Commons Sitting of 20 February 1905

Preamble
The House met Two of the clock.
PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
  ABERDARE TRAMWAYS BILL.
  "To enable the Aberdare Urban District Council to make and maintain tramways and street improvements; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.
  ACCRINGTON CORPORATION BILL.
  "To authorise the Corporation of Accrington to construct and work tramways; to execute street works, and improvements; and to make further provision for the improvement, local government, and health of the borough of Accrington; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.
  ACCRINGTON DISTRICT GAS AND WATER BOARD BILL.
  "To authorise the Accrington District Gas and Water Board to make new waterworks; to extend their limits of supply for gas and water; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.
  ACTON SEWAGE BILL.
  "To authorise the Urban District Council of Acton to construct and maintain sewerage and sewage outfall works; and to make further provision for the admission of sewage into the Metropolitan Main Drainage System from a portion of the Urban District of Acton; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.
  ANDOVER LIGHTING AND POWER BILL.
  "For incorporating and conferring powers upon the Andover Lighting and Power Company; and for other purposes, presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  AYLESBURY GAS BILL.
  "For incorporating and conferring powers on the Aylesbury Gas Company,"presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  BAKER STREET AND WATERLOO RAILWAY BILL.
  "To confer further powers on the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway Company," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  BIRMINGHAM CORPORATION BILL.
  "To empower the Corporation of Birmingham to construct additional tramways; to make certain street works; to amend certain provisions of the Acts relating to their waterworks undertaking; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.

  BOLTON CORPORATION BILL.
  "To authorise the Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses of the borough of Bolton to

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  construct additional waterworks; to make street improvements; to confer upon them further powers with respect to the supply of electricity, streets, buildings, sewers, and drains, and with respect to the local government and health of the borough; to raise additional money; to make further provisions as to rates and rating in the borough; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.

  BOOTLE CORPORATION BILL.
  "To extend the borough of Bootle; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.
  BRENTWOOD GAS BILL.
  "For incorporating and conferring powers on the Brentwood Gas Company," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  BRISTOL CORPORATION BILL.
  "To empower the Corporation of Bristol to execute works; to make further provision for the improvement, health, local government, and finance of the city of Bristol; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.
  BROMPTON, CHATHAM, GILLINGHAM, AND ROCHESTER WATER BILL.
  "To confer further powers upon the Brompton, Chatham, Gillingham, and Rochester Waterworks Company; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  CENTRAL LONDON RAILWAY BILL.
  "To empower the Central London Railway Company to construct new railways; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

  CHANNEL FERRY RAILWAY AND QUAY BILL.
  "To incorporate the Channel Ferry Railway and Quay Company; and for
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  other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.

  CHARING CROSS, EUSTON, AND HAMP- STEAD RAILWAY BILL.
  "To confer further powers on the Charing Cross, Euston, and Hampstead Railway Company; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  CHELSEA ELECTRICITY SUPPLY BILL.
  "For providing for the extinction of the Founders" Shares of the Chelsea Electricity Supply Company (Limited), and the substitution there for of Ordinary Shares in the capital of that Company; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  CITY OF LONDON (ESCAPE FROM FIRE) BILL.
  "For the provision of means of escape from fire in and upon buildings within the City of London," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.
  CLAY CROSS RAILWAY (ABANDON- MENT) BILL.
  "For the abandonment of the Clay Cross Railway; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions: for Private Bills.
  COLNE CORPORATION BILL.
  "For making further and better provision in regard to the markets and the supply of gas, water, and electricity by the Corporation of Colne, and the improvement, health, and good government of the borough; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.

  CORK JUNCTION RAILWAYS BILL.
  "To incorporate the Cork Junction Railways Company, and for making railways in the county borough of Cork and in the East Riding of the county of Cork, and to confer working agreement, subscription, and other powers on certain existing railway companies and others;

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  and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

  CROYDON CORPORATION BILL.
  "To divide the West Ward of the county borough of Croydon, and to increase the number of aldermen and councillors; to authorise the Corporation of the borough to construct and work additional tramways, and to execute certain street improvements; to make further provision for the government and for the preservation of the health of the inhabitants of the borough; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time,
  CROYDON GAS BILL.
  "To provide for the transfer to the Croydon Gas Company of the undertaking of the Caterham and District Gas Company; to extend the limits of supply of the Croydon Gas Company; to authorise that Company to raise additional capital; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  DUBLIN CORPORATION (SUPERANNUA- TION) BILL.
  "To enable the Corporation of the City of Dublin to grant pensions or other superannuation allowances to artisans, workmen, labourers, and servants in their service, in certain cases; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.
  DUBLIN UNITED TRAMWAYS BILL.
  "To transfer the undertakings of the Dublin United Tramways Company and the Dublin Southern District Tramways Company to the Dublin United Tramways Company (1896), Limited, and to amend the Acts relating to those companies; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

  DUBLIN, WICKLOW, AND WEXFORD RAILWAY BILL.
  "To confer further powers on the Dublin, Wicklow, and Wexford Railway
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  Company in relation to their general undertaking, and their separate undertaking of the New Ross and Waterford Extension Railways; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

  BALING CORPORATION BILL.
  "To confer upon the Corporation of the borough of Ealing further powers with respect to their electric lighting undertaking, and with respect to the regulation of streets and buildings, sanitary matters, recreation grounds, and milk supply; and to vest in the Corporation the appointment of collectors of poor rates; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.
  EDGWARE AND HAMPSTEAD RAILWAY BILL.
  "To authorise a deviation of part of the Edgware and Hampstead Railway; and to confer further powers on the Edgware and Hampstead Railway Company; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  EPPING GAS BILL.
  "For incorporating and conferring powers on the Epping Gas Company; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  GAS LIGHT AND COKE, SOUTH METRO- POLITAN, AND COMMERCIAL GAS COM- PANIES BILL.
  "To amend the Acts relating to the Gas Light and Coke, South Metropolitan, and Commercial Gas Companies with regard to the testing of gas, procedure for forfeitures, and otherwise," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  GREAT BERKHAMPSTEAD GAS BILL.
  "For incorporating and conferring powers upon the Great Berkhampstead Gas Light and Coke Company; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  GREAT EASTERN RAILWAY BILL.
  "For conferring further powers on the Great Eastern Railway Company; for enabling the Great Northern and Great Eastern Joint Committee to acquire additional lands; for extending the periods limited for the completion of works by the Company, the Hertfordshire County Council, and the Epping Rural District Council, and for the purchase of lands by the Company; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first, time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  GREAT NORTHERN (IRELAND) AND MIDLAND RAILWAYS BILL.
  "To provide for the vesting of the undertaking of the Donegal Railway Company in the Midland Railway Company and in a Joint Committee of that Company and the Great Northern Railway Company (Ireland); to incorporate such Joint Committee and to transfer to that Committee certain of the powers of the Great Northern Railway Company (Ireland) in connection with the; undertaking of the Strabane and Letter-kenny Railway Company; to confer further powers upon the Great Northern; Railway Company (Ireland); and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  GREAT NORTHERN, PICCADILLY, AND BROMPTON RAILWAY (No. 1) BILL.
  "To confer further powers on the Great Northern, Piccadilly, and Brompton Railway Company." presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  GREAT NORTHERN, PICCADILLY, AND BROMPTON RAILWAY (No. 2) BILL.
  "To empower the Great Northern, Piccadilly, and Brompton Railway Company to construct new railways in extension of their authorised railways; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

  GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY BILL.
  "To authorise the construction of a bridge over the River Witham at Langrick Ferry, and to confer powers on the Great Northern Railway Company and
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  the county councils of the administrative counties of the parts of Lindsey and the parts of Holland, in the county of Lincoln, with reference thereto; to confer powers on the company with reference to certain footpaths and the purchase of lands; to confirm the purchase of certain lands by the Great Northern and Great Eastern Joint Committee; to extend the time limited for the completion of certain works and the purchase of certain lands by the company; to authorise the abandonment of certain authorised railways at Grantham; to empower the Horncastle Railway Company to raise further moneys by borrowing; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

  GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY (ADDITIONAL POWERS) BILL.
  "For conferring further powers upon the Great Western Railway Company in respect of their own undertaking, and upon that Company and the London and North Western Railway Company in respect of an undertaking in which they are jointly interested, and upon the Great Western and Metropolitan Railway Companies in respect of an undertaking in which they are jointly interested, for amalgamating the Wye Valley Railway Company and the Lambourn Valley Railway Company with the Great Western Railway Company; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  GREAT WESTERN RAILWAY (NEW RAILWAYS) BILL.
  "For empowering the Great Western Railway Company to construct new railways; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

  HALIFAX CORPORATION BILL.
  "To confer further powers on the Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses of the county borough of Halifax with respect to the disposal of liquid trade refuse; and for the construction of additional tramways and street widenings; and in regard to streets and buildings; and for

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  the health, local government, and improvement of the borough; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.

  HIGHAM AND HUNDRED OF HOO WATER BILL.
  "To empower the Higham and Hundred of Hoo Water Company to raise additional capital; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  HITCHIN AND DISTRICT GAS BILL.
  "For incorporating and conferring powers upon the Hitchin Gas Company. Limited; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  HULL, BARNSLEY, AND WEST RIDING JUNCTION RAILWAY AND DOCK BILL.
  "To extend the time for the purchase of lands and completion of works authorised by the Hull, Barnsley, and West Riding Junction Railway and Dock (South Yorkshire Extension Lines) Act, 1902; to amend the Acts relating to the Hull, Barnsley, and West Riding Junction Railway and Dock Company; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  ILFRACOMBE HARBOUR AND IMPROVEMENT BILL.
  "To confirm an agreement for the acquisition by the Ilfracombe Urban District Council of part and the lease (with an option of purchase) of the remainder of the Ilfracombe Pier and Harbour undertaking, including Lantern Hill and other lands held therewith; and to enable the Council to carry out street improvements; and to make further and better provision for the improvement, health, local government, and finance of the district; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.

  LIVERPOOL CORPORATION BILL.
  "For conferring on the Corporation of the City of Liverpool further powers for the protection of the public health; for the
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  better prevention of smoke nuisance, for the regulation of public meetings, and for licensing cattle drovers; for making provisions as to the acquisition of lands by the Corporation and as to the repayment of moneys borrowed by the Corporation for certain objects; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.

  LONDON AND NORTH WESTERN RAILWAY BILL.
  "For conferring further powers upon the London and North Western Railway Company in relation to their own undertaking and upon that Company, in conjunction with the Great Western Railway Company and the Furness Railway Company, in relation to their respective joint undertakings; and upon the North and South Western Junction Railway Company in respect of their undertaking and upon the London and North Western Railway Company in relation to the undertaking of the Dublin, Wicklow, and Wexford Railway Company; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  LONDON BUILDING ACTS (AMENDMENT) BILL.
  "To amend the Acts relating to buildings in London; to confer various powers on the London County Council; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.

  LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL.
  "To empower the London County Council to execute works and to acquire lands and utilise other lands; to make provisions with respect to milk supply and sale of food and drugs; to authorise the extension of Hampstead Heath and the exchange of lands in connection with parks, commons, and open spaces; to extend the time for the completion of certain authorised works; to provide for the licensing of employment agencies; to empower councils of metropolitan boroughs to supply electric fittings; to confer further powers upon the Council of the Metropolitan Borough of Battersea with respect to Latchmere Allotments;

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  to provide for contributions by the councils of metropolitan boroughs to expenditure by the London County Council; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.

  LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (TRAMWAYS) BILL.
  "To enable the London County Council to construct and work tramways in the County of London, and to deviate the authorised subway from Southampton Row to the Victoria Embankment; to extend the time limited for the completion of certain authorised tramways; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.
  LONDON GAS BILL.
  "To amend the Acts relating to the supply of gas in London, and to make further provisions with reference thereto," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.
  LONDON PORT AND DOCKS COM- MISSION BILL.
  "To constitute and incorporate a Commission for the administration of the Port of London and for transferring to the Commission the undertakings of certain dock companies and certain powers and duties of the Conservators of the River Thames and the Watermen"s Company; and for other purposes connected therewith," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.
  LONDON SOUTHERN TRAMWAYS BILL.
  "To authorise the use on the tramways of the London Southern Tramways Company of mechanical power and to empower that Company to purchase lands and construct works; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

  LONDON UNITED TRAMWAYS (EX- TENSION OF TIME) BILL.
  "To extend the time limited by the London United Tramways Act, 1901, and the London United Tramways Act, 1902, for the construction of tramways and the acquisition of lands,"
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  presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for private Bills.

  LOUGHBOROUGH CORPORATION BILL.
  "To extend the time limited for the construction of waterworks by the Loughborough Corporation Act, 1897, and to enable the Corporation to purchase further lands, and to borrow further moneys for their waterworks; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.
  METROPOLITAN ELECTRIC TRAMWAYS BILL.
  "To confer powers on the Metropolitan Electric Tramways, Limited, for widening and altering roads and acquiring lands in the county of Middlesex; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  METROPOLITAN PNEUMATIC DESPATCH BILL.
  "For incorporating the Metropolitan Pneumatic Despatch Company; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.
  MIDLAND RAILWAY BILL.
  "To confer additional powers upon the Midland Railway Company for the construction of works and the acquisition of lands; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  MORLEY CORPORATION BILL.
  "To confer further powers upon the Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses of the borough of Morley in relation to their water and electric lighting undertakings; and to make further provision in regard to the health, improvement, and good government of the said borough; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.

  NORTH EASTERN RAILWAY BILL.
  "To confer additional powers upon the North Eastern Railway Company for the construction of new railways,

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  dock works, and other works, and the acquisition of lands; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

  NORTH EASTERN RAILWAY (STEAM VESSELS) BILL.
  "To authorise the North Eastern Railway Company to own and use vessels for the conveyance of traffic between the ports of Hull and Goole and certain Continental ports, and to subscribe to the funds of steamship companies; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  NORTH EAST LONDON RAILWAY BILL.
  "For incorporating the North East London Railway Company, and for empowering them to construct railways from the City of London to Walthamstow, Epping Forest, Waltham Abbey, and Cheshunt; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.
  NORTH SUSSEX GAS BILL.
  "To incorporate the North Sussex Gas Company, and to enable that company to supply with gas certain parishes in the county of Sussex," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.
  NORWICH UNION LIFE INSURANCE SOCIETY BILL.
  "To alter the constitution of the Norwich Union Life Insurance Society by substituting a Memorandum and Articles of Association for its existing Laws and Regulations, and to repeal the Acts relating to such Society; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  NOTTINGHAM AND RETFORD RAILWAY BILL.
  "To extend the time for the purchase of lands for and the completion of railways authorised by the Nottingham and Retford Railway Act, 1902; to amend that Act in various respects; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

  OTLEY GAS AND IMPROVEMENT BILL.
  "To empower the Urban District Council of Otley to supply gas, and to
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  provide for the transfer of the undertaking of the Otley Gas Company to the Council, and to make further and better provision with regard to the improvement, health, local government, and finance of the district; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.

  RATHMINES AND RATHGAR EXTEN- SION AND IMPROVEMENT BILL.
  "To extend the boundaries of the Rathmines and Rathgar Urban District; to confer further powers on the Urban District Council of Rathmines and Rathgar with respect to streets and sanitary and other matters for the improvement and good government of their district; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.
  RHONDDA URBAN DISTRICT COUNCIL BILL.
  "To extend the time for the purchase of land and construction of waterworks, tramways, street widenings, and other works by the Rhondda Urban District Council; to authorise the Council to construct new gasworks; and to confer upon the Council further powers with regard to the health, improvement, and local government of the district; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second, time.
  ROTHERHAM, MALTBY, AND LAUGHTON RAILWAY BILL.
  "For incorporating the Rotherham, Maltby, and Laughton Railway Company, and authorising them to construct railways in the west riding of the county of York; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.
  SALE OF BREAD (LONDON) BILL.
  "To amend the Law relating to the Sale of Bread in the county of London; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.
  SEAHAM GAS BILL.
  "For incorporating and conferring powers on the Seaham Gas and Lighting Company, "presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  SHROPSHIRE AND WORCESTERSHIRE ELECTRIC POWER BILL.
  "To confer further powers upon the Shropshire and Worcestershire Electric Power Company; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.
  SKBGNESS WATER BILL.
  "To incorporate and confer powers upon the Skegness Water Company; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.
  SOUTHAMPTON AND WINCHESTER GREAT WESTERN JUNCTION RAILWAY (ABANDONMENT) BILL.
  "For the abandonment of the Southampton and Winchester Great Western Junction Railway," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  SOUTH METROPOLITAN GAS BILL.
  "To provide for the retirement of the gas referees appointed in relation to the testing of gas supplied in the Metropolis; to empower the South Metropolitan Gas Company to purchase lands; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  SOUTH OXFORDSHIRE WATER AND GAS BILL.
  "For incorporating and conferring powers on the South Oxfordshire Water and Gas Company," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  SOUTH SUBURBAN GAS BILL.
  "To alter the provisions of the Acts relating to the South Suburban Gas Company with respect to the illuminating power of gas supplied by them and the testing of gas; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  SOUTH WALES ELECTRICAL POWER DISTRIBUTION COMPANY BILL.
  "To transfer to and vest in the South Wales Electrical Power Distribution Company the undertaking of the Carmarthenshire Electric Power Company; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  STOCKPORT CORPORATION BILL.
  "To confer further powers upon the Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses of the county borough of Stockport with reference to the construction of waterworks and otherwise for the better local government and improvement of the borough; and to make provision with reference to the borrowing powers of the Corporation; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.
  SUNDERLAND AND SOUTH SHIELDS WATER BILL.
  "To authorise the Sunderland and South Shields Water Company to construct additional waterworks; to raise additional capital; to extend the limits of supply of the company; to confer further powers upon the company; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  SWANSEA CORPORATION BILL.
  "To make provision for the acquisition by the Mayor, Alderman, and Burgesses of the borough of Swansea of the undertaking of the Swansea Improvements and Tramways Company; and to confer further powers upon the said Mayor, Aldermen, and Burgesses in regard to their water undertaking; and the acquisition of lands for street improvements; and for other purposes," presented, and road the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.
  THAMES CONSERVANCY BILL.
  "To confer further money and other powers on the Conservators of the River Thames for the deepening, widening, and improvement of its bed and channel; to provide for the licensing of persons in charge of launches propelled by mechanical power on the River Thames; to amend the Thames Conservancy Act, 1894; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be road a second time.

  ULSTER AND CONNAUGHT LIGHT RAILWAYS BILL.
  "To authorise the Ulster and Connaught Light Railways Company to acquire additional lands; to extend the time limited by the Newry, Keady, and Tynan Light Railway Act, 1900,

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  and the Ulster and Connaught Light Railways Act, 1903, for the compulsory purchase of lands for the purposes thereof, and for the completion of the Railways thereby authorised; to sanction the purchase of the Bessbrook and Newry Railway; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

  WALKER AND WALLSEND UNION GAS BILL.
  "To empower the Walker and Wall-send Union Gas Company to acquire additional lands and construct additional works; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  WEYBRLDGE AND WALTON-UPON THAMES ELECTRIC SUPPLY BILL.
  "To confer further powers upon the Urban Electric Supply Company, Limited, with respect to their electric lighting undertakings in the urban districts of We bridge and Walton-on-Thames respectively; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  WHITECHAPEL AND BOW RAILWAY BILL.
  "To authorise the Whitechapel and Bow Railway Company to raise additional capital; and the London, Tilbury, and Southend and Metropolitan District Railway Companies to subscribe thereto; and to raise additional capital for that purpose; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  WOOLWICH BOROUGH COUNCIL BILL.
  "To authorise the Mayor, Aldermen, and Councillors of the Metropolitan Borough of Woolwich to widen Wickham Lane, Bexley, and to acquire lands for various purposes; and to confer upon the said Mayor, Aldermen, and Councillors further powers with respect to their electrical undertaking; and to make further provisions in regard to the health and government of the borough; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and ordered to be read a second time.
  WREXHAM GAS BILL.
  "For conferring further powers on the Wrexham Gaslight Company," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
  LEEDS CORPORATION (CONSOLIDATION) BILL (IN PURSUANCE OF STANDING ORDER OF 10th AUGUST, 1904).
  Read the first and second time, and (the Bill having been reported and considered in Session 1904 of Parliament) read the third time, and passed.
  PRIVATE LEGISLATION PROCEDURE (SCOTLAND) ACT, 1899.
  The Chairman of Ways and Means reported, That, after conferring with the Chairman of Committees of the House of Lords for the purpose of determining in which House of Parliament the respective Bills should be first considered, under the Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, they had determined that the following Bills should originate in the House of Lords, viz.—Clyde Navigation; Clyde Navigation (Reconstitution). Report to lie upon the Table.
PETITIONS.
  AGRICULTURAL RATES, CONGESTED DISTRICTS, AND BURGH LAND TAX RELIEF (SCOTLAND) ACT, 1896.
  Petition from Liddesdale, for continuance; to lie upon the Table.
  VOLUNTARY SCHOOLS ACT, 1897.
  Petition from Bristol, for alteration of Law; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  DIFFERENTIAL DUTIES.
  Copy presented, of Return of Differential Duties imposed, raised, reduced, or repealed in the years 1823, 1824, 1825, 1826, 1842, 1843, 1844, 1845, 1846, 1853, and 1860, stating (1) the rate of duty levied, and (2) the revenue derived from, and the quantities imported of, the articles concerned in the three years preceding and in the three years following such change [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  NAVY (APPROPRIATION ACCOUNT).
  Copy presented, of the Appropriation Account of the Navy for 1903–4, with the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor-General thereon, and upon the Store Accounts of the Navy [by Act]: to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 43.]
  NATIONAL DEBT (MILITARY SAVINGS BANKS).
  Account presented, of the dross Amount of all Moneys received and paid by the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt on account of the Fund for Military Savings Banks, from 19th September, 1845, to the 5th January, 1905 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 44.]
  ARMY (APPROPRIATION ACCOUNT).
  Copy presented, of the Appropriation Account for 1903–4, with the Report of the Comptroller and Auditor-General thereon, and upon the Store Accounts of the Army [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 45.]
  SUPERANNUATION ACT, 1884.
  Copy presented, of Treasury Minute, dated 16th February, 1905, declaring that Edward George Gausden, Labourer, Royal Laboratory, War Office, was appointed without a Civil Service certificate through inadvertence on the part of the head of his Department [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  PRISONS (ENGLAND AND WALES).
  Copy presented, of Draft Rules proposed to be made by the Secretary of State for the Home Department under the Prisons Acts, 1877 and 1898, with respect to the constitution of the Visiting Committee of Stafford Prison [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  TREATY SERIES (No. 3, 1905).
  Copy presented, of Agreements between the United Kingdom and France referring to arbitration the grant of the French flag to Muscat dhows. Signed at London, 13th October, 1904, and 13th January, 1905 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

  TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
  Copies presented, of Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Annual Series, Nos.
  582
  3324 and 3325 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

  STATISTICAL ABSTRACT (BRITISH EMPIRE).
  Copy presented, of Statistical Abstract for the British Empire in each year from 1889 to 1903. First Number [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  BANKRUPTCY (RULES).
  Copy presented, of General Rules, dated 5th January, 1905, in pursuance of Section 127 of The Bankruptcy Act, 1883 [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.

  PAPERS LAID UPON THE TABLE BY THE CLERK OF THE HOUSE.
  Inquiry into Charities (County of Wilts).—Further Return relative thereto [ordered 9th August, 1901; Mr. Griffith Boscawen]; to be printed. [No. 46.]
  Back of England.—Copy of all applications made by the First Lord of the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer to the Governor and Deputy Governor of the Bank of England for advances to Government authorised by Parliament, from 5th January, 1904, to 5th January, 1905 [by Act]; to be printed. [No. 47.]

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Plans of New Processional Road into Charing Cross.
  ME. WHITMORE (Chelsea): To ask the lion. Member for Chorley, as representing the First Commissioner of Works, whether he will have placed in the Tea Room plans showing how the opening of the Mall into Charing Cross will be carried out, and also drawings of any architectural features that are to form part of the general design.
  (Answered by Lord Balcarres.) These drawings will be placed in the Tea Room at the earliest date possible.

  Promotion and Retirement of Ab- stractor Clerks in the War Office.
  SIR THOMAS ESMONDS: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether, before replying to the Question put on August l5th last, † he was made aware that the calculation asked for in the cases of the three abstractor clerks
  † See (4) Debates, cxl., 559.

  583
  superannuated from the War Office at the respective ages of 60, 62, and 60, had been made by that office, and showed that £564 was the actual minimum loss that must be sustained by one of these clerks, owing to his being compulsorily I retired at 60 years of age while efficient and with less than 40 years of service; and whether, in view of the pension of £69 per annum granted to a clerk compulsorily retired in 1897 owing to acute incapacity, he will cause an open official inquiry into the treatment of the efficient clerks selected for beneficial promotion from temporary copyists, through which the State has so materially gained in money.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Arnold-Forster.) I regret I am unable to add to the ample information which has already been given to the hon. Baronet on this subject.

  Landing of Fish Illegally Trawled in the Moray Firth.
  ME. CROMBIE (Kincardineshire): To ask the Lord Advocate whether, in view of the recommendation by the Fishery Board for Scotland in favour of closing all ports in the Kingdom to fish illegally trawled in the Moray Firth, legislation to effect this purpose will be introduced this session.
  (Answered by Mr. Scott Dickson.) The Secretary for Scotland would be glad if the Law affecting the sale of fish caught by trawlers in the Moray Firth were identical in England with that prevailing I in Scotland, but on the question of legislation he will confer in the first instance with the President of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries.

  Imports of Sugar from Brazil.
  MR. BRIGHT: To ask the President of the Board of Trade what were the imports of sugar into this country from Brazil during the last three years; what are the total exports from this country to Brazil; and whether any communication has been received by His Majesty"s Government from the Brazilian Government with respect to the proposed exclusion of Brazilian sugar from this country by the Brussels Convention.
  (Answered by Mr. Gerald Balfour.) The imports of sugar from Brazil into the
  584
  United Kingdom during the last three years were:—1902, 578,030 cwts.; 1903, 78,761 cwts.; 1904, 84,301 cwts. The value of British exports from the United Kingdom to Brazil in 1904 was £5,867,701. The only communication received from the Brazilian Government with regard to the Sugar Convention is a copy of the despatch addressed to the Belgian Government, the purport of which is stated in the printed correspondence (Cd. 2349, p. 10).

  Construction of H M.S. "Orion."
  MR. J. F. HOPE: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty what steps are being taken towards the construction of the armoured cruiser "Orion."
  (Answered by Mr. Pretyman.) The information desired will be contained in the Explanatory Statement which will shortly be issued by the First Lord of the Admiralty with the Navy Estimates.

  Postal Facilities in the North of Ireland.
  MB. T. W. RUSSELL: To ask the Postmaster-General whether it is proposed to increase the postal facilities Detween the North of Ireland and England via Greenore; and if he will consider in connection with any such proposal the advisability of authorising letters to be carried from the stations on the Clogher Valley line by the afternoon trains, thus allowing replies to correspondence to be sent on the same day as the receipt thereof
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) I am considering the question of improving the mail service between England and the North of Ireland, and the desire of the residents in the Clogher Valley district to participate in any improvement shall receive attention before a decision is arrived at.

  Memorial of Belfast Postal Employees.
  MR. SLOAN: To ask the Postmaster-General if he can state on whose authority the postal superintendent at Belfast, on receipt of a memorial from individual members of the staff, questioned the memorialist as to whether or not assistance was secured by him in preparing the memorial, and demanded the name of the official who rendered such assistance; and was it with his sanction

  585
  that a male learner was recently severely reprimanded in the name of the Postmaster-General for hesitating to divulge the name of the individual to whom he was indebted under such circumstances.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) As I explained to the hon. Member in my letter of the 30th of November, the superintendent saw that the memorial to which he refers related to an instruction to the postmaster which had not been circulated to the staff, and he acted rightly under the postmaster"s authority in inquiring how information had been obtained in regard to instructions which were regarded, and properly regarded, as confidential. A male learner, who refused at first to answer these inquiries, was warned, under my authority, that such refusal was regarded as an act of insubordination.

  Learners in Belfast Post Office.
  MR. SLOAN: To ask the Postmaster-General if he can state why male learners at Belfast have been informed that they can no longer be relieved from school attendance after they have earned a full proficiency certificate; and whether, in view of the fact that this alteration of the rule involves their giving a four hours per day attendance gratuitously, he will cause an inquiry to be held into this matter.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) As I explained to the hon. Member very fully in my letter of the 30th November last, the instructions which had been issued giving the postmaster authority to excuse the learners at Belfast from further school attendance as soon as they were certified to be fully qualified were subsequently modified to the extent that the postmaster was authorised to use his own discretion in the interests of the learners and of the service as regards requiring a continuance of school attendance. It was found that regular daily practice is necessary to enable qualified learners to maintain their qualifications, and it is very undesirable, therefore, to excuse the fully qualified learners from further school attendance.

