say deliberately that Ireland is behind the rest of Europe in the march of civilisation. What is the reason of this? The root of it all is the land system, and I am very glad that the hon. Member for South Tyrone has given this House an opportunity of learning what is the real condition of that country. I am not a member of the Party led by the eloquent Member for Waterford, and I am not attached to the Party of the hon. Member for South Tyrone: neither am I in sympathy with the views of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Antrim. Upon this question I stand alone in this House, and my only object is to induce hon. Members to see exactly what the condition of Ireland is without any exaggeration, and without any leaning on one side or the other. I have a great deal of sympathy for the landlords of Ireland, for they are now paying off the debts of their ancestors which have accrued in consequence of centuries of mismanagement and misgovernment. I do not pass the slightest reflection upon Lord De Freyne or any other landlord. Nevertheless, I do say that it is a great responsibility for any landlord in his position to come forward and evict the people of a whole country side, and, to achieve this end, to resort to the most expensive and cumbrous machinery within his reach. Every one of those cases which have been brought into the superior court might have been settled on a much cheaper scale. The Chief Secretary
  632
  himself ought to have some hereditary sympathy with the wrongs of that most interesting but most pathetic country. Has anyone any doubt that Lord De Freyne would never have resorted to bringing actions against all his tenants if he had not known that he had at his back the encouragement of Dublin Castle and the authorities there? I have no doubt that Lord De Freyne would never have resorted to this procedure if he had not known that he was backed up by a syndicate of powerful landlords, whose incomes did not depend upon rents from impoverished estates in Ireland. The present Government consisted practically of the same Ministers who supported the system of voluntary purchase in Ireland.
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The right hon. Gentleman is now entering into the past history of the Land Act in Ireland.
  MR. HEMPHILL: I had no intention of doing so, but I was endeavouring to point out that, if the Dillon estate had not been sold to the Congested Districts Board, this state of things would never have arisen. The purchase by the Congested Districts Board of the Dillon estate had rendered it impossible for the De Freyne tenants to take any other course than that which they have taken. It was not in human nature for tenants occupying land of the same quality in the same district, some of whom were paying 6s. 8d. per acre, and the other £1 per acre, to remain quiescent. This is where the Government are to blame. Having gone so far the Government should have resorted to all the powers which the law conferred upon them to purchase under the same authority, and the same conditions, the De Freyne estate, just as they had done in the case of the Dillon estate. That is where the right hon. Gentleman failed to defend himself. The House may not be aware, but it is a matter of great importance, that the very evils which are now illustrated on the Dillon and De Freyne estates existed in England centuries ago. There are on the Statute Book, statutes prohibiting in England the conversion of arable land into pasture. Anyone who is familiar with the history of the

