§ Order read, for resuming adjourned debate on Question [9th May], "That, in view of recent events in Ireland, and the revelations which caused the resignation of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover, it is in the highest degree desirable, in the public interest, that the correspondence and other information necessary to enable the House of Commons and the country to form a judgment on the policy and proceedings of the Irish Government, connected with and subsequent to the appointment of Sir Antony MacDonnell, be communicated to Parliament."—(Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman.)
§ Question again proposed.
§ MR. T. L. CORBETT, continuing his speech, said this debate could give no true satisfaction to any believer in the Unionist cause. The only satisfaction it could give was to the Members of the Nationalist Party and to that section of the Liberal Party that still believed in Home Rule. He hoped there was reason to believe that that section of the Liberal Party which still believed in Home Rule was lessening in numbers. A large section of that Party was now shaking itself free from Home Rule, but the Leader of the Opposition still clung to separation in its boldest form. When they were asked why the Ulster Members were not going to vote for this Motion, their answer was that it was because they had no faith in the Leader of the Opposition and that section of the Party opposite to which he belonged. Although they had been accused by the Nationalist Party of being a foolish Party, at all events they were not foolish enough to jump from the frying-pan into the fire. So long as the nominal Leader of the Opposition persisted in believing 1425 in the old shibboleth of Home Rule, so long could they give him no definite support.
They were all only too familiar with the sad history that had led up to this debate. The right hon. Member for Dover, than whom few Members of the House had more brilliant gifts, had been led astray by the brilliancy of those gifts until he dreamed of an ideal for Ireland that never could be realised. He allowed sentimentality to govern his rule in Ireland, especially during the later months of his career in Ireland, rather than common-sense. In order to conciliate the Nationalist Party he adopted as a colleague an avowed and open Nationalist. Sir Antony MacDonnell, they all admitted, was a strong man and was, they all believed, an honest man. He had done great service to the Empire in India, and none were more ready to concede that than the Ulster Members. But his views were absolutely opposed to every principle that lay at the very foundation of the Irish Unionist Party. That, it seemed to him, justified the action of the Ulster Members in abstaining from voting in the debate. It would ever be a mystery why Sir Antony MacDonnell was appointed by a Unionist Government, holding, as he did, views diametrically opposed to all the principles of the Unionist Party. It was a mystery to him why Sir Antony MacDonnell was allowed to go on as Under-Secretary under the new Chief Secretary. He believed that every Member of the Irish Unionist Party believed thoroughly in the new Chief Secretary. They believed he had both courage and sympathy and was free from sentiment and sentimentality. But he could have no lasting success—and this was the meaning of their protest, to-day and of their continued protest until the reason for it was removed—unless he was served by loyal servants. Dublin was 500 miles from London, and, in the words of the hon. Member for Cork, the real power lay with the Under-Secretary in Ireland. It was because of their experience of the Government of Ireland during the last two years that they would be compelled, although loyal supporters of the Government for the last thirty years, to abstain from voting in the division on this debate.
§ MR. DILLONsaid that on the 20th February last the House of Commons was told by the hon. Member for Greenwich that the whole of the facts connected with this monstrous case were before the House and the country, and that they had nothing to do but to form their judgment. The First Lord of the Treasury stated that he saw no reason why the correspondence which had taken place between Sir Antony MacDonnell and the Member for Dover should be published, and he thought the whole incident might be now consigaed to oblivion. On the 22nd of February the hon. and learned Member for Waterford moved the adjournment of the House upon the subject and the House then had communicated to them the most remarkable correspondence which had ever taken place in connection with the government of Ireland for the last quarter of a century, but even after that correspondence was published the whole matter was left in a condition of mystery and the House had been driven painfully and laboriously to grope its way towards the facts. Confusion was rendered worse confounded by the fact that on the 6th of March the resignation of the right hon. Member for Dover was communicated to the House. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover had on the previous 21st and 22nd of February, with his usual eloquence and superb command of language, addressed the House in justification of his action, and had proved, at any rate to the satisfaction of his own Party, that his hands were clean so far as that unclean thing devolution was concerned. The right hon. Gentleman in two long speeches informed the House that he had had nothing to say to such proposals, that tie moment he became aware that such proposals were contemplated by Lord Dunraven, and before he knew that the Under-Secretary had anything to do with them he took a step which was exceedingly unusual on the part of a Cabinet Minister. He wrote to The Times and repudiated those proposals for devolution. Those were the main particulars connected with this transaction, and the next they heard of it was the resignation of the right hon. Member for Dover. The House had listened that afternoon to the explanation 1427 of the right hon. Member for Dover, who they were all glad to see restored to health, with great sympathy and eager curiosity. Their curiosity was not satisfied, for the reason that the right hon. Gentleman made in no sense any explanation as to why he resigned, and the House of Commons with regard to that matter was as much in the dark as ever it had been. Why, if the right hon. Gentleman resigned after he had proved that he had nothing to do with the scheme of devolution, did his two colleagues, who had never denied their part of the transaction, remain in the Irish Government. The Lord-Lieutenant had stated that he was with Lord Dunraven and Sir Antony MacDonnell in this matter, and that the programme of Lord Dunraven was drawn up with his approval. Why, then, did the Lord-Lieutenant and Sir Antony MacDonnell remain in the Government of Ireland when the Chief Secretary had resigned?