  Restrictions on Movement of Irish Swine.
  MR. DELANY: To ask the hon. Member for North Huntingdonshire, as representing
  586
  the Board of Agriculture, whether he will state (1) what steps were taken by the English Board of Agriculture, before issuing the recent Order imposing restrictions on the movement of Irish swine in this country, to ascertain the extent to which swine fever existed in Ireland; (2) whether the Irish Department of Agriculture was consulted; and, if so, what opinion was expressed by that Department; (3) and whether he can state the number of cases of swine fever which occurred in England and Ireland respectively during the year 1904 amongst pigs reared therein.
  MR. DELANY: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, (1) whether the Department of Agriculture made any representations to the English Board of Agriculture with reference to the recent Order of the latter body placing restrictions on the importations of Irish swine; (2) and whether, considering the importance of the pig-rearing industry to the poorer districts of Ireland, and in view of the fact that swine fever is practically nonexistent in the country, he will take steps to have the Order revoked.
  (Answered by Mr. Ailwyn Fellowes.) Perhaps I may be allowed to include in my reply an Answer to the hon. Member"s Question addressed to my right hon. friend the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. The Board were in frequent communication with the Irish Department of Agriculture prior to the passing of the Order to which the hon. Member refers, and they gave the fullest consideration to the desire expressed by the Department that if possible the imposition of any restrictions on the movement of swine from Ireland into Great Britain should be avoided. The number of outbreaks which occurred in Great Britain and Ireland last year was 1,196 and 182 respectively, but the figures are not in any way comparable, the definition of an outbreak differing materially in the two countries. I may add that the recent action of the Board was founded upon the fact that in Ireland no precautionary measures are taken against the movement of diseased swine or of swine which may have been exposed to infection, such as those which have been adopted with so much success in

  587
  Great Britain. Experience has shown that the Board cannot, consistently with safety against the introduction of disease, accord more favourable treatment to Irish swine than is allowed in the case of pigs moved from one part of Great Britain to another.

  Dir and Nowagai,
  SIR BRAMPTON GURDON: To ask the Secretary of State for India what is the distance by road from the British-Indian frontier to the chief town of the Khan of Dir; whether the movable column, under orders to proceed from Malakshand to intervene between that Chief and the Khan of Nowagai, has already marched; and whether the Khan of Dir receives any subsidy from the Indian Government.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) The distance from Dargai to Dir is about ninety miles. At the end of December a movable column was ordered to be in readiness to move to Chandara if required, but I have received no information that the necessity has arisen. In 1895 an agreement was made with the father of the present Nawab of Dir under which, in return for certain services, he received a subsidy of Rs. 10,000 a year. The present Nawab has been recognised by the Government of India, and presumably the arrangement with his father holds good.

  The Lucan Estate.
  DR. AMBROSE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland what extent of the Lucan Estate, in the Westport Union, has been sold to the Congested Districts Board from 1898 to the present date; what is the amount of the acreage which has been distributed amongst tenants for the relief of congestion during that time; what is the number of acres in the hands of the Congested Districts Board; what is the cause of the delay in the distribution of the portion in the hands of the Board, and whether, considering the distress prevailing in the Westport Union at present, he will urge the Board to commence the distribution of such lands at once.
  (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) In 1899 the Congested Districts Board agreed
  588
  to purchase from Lord Lucan 233 acres in the Westport Union, which were conveyed to the Board in December, 1904, and are now in the occupation of nine tenants. In 1900 the Board agreed to buy 355 acres in the same union, and in 1903 a further lot of 37,535 acres from Lord Bingham on the same estate in the union. The fee of the second lot, 355 acres, was conveyed to the Board in December, 1904, but the land is still in the occupation of Lord Lucan"s tenant, who is now under notice to quit. Owing to the change of procedure caused by the Land Act of 1903 the last lot, 37,535 acres, has not yet been conveyed to the Board, but it is expected it will be conveyed a couple of months hence. There is, consequently, no part of the estate in the Westport Union in the occupation of the Board at present.

  Distress in Achill Island.
  DR. AMBROSE: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will use his influence with the Congested Districts Board with a view to inducing that Board to start relief works in Achill Island, in order to enable the inhabitants of the island to tide over the distress caused by the failure of the crops.
  (Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) The Congested Districts Board is not authorised to undertake works for the relief of distress. This is the function of the Guardians of the Westport Union, who have prepared schemes for the purpose and will, I understand, submit them to the Local Government Board in the course of a few days.

  Strength of Metropolitan Volunteer Regiments.
  SIR HOWARD VINCENT: To ask the Secretary of State for War what was the strength in officers and members, excluding cadets, on 31st January, 1905, of each of the following corps of Metropolitan Volunteers, namely: Queen"s Westminsters, London Scottish, Artists, Civil Service, St. George"s, London Rifle Brigade, London Irish, and Inns of Court; how it compares with 31st January, 1902, 1903, and 1904; and by how many officers and Volunteers these eight corps are now short of their establishment.

  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Arnold-Forster.) The figures available are as follows:—

  Strength on

  Establishment on 1/1/05.

  Short of Establishment.

  1/1/02.

  1/1/03.

  1/1/04.

  1/1/05.

  13th Middlesex Vol. Rifle Corps (Queens)

  Officers

  55

  56

  50

  47

  60

  13

  N.C.O.s and men

  1,639

  1,526

  1,284

  1,027

  1,825

  798

  Total

  1,694

  1,582

  1,334

  1,074

  1,885

  811

  7th Middlesex (London Scottish)

  Officers

  36

  36

  33

  33

  33

  —

  N.C.O.s and men

  863

  813

  667

  580

  1,127

  547

  Total

  999

  849

  700

  613

  1,160

  547

  20th Middlesex (Artists)

  Officers

  42

  38

  35

  31

  43

  12

  N.C.O.s and men

  978

  735

  559

  490

  1,353

  863

  Total

  1,020

  773

  594

  521

  1,396

  875

  12th Middlesex (Civil Service)

  Officers

  37

  33

  34

  35

  36

  1

  N.C.O.s and men

  848

  740

  632*

  690†

  1,128

  438

  Total

  885

  773

  666

  725

  1,164

  439

  1st Middlesex (Victoria and St. George's)

  Officers

  37

  35

  26

  29

  38

  9

  N.C.O.s and men

  836

  782

  605

  508

  1,151

  643

  Total

  873

  817

  631

  537

  1,189

  652

  1st London (London Rifle Brigade)

  Officers

  45

  39

  33

  28

  40

  12

  N.C.O.s and men

  912

  741

  605

  516

  1,352

  836

  Total

  957

  780

  638

  544

  1,392

  848

  16th Middlesex (London Irish)

  Officers

  35

  29

  26

  26

  43

  17

  N.C.O.s and men

  1,035

  873

  678

  634

  1,353

  719

  Total

  1,070

  902

  704

  660

  1,396

  736

  14th Middlesex (Inns of Court)

  Officers

  31

  29

  28

  26

  33

  7

  N.C.O.s and men

  677

  549

  451

  402

  924

  522

  Total

  708

  578

  479

  428

  957

  529

  * Including 34 Cadets who are enrolled Volunteers.

  †Including 107 Cadets who are enrolled Volunteers.

  Embargo on Canadian Cattle Importation.
  SIR JOHN LENG: To ask the hon. Member for North Huntingdonshire, as representing the Board of Agriculture, whether the Home Government has received a despatch from the Governor-General of the Dominion of Canada complaining of a misapprehension of Canadian opinion by the British Minister of Agriculture regarding the embargo on the importation of Canadian cattle; if so, whether an answer has been sent to that despatch, and whether copies of the despatches can be laid upon the Table of the House.
  (Answered by Mr. Ailwyn Fettowes.) I would refer the hon. Member to my reply to the hon. Member for East Perthshire on the 16th inst., † in which I stated that we had been assured by the Canadian Government that public feeling and opinion in the Dominion were still in favour of the repeal of the existing statutory restrictions on the importation of live animals into this country, so far as Canadian cattle are concerned. A suitable acknowledgment has been sent, but we do not think that the publication of the correspondence is necessary, especially in view of the communication to the Press, recently issued by the High Commissioner, which fully sets out the views of his Government on the subject.

  Revenue of the Transvaal and Orange River Colony.
  MR. BUCHANAN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies what are the figures of revenue and expenditure of the Transvaal and Orange River Colony respectively for the six months ending 31st December, 1904, and the estimated figures to 30th June, 1905, also the Inter-Colonial revenue and expenditure for the same periods.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Lyttelton.) The ordinary revenue of the Transvaal for the six months ending on the 31st of December was £1,865,000, and the ordinary expenditure £1,911,000, which includes a contribution of £500,000 to the Inter-Colonial Council. Figures for the Orange River Colony have not yet reached me for a later period than the five
  † See page 320.
  592
  months ended on the 30th of November For that period the ordinary revenue of the colony was £303,000, and the expenditure £287,000, including a contribution of £30,000 to the Inter-Colonial Council. The ordinary revenue and expenditure of the Inter-Colonial Council for the six months ending on the 31st of December were £1,247,000 and £1,219,000 respectively. The Estimates for the twelve months ending on 30th June, 1905, were as follows—

  Transvaal.

  Orange River Colony.

  Inter Colonial Council.

  £

  £

  £

  Revenue

  4,283,000

  771,700

  2,586,000

  Expenditure

  4,157,000

  760,000

  2,588,000

QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

  Ullapool Royal Naval Reserve Station.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he will state what progress has been made with the establishment of a Royal Naval Reserve Station at Ullapool, Ross-shire.
  THE CIVIL LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. ARTHUR LEE,): The site for this station has been obtained; contract particulars are ready, and tenders are being invited. The work will be commenced immediately upon the acceptance of the tender.

  Board of Admiralty Administration.
  SIR JOHN COLOMB: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether any changes have recently been made in the system of administration or the distribution of business and responsibilities among members of the Board of Admiralty and heads of departments; and, if so, whether he will lay upon the Table a statement showing the new system and that which it superseded or altered.
  THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. PRETYMAN,): A statement showing the present distribution of business between the

  593
  various members of the Board of Admiralty, and that which it superseded, is now being printed, and will shortly be laid upon the Table of the House. There have been no important changes in respect to the business and responsibilities of heads of departments.

  The New Rifle.
  SIR JOHN COLOMB: I beg , to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the adoption of the short rifle for general use of the Army was sanctioned and approved by the Commander-in-Chief before the abolition of that office.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. ARNOLD-FORSTER,): Yes, Sir. In 1901 the Commander-in-Chief decided that it was most important that the manufacture of the modified shortened Lee-Enfield Rifle should be proceeded with without delay.

  Automatic Fuse Setters.
  MR. SOAMES: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he has any information whether an automatic fuse setter is in use in any Continental armies; and whether such a fitting will be supplied with the new 18-pounder guns to the British Army.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: Various forms of fuse setters are in use in some of the Continental armies. The question has received and is still receiving attention in regard to the new Horse and Field Artillery equipments, but a pattern has not yet been decided on.

  15-Pounder Breech-Loading Guns.
  MR. SOAMES: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he can state when the 15-pounder breech-loading guns, Mark I., were issued; how many batteries are still armed with them; and whether the new guns will first be issued to those batteries which are armed with the oldest types of guns.
  MR. ARNOLD - FORSTER: The first issue of the Mark I. guns was made in 1883, and seventy batteries are still armed with guns of that issue. It is not possible at the present moment to state Definitely which batteries it will be found
  594
  expedient to re-arm first with the new guns.

  Shooting of Private Mahon at Pekin.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL): I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that Private Mahon, of the 1st Derby Regiment, was shot dead in Legation Street, Pekin, in June last, by a non-commissioned officer of his own regiment, and that his death under these circumstances was the subject, not of a trial by Court-martial, but of investigation by a Court of inquiry conducted with secrecy, an order having been given by the Commanding Officer that any man speaking about the shooting of Private Mahon would be brought up for trial by a district Court-martial; whether the War Office authorities can give any explanation of the method of investigation thus adopted; and whether, having regard to the suspicion entertained by his Irish comrades that this man"s death was not the result of misadventure, and the method of investigation adopted, steps will be taken to obtain an explanation from the Commanding Officer of his conduct in this matter, and a publie and impartial investigation of the manner in which Private Mahon lost his life.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: This man was shot at Pekin by a non-commissioned officer of his own regiment, forming part of a mixed patrol, on 26th August last. The man had armed himself with a rifle and bayonet, had wounded two Chinamen, and had threatened violence to a British officer. He refused to surrender to the patrol and threatened them. The patrol then fired in self defence. A court of inquiry was, by orders of the officer commanding the troops at Pekin, held in conformity with the rules of procedure under the Army Act. The holding of this Court was in accordance with the law and the custom of the service. The proceedings of the Court were submitted to the General Officer Commanding the troops in North China, who considered that the action of the patrol was justified. In these circumstances no Court-martial is necessary. Nothing is known of any suspicions entertained by the Irish comrades of the deceased as suggested in the Question, and I can assure the hon. Member that there are no grounds

  595
  whatever for entertaining the belief that the death occurred otherwise than as stated above.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Why has the Commanding Officer given orders to Court-martial any man in the regiment who presumes to speak about this Irish soldier"s death?
  ME. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I have no information of that.

  Cost of the South African Garrison.
  MR. WHITLEY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he can state the number and annual cost of the troops at present maintained in the Transvaal and Orange River Colonies, and the capital cost of the barracks and hutments that have been or are being erected; and is any provision being made for the repayment of the latter amount on the grant of representative government to the Colonies.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: There are at present about 17,000 troops in the Transvaal and Orange River Colonies. The annual cost is about £2,300,000. The capital cost of barracks, etc., is £3,200,000. No such provision as that indicated in the Question has been made.

  New Army Scheme.
  MR. McCRAE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether it is proposed, under the new Army Scheme, to reduce the expenditure on the Regular Army by £792,000 on a total expenditure of £26,890,000; and to reduce the expenditure on the Volunteer Force by £300,000 on a total expenditure of £1,220,000, equal to a reduction of one-fourth of the present Estimates.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: It is not possible within the limits of a reply to a Question to give the hon. Member the information he requires, but all proposals with regard to expenditure will appear in the Army Estimates, which will shortly be submitted to the House. It is not proposed to make any reduction on the Volunteer Vote for the coming year.

  White Labour in the Witwatersrand Mines.
  MR. HERBERT SAMUEL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will state what proportion of the 998 white men who, according to Lord Milner"s report, were employed in June last in the Witwatersrand gold mines, on unskilled labour which prior to the war was performed by Kaffirs, are still employed on such labour.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. LYTTELTON,): The information asked for is not available, but I have called for it.

  Chinese Labour Riots.
  MR. WHITLEY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies under what statute a sentence of four months hard labour, with twenty lashes each, was passed on five Chinese labourers on 22nd October in connection with a riot on the Geldud Mine.
  MR. LYTTELTON: Full information was given in reply to a similar Question on 16th February † which was addressed to me by the hon. Member for the Cleveland Division.

  British Missionaries in the Congo Free State.
  MR. HERBERT SAMUEL: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will lay upon the Table any correspondence which has passed during recent months between His Majesty"s Government and the British Consul at Boma with regard to the treatment of British missionaries residing within the concession of the Abir Company in the Congo Free State.
  THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE [FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS] (Earl PEKCY,): There is not much correspondence of the kind described which could be laid. But I will bear the hon. Member"s suggestion in mind in connection with any further collection of Papers which may be presented to Parliament.
  † See page 303.

  Congo Free State—Case of Monsieur Van Calcken.
  MR. HERBERT SAMUEL: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can state what were the charges on which Monsieur Van Calcken, the head agent of the Abir Company at Baringa in the Congo Free State, was recently arrested; and whether His Majesty"s Government will instruct by cable the British Consul at Boma to forward a copy of the minutes of the trial, and of the judgment which has been delivered.
  EARL PERCY: Monsieur Van Calcken was tried on the following charges:—1. Having ordered certain "gardes-forestiers" to proceed to the neighbourhood of Baringa in order to kill natives who refused to collect rubber—which order was carried out. 2. Having armed his "gardes-forestiers" with Albini rifles. 3. Having tied up and arbitrarily detained as hostages several Ngombe women. A copy of the judgment has been received from the Acting British Consul.
  MR. HERBERT SAMUEL: Will the Papers be published?
  EARL PERCY: I will consider if it can be done with other Papers. It is hardly worth while publishing them separately.

  Income-Tax.
  MR. WHITLEY: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer what amount of Income-Tax has been recovered as the result of the decision of the High Court on 9th March, 1904, in the case of Rex v. A. Goerz and Co., Ltd.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN,): I am unable to give the information for which the hon. Member asks. To do so would be contrary to the accepted principle that absolute secrecy shall be maintained in regard to the business concerns of taxpayers.
  MR. WHITLEY: Has any recovery been made?
  MR. AUSTEN
  CHAMBERLAIN: Yes, Sir.

  Income-Tax Collection.
  MR. LOUGH: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, considering the rates of taxes now being enforced, and the depression existing in some important businesses, he can see his way to suspend the recent order of the Board of Inland Revenue under which collectors of taxes arc directed to close their accounts at earlier dates than last year, and to lay these rules before the House of Commons in order that an opinion may be expressed with regard to them before they are finally put into operation.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The
  dates for the closing of collectors" accounts have this year been fixed on a new basis, viz., by reference to the number of taxpayers in the district instead of by reference to the total amount of tax to be collected in the district. This arrangement is much fairer to the collectors, and, although it will result in an earlier closing of accounts in many districts, it by no means follows that it will necessarily create a difficulty in the way of allowing reasonable delay to taxpayers who can plead good cause for indulgence as regards date of payment. The machinery of the Board of Inland Revenue allows of such cases being dealt with without interfering with the prescribed date for closing the collector's account. The object that the hon. Member has in view can therefore be adequately insured without suspending the recent orders, which would seriously disturb and confuse the business of the Department.
  MR. LOUGH: Cannot the right hon. Gentleman lay the rules before the House in such an important matter as this so that it may consider the question?
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: No, Sir; they are already in operation and cannot be suspended. But I will give the hon. Member a copy of the rules.
  SIR GEORGE BARTLEY: Are the threatening notices of

  599
  process against those who do not pay much sooner to be put in force than has been the case before?
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: That Question hardly arises out of the one on the Paper. It is a little difficult to answer it properly in reply to a supplementary Question. The notices which have been issued are in exactly the same terms as those that have been used for many years past. For many years past the date at which the second notice had to be issued was 23rd January, or three weeks after the taxpayer had received his first notice. I have not altered the date, and if there has been any change it is in consequence of the first notice having been sent by post, thus causing it to be received earlier by more taxpayers. This accounts probably for more taxpayers having received the notice this year than in former years.
  MR. LOUGH: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer what is the authority for the statement made by the Board of Inland Revenue in a letter to the Chairman of the East Finsbury Conservative Association that Income-Tax is by law payable by all taxpayers alike on or before the 1st of January; whether, in view of the admission in a subsequent clause in the same letter that in one district of East Finsbury the accounts hitherto were not required to be closed till the 31st of May, and in another till the 30th of June, he will say whether any such law has been, in fact, enforced in this country up to the present time; and whether it is the intention of the Government to enforce such a collection.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The authority for the statement in question is Section 82 of the Taxes Management Act, 1880. It has never been the practice to employ compulsion in order to enforce literal compliance with the law in this respect, although, in fact, a certain, number of taxpayers have always complied with it voluntarily. Pressure has always begun to be exercised in the fourth week of January on those who have not paid by that time, and this practice must be continued if the tax is to be collected within the financial year. There must,
  600
  however, always be a certain number of cases in which, from one cause or another appeals, removals, errors, omissions, etc.), liability may remain unsatisfied by the end of the financial year. It is merely a matter of administrative discretion to determine how long an account between the collector and the Board of Inland Revenue should be kept open for the sake of bringing in all such loose ends.
  MR. LOUGH: Will any greater severity be exercised this year than in former years?
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I do not desire not to give an Answer to what appears to be a very simple Question; but it is very dangerous to answer suddenly Questions of this kind across the floor of the House. I have said exactly what has been done. Complaints about the collection of Income-Tax are chronic, but some pressure must be employed if there is to be any equality in the treatment of different taxpayers, or if the revenue is to be collected at the right time. Cases deserving exceptional treatment will receive the same consideration as in other years.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES (Lynn Regis): Has the collection of Income-Tax in other years been inadequate under the previous
  system?
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Yes, Sir.

  Transvaal War Loan.
  MR. McCRAE: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the sum of £3,000,000 advanced to the Transvaal, and included as an asset against capital liabilities, which has been repaid by the Transvaal, has been applied to purposes of revenue expenditure.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I must ask the hon. Member to refer to the very full Answer which I gave to a Question put by him on April 21st last, † I can add nothing to the information which I then gave him.
  † See (4) Debates, exxxiii., 836

  Transvaal War Loan Guarantee.
  MR. McGRAE: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the fact that the guarantors of the first instalment of the £30,000,000 Transvaal Loan are prepared to fulfil theirobligation, and having regard to the amount of the Unfunded Debt, he will arrange for the first instalment of £10,000,000 being paid before the close of the present financial year.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I informed the House as recently as Thursday last † that I was not at present in a position to make any further statement on the subject of the War Contribution.
  MR. McGRAE: Will the right hon. Gentleman give the reason for this inaction on so serious a matter?
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: Does the right hon. Gentleman remember that the House was led to expect that this instalment would be paid in the beginning of the year 1904?
  [No Answer was returned.]

  Russian Duty on Indian Tea.
  MR. EUGENE WASON (Clackmannan and Kinross): I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he can state what is the amount of extra duty the Russian Government have put upon Indian tea, or tea coming from British Possessions, since the passing of the Sugar Convention Act, 1903.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. GERALD BALFOUR,): The increase is about Id. per lb., viz., from 1s. 10frac14;d. to 1s. 11frac14;d. per lb.

  Withington Postmen"s Pay.
  MR. SCHWANN: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General if he purposes placing the postmen employed within the area of the late Withington Urban District Council (now amalgamated with Manchester) on the Manchester scale of pay, seeing that those men now perform their duty within the Manchester city boundary; and, if so, how soon the increased pay will commence.
  † See page 315.
  THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Lord STANLEY,): I will consider the question, which is under consideration, but I cannot promise an immediate decision, as other cases have to be considered at the same time.

  Importation of American Store Cattle.
  MR. EDWARD MITCHELL: I beg to ask the hon. Member for North Huntingdonshire, as representing the Board of Agriculture, whether he can say if it is the intention of the Government to allow American store cattle into England and Scotland immediately; and, if so, can he say whether the Government have taken into consideration the loss that must arise to Irish farmers in consequence thereof.
  MR. AILWYN FELLOWES: I would refer the hon. Gentleman to my reply to a somewhat similar Question from the hon. Member for East Cork on the 16th inst. —Dagger; I then stated that my noble friend was of opinion that any amendment of the law in the direction indicated would be undesirable.

  Heavy Motor-Car Traffic—Compensation for Damage.
  MR. CATHCART WASON: I beg to ask the Secretary of the Local Government Board if, in view of the fact that under the Statutory Rules and Orders, 1904, No. 1809, heavy motor-cars weighing up to twelve tons are permitted to be driven at a speed of twelve miles an hour, the Government will pay compensation to the local authorities for damage that may be done to the roads, bridges, and sewers, gas and water mains by such heavy motors; and if he will lay the said Rules and Orders on the Table, and give the House an opportunity of expressing its opinion thereon before bringing them into force.
  THE SECRETARY TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. GRANT LAWSON, Yorkshire, N.R., Thirsk): The provisions in the Order referred to by the hon. Member which permit a maximum speed of twelve miles an hour, in certain circumstances, are in accordance with the recommendations of a Departmental Committee who heard evidence on the
  ‡ See page 319.

  603
  subject. I am not aware of any sufficient reason for the proposal that the Government should pay compensation to local authorities as suggested in the Question. The Order has, in accordance with the statute, been laid on the Table of the House. I am not in a position to promise any opportunity for discussing its provisions before it comes into operation.

  The Green Park.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I beg to ask the hon. Member for Chorley, as representing the First Commissioner of Works, can he explain the object of the extensive works of excavation drainage, extending over a width of sixty feet, and bearing the appearance of the making of a broad roadway across the Green Park from the Victoria Memorial to Half Moon Street, Piccadilly. Is it intended to make a road, and, if so, what will be its extreme width, what its cost, and what its purpose; has the advice, either of the London County Council, or of any other public body, been asked for or received on the subject? Is this the same road as to which an official statement was authorised and published in November, 1903, that there was no foundation for the report that it is proposed to make a new roadway across the Green Park, and that no such scheme has ever been contemplated. And, in view of the injurious effect on the Green Park and the disfigurement of running a public road across it, and thus cutting into two the smallest of the Parks, will the scheme now being carried out be reconsidered.
  LORD BALCARRES: A path, sixty-five feet wide, is being made from the Victoria Memorial to Piccadilly; it will have a grass border of fifteen feet on either side, and will be planted on either side with a double

  County.

  Name of Deer Forest.

  Assessment.

  Acrcage, 1883.

  Acrcage, 1891

  Acrcage, 1898.

  Acrcage, 1904.

  Increage,

  Decreage,

  avenue of trees. It is not intended to make a road either now or in the future.
  In answer to a further Question by Mr. GIBSON BOWLES, Lord BALCAREES said the amount of the grass which would disappear was represented by the breadth of the pathway, sixty-five feet, multiplied by its length, some 200 yards.
  MR. C. R. SPENCER: Are we to understand that there will never be a road across the Green Park?
  LOKD BALCARRES: Not in the sense of a public road along which wheeled traffic will be allowed to go.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: What is the object of the foundation of two or three feet of broken brick?
  LORD BALCARRES: I understand it is mainly for drainage purposes.

  Deer Forest Return.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Lord-Advocate if he will grant the Deer Forest Return, notice of which appears on the Paper.
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. SCOTT DICKSON, Glasgow, Bridgton): The Secretary for Scotland is prepared to grant a Return, as promised by his predecessor Mr. Graham Murray, if the hon. Member will first communicate with the Secretary for Scotland as to the form in which the Return is to be made.
  The Return referred to is as follows—Deer Forests (Highland Crofting Counties)—Return giving the name of each Deer Forest in the six Highland Crofting Counties, amount of its assessment, and the increase or decrease in the acreage of each Forest as compared with 1883, 1891, and 1898, in the following form—

  Moray Firth Fisheries.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Lord-Advocate, as representing the Secretary for Scotland, whether the Report of the Mansfield Commission of Inquiry into the cause of the decline in the fishing industry on the northern shores of the Moray Firth will be laid upon the Table of the House.
  MR. SCOTT DICKSON: The Answer to the hon. Members Question is in the, affirmative.

  Congested Districts (Scotland) Act.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Lord-Advocate whether the Congested Districts Act Amendment (Scotland) Bill will be introduced at an early date and facilities granted for its speedy consideration.
  MR. SCOTT DICKSON: The Bill referred to by the hon. Member will be introduced at an early date, and will be brought on as soon as the exigencies of public business permit.

  Crofters Act—Culloden Estate Tenants.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Lord-Advocate whether the Secretary for Scotland has received a copy of resolutions unanimously adopted at a recent meeting of crofter leaseholders and other tenants on the Culloden Estate, in the Ferintosh district of Ross-shire, deploring the continued exclusion of leaseholders from the benefits of the Crofters Act, and urging that all tenants whose rents do not exceed £30 per annum should receive the benefits of the Act'. and will he state what action it is proposed to take in the matter.
  MR. SCOTT DICKSON: The Secretary for Scotland has not received the copy of the resolutions referred to in this Question.
  MR. WEIR: I will see that a copy of the resolutions is sent to the right hon. Gentleman.

  Motor Traffic Regulations in Ayrshire.
  MR. CATHCART WASON: I beg to ask the Lord-Advocate if he has been furnished with a report of the inquiries held by the Local Government Board early in December on the application of the Ayrshire
  606
  County Council to regulate the motor traffic within that county; when such report was received; and if the decision of the Secretary for Scotland has yet been communicated to the Ayrshire County Council.
  MB. SCOTT DICKSON: The Answer to the first part of the hon. Member"s Question is in the affirmative; the report was made on the 29th of November. The decision has practically been arrived at, and the Secretary for Scotland is at present corresponding with the Ayrshire County Council as to the details of the final form.

  Scottish Lords of Session—Table of Precedence.
  MR. CALDWELL: I beg to ask the Lord-Advocate whether, by the Warrant issued under His Majesty"s Royal Sign Manual of date 3rd instant, under which every Senator of the College of Justice in Scotland on his retirement shall be entitled to retain the title of Lord with the prefix of Honourable enjoyed by him as a Lord of Session, and the wife of every Senator of the College of Justice shall be entitled to assume and use the title of Lady and to continue to use the same during the life of her husband and after his death so long as she remains a widow, it is intended to confer any precedence on such Senator or his wife or widow, and, if so, what precedence is to be given to them respectively; and whether the practice of granting title and fixing precedence in the same Warrant has been departed from in this instance, and, if so, why.
  MR. SCOTT DICKSON: There is at present no Table of Precedence in Scotland of any authority, and consequently it was impossible to fix precedence in the Warrant. The question of establishing a Scottish Table of Precedence by Royal Warrant is at present under consideration.

  Dublin Hackney Car Licences.
  MR. NANNETTI: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will direct the Commissioner of Police in Dublin to refuse to issue any more new licences for hackney cars during

  607
  the summer months, so as not to interfere with the regular trade of men who ply their avocation the whole year round, or until such time as from inquiry he finds that the needs of the public require such licences.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WYNDHAM, Dover): The conditions upon which licences may be granted are specified in Section 2 of the 17 and 18 Viet., cap. 45. The Commissioner has no power to refuse a licence in the manner suggested in the Question.

  Dublin Carriage Inspector.
  MR. NANNETTI: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will explain why a shareholder in the Dublin Tramways Company has been appointed the carriage inspector for Dublin, in view of the fact that the interests of the cab and car owners of the city and those of the Tramways Company are opposed to one another.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The carriage inspector is not, and never has been, a shareholder of the Tramway Company.

  Estates Commissioners" Report.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland when it is proposed to present the Report of the Estates Commissioners for the year ending December 31st, 1904, and if care will be taken to lay it upon the Table in such time as will permit adequate consideration and discussion.
  MR. DILLON: I beg also to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland when the Report of the Estates Commissioners will be laid upon the Table.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The Irish Government is in correspondence with the Treasury in respect both to the form of the Report and the period to be covered by it. A decision will, it is expected, shortly be reached.
  MR. DILLON: Will the right hon. Gentleman impress on the Treasury the great inconvenience of the period ending March 31st which deprives us of an
  608
  opportunity of discussing the Report of the current year. It would be much more convenient to bring it up to December 31st.
  MR. WYNDHAM: I will convey that to the Treasury.

