§ THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WYNDHAM,) Dovermoved that this Bill be committed to the Standing Committee on Trade. He said he made this proposal on behalf of the Government in order that they might have some chance of fulfilling the pledges which had been made, and on account of the congested state of business in the House. He would be out of order if he referred to the merits of the Bill, or stated what action he would be able to take in accepting this or that Amendment on it. He might remind the House that during the passing of the Land Act last year he pledged the Government to do all in their power to pass a Labourers Bill this year. That pledge was given quite indifferently to hon. Members on either side of the House. They joined in a common interest in this matter. So far, so good. But the Government now found that some hon. Members who took a great interest in the labourers held that this Bill was almost worthless. He should have to demonstrate the contrary, but it would take time and there was no time for that at this stage of the session if they tried to deal with the Bill in Committee of the Whole House. What he would suggest was that the Bill 1095 should go upstairs to the Standing Committee, that the Government should consider all the Amendments from either side of the House, and that they should there discover whether this could be made a useful measure or no. If they did not take that course they would waste some of the very short time at their disposal, and, by so doing, prejudice the chances of any other Bill to which the Government had been equally committed, or committed in even a higher degree. He moved this Motion in the interest of Members on both sides of the House, who were agreed that something ought to be done.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Order [24th June] for Committee be read and discharged, and the Bill be committed to the Standing Committee on Trade, etc."—(Mr. Wyndham.)
MR. WILLIAM MOOKE (Antrim, N.)said he might be permitted at the beginning to make a proposal to the Chief Secretary, whose reply might very largely alter the attitude he and his friends took up on this subject. To enter into a discussion on the merits or demerits of the Bill would, he thought, be out of order. He was about to make a proposal the acceptance of which would, he thought, facilitate the passage of the Bill, and save the time about which the Chief Secretary was so anxious. There was one section of the Bill to which they had the greatest objection. It was not necessary to the machinery of the Bill that it should remain, and it was distinct from the rest of the Bill in its effects on the part of the country he and his friends represented. Before beginning to discuss the Motion, he wished to give the Chief Secretary an opportunity of saying how far he was prepared to meet them, and to tell him that if he would omit Section 13, which would entail a loss of £10,000 to Ulster, there would be little objection from that part of the House to reasonable Amendments from the other side. He did not think this an unreasonable proposal to make, and on the manner in which the Chief Secretary dealt with it depended their attitude on the Motion. He observed no sign of assent, and having made his proposal—
§ MR. WYNDHAMI only speak with the leave of the House, but if I indicated to the hon. Member the attitude the Government is prepared to take on this Amendment, all hon. Members who have Amendments in which they take interest would be entitled to ask similar Questions. I think there is a great deal to say on the matter raised by the hon. Member and on other matters, and I assure the House I shall approach the Amendments upstairs with a desire to do what is fair to all parties interested.
§ MR. WILLIAM MOOREsaid he quite understood the Chief Secretary's position. Still, it would have been quite possible for him to meet them on this point if he had so desired. He himself had held out the olive branch. [A NATIONALIST MEMBER: The Orange branch.] It had not been accepted. He had no option, therefore, but to point out to the House the reasons— and he thought they were weighty reasons—why they should do nothing to facilitate the passage of the Bill. The Chief Secretary had given as the reason for sending the Bill to Grand Committee that its passage would be facilitated. With regard to what had been said of the Bill that was to follow, he thought every cat must hang by its own tail, and whether the next Bill was an Irish, a Scotch, or an English Bill was immaterial to the question. The Bill was supposed to be the fulfilment of pledges given not only during last session but also in the King's Speech. As far as fulfilling those pledges was concerned they had no objection to raise. The question how far part of the Bill, not in fulfilment of the pledge, was a settlement of the question was another matter.
§ MR. SPEAKERThe hon. Member is now proceeding to discuss whether the Bill fulfils the pledges given in a previous session. That is not in order on this Motion.