When they came to the details of this extraordinary and monstrous transaction there were many Questions that had not yet been answered, but to which the House of Commons was entitled to an Answer. In the first place, in a letter addressed to Sir Antony MacDonnell on December 26th, 1902, the then Irish Secretary the right hon. Member for Dover said—
I ciphered the purport of your letter to the Prime Minister and received his concurrence by telegram and by letter this morning.They all remembered the purport of that letter. That was the letter by Sir Antony MacDonnell in which he set forth the conditions on which he would accept office. The Chief Secretary for Ireland and Lord Lansdowne sought him out, and, despite his own misgivings, persuaded Sir Antony MacDonnell to accept the Under-Secretaryship, and the right hon. Member for Dover said he was deeply grateful to Sir Antony MacDonnell for coming to his rescue. Sir Antony MacDonnell accepted the office forced upon him upon certain conditions—one was the settling of the question of University education in Ireland on lines acceptable to the majority of the Irish people, and I another was that he was to set to work to arrange for the co-ordination and 1428 control of all the Departments of Irish Government. The letter containing those conditions was ciphered to the Prime Minister, and the Prime Minister concurred with them. There could be no doubt of that, because the letter of the Chief Secretary was written on the morning after he had received the letter from the Prime Minister confirming the appointment. The House ought to see the letter and the telegram from the Prime Minister, because, according to that letter, the Prime Minister was a party to the whole policy, and there was no conceivable reason why the Member for Dover should be driven from office and the Prime Minister should remain. The Prime Minister's letter, which formed an integral part of the correspondence, should be produced. It could only be withheld for the purpose of sheltering the Prime Minister.Sir Antony MacDonnell was sent to Ireland for many purposes: he was sent to end the policy of coercion and to administer a policy of conciliation; he was sent to Ireland to settle the land question; and to settle the question of higher University education on lines acceptable to the majority of the Irish people. He set to work on the matter as soon as the Land Act was passed, and entered into negotiations with people in Belfast, and offered Trinity College a further endowment of £10,000 if they would consent to a settlement of the University question on those lines. Then in January, 1904, Lord Dunraven's letter appeared, sketching out a plan for the settlement of the University question, and when it was remembered that Sir Antony MacDonnell, with the authority of the Prime Minister, had been going round making terms and offering vast sums of money for the settlement of the University question on certain lines laid down in Lord Dunraven's letter, it was absurd to contend that the Irish people were not justified in believing that Lord Dunraven's letter embodied the Government proposals. What was their amazement, then, to hear the Prime Minister declare that he knew nothing of the negotiations which had been proceeding on this subject. That declaration made a very large demand on their credulity 1429 and he, for one, declined to accept it. The University question sharply divided public opinion in Ireland, just as much as the question of devolution. Why, then, were the negotiations with regard to the foremost question allowed to pass unchallenged by the Cabinet while the action of the Under-Secretary in reference to devolution was condemned. It was admitted that the Prime Minister was a party to the sending of Sir Antony MacDonnell to Ireland with special powers to settle and reorganise a system of Irish government, and yet they were asked to believe that for two years during which the subject was continually discussed with Lord Dunraven, neither the Member for Dover nor the Prime Minister took the trouble to ascertain what were the lines on which Sir Antony MacDonnell was proceeding in pursuance of that object. They were asked to believe that having sent a special agent to Ireland to carry out the work of reorganisation, and the subject having been continually discussed between the right hon. Member for Dover, Lord Dunraven, and Sir Antony Mac Donnell neither the Member for Dover nor the Prime Minister even took the trouble to ascertain what plan was pro posed. It was still more extraordinary to have it suggested that they had not made up their minds as to the line on which the reorganisation should proceed. It was incredible that the House should be told that Sir Antony MacDonnell was sent to Ireland two and a half years ago on a special mission to reorganise the whole system of government in Ireland and up to this hour the Government were unable to say upon what lines the re organisation was intended to be carried out. They were asked to believe that this great wise Imperial Ministry—the only Ministry, as they declared, fit to govern this great Empire—had, in dealing with a country so difficult to deal with as Ireland, sent a special mission to reorganise its government without having made up their own minds.what changes they intended to introduce. It was incredible.