  King's County and Sligo Constabulary.
  MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland has the number of constabulary considered by the Lord-Lieutenant (by Order in Council of May 19th, 1903) to be requited for the King"s County and the county of Sligo respectively, been reduced; and what is the present number in each of these counties.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The numbers of the Free Force assigned to King"s County and Sligo by the Order in Council of May, 1903, were 202 and 211 respectively. These numbers have not been varied. The actual strength of the Free Force on January 31st was 176 in King"s County and 197 in Sligo.

  Tinahely Dispensary Officer.
  MR. JAMES O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether in the case of the Inquiry held in March, 1903, by Sir Acheson M"Cullagh, Local Government Board Inspector, into charges of neglect of duty, made by Mr. Patrick Coogan against Dr. Bolster, late medical officer of Tinahely Dispensary District, the accused officer's expenses were paid; and, if so, out of what fund; and can he state the grounds of the refusal of the Local Government Board to pay the expenses of the witnesses examined in support of the complainant"s allegations.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The expenses of Dr. Bolster were not paid by the Board, or by the guardians with the Board"s consent. The Board defrayed the expenses, amounting to £2 10s. 0d., of five witnesses summoned by its inspector to attend the inquiry. It would be contrary to the invariable rule to defray the expenses of any other witnesses produced who were not summoned by the Inspector.

  Land Act Rules.
  MR. DILLON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether any instructions in connection with the administration of the Land Act have been issued by the Lord-Lieutenant to the Estates Commissioners; and, if so, when they will be laid upon the Table.
  MR. WYNDHAM: No such instructions have been issued to the Estates Commissioners. The hon. Member may, however, have in view the instructions to be issued by the Estates Commissioners for the guidance of their inspectors. The question of laying these instructions on the Table is under consideration.
  In reply to a further Question by Mr. DILLON as to whether any instructions at all had been issued—
  Mr. WYNDHAMsaid there had been Departmental instructions sent out. He would consider if they could be laid.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: Did you not give a definite promise that the instructions should be laid before Parliament?
  MR. WYNDHAM: No. There is a distinction to be drawn between Departmental instruction and ordinary rules.

  Future Tenants in Ireland.
  MR. O"DOWD: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that there are on estates in Ireland numbers of tenants who, under pressure of eviction and from other causes, have been forced into the position of future tenants on the landlords" terms as regards rents; and whether, as such tenants are debarred from entering the Land Courts to have fair rents fixed, their cases will be specially considered by the Estates Commissioners when sanctioning sales of all estates on which such cases may arise.
  MR. WYNDHAM: It is competent to tenants of this class to purchase under the Act of 1903, and the Commissioners, before making advances for the purpose, must be satisfied as to the security of the holdings.

  Sir Antony MacDonnell.
  MR. WILLIAM MOORE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if Sir Antony MacDonnell was aware before the preparation of the Dunraven proposals that for a Civil servant to take part in a political propaganda was a breach of rule; had Sir Antony, before doing so, informed any of his superiors in the Government of Ireland of his intention to do so; if so, ware the proposals so made with the previous knowledge, sanction, or approval of any of such superiors, or did Sir Antony act in the matter without any encouragement or approval and absolutely on his own initiative.
  MR. WYNDHAM: (1) Yes, Sir, but the question of the extent to which Civil servants may assist their friends turns on whether the assistance given is for projects of which the Ministers, under whom they serve, approve. (2) Sir Antony MacDonnell had my full leave and approval to confer with Lord Duaraven. Owing to his misunderstanding of distinctions which are clear to me, though not to him, he assisted in the formulation of proposals to which I object. (3) He informed Lord Dudley of the nature of those proposals in the. belief that I would not be hostile to their public discussion.
  MR. WILLIAM MOORE: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether he objected at the time or afterwards?
  MR. WYNDHAM: I objected the day I saw them.
  MR. LONSDALEasked whether, after the receipt of the reprimand by the Cabinet, and the formal severance of his connection with the movement, Sir Antony MacDonnell had not during the present year been present with the chairman and the secretary of the movement at a private meeting at which they discussed the principles and methods of devolution; and, if so, what steps would be taken by the Government?
  MR. WYNDHAM: Sir Antony informs me that the suggestion in the second

  611
  part of tills Question is totally without foundation.
  MR. DELANYasked whether Sir Antony MacDonnell did not act with the knowledge and approval of Lord Dudley, and whether the terms of his appointment did not justify him in inquiring into the conditions of Irish Government.
  MR. LONSDALEasked whether Sir Antony MacDonnell was present at such a meeting as he had suggested.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: May I ask whether a detective has been placed to watch the movements of Sir Anton MacDonnell?
  MR. WYNDHAM: I cannot answer all these supplementary Questions. It will be quite in order to criticise these matters on the Motion before the House, and I shall then be only too glad to deal with them.
  MR. JOSEPH DEVLIN: Will the right hon. Gentleman resign his office after the speech of Lord Lansdowne last Friday?
  MR. CHARLES CRAIG: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if, before the Second Reading of the Land Bill of 1903, Sir Antony MacDonnell had informed Lord Dunraven that he was in favour of the policy of extension of administrative powers in Ireland on lines corresponding to those produced in September, 1904, and known as the devolution proposals, and had he any authority to make such a statement from any person competent to give him such authority.
  MR. WYNDHAM: I am informed by Sir Antony MacDonnell that he has no recollection of having made any such statement, and believes, as a matter of fact, that he did not make it.

  Land Purchase in County Cavan—Case of Owen M"Cabe.
  MR. VINCENT KENNEDY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether
  612
  he is aware that Owen M"Cabe, of Latnadronagh Crosserlough, county Cavan, has been served with a claim for £25 by George Stewart Smith, his landlord, for using a quarry on his own farm, as he had been doing for past forty years; that this tenant previously refused the terms of purchase offered by the landlord; and, if so, whether he will introduce legislation to protect the tenants in such cases.
  MR. WYNDHAM: I have no information on the first part of the Question. The respective rights of landowners and tenants in respect of quarrying are already defined by law, and it is not proposed to introduce further legislation.

  Drumheel Evicted Farm.
  MR. VINCENT KENNEDY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if the Estates Commissioners have received a report that the bailiff and one Goggins on the George Stewart Smith Estate, county Cavan, have recently been accepted as tenants of an evicted farm at Drumheel containing some eighty Irish acres; and, if so, whether, in view of the fact that this estate consists of seven congested holdings, will the Estates Commissioners be instructed to exercise in an especial way their powers in this case, and so finally remove this alleged grievance.
  MR. WYNDHAM: A representation to this effect has been made to the Commissioners. But the estate has not otherwise come before them, and until this has been done they cannot consider the representation.

  Mitchelstown Sub-Commission—Case of Michael O"Neill.
  MR. WILLIAM ABRAHAM: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will explain why the application of Mr. Michael O"Neill, Skebeen, Mitchelstown, to have a second-term rent fixed, was not included in the list of cases for hearing before the Sub-Commission sitting in Mitchelstown; and whether he can state when and where the applications of Mr. O"Neill and some thirty other tenants on the Kingston Estate to have second-term rents fixed will be heard and decided upon.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The cases on the list now being heard include all cases lodged prior to 1st April, 1904. The application of Mr. O"Neill and the other tenants in question were subsequently received, and will be listed for hearing at a future sitting, the date of which cannot now be stated.

  Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1898.
  MR. J. P. FARRELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the urban council of Granard have recently passed a resolution calling for the repeal of such sections of the Local Government (Ireland) Act, 1898, as imposes on tenants rated at £4 and under the payment of rates; whether he is aware that this clause is largely inoperative owing to the poverty of many of these tenants, and leads to annoyance to them and to the collectors of such rates; and whether it is his intention to propose legislation reimposing such rates on the landlords who formerly paid them.
  MR. WYNDHAM: It is not correct to say that the provisions of the Act in this respect are inoperative. The Act was based on the principle that the occupier should be rated, and the Agricultural Grant was fixed upon this understanding. The fundamental change suggested is neither practicable nor desirable.

  Doctor Pentland of Mohill.
  MR. J. P. FARRELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that, although frequently requested to reside in his dispensary district, Dr. Pentland, of Mohill, persists in residing in that town; and, if so, whether, in the interests of the sick poor, Dr. Pentland will be now directed to take up his residence in the dispensary district he serves, the same as other dispensary doctors in Ireland.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The Local Government Board is making inquiries in this matter.

  Irish Local Government Board—Public Accounts Order.
  MR. J. P. FARRELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state the name or
  614
  names of the officials of the Local Government Board for Ireland at whose suggestion the Public Accounts Order, 1899, has been abrogated and a new series of forms of account for county, district, and urban councils set up; whether he is aware that the proposed new machinery will entail extra labour on local clerks and officials, and has been objected to as costly and unnecessary by the county councils in Ireland; and, if so, is it intended to enforce this new Order?
  MR. WYNDHAM: The hon. Member"s attention does not appear to have been directed to my reply to the somewhat similar Question of the 16th instant.†The recent Order was made by the Board. The reply to the concluding inquiry is in the affirmative.

  Land Purchase in County Sligo.
  MR. O'DOWD: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that certain of the largest landowners in the county of Sligo have refused to sell at any price to their tenants under the provisions of the Land Act of 1903; and, if so, what steps, if any, will be taken by the Estates Commissioners to induce such landlords to sell.
  MR. WYNDHAM: I have no information on the first part of the Question. The Government has no power to take action in the direction suggested.

  Belfast Constabulary Doctor.
  MR. SLOAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he will explain why the position of constabulary doctor, recently vacant in one of the divisions of Belfast, has not been filled in the usual manner; and if he will give the names of the doctors to whom the work has been allocated.
  MR. WYNDHAM: It was not considered necessary to fill the vacancy, and the work hitherto done by five doctors is now done by four—Dr. O"Connell, Dr. Montgomery, Dr. Maguire and Dr. O"Brien.
  † See page 322.
  MR. SLOAN: But which doctors have to do the extra work?
  MR. WYNDHAM: I cannot say.

  The Rev. M. MacDonnell.
  MR. SLOAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whether, in view of the fact that the case against Rev. M. MacDonnell, Roman Catholic administrator, was dismissed by a majority of magistrates at Westport on the 16th instant, on the charge of knocking down and kicking a young man named MacAskall on the 6th ultimo, while under police protection, he will order further inquiry into the whole circumstances of the case.
  MR. WYNDHAM: The case has been heard and determined by the tribunal appointed by law to entertain it. I have no power to direct any further inquiry into the matter.

  Poor Rate Collections in Galway.
  COLONEL NOLAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if the new Article 91 issued by the Local Government Board requires that poor rate collectors shall lodge each half year the whole amount included in their warrant, whether collected or not, before any poundage can be paid to them, if the Grand Jury of county Galway acted for a century on the opposite system, and paid poundage on the amount actually collected, and if the Galway County Council has hitherto found its rate collections satisfactory when paying poundage on the amount collected, and if the Local Government Board has stated that it is so thoroughly acquainted with the conditions prevailing in Galway that it considers itself justified in upsetting the system adopted by the county council.
  MR. WYNDHAM: Before the issue of the recent Order, twenty-eight out of thirty-three county councils in Ireland had voluntarily adopted the system prescribed by Article 91 of the Order, on the ground that it was attended with much better results than the system prevailing in the remaining five counties. With a view to uniformity and to efficiency the
  616
  Board embodied in its Order the procedure adopted by the majority of the county councils.

  Galway County Council Minutes.
  COLONEL NOLAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that regulations have lately been issued by the Local Government Board ordering county councils to forward to the Local Government Board copies of the county council minutes, and that such copies have hitherto been forwarded by the Galway County Council as a matter of courtesy, but that this courtesy did not imply a right on the part of the Local Government Board to review the proceedings of the county council unless where specifically empowered by statute to do so; and, if so, can this Order be withdrawn and matters be allowed to stand on their hitherto satisfactory footing.
  MR. WYNDHAM: To enable the Local Government Board to fulfil its statutory obligations it is essential that county councils should furnish it with copies of their minutes of proceedings which deal with certain specified matters. Since the passing of the Act of 1898, the councils have sent complete copies of all their proceedings, rather than impose on their officers the trouble of making extracts from the minutes under the specified heads. The Board"s recent Order merely continued this system. It is open to the Galway County Council to communicate separately with the Board on matters in respect of which it is necessary the Board should have information, if the council prefers that course. The council has already been. so informed.

  Strabane Rate Collector.
  MR. WILLIAM MOORE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if the Irish Local Government Board have approved of the acting Nationalist Registration Inspector for North Tyrone, named Torish, being appointed a rate collector for the urban council of Strabane in that division; and, it so, whether, seeing that it will be this man's duty as rate collector to put

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  political opponents on the register and his interest as registration agent to keep them off, he will state on what grounds the appointment has been sactioned.
  MR, WYNDHAM: In consequence of the illness of the permanent rate collector, the district council on January 12th appointed Mr. Torish to complete the collection of the second moiety of the rate for the current year. The appointment is a temporary one and was sanctioned by the Local Government Board. It was represented that Mr. Torish had been a registration agent but that ho was not at present employed in that capacity nor would he be so employed during his term of office as collector.

  Irish Income-Tax Collection.
  MR. JAMES O"CONNOR: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has seen a copy of a circular, dated Custom House, Dublin, January 20th, 1905, and signed "Comptroller," addressed to tenants of a certain estate in Ireland, informing them that their landlord had not paid the Income-Tax due on their holdings for the year ended April 5th, 1904, and threatening to recover the tax by distraint of their property unless they put pressure upon the landlord to pay the Crown"s claim within ten days; whether any tenants have been distrained to pay their landlord"s Income-Tax; and whether the Comptroller has acted with his sanction.
  MR. O"SHAUGHNESSY: I also beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the Comptroller of Income-Tax has written to the tenants on a certain estate in the county of Limerick threatening to distrain on their lands for the amount of Income-Tax under Schedule A, due by their landlord in respect of same for the year ending April 5th. 1904, unless they are prepared to put pressure on the landlord to pay the claim; and, if so, will he say whether this is the usual practice of the Inland Revenue Department; and will he take steps to prevent it.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The Board of Inland Revenue inform me that the letter in question was issued by the
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  Comptroller of Stamps and Income-Tax in Dublin in certain cases in which it had been found impossible to recover taxes due in the usual manner through the agent of the owner of lands, and in which the name of the owner was not known. The process of recovery from the tenant (if necessary by distraint) is authorised by Section 17 of the Income Tax Act of 1853, and is employed only in the last resort, the tenant, of course, having the right to recover from his landlord on the next payment of rent. The object of the Comptroller in issuing the letter referred to, was to acquaint tenants of this fact, so that they might take the steps necessary to protect themselves. It has been very successful in securing this result, and in no case has the Department had to resort to distraint. At the same time, the Board of Inland Revenue consider that the terms of the letter, which they had not previously seen, are open to objection: and they have instructed the Comptroller to discontinue its issue. It appears to them that the object aimed at, while proper in itself, can be secured without giving the opening for misapprehension which the circular in use seems to offer. I have taken it for granted that both hon. Members have the same case in mind.

  Potato Seed Grants.
  COLONEL NOLAN: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer if he has found on investigation that, under the first Potato Seed Act, the whole interest on the loans then made to unions was defrayed from, the Imperial Exchequer; and if he will now follow this precedent, so as to permit of the £10,000 contributed, from exclusively Irish resources, by the Agricultural Department, being devoted to cheapen the cost of the new seed to the small occupiers; also, if the total amount of interest is about £3,000.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: There is no parallel between the condition of Ireland now and at the time to which the hon. and gallant Member refers. When the Seed Supply Act of 1880 was passed the distress among the agricultural classes in all parts of Ireland was so great that a sum of nearly £2,000,000 was expended from public and private sources in relief of the

  619
  distress, apart from the £500,000 advanced for seed. The remission of interest could, therefore, be regarded as a Relief Grant in 1880, but could not be so regarded this year, as seed is being supplied to parts of the country where it is not alleged that any abnormal distress exists, but where, owing to the bad seed on hand and the impossibility of procuring good seed locally, a change of seed is essential to the agricultural prosperity of the country. I cannot at present say what the total amount of interest will be.
  MR. DILLON: Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the desirability of extending to those parts of Ireland where the distress is quite as acute as in 1880 the same conditions as then obtained?
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I do not think there is sufficient reason for that at present.

  Irish Civil Service—Case of Mr. Percy Ludgate.
  MR. T. HARRINGTON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that Mr. Percy E. Ludgate, of Drumcondra, passed the Civil Service examination for assistant clerkship, abstractor class, in October, 1903, and was medically examined by the physician selected by the Civil Service Commissioners and declared fit for the service; that, without having received an appointment as assistant clerk, he competed successfully for a second division clerkship, but failed to satisfy the examining physician as to his fitness; that, in consequence of the latter medical examination, Mr. Ludgate"s certificate of qualification given in the former case has been cancelled, thus penalising him for one appointment by reason of his success in securing another; and, if so, whether he will take steps to have him medically examined with the view to his securing one or other of the above appointments, and will he say whether there is any difference in the medical standard of qualification required for assistant clerkship or second-division clerkship.
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY (Mr. VICTOR CAVENDISH,): The facts are
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  substantially as stated in the hon. Member"s Question, except that Mr. Ludgate"s certificate as assistant clerk was never granted, and therefore was not cancelled; and that the date of the examination referred to was February, 1903, and not October, 1903. As nearly a year had elapsed since Mr. Ludgate"s medical examination for an assistant clerkship, it was necessary to re-examine him before issuing him a certificate for a second-division clerkship. The result of the medical examination proving unsatisfactory the Civil Service Commissioners were unable to grant a certificate for either position. The medical requirements are practically the same in both cases.

  Dublin Post Office—Officers" Holidays.
  MR. NANNETTI: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General if he is aware that several officers in the Dublin Post Office this year are listed for annual leave at earlier periods than in previous years; and that during the months of June to September (inclusive) there are fewer men listed for leave in each batch than in the other months of the year; and will he see that the annual leave list is so arranged that an equal number of men are sent out in each batch so that a fair distribution of the leave period is made.
  LORD STANLEY: I am making inquiry, and will inform the hon. Member of the result.

  Deceased Wife's Sister Bill.
  MR. JAMES O"CONNOR: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether His Majesty"s Government have received from the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Australia a letter, transmitted through the Governor-General, complaining of the hardships endured by Australians in consequence of the non-recognition in Great Britain of marriages made in Australia with sisters of deceased wives, and requesting that the existing conflict between British and Colonial law in this respect should be removed by legislation; and whether he intends to give effect in this matter to the wishes of the Australian people.
  THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): The Answer

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  to the first part of the Question is in the affirmative. The matter will, of course, be fully discussed in the House when the Bill dealing with the subject comes up for discussion.

  STANDING ORDERS.
  Ordered, That the Select Committee on Standing Orders do consist of thirteen members. Sir John Brunner, Mr. Buchanan, Mr. John Edward Ellis, Sir Thomas Esmonde, Mr. Halsey, Mr. Henry Hobhouse, Mr. Humphreys-Owen, Sir James Rankin, Mr. William Redmond, Colonel Stopford-Sackville, Sir Mark McTaggart Stewart, Mr. Whitmore, and Mr. Wodehouse were accordingly nominated members of the Committee.—(Mr. Halsey.)

  SELECTION.
  Mr. Blake, Mr. Sydney Buxton, Sir John Dorington, Sir William Hart Dyke, Dr. Farquharson, Mr. Fenwick, Mr. Halsey, Mr. McKenna, Sir Mark McTaggart Stewart, and Mr. Wharton were nominated members of the Committee of Selection together with the Chairman of the Select Committee on Standing Orders.—(Mr. Halsey.)
  MR. JOHN ELLIStook exception to the Standing Order by which the Committee was deprived of the power of selecting its own Chairman. It had a good reason in its origin but now that the Committee of Selection had become of such importance this had ceased to operate. He did not propose to take action now but certainly hoped to do so sometime.

NEW BILLS.
  FOREIGN TRAWLERS REGULATION BILL.
  "To provide for the better prevention of fishing by Foreign Trawl Vessels within areas closed to British Trawl Vessels", presented by Mr. Black; supported by Mr. Crombie, Mr. Weir, Mr. John Wilson (Falkirk), Mr. John Dewar, Mr. Cathcart Wason, and Mr. Ainsworth; to be read a second time upon Tuesday, 7th March, and to be printed. [Bill 44.]
  RATING OF MACHINERY BILL.
  "To amend the Law relating to the Rating of hereditaments containing Machinery," presented by Mr. George Whiteley; supported by Mr. Chapman, Sir Edward Strachey, Sir William Houldsworth, Sir John Dorington, Mr. Cawley, Sir William Tomlinson, and Mr. John Rutherford; to be read a second time upon Friday next, and to be printed. [Bill 45.]
  TRAMWAYS AND PUBLIC COMPANIES (IRELAND) ACT (1883) AMENDMENT BILL.
  "To amend The Tramways and Public Companies (Ireland) Act, 1883," presented by Mr. Patrick Aloysius McHugh; supported by Mr. Clancy, Mr. O"Dowd, Mr. William McKillop, and Mr. Conor O"Kelly; to be read a second time upon Friday, 7th April, and to be printed. [Bill 46.]
  CRIMINAL LAW AND PROCEDURE (IRE LAND) ACT (1887) REPEAL BILL.
  "To repeal the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act, 1887," presented by Mr. Lundon; supported by Mr. Dillon, Mr. John Redmond, Mr. T. P. O"Connor, Mr. Patrick Aloysius McHugh, and Captain Donelan; to be read a second time upon Friday, 10th March, and to be printed. [Bill 47.]

  KING"S SPEECH (MOTION FOR AN ADDRESS).
  Order read, for resuming adjourned debate on Main Question [14th February] "That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, as followeth:—
  "Most Gracious Sovereign,
  "We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament."—(Mr. Mount.)
  Question again proposed.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND (Waterford): I beg to move the Amendment which stands in my name, as follows—
  "But we humbly represent to Your Majesty that the present system of Government in Ireland is in opposition to the will of the Irish

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  people, and given them no voice in the management of their own affairs; that the system is consequently ineffective and extravagantly costly, does not enjoy the confidence of any section of the population, and is productive of universal discontent and unrest, and has proved to be incapable of satisfactorily promoting the material and intellectual progress of the people."
  My object in bringing forward this Amendment is to raise a discussion on the question of the government of Ireland, and to express the perfectly frank and unmistakable feeling of detestation of the present system which is well-nigh universal among all classes of the population of Ireland. My object is also once more to define the position and policy of the Irish Party upon this matter, and to make it plain to everyone—not only to the Government, but to the Opposition—that we stand where we have always stood, irrevocably committed to Home Rule and necessarily independent of any Government that does not make Home Rule a cardinal point in its programme. I think everybody will admit that we are entitled to press this point, and to make our position in this matter clear. We are being driven—some people think we are being rapidly driven—towards a general election, and many people also think that a general election will result in the return to power of those who have been identified in the past with the policy of self-government in Ireland, and who have for that reason received the support of the Irish Party. No one can deny that there is an unmistakable attempt to limit the decision at the next general election to one particular issue to the exclusion of all others, and I, therefore, consider it a duty we owe to Ireland and to ourselves, and, indeed, to our English friends also, to dispel any doubt that may exist anywhere as to the views, the policy, and the duty of the Irish Party upon this question. For us there is only one issue. We have been sent to this House to demand the freedom of our country. We are elected here an independent Party, and our mandate from our constituents is that we shall not enter into an alliance with any British Party which does not approve of and adopt the policy of the restoration to the people of Ireland of the management of their own affairs. From that attitude nothing can change us, and so it is not a matter of convenience or expedience, but it is a matter
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  of principle and of necessity. It is not, of course, my business to attempt to pry into the future, or to foretell what the future procedure or policy of British Parties may be, but I deem it common honesty—and I believe that British Parties will find that on this matter honesty is their best policy as well as ours—to tell them plainly that this is our unchangeable attitude, and it is that attitude they will have to reckon with.
  We base our condemnation of the present system of rule in Ireland upon four grounds. We condemn the present system because it is not government in accordance with the will of the governed. On the contrary, it is government in direct opposition to the declared will of the overwhelming majority of the people. We condemn it because it is ruinously extravagant, and weighs down the nation with a burden of unjust taxation, and because, in addition to that, it is an inefficient government which neglects every industry and interest of the nation, and nacessarily leads to depopulation, ignorance, poverty, and discontent. Further, we object to this Government because it is distrusted and condemned by those who call themselves Unionists as well as by those who call themselves Home Rulers.
  As to the first of these points, it is unnecessary for me to labour it. Amidst all the uncertainties and doubts surrounding all Irish questions, amidst all our contradictions and controversies, one fact has stood out perfectly plainly and beyond dispute for the past thirty years or more, and that is that the majority of the representatives of the Irish people returned to this House have been pledged to overturn the present system of government. Since the extension of the franchise in 1885 that majority of the Irish Members has never fallen below eighty-one out of 103. In the present Government of Ireland public opinion in Ireland is a negligible quantity. The overwhelming majority of her representatives have absolutely no control whatever over her domestic affairs, and no Irishman and no man, whatever his nationality, but especially no Irishman, is allowed to serve in any

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  really responsible position in the Government of our country unless he is a known opponent of the wishes and aspirations of the overwhelming majority of the people. Of course there are exceptions to this. Seventy years ago a very able Scotchman was sent to Ireland in the person of Sir Thomas Drummond to act as Undersecretary. He was not an Irishman, but as soon as ever it became known that he had popular leanings a campaign was set on foot against him by the ruling powers in Ireland, and when he ventured to rebuke Irish landlordism, and especially when he committed himself to that phrase which in these days seems to be flat blasphemy, i.e., that property has its duties as well as its rights, from that moment he was thwarted, maligned, and pursued with a malice which no doubt helped in the end to drive him into an early grave. For four or five years he served in Ireland, but he was only able to do so because, in his ease, he was loyally defended by those who availed themselves of his services, and because he was not at the first breath of opposition from the Orange set in the North of Ireland repudiated and thrown overboard by those who had availed themselves of his great ability and unrivalled experience in the Government of Ireland. To-day—seventy years later—we have a somewhat similar case, and the mere fact that Sir Antony MacDonnell has popular leanings is sufficient, apparently, to cause his appointment to be denounced as a betrayal by the English Government of that handful of men who endeavour to impose their will on the majority of the people of Ireland. This exception only proves the rule which I have attempted to lay down, namely, that no man in any degree in sympathy with the majority of the Irish people is allowed to have any part in the Government of the country.
  Ireland to-day is governed by a minority, and for a minority of the people she is governed by a democracy more divorced from sympathy with the people and from responsibility to the people than obtains in the system which you in this country are so fond of denouncing in the case of Russia. Ireland, no doubt, is articulate in the House of Commons, and I am glad to think that she is able to make herself troublesome, or otherwise I fear that Irish
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  discontent would find no voice at all. But here we are in a permanent minority of 80 out of 670; and we are voted down by representatives elected by another people. We are governed by a network of public boards—the Education Board, the Board of Public Works, the Local Government Board, the Congested Districts Board, the Board of Trade, the Prisons Board, and I know not how many other boards, all of which are nominated by Dublin Castle. These boards are not responsible in any shape or form to the people whom they govern. Public opinion in Ireland has for them no existence, and the names of the men who rule the boards are scarcely known to-day to the people of Ireland. They can never be called to account. They are represented in this House by the Chief Secretary of the day, who is President, I think, of each one, though, of course, he is not cognisant of their proceedings, and can only be in the most nominal way responsible for their action. Chief Secretaries come and go. There have been fifty-three changes in the office of Chief Secretary since the Union. There have been twenty-seven changes in the office of Chief Secretary within the last fifty years. That gives an average since the Union of about two years for each Chief Secretary, and further, these Chief Secretaries have been strangers to Ireland, they have had no interest whatever in the country, and they have had no stake in the country. Only seven or eight of the whole number have been Irish by birth, or even by the most remote connection, and since 1871 no Irishman at all has been Chief Secretary for Ireland. What earthly possibility had such men, I would ask the House, of making themselves acquainted with the affairs of these boards? The thing is impossible. The permanent, centralised, nominated, semi-independent boards, stuffed full of the members of the ascendancy Party, have been omnipotent in the Government of Ireland, and the Chief Secretary of the day, if he is challenged on the ground of his nominal responsibility, is accountable only to this House, where the representatives of Ireland are always in a permanent minority. Is it any wonder that, under these circumstances, the very soul of Ireland is in revolt at this system, and