§ MR. WILLIAM MOOREsaid he bowed to the ruling, but he would point out that the Bill was proposed for the purpose of settling the claims of a very large section of the community. This he thought a matter for the House of Commons itself. He remembered when 1097 the Land Act was introduced in 1902, and a similar proposal was made that it should go to a Grand Committee, the hon. Member for Waterford, on behalf of those associated with him, indignantly rejected such a proposal, and that action was, he was bound to say, justified, because next year a better Bill was the result. He should have liked to have heard from the Chief Secretary why a Bill which proposed to solve the land question should be dealt with by the House, and a Bill which proposed to solve the labourers' question sent to Grand Committee. He supposed it could not be argued that the claims of one section were not so important as the claims of the other. Therefore, he suggested that, whatever the state of the session, the House should keep the Bill for discussion. The Chief Secretary seemed to think it would be a public calamity if the Bill did not become law that session. That calamity, however, he and his friends could bear with equanimity, as would become more and more evident to the Chief Secretary as the discussion went on, whether the Bill was retained in the House or went to Committee. What would be saved? The Bill would certainly be amended—hon. Members opposite said that, though the Bill was not a good Bill now, they hoped by Amendments they could improve it. The Chief Secretary had announced, as he did on every occasion of Irish debate, his sympathy with all Irish views and his readiness to consider such Amendments from either side as might be brought before him. They knew the right hon. Gentleman would find himself in Committee with a majority of Members opposite, for English Members would not attend a Committee on an Irish Bill, and they all knew what would be the result of the Chief Secretary's sympathies. He thought, therefore, it would be very undesirable for them, objecting as they did to the contentious parts of the Bill, to let it get into such a stage. He was rather digressing from his argument, which was that the Bill would come back amended; and that would involve a j day's discussion in the House. He could assure the Chief Secretary that if ever it got through Grand Committee it would certainly occupy one day on Report.
1098 There was no particular enthusiasm for the Bill, and why it should be forced through, for really it was forcing it through to send it to Grand Committee, he could not understand. He could not see why the ordinary principles should be departed from, and why this matter of public legislation should have more than the ordinary chance of getting through. Another reason why the Bill should not go to Committee was that it was a highly contentious Bill, containing a proposal under which a large sum of money would be transferred from one part of Ireland to another. Again and again it had been urged in the House that they should retain in their own hands measures which were highly contentious. Moreover, if the Bill should be sent to the Grand Committee, hon. Members would be entitled to debate every line, every word, every provision. What that meant they had had a forcible example in proceedings on another Bill. He only referred to that Bill as an example of a contentious Bill which the machinery of the Grand Committee failed to carry through. If this Bill would be equally contentious and equally opposed, that was an argument against sending it to a Grand Committee. It was perfectly obvious that if two or three members of the Committee opposed the Bill—and he could promise that the opposition was not limited to two or three Members—after a fortnight the Chief Secretary would have to do as a brother Minister had done in the case of the Bill he had mentioned, namely, ask the permission of the Grand Committee to withdraw it. The Bill might endure for a fortnight before the Grand Committee and then the labours of the House would be lost. He had no desire to vex or annoy the Chief Secretary, but he should like to save him from the ignominy of being compelled to ask leave of the House to drop this darling god-child. He also objected to the Bill going to this Committee because the Committee was composed of business men who wer ecommercial princes and trade magnates, who could not be expected to possess a knowledge, indispensable in this case, of the labourers' question in Ireland. These gentlemen could not be expected to deal with the tangled skein of—
§ MR. SPEAKEROrder, order!
MR. WILLIAM MOOKEsaid that if he was not permitted to pursue that line of argument he would ask permission to be allowed to say that this was a lawyers' Bill. He would go farther and say it was an Irish lawyers 'Bill—a Bill which could only be understood by gentlemen who had experience of the working of the Labourers Acts in Ireland. In the Grand Committee he supposed that knowledge was not over-abundant, and that fact would not help to pass the measure. It was also unfortunate that a Bill involving so much contention and special knowledge should be thrown upon the Grand Committee at this time of the session. It really meant that the labours of the Committee would be futile. It was also a long one, and already there were eleven pages of Amendments. That showed its contentious nature and also the uselessness of sending it to a Grand Committee. If it received careful attention it would occupy at least a month of Parliamentary time. The number of Amendments would swell probably still more. Sending it to a Grand Committee might be regarded as a short way of dealing with the Bill, but short cuts were not always the shortest way of getting a Bill through. There were plenty of proposals in it on which Members on both sides of the House would agree, and he would suggest that the contentious subjects should be omitted and those on which there was agreement retained. The opposition to the Bill was such that the Chief Secretary could not expect to see it back from the Committee on Report stage under three weeks. But if his suggestion were adopted the progress of the Bill would be materially hastened.