  633
  statute law in the time of the Tudors, will know that I am stating facts, and that the foundation of the prosperity of England, and its freedom from agrarian agitation, dates from the period when the legislature interposed to prevent large grass farms being accumulated in the hand of individuals, and tillage farms being converted into extensive pastures. I congratulate the hon. Member for South Tyrone for having given the House an opportunity for this discussion, and I hope the Chief Secretary will exercise his influence with the Government to try to bring about that, which I do not hesitate to proclaim, is, in my opinion, the only chance of redeeming Ireland from its condition of disloyalty, discontent and poverty, namely, the compulsory purchase of land which will convert the present occupiers of the land into virtual owners in fee.
  MR. MACVEAGHsaid the hon. Member for South Antrim had twitted the hon. Member for North West Lanark with having an imperfect knowledge of the question. The House would be surprised to know that the hon. Member for North West Lanark had spent more time in one month in Roscommon than the right hon. Gentleman had done in his whole life. The right hon. Gentleman sad the hon. Member for South Tyrone was not a paid organiser of the United Irish League. Possibly the hon. Member for South Tyrone, who was quite able to take care of himself, did not think it necessary to offer serious attention to a sneer of that kind coming from the active and paid organiser of the Admiralty and the unpaid organiser of the Landlords' Union. If the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Antrim thought he had the sympathy of his own constituency in the course he was pursuing let him resign his seat simultaneously with the hon. Member for South Tyrone resigning his. When they went back to Ireland for re-election it would
  634
  be seen who had the confidence of the constituencies. In regard to the migratory labourers who came to England every year from the De Freyne estate he regretted that he could not give the exact number, but ho knew it was about 80 per cent. The right hon. Gentleman was a director of the London and North-Western Railway Company, and he should have no difficulty in ascertaining the number of men who came over to England.
  MR. MACARTNEYsaid he knew that, in connection with Roscommon and this estate, the number of migratory labourers was about 40 per 1,000.
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! This dispute as to the number of labourers who come to England has nothing to do with the question before the House.
  MR. MACVEAGHsaid he would not pursue the subject, but he might be permitted to say that the Statement which the right hon. Gentleman had just made was inaccurate. He was surprised to hear the eulogium which the Chief Secretary passed on Bishop Clancy. In 1886 and 1892, hon. Gentlemen who were now supporting the Chief Secretary held up the Irish bishops as vile and wicked slave-drivers and masters of the Irish people. When a bishop made an attack upon the National Organisation he was held up before the Irish people as a sort of patron saint, and he received premature canonisation. A few days ago he put a Question to the Chief Secretary with reference to a prosecution in Ireland, arising out of an Orange disturbance, and the right hon. Gentleman declined to make a statement upon it,

  635
  because the case was still sub judice. There was another case in which six Members of Parliament were charged with criminal conspiracy, and, although the case was still sub judice, the Chief Secretary got up and said that those men were engaged in organising resistance. He ventured to say that the conduct of the Chief Secretary in prejudging a case in which the Government themselves were a party was an abuse of the privileges of this House and an abuse of the position he occupied. The agitation on the De Freyne estate had not been manufactured. It was started by the people themselves, and was being conducted by a local committee, and the only connection which the National organisation had with the movement was that they sent a responsible man down to the spot, to prevent the movement being directed into channels which the Government and the landlords were longing for, and to save the people from seeking the wild justice of revenge. This social revolution was bloodless and crimeless. That was the proudest boast of the National Organisation, and that was the greatest obstacle which faced the landlords and the Government today. It had been alleged by the Chief Secretary that the Government had no responsibility for the convictions which were about to take place. They had already been informed by the hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh that the landlords had formed a combination for the purpose of crushing the tenants. The tenants had formed a combination for the purpose of securing fair terms from the landlords. What was the difference in the treatment of the two combinations? The combination of the landlords was not only winked at but encouraged by the Chief Secretary.
  636
  When the tenants combined against the landlords the Chief Secretary set up his Coercion Courts and put in prison the most respected local leaders. If the Government would cease to be rent collectors and allow the landlords to seek the same redress which other creditors had to seek they would have no responsibility for what the landlords were now doing. The Government had invoked all the force of the Coercion Act and were hastening to the help of men whoso "very names," as the London Times once said, "stink in the nostrils of Christendom." He had no hope at all that this House would lend a sympathetic ear to anything that could be said from the Irish Benches on the subject tonight. He had no doubt the mechanical majority would follow the Government now as on previous occasions. They heard last night a great deal about Christian charity. He would like hon. Members opposite to exercise some of that Christian charity when they voted for the cruel evictions that were now to take place. There was practical unanimity on this question in Ireland. The demand now being made from these Benches would be recognised in the House, probably like other concessions given to Ireland, when it was too late, and when the concession would be robbed of all its grace. Recently the Government had made peace in South Africa. It might have been a wise thing in this Coronation year to make peace with the people of Ireland. Instead of that they were continuing the policeman's baton and the plank bad as the emblems of British rule in Ireland.
  (11.53.) Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes, 132; Noes, 231. (Division List No. 262.)

  AYES.

  Abraham, William(Cork, N.E.)

  Horniman, Frederick John

  O'Mara, James

  Allan, Sir William (Gateshead)

  Humphreys-Owen, Arthur C.

  O'Shaughnessy, J. P.