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  the sentiment of the people is that an armed rebellion itself would be a duty did a reasonable chance of success exist?
  Such a system of government as this must of necessity be extravagant, because every system of government run in the interests of a minority against the interests of the majority of the people must be extravagant. The Irish government to-day is admittedly the most costly government of the kind in the world. It costs double the amount of the government of Belgium, which has a larger population and four times the trade. It costs more than double as much as the government of Switzerland, and by comparison with any small country of similar resources in the world it is shocking in its extravagance. Compared with the cost of the government of Great Britain it is not so much shocking as ludicrous. The cost of civil government per head of the population in Ireland is just twice the cost of the government per head of the population in England. The policing and the prison system in Ireland cost three times as much as the policing and prison system of Scotland, though the population is about the same and the criminal statistics show that there is far less crime in Ireland than there is in Scotland. The ludicrous part of all this is that England does not gain anything by it. In the last ten years the population of Ireland has gone down by about 200,000, and the taxation of Ireland has increased by £3,000,000 a year. The cost of Irish government has gone up from something like £5,500,000 in 1894 to £7,214,000 in 1902, so that England cannot be said, therefore, to have been benefited by this misgovernment of Ireland to any great extent. Ireland"s Imperial contribution has unjustly increased, but it has not increased materially in proportion to the total increase of the cost of running the country. The great increase in Irish taxation has gone almost entirely in the increased cost of running the rotten and inefficient system of government in Ireland itself.
  This brings me to another part of the question. I base my indictment of the government of Ireland on its
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  merits. I maintain that it is the worst and most inefficient government in the whole world. The right hon. Gentleman who will speak on behalf of the Government will have to defend a system which has no parallel in the whole history of the world. In speaking of this question I feel that I must confine myself within comparatively narrow limits. I will take as an example of what I mean by bad and inefficient government the question of the land. If the Land Act of last year is a failure, and undoubtedly in some respects it is, that is due entirely to the fact that where Irish Members pressed their views those views were rejected. I had intended to give some quotations as to what recently occurred with reference to the position of Sir Antony MacDonnell. What occurred? Sir Antony MacDonnell went to Ireland, with the full approval of the Chief Secretary and the Lord-Lieutenant, to carry out a policy of concession and reform. He has been thwarted in that, and things did not succeed with him. What has been happening? He has found his official chief rounding on him, and, for my part, I would not be astonished if in the end it is not found that the English people themselves have lost all respect for a Minister who is guilty of what I may call the tergiversation, the disloyalty of the Chief Secretary to a man whom he put in that position, and whom he ought to have backed. Under all the circumstances, the Irish Party are entitled to come to the House of Commons and make their claim that the government of Ireland should be once more placed the hands of the Irish people. Nothing else will remedy the present condition of affairs. Every class of the community in Ireland is opposed to the present rule. It is unnecessary for me to speak of the wishes of the overwhelming majority of the people. Generation after generation they have sent to the House of Commons an overwhelming majority of their Members pledged to a radical change in the Government, but the feeling entertained by them has spread, and to-day it is to be found in practically every class of the community.
  Recently a development of the most important kind has taken place in Ireland under the name of the Reform Association, identified with the name of Lord Dunraven. It is not my business

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  to defend that association, which is, I understand, not making a demand for Home Rule. The men who are at the bottom of it avow themselves as Unionists, yet the fact remains that they have come forward to make a confession that their former position is untenable, that the government of Ireland has broken down under the present system, and they propose a change. It is not only Lord Dunraven and his friends. I may go further and take the case of Sir West Ridgeway. He was not an Irishman like Sir Antony MacDonnell. He was an English Conservative gentleman who was Under Secretary for Ireland during the Chief Secretaryship of the present Prime Minister. Sir West Ridgeway tells us that in the very middle of the coercion regime of the present Prime Minister, he, as Under Secretary, prepared for the Government a memorandum outlining a scheme of self-government for the country consisting of provincial councils, along with a partly elective body which was to have power over all Irish finance. What an extraordinary light that throws on the system of government in Ireland! Here is Sir West Ridgeway carrying out a policy of coercion in Ireland at the behests of a Government which declares that Ireland has no grievances and that twenty years of resolute government is all that is necessary in order to settle the Irish question, while at that very time there are searchings of heart among the very men who are carrying out that programme of suppressing popular agitation. We find Sir West Ridgeway preparing a programme which so far as I can see is quite as extreme, if not more extreme, than the programme of Lord Dunraven, in the preparation of which Sir Antony MacDonnell seems to have had a hand. The same applies right through all the administrators who have been sent to Ireland from every Parliament. Lord Spencer went to Ireland to administer coercion, and his experience taught him the rottenness of the present system. Lord Aberdeen went to Ireland to carry out a system of coercion and his experience taught him the same lesson. Lord Dudley went to Ireland to carry out a Unionist policy, and he has not been long in the country without discovering the rottenness of the
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  present system. Speaking of Under Secretaries, there is not only Sir West Ridgeway who can be quoted. What about Sir Robert Hamilton? Whata bout Sir Redvers Buller? Every man who has been sent from this country to govern Ireland under the present system has admitted, no matter what Party he came from, that the system has broken down absolutely. The only differences to-day are the differences as to the methods for remedying the system. Various remedies have been proposed. Sir West Ridgeway says he proposed a system of provincial councils with certain legislative powers, with a financial council partly elective. Lord Dunraven proposes a system of devolution, and I suppose that if the hon. Gentlemen who represent Ulster constituencies were asked for a remedy they would say that the proper remedy is to instal them and their Orange friends in absolute power in Dublin Castle.
  It is well for us to remember in this connection that every single class and creed in Ireland to-day is denouncing the system of Dublin Castle. I am sorry I have not the notes of the utterances of hon. Gentlemen opposite which I had intended to read. Hon. Gentlemen opposite have denounced government by Dublin Castle far more vigorously than ever we did. The hon. Member for North Down said just before Parliament met that either the Government must go or Sir Antony MacDonnell must go. I have heard from North Down since then to the effect that when the general election comes the probability is that the person to go will be the hon. Member himself. An hon. Member for one of the Divisions of Antrim made a declaration in Ireland the other day that he for one would not regret the general election, because he did not think that Ireland could be any worse governed under a Liberal Government. And then, not content with that, the Ulster Members issue a manifesto signed by the full strength of their party—was it seven or eight?—and in that manifesto they do not base their attack on Dublin Castle because of Sir Antony MacDonnell at all—there is not a word about him—no, it is an indictment based on the general government of Dublin Castle, as evidenced by the refusal of the Castle to do what they call justice to certain isolated

  631
  parts of Ulster with which they are identified. And since the House met a most interesting document, which I am sorry I have not with me, has been issued, a manifesto in which they declared in solemn conclave—though it must have relieved the mind of the Prime Minister enormously when he saw that there were only four gentlemen at the meeting—a manifesto in which they declared that they had made up their minds to give a general support to the Government on the Address on every question except questions arising out of Ireland, and went on to say that they entirely distrusted the action of the Government on all Irish affairs. Therefore you have every class of the community expressing distrust of the government of Ireland. I might quote a more important critic of the Government, namely, the Government itself—because the House will remember the speech made the other day in which it was declared by Lord Lansdowne, who is himself the Leader of the Government in the Upper House—that the present system of government in Ireland was antiquated and complicated, and that it required serious improvement, and in which he described what he called Sir Antony MacDonnells policy as the policy of co-ordination. Now whether you call this co-ordination, or devolution, or provincial councils—as Sir West Ridgeway called it—all those policies amount to this, that every class of the population and the Unionist Government itself condemns the present system of rule. In my opinion it has come to this, that as practical men we, in the House of Commons, ought not to consider the theoretical question at all as to whether the government is good or bad—because, I submit, it is by universal consensus of opinion condemned—but we ought to confine ourselves as practical men to the remedy.
  Now the remedies which are proposed are various. The remedy which we propose at any rate is well known. We propose Home Rule for Ireland. We believe that the present system, in a phrase once used by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Montrose, is too rotten to be mended. The policy must be a policy of ending and not mending. The system should be abolished
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  altogether, and I think I am correct in saying that what has occurred within the last few days will make it impossible for any English Government in the near future to sit upon the Treasury Bench without proposing some radical remedy in the present system of government. Nothing in my judgment can be a possible or even a tolerable substitute for self-government in any country. Without self-government I am convinced that Ireland will go on in the future as she has gone on in the past, badly governed, poverty-stricken, and discontented. But with self-government I am perfectly convinced in my heart and conscience she has before her a future of freedom, prosperity, and peace.
  MR. WALDEON(Dublin, St. Stephen's Green), in seconding the Amendment, said it was almost impossible to bring anything new before the House in regard to the system of government in Ireland as the subject had been debated again and again during the last twenty or thirty years. The events of the last few days had shown how difficult it was to justify the present system. In his own recollection in Ireland there had been twenty Chief Secretaries since Mr. Chichester Fortescue held the post, and they had had an average duration of office of less than two years. What hon. Member in this House would entrust the management of his business or his property to a manager who held his appointment on such a tenure? Had the physical condition of the country improved under this system, or had the consent of the governed been obtained? Had the population increased, or had general contentment been diffused? He would be a courageous or a mendacious man who would answer either of these questions in the affirmative. How long was such a system to be forced on the country in defiance of the wishes of the great majority of the inhabitants? The events of the last few days gave the best possible answer as to the impossibility of the present system. When the present Lord-Lieutenant arrived in Ireland he said that the first necessity of the government of Ireland was that it should be in accordance with Irish ideas. What attempt had there been to govern the country in accordance with Irish ideas? The Union

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  had never been allowed to work on account of the course pursued by persons who called themselves Unionists. What they wanted was, not to make Ireland contented with the Union, but to run a system in which they were allowed to be monopolists. It was a matter of common knowledge that they turned with great ferocity on the candidate for a Unionist seat in Leinster with the result that the seat was lost to their Party. It had been said that the Liberal Party were not committed to Home Rule, but he could not believe that. The first principle of Liberalism all over the world was that government against the consent of the people was wrong. The system by which Ireland had been governed had diminished the population, increased poverty, and prevented the development of the resources of the country.
  Amendment proposed—
  "At the end of the Question, to add the words, 'But humbly represent to Your Majesty that the present system of Government in Ireland is in opposition to the will of the Irish people, and gives them no voice in the management of their own affairs; that the system is consequently ineffective and extravagantly costly, does not enjoy the confidence of any section of the population, and is productive of universal discontent and unrest, and has proved to be incapable of satisfactorily promoting the material and intellectual progress of the people.' "—(Mr. John Redmond.)
  Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
  MR. WILLIAM MOORE(Antrim, N.) asked that he might be allowed, before proceeding to lay before the House very shortly the views of those whom he represented, to express the regret felt on his own side, which he had no doubt would meet with general sympathy from Members opposite, at the absence of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for North Armagh, who was a popular figure in the House. And, compared with this occasion—an occasion important for the very existence of Irish Unionism—there never was an occasion on which his services were so much needed. The House would, he thought, be pleased to know that he was fairly on the way to convalescence. The hon. and learned Member for Waterford had taken the straightforward course of reminding the
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  House where, after twenty years, his Party now stood. He said they were still, as ever, united in an unalterable demand for Home Rule, and although the hon. Member rather unworthily sneered at their small numbers—they were seventeen Members in that House—still they represented those who were the loyal supporters of Unionist government in Ireland, and who numbered 1,250,000 of their fellow-countrymen. It was not only on behalf of his own constituents, but of all those who whilst they chiefly lived in the province of Ulster were scattered throughout the rest of the land, that he would like to say that after twenty years they, too, stood where they did. They had fought inch by inch during those twenty years with all the weight of the Nationalist Members against them, with the people in the country behind those hon. Gentlemen against them. Yes, they were 1,250,000 of people who had stood out against all the odds, and had fought Home Rule at home inch by inch. They had succeeded in keeping it off so far, and they would succeed for another twenty years if they were fairly and honestly treated by the Leaders of the Unionist Party. That day, after twenty years of loyalty, they were just as determined to face Nationalist opposition, and the intrigues and plottings of those responsible for Irish administration under a Unionist Government. The hon. Member for Waterford was perfectly correct in the statement which he made when he said that in every section of the population of Ireland there was discontent. After twenty years of Unionist Government he never remembered, as at this minute, such universal contempt and mistrust; such disaffection on the part of this million and a quarter of people who, certain members of His Majesty's Government thought, might be lightly thrown overboard without a regret. One quality—and the sooner that this was borne in on the minds of statesmen on that side of the House or the other, whether they were members of a Government which was a friend or a foe—the one quality which, was required for a Government in Ireland was the quality of straightforwardness; and that was the one quality which within the last two years had been conspicuously lacking

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  in every department of Irish administration. Of course it was very easy, when they came over to this country, to have their grievances misrepresented. It was very easy to minimise the numbers of those who put them forward. It was quite a simple matter to get hold of friends in influential quarters of the Press and say, "This is a little Unionist clamour, it does not matter; it is Orangemen"—as if that answered everything. The opinions that he expressed that day were held, it was true, by the Orange body, but they were equally held by every Irish Liberal Unionist; they were held by Irish Conservatives, and the attempt to minimise them in that way was unfair to their importance and dishonest in practice. If they wanted to go by the newspapers, let him ask the hon. Members of the House to take a look at the Irish Press. They had in Ireland four leading Unionist papers. They had the Orange paper, if he might call it so, the Belfast News Letter, the Liberal Unionist Northern Whig; they had the general Unionist paper, the Irish Times, and they had the Conservative organ in Dublin, the Daily Express. Of course, English Members did not often see those papers, but they represented and covered the entire ground of Unionist opinion in Ireland, and day after day in each one of them—it was a fact which could not be disputed or denied—they found column after column of direct criticism, complaint, and suspicion charged against the heads of the Irish Administration. Things were not right when that was so.
  They did not get many opportunities of bringing these things forward in the House except on an occasion like this, and they would dwell a little in detail upon them. He knew the subject they were discussing, although important, was very general, and they must avoid, as far as possible, details. [NATIONALIST cries of "No."]. He meant details likely to weary the House. But one matter they felt very much the loss of in the North, and also in other parts of Ireland. They had brought their plea before their people and before the House. It was the systematic boycotting of counties, because they were Unionist, from participation in public funds. It was not
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  merely a money matter. It was the persistent unfairness of the policy of the Irish Government which had, within the last two years, done more than anything else to goad Irish Unionists into revolt. It was only within the last six months that the dishonesty—for there was no other term for it—of the whole method had been brought home to them. It was a policy of glow and glamour. They went to the Chief Secretary or elsewhere. They received the most bountiful of promises; but when it came to fulfilment of those promises, there were other parts of the country to be considered. It was said, "Oh, you are Unionists; you can be trusted not to make yourselves unpleasant in the House of Commons. We have no money; it is all going to the West and you had just better wait till next year." Now, they had been put off long enough. He would give an instance of this policy. There was a very important matter in the North of Ireland involving the expenditure of public money. He would not discuss the matter on its merits in detail—hon. Members opposite would know them. A deputation representing the five Unionist counties waited on the Chief Secretary in Dublin Castle in 1901. They were then told that everything that could be done would be done, and that immediately. In 1902 the Chief Secretary, in pursuance of his policy of promises without performance, was anxious to get through a Marine Works Bill which affected the West of Ireland. They were relying on his promises, and one of his colleagues, the Deputy-Master of the Mint—he was sure that the hon. Gentleman would be pleased to hear how hon. Members cheered him that day—pressed the matter of this grievance on the Chief Secretary, and the Chief Secretary, anxious to get his Marine Works Bill through, on August 5th, said he might take it from him that, in regard to all those schemes in which he was interested, all that could be would be done. The Chief Secretary in 1902 got his Marine Works Bill. In the following year this matter was pressed again and again on the Chief Secretary, and again and again disregarded, because it came from the Unionist part of the country. In the following year the Chief Secretary wanted a Development Grant Bill, and

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  on April 1st, 1903, the hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh again pressed this demand upon the Chief Secretary, who had admitted it was legitimate. When the Chief Secretary got the Bill through, he got up and said, "Oh, yes, what you say is quite right. £100,000 was allotted, but as some jealousy was raised in some other part of the country, it would only be fair to consider the claims of the north-east corner of Ireland, though I cannot say that any one scheme will be dealt with." In 1904 matters were still pressed upon the Chief Secretary, when £90,000 was being expended in Mayo, and in the present year Sir Antony MacDonnell was able to assure the hon. Member for Mayo that up to the present time in the Union of Swinford £376,000 of public money had been advanced for land purchase. No doubt they would get plenty of promises, but while the present Administration continued in Ireland, no Unionist would get a copper from the public funds. [Ironical NATIONALIST cheers] Hon. Members might laugh. It might be a light thing when mud and water were two feet high in the houses and fever was rampant. Of course it did not matter to the Chief Secretary—they were only Unionists—who all the time was devoting money to a part of the country where it was of absolutely no use, except to keep hon. Members opposite quiet. Harbours and piers for Nationalists were always forthcoming, but Unionists could get nothing. Yet this was called impartial administration! All over the country Unionists and Protestants were being excluded from getting their share by the local boards. [NATIONALIST cries of "Where?"] He could give particulars. When the Local Government Act was passed the House of Commons, knowing that the power given to local boards would be abused, inserted clauses protecting the minority, all appointments having to be sanctioned by the Local Government Board or the Lord-Lieutenant. But when they got a Nationalist local board excluding Protestants on account of their religion, or because they were Unionists, and the Local Government Board was asked to intervene to protect this wretched minority, the Government said:—"We cannot really afford to vex the priests,
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  or run against the Nationalists," and so the Protestants were sacrificed. This was nothing but moral cowardice on the part of the Chief Secretary. What happened at Ballinasloe? On November 26th last the Cavan County Council met to appoint a rate collector. These collectors were paid by poundage on the amount of the rates they collected. A candidate named George Armstrong, a resident in the neighbourhood, sent in a tender that he would collect rates for 2d. in the £. But the Cavan County Council, who had never allowed a Protestant to sit at its board, appointed instead of Mr. Armstrong another gentleman, simply because he was a brother or cousin of the priest and was a Roman Catholic. His terms were 3d. in the £ and the ratepayers of county Cavan were paying the additional 1d. in the £ of poundage because Mr. Armstrong was a Protestant and a Unionist. That case was sent up to the Local Government Board, which was asked, in the interest of the ratepayers, not to sanction the appointment of a man who was to receive 3d. per £1 instead of an efficient and solvent applicant who was willing to take 2d. per £1. The answer was "we cannot interfere." That policy of noninterference, not only in Ballinasloe, not only in Cavan, but all over the country, had been carried so far that if one went into any Protestant or Unionist house in any part of Ireland one found there no reliance upon any shape of protection against combination to injure them, to exclude them from public service, and deprive them of their rights. That was a matter of administration. He could only assure his friends on that side of the House that if they cared to investigate the matter they would find a hundred cases of this sort. It was going on all over the country, and it was because this state of things was so general that there was this general distrust and dislike of the Irish Government on his side, just as much as on the other.
  To turn to higher politics the position was a very curious one. In the old days the theory of government in Ireland was that there should be one Minister, whether he was the Lord-Lieutenant with a seat in the Cabinet, in which case the Chief Secretary had no seat, or whether, as

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  now, it was the Chief Secretary in the Cabinet with the Lord-Lieutenant Governor of Ireland, he being assisted by people who had local knowledge, the Lord Chancellor and the two Law Officers. [HON. MEMBERS cheered.] He did not know why hon. Members cheered. It had been pointed out by the hon. and learned Member for Waterford that the Lord-Lieutenant and the Chief Secretary had generally been either Englishmen or Scotchmen. What were they expected to know of Ireland? It had been customary to provide the Ministry with men who were born and brought up in the country, and had risen to eminence in their profession. Such men had always been allowed to have a voice in the internal government of the country. He was dining with a Judge not long ago. [Ironical NATIONALIST cheers.] He did not know that that would be an object of merriment to hon. Members opposite. This gentleman was old enough to remember, or to have gathered from his legal forefathers, how government in Ireland was carried on in the early days of last century, and he told him as a fact that, for twenty-one years in Ireland, Saurim, the distinguished Irishman and Attorney-General, practically administered Ireland. Now although the Attorney-General was a trusted and influential colleague in the last Administration, with a voice in the government of the country, what had happened in the last two years? They had changed the permanent non-political Civil Service staff, and had brought over and put in this subordinate position a gentleman of avowed politics, a gentleman of pronounced opinions, both political and religious, a gentleman too distinguished to be put under the ordinary rules of the Civil Service, a gentleman who was provided with greater freedom of action, greater opportunities of initiative than if he was promoted in the ordinary course. And what was the first act of this gentleman? Whatever his powers might have been he was an ordinary Civil servant and member of a permanent staff. He went to Ireland, and to secure that he should have the greater freedom, the greater power of initiative, he directed that the Law Officers were not to be consulted as to the business of the country. Thus two members of the King's Government,
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  with seats in this House, were shut up in their law rooms in the Castle in a position very little better than that of law clerks. The same gentleman caused it to be publicly known, shortly after his arrival, that, being cut off, of course, from the views of those familiar with the country, he would be dependent on other sources. He said that the opinion of the Roman Catholic Bishops and priests of the country and other influences were the most useful means of supplying the Government with information that would keep them in touch with affairs. That also had been put to them in a delicate paraphrase, called "accessibility." They had it stated that it was with the Chief Secretary's approval that Sir Antony MacDonnell made himself accessible to persons of all kinds and descriptions with whom he discussed important subjects. But did anyone suppose that when this official was appointed with those extra powers—poweis of initiative and of greater freedom—that he was to be the authority to rule 4,750,000–1,250,000 of whom were Protestants and Unionists—through the information and influence of the priests. That was the cause of the whole disaster. Ulster could not be ruled on the information and influence of the priests.
  He had said many hard words against the Irish Administration, but he had never done an injustice to Sir Antony MacDonnell. He had never spoken to him in his life. It pleased the Chief Secretary to suggest bias in the Anderson case, but he had no prejudice against Sir Antony MacDonnell. He had an Indian record of which any irishman might be proud, and if he had done an injustice to Sir Antony MacDonnell he would apologise to him. Now they were beginning to see that the Chief Secretary and the Irish Administration, for all their fair words and sympathy, had been at the back of the whole thing. Only the other day a letter appeared in the papers from the Roman Catholic Bishop of Limerick, in which he denounced the Chief Secretary and the Irish Administration for having tricked and played with him and his clerical colleagues in the matter of University education. He was sorry to say he thought that that was exceedingly

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  probable and that Sir Antony Mac-Donnell would be obliged to disclose what he promised the Roman Catholic bishops in carrying out his policy of "accessibility." From Friday night, however, instead of the straightforward action they were entitled to expect from a Unionist Minister, they knew he was at the back of the whole thing. That was enough to make every Unionist, whether he were an Irishman or an Englishman, sick of the whole business. It was quite reasonable then that they should describe the mischievous effect of such a policy, and he did not deplore a single word he had said in regard to the Administration, but he would withdraw if the state of affairs were shown to be otherwise. It was, however, inadvisable that a Civil servant should be sent down to Belfast on a quasi-political mission to interview the Lord Mayor and the Town Clerk. Sir Antony MacDonnell got his answer from the Town Clerk. He stated that the Government were about to introduce a Roman Catholic University Bill, and that he wished to overcome their objections. Of course, hon. Gentlemen opposite would say that that was perfectly legitimate, but he maintained it was not legitimate in a country where they wanted to establish confidence in the Government that the head of the permanent staff should be sent on such missions. Further, Sir Antony MacDonnell attended dinners and other functions in Dublin, and made speeches which, reading between the lines, could have been delivered by any hon. Member in the House. That was neither fair to him or to them.
  That was the position. It was utterly unsatisfactory and would have to be ended as soon as possible. Up to August last the position of the Irish Unionists towards the Government was one of dislike and distrust, but since the introduction of this devolution scheme those feelings had become five times as intense, and the real question was, "Who was responsible for this scheme?" Irish Unionists were now asked to vote confidence in the Government. It was not a question of approval or objection to Home Rule—Home Rule was a question they would vote against at any time—but a question of confidence in the Irish
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  Government. In regard to Imperia affairs the Irish Unionists were as proud of the Empire as anybody, and they would support this Government because they thought it was the only Government, but was it not rather hard to put a man in such a position that he should be asked to vote confidence in the Irish Administration when it was now established that the head of that Administration, responsible to the Unionists and to the House, had been sitting in Dublin Castle intriguing to ruin the whole of Unionism in Ireland. In August there came this devolution proposal, the root principle of which was the transfer of money in bulk to the Irish Administration. The action of the Civil servant who had taken part in it had been said to be indefensible. They had been told by one member of the Government that these proposals had been moderately condemned by the Government and by another that the Government repudiated them. He did not know what the varying grades of censure might be, but in some shape or form every man of the Government had thrown these proposals overboard. Irish Unionist members of the Government had done their duty to their constituents. The Attorney-General had done more than anyone else to show how destructive to Unionist principles this would be, and the English Attorney - General boldly challenged this measure and threw it overboard. He, therefore, would not discuss its merits, but here was a wholesale and insidious betrayal of Unionist policy upon a question vital to the Irish Unionists, and they were asked to give a vote of confidence to this Government.
  Let them see who was at the bottom of this, and who was responsible for the paternity of these proposals There was no doubt that it was born at the Castle. There were four people present at the birth. One was Lord Dunraven—he had told them what he thought about it. Another was Sir Antony MacDoimell, who, he thought, had been infamously treated. There was also Lord Dudley, who had frankly admitted that he was party to, privy to, and cognisant of the action of Sir Antony MacDonnell in what he did in connection with the scheme. He could not understand how, if the full facts were before the Cabinet, Sir Antony MacDonuell could be

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  censured by any honest Government, if the Cabinet were aware that the Lord-Lieutenant had given his sanction to his action. They might be told that the Government was not aware that there were three people, the Lord-Lieutenant, Sir Antony MacDonnell, and Dunraven—he would come to the fourth in a minute—who knew about it. The question was about the Chief Secretary, because the curious thing was that Sir Antony MacDonnell, the Lord-Lieutenant, and Lord Dunraven all believed that Sir Antony MacDonnell was not exceeding the in tructions of the fourth Party. Lord Dunraven said it was not true to say that Sir Antony MacDonnell pursued a policy that had been disapproved of by his chief. The Lord - Lieutenant wrote saying he was aware Sir Antony MacDonnell was helping Lord Dunraven and that he had discussed the suggested reforms with the Under-Secretary, but he did not think Sir Antony MacDonnell was exceeding his instructions, because he knew that under the terms of his appointment he differed from the ordinary Under-Secretary, and that on two previous occasions, in connection with the land question and the University question, Sir Antony MacDonnell had been in close communication with Lord Dunraven. The curious thing was that of the four supporters, three of them took an absolutely different view from the fourth, and that was that Sir Antony MacDonnell was not running counter to the wishes of the Chief Secretary. The root-principle of these proposals was the transfer of money in bulk to the Irish Administration. That was the very thing that was attempted in the House, but was stopped by the hon. Member for King's Lynn and the hon. Member for Islington. That was the very idea for which the Chief Secretary strove. His idea was to take the Development Grant and make it a charge on the Consolidated Fund. That was the idea at the bottom of devolution.
  Then there was another matter. Lord Dunraven was chosen—he was a harmless nobleman with a passion for notoriety—they thought as much of him in Ireland as they did in New York—as a harmless instrument, on two occasions, for bringing schemes before the public. Here they had from
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  start to finish Lord Dunraven in close confabulation with the Chief Secretary, or, as he was careful to put it, Mr.Wyndham. What were those topics dealing with administrative reform which it was inexpedient for Lord Dunraven to discuss with the Chief Secretary except in his private capacity. Those discussions were going on all through the year and Lord Dunraven said very fairly that the Chief Secretary's disavowal should have come earlier. The element of secrecy on the part of the Chief Secretary cast suspicion over the whole transaction. When these proposals appeared in print the Chief Secretary wrote a disavowal. But such a disavowal! It meant that he never saw the identical words in the proposals. It was to be regretted that the right hon. Gentleman did not disavow these proposals on principle. From that day to the present, although members of his Government had been calling for the paternity of this precious scheme. never one word could be extracted until the House met, and Ministers could no longer escape from the inquisition of question and answer. If everything was fair, honest, and above-board, why this desire for concealment? On Thursday last he asked the Chief Secretary whether there was any official sanction for this proposal, and it actually took two days to get a "Yes" or "No to that question! Was there any wonder, under these circumstances, that Irish Unionists were distrustful? Was there any wonder that Unionists, when they saw that they had been wounded in the house of their friends, should jib at a vote of confidence in a Government which—and from the evidence it was the almost irresistible inference—had hatched this plot in Dublin Castle? When this matter came to be dealt with, it would not be a matter of apology or excuse. They would want, nozt graceful sophistries or platitudes, but categorical denials if they were going to satisfy Irish Unionists.
  This was a serious matter. It was not; a matter merely affecting Irish Unionists. Their English Unionist colleagues had been elected for the maintenance of the Union. If this were a fraud on Irish Unionists it was also a fraud on English Unionists. They believed that they had been betrayed by their own leaders, and they were going to fight the matter out.