§ MR. CHARLES CRAIG (Antrim, S.)said that he also behaved that the Bill should remain in this House on the ground that it contained contentious matter. He and his colleagues considered it to be their duty to oppose the Bill in the most strenuous way they could on account of the inclusion of Section 13, which robbed the measure of any value it might otherwise possess. But independent of that section, almost every clause contained matters of the greatest importance which should be thoroughly debated. A great reform was, for instance, proposed by transferring the powers at present exercised by the Local 1100 Government Board to the county councils. They were very inadequate and would require very drastic Amendment, and for that reason could be much better discussed in that House than in Committee. There was a very important and desirable Amendment dealing with the question of simplification of title, and which every lawyer in the House would admit required the very fullest and most careful consideration.
§ MR. SPEAKEROrder, order! The hon. Gentleman cannot discuss that subject at present.
§ MR. CHARLES CRAIGsaid he only meant to discuss the contentious subjects generally. Having regard to the question of the transfer of power from the Local Government Board to the county councils, to the technicalties of the measure, and to the difficulty of dealing with the many points which were bound to arise, he maintained that that House, and not the Committee, was the proper place in which to deal with the Bill. Even though there might be a consensus of opinion among Irish Members as to the desirability of making the changes, he did hope that the Chief Secretary would reconsider his position on the matter of sending the Bill to a Grand Committee. With regard to the particular Committee to which it was to be sent, he and others objected to a Bill of this kind, which was full of legal points from beginning to end, being sent to a Committee on Trade. The scope of this Committee was supposed to be confined to questions relating to trade, manufactures, and shipping. Nobody could contend that this Bill came within that purview. He trusted the House would carefully consider the question whether they would do right to agree to the Chief Secretary's Motion. He would appeal to the Chief Secretary to meet them in the matter of Clause 13.
§ MR. SPEAKERThat matter cannot be considered now.
§ MR. CHARLES CRAIGasked whether it would not be in order to say that the removal of a part of the Bill would take away a great deal of the objection which several hon. Members had to the measure. 1101 The Bill was contentious and the Chief Secretary knew where the contentious matter lay. If the right hon. Gentleman would assure them that this bone of contention would be removed, there was no doubt that the feeling of opposition to the Bill amongst Ulster Members would automatically disappear. They all agreed that the Bill was useful, but he believed that labourers would not be one whit worse off if the Bill were not passed. As long as it contained the contentious matter he had referred to, the opposition to the measure in the Grand Committee would be bound to be so great that a great deal of valuable time would be lost before the Bill could possibly get through. Was the Bill worth all this? Even with the best intentions, without erasing a great deal in the Bill, and building up a new one, they could do very little. There were some things which they would be glad and willing to see passed into law. The contentious matter, however, was so great that it was doubtful whether the Bill could ever become law. If this matter was removed, and only the innocuous and harmless matter left in, the measure might possibly do the labourers of Ireland some small good.
§ MR. T. W. RUSSELL (Tyrone, S.)said he had the great and unaccustomed felicity of agreeing with his colleagues from Ulster; that was to say he agreed with them in the conclusions which they had reached, but not with their arguments. The main objection he had to the Bill was in regard to its financial provisions, and if the Bill was referred to the Standing Committee on Trade or Law, it would be perfectly impossible to introduce Amendments bearing upon the financial question because such Amendments would be wholly out of order. He was a very old Member of the Standing Committee, and he had seen that ruling given over and over again; and if any alteration was to be made in the financial clauses of the Bill, the Bill would have to be re-committed to the Committee of the Whole House. That was his serious objection to the course proposed. The hon. and learned Member for Antrim had quoted the precedent of 1902 when the Chief Secretary introduced a Bill and expressed his willingness 1102 to send that Bill to a Standing Committee at the end of the session He contended that the hon. and learned Gentleman was not entitled to cite that as a precedent for the course now proposed. He was abused and held up to opprobrium in Ulster for having objected to that course being taken on the ground that he had spoiled the settlement of the question. He did not entertain any objection to the Bill per se going to a Standing Committee. He would have been glad to see it sent to a Standing Committee of all the Irish Members, and he believed it would have been admirably dealt with by such a Committee. Some Ulster Members had objected to the Bill going upstairs because it contained one clause with which they did not agree; that was a very weak ground for objection. He did not share it and he thought the House should not be frightened by the bogey held out that the Bill would be roughly treated in the Committee. After all, they had got to the month of July. What he meant to say was that the month of July did not conduce to the intelligent discussion of Bills upstairs. They had had complete proof of that in the present week. He knew that his opinion was shared to a large extent on the other side of the House that this was an inadequate Bill. The weak point of the Bill was in the financial clause, and he did not believe it could be amended in the Committee upstairs.