Now lie came to another question. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover in his short statement threw 1430 little light on the subject of the missing letter written to him by Sir Antony MacDonnell between the issue of the first and second manifestoes of the Reform Association. The first manifesto was issued on the 30th August, 1904, and shortly after that Sir Antony MacDonnell wrote a letter to the right hon. Gentleman stating that he was engaged with Lord Durnaven in drawing up a scheme of this character. Now that letter was vitally important. The right hon. Member for Dover, in a previous debate, admitted that he received the letter, but he said he had lost it, and could not recall its terms. Yet the right hon. Member had added—
If that letter could be recovered the last cloud of suspicion would be dissipated.How could he say that when he could not remember the letter or anything in it? The letter was indeed a link in the chain which was of most vital importance, and it acquired additional importance in connection with the proposed formation of a new political Party. It would be remembered that when the right hon. Gentleman landed in England after having been abroad he suddenly took up The Times and discovered in it the second manifesto, in which the new financial board and the new statutory body for purposes of legislation were set forth, and that he instantly felt impelled to write to that newspaper condemning the proposals and dissociating himself from them. But why should the right hon. Gentle man repudiate the manifesto if, as he had said, he had then not the faintest idea that the Under-Secretary had anything to do with the drafting of it The right hon. Gentleman's story did not hang well together. It all showed the immense importance of the missing letter. If the right hon. Gentleman did not know that Sir Antony MacDonnell was mixed up in the scheme, what object had he in writing to The Times. Who made him Lord Dunraven's keeper? What right had he to say to Lord Dunraven, "You shall not propose devolution "? The matter was still full of mystery and required further explanation. He had been groping about for some key to the business and he thought he had found it in the proposal made in the autumn of 1903 1431 to form a new political Party in Ireland. He held that they were entitled to the details of that proposal, and what were the relations of the Chief Secretary and his Under-Secretary to the project. He would like to recall to the memory of the House a statement made by Lord Dunraven on the subject. He said—As is very natural, I had many long conversations with Mr. George Wyndham and with Sir Antony MacDonnell on all kinds of subjects and topics connected with Ireland—not conversations with the Chief Secretary or Under-Secretary, but perfectly informal conversations and talks with Mr. Wyndham and Sir Antony MacDonnell. Among other subjects we have often discussed…and the possibility in fact of creating anything like a Moderate Central Party…I thought it perfectly useless to start or to help to create a Moderate Party on a purely academic basis. I thought it absolutely essential to have a positive, constructive, democratic policy—the policy which has been wrought out in our proposals for devolution. On those ideas, broadly speaking, I have talked over and over again both with Mr. Wyndham and Sir Antony MacDonnell.…My impression also was that Mr. Wyndham saw no particular objection to a general scheme of administrative reform proposed by perfectly independent and private individuals being put forward for public criticism and discussion. I remember very well having conversations with Mr. Wyndham and Sir Antony MacDonnell, not on any particular scheme or idea, but on the subject of a Moderate Party generally, and it was suggested—I do not remember by whom—that Sir Antony MacDonnell should invite some gentlemen to meet me who might be useful to me informing the nucleus of such a Party. That idea was abandoned. I have a. letter from Sir Antony MacDonnell dated October, 1903, in which he says: 'I have been thinking over our conversation of the other day.' He abandoned the idea of asking the gentlemen to meet me, because, as he writes: 'the business would speedily become known, and it would be said that Lord Dunraven was forming a new Irish Party.' To that Sir Antony MacDonnell did not see any particular objection; but he went on to say, 'if the first meeting were held in 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 shall be happy to give by supplying you with facts and information, but I think, and in this Mr. Wyndham, to whom I have spoken, agrees with me, it is better I should not appear prominently or even to the extent of inviting men to meet you.'In other words, the Chief Secretary agreed that the Under-Secretary should give the Irish Reform Association all the assistance in his power provided he was not found out. But the Chief Secretary and the Under-Secretary were found out, owing to the loyal co-opera- 1432 tion of their colleagues the Attorney-General for Ireland and the Solicitor-General.
§ MR. WILLIAM MOORE.Hear, hear! They were perfectly loyal.
§ MR. DILLONsaid that might be the hon. Gentleman's idea of loyalty, but it was not his idea of loyalty that one member of a Government or Party should spy upon a colleague.
§ THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. ATKINSON,). Londonderry, N.If the hon. Gentleman refers to me as having spied on the proceedings of a colleague, I utterly repudiate the transaction. I had no idea who was at the bottom of this devolution scheme. I denounced that scheme, and I have nothing whatever to retract from my criticism.
§ THE SOLICITOR-GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. JAMES CAMPBELL,) Dublin UniversityI say that the suggestion that either my right hon. friend or I have spied on the right hon. Member for Dover is unworthy, and one for which there is not the shadow of a foundation. Until the disclosures in the House I had no knowledge that my right hon. friend the Member for Dover had anything to do with the devolution scheme.
§ MR. DILLONsaid he had not referred to the Solicitor-General for Ireland, but to the much more distinguished person—the Solicitor-General for England. He repeated that the Attorney-General for Ireland and the English Solicitor-General did spy upon their colleague.
MR. DEPUTY-SPEAKERThe right hon. Gentleman has repudiated the suggestion, and I think the hon. Member should withdraw it.
§ MR. DILLONI will withdraw the word "spying" if the Attorney-General takes exception to it, but if he had no suspicion, why did he go to the North of Ireland and raise an outcry for a revelation as to who was at the bottom of the scheme? But what about the 1433 Solicitor-General for England who, throwing aside all the ties that bind gentlemen in a Government together, went to a meeting in order to denounce a Civil servant? Where did he get the knowledge from which enabled him to do that?