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  They did not care if they had to fight an open foe—they did care a great deal, because after years of loyalty it was a hard position to be placed in—but they would fight a secret enemy just as hard as an open foe. These were times of danger and stress; they had been given away behind their backs; and it was their duty to themselves and to those whom they represented to see the thing out, and, fortunately, a means was at hand which would enable them to do so. It was a striking commentary on the Chief Secretary's administration of Ireland that, within the last twelve months, two different associations for the protection of Unionist interests had had to be formed. They had organised and embodied in a union all the constitutional associations in Ulster, and they now had the Ulster Union. The Liberal Unionists and the Orangemen were separately represented. That council, with some 200 delegates, would be meeting in Belfast on March 3rd, and they would take counsel there whether the time had not come for Ulster to draw on her reserves. [Laughter.] Hon. Gentlemen laughed, but they did not know what he meant. He would tell them what the Ulster reserves were. They were Ulster's contribution to the Government. There were five Members representing Irish constituencies members of the Government; there were two Members for the University of Dublin, and three Members sitting for Ulster constituencies. If they were pressed in this way, if they were convinced that they were being tricked and betrayed, as their people believed, it would be time for them to consider whether they should not ask the five Unionist Members of the Government to step out of the ranks, and come to their help. He knew perfectly well what their feelings were; he knew their loyalty, and the services they had always rendered to their Unionist constituents. It would be a great sacrifice to ask them to make, but if the Irish Unionists were betrayed in the fashion now prevalent there would be no alternative. He was sorry that on that occasion he in company with his colleagues were absolutely prevented from voting confidence in an Irish Administration carried on as at present. It was the first time, he thought,
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  for twenty years that Irish Unionists had been forced to say that. They appealed to the Chief Secretary last year to get rid of this wretched, rotten, sickening policy of conciliation, which meant bribing one's enemies at the expense of one's friends. That appeal unfortunately fell on deaf ears. Matters had changed now: they left it to the leaders of their Party, they appealed to them to put their foot down on this trickery and treachery towards Unionists in Ireland, and to give them a straightforward, resolute Government, which would be impartial to all sections of the community. The men who were responsible for the present state of affairs were guilty of much disservice to the Unionist Party. It was lamentable that the Viceroy should have been concerned in a movement which struck at the whole principles of Unionism, and gave colour to the statement that the Unionist Government were being converted to Home Rule. He and his colleagues had not abated their opposition to Home Rule, but it had been made impossible for them to oppose Home Rule on the present occasion by voting confidence in the Irish Government as now administered.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (MR. WYNDHAM, Dover): I rise at once because one passage in the speech of the hon. and learned Member who moved the Amendment before the House, and almost the whole of the violent speech to which we have just listened, were directed to a matter which is personal to myself, and I therefore do not propose until I have dealt with that matter to go into the merits of the Amendment or to answer the subsidiary points which have been raised. But in case I should otherwise forget to do so before I sit down, I wish most emphatically to repudiate the charge that during my administration and in pursuance of my policy, favouritism has been shown to certain parts of Ireland at the expanse of other parts. It is not so. I have the figures here, and if it would not seem as if I were interposing them between the House and the matter on which I must speak I would read them now. [Cries of "Read."] No; whether the House is impatient to hear me on the Dunraven scheme or not

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  I am impatient to speak upon it. I ask the House to allow me to go into this matter somewhat fully. The last speaker in the attack which he delivered against, me says he is sick of the policy of conciliation, and I have no doubt he disapproves cordially of any Chief Secretary meeting any persons except those who agree with him. I have no doubt he thinks I am betraying the Union and no longer deserving of his confidence if I attempt to make higher education acceptable to the Irish people and to bring it within the reach of their pockets, and if I think it proper to speak, as I have spoken, to a Roman Catholic Archbishop, a Presbyterian Moderator, Fellows of a University, to all and sundry who could give me any opinions or facts which might help me to solve a problem which I bitterly regret I have not been able to solve. Therefore, I am not going to make a speech which will convince my hon. friend, who has attacked me so vehemently, that he should approve of all I do and have tried to do in Ireland. That is beyond my power. What I do wish is to make it quite clear that in the letter I wrote to The Times on September 27th last I was expressing a view which I have always held—I was expressing my objection to the introduction of a semi-elective financial board, and my fundamental and unalterable objection to the delegation to any board of any legislative powers other than those of Private Bill legislation. These are the views I hold and which, I thought, everybody knew I held. They are clear to me, but it does not always follow that views which are clear to one's self are clear to everybody else. When we discussed Home Rule in the 80's and 90's there were many somewhat ambiguous solutions proffered as alternatives to a direct negative—provincial councils, and I know not what—and at the end of that controversy there were some, among whom I include myself, who arrived at the definite view that there was no middle path, that Home Rule must mean really a Parliament, and, I think, a Parliament with powers to tax, and that if we are not prepared to adopt that form of government we must be content with the Union as it stands and try to work it as best we may. That is my opinion; and that being so,
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  knowing as I do that a great many people in Ireland are not satisfied with the present political position, knowing as I do that Ireland stands in need of all the help this House can give her, and is bound to give her, as I think, under any intelligent appreciation of the Union, I have not been anxious to guard myself against suspicions and risks by refusing to meet any man who came to speak to me on his views as to how some amendment might be brought in.
  And now I come to the point of my relations to Sir Antony MacDonnell. The charge against me is either that I appointed a distinguished public servant whom I had no business to appoint, and that I gave him powers I had no business to confer on him; or that I was right in doing that, but that the moment he put one foot wrong I threw him over. I deny both charges. What were the conditions of Sir Antony MacDonnell's appointment? If I may develop this at some length I shall be glad to do so, because, unless the House goes back with me over the last few years, I do not think they will realise the impression that was made upon my , own mind. In the year 1902 I had no idea there was going to be a vacancy in the office of Under-Secretary. Sir Antony MacDonnell came back from India with about as high a record as any man who ever went there. He was an Irishman, and I was introduced to him by Lord Lansdowne. I was delighted to make his acquaintance, and I was much impressed by his personality and his ability. He asked me to give him letters to the heads of various departments in Ireland in order that he might make use of them on a visit to that country. He I talked at great length on land problems. In India he had tackled successfully a great many land problems. I know it is the fashion to deride the appointment I made on the ground that Indian experience was not an advantage but rather a disadvantage to the man going to Ireland; but anybody who reads Sir Henry Maine's works will know that in India every form of land tenure is to be found, and would understand that the man who did the work Sir Antony MacDonnell did in India was not a man unfitted to assist me in dealing with the

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  Irish land question, and certainly not a person likely to be hostile to the landowning class. However that may be, I was much impressed by Sir Antony MacDonnell; and a vacancy which I did not expect suddenly occurred. Sir D. Harrel resigned at a moment when I did not expect his resignation; and my thoughts naturally and inevitably turned to the distinguished Irishman I had met with such a high record, and I asked him to assist me in my task, not a very easy one, by becoming Under-Secretary for Ireland. At that moment I found myself under the necessity of proclaiming a number of districts in Ireland under the Criminal Law Amendment Act; at that moment I was hoping to pass the Land Bill of 1902, or to bring in a better measure the next year; and at that moment, before I had any conversation with Sir Antony MacDonnell, 1 was gravely exercised in my mind, and had had many conversations with his predecessor on the subject, by the immense amount of new work which had been cast on the various Irish Departments by Unionist legislation. The Government of Ireland has ceased to be merely the police force of Ireland. Under the Congested Districts Board, the Government of Ireland has to administer large sums of money, and under the Local Government Act and other Acts many new duties have been created, and, in my judgment, in my deliberate judgment, I had arrived, before I saw Sir Antony MacDonnell, at the conviction that it was proper and right and almost necessary for the Chief Secretary to take a better collective view of all these Departments, that he should try to draw them together, and that he should have a strong chief on the staff to assist him in the difficult task thrown upon his shoulders.
  The case I have to make is that there are certain things which I have always held and hold now. Other things have been attributed to me by the last speaker; for instance, that I am in favour of delegating legislative powers to a body in Ireland. I have never held that view, and I do not hold it now. It is natural that I could not invite such a man as Sir Antony MacDonnell, with such a record, to come and help me as a mere clerical assistant; and, apart altogether
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  from anything that specifically passed between us, if it was proper to make such an appointment, and I hold that it was proper, it was impossible to make it without accepting Sir Antony MacDonnell as he was, as a man sworn of the Privy Council on the same day as I was myself. Do you suppose a Minister could invite a man who had rendered greater services to the Empire than he could ever hope to render, to sit on an office stool and merely to register the papers that came into the office? Let me be condemned for making the appointment, but if I made the appointment I had to accept Sir Antony MacDonnell, and I was glad to accept him, on the valuation he had won in India by his long and distinguished services. Sir Antony MacDonnell did not take up this task with a light heart. I was perfectly well aware that by appointing him I exposed myself to risk of attack. I had talked over Ireland with him before I suggested he should become Under-Secretary, and it was because we were both deeply interested in the possibility of doing something for the good of Ireland that, after a fortnight's consideration, he decided he could undertake the task, and we embodied in our letters the conversations in which we had been engaged; and these letters make it perfectly plain and clear that Sir Antony MacDonnell was invited by me rather as a colleague than as a mere Under-Secretary to register my will. I was glad to have his advice, to welcome any suggestions from him, and it was made clear, subject, of course, to my control, that he was to enjoy a certain freedom of administrative action. Let me be blamed for that if my hon. friends think I made a mistake in the appointment. I do not think I did. But I made clear to Sir Antony MacDonnell all the projects which I thought within the conceivable bounds of legislative action.
  It has been suggested, not here, this afternoon, but elsewhere, that when I invited Sir Antony MacDonnell to help me in Ireland I had in my mind, and that I imparted to him, some desire to carry out what is called devolution. That is certainly not the case. Nothing of the kind was ever mentioned by either of us. The letters are extant—they are

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  in Sir Antony MacDonnell's possession—and they show that no such problem was contemplated by me at the time of his appointment. We had proposed to deal, in the first place, with the maintenance of order. At that time that was a pressing problem. Here are the problems we hoped to deal with then, and the order in which they were placed:—(1) the maintenance of order; (2) a Land Bill on the lines of voluntary purchase, or, where that was impossible, an automatic and cheap system of fixing rents instead of the existing litigious system; (3) education in the spirit of the Prime Minister's views; (4) the co-ordination, direction, and control of detached boards. The co-ordination, or correlation, as I used to call it, of the various boards in Ireland does not suggest to me, and never will suggest to me, the introducing of another board which is to be of an elective character. It is bad enough to have forty-two boards, and the last thing I want, at any rate, is to have a forty-third board, half of the members of which I am to nominate, and be accused of betraying the Union, and the other half to be elected to quarrel with those I have nominated; while the Treasury views on finance will not be accepted by the board, and the views of the board will never be accepted by this House. That has nothing to do with co-ordination. The other matters mentioned were material improvement and that object of derision, administrative conciliation; and by administrative conciliation no man has ever meant winking the eye at disorder, and if proof of that were needed it comes at the end of a programme which begins with the maintenance of order. Administrative conciliation in my mind means an attempt, however vain, however futile, however malign—however libelled—to show that the duty of government does not end with maintaining order as the first condition of economic progress. The province of government is larger, and some positive direction and energetic help can be given to economic progress. That was all that was contained in Sir Antony MacDonnell's letter to me as the projects which he contemplated. In my reply I indicated one or two more, and here they are. One was, that if we lived long enough, I hoped something
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  would be done to carry out the Report of Lord Balfour of Burleigh's Commission—something to consolidate the grants to Ireland and to relieve the rates. And I hoped something would be done to develop transit in that country. That is all that was proposed—nothing else was proposed. And therefore I hope that from this day forth it will not be suggested in this House or in another place that I entered into a clandestine conspiracy with Sir Antony MacDonnell to foist upon the public, unbeknown to them, principles which were opposed to the principles of the Unionist Party. The hon. Member who attacked me in his speech, quoted some words to the effect that it was better that the members of the Reform Association, I think he said, should not meet me at Sir Antony MacDonnell's dinner table. Was that the charge?
  MR. WILLIAM MOORE: The Chief Secretary considered that the meeting should not be held at Sir Antony MacDonnell's house, as he wished to keep it private.
  MR. WYNDHAM: What meeting, with whom and when?
  MR. WILLIAM MOORE: This is a letter written by Sir Antony MacDonnell—
  "If the first meeting," that is of Lord Dunraven and his Committee, "was held at my house, or at my invitation, everyone would say that Mr. Wyndham was a prime mover in the business. Any help I can give I should be happy to give by supplying facts and information, but I think—and in this Mr. Wyndham, to whom I have spoken, agrees with me—that it is better I should not appear prominently or even to the extent of inviting men to meet you."
  MR. WYNDHAM: I do not know what impression that conveys to the minds of other people in the House, but the impression which it conveys to my mind is that I was to meet those persons who published the Dunraven scheme. [Cries of "No."] The impression conveyed to my mind is that it has some-connection with the Reform Association. Well, but it has not any.
  MR. WILLIAM MOORE: It was read in that connection in the speech of Lord Dunraven.
  MR. WYNDHAM; No, I think not. That is not what Lord Dunraven could have intended, because what is the fact? Not this year, but in the year 1903, just after the Land Act had been passed amidst general plaudits—at a time when Lord Dunraven received the compliments that he had earned from all sections of opinion—at a time when the hon. Member for Cork City, who is not in the House, had converted a paper which was very hostile to the Government into an organ of the derided policy of conciliation—it was at that time that Lord Dunraven came to me and discussed the chances and prospects of a Moderate Party in Ireland, and showed to me the proof sheets of an article which he subsequently published in the Irish People. And still I am in favour, if it was possibb—the chances are not so good as they were—I am not going to disguise anything from the House—I am in favour of Lord Dunraven or anyone else forming a Moderate Party in the Centre and South of Ireland. I should be very glad if it could be done. I know that on many questions hon. Gentlemen from the south of Ireland do not see eye to eye with my friends who sit for northern constituencies, but surely they would not deny to Unionists in the Centre and South of Ireland the right to express their views. Luckily, I can refer anybody in this country to the article which Lord Dunraven contributed to the Irish People on November 7th, 1903, which was the outcome of our meetings at the time. Lord Dunraven and I were discussing these projects. And again, just as in the letter exchanged between myself and Sir Antony MacDonnell, there is no mention of any desire to delegate legislative power other than for Private Bills to anybody, so in the contribution which Lord Dunraven made at the time, and after our conversation in 1903, there is no mention of anything of the kind. He speaks of land purchase, of education, of the conditions of the people, of the labourers, of the Irish Land Bill, of transit, of fiscal reform, and after that he asks, in heavily leaded type, how is further co-operation practicable? Upon that point did anybody expect devolution? Not at all. The article goes on—
  "The questions enumerated sufficiently prove the existence of a vast field on which the efforts
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  and energies of all men of all creeds, classes and politics can be profitably employed."
  I agree with every word of that. I think with Lord Dunraven, although I do not approve of his two proposals—to have a semi-elective financial board and to delegate legislative powers other than for private legislation—although I do not approve of those two proposals I will not turn round when it puts me in a difficulty and unsay all that I have said about Lord Dunraven, who took the foremost part in producing the Land Conference. When he took up the Land Conference he was exposed to derision, but he carried it through and was praised by all. This is not an occasion when I shall turn round and say I am embarrassed, or the Party is embarrassed, because you have advocated objects to which I object.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL (Tyrone, S.): What about the suggested meeting at Sir Antony MacDonnell s house?
  MR. WYNDHAM: Why not? In the year 1903, when we were discussing these matters, before there was any Reform Association or anybody had any idea of it—what has it got to do with the Reform Association and the manifesto published on December 26th, 1904—what has it got to do with founding a Moderate Party in the South of Ireland? What has the desirability of Lord Dunraven asking men to meet me—what, I ask, have those things and the article contributed to the new organ of peace—what have they got to do with a publication which I saw for the first time a year afterwards, which contained two things to which I objected, and to which I expressed objection?
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I do not disagree with the right hon. Gentleman, but I wish to know what first of all the meeting was to be about, and why it should be secret.
  MR WYNDHAM: I do not see the force of that. Does the hon. Gentleman suggest that we were going to discuss devolution at that meeting?
  MR. WILLIAM MOORE: Lord Dunraven is asked, according to this letter, to

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  bring together the identical people who within twelve months formulated this scheme. It was suggested that the meeting should take place at Sir Antony MacDonnell's house. Sir Antony Mac-Donnell said: "It will never do to have Mr. Wyndham appearing as the prime mover in that matter." What is the meaning of that secrecy?
  MR. WYNDHAM: If the hon. Member suggests that a letter of that kind having been written, it reflects upon me let him think so. It has nothing to do with the matter that he has been discussing, and I can quite understand that for Lord Dunraven to hold a sort of political dinner party at the Under-Secretary's house would have been a mistake, and would have excited comments which would have been prejudicial to the objects which he had in his mind, and those objects are the objects which I have read out. I do not know whether that seems as clear to the House as it does to me. [OPPOSITION and NATIONALIST laughter.] What I cannot understand is why discussions at the beginning of the autumn of 1903 should have been woven by the hon. Member who has attacked me into a charge that I was in favour of these two things. The prospects of such a Moderate Party working for objects upon which all men were agreed are, I regret, overcast when the same men—if they are the same men—take up the idea of delegating legislative power other than for Private Bills to anybody. The prospects of a Moderate Party are overcast to-day by taking up that project, because it is a project on which I do not suppose any two men in Ireland would agree. But the meetings and discussions in 1903 which have been referred to were meetings and discussions on subjects upon which it was hoped that all men would agree, and at that time I never gave any countenance to the idea either of creating a semi-elective financial board or to the idea of delegating powers, other than for Private Bill legislation to anybody or board of any sort or description. That is really all that I have to say. Neither then, nor on any subsequent occasion, have I ever said a word, or written a word, to Sir Antony MacDonnell in favour of
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  either of those two proposals, those proposals have not been before me, and those are the proposals to which I attach importance, and to which I strongly and vehemently object.
  But then it is said, how do you testify to the loyalty of Sir Antony MacDonnell? I testify to it with all my heart. He is a man of the greatest candour and integrity—a man with whom I have been proud and glad to work. And if the House cares to follow the lines which led to the misunderstanding, I will trace them faithfully from start to finish. I had discussed finance with Sir Antony MacDonnell, not on many occasions, but on several occasions. I had, as the hon. Member for North Antrim pointed out, been for a long time in favour of devoting moneys which are exclusively Irish to the needs which are peculiar to that country. I am not going to defend that position now. It is a position which men of honour understand. I have defended it in this House, and I have carried a Bill—the Development Grant Bill—through this House. I brought in a Bill last year for devoting the savings on Irish administration to that grant, which I was not successful in carrying, but my mind has been working upon that fact for a long time since. I do not claim any great merit for that. It is not very novel. As a matter of fact Ireland has always enjoyed something of that kind. When the Exchequers were amalgamated in 1817 funds were expended without consultation with this House and without any control on the part of the Treasury. When the Irish Church was disestablished and disendowed the Church Surplus Fund came into being, and it has for many years been devoted to needs which are peculiar to Ireland. The Congested Districts Board started with an income, the new Technical Department started with an endowment and income; and with all those precedents before me I desired, in view of the political and financial circumstances of the situation, to give some extension to the principles which are to be found in those measures, and which have governed the dispensation of all those funds. I have spoken on these lines to Sir Antony MacDonnell, and he, with his

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  Indian experience, found analogies between my ideas and the views which he had formed in India. But here comes the first source of serious misunderstanding. When Sir Antony MacDonnell has spoken to me of the Indian Budget and of provincial contracts I, who am colossally ignorant about Indian affairs, did not know that in India there is a semi-elective council with a voice in these matters; and therefore it never occurred to me during the conversations I had with Sir Antony MacDonnell that in pointing out the analogy between Indian finances and some of the ideas I had in my mind, he had in his mind, unexpressed, or at any rate not clear to me, the idea that another board would come into existence, partially elective, a board to which I should have to submit my Estimates, in addition to the Treasury and this House. If I had obtained an inkling of the idea that I was to submit the allocation of Irish resources not only to the Treasury, but then to another body of this description, which would resent everything that the Treasury had done, and in the third place to this House, where the Irish Members would dissent sharply from the views of the board—if 1 had ever entertained in my mind that this was part of the financial ideas intended I should at once and forthwith have told Sir Antony MacDonnell that, in my judgment, the proposal was impracticable and unworkable. But it did not. When I was talking of the Development Grant policy and he was citing the Indian analogies it is now clear to me that, though we were travelling on parallel lines, he was travelling on a line that went further, in accordance with the practice of India. In any case it has never been suggested to me that there should be any control over my allocation of Irish money for certain purposes other than the control of the Treasury and this House.
  Now I come to the second and the graver cause of misunderstanding which confirmed the first cause. At the end of last session I defended Sir Antony MacDonnell, and I am prepared to defend him again. I went upon a holiday, and I tried to make that holiday as complete as I could make it. I paid
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  no heed to the newspapers, I neglected my correspondence, and my mind was not intent upon politics at all. I do not dwell upon this, though, owing to the exacting demands that Ireland makes upon the time and attention of a Minister, I had not enjoyed a holiday for six years, and I meant this to be a holiday. There was no indication to make me suppose that anything important was going to happen in Ireland. The Irish Reform Association came into being without startling me. In the second manifesto, published on September 26th, everybody read into the formation of the Irish Reform, Association all kinds of designs which I had not discovered in it on a very cursory and otiose perusal of the report on the first reading. I was on a holiday, and I did not know that the association was going to be formed or to issue a manifesto or report. The first report issued by the association made no impression on my mind, and it made very little impression upon the mind, of other people. I did not read it at the time; I was not following politics at all closely; but the Irish Times, a Unionist organ, seems to have read this report, I suppose, more carefully than I did. It was not at all startled or alarmed. This newspaper pointed out—and I think it is a fair criticism of the first notice of the Irish Reform Association—that its proposals were very vague, and added—
  "For the present we are content to bid the Irish Reform Association a cordial welcome and to wish success to its patriotic labours."
  If I had been in Dublin and had read the article I should not have thought it my duty to dash into print and to say that these gentlemen were all wrong. The association only becomes real and concrete to me when I see the two proposals to which I have referred and to which I object. I was travelling about from this place to that place, and I was on the eve of going abroad. Sir Antony Mac-Donnell, who, as I now know, was taking a great interest in the Irish Reform Association and was intent upon this matter, which was not present to my mind, wrote me a letter saying that he was helping Lord Dunraven in respect of Irish finance. I wish I had that letter. If I had that letter I must say that the

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  list cloud of suspicion would be dispersed; but I do not remember getting that letter. Sir Antony MacDcnnell, however, recalls that letter to my mind, and he says that he was helping Lord Dunraven. I am not sure that he mentioned the Irish Reform Association, and he is sure that he did not mention the two matters to which I object—the creation of a financial council and the delegation of any legislative power other than Private Bill legislation to that body or to any other body. I may have erred in this matter; but all I can say is that if the letter did not contain any reference to these two points then I am not concerned as to what its contents were, except that I am deeply concerned that there should be a serious and melancholy misunderstanding between Sir Antony MacDonnell and myself, the only misunderstanding in the whole of our official connection. But, if these two points were not suggested in that letter, it contained no suggestion that a manifesto was to be issued; and it was the last thing I anticipated. I was abroad in Germany, and I never for a moment imagined that anybody was going to issue another political manifesto. Those are the points to which I attach importance, and I attached so much importance to them that I objected strongly to them both. When I saw for the first time in The Times on September 26th, without an idea that Sir Antony MacDonnell had assisted in drafting these proposals, and without consulting a single soul, I said that, in my judgment, the two points were inadmissible. That is the effect of my letter to The Times. I attached then, and I attach now, greater importance to the second point—the delegation of legislative powers other than Private Bill legislation. In the forefront of my letter I repudiated that. For the first time in The Times I did not, perhaps, state strongly, as I now state, my objection to the semi-elective financial board. That was not because I did not object to it. I never heard that there was to be a semi-elective financial board. I was concerned in the second part of the letter, to making it clear that the Treasury had some part to play in the giving of greater grants to Ireland. It was my duty, even on a cursory perusal
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  of the document, to let the Chancellor of the Exchequer know that I was no party to seeking to get at that time further funds for Irish purposes. It was obvious to me that if these two proposals were objectionable I was bound to repudiate the second one forthwith.
  I think that I have now exhausted the personal drama; at any rate, I have searched every nook and cranny of my mind and I have told the House all that I know of the matter. I am ready to take any blame which it is ready to cast upon me. I will take great blame for securing Sir Antony MacDonnell's services on the only terms commensurate with his performance of the duties. I did that, and I would do it again. I will take blame for permitting and for encouraging him to see Lord Dunraven and others and to collect information which might be useful to me in respect of Roman Catholic education. I did that, and I would do itagain. I have as great a right to my views on the higher education of Roman Catholics as any other hon. Members. In India there are elective boards. I may be blamed because such little heed as I did pay to the coming to birth of the Reform Association during my holidays did not seem to me to afford any reason for my rushing back to Ireland. But from all this there followed, as I have said, a serious misunderstanding, but what is perfectly plain is that Sir Antony MacDonnell was justified and well warranted in the belief that I should not, and could not, object to his seeing Lord Dunraven or discussing with him the possibilities of reform, and the chances of Unionists in the South taking a more active part in politics and local affairs. He knew from conversations and from my speeches in this House that I was in favour of allowing the Irish Government to devote money exclusively Irish to the needs peculiar to that country, and he knew that I did not object, and I do not object, to the principle of some such measure for private Bill legislation as that which has been given to Scotland, with the necessary alterations to make it applicable to Ireland. From this he inferred that I did not object, and I do object, to the creation of an elective financial board, and that I did not object,

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  and I do object, to the delegation of any legislative power to anybody in Ireland other than for the purpose of Private Bills. His inference was a perfectly honest one, upon which he acted without any attempt to conceal anything.
  MR. DILLON (Mayo, E.): Then why was he censured by the Cabinet?
  MR. WYNDHAM: I am coming to that. He was wrong in drafting that document without being sure that I approved of the proposal, but it throws no kind of reflection upon his honour, candour, or integrity. His career in India stands unblemished by this matter. Now I am asked why I do not defend his action. I ought to add, as I said before, that as soon as Sir Antony MacDonnell saw my objection to these two proposals in The Times he at once informed Lord Dun-raven that he could have no connection with the programme. Having made that clear I am asked why I did not defend Sir Antony MacDonnell. I have defended Sir Antony MacDonnell.
  MR. DILLON: But why was he censured by the Cabinet?
  MR. WYNDHAM: He was censured by the Cabinet because he assisted the publication owing to this misunderstanding, as I have explained, of proposals to which I and to which the Cabinet object; proposals which I was not at liberty to make without consultation with my colleagues, and which, therefore, he was not at liberty to make without knowing clearly that I was in favour of them.
  MR. WINSTON CHURCHILL (Old ham): Does that apply to the Viceroy?
  MR. WYNDHAM: A statement made by the Cabinet that they could not defend a publication of these proposals is a statement of fact. How can we as a Party, as a Government, defend the publication of proposals to which we object? But to that statement was added that the Government were thoroughly satisfied with the loyalty of Sir Antony MacDonnell. Now, it may be urged that you ought not to say you cannot defend the publication of those two
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  proposals, and, at the same time, say that you are satisfied of his loyalty.
  MR. DILLON: You said his conduct was indefensible.
  MR. WYNDHAM: I do not know whether hon. Members wish to add acerbity, but I do not remember the word "conduct" being used. The point was that in assisting the formulation of these proposals his action was indefensible. But that casts no reflection upon Sir Antony MacDonnell. You cannot defend the publication of views from which you dissent yourself. Let me put it to my hon. friend. If we had said that we could not defend the publication of these proposals and we disapproved of them, without saying that we were satisfied that Sir Antony MacDonnell was acting honestly, we should have been casting an unmerited aspersion upon a public man upon whom no such aspersion should be cast. It would have been thought that the Government approved, or tacitly assented, to proposals to which the Government as a matter of fact took the strongest objection, and to which I have taken the strongest objection. I have dealt with this matter fully and without any artifices of speaking, and having dealt with it I feel it would be dull indeed—
  MR. WINSTON CHUECHILL: Before the right hon. Gentleman passes from the subject altogether, will he answer the question whether the censure of the Cabinet on Sir Antony MacDonnell also covers the action of the Viceroy?
  MR. WYNDHAM: This is a somewhat new question, because, when the Cabinet censured, if that is the proper term, Sir Antony MacDonell they did not know that the Viceroy had assented. Having dealt with this personal drama, at any rate very frankly, I feel it would be useless for me to deal seriously with the Amendment before the House, for this personal drama for the moment engages all our attention. The Amendment before the House raises very great questions of the highest moment. The hon. and learned Member for Waterford who opened this debate was quite explicit, as he always is. He wants Home Rule. We are entitled to know whether those

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  who vote for this Amendment are ready to go to that length or not. I saw in the newspaper the other day that everybody should vote for this Amendment, because it meant a change in Party Government. Well, I should like to know the views of the Opposition upon this Amendment. My own views are perfectly clear. I stated last year in the debate on the Address that there is no middle term between Home Rule and the Union as it at present exists. I do not believe you will improve the situation of Ireland by means of a National Assembly and calling it something else. I do not believe you will improve the situation in Ireland by giving limited powers which you say you can revoke. I do not think you will improve the situation by supporting a national body and giving it no financial control, giving it a stipend like a boy upon an allowance. If any of those plans were followed the situation of Ireland would not be better, but worse than it is now. Because I am unable to say now, and because I have never been able to say, that the Unionist policy is unacceptable to the majority of the Irish people, it is assumed that we ought to try some experiment. Sir, I deny that. It is true now, as it was when the words were written, 110 years ago, that "This a state of things which no man in his senses can call perfectly happy." But it is the state of Ireland and the words go on. "To-day, the question is this—Are we to make the best of this situation which we cannot alter?" My view as a Unionist Minister has been that we ought to try and make the best of the situation. Because I have followed that view, I have exposed myself in some quarters to a great deal of hostile criticism, and if it is because I hold that view I have been condemned, I shall accept the condemnation with equanimity.
  MR. HALDANEsaid that after listening to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman he accepted fully the assurance he had given. He was a man of honour, and he accepted every word he had uttered as regarded his personal share in this most unhappy transaction. He could not help feeling, however, that Sir Antony MacDonnell had been very badly used in this matter. What were the circumstances under which
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  Sir Antony MacDonnell, in the year 1902' was appointed to the great office which he held at the present time? They had heard them stated by the right hon. Gentleman, but they had also heard them stated in another place by Lord Lansdowne, and they knew pretty accurately what was the footing upon which Sir Antony MacDonnell came to Dublin Castle. The conditions were quite different from the usual conditions. Lord Lansdowne had stated that one of the conditions was that Sir Antony MacDonnell was not to be bound by the narrow rules of routine, and that he was to have greater opportunities of initiative. That was one of the phrases which appeared in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman opposite. One of Sir Antony MacDonnell's tasks was to be the coordination of the many detached or semi-detached boards under which the Government of Ireland was at present sub-divided. That was a most remarkable phrase. Upon that footing, and coming to Ireland from a great position in India as Sir Antony MacDonnell did, what took place? There was a discussion between the right hon. Gentleman and Sir Antony MacDonnell as to what was to be the policy of the administration in which he was to take a share, and the Chief Secretary had told them that there were many topics on which there was large discussion, and that there was an exchange of views not merely in writing but also in conversation. There was, for instance, an exchange of views upon education, and they knew, of course, that that meant the large question connected with University education in Ireland. Then there was the question of co-ordination of the many deta hed boards, which were the same words as he had just quoted from Lord Lansdowne's speech. Then there was administrative conciliation, another very remarkable phrase, and there was also consolidation, opening up a wide field. It was perfectly obvious from what the right hon. Gentleman had told the House that the discussions between himself and Sir Antony MacDonnell went very far. He accepted the right hon. Gentleman's statement that there was a mistake, but his point was that the person to be sympathised with in this matter was Sir