§ MR. WYNDHAMsaid there was precedent for that. It could be done by Section 18 of the Act of 1883.
§ MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid that if that was the case it simplified the matter considerably. But he persisted in his view that the financial question could not be discussed by the Committee. He did not object to Clause 13, or any other clause, going to the Committee if it were possible to do in the Committee what ought to be done with regard to the matter of finance. If that could be done he would vote for its going upstairs. Manifestly this Bill should go to the Standing Committee on Law and not on Trade. If the Chief Secretary could assure him that the question of the financial portion of the Bill could be thoroughly overhauled in 1103 the Standing Committee, his difficulty would be entirely removed and he would vote for its being committed. If that could not be done—and he believed it could not—he would vote against it. Unless they could deal with the financial part of the Bill it was absolutely useless,
§ and would mock the hopes and aspirations of the Irish nation.
§ Question put.
§ The House divided:—Ayes, 223; Noes, 10. (Division List No. 214.)
1105| AYES. | ||
| Abraham, William (Cork,N.E.) | Egerton Hon. A. de Tatton | Lucas, ReginaldJ.(Portsmouth) |
| Agg-Gardner, James Tynte | Fenwick, Charles | Lundon, W. |
| Anson, Sir William Reynell | Fergusson, Rt. Hn. SirJ.(Manc'r | Lyell, Charles Henry |
| Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John | Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst | Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred |
| Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hon. Sir H. | Finch, Rt. Hon. George H. | Maclver, David (Liverpool) |
| Bagot, Capt. Josceline FitzRoy | Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne | MacNeill, John Gordon Swift |
| Bailey, James (Walworth) | Fison, Frederick William | MacVeagh, Jeremiah |
| Bain, Colonel James Robert | FitzGerald, Sir RobertPenrose | M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool) |
| Baird, John George Alexander | Fitzroy, Hon. Edward Algernon | M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North) |
| Balcarres, Lord | Flannery, Sir Fortescue | Majendie, James A. H. |
| Baldwin, Alfred | Flavin, Michael Joseph | Massey-Mainwaring, Hn. W. F. |
| Balfour, Rt. Hon, A.J.(Manch'r | Flower, Sir Ernest | Maxwell, W.J.H. (Dumfriessh.) |
| Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey) | Flynn, James Christopher | Melville, Beresford Valentine |
| Balfour,Rt.HnGeraldW.(LeedS | Forster, Henry William | Middlemore, Jn. Throgmorton |
| Barran, Rowland Hirst | Furness, Sir Christopher | Mitchell, William (Burnley) |
| Bathurst, Hon. AllenBenjamin | Graham, Henry Robert | Montagu, G. (Huntingdon) |
| Bill, Charles | Grant, Corrie | Moon, Edward Robert Pacy |
| Blake, Edward | Gray, Ernest (West Ham) | Mooney, John J. |
| Blundell, Colonel Henry | Greene, Sir E. W(B'ry SEdm'nds | Morpeth, Viscount |
| Boland, John | Grenfell, William Henry | Morrell, George Herbert |
| Bond, Edward | Gretton, John | Morrison, James Archibald |
| Boscawen, Arthur Griffith | Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F. | Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C. |
| Brassey, Albert | Hare, Thomas Leigh | Murphy, John |
| Brigg, John | Hayden, John Patrick | Murray, Rt. Hon. A. G. (Bute) |
| Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John | Healy, Timothy Michael | Murray,Charles J. (Coventry) |
| Burke, E. Haviland- | Heaton, John Henniker | Murray, Col. Wyndham(Bath) |
| Burns, John | Helder, Augustus | Nannetti, Joseph P. |
| Burt, Thomas | Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H. | Nicholson, William Graham |
| Caldwell, James | Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South) |
| Cameron, Robert | Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T. | O'Brien, James F. X. (Cork) |
| Campbell, John (Armagh, S.) | Higham, John Sharpe | O'Brien,Kendal(Tipperary,Mid |
| Carson, Rt. Hon., Sir Edw. H. | Homer, Frederick William | O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) |
| Causton, Richard Knight | Horniman, Frederick John | O'Doherty, William |