§ MR. DILLONEverybody knew it except the two innocent law officers of the Crown! Why, they had not even a suspicion! They in the Castle did not know what all Ireland knew. That was rather an unfortunate interruption, and he repeated that the Solicitor-General for England was guilty of a most scandalous breach of traditions of honour in his treatment of his colleague. If such action were persisted in no Government could hold long together. As it was, he had succeeded in driving out of political life for the time being the Member for Dover against whom he declared war, and in doing so he had set an example which few Ministers in this country would care to follow.
He would recur to the question of the formation of the new Party. Where was the need for secrecy? All the proceedings in connection with the Land Conference were carried out in the light of day, but the fact that in his letter Lord Dunraven laid stress on the fact that the hon. Member for Dover felt it necessary to maintain secrecy showed that the whole of this transaction was of a nature of a political intrigue. The object was to break up Parties in Ireland and to start a new Party. Here was the hon. Member for Dover's account of it—
Not this year—but in the year 1903, just after the Land Act had been passed—at a time when Lord Dunraven received the compliments he had earned from all sections of opinion. … It was at that time that Lord Dunraven came to me and discussed the chances and prospects of a Moderate Party in Ireland. … And still I am in favour, if it were possible … of Lord Dunraven or any one else forming a Moderate Party in the centre or South of Ireland.And then, alluding to a published article of Lord Dunraven's which was the result of these conferences, the hon. Member for Dover says—He" (Lord Dunraven) "speaks of land purchase, of education, of the condition of the people, of the labourers, of fiscal reform.1434 And after that he asks, in heavily leaded type—How is further co-operation practicable?And the article goes on to say—The questions enumerated sufficiently prove the existence of a vast field on which the efforts of all men of all creeds, classes, and politics can be profitably employed.The hon. Member for Dover adds—I agree with every word of that.All this had reference, not to the co-operation of individuals or Parties, but to the formation of a new Party. Now what he would like to know; was, what was to be the programme of that new Party, and out of what elements was it proposed to construct it.There was another question which required explanation. Why was Sir Antony MacDonnell censured by the Cabinet? What had he done to justify that censure? Was he warned before hand that his conduct was going to be considered and did he submit any defence, and, if so, would that defence be produced? Again, what was Sir Antony's present position? Had the attacks on him ceased? He had been made the subject of one of the most cruel and scandalous libels ever made upon a public servant. Had that been dropped? The Orange Party had sworn by all their gods—if they recognised any gods—that they would not abate one jot or one tittle of their hosbility to the present Government until Sir Antony's scalp had been handed over to them! The old disgraceful weapon had been brought out again that night. They had again heard of Constable Anderson. Hon. Members opposite never tried to help the Nationalists in getting a full public investigation into that case. They only said they had no objection. Never against a servant of the Crown had so brutal and calumnious a charge been brought as that in connection with Constable Anderson. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover defended Sir Antony MacDonnell in that case, but it was a very lame defence indeed, and if only the Government would give them a full investigation he would undertake to prove that Anderson was properly and justly removed from the police force, and that he was not fit to serve in the police force of 1435 any civilised country. His record was scandalous. He again challenged the Government to produce their records.
§ MR. T. L. CORBETTWill the hon. Gentleman repeat his statement outside the House of Commons?
§ MR. DILLONI shall repeat it if the Government will give me the files.
§ MR. T. L. CORBETTLet the hon. Gentleman have the courage of his opinions and repeat his statement out of the House.
§ MR. DILLONsaid that was a perfectly fair challenge. He fully recognised it—he made no quarrel at all—that to attack the character of any individual in that House under the privileges of the House was an extreme proceeding, though he was not prepared to admit it was always cowardly. In this matter they had acted in a most cruel and brutal manner. The charge was that Father Denis O'Hara, out of mere vengeance, because this Protestant constable wanted to marry a Catholic girl, went to Sir Antony MacDonnell and that they both entered into a conspiracy to ruin this man, without any justification. Was that a cowardly charge?
§ MR. WILLIAM MOOREIt is true.
§ MR. DILLONsaid it was as false a charge as had ever been made. It was a foul and false charge for which there was not a shred of justification. That was the ground on which he justified himself in taking the extreme course he had taken.
§ MR. DILLONPardon me, but his statement is false. I wish to be quite clear on this matter. If an hon. Member of this House in his place makes a charge against a personal friend of mine, which charge I know of my own knowledge to be false, am I not entitled to say here that it is false?
MR. DEPUTY-SPEAKERI think the hon. Member under those circumstances would be entitled to say that the hon. Member opposite was repeating a charge which was not true, but it is quite out of order to accuse an hon. Member of telling a deliberate falsehood.