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  Antony MacDonnell and not the right hon. Gentleman. The Unionist Party had made a step forward towards a larger and more liberal measure of government in Ireland, and they had been reproached for being under the influence of hon. Gentlemen from Ireland who sat on the Nationalist side, but those gentlemen had even a better ground for reproaching the administration for being under the heel of the Ascendency Party in Ireland. He welcomed certain signs of a systematic effort on the part of the administration to try and free itself from that control. First, there was the Local Government Bill of the President of the Board of Trade, then at the Irish Office and, later, the conference in Ireland which led up to the Land Act of 1903. That conference was composed of the same people who had issued this manifesto which gave rise to such misunderstanding. The House had learned to-night that the views of the Chief Secretary were not opposed to every statutory board. He had made an exception in favor of Private Bill legislation, and held the view that a statutory board could be formed in Ireland to deal with that. The proposed financial council, however, was a matter on which he would like some light, for such a council was certainly a new feature in the situation. The right hon. Gentleman, he understood, had not concealed from them that he was in favour of a financial council of some kind, but what he did object to was a financial council which should control the allocation, which he himself chose to make, of the grants.
  MR. WYNDHAM: No, I personally, speaking for what my experience of Dublin Castle is worth, object to having anybody interposed between the Treasury and this House.
  MR. HALDANE: It was not to have any power of control, but it was to be a financial council.
  MR. WYNDHAM: Well, what is the good of a financial council if it has no power?
  MR. HALDANE: Well, I should have thought that that was a topic which
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  emerged in the conversations between Sir Antony MacDonnell and the right hon. Gentleman. Was it not discussed?
  MR. WYNDHAM: That is so; but I must ask the right hon. Gentleman to take it from me that I supposed, in my ignorance of Indian affairs, when the words "provincial control" were mentioned, that they did not convey financial control. I did not know there was a council in India. My object had been to get more money from the Consolidated Grant for Ireland, to be devoted to Irish purposes on the lines of the Development Grant. My object has never been—and as soon as I heard it stated 1 objected to it—that anybody should intervene between the Treasury and this House, a third body to whom I should have to repeat the endless arguments I have to urge in order to get money for any purpose.
  MR. HALDANE: Then I misunderstood the right hon. Gentleman very much when I heard his speech. I certainly thought that some consultative body was discussed.
  MR. WYNDHAM: No.
  MR. HALDANE: Not even discussed.
  MR. WYNDHAM: No.
  MR.HALDANEsaid that of course he accepted the right hon. Gentleman's statement; but it was very remarkable that Sir Antony MacDonnell should have slipped so easily into the idea that a financial council, which occupied a prominent position in the Reform Association scheme, came within the scope of what he was authorised to discuss. It only confirmed in his mind the fact that the discussions between the right hon. Gentleman and Sir Antony MacDonnell must have gone very far and been very loose. The step taken by the right hon. Gentleman in summoning Sir Antony Mac-Donnell to the councils of the Irish Office on the footing which had been described was a most extraordinary one. It seemed to him that Sir Antony MacDonnell must have very much misunderstood the letter of this, as he had misapprehended the spirit. It seemed to him that the case was

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  one either for dismissal or defence, and not for the policy of censure which the right hon. Gentleman and those around him had adopted. It also seemed that there had been a good deal of division of opinion in the councils in which the right hon. Gentleman had taken part. For example, the attitude of mind of the right hon. Gentleman and Lord Lans-downe was quite different from that of the more extreme representatives of the Ascendency Party, not only out of the Government, but in the Government. One of the most extraordinary features of the situation was the fact that the attack on the right hon. Gentleman should come from the English Solicitor-General, who was a member of the Government. Then, again, they found The Times demanding the head not only of Sir Antony MacDonnell, but of the Lord-Lieutenant, in such an article in that paper as appeared that morning from its Dublin correspondent. After quoting the article in question, the right hon. Gentleman said that it was conveyed to his mind that there were two elements with which the right hon. Gentleman had to deal—those who, like Lord Lansdowne, wished to govern Ireland sympathetically, and those who, like the writer of The Times article and the hon. and learned Member opposite, took the old stiff ascendency view.
  There had been a great deal of talk upon the question of a Catholic University. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House had always taken a very large view of this matter, and had stated that he wished to put education upon a footing free from the taint of Protestantism on the one hand, and Catholicism on the other, and existing only for educational purposes. The Chief Secretary committed himself to that policy in 1899, but since then some other element in the Cabinet had diverted him from carrying out those views, and what they had before them on this occasion was very much like what occurred in 1899, namely, the Government coming to a certain conclusion, and expressing certain convictions, and then being terrorised out of them. A Government of that kind could not command the confidence of the country and could not command the confidence of Ireland. They had just had an example
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  of the kind of confidence which this policy inspired in hon. Members representing Ulster. The House knew perfectly well the opinions of the Opposition upon these questions. He could not help contrasting the want of firmness and definiteness now shown in this matter by the Government in regard to Sir Antony MacDonnell with the very different attitude adopted by Lord Morpeth and Lord John Russell in regard to Mr. Drummond on the memorable occasion which presented the nearest parallel. In the spring of 1839 Mr. Drummond found himself in a situation very much like that in which Sir Antony MacDonnell found himself at the present time. What he did was to come to the conclusion that the magistrates in Ulster could not be trusted to deal with the maintenance of order in cases where b there was a conflict between Protestants and Catholics, and so he appointed stipendiary magistrates. Knowing the spirit in which Mr. Drummond was appointed, knowing the work they had sent him to do, the men then responsible for the conduct of government in Ireland did not waste time upon small matters of detail, but took into account the fact that they had given the largest freedom to Mr. Drummond, just as it was given to Sir Antony MacDonnell, to do his best. And what happened? The House of Lords passed a vote of censure upon Mr. Drummond, but Lord John Russell in the House of Commons defended Mr. Drummond's action and reversed the decision given in the House of Lords. One could not help thinking that it would be much better if there was a little more of that firmer spirit shown on the part of those now administering Irish affairs.
  He was talking of what they might have done, if they had used all the splendid opportunities which had come to them, with the magnificent majority they had in the House, and the resources at their disposal. Whether they took education, administration, or the reforms which formed the non-controversial part of the conversations between Sir Antony MacDonnell and the Chief Secretary, a vast field was open to them from which they seemed to have been frightened by the paralysing influence of that small Party in Ireland which appeared now

  669
  to be exerting such a great influence, Surely the business of the Government of this country was to know their own mind about what they were going to do in Ireland, and he could not believe that they knew their own mind when they appointed Sir Antony MacDonnell, with the views he held, and then had to pull him up with a censure upon the matter they now had before them. Taking that broad view of the case, which one was bound to take in matters of this sort, the dilemma was one which necessitated either dismissal or a defence from the Chief Secretary. Dismissal they could not adopt in the face of what had now been admitted. That there were differences of opinion was quite evident, but it was not as though, Sir Antony MacDonnell had neglected to perform some executive act, for he had simply taken part in the preparation of a certain scheme which had been given to the public. That might have been unwise, but it only represented Sir Antony MacDonnell's individual view and it was not put forward on any other footing. This matter had been going on for some months, and the whole head and cause of Sir Antony MacDoanell's offending was that be had taken a line of his own in trying to administer the government in the interests of Ireland and not in the interests of any section. Surely this was a possible policy for hon. Members opposite, and they ought to try to find some lines on which to run the government of Ireland, which lines should have in them the element of continuity and should be in the interests of Ireland as a whole and not of any one section; lines which those who came after them might take up with some assurance of continuity, still carrying on the good work which had already been begun. That did not seem to him to be the mind or the mood of the present Ministry, who
  stood up to nobody; they could not stand up to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, and they could not stand up to the Ulster element. One wondered whether there was anything left upon which the present Government would show sufficient nerve to initiate a policy and follow it out to its conclusion. The proposal before the House was a most opportune one, for it gave them an opportunity of discussing
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  and bringing to the test a situation which he thought was more extraordinary than any situation which he had seen in the House of Commons for some time past.
  LORD HUGH CECILsaid he was unable to agree with his hon. friends sitting near him upon this question, although he was generally very warmly in sympathy with their actions in Irish affairs. Upon Home Rule he heartily agreed with them. He should have thought that at the present time Home Rule was as dead as any question in the world, and his hon. friends representing Ireland need not be so anxious about it as they apparently were. He was very much surprised that anyone should be alarmed at the idea of this question coming to the front again, because in his opinion the English people had come to regard Home Rule as a closed issue. ["No, no!"] Nevertheless it was quite fitting that the Chief Secretary should repudiate with all the earnestness in his power any notion of coquetting with such a policy. He did not think that anything which Sir Antony MacDonnell had done could be reasonably construed as meaning an encouragement to Home Rule. Sir Antony was pursuing a conciliatory policy, and the right hon. Gentleman naturally contemplated that he should collect information from all sorts of people, and all sections of society, upon all sorts of matters, but he did not contemplate that he would either identify himself with any scheme of delegation or the Imperial control of finance. By doing this he was extending his duties beyond the limits which his right hon. friend had marked out for him. It was absurd, however, to say that Sir Antony MacDonnell was not to discuss these matters. Paraphrasing the apostle, "It is not a shame to speak of Home Rule." Home Rule, though pernicious, was not indecent. What was improper was that a scheme should actually be formulated with the assistance of the Under-Secretary and published to the world. That scheme was of a very moderate character, and did not go the whole distance of Home Rule; but it was an extremely foolish proposal and would probably have given an advantage to Home Rulers in the

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  discussion of the question both in this country and in Ireland. It was improper, therefore, that Sir Antony MacDonnell should have identified himself with the publication of the scheme. Then arose the question of what his position and what the position of the Government towards him ought to be. The hon. and learned Member for Haddingtonshire strongly affirmed that the Government had no alternative except to dismiss or to defend Sir Antony MacDonnell. It was impossible to lay down a more astounding doctrine or one more injurious to the public service. Was it to be said that the Government must either approve what they knew to be wrong or dismiss a public servant whom they knew to be useful? Was there to be no alternative to insincerity or injury to the public service?
  MR. HALDANEasked whether the noble Lord held that public servants should be attacked when they had no opportunity of defending themselves,
  LORD HUGH CECILsaid that when an attack was made the truth should be told. So far as a public official was in the right the Government should say he was in the right, and so far as he was in the wrong they should say he was in the wrong. How could he be aggrieved because they had spoken the truth when asked about the matter? The hon. and learned Member, who doubtless as a lawyer could defend anybody, had already taken up the cudgels in Sir Antony MacDonnell's behalf.
  MR. HALDANEasked whether the noble Lord suggested that Sir Antony MacDonnell should be sent to him with authority to state all the facts of what passed between him and the Chief Secretary?
  LORD HUGH CECILunderstood that all the facts had been laid before the House. ["No."] The hon. and learned Member had already made a defence of Sir Antony MacDonnell, and had laid down the doctrine that the Government must get rid of a public servant whom they believed to be useful to the public service, because they were not able to say they thought him right when, as a matter of
  672
  fact, they knew him to be wrong. Common sense demanded that they should pass a moderately and temperately worded censure when he was wrong, praise the much wider portion of his official work which deserved praise, and leave him in the position he adorned, and in which he would continue to be able to serve the public. It was often said of soldiers in the field and other public servants that the Government must either defend or dismiss them. That led to a series of insincere public defences, which everybody knew to be insincere, which were positively unfair to those who legitimately criticised the action of public officials, and which advanced no cause whatever except the lowering of the tone of debates in Parliament by creating the impression that Members were playing an unreal game and could not tell the truth. He strongly defended and applauded the Government for the course they had taken in regard to Sir Antony MacDonnell. He could not help feeling that his hon. friends were a little unreasonable in their attitude in regard to the policy of conciliation toward all classes in Ireland.
  MR. WILLIAM MOOREsaid he had no objection to conciliation at all. He thought it a capital theory, but in practice it proved to be conciliating their enemies at the expense of their friends, and as such was disastrous to Unionism.
  LORD HUGH CECILsaid that wherever a Government had to deal with two bodies of partisan opinion, each strongly inflamed against the other, if they were impartial, it was certain that they would be strongly censured by both parties. In view of the strong opinions held by the hon. Member for Antrim, if he did not criticise the Government it would be almost positive proof that the Government were partial in his favour. Everybody who had sat through Irish debates knew that the Irish question was not a question between Ireland and England; it was a quarrel between two parties of Irishmen—landlords and tenants, Nationalists and Unionists, Protestants and Roman Catholics—and this quarrel was perpetually being brought before the House, and landed the Government of the United Kingdom in a series of

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  awkward positions. Any effort to do what was fair and just to both parties was denounced by the opposing camps. The Chief Secretary's administration had received that mark of success, and it was exactly what he should have expected from that right hon. Gentleman's moderate and impartial way of looking at things.
  He was glad the Chief Secretary had repudiated so emphatically all schemes of devolution which partook of the nature of the proposals. There was no doubt great force in the argument in favour of relieving the House of some of its burden of business, but he distrusted all schemes designed for that object unless they possessed two qualifications—first, that they left a real control to the House, and secondly—which was more important—that they proposed no delegation from the other House of Parliament. Whatever might be said about the House of Commons being overburdened with work, the other House could not be said to be, and any proposal to delegate power from that Assembly could be put forward, not as a matter of business, but only with an eye to the principle of nationality. That was where he dissented so vehemently from hon. Gentlemen opposite. They conceived the Irish question to be a national question, in fact, they called themselves "Nationalists." If he said there was not, never had been, and never would be such a thing as an Irish nationality, he would very deeply offend hon. Members; therefore he preferred to say that in none of the four countries of the United Kingdom could it be maintained that there was historically a nationality in the full sense of the word. When was England a nationality? In what year of grace? He did not know that England, as such, ever had what was called the idea of nationality. He did not admit that a country was a nationality when one half of the population was engaged in cutting the throats of the other half, hence he did not admit that England was a nationality during the period of the Wars of the Roses. Nor as long as they were under French influence could they be called an English nationality. That brought them down as late as Henry VII., and by that time wales had
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  become amalgamated. Then, in the time of Elizabeth, Scotch influence came in-Scotch influence spread over England so that England was almost a protected State. Under James I. the two peoples were united. There was not a single moment in Irish history when it could be said that Ireland had a nationality of which she had since been deprived. How absurdly unreal it was to speak of the United Kingdom as being made up of nationalities! He doubted whether there was a single Member of Parliament in whose veins was not flowing blood belonging to all four. Clearly they were of one nationality, amalgamated of different racial component parts—one nationality with one national history, just as they had one body of national interests and one national language. There was no greater sham than the idea of nationality as applied to any one of the four countries. The only difference between Irish nationality and English nationality was that the one was an active and the other a dormant sham. This very debate served to remind the House of the essential duality of Irish character. If they were to treat any nationality at all they must divide Ireland into halves, separating the North East from the rest of the body, unequal in population, wealth, and intelligence. Home Rule was in many respects a pernicious proposal; and it was certainly altogether misdirected. It did not "touch the spot" in Irish affairs, or reach the real Irish difficulty. Disapproving strongly of Home Rule, he submitted to his hon. friend that there was something more important than their immediate quarrel with the Government. Home Rule was for the time being extinct in English opinion. English and Scotch opinion would decide the Home Rule question. There was no prospect of converting the whole of Irish opinion to the one side or the other. Ulster would not be converted to Home Rule, nor the South of Ireland to Unionism. It followed, therefore, that it was all important to have regard to English and Scotch opinion, and to inflict, or nearly inflict a defeat on the Government which would beyond all doubt revive the Home Rule feeling in England and Scotland. It was thought the thing was dead; people did not care two straws about it.

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  They had not followed Sir Antony MacDonnell—hardly knew his name. But the moment they saw that the Imperial Government had been either defeated or jeopardised they would say, "This is a very serious matter, the Irish Government is not being well conducted; we must really listen again to those views, which we thought almost every one had abandoned, as to a fundamental administrative change." He was convinced hon. Members would sincerely regret it if they took such a course. Not only were loyalty, zeal, and earnestness necessary to achieve great objects, but patience also, and it would be an ill day for their common country if, in a moment of irritation, his hon. friends jeopardised the fruits of a victory which was almost won, and to which their courage and patriotism had largely contributed.
  MR. JOSEPH DEVLINsaid it was a very fitting thing that the noble Lord the Member for Greenwich should lecture the Irish landlords on the disadvantages of ill-tempered debate in this House. He was not aware that any of the Irish Members of the House on one side or the other had addressed the epithet "coward" to any Member of the House, though that was the epithet the noble Lord flung at the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham. The speech just delivered by the noble Lord displayed an amount of British audacity which was characteristic of all superior Englishmen when they came to deal with the affairs of Ireland. The noble Lord had made it plain what the Irish Nationalist Members, and what Ireland, might expect from him and the Party to which he belonged. He had taken upon himself to pcse as the apostle of unambiguous speech in the House, but he had come forward to-night to defend the Government on a question with respect to which, to borrow a phrase, "metaphysical sophistication" had been the prominent feature. There had been questions put from both sides of the House to the Chief Secretary, and he had not answered one of them. The right hon. Gentleman had been asked from both sides what was the part Lord Dudley had played in this transaction. He wanted to know from
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  the Government—did Lord Dudley represent anything or anybody in Ireland? Lord Dudley was the representative of the King, and surely the Government could not charge Sir Antony MacDonnell with reprehensible conduct if Lord Dudley sent a communication to be read in the House of Lords that he had been associated with the whole transaction from beginning to end.
  The Chief Secretary had that afternoon pointed out that he at least was free from association with the proposals of Lord Dunraven, and yet the right hon. Gentleman's speech from beginning to end was a defence of Lord Dunraven and his proposals. The right hon. Gentleman had written on behalf of the Cabinet that the conduct of Sir Antony MacDonnell was reprehensible. An hon. Member on his side of the House had stated that Sir Antony, if his conduct was reprehensible, was unworthy of being entrusted further with the administration of Irish affairs, or else the Government was a sham and a fraud. No one knew the views of the Prime Minister on the fiscal question, but if the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham were to succeed in inducing the country to accept his policy, the fruits of his labours were to be plucked by the Prime Minister. The Chief Secretary had in the same way freed himself from the proposals of Lord Dunraven and Sir Antony MacDonnell, but if these gentlemen had succeeded they would have been put on one side and the Chief Secretary would have come forward and claimed the credit.
  The hon. and learned Member for North Antrim approached every question affecting Ireland from the point of view of place and jobs. His own opinion was that the hon. Member was a rather unreasonable Unionist, for he had admitted that out of the ten Irish Unionists five had got places of emolument which might, all things considered, be regarded as a reasonable share of responsibility and gain. He had noticed that the hon. Member's eloquent appeal to his friends on the Treasury Bench to give up their places had been met with a painful silence. The noble Lord the Member for Greenwich had said there were two Irelands. That was not so; but in any

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  event he denied that the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim represented the Protestants of Ireland while there were in the House the Member for South Tyrone—who had rendered more service to the Union than the whole galaxy of hon. Gentlemen opposite—the Member for Fermanagh and the Member for East Down. None of these Gentlemen were Catholics, nor, so far as he knew, Nationalists. The only Protestantism in Ireland the hon. and learned Gentlemen recognised was the Protestantism which had for its music the big drum and which marched under Orange colours.
  These three hon. Gentlemen were the representatives and exponents of a new idea in Ireland; a wider appreciation of the events in Parliament; they would come back after the general election strengthened in numbers and influence, and the House would have the Irish Question presented with an irresistible power that it never had before. Everybody knew that Sir Antony MacDoanell's appointment was not a Castle appointment. According to Lord Lansdowne he was a different kind of man from those usually appointed by the Castle. Lord Lansdowne said—
  "Sir Antony MacDonnell has held successively a series of the highest and most responsible posts in the Indian service. He was at different times at the head of the Government of Burma, at the head of the Government of the Central Provinces, with a population of 12,000,000 committed to his charge, and he was Chief Commissioner of the North-West Provinces, with a population of no fewer than 47,000,000 under his government. Subsequently he became a member of the Viceroy's Council, and on his return home, as the noble Marquess reminded us, lie had the high honour of a place in the Privy Council conferred upon him. Now, my Lords, during that long and arduous service in India Sir Antony MacDonnell has had to deal with the most difficult of the many difficult problems with which Indian statesmen are confronted. He dealt with great famines, and thanks to his administration, waves of distress, the violence of which we can scarcely conceive in this country, passed over the districts committed to his charge and left the population scathless behind them. He dealt with religious difficulties in a country where religious differences produce feelings as bitter even as those which can be found on the other side of tin Irish Channel. He dealt with the great and intricate problems of Indian laud tenure—problems as complicated as any with which weare familar in these islands."
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  That was what Sir Antony Mac-Donnell had done, and that was not the class of appointment that hon. Gentleman opposite wanted. If a mere Castle hack was needed that could be got without any difficulty and without going very farafield. There were five placemen on the benches opposite and ten or twenty eager to be made placemen. There was never any difficulty in getting a fine lot of candidates for a Government job. There were hon. Gentlemen on the other side who would preserve the best traditions of Castle government if they could only get a place. There had been some appointed to unpaid positions who were found too dear at the price. What was wanted was a man of strong mind and great powers of initiative to popularise Dublin Castle—an entirely hopeless task. It was not the Under-Secretary's fault that he had not succeeded, it was the fault of the Dublin Castle system which was rotten to the core, and could never be anything but a name that stank in the nostrils of all decent men. Sir Antony MacDonnell was given large powers of initiative, free action, and consultation as they had now learned. But the foundation and basis of all the charges against him was, that he was an Irishman come to govern Ireland; and secondly, he was a Catholic Irishman. Was that a crime? Let the gentlemen answer who had traduced him in Ulster. It was not his function to defend Sir Antony MacDonnell. All Castle officials were alike to him. He believed that they could never govern Ireland satisfactorily by Dublin Castle, but still the position of Sir Antony MacDonnell should be regarded with some consideration for Irish chivalry. Hon. Gentlemen opposite had not only pursued Sir Antony MacDonnell in regard to this particular incident raised in this debate, but had throughout pursued him with a truculence unparalleled in the case of any other public man. And that night the hon. and learned Member stood up in the House and practically apologised for all he had said about Sir Antony MacDonnell, rightly interpreting the new condition of affairs, and that the responsibility rested with the Government—a responsibility which the Government had shirked. Sir Antony MacDonnell merely pleaded that honourable past

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  which had characterised him in all his public actions since he was entrusted with responsibility in public office.
  The hon. Member opposite, in order to prove that there were two Irelands to intelligent, but ignorant Englishmen, made an attack upon County Cavan. He told about the horrible action that was done to a poor Protestant rate-collector or a potential rate collector. His argument was that a rate collector had been appointed, who was preferred to a Protestant candidate who was prepared to collect the rates at Id. in the£poundage less. Was that a basis of attack on Sir Antony MacDonnell? What were the real facts? They did not know in the House anything of the local conditions of this much-maligned County Cavan. And yet, having a Catholic population of 95 per cent. of the whole, it returned a Protestant Member of Parliament. The hon. Member did not tell that to the House. Might he ask the noble Lord, with his airy epigrammatic references to two Irelands, was that a proof of Catholic bigotry, or of the bitter passions that existed between Protestants and Catholics? Here was County Cavan returning to this Parliament to represent them, and promote their interests, a gentleman of a different religious persuasion to 95 per cent, of the inhabitants. How many Catholic representatives had they in the noble Lords of Ireland? And yet he came there flaunting the flag of religious liberty, while it would be a positive miracle for any Catholic, even if he betrayed his own class, to be returned for a constituency in that part of the country. The hon. and learned Member opposite also came there, representing that poor persecuted minority, and at a time when there was a keener realisation of the future in store for Ireland, and a better spirit was prevailing among the people, when the writing was on the wall, so far as this Government was concerned, he appealed to the old Party cries, bad manners, Party strife, and religious differences among the people of Ireland. The hon. and learned Member talked about the 1,250,000 Protestants whom he represented in the House, but the Orange lodges in his own constituency would revolt against him. He talked about
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  something a minute ago that was an abortion in Dublin Castle, but there was another abortion, brought forth he did not know where—the Ulster Landlords Union; and he talked about the various associations which it represented. Why, the hon. Member for South Belfast would not be allowed into it. This association, which surely represented something in this House, would not be recognised amongst the brilliant Constitutionalists which dominated the Government and that new born body. If he came there to speak for the whole of Ulster and his hon. friend sitting opposite him, he hoped the hon. and learned Gentleman would tell the House what his view was of the hon. Gentleman who brought forward the Irish Landlords Union. What was his speech from beginning to end but the most powerful impeachment of British rule in Ireland ever heard? The United Irish League would print it at their own expense, because it showed that eighty-two Nationalist Members on that side of the House, ten Members on the other side of the House, and five or six on both sides of the House were all united in saying that the Government was a bad Government, the system was an evil system, and that the conduct of Irish affairs was pernicious in principle. What could be more irresistible? Hon. Gentlemen opposite were not satisfied; they on that side were not satisfied, and if all were united in dissatisfaction of British rule in Ireland, surely the country ought to have a Parliament of its own.
  The hon. Gentleman opposite was very fond of aristocratic company; he told the House that he was dining recently with a Judge. All he himself would say was that he was sorry that two Judges were not dining together. He could assure the hon. Gentleman that he need never have any fear of opposition to his promotion from that side of the House. He observed, however, that the hon. Gentleman did not use as a peroration the eloquent passage delivered by Lord Westmeath in the House of Lords, who he believed bore the same relation to Unionists in that House which the hon. Gentleman bore to Unionists in this House. Lord Westmeath said that he would urge on his friends to leave Ireland

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  alone in future, as they wanted to manage their own affairs. The House was now agreed on two fundamental propositions. One was that the government of Ireland was an extravagant and partial government, and that its conduct of Irish affairs from every point of view had been a failure and a disaster. It was also agreed that it was inefficient. He had always understood that logic was one of the great characteristics of the English people; and if that were so, how could they refuse to give Ireland a Parliament of her own. Ireland had not been mentioned in the King's Speech; but it had been heard in the House and elsewhere all the same. The fiscal question and other great English controversial topics had been completely obscured by Ireland springing to the front again. Their policy had been denounced in one breath and practically vindicated in another. The attempt to blind the public on this issue was almost as patent as that in connection with the fiscal policy. The fact was that the Government could not be straight on any question. He expected that that was why the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Belfast was appointed War Minister.
  The hon. Member for North Antrim stated it was his duty to show the Chief Secretary in his true light to Unionists in England. If that was the view held by lion. Gentlemen opposite, and if they demanded a dissolution, surely if the Government had any respect for public opinion, they would allow the judgment of the country to be taken. The Chief Secretary had broken his promises in connection with the labourers' question and other questions. He got £12,000,000 sterling for Irish landlords, because the House relied on his promises that something would be done for the labourers. Last year he introduced a Bill which was an insult to the labourers; this year they were not mentioned at all. The Prime Minister himself had for Years been telling the world how eager he was for a Catholic University. If the Government had as much tenacity for principle as they had for office, they would have resigned long ago. He did not expect prosy platitudes from the right hon. Gentleman, but an honest and chivalrous speech apologising for the
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  attack he had made on Sir Antony Mac-Donnell when he charged him with being guilty of conduct which was indefensible. The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Hampshire had a seat in this House, and was able to defend himself, but the Prime Minister, anxious to stand by a subordinate member of the Government, sprang to his feet, and, not satisfied with his own eloquence, had to go to that of John Bright to find words eloquent enough to defend that hon. Member. Sir Antony MacDonnell had no seat in this House, and could not defend himself from the most unfair and cruel charges that had been made against him. Here was a distinguished servant who had been charged with being guilty of indefensible conduct, although they had it on the faith of both Lord Lansdowne and Lord Dudley that they knew all about it. Had he been the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary he would have scorned to have retained office by trampling upon his subordinate.
  MR. SLOANsaid he embraced this opportunity of withdrawing everything he had ever said with regard to Sir Antony MacDonnell, in view of the statement made by the Chief Secretary. It was quite possible that had Sir Antony MacDonnell not been accused they would not have extracted such important information from the Government as that which they had received that day. He was surprised that the Chief Secretary on going for a holiday, not having had one for six years, did not settle this matter before he went. The Unionist supporters of the Government found themselves that evening is a very awkward position. Lord Lansdowne had given an entirely new definition of Home Rule, which, he said, was "co-ordination of detached and semi-detached boards." They could always fight an open foe, but when they found a Jesuitical friend they must watch him. While the debate was in progress he thought of the speech made by the Viceroy at Belfast, wherein he said that it did not matter whether a man wore an orange or a green shirt, what they wanted was toleration. They also found that the Government was ever ready to give an answer across the floor of the House