| Cavendish, V.C.W.(Derbyshire | Hoult, Joseph | O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.) |
| Cayzer, Sir Charles William | Howard, J.(Midd., Tottenham) | O'Dowd, John |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Hudson, George Bickersteth | O'Kelly, James(Roscommon,N. |
| Chamberlain,RtHn.J.A.(Worc. | Johnstone, Heywood (Sussex) | Palmer, Walter (Salisbury |
| Chapman, Edward | Jordan, Jeremiah | Parkes, Ebenezer |
| Charrington, Spencer | Joyce, Michael | Parrott, William |
| Clancy, John Joseph | Kennaway, Rt.Hon.Sir John H. | Percy, Earl |
| Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. | Kennedy, VincentP. (Cavan,W. | Pilkington, Colonel Richard |
| Coddington, Sir William | Kenyon, Hon. Geo. T.(Denbigh) | Platt-Higgins, Frederick |
| Colomb, Rt. Hon. Sir John C. R. | Kerr, John | Plummer, Walter R |
| Condon, Thomas Joseph. | Kilbride, Denis | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp |
| Crean, Eugene | Kimber, Henry | Power, Patrick Joseph |
| Cross, Alexander (Glasgow) | King, Sir Henry Seymour | Price, Robert John |
| Crossley, Rt. Hon. Sir Savile | Knowles, Sir Lees | Pym, C. Guy |
| Cullinan, J. | Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow) | Rankin, Sir James |
| Davenport, William Bromley | Law, Hugh Alex.(Donegal, W.) | Reddy, M. |
| Delany, William | Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool | Redmond, John E. (Waterford) |
| Denny, Colonel | Lawson, JohnGrant(Yorks, N.R | Reid, James (Greenock) |
| Delvin, Chas. Ramsay (Galway | Layland-Barrat, Francis | Remnant, James Farquharson |
| Delvin, Joseph (Kilkenny, N.) | Leamy, Edmund | Renshaw, Sir Charles Bine |
| Dickson, Charles Scott | Lee, ArthurH.(Hants., Fareham | Renwick, George |
| Donelan, Captain A. | Lees, Sir Elliott (Pirkenhead) | Robertson, Herbert (Hackney) |
| Doogan, P. C. | Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage | Robinson, Brooke |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers | Leigh, Sir Joseph | Roe, Sir Thomas |
| Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark) | Leng, Sir John | Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert |
| Doxford, Sir William Theodore | Lockwood, Lieut.-Col. A. R. | Royds, Clement Molyneux |
| Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin | Long, Rt. Hn. Walter(Bristol, S) | Runciman, Walter |
| Dyke, Rt Hon. SirWilliam Hart | Loyd, Archie Kirkman | Rutherford, John (Lancashire) |
| Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) | Wilson, John (Falkirk) |
| Seton-Karr, Sir Henry | Thomas, DavidAlfred(Merthyr) | Wilson, J.W.(Worcestersh, N.) |
| Sharpe, William Edward T. | Thompson, Dr. EC(Monagh'n, N | Wilson-Todd, Sir W.H. (Yorks.) |
| Sheehan, Daniel Daniel | Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M. | Wood, James |
| Sheehy, David | Tuff, Charles | Woodhouse, SirJT.(Huddersf' d |
| Sinclair, Louis (Romford) | Valentia, Viscount | Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart |
| Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand) | Walker, Col. William Hall | Wrightson, Sir Thomas |
| Spear, John Ward | Wallace, Robert | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George |
| Stanhope, Hon. Philip James | Wanklyn, James Leslie | Yerburgh, Robert Armstrong |
| Stanley, Hon. Arthur(Ormskirk | Warde, Colonel C. E. | Young, Samuel |
| Stanley, Rt. Hon.Lord (Lancs.) | Welby, Sir Charles GE (Notts.) | |
| Stock, James Henry | Wharton, Rt. Hon. John Lloyd | Tellers for the Ayes—Sir |
| Stone, Sir Benjamin | Whitmore, Charles Algernon | Alexander Acland - Hood, |
| Stroyan, John | Wills, Sir Frederick | and Mr. Ailwyn Fellowes. |
| Sullivan, Donal | Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E.R.) | |
| NOES. | ||
| Clive, Captain Percy A. | O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens | Tellers for the Noes—Mr. |
| Corbett, T. L. (Down North) | Russell, T. W. | William Moore and Mr. |
| Craig, Charles Curtis(Antrim, S. | Saunderson, Rt. Hn. Col. Edw. J. | Lonsdale. |
| Harris, F. Leverton(Tynem'th) | Sloan, Thomas Henry | |
| Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall) | Tollemache, Henry James |