  Allen, Chas. P.(Gloue, Stroud)

  Hutton, Alfred E. (Morley)

  O'Shee, James John

  Ambrose, Robert

  Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire)

  Jones, David Brymor(Swansea)

  Partington, Oswald

  Black, Alexander William

  Jones, William(Carnarv'nshire

  Paulton, James Mellor

  Boland, John

  Jordan, Jeremiah

  Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden)

  Bolton, Thomas Dolling

  Joyce, Michael

  Priestley, Arthur

  Broadhurst, Henry

  Brown, George M. (Edinburgh)

  Labonchere, Henry

  Rea, Russell

  Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson

  Lambert, George

  Reckitt, Harold James

  Bryce, Rt, Hon. James

  Langley, Batty

  Reddy, M.

  Burke, E. Haviland-

  Law, HughAlex.(Donegal, W.)

  Redmond, John E.(Waterford)

  Burns, John

  Layland-Barratt, Francis

  Redmond, William (Clare)

  Leamy, Edmund

  Rickett, J. Compton

  Caldwell, James

  Leese, Sir Joseph F(Accrington)

  Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

  Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

  Leigh, Sir Joseph

  Roberts, John H. (Denbighs)

  Causton, Richard Knight

  Levy, Maurice

  Robson, William Snowdon

  Channing, Francis Allston

  Lewis, John Herbert

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  Cremer, William Randal

  Lloyd-George, David

  Runciman, Walter

  Lough, Thomas

  Davies, Alfred (Carmarthen)

  Lundon, W.

  Schwann, Charles E.

  Delany, William

  Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)

  Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh.)

  MacDonnell, Dr. Mark A.

  Shaw, Thomas (Hawick B.)

  Donelan, Captain A.

  Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Doogan, P.C.

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

  Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah

  Spencer, Rt Hn C.R.(Northants

  Duncan, J. Hastings

  M'Arthur, William (Cornwall

  Stevenson, Francis S.

  Dunn, Sir William

  M'Crae, George

  Sullivan, Donal

  M'Kean, John

  Edwards, Frank

  M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North)

  Tennant, Harold John

  Elibank, Master of

  Markham, Arthur Basil

  Thomas, SirA.(Glamorgan, E.)

  Emmott, Alfred

  Morley, Charles (Breconshire)

  Thomas, DavidAlfred(Merthyr

  Evans, Sir Francis H.(Maidst'ne

  Morley, Rt. Hn. John(Montrose

  Thomas, F. Freeman-(Hastings

  Evans, Samuel T. (Glamorgan)

  Murphy, John

  Thomson, F. W. (York, W.R.)

  Tomkinson, James

  Flavin, Michael Joseph

  Nannetti, Joseph P.

  Toulmin, George

  Flynn, James Christopher

  Nolan, Col. John P.(Galway, N.)

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  Fuller, J. M. F.

  Nolau, Joseph (Louth, South)

  Tully, Jasper

  Norman, Henry

  Gladstone, Rt. Hn. H'rb't John

  Nussey, Thomas Willans

  White, George (Norfolk)

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

  Grant, Corrie

  O'Brien, James F. X. (Cork)

  Williams, Osmond (Merioneth

  Griffith, Ellis J.

  O'Brien, Kendal (Tipp'rary Mid

  Wilson, Henry J.(York, W.R.)

  O'Brien, Patrick (Knkenny)

  Wood, James

  Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Sir William

  O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.)

  Harmsworth, R. Leicester

  O'Connor, James(Wicklow, W.

  Young, Samuel

  Harwood, George

  O'Connor, T.P.(Liverpool)

  Hayne, Rt. Hon. CharlesSeale-

  O'Dowd, John

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—

  Helme, Norval Watson

  O'Kelly, James(Roscommon, N

  Mr. T. W. Russell and

  Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H.

  O'Malley, William

  Mr. Hayden.

  NOES.

  Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir Alex F.

  Bentinck, Lord Henry C.

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hn.J.(Birm.

  Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

  Bignold, Arthur

  Chamberlain, J. Austen(Wore'r

  Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel

  Bigwood, James

  Chapman, Edward

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

  Chairington, Spencer

  Arkwright, John Stanhope

  Bond, Edward

  Churchill, Winston Spencer

  Arnold-Forster, Hugh O.

  Boscawen, Arthur Griffith-

  Coghill, Douglas Harry

  Arrol, Sir William

  Bowles, Capt.H.F.(Middlesex)

  Cohen, Benjamin Louis

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Brassey, Albert

  Colomb, Sir John Charles Ready

  Bagot, Capt. Josceline FitzRoy

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

  Compton, Lord Alwyne

  Bailey, James (Walworth)

  Bull, William James

  Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

  Bain, Colonel James Robert

  Burdett-Coutts, W.

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Balcarres, Lord

  Butcher, John George

  Cox, Irwin Edward Bainbridge

  Balfour, Rt. Hn. A. J. (Manch'r

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

  Cranborne, Viscount

  Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey)

  Cavendish, R. F. (N. Lancs.)

  Cross, Herb, Shepherd (Bolton)

  Balfour, Rt Hn Gerald W(Leeds

  Cavendish, V.C.W.(Derbyshire

  Cubitt, Hon. Henry

  Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christch.

  Cayzer, Sir Charles William

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Banbury, Frederick George

  Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)

  Dalrymple, Sir Charles

  Beach, Rt Hn Sir Michael Hicks

  Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

  Davies, Sir Horatio D.(Chath'm

  638

  639

  Dickson, Charles Scott

  Hudson, George Bickersteth

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  Digby, John K. D. Wingfield-

  Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse

  Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

  Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph

  Jeffreys, Rt. Hon. Arthur Fred.

  Purvis, Robert

  Doughty, George

  Jessel, Captain Herbert Merton

  Randles, John S.

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Johnston, William (Belfast)

  Rankin, Sir James

  Doxford, Sir William Theodore

  Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop.

  Rattigan, Sir William Henry

  Duke, Henry Edward

  Keswick, William

  Ridley, Hon. M. W. (Stalyb'dge

  Dyke, Rt. Hn. Sir William Hart

  King, Sir Henry Seymour

  Ridley, S. Forde(BethnalGreen)

  Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton

  Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm.

  Ritchie, Rt. Hn. Chas. Thomson

  Faber, George Denison(York)

  Law, Andrew Bonar(Glasgow)

  Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield)

  Fellowes, Hon. Ailwyn Edward

  Lawrence, Joseph (Monmouth)

  Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)

  Fergusson, Rt Hn Sir J.(Manc'r

  Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool)

  Rolleston, Sir John F. L.

  Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst

  Lawson, John Grant

  Ropner, Colonel Robert

  Finch, George H.

  Lee, Arthur H. (Hants, Fareh'm

  Round, Rt. Hon. James

  Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne

  Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

  Rutherford, John

  Fisher, William Hayes

  Leigh-Bennett, Henry Currie

  Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford-

  Fison, Frederick William

  Llewellyn, Evan Henry

  Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander

  FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose-

  Loder, Gerald Walter Erskine

  Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.)

  Fitzroy, Hon. EdwardAlgernon

  Long, Col. Charles W.(Evesham

  Seely, Maj. J. E. B. (Isle of Wight

  Fletcher, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

  Long, Rt. Hn. Walter(Bristol, S.

  Seton-Karr, Henry

  Forster, Henry William

  Lonsdale, John Brownlee

  Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East

  Galloway, William Johnson

  Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft)

  Smith, JamesParker(Lanarks.

  Garfit, William

  Lucas, Reginald J. (Portsmouth

  Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand)

  Gibbs, HnA. G. H.(City of Lond.

  Lyttelton, Hon. Alfred

  Spear, John Ward

  Godson, SirAugustusFrederick

  Macartney, Rt. Hn WG Ellison

  Stanley, Hn. Arthur (Ormskirk

  Gordon, HnJ.E. (Elgin & Nairn

  Macdona, John Cumming

  Stanley, Lord (Lancs.)

  Gordon, J. (Londonderry, S.)