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  in regard to a permanent official who was muzzled, who had been unjustly condemned, who had, in his opinion, been most unfairly treated—that this permanent official had been wrong in his action, and his conduct indefensible—but the conduct of the Viceroy, who wrote to Lord Lansdowne that he knew all about it, had not been questioned why? Being interested in this devolution scheme, he invited one of its promoters to Belfast to explain it, and he was asked whether Sir Antony MacDonnell had anything to do with it, because they all thought it was the creation of Sir Antony's brain, and that the Chief Secretary had nothing to do with it, but Lord Dunraven in another place on Friday last said the scheme was type-written in Dublin Castle for secrecy. More than that, some of the Unionists of Belfast honoured Sir Antony with a visit and discussed the question of a Roman Catholic University, or what was called the "educational spirit of the Prime Minister's view." All these things had been going on, and the Chief Secretary was supposed to know nothing about these interviews of Sir Antony's.
  It was an absolute impossibility to expect an Irish Unionist to give a vote of confidence on the Amendment which had been moved by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Waterford. The representatives of a Unionist Government ought to be able to get up and say to the Nationalists, "You are here to demand Home Rule, we are here to refuse it." As to the suggestion of the noble Lord the Member for Greenwich, that since there was no possibility of satisfying either Party in Ireland, the best thing was to treat both with contempt, that was a course the right hon. Gentleman would be well advised not to pursue. Lord Lansdowne had said that Sir Antony MacDonnell was an honourable and able official who had come over "to do something for his country before he died." Did this mean granting Home Rule to Ireland under a new name? If, in order to do that, it had been announced that he was to occupy the Chief Secretary's chair and that the right hon. Gentleman was to sit at his feet, it would have been easy to understand Sir Antony MacDonnell taking the lead in
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  many things that he ought not to have. It would be interesting to hear the Prime Minister's views on the question. Another question to be asked was what connection the Chief Commissioner of the Dublin Police had with this correspondence? That official also had helped in the matter of higher education and knew something about the correspondence. The whole mystery was not yet unravelled; it would not be surprising if other mysteries were revealed. He would that Sir Antony MacDonnell were unmuzzled, for he believed he would make a clean breast of the whole matter. The noble Lord the Member for Greenwich was perfectly correct in saying that the question of Home Rule would be decided by England and Scotland. The Irish Unionists were a small minority, and it would be useless for them to attempt to fight the battle of the Union unless England and Scotland sent a majority of Members to defend the same principles. The true opponents of Home Rule were not the Ulster Members, but this country as a whole. The Chief Secretary was entitled to regard the course of the debate with some dissatisfaction, but what Unionists had to complain of was not so much that the scheme was allowed to be put before the country as that Sir Antony MacDonnell had been connected with the proposals with the knowledge of the Lord - Lieutenant and the Chief Secretary. He did not think that Ireland would be any more peaceful under the kind of Government described by the hon. Member for Waterford. Many hon. Gentlemen opposite disapproved of the treatment meted out to Protestants in various parts of Ireland. The truth was that the great trouble in Irish politics and the great hindrance to the welfare of the people was the unnecessary interference of the priests. Peace was impossible while the priests controlled Ireland, and until that control was stopped it would be difficult for any Irish Administration to draw an impartial line between the two Parties.
  He and his friends were willing to sup-port the Government upon Unionist principles, because they believed that such

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  principles were best for Ireland, but he regretted that their desires had been prevented by the Jesuitical treatment which had been meted out to them from a so-called Unionist Government. He was thoroughly convinced that this treatment was not conciliation but something under a false name, full of hypocrisy, and the sooner the Government washed its hands of it the better. They ought not to expect support from Irish Unionists until they adopted that course. He wished to assure hon. Members opposite that he was as much interested in the welfare and prosperity of Ireland as they were, and the question upon which they differed was as to what methods and tactics ought to be adopted. He was anxious that the Government should take an honest stand, and when they gave a permanent Undersecretary or any Civil servant a free hand they should not hide themselves behind that official. If they failed in their policy let them say so, and take the responsibility. It was a disastrous thing, and not even honourable, to allow any person who had occupied the position of permanent Under-Secretary in Dublin Castle to act in this way. He was not satisfied at all that the Chief Secretary ought not to release Sir Antony MacDonnell from his false position, What were they to have for the future What guarantee had they that the principles he had initiated would not be carried out this year or next year? What guarantee had they that Lord Dunraven would not go on with a scheme of co-ordination of detached or semi-detached boards with the consent of the Cabinet. Were they to understand that this was a sort of halfway house without an open door into which people of all creeds and politics might enter. Irish representatives on the whole were not unaware of the disastrous effects of Dublin Castle administration. While he could not agree with the hon. and learned Member for Waterford that the only solution of this problem was Home Rule, because under Home Rule meant Rome Rule, he believed that there was a possibility of giving greater consideration to the needs of the Irish people than was being given by the present Administration. It was time that the Government set their house in order. He thought that the Opposition would find it very
  686
  difficult indeed in some quarters of England to advocate Home Rule with success, for it would be a harder nut to crack than it was before. They were all agreed that because the Government had refused to take a resolute stand they had been most unsuccessful in conciliating their enemies, and this time they ought to consider not so much conciliation but even-handed justice to all classes.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid that this had been an interesting and extraordinary debate, but he could not agree with the noble Lord the Member for Greenwich that they had had the whole of the facts brought out. He assured the noble Lord that there were a good many ugly facts still to come out. The hon. Member for Haddingtonshire was entirely right when he said that this attack upon Sir Antony MacDonnell began long before the devolution proposals were heard of, and in this aspect this controversy was one of the most squalid character. He had handed to the hon. and learned Member for Water-ford a circular issued by the Irish Unionist Party which was signed by the hon. Member for Mid. Armagh. This was the origin of the whole business under their own hand and seal. [An HON. MEMBER: What is the date?] It was dated 15th February, 1905. It states—
  "The Chief Secretary appears to have abdicated his position of responsibility is favour of a subordinate official with a policy of his own, which is directed to destroying the basis of Irish Unionism and to stimulating against Irish loyalists a political and religious propaganda."
  That was the point he wished to direct the attention of the House to. The circular went on to state—
  "Unionist constituencies are deprived of their share of public funds; Unionist individuals of their right to emoluments or promotion."
  These gentleman were very candid. The circular proceeded—
  "Government is carried on in a mass of clerical intrigue directed against Protestants, all in pursuance of this policy."
  Those gentlemen for whom the hon. Member for Mid. Armagh spoke, and the Party which they represented, at present held nine-tenths of the positions of emolument and trust in Ireland; and yet they desired more, and were getting them every day. He had only to refer

  687
  to a fact, known to every Irish Member of the House, that within the last twelve months four County Court Judges had been appointed in Ireland, and although the counties over which they had to administrate had an overwhelming Roman Catholic population, three out of four of those appointments had not gone to Catholic barristers, although there were plenty of Catholics fit for them, but three of them had been given to Orangemen and only one to a Nationalist. It was the same in every branch of Irish Government, and yet the gentlemen holding nine-tenths of these positions came and made an appeal to the House of Commons for more. He had been a Member of the House of Commons for twenty years, and remembered a good many gentlemen, barristers from Ireland, who had sat in the House. Where were they now, or, at any rate, most of them? On the Bench opposite. The people who now came clamouring for appointments had received almost all the appointments which had been given since the Union took place, and the vast majority of the population had been practically ostracised by successive Governments. What was the state of things when the Grand Juries had control? Where did the Catholics have a chance then? Was it likely that they could change all that and give the people the chance they had never had before whilst those gentlemen's friends held all the positions of authority. In some respects this was the most squalid debate, so far as the hon. Gentlemen opposite were concerned, that had ever taken place in the House of Commons.
  And, it being half-past Seven of the clock, the debate stood adjourned till this Evening Sitting.

EVENING SITTING.

  KING'S SPEECH (MOTION FOR AN ADDRESS.)
  Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment [20th February] to Main Question [14th February], "That? an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, as followeth—
  "Most Gracious Sovereign,
  "We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the
  688
  United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave to offer our humble thanks to Your Majesty for the Gracious Speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament."—(Mr. Mount.)
  Which Amendment was—
  "At the end of the Question, to add the words, 'But humbly represent to Your Majesty that the present system of Government in Ireland is in opposition to the will of the Irish people, and gives them no voice in the management of their own affairs; that the system is consequently ineffective and extravagantly costly, does not enjoy the confidence of any section of the population, and is productive of universal discontent and unrest, and has proved to be incapable of satisfactorily promoting the material and intellectual progress of the people." —(Mr. John Redmond.)
  Question again proposed, "That those words be there added"
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL,continuing his speech, said he had listened attentively to the 'explanation of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary as to how he and Sir Antony manufactured Irish policy, It consisted of five or six heads. They were to settle the land question by a system of voluntary purchase. They were to deal with higher education in Ireland, and they were to deal with local government or Home Rule by coordinating detached or semi-detached boards, whatever that might mean. He thought it might mean a great deal. He did not see how they were to coordinate forty-one boards without abolishing most of them and setting up another body in their place. What he would like to ask the Chief Secretary was, with a policy such as that what did all this secrecy mean? Why did he not come out into the open? Had he made a speech in Ireland explaining the policy, it, at all events, would have received fair play. It might not have been carried, but he most certainly would not have been in the very difficult and dubious position he was in that day. What was the position? The Chief Secretary answered a Question in the House on Thursday last, and used remarkable words. It was a remarkable answer—he rather thought it had been sanctioned by the Cabinet. The right hon. Gentleman said that the first time he saw

  689
  these proposals was in September in The Times. What would the man in the street think of a statement like that? The man in the street on the English side of the water might be a more intelligent person than the man in Ireland, but he could tell the Chief Secretary what he would understand by a reply of that kind. The right hon. Gentleman said he saw those proposals for the first time in September and most people would have imagined that he had never heard of them before. Supposing there had been no debate in the House of Lords and that answer had stood as it was given, the inevitable conclusion of the public would have been that the Chief Secretary was ignorant of those proposals until he saw them in the newspaper. Why did he not stand up and say he had discussed those questions, as Lord Lansdowne told them, over and over again with Lord Dunraven? Technically he was right and technically it was the truth. He remembered an hon. Member raising a storm of hostility because he said in a Court of Justice that he once made a statement to deceive that House. What did the Chief Secretary mean by telling the House that he did not see these proposals till September 2nd. Why did he not stand up like a man by his friend and subordinate and say that he had discussed those matters over and over again with Sir Antony MacDonnell and Lord Dunraven. Might he ask, when he saw them, what was his action? He (Mr. Russell) remembered the famous phrase used by the right hon. Gentleman at Dover, when he said he blew out that candle, but he was not concerned with the blowing out of the candle. He wanted to know whether the right hon. Gentleman was present at the lighting of it. Let them see how he blew it out. In a letter he said the report embraced, I but tended to confuse, three subjects which were by their nature categorically distinct. First, economy in the application to Irish purposes of public money now actually expended in that country; second, amendment in the procedure of Private Bill, legislation in Ireland consequent on the success of the measure in Scotland, and then the institution of a statutory Legislative Assembly for Ireland. What did the Chief Secretary think about those proposals? He said
  690
  nothing about the first, he approved the second, and he condemned the third. The real reason why he did not condemn the first was because he was convinced that the proposal was sound in principle. The letter might be taken as a condemnation of the establishment of a statutory body for Irish legislation. It was not a condemnation of the setting up of a financial council, or of Private Bill legislation being dealt with in Ireland. There was a correspondence in existence between Sir Antony MacDonnell and the Chief Secretary on this question. Would it be produced? That was a plain question. He desired a plain answer. The contrast between Lord Dudley and the Chief Secretary in this matter was very great, Lord Dudley had not thrown over his subordinate officer to the Ulster wolves, Did the right hon. Gentleman coafer over and over again with Lord Dudley on this question? He (Mr. Russell) wanted to know why the right hon. Gentleman, the Chief Secretary, did not take his stand with Lord Dudley instead of taking refuge in the paltry statement he had made in the House. Lord Dudley had come out of this in a much more creditable manner than the right hon. Gentleman.
  There was danger in this debate that other questions would be lost sight of by the predominance of the question of Sir Antony MacDonnell. He wanted to lay bare to the House how the Government was being carried on in Ireland regarding great public issues. Taking the question of higher education, Mr. Gladstone attempted to deal with that thirty-two years ago. About twenty years ago the present Prime Minister declared in Glasgow to a gathering of Unionists that there was in connection with that question an intolerable grievance. He had restated his views over and over again. The Prime Minister now commanded a great majority. He forced through an Education Bill which had deeply touched and wounded the conscientious feeling of hundreds and thousands of English people But the Irish grievance still remained where it had stood for ages. He would ask them to see what followed from this method of treatment. The Catholic youths were placed at a great disadvantage in the battle of life. That question was kept

  691
  alive in Ireland so as to inflame the passions of large sections of the people, and a case was made out for Catholic education, which, even according to the Prime Minister, was all but unanswerable. The Government appointed a Royal Commission three years ago. Lord Cadogan, then the Lord-Lieutenant, declared that he meant business. Yet nothing had come of it, and Lord Cadogan was Lord-Lieutenant no longer. That Commission took the line of least resistance. They said in effect, "Let the Royal University stand, no new University is needed now; affiliate the Queen's Colleges and the University College of Dublin." Why could they not have acted upon the Report? The Catholic Bishops were ready to accept that plan. By a telegram read from the Nationalist Benches from Archbishop Walsh last session that was announced. But the Government invented a new plan of their own; they threw over the Commission and sent Sir Antony MacDonnell down to Belfast to interview people who represented nobody. There were two dinner-parties given in Belfast. Very respectable gentlemen were present. But there was no one at them who could command a single vote in Ulster. It would have been better to have gone and seen the hon. Member for South Belfast. What was foolishly called the Dunraven scheme was put before them. Lord Dunraven seemed to be the handy man of the Irish Government. But it was no more Lord Dun-raven's scheme than his own. The author of the scheme was sitting on the Treasury Bench. They were not content to act upon the Report of their own Commission. The suggestion was made in a letter of two columns in the Irish Times, signed by Lord Dunraven, that there should be a Catholic College within the University from Dublin. They got the information from these Belfast gentleman, and as they did not like the idea, so for the sake of the Union—which always came into every Irish question—they resolved to sacrifice their conscientious convictions on Catholic education. What was the next step? The Catholic Bishops were consulted. He did not object to that, for they represented somebody. It was a highly proper proceeding, and of course, they,
  692
  like wise men, were not so much concerned about the scheme. They had had interviews with the Commission on Education before. What they wanted to know was if the right hon. Gentleman meant business, and they were assured that nothing was nearer to the heart of the Irish Government than the settlement of this question. The Bishops then consented to accept either Lord Dunraven's scheme, or the scheme of the Commission. But it then occurred to the Government that they had better consult Trinity College—a thing that should have occurred to them at first. But the moment the scheme was put before the College, of course, they would have nothing to do with it. Just imagine all this as an example of effective government. Why did they not go to Trinity College first and see whether they would consent to such a scheme? Why did they deliberately keep alive this question to divide people? This was what they called ineffective, and he submitted that that word in the Amendment was too mild.
  Now, let them take the Land Act. There was a proverb that "Man proposes, but God disposes." It might be said that Parliament proposed and Irish officialdom disposed. under the present system it was impossible to get an honest adminstration of any Act. In the session of 1903, the House spent two or three days in discussing the case of non-judicial tenants, tenants who had not got their rents fixed. They were provided for with the other tenants under Section I and were under the zones. He remembered the Attorney-General saying that these tenants had no relation to Section I and that they ought not to be there. They succeeded, and these 50,000 tenants were put under what was now Section 5. Irish officialdom in its worst days never did a more monstrous thing than was done with regard to those tenants. They had fought to get them outside the zones because they would be submitted to impossible and unfair prices. And what had happened? He knew cases in the North of Ireland where they came under Section 5. The Act said that the Commissioners should take all the circumstances into consideration, yet would it be believed that the interpretation put on Section 5 by the Estates Commissioners

  693
  —and he presumed by Mr. Justice Meredith—was such that these people who were free from the zones, merely got out of the frying-pan into the fire. The question in such cases was whether the farm as it stood was security for the advance or not. There was no question about the tenants' property in it. But now that was valued as part of the security, and the price went up to thirty and thirty-five years purchase because of the property of the tenant. In other words the tenant might have to purchase his own property over again. He would take another case which came before the Estates Commissioners the other day. It was an estate in the West of Ireland. In 1897 this estate was in Mr. Justice Ross's court and a request was issued by him to the Land Commission to have it valued for sale. Two years afterwards the estate came before the Land Commission on the report of the Commissioners, Mr. Frederick Wrench and Mr. Lynch. They were both land lord's friends to the chin, and were not consumed with anxiety about the tenants, but they reported deliberately that, in their opinion, there was no security for the advance of a single shilling upon that property. They reported that the estate was laden with arrears and that there were only two holders with a valuation above £5. They said that if default occurred recovery would be impossible. The demand of the new tenant for an advance of £7,000was refused. The 1903 Act was passed, and here came the comedy of the whole thing. Mr. Blake Foster, the owner of the estate, disappeared, and the Scottish Union Insurance Company came upon the scene. The Irish Members would recollect that one afternoon the Member for West Edinburgh and the Member for Peebles and Selkirk were active on the Ministerial side of the House protecting the interests of that insurance company. The Scottish Union Insurance Company employed an agent who got the tenants to sign agreements for 10 per cent, less than the rents they had ever paid. That being successfully accomplished they brought them up to the Land Commission and handed them over the counter to a clerk of the Commission, and without inquiry they were registered as judicial rents. That being settled the agent proceeded again to the West and got the tenants to
  694
  sign purchase agreements, showing another 10 per cent. reduction. These purchase agreements were lodged with the Estates Commissioners, and £9,800 was demanded for the estate on which, according to the Land Commissioners, not a single shilling could be advanced under the old Act. What was stated in support of the demand was that the prices were within the zone and that the Estates Commissioners had no discretion. What he wanted to know was whether the Chief Secretary was going to do anything in that matter. Were these gentlemen to be allowed to sell these bankrupt estates at fancy prices where there was absolutely no security for the advance? Was the right hon. Gentlemen going to amend the Act so as to protect the public against these men. They had heard nothing about that to-day. There was nothing in the King's Speech about it, and yet these cases would be crowding before the Land Commissioners in a few days. It was a serious matter for the taxpayers of Ireland, and, indeed, for the taxpayers of England too, That was what was called efficiency in Ireland.
  The mover of the Amendment had said that this system of government was extravagant and costly. He thought he would be able to prove that up to the hilt. What were the facts? This country extracted from Ireland £10,000,000 per annum in the shape of taxation. The cost of the government of Ireland, all told, was something like £7,000,000. That was to say, £3,000,000per annum came to this country from Ireland as an Imperial contribution. The cities of Ireland were crowded with masses of the very poor. In the city of Dublin there were 25,000 families living in one room apiece. A great tract of country in the West was in a state of chronic famine and the people were given over to something like absolute despair in the face of facts like these. This Imperial contribution of £3,000,000 a year helped to pay for the Army which was useless and from which Ireland got no benefit. More than that, Ireland was taxed to the extent of 30 per cent, over Scotland for government, although the population was about the same. He would give a few figures by way of contrast. In Ireland the cost of the Lord-Lieutenancy was £36,557; in Scotland it cost nothing, there being

  695
  no such office. The Chief Secretary's Department cost £41,650, while the cost of the Secretary for Scotland's Department was £41,678. The Local Government Board in Ireland cost £79,875, and in Scotland £15,825. The Registrar-General's Department in Ireland cost £22,913, and in Scotland £12,227. The Valuation Department in Ireland cost £32,425, and in Scotland there was no Valuation Department. The work of that Department in Scotland seemed to be done by the Local Government Board. The Supreme Court of Judicature, the County Courts and law charges in Ireland cost £421,687, and that was exclusive of £16,333 for the Land Commission which came out of the Consolidated Fund. The Scottish legal expenses amounted to £259,373. The Royal Irish Constabulary and the Metropolitan Police cost £1,569,214, while the whole of Scotland was policed for £539,196. Why should the government of Ireland cost more than the government of Scotland? Scotland was a well-governed country. He saw his hon. friend the Member for Clackmannan rather shrink from the imputation of a previous speaker that there was more crime in Scotland than in Ireland. What was the reason? Scotland was a great manufacturing country, and it had large towns, and wherever these two things were found they would get crime of a certain kind. Ireland was to a large extent an agricultural country. That was the reason.
  MR. EUGENE WASON: I beg your pardon. We have a great many Englishmen in Scotland.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid he wanted to ask this question seriously. Why was it that Ireland, a poor country, should be taxed to the tune of 30 per cent, more for government than Scotland, a rich country? He thought it was high time that English Members did pay some attention to that matter. Was the Amendment of his hon. friend wrong in describing the Government of Ireland as extravagantly costly? It was the absolute and literal truth.
  Did this system enjoy the confidence of anybody? They had ocular demonstration in the House of Commons. Here there were
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  eighty-two or eighty-three Members, permanently encamped in their midst, hostile to the Government in every shape and form. Did hon. Members from Ulster feel confidence in His Majesty's Government? There were the Unionists from Ulster who arrogated to themselves the title of the only Unionists. There were a few others, and there would be more by-and-bye. For a hundred years and more the Ulster Unionists had been a favoured class. They now had nine-tenths of the positions of trust and emolument in the country. There were sixteen Irish Judges, and thirteen of them were Protestants. Two-thirds of the County Court Judges were also Protestant. There was not a department of the State where friends of those gentlemen were not quartered. Chief Secretary after Chief Secretary quartered his private secretary on the country—and there were at least half a dozen of such gentlemen occupying positions of emolument in Ireland to-day. And Ireland was expected to be content. Those gentlemen would be content so long as they were fed with manna from the Treasury. But it did not follow everybody else would be content. And yet because a Protestant doctor at Bal-linassloe was passed over for promotion and a Roman Catholic chosen instead these gentlemen had actually conjured up a state of affairs which had no existence save in their own heated imaginations; and here 105 years after the Union the English garrison was in revolt. Let not the Chief Secretary be discouraged. After the First Lord had spoken they would come to heel. He was not a betting man, but if he were he would bet heavily upon every one of them trotting into the lobby against the Amendment when the division came. At all events they were in open revolt. One would imagine to hear them that they were in the fight which defeated Home Rule. But not one of them was there. Did they save the Union? Some of them were in swaddling clothes at the time and the rest of them took precious good care to keep a safe distance from English platforms, and it was a very good thing for the Union that they did. Here they were in open revolt, their heart-strings torn because their beloved Government had disappointed them and determined to make a last

  697
  stand—what for?—not for the Union but for their immemorial privileges.
  The Irish Government had the confidence of nobody save officials and lawyers "on the make." But for the Home Rule scare which the noble Lord the Member for Greenwich had raised the Government would not have a single supporter save for Trinity College—and that support would not be entirely disinterested either. No man could fail to be alarmed at the condition of Ireland, and if they had statesmen at Dublin Castle instead of men who intrigued, the question would be faced and a remedy would be devised. The working of the Land Act was absolutely arrested for lack of money, there was maladministration in favour of landlords, and the West, which was the great reason of the Act being passed, was practically exempt from its action. If this went on for fifteen or sixteen years more they would have a nation of old men and old women, of policemen, and officials. What a lurid light this Dunravenism threw upon it all! He was no admirer of some of the methods of what was called "MacDonnel-lism" in Ireland, and he rather suspected Sir Antony MacDonncll had discovered, what he might have discovered earlier, that Ireland was not India, and that the methods applicable to India were entirely out of place in a country of representative institutions. He now realised that, although the Ulster Unionists had probably found that they had "bitten off more than the could chew," in this case, it was after all a rather dangerous thing to defy the representatives of any section of the people. The cardinal mistake in all this business was the secrecy. This policy was a reasonable policy—settlement of the land question, of education, extension of local government—there was no reason for secrecy in all that. But the people had been deceived, and he told the Chief Secretary that the period of his usefulness and the usefulness of the Irish administration had gone for ever.
  And upon this subject he had a question for the Attorney-General for Ireland, who wont to North Derry and assailed Lord Duuraven's scheme. He hinted darkly at the author of that scheme, and assailed Sir Antony MacDonnell, though not by
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  name. He demanded investigation. He had got it, and it was to be hoped that the right hon. and learned Gentleman was satisfied. Now when did he propose to go back to Coleraine and inform his friends he was totally mistaken, and that, instead of Sir Antony MacDonnell being the author of the scheme, he only assisted with information; that the real culprits were the Irish Government, with Lord Dudley, and the Chief Secretary, who talked things over and kept them in such a state that he could retire at any moment when it became necessary? The Attorney-General for Ireland had told his constituents that this was Home Rule on the sly—did he mean to continue to serve those gentleman who had deceived him and his constituents? This business had been got up because the Ulster representatives were played out in Ulster upon every other question, and by raising a Home Rule scare they hoped to befool the farmers once more, but they would not do it. He heard Lord Lansdowne the other night and enjoyed his definition of co-ordination of detached and semi-detached boards—a blessed word, "co-ordination." He was going to vote for this Amendment—not because he was a Homo Ruler, but because he was in favour of co-ordination. They might call this a Home Rule Amendment, but the noble Lord the Member for Greenwich would not frighten him by calling it so. He voted for it not on that ground. He voted for it because it was a sterling indictment of the whole system of Irish government, and he believed that system to be intolerable. He would vote for the Amendment because he believed it was true in every line and every word.
  MR. LONSDALE (Armagh, Mid.)congratulated the Member for South Tyrone on his first speech from the Nationalist Benches, where they thought he ought to have sat long ago. The Amendment directly attacked the system under which Ireland was governed. Hon. Members opposite wanted to demolish that system in order to put in its place a form of government which would make Ireland absolutely independent of the rest of the United Kingdom. They who represented Irish Unionism were of course as

  699
  determined as ever to resist to the utmost all revolutionary proposals of that kind. They were equally determined to offer the most uncompromising opposition to the insidious schemes of devolution which had been put forward by men who had called themselves Unionists. The fact could not be disguised that there existed a strong feeling of discontent at the present Irish administration. It was due not to the system but to the partisan way in which the system had been conducted. In the last session of Parliament the Unionists had endeavoured to make the Government understand how deeply the people of Ulster were stirred by the numerous acts of partisanship that had been committed. Under Sir Antony Mac-Donnell the Unionist administration was swayed by influences opposed to the interests of Loyalists, and the alarm they felt was increased by the publication of devolution proposals with which the name of Lord Dunraven was associated. The disclosures made in that House and in the House of Lords, while they justified the mistrust by the Irish Unionists of Sir Antony MacDonnell's administration, did nothing to lessen the resentment which was felt at the action of the Unionist Government. Sir Antony MacDonnell had been permitted a freedom of action which was altogether unusual in one holding the position of Under-Secretiry. They were given to understand now that Sir Antony MacDonnell was far too distinguished a man to be bound by the ordinary rules of the Civil Service, and that in accordance with the under standing arrived at when he accepted the position he had been left practically a free hand at Dublin Castle. He did not hesitate to say that the appointment of Sir Antony MacDonnell upon such terms was entirely inconsistent with the principle of Ministerial responsibility, and had the conditions been made known at the time he went to Ireland, the Unionist Party would never have ratified the arrangement. It was understood that he had been asked to assume the Under-Secretaryship only for a time, because his special experience in India would be of service in the preparation of the Land Bill. It was never contemplated by any Unionist Member that
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  Sir Antony MacDonnell, whose Nationalist sympathies were well known, would be placed in such a position of freedom that he could initiate and carry out a policy of his own which was not a Unionist policy, but one that was, in fact, destructive of the first principles of Unionism.
  They were entitled to ask from the Chief Secretary some explanation of his position in relation to this matter. They had it placed beyond doubt that Sir Antony took a very active part in shaping the scheme of devolution which had been repudiated by the Government. The Chief Secretary stated that he saw these proposals for the first time when they appeared in The Times in September and that he at once repudiated them. Of course ha accepted that statement, but he considered the Chief Secretary should inform the House as to how far he was cognisant of the negotiations and discussions which had been proceeding between his Under-Secretary and Lord Dunraven, and also to what extent he sympathised with the objects they had in view. It had been avowed that the Lord-Lieutenant had full knowledge of the discussions that were going forward, and it was impossible to resist the conclusion that the Chief Secretary, as a member of the Cabinet, should have interfered earlier than he did, not merely to check the zeal of his Nationalist Under-Secretary in his schemes to promote Home Rule, but to prevent the many acts of partiality and injustice, which had made the system known as "MacDonnellism" a by-word among Irish Unionists. What more glaring example of partisanship could they have than the way in which the Executive dealt with the extra police charges, to which he called attention last session. Nine Nationalist counties in the South and West of Ireland, which flatly refused to pay the demands levied upon them, were excused payment by the Lord-Lieutenant. Very different treatment was meted out to the Ulster counties of Armagh, Tyrone, Down, and Londonderry. Their claims for equal treatment were ignored; payment in full of these charges was insisted upon; and they had been given to understand that if they did not pay, the amounts would be summarily deducted from grants