§ MR. DILLONsaid he did not attribute to the hon. Member a deliberate false hood, but what he said was that it was a false charge. He had only made that charge because the hon. Member opposite had accused him of making a cowardly use of his privileges in this House. He fully recognised that he was taking an extreme course, but he did so on behalf of two men who could not speak for themselves, and who had been made the victims of this most scandalous charge without a shred of justification. He would not pursue that point any further, because anybody who knew the facts knew how monstrous the charge was. Take the case of Sir Antony MacDonnell. He had no responsibility whatever for the dismissal of Constable Anderson, and he had no responsibility for the refusal to reinstate him. He asked the Chief Secretary to promise them a full inquiry into the matter. One of the scandals in the Constable Anderson case, however, was the reinstatement of the man, carried out against the protest of the Constabulary authorities in Ireland as the result of political pressure in the House. When the hon. Member for South Belfast found fault with the statement of the hon. Member for North Kilkenny they were able to point out that the hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh boasted in the House, and also in a speech which he made at Portadown, that he and the Ulster Members had put a pistol to the head of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover, and had compelled him to reinstate Constable Anderson by threatening opposition in the House of Commons. As regarded Constable Anderson's case, it was disgraceful, but the disgraceful part about it was the reinstatement of a policeman who was unfit to serve in the police force as a concession to political pressure in the House. [MINISTERIAL cries of "Oh, oh! "] The attack upon Sir Antony MacDonnell was in full swing. The Ulster Unionists, both inside and outside 1437 the House of Commons, had announced their intention that they would not cease their agitation until Sir Antony MacDonnell was removed. On April 28tb, upon an Ulster platform, the hon. Member for South Antrim said—
When these excellent statesmen had once started on this game of giving each other away.there was no holding them in.The hon. Member went on to say—Lord Lansdowne next came to the front and informed us that it was largely owing to him that they had had the inestimable blessing of having Sir Antony MacDonnell as Under-Secretary. Here is one of the leading members of the Cabinet in whose Unionist principles we have up to this date had absolute confidence, and now we find him a secret and a dangerous enemy. If there are any more Lansdownes or Wyndhams whose names would be dragged into the light by these revelations then most emphatically I say let us learn the worst. At the present moment the idea has got abroad that the famous letters read to the House of Commons are by no means the only compromising documents. If there are any more then let us have them no matter whom they may implicate.Commenting upon this speech the Belfast News Letter said—The Foreign Secretary is an important member of the Cabinet, and has done good work, but he is not indispensable, and if he be playing the part attributed to him in Mr. Craig's speech, lie ought not to remain where he is.Apparently Lord Lansdowne was the next member of the Government who would have to go. This gave one an Idea of the policy adopted by the men who were really governing Ireland. They had now a Chief Secretary who imagined that because he had taken a motor-car ride to Belmullet he under stood the Irish question. Nobody who knew anything about the affairs of Ire land imagined for a moment that the present Chief Secretary would have any voice in the government of Ireland during his short tenure of office. The men who really governed Ireland were the Solicitor-General for England, the Attorney-General for Ireland, and Lord Londonderry. Those were the men who governed Ireland, and the present Chief Secretary would be allowed to keep his position so long as he obeyed those gentlemen and no longer.What was the policy in Ireland with which they were face to face? They had in vain asked the Government to give them the details of 1438 the policy which they had sent Sir Antony MacDonnell to carry out. What was the policy with which the country was confronted? There was a deliberate campaign to organise bogus outrages. The police had instructions to be active in this matter. These outrages were being manufactured by the police, under the orders of Dublin Castle.
§ THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALTER LONG,) Bristol, S.Does the hon. Member suggest that that policy has been begun within the last week or two?
§ MR. DILLONsaid that he certainly suggested that the system was new within the last four or five weeks, and that it was being actively worked up by the police. He had no doubt that before long the police would be committing the outrages themselves. When the Castle wanted outrages they would get them. While the Land Act was being strangled deliberately by the Government, while all the promises which had been held out were being falsified, and while the Irish people were being driven to exasperation and madness, the Government were deliberately laying the foundation for an attempt to capture the constituencies in England for a policy of coercion.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURIt appears to me that the latter part of the hon. Member's speech travelled a good deal beyond the Amendment before the House. It deals not with the administration of the present Chief Secretary, but exclusively with the period in which the right hon. Member for Dover was Chief Secretary. Nevertheless, I do not know that the latter part of the hon. Gentle man's speech was wholly wasted, or that I regret its being delivered. It throws a certain light on the allegation made throughout these debates with amazing assurance that it is not the Chief Secretary when he is in the Cabinet, but the Under-Secretary, who directs the policy of the Government in Ireland. If that proposition be true, it is the Under-Secretary who is now manufacturing crime in Ireland; it is the Under-Secretary who is producing bogus outrages; it is the Under-Secretary who is preparing this 1439 nefarious scheme to capture the constituencies of England. Well, this charge, as I need hardly say, this allegation against the Under-Secretary is absolutely preposterous. Other charges against him, I think, have been made totally without foundation, and perhaps those who made the other charges of which I speak will take consolation from the charges now made, and think that charges should not be made against the Under-Secretary, but against the Chief Secretary for the time being or against the Government of which that Chief Secretary is a member.
I thought that by far the most relevant part of the speech of the hon. Member was the earlier portion, in which he made a violent but not at all an improper attack on myself, and, following the example of, I think, almost all the speakers in this debate—certainly following the example of the right hon. Gentleman who moved the Resolution—stated that it was not the Under-Secretary at all, that it was not so much my right hon. friend the Member for Dover who was implicated or attacked by this Resolution, but that it was myself in the character of Prime Minister. Well, I think that is quite, right. I think the attacks should be made on the Prime Minister, and not upon a late member of the Government or upon a permanent official; and I shall certainly have no hesitation in taking upon my shoulders the burden, if burden it be, of the sort of attack which has been made on that side of the House, and which, I am sorry to say, in some particulars has found an echo even on this side of the House.
Now, what is the charge? The charge, broadly speaking, is this—that when I my right hon. friend the Member for Dover became, on taking his seat in the Cabinet, the dominant partner in Irish administration, the Minister really responsible to the Cabinet in the first place, and to the House in the second place, for Irish administration, a new policy was initiated, a policy which, I understand, is sometimes described as a policy of conciliation, and sometimes as a policy of devolution, and that my right hon. friend started this new policy with the full consent and full knowledge, 1440 presumably, of my colleagues, but certainly of myself. Now, let us consider-that point. In the first place, on what evidence is this charge, for what it may be worth, based? It is based, according to the right hon. Gentleman opposite, primarily upon a speech of Lord Dudley's. It appears—a fact that I did not know before—that Lord Dudley, on going ever to Ireland, made a speech in which he said that Ireland should be governed according to Irish ideas.
§ MR. JOHN REDMONDIt has been quoted half a dozen times.
§ MR. SWIFT MACNEILL (Donegal, S.)You do not read the newspapers. [Laughter and cries of "Order."]
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURWell, I hope that in my quotation I have not done him an injustice. It appears that Lord Dudley went over and made this speech, from which it was interpreted that as the phrase "govern Ireland according to Irish ideas" can only mean that Ireland is to be governed according to the ideas the Irish have of the proper relations between Irish administration and the Imperial Parliament, this was practically a statement by Lord Dudley that he was in favour of some form of Home Rule. I need hardly say that the interpretation is wholly incorrect [Cries of "Oh"], and the last charge that can justly be made against Lord Dudley is that he has any leanings towards a Home-Rule policy. That is the first evidence which seemed greatly to impress the right hon. Gentleman, so that it figured during a full third of" his speech as giving the keynote of his whole argument.
Well, what are the next arguments brought forward? The next arguments deal with the two letters, which were read in the House at an earlier period this session, and in which the Under-Secretary and my right hon. friend exchanged their views, ex changed ideas as to the terms of the policy which was to be pursued, and on which the Under-Secretary was prepared to take office. It is gathered, I understand, partly from the terms of those letters, partly from the views which Sir 1441 Antony MacDonnell holds, or is sup posed to hold, with regard to the views of hon. Gentlemen opposite, that the mere fact of his appointment, an the mere fact that in appointing him my right hon. friend clearly thought that he was having an Under-Secretary with whom he could work in the full consciousness that they were dealing with a policy which the Under-Secretary was ready heartily to support—that appears to be regarded as an adequate reason for sup posing that there was what is called a new departure in Irish policy initiated at the time my right hon. friend became a member of the Cabinet. In regard to the original appointment of Sir Antony MacDonnell, the House will remember that Sir Antony MacDonnell's friends had put before him the difficulties which anybody might expect on taking the office of Under-Secretary, Ireland being what it is and he holding the opinions which he did hold. Well, it must be remembered that my right hon. friend the late Chief Secretary had also present in his mind that in this temporary appointment he also might be brought into difficulty, and that the mere fact that the Under-Secretary was supposed not to share to the full extent the views about Irish government held by my right hon. friend might hamper him in dealing with matters such as the Land Bill, about which there might be perfect agreement between them; and those difficulties undoubtedly existed. They were undoubtedly foreseen; but I think it probable that if both parties had fully foreseen all the difficulties the appointment might never have been made. I doubt whether Sir Antony MacDonnell would have rejected the advice of his friends, and it is possible that my right hon. friend might have taken a different view. But do not let the House suppose that the appointment was made by my right hon. friend without carefully thinking the whole matter over, or taking advice from those whom he thought best qualified to inform him of Sir Antony MacDonnell's administrative career, his capacity, and character, and power of doing good work for Ireland. He did make full inquiries in that respect; and I do not think even my hon. friends from Ulster, among whom are to be found the severest critics, both of Sir 1442 Antony MacDonnell, my right hon. friend, and myself, will refuse to admit that, at all events during the early part of the administrative work of Sir Antony MacDonnell, even they had little cause to complain of the action of the Government of which Sir Antony MacDonnell was a servant.
What were the objects which my right hon. friend the Member for Dover had discussed with Sir Antony MacDonnell as being objects that might well occupy in the immediate future the attention of any persons responsible for Irish administration? They were, in he first place, the maintenance of law and order, and the maintenance of law and order in Ireland, as everybody is aware, occasionally involves what is known in the phraseology of controversial politics as coercion. The first point upon which they were agreed was the necessity of maintaining law and order.
§ MR. DILLONNot by coercion.
§ MR. DILLONNo, no!
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI say yes.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURIt will not be denied that the maintenance of law and order appeared in the letter. It will not be denied that immediately after taking office Sir Antony MacDonnell found him self administering parts of Ireland under the Coercion Act, and the inference I should think would hardly be refused that Sir Antony MacDonnell, at all events, conceived himself in carrying out this policy of so-called coercion to be carrying out the policy of law and order which was the first item mentioned in the letter to which reference has been made.
What was the second item? The second item was land purchase. On land purchase the House were agreed while the Bill was passing through the various stages in this House and in the other, and I hope that the 1443 agreement still subsists; but, at all events, it lasted long enough to justify my right hon. friend in the choice which he had made in carrying out the work which he had set himself to accomplish, and I presume no charge will be levelled against Sir Antony or my right hon. friend or myself in connection with the scheme of land purchase.
The next point, if I remember rightly, was co-ordination. With regard to co-ordination, I have to remind the House that earlier in the debate the Member for South Shields appeared, with a—fortunately for him—felicitous ignorance of Irish administration, to suppose that coordination involved some form of what is known as devolution, or was connected in some way with devolution. No man who has the smallest knowledge of the matter could ever entertain such an idea. It is totally inconsistent with the facts of this particular case and with the facts which preceded it in the history of previous Administrations. Let me inform the learned Gentleman the Member for South Shields, who based, I think, a large part of his speech upon this blunder of his own—
§ MR. ROBSONI simply quoted the words of the letter; I did not identify co-ordination and devolution. I quoted the words of the letter co-ordination I involving the direction and control of the administrative machinery of Irish government.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOUR.If the hon. Gentleman is prepared to stultify his whole speech and say that in using that phrase he made no reference to devolution, or other forms of alteration of constitutional forms in the direction of Home Rule I, of course, accept his explanation. If, on the other hand, he did commit the blunder, which I certainly thought he did commit, of confounding this coordination with the scheme of devolution I ought to inform him and the House that, while devolution is of the essence of a process of decentralisation, the matter dealt with in the letter is in the nature of centralisation. It is not devolution, but exactly the opposite process; it is a process which many Under-Secretaries before the present distin- 1444 guished holder of the place have desired to carry out, and on which, indeed, I think, one distinguished gentleman who served under me wrote lately to the papers and said he put it before me as a scheme which he, in his term of office, had desired to see carried out. This process of centralisation may be good or bad, but what it aims at is to take the various independent boards of Ireland—I mean boards independent of every official under the Chief Secretary—and place them under the control of the Permanent Secretary as well. That is the object which these schemes have in view. It may be good or it may be bad, it may be right or it may be wrong, that the Local Government Board in Ireland, for instance, should report to the Chief Secretary through the Under-Secretary, instead of reporting, as it does at present, directly to the Chief Secretary; but, whether it be good or bad, it has nothing whatever to do either with Home Rule, or with devolution, or with a new policy for Ireland, or with so-called conciliation, or with anything else that has come into controversy this evening. So much for that.
Now I come to the last object, as far as I remember, mentioned in the letter, and that last object is University education. In the letter Sir Antony MacDonnell expresses his desire to see a settlement of that question on the general lines proposed by me. The general lines proposed by me are well known to all who are students of the question and care to see what is to be said about it, and if they will look at the document in which those ideas appear in their most authoritative form they will see that in that public pamphlet or letter I distinctly laid down that this question, important, as I always believed it and still believe it to be, is one that cannot be settled on ordinary Party lines or by the ordinary Party machine, and that was obviously known to the Under-Secretary when he made the offer, as it is known to everybody who has studied the question. What happened I think this is the only part of the case which really re quires any explanation or defence from those who have studied this controversy in a fair spirit. It is said by the right hon. Gentleman that the Chief 1445 Secretary had no right to endeavour, or travelled beyond his duty in endeavouring, in any way to see whether the various educational authorities in Ireland, the various schools of thought by whose co-operation alone, believe, any solution of this question could be attained, were near agreement or could be made to come nearer to an agreement.
§ SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANWho said that?
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURI thought the right hon. Gentleman had said that he made that charge against my right hon. friend. I now learn he does not make that charge, and I must say that, though I was not myself cognisant of the attempt, I see nothing to complain of in it. It was always understood by every member of the Government of which I am the head that this was not a question on which the Cabinet were agreed and that it could not be made until they were agreed, if ever, a Cabinet question. But the Cabinet never, as a whole, denied its extreme importance, and they appointed a Commission before I was Prime Minister, and a very strong Commission it was, to investigate the question. That Commission reported, I believe, not many months after my right hon. friend the Member for Dover became a member of the Cabinet. Would he have been justified in leaving the question there? [An HON. MEMBER: Yes.] I think not. I think he was bound to see where public opinion was upon this question. What he would not have been justified in doing was going to this and that body and promising, in the name of the Government, that this or that should be done. He never did do that. It is surely absurd to say that a man holding the strong views my right hon. friend does on this question—which he has never concealed from the House, from hon. Gentlemen below the gangway, or anybody—and finding himself responsible for the Irish Government at the very moment that the Commission reported, should not do what he did to investigate for himself how far some scheme could be devised which would bring together the warring educational elements of the time. He failed, I know, and there may 1446 be many failures yet before this question is settled. I think, owing to circumstances not worth going into now, he was foredoomed to failure. I believe public opinion in this House and the country has gone back, according to my view of what is good and bad, upon this question, and that the House is more reluctant to deal with it now than it would have been four or five years ago.
I do not think it is worth while at this point taking up a charge levelled against me by the mover of the Resolution, who said that my treatment of the Irish University question was weak and cynical. The cynical I do not understand. Weak it might possibly be. What is his method of dealing with it? His method is to wrap up what, I am afraid, the majority of the House would regard as an evil measure, and a great many other things which I think evil measures, under the general name of Home Rule, and throw the responsibility upon hon. Gentlemen below the gangway. That is his plan. I do not know whether it is strong. I know it is cynical, and those who come forward and with a virtuous air say, "We will not do a single thing which can strengthen the Pope, the bishops, or the priests; we are resolutely determined to prevent a single shilling of public money being given to anything which can in the remotest degree have a flavour of anything of the kind about it," have nothing to say about Home Rule. "If the Home Rulers choose to do these things, and to do them without the restrictions this House would put upon them, well, that is their affair. What have we to do with that?" I am not a great master of epithet, but perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will permit me to borrow from his more ample vocabulary, and describe that procedure as both weak and cynical.
The hon. Member for Mayo talked a great deal about the middle Party. He asked what it was, and said it must be a Party to which Members are drawn both from the extreme left and extreme right hand.
§ MR. DILLONI said a middle Party in Ireland must be drawn necessarily from opposing Parties already in existence.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURNo doubt the hon. Member put the matter much better than I hope to put it, but he seems to me to be saying much the same thing.
§ MR. DILLONPardon me. The right hon. Gentleman said from the extreme left and right hand. What I meant was from the moderate men of each conflicting Party.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOURWe need not dispute over words, but with regard to this so-called middle Party, I do not understand it bears any resemblance to the fancy portrait the right hon. Gentleman has just drawn. If I rightly understand the views of my right hon. friend the Member for Dover, he felt, as everybody must, that whilst there is a strong body of organised opinion in the North of Ireland belonging to the loyalist section of the community, there is scattered over the rest of Ireland a great unorganised body of loyalist opinion, which might, if organised, do great service to the State. I think that is true. I quite agree that if the organisation is to terminate in the eccentricities of devolution, the less we have of it the better. I trust that will be but a passing phase amongst those leaders of the so-called Reform Party, and if they are to hope, as they may well hope, to take a useful and vigorous part in the public life of Ireland, I am quite certain it is only on condition that The absolutely abstain from meddling with those constitutional issues. I believe, and I have always believed, that to be the view of my right hon. friend the Member for Dover.
Now I have gone over the premises upon which the initial accusation was based, the accusation—namely, that with the advent of my right hon. friend to Cabinet office the new policy of conciliation and devolution was established. We are told that we had secretly—I forget which of our numerous accusers made the statement—that while publicly expressing the Unionist reed, while running Unionism for all it was worth as an electoral cry in England, we had secretly and tacitly abandoned that creed in Ireland, and were encouraging other 1448 persons to adopt doctrine3 and to further a policy which was totally remote from that policy to which we had given such vain and empty lip service on this side of St. George's Channel. I venture to say a more outrageous accusation, based. on more flimsy evidence, never was laid before the House of Commons. I am not aware of the slightest foundation in any utterances made either by my right hon. friend or by myself—I need not say anything about the rest of the Cabinet because the whole object of every speaker to-night has been to isolate my right hon. friend and myself from the rest of the Cabinet, and to explain that we were running a policy of our own. If, therefore, I defend, myself and my right hon. friend, that is, perhaps, enough for the House and enough for my accusers.
What possible justification is there for this accusation? The only justification beyond the utterly irrelevant charges, which I hope I have disposed of in what I have already said, is that the Under-Secretary did sincerely but most erroneously believe that the Chief Secretary knew what he was doing when the Under-Secretary aided Lord Dunraven in the preparation of his scheme, and I suppose the inference is that the Under-Secretary sincerely be lieved that if the Chief Secretary knew therefore I knew. That is the argument. Well, my right hon. friend did not know, and, if anybody requires conclusive proof, he gave conclusive proof that he did not know by saying, the moment that these statements of devolution appeared, what he had constantly said before, that with these devolution schemes he had no agreement, that with them he would have neither art nor part. He said it then; he said it this evening, in language which I think still lingers in the memory of every man who heard it, but he did not begin to say it on those two occasions. I do not know that the case can be put more vigorously than he put it himself, while Chief Secretary, two or three years ago, in a speech in the country, when he said, speaking of the Irish Members—
They desire at least a Parliament for Ireland, with as high a status as our Parliament, 1449 for Great Britain, but to the best of my knowledge and belief there is not one man, woman, or child in Ireland who desires the creation of that ambiguous monstrosity which Mr. Asquith, Sir Edward Grey, and others describe as a greater measure of devolution.And if anybody will look at the speech my right hon. friend made in this House on the Address last year—I was not present on account of illness—they will see that the same fundamental thought