  MacIver, David (Liverpool)

  Stewart, Sir Mark J.M'Taggart

  Gore, Hn. G. R C. Ormsby-(Salop

  Maconocbie, A. W.

  Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.

  Gore, Hon. S. F. Ormsby-(Line

  M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

  Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley

  Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon

  M'lver, Sir Lewis (Edinb'rgh W

  Sturt, Hon. Humpbry Napier

  Goschen, Hon. George Joachim

  M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire)

  Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)

  Goulding, Edward Alfred

  Majendie, James A. H.

  Talbot, Rt. Hn. J.G.(Oxf'd Univ

  Graham, Henry Robert

  Manners, Lord Cecil

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Gray, Ernest (West Ham)

  Martin, Richard Biddulph

  Tomlin-on, Sir Wm. Edward M.

  Green, WalfordD.(Wedn'sbury

  Maxwell, W.J.H. (Dumfriessh.

  Tufnell, Lieut.-Col. Edward

  Greene, W. Raymond-(Cambs.)

  Mildmay, Francis Bingham

  Tuke, Sir John Batty

  Gretton, John

  Milner, Rt. Hn. Sir Frederick G.

  Valentia, Viscount

  Greville, Hon. Ronald

  Molesworth, Sir Lewis

  Wanklyn, James Leslie

  Groves, James Grimble

  Montagu, G. (Huntingdon)

  Warr, Augustus Frederick

  Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill

  Montagu, Hon. J. Scott (Hants

  Webb, Colonel William George

  Guthrie, Walter Murray

  Moon, Edward Robert Pacy

  Welby, Lt.-Col. A C E (Taunton

  Hain, Edward

  More, Robt. Jasper (Shropshire)

  Whiteley, H. (Asht'n und. Lyne

  Hall, Edward Marshall

  Morgan, DavidJ(Walth'mstow

  Whitmore, Charles Algernon

  Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F.

  Morrell, George Herbert

  Williams, Col. R. (Dorset)

  Hanbury, Rt. Hon. Robert W.

  Morrison, James Archibald

  Willox, Sir John Archibald

  Harris, Frederick Leverton

  Morton, Arthur H. A.(Deptford

  Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E.R.)

  Haslett, Sir James Horner

  Mount, William Arthur

  Wilson, J. W.(Worcestersh.N)

  Hatch, Krnest Frederick Geo.

  Muntz, Sir Philip A.

  Wilson-Todd, Wm. H. (Yorks.)

  Hay, Hon. Claude George

  Murray, RtHnAGraham(Bute

  Wodehouse, Rt. Bn. E. R.(Bath

  Heath, ArthurHoward (Hanley

  Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)

  Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart-

  Heath, James (Staffords. N.W.

  Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath

  Wrightson, Sir Thomas

  Helder, Augustus

  Myers, William Henry

  Wylie, Alexander

  Henderson, Sir Alexander

  Newdigate, Francis Alexander

  Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

  Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T.

  Nicol, Donald Ninian

  Wyndham-Quin, Major W. H.

  Higginbottom, S. W.

  O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens

  Yerburgh, Robert Armstrong

  Hoare, Sir Samuel

  Palmer, Walter (Salisbury)

  Hobhouse, Henry (Somerset, E.

  Parkes, Ebenezer

  Hogg, Lindsay

  Peel, Hn Wm. Robert Wellesley

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—

  Hope, J.F(Sheffield, Brightside

  Pilkington, Lieut.-Col. Richard

  Sir William Walrond and

  Houldsworth, Sir Wm. Henry

  Platt-Higgins, Frederick

  Mr. Anstruther.

  Howard, John(Kent, Faversh'm

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  BRITISH MUSEUM BILL [lords].
  Bead a second time, and committed for tomorrow.
  MUSICAL COPYRIGHT BILL [lords].
  As amended, considered. Bill read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.

  DAY INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS (IRELAND) BILL.
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Clause 1:—
  Committee report progress; to sit again upon Friday.
  Adjourned at ten minutes after Twelve o'clock.