  701
  due to them by the Government. It was impossible to justify this arbitrary and one-sided exercise of the administrative powers of the Irish Executive. It stood as an illustration of the flagrant abuse of authority in favour of Nation lists, end to the prejudice of that section of the Irish people who had aclear right to expect lair and just treatment from a Unionist Administration. He asked the Government to reflect upon the absolute failure of the so-called policy of conciliation. It had conciliated nobody. Hon. Members opposite refused to be conciliated. They would not be moved even by the sacrifice of the interests of Loyalists and Unionists. The friends and supporters of the Government had been alienated, and, so far from allaying differences among the Irish people, this policy had stirred into fresh activity the sectarian feeling which was, unfortunately, too rife in Ireland. It had encouraged aggression and intolerance on the one side, and created a sense of injustice on the other, and this sense of wrong would not be removed so long as the author and chief organiser of this policy remained at Dublin Castle. As representatives of the Irish Unionists in that House, he and his colleagues demanded fair treatment and nothing more. He could not believe that in these circumstances the Government would persist in turning a deaf ear to their representations. He hoped that they would receive from the head of the Government, not merely a repudiation of Home Rule and devolution, but such assurances as would convince them that the malign influence at Dublin Castle would be withdrawn, and that in future the administration of affairs in Ireland would be carried on in accordance with the principles of strict justice towards all sections of His Majesty's subjects.
  MR. WINSTON CHURCHILLsaid that the hon. Gentleman who had just-sat down had stated the point of view of the Ulster Members with rather more moderation than others who had spoken from his quarter of the House. But he noticed, or he thought he noticed, in the speech of the noble Lord the Member for Greenwich a disposition to ignore altogether the fact that any change of any sort had come over the Irish question
  702
  in the passage of years, and even a disposition to suggest or assert that whatever might have happened as regards others, no change could come over that question. Now, it seemed to him—he spoke with great diffidence in presence of hon. Members who had taken part in these debates for many years—that there was a very great difference between the Irish question as it presented itself in 1905, and as it presented itself in 1886. For twenty-five years the House of Commons had been debating Irish matters in their more modern aspects, and the attention of Parliament was very rarely concentrated for a very long time on a question without some result being produced. On this particular question it had undoubtedly produced great results both in Ireland and England. He must say that time had largely vindicated the opinions which were expressed by Mr. Gladstone in 1880. A great scheme of local government, which Lord Salisbury in 1887 declared was worse and more dangerous than Home Rule itself, had been established in Ireland by the Tory Party, and was now at work. Upon the whole it was said to be working well, and gave still brighter promise for the future. The land policy in 1886 was the principal object of the attack of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham and other Unionists. That land policy which was almost contemptuously refused by the House of Commons, condemned without debate, killed without division, and which, as much as any other single circumstance, had helped to injure the prospects of its companion measure, had since been passed by the House of Commons by overwhelming majorities at the instance of the very Party which had most vehemently opposed it. Well, these were great events, and their consequences ought not, he thought, to discourage those who took an interest in Ireland. It was quite true that the credit of those measures belonged to the Party opposite, and he did not think any one would wish to deprive them of any credit properly their due. But it was also true to say that nothing else than the espousal of the Irish cause by a great English Party would have been sufficient to give the necessary impulse which had awakened the conscience of the English

  703
  nation. These events had produced, great changes of feeling in Ireland. No doubt the Amendment before the House made a clamorous assertion of irritation and discontent. He was not minimising these, but it was true, lie thought, to say that, in spite of that discontent and irritation, the Irish question did not present itself to the House of Commons with anything like the terrible and tragic aspect which it wore in the years between 1881 and 1887. Events had also changed aspects in England. There had been elections since. After all, the electors in this country followed the course of politics with some attention, and they had observed that a large number of important measures, from which they were led to believe all sorts of dire consequences would follow, had been passed in Parliament by the very men who had made these most gloomy predictions. So far from any serious and unfortunate consequences arising, both countries seemed to have benefited very much by their operation. So he ventured to say it was a new situation in Irish affairs which had arisen.
  They were confronted now with a problem in almost every respect less difficult and dangerous than had been confronted in 1886. They found in former times a much more restricted demand put forward on a much less representative authority. Surely it was a striking fact when the hon. Member for South Tyrone could sit on the same side of the House as the hon. and learned Member for Waterford. [An HON. MEMBER from the MINISTERIAL side: "Let him stay there."] Yes, but the hon. Member for South Tyrone was not an unattached unit. He carried with him a considerable body of opinion, and when Lord Dunravcn promulgated a scheme which was treated with consideration by the hon. Member for Mid. Cork these were facts which ought not to be excluded from a judgment of the Irish question. They ought to all be encouraged by them and by successful experiments in the past in Irish legislation. As the hon. and learned Member for Waterford had said that day, he hoped that the Irish question would be honestly approached. He maintained that there had not been a time for many years when there was a greater mass of opinion
  704
  arrayed against any extreme departure in Irish policy. There never was a time when the declaration of leading politicians of every political complexion in Great Britain, when the pledges given by candidates in various parts of the country, and when the composition of the Parties at Westminster, was more intolerant at the starting of any revolutionary scheme. There never was a time when a Government would be less able to take office fettered in its entire discretion. But it was also true that there never was a time when there was a greater number of moderate sensible people who were prepared to give consideration to the Irish question without passion, to see what a rotten system of Government prevailed in that country, and to approach one of the most difficult, as it was one of the most attractive, questions which could occupy the minds of English politicians.
  He did not propose that night to fall foul of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary. He was quite ready to admit, and sincerely believed, that during his tenure of office the right hon. Gentleman had tried to do his best to hold the balance even between Catholic and Protestant in Ireland. He thought that the right hon. Gentleman's policy and efforts in Ireland had been, he would not say a bright exception, but a less dark exception, to the records of this somewhat melancholy Parliament. He quite agreed with the noble Lord the- Member for Greenwich that the very fact that the Chief Secretary was attacked from all parts of the House proved in a certain Sense the impartiality of his administration. But since the attack had been made, after four years of administration by the right hon. Gentleman with his great powers, high motives, and distinguished talents, and since it had drawn down on him discontent and adverse Irish opinion, it proved something more. The right hon. Gentleman's impartiality might be unaffected, but it likewise proved the impossibility of the system over which he had been called to preside.
  Now, being himself a somewhat lonely politician [MINISTERIAL cries of "Not now"] he was naturally very sympathetic with any Member who was in a minority,

  705
  and consequently he wan not at all prejudiced against the strong expressions of opinion uttered by the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim; but he confessed he was a little sceptical about the grievances of the Irish Unionists. They had heard a piteous tale of their patient suffering under intolerable treachery and wrong. It was a world of sin and woe that we lived in But he saw that other good people suffered misfortune besides the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim, and the hon. Member for Mid. Armagh. And he was not convinced that these latter deserved more pity than other persons of equal virtue and intelligence. Never before in the recent political history of this House, he supposed, was there a minority so well-equipped for political warfare, and so influentialiy protected as the Ulster and Orange Party in that House. It added to their debates fifteen Members altogether, and out of them—he was counting the right lion. Gentleman the Solicitor-General, who was one with them in thought and sympathy—there were no fewer than five in the Government and two in the Cabinet. The Cabinet was well disposed towards them, for they were its thick and thin supporters—they supported it when it was light and when it was wrong. That was the kind of supporters a Government, and particularly this kind of Government, was always well disposed to. They had many strong supporters in the Conservative Party who were devoted to their interests and the interests of the class in Ireland whom they represented. They had immense influence in the House of Lords. They enjoyed the support of The Times newspaper, which must be a great consolation to them. When they came to the influence which they exerted in the Government, they had the support of the Solicitor-General, that great master of political deportment, who had added to their knowledge OH that question several valuable precedents as regarded the conduct of colleagues towards one another, as regarded the conduct of the Law Officers of the Crown towards the Prime Minister, and as regarded the conduct of the Prime Minister towards public servants. They enjoyed the support of Lord Londonderry, who, notwithstanding that he had views of his own on free trade, was not
  706
  inclined to abandon them, and naturally exerted great authority in this country, particularly on a Tory Cabinet. In addition to that they had the support of the right hon. Gentleman the, Secretary of State for War in those comparatively lucid moments which interrupted the continuity of his labours at the War Office. Well, when they observed, with all this influence in high places, with all this talent of newspaper organisation, that this minority had failed to persuade their own Government for which they had worked so long of the reasonableness of their demands and the essential justice of the position they occupied, he did not believe that they had suffered any great course of flagrant wrong which it would not be in the power of any Government easily and readily to remove. He quite believed that they were seeking for justice, but it seemed to him that what they considered justice was privilege. When they asked for justice and fair treatment for their own affairs, what they wanted was considerable, power over the affairs of other people who lived in the same country with them. He was not convinced that the indignation they had expressed was altogether sincere, for, after all, people usually brought their opinions to the test of a vote. There was an Amendment before the House the other night praying for the dissolution of Parliament and the dismissal of His Majesty's Ministry which, according to the hon. and learned Member for North Antrim, had betrayed him, and yet the hon. and learned Member had voted against that Amendment, and for the continuance in office of the Government against whose conduct he now so strongly protested. What did that mean? Either that the grievances which the hon. and learned Member brought forward were not sufficiently well founded to be carried to a vote, or that the hon. and leagued Member's case and his demands were so extravagant that there was no Party and no Government likely to be called into existence which would be able under any circumstances to entertain them.
  He now came to a much more interesting and momentous question which had obtruded itself into the general discussion of Irish affairs; he meant the relations between the Chief Secretary and

  707
  the Under-Secretary at the Irish Office. He believed that his right hon. friend, the Chief Secretary—if he would allow him to refer to him in that form—although they sat on opposite sides of the House he thought it desirable that public relations between Gentlemen on opposite sides should be cordial—he had known the right hon. Gentleman long enough to believe that he would not be guilty of any wilful misleading of the House of Commons or of subordinates who, on his own admission, had been perfectly loyal to him. He did not think it was difficult to understand how the present situation had arisen, judging from the general political attitude of the right hon. Gentleman, and from the revelations they had lately heard. The views of the right hon. Gentleman were rather peculiar for a Unionist Minister to hold. The right hon. Gentleman was a sincere and convinced opponent of Home Rule; but yet he thought that the Irish ought to be free to manage their own affairs. That was a position not so paradoxical as it might sound; but it was rather difficult for a gentleman occupying such a dual capacity to carry on an Administration. The right hon. Gentleman desired earnestly the welfare of the country he was appointed to control; but the principal plank in the platform of his Party was absolute opposition to the repeal of the Union. How did the right hon. Gentleman reconcile his conscientious opinion and his duty to the Party ticket? Sir Antony MacDonnell was appointed under conditions which were highly irregular, though not indeed, improper. For his own part he regarded the irregularity as the best part of the story. If the Chief Secretary said he did not consider himself technically responsible, either for Sir Antony MacDonnell's action, or for the scheme which Lord Dunraven had put forward, he accepted his words as final. But he did not think the right hon. Gentleman could escape from some degree of moral responsibility in regard to that scheme, and the proof of that was, he thought, that Sir Antony MacDonnell still remained Undersecretary for Ireland. He did not know whether in the course of the next few days there would be an announcement; but he was under the impression that unless the right hon. Gentleman felt
  708
  some confusion in his own mind, he would not have allowed an officer whose conduct was indefensible to continue to serve under him.
  Passing for a moment from the personal to the political aspect of the situation, he could not help remarking how very keen the Government were on having everything their own way. They did not mind what they did, as long as they themselves did it. Here in this Irish business there was what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Fife would call "pure Balfourism." The right hon. Gentleman and the Party to which he belonged accused their opponents of endeavouring to subvert the Legislative Union between this country and Ireland; and on that ground they received the support of hon. Gentlemen from the North of Ireland. Many people thought that private arrangements should not be made which I weakened and violated the whole conditions on which that support had been extended, and when the matter became public, to explain that it was only the unauthorised act of an agent led away by enthusiasm. The right hon. Gentleman had some moral responsibility for Lord Dunraven's scheme. It had now been dropped like a hot coal. He should like to know if, when the right hon. Gentleman returned from his hard-earned and richly-deserved holiday, ho had found that the Dunraven scheme had been received with universal applause, if he had found the hon. Member for North Antrim anxious to embrace Lord Dunraven, and the Solicitor-General asking them both to meet him at dinner at his house, he would have then developed this extreme orthodoxy?
  MR. WYNDHAM: My hon. friend forgets that I wrote a letter directly I saw the scheme in the newspapers.
  MR. WINSTON CHURCHILLsaid that
  the right hon. Gentleman might say he never saw the publication of the scheme a month earlier, which scheme had been very considerably attacked by the organs of the Unionist Party in the intervening period. In fact he thought that before the right hon. Gentleman repudiated Lord Dunraven's second scheme there had

  709
  The Times newspaper which, he dared say, the right hon. Gentleman occasionally read, all of which were calling upon him for an immediate repudiation of the scheme of Lord Dunraven even before it appeared in its final form. The whole of this incident showed quite clearly that the governing instrument, which had discharged much useful work in past years, was worn out, and that a new instrument was required to deal with real and pressing questions, not merely of Irish government, but of British politics generally. Last Wednesday, when the House was discussing the dissolution Amendment, a Cabinet Council was being held to discuss what was to be done with regard to the revelations which had become public, and the Prime Minister and those who sat with him at the table were engaged, as they had been engaged before, in trying to frame a form of words which would reconcile persons who profoundly differed from each other and enable them to continue a little longer in office as a Government. This form of words involved the direct censure of Sir Antony MacDonnell, and it was decided at that Council to apply to his action the word "indefensible," and to his opinions the word "erroneous." He would ask the right lion. Gentleman what was the position of the Viceroy in this matter? Lord Dudley had been four years in Ireland. The, Viceroyalty was, ho supposed, the most thankless and disagreeable office in the gift of the Crow. Lord and Lady Dudley had exerted themselves and spent money with princely generosity with no other object than to leave Ireland a little better than they found it; and it was only in accordance with the character of the noble Lord that he should have made a frank avowal of sympathy and approval of Sir Antony MacDonnell action and policy. What he wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman was, did the censure of Sir Antony MacDonnell cover the Lord-Lieutenant also? When he asked him earlier in the afternoon, the right hon. Gentleman said that the Cabinet did not know that the Viceroy was involved in this matter. He also understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that ho did not know, until December 27th that the Viceroy was involved in Sir Antony MacDonnell's action.
  MR. W1NDHAMassented.
  MR. WINSTON CHURCHILLsaid he was astonished at that. It seemed to him a very strange thing that the right hon. Gentleman should have failed to make that very important fact known to his colleagues in the Cabinet.
  MR. WYNDHAM: At the meeting of the Cabinet the other day the question of Ireland was not discussed.
  MR. WINSTON CHURCHILLsaid there must have been a Cabinet; some time or other at which the answer which the right hon. Gentleman read in that House was drawn up His point was that at that Cabinet the Ministers were in ignorance of the fact that Sir Antony MacDonnell had the support and approval of the Viceroy, and the right hon. Gentleman, although he knew it, did not inform them of it. If that were true, he could not help thinking that the right hon. Gentleman had failed in the correct appreciation of his public duty.
  He would pass away from the special incident to the general issue raised in the Amendment. The Amendment contained a statement of fact that might be extravagant in some parts of it. Although it was negative in its character no one could admit the evil it asserted without being involved in real responsibility to make an effort to redress it. He did not think that the question of Irish devolution stood alone. There was also the question of Wales. An extension of self-government was demanded, not only in the interests of nationalities which were cramped within our larger political organisation, but also in the interests of Parliament, which had become choked with an ever-expanding volume of business. They demanded greater freedom to manage or mismanage their own political affairs. The noble Lord the Member for Greenwich seemed to imagine that nationality was not a valuable principle and indeed that there was no such thing at all—that Burns was just as much an Englishman as Shakespeare and Shakespeare just as much an Irishman as Moore. This question of

  711
  devolution, however, was not brought before them in the interests of nationality alone, but in the interests of Parliament, which was becoming increasingly choked with an ever-expanding volume of business, due not only to the complexities of modern life but to the manifold possibilities of the King's Dominions. It was now admitted that the House of Commons had no effective scrutiny over necessary details of expenditure. They knew that Private Bill legislation was almost a farce, and the position had arrived at such a topsy-turvy condition that time could be found to pass an Education Bill for Wales which the Welsh Members detested, but no time to pass an Education Bill for Scotland which the Scottish Members desired. He was convinced that no Party in the future would refuse to consider the delegation of administrative and legislative functions to provincial or national boards. He believed in the extension of local government on a scale hitherto quite unknown, in the creation of national boards in the four parts of the kingdom, and the handing over to them of large slices and blocks of business which could not properly be dealt with at Westminster. Lord Dunraven's plan had been called amateurish, but it was now known that it was framed by an expert in administration. It was allowed to be workable, it originated in Dublin Castle, had the approval of the Lord-Lieutenant, and merited respectful attention from all interested in Irish affairs. They were told it was contrary to Unionist principles; but what were Unionist principles The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham had, surely, a right to set the standard of Unionist orthodoxy, and he in 1885 expressed an opinion, which he had not since repudiated, in favour of local government for Ireland more thoroughly popular than had hitherto been attempted, with powers to deal with a variety of questions, including education, land tenure, railway and other communications, and with financial authority.
  The most obvious objection to the present Irish system was that the people had no sense of ownership in government similar to that existing in this country. We might have a poor thing of a Government, but at least it was our own, and slowly
  712
  the electoral machinery could change it; but, in Ireland there was no change possible, it was an arbitrary authority under the specious guise of representation. A Catholic University desired by four-fifths of the population and admitted as desirable by every Government for the last twenty years had never been attempted by any Government with prospect of success. He, himself, was not favourable to a Catholic University in Ireland, and if such a measure were introduced he would he compelled to vote against it. There was no inconsistency in that. He believed that the day had passed when the House of Commons could defend religious tests in connection with education. But what business was that of their? So long as they were unable to deal with a question of that kind, there stood revealed a cardinal defect in their system of government in Ireland.
  Then there was the question of finance. It would he easy to show that the Irish people had no interest whatever in making economies of any kind, how a Royal Commission had declared that they were paying an undue proportion of taxation, and how they were charged no less than 75 per cent, of indirect taxation. But he would pass to a more general point. What was there in the air of these Irish offices that so powerfully influenced distinguished public officials, Chief Secretaries, and Tory Viceroys, who were, sent to watch the working of the Irish governmental machine on the spot? Sir Anthony MacDonnell did not stand alone. Before him there had been Sir West Ridgeway, Sir Robert Hamilton, Mr. Thomas Drummond, and others. What was it that disquieted these public officials? What was it that drew Lord Carnarvon to the empty house in Grosvenor Square? What was it that induced Lord Dudley to cast away all his prospects of future, promotion in the Conservative Party? Was it some dim understanding of a great truth which came to those who watched the working of the machine at close quarters, or was it the clear apprehension of a great fraud?
  The Irish polity had its equal nowhere in the world. It might be that in South Africa one of these days the system would be much the same,

  713
  because the same seed planted in soils, however different, produced the same peculiar plant, but for the present the Irish polity stood alone. Ireland was governed by neither King nor people. The system of government was not democratic, autocratic, or even oligarchal. The land was hag-ridden by forty-one separate semi-independent administrative boards, which overlapped in all directions, some of them fed with money from the Consolidated Fund, others with money voted by this House, and others from Irish funds; some under the control of the Viceroy, some under the control of the Chief Secretary, some under the control of the Treasury, and some under no control at all except their own sweet will. The resultant administration was costly, inefficient, and unhandy beyond compare. A mighty staff of police and officials, nine-tenths of the latter drawn from the minority of the population, were employed in imposing the system upon a people desperately poor; taxation rose automatically with the expanding establishment of this wealthy and extravagant country; population at the same time dwindled steadily. To all this had to be added a Loyalist caste. What an Old Man of the Sea a loyalist faction was to get on the backs of any British Government! He had no quarrel with hon. Members opposite. They were perfectly loyal—to their own interests—and honestly believed that those interests were the interests of their country. But they paraded their loyalty, using it to extort concessions of privilege and ascendency from the British Government; when any man attempted to do even-handed justice in the King's name between man and man in Ireland, they complained that they were being betrayed; and in the exact language, of their own South African prototypes, they declared that loyalty did not pay a dividend on the capital invested. Let all this be thrown info the arena where British Parties were fiercely struggling for the mastery, and the panorama of Irish government was complete. Against such a system, brought to the knowledge of the House and the country by distinguished Irish Unionists who had hitherto never been challenged as exponents of Unionist opinion, by witnesses so trustworthy
  714
  impartial, and reluctant, it seemed to him that every liberal-minded man ought cheerfully to vote.
  MR. T. L. CORBETT (Down, N.)said that, listening to the hon. Member for Oldham, he had been reminded of the phrase once used in this House about "an old man in a hurry," and he could not help wondering whether there were not also some young men in a hurry, who would one day realise the truth of the old proverb, "More haste, less speed." It seemed to be the congenial occupation of some Members to abuse their Party and condemn their leaders, but it was in no such spirit that the Ulster Members had approached their difficult and disagreeable task of criticising the Government. Hitherto they had been amongst the most loyal and devoted supporters of the Unionist Party and Government; the raison d"étre of their presence in the House of Commons was the defence of the Union, which, after all, was the very corner-stone of the whole fabric of the Unionist Party. Consequently the revolt of the Ulster Members had been undertaken with no light heart. The Prime Minister in a memorable phrase recently declared that the Unionist Party was not for sale. For some months past, however, the Unionist Members for Ulster had had the feeling that they were being sold, and that when they were not being sold they were being given away. Too long they had submitted to the scarcely concealed contempt with which the Chief Secretary had treated their opinions and received their representations; the Government had taken advantage of their Unionism, evidently believing their loyalty to Party and leaders to be so deeply ingrained that they would not cause any trouble. What was to be said about the plain facts which had been dragged to light in the other House of Parliament? The Government selected for the post of Under-Sccretary for Ireland a distinguished official of great ability, a man of well-known Home Rule sympathies, and a devoted son of the Roman Catholic Church, who would accept the office only on special terms. The House had a right to know what those special terms were. Negotiations had been carried on with the knowledge of the Lord-Lieutenant and the Chief

  715
  Secretary. Why were not those negotiations stopped at an earlier period? Was Sir Antony MacDonnell allowed to feel his way and only thrown over because of the storm which had arisen? Knowing Sir Antony MacDonnell's religious and political opinions, he did not blame him so much as he blamed those who put him in a position to do what he had done. What had the Government gained by their policy? They had not gained a single Nationalist vote, but they had certainly lost the confidence and loyalty of their most devoted, sincere, and true-hearted followers in the North of Ireland.
  MR. HUGH LAW (Donegal, W.)thought it would be a pity if in this debate attention were diverted altogether from some of the larger aspects of the question raised by the Amendment. The objections to Home Rule might be divided into three classes:—first, the old story that Home Rule meant Rome Rule; secondly, that of which the noble Lord the Member for Greenwich was the exponent, that the whole thing was absurd child's play, a ridiculous mirage, that there was no such thing as an Irish nation at all; and, thirdly, that there was an Irish nation, but that it was a horribly criminal and disloyal faction which could not safely be given self-government, lest it should bring wreck and ruin on the Empire of which it, de facto, formed a part. As to the first class, it had already been pointed out that overwhelmingly Roman Catholic constituencies had returned Protestant Members to the House of Commons. When would a constituency of the North-East show a similar spirit of tolerance by returning a Catholic? This was not a mere accident; he doubted whether there had been a year since the Union in which Catholic voters in all parts of Ireland had not sent men of other faiths to represent them in Parliament. The one case of Catholic intolerance put forward by the hon. Member for North Antrim was debated in the House nearly a year ago, and, although a special association had been formed to hunt up such matters, not a single case of oppression had been discovered in the intervening months. As to the contention that no such thing as an Irish nation existed,
  716
  what constituted a nation? It was I certainly not race. The essence of nationality was like the essence of Christianity. A man was a Christian who believed as such, and a man was of that nation in which he believed, and to which he felt himself to belong. Finally, to what was it that the Irish people were expected to be loyal? The history of Canada should ever be borne in mind in this matter. What was the foundation of loyalty? The answer was given many years ago by Grattan, when he said, "Loyalty is a noble, a magnificent, a capacious thing, but loyalty without liberty is corruption."
  SIR JAMES HASLETT (Belfast, N.)said that it was quite possible he might be mistaken in his estimate of what this Amendment meant, but the speeches which had been delivered, pointing to the difficulties under the present administration of Ireland, contemplated as the only solution of this problem the complete separation of Ireland from England and a complete Ireland within herself. Anything less than that was not the principle of Home Rule advocated by hon. Members opposite If it was to be merely, a partial or fiscal separation, or a withdrawal from the British Parliament of merely minor affairs, then he understood that that was not what was meant by the demand for Home Rule for Ireland. Lord Randolph Churchhill once stated that, so far as he could gather from the Irish Members, Home Rule meant dissolving the last link that bound Ireland to England. If that were a wrong definition of what Irishmen meant by Home Rule, then of course they started upon fresh ground. He remembered a speech made by the hon. Member who had addressed them in such clear terms that evening from the opposite side, in which he stated that a liberal measure of county government would meet the demand of Ireland, and would give to the people the opportunity to show their capacity and their right to have government upon similar lines to England. The measure of 1898 had now borne fruit for some years, although there were still many faults and blots upon the system of county government in Ireland. No one would contend that that Act or its

  717
  administration was anything like perfection, for it was full of blots and shortcomings which showed a narrowness of mind, but, notwithstanding all that, the present system of local government in Ireland had done good, for it had developed the interest of the people in local affairs, and in the main he welcomed that measure. Personally, he never joined in those invectives of one section against the other, for they could do no good for Ireland. He supposed that the Chief Secretary was the greatest scoundrel in the world, if they listened to one side, whilst the other side considered him quite a respectable gentleman. He had conversed with Sir Antony MacDonnell, and had always found him willing to listen to reason, and he was equally ready to advance his own views for the general welfare, not of Belfast alone, but of Ireland as a whole. He had suffered from Chief Secretaries in the past, and he had not got from them all he wanted, but that was not always the fault of the Chief Secretary, but on account of the eternal tugging at him for money from all directions. They had heard that Belfast was the place that was getting all the money, but he could assure hon. Members opposite that Belfast never got a copper of the Government doles. Belfast had, however, asked that the Government doles should not be given out to other districts in opposition to Belfast, and they insisted that the free trade which had made Belfast should not be stifled by doles made to other cities.
  With regard to the general administration of the affairs of Ireland, his chief objection was that the money voted and placed in the hands of the Government in Ireland was not given on a broad and general principle, but on just a hand-to-mouth principle dependent upon the parties tugging at the Treasury, and that cases were decided without any reference to the general administration of Irish affairs. Many of the relief works undertaken by the Government, such as the making of roads, had turned out practically useless, and he could point out one road made in this way which was scarcely ever used except for the purpose of grouse shooting. The mover of the Amendment before the House had stated that he had no other idea than to prove
  718
  to the House of Commons that, in consequence of the general breakdown of the administration in Ireland, there was no solution of the question except the granting of complete separation. [NATIONALIST cries of "No, no!"] If he was wrong in his definition of Home Rule he would ask the Home Rulers themselves to supply a definition. Until they adopted this course, he had a perfect right to take the previous definition of their demand. The hon. Member for Oldham had told them that things had changed since 1886, and that in Ireland they were now in more favourable circumstances. All he had to say was that he had not heard one word in mitigation of the demand put forward by the Home Rulers, or any alteration in the definition of Home Rule, which still remained what he had ventured to put before the House. What was demanded was the absolute right to govern Ireland through an Irish Parliament, absolutely separated from the Parliament of the British Empire. That was not devolution but absolute separation. Mr. Gladstone had honestly tried to grapple with the question; at first he said that it passed the wit of man to devise a satisfactory scheme to deal with the subject, but afterwards made proposals which were pregnant with contradictions. Under one scheme the Irish Members were to be retained at Westminster taking part in the management of English affairs, but the English people were not to have any voice in the management of Irish affairs. Home Rule meant that for general purposes, for the general welfare of the nation, for the making of laws to protect life and property, for taxation, and for the protection of Ireland by an Army and Navy, Ireland was to have a separate Parliament, and that the Parliament at Westminster was not to have any voice or control over Irish affairs. Under such a system the idea prevailed in the minds of the Loyalist minority that it was quite possible that they would receive only scant justice from the majority. The Protestants had in many instances elected Roman Catholics to fill public positions on governing bodies in Ireland, but he would like hon. Members opposite to give the House any case where Protestants had been elected as members of a local governing body

  719
  where the power existed to elect a Nationalist. Those were some of the dangers which were present in the minds of the minority.
  He wished to remind the House that the taxes paid by the minority in Ireland amounted to five times as much as those paid by the majority. They had been promised an Ulster Parliament. The Ulster people might have many faults, but they refused to desert their brethren throughout the length and breadth of Ireland by accepting a Parliament of their own. Many of his warmest and dearest friends were Catholics, and he did not consider them any the less worthy of his friendship, because they differed from him upon politics and religion. Nevertheless, they refused to have a Parliament of their own for Ulster, and he believed that nine-tenths of the Protestants of Ireland would tell them that, in their opinion, it was for the best interests of Ireland, best for the protection of life and property in that country, and for the securing of laws upon a broad basis, that Ireland should be governed under laws made by the Parliament at Westminster. He had in the past taken part in the devising of laws, and he confessed that he had not always been in the right. He would give them an instance of the danger of making laws from a narrow local point of view. At one time they were very anxious to put down betting in the streets of Belfast, and they embodied in a Bill a clause to the effect that if three men were seen talking together in the public street, the police should have power to call upon them to move on and disperse, or else they should be taken to the police station and their names should be taken. When that measure was brought before the British Parliament, a Member of the Upper Chamber asked,"Do you really mean that? Look what a great power you are placing in the hands of a young constable. You might have all the merchants in your city taken to the police station." Before that explanation, he had looked at the
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  matter simply with a desire to put an end to one of the most degrading things in the city of Belfast, but he afterwards fully realised what a weapon that would be against the merchants in the city, and so they withdrew the proposal. If they had a narrow-minded Parliament, they might have that narrow view put into their laws. Just in proportion as they broadened the basis, in that some proportion were they likely to get broad and generous laws. It had been said that the best laws ever devised by Parliament could be set aside, and rendered futile in their administration. Some charges had been made against the Judges who administered the law in Ireland by the hon. Member for South Tyrone, but he did not think anyone could say that Dublin Castle influenced the Judges upon the Bench in their interpretation of the law.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: What I say is that it is the duty of the Castle officials to advise upon the law, and they have a very curious way of deciding in favour of the landlord in every case.
  SIR JAMES HASLETTsaid that no Castle official could override the interpretation placed upon the law by the Judges.
  And, it being Midnight, the Debate stood adjourned.
  Debate to be resumed to-morrow.

  PAUPERISM (ENGLAND AND WALES); (HALF-YEARLY STATEMENTS).
  Copy ordered, "of Statement of the number of Paupers relieved on the 1st day of January,1905, and similar Statement for the 1st day of July, 1905 (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 84, Session1904).''—(Mr. Grant Lawson.)
  Adjourned at one minute after Twelve o'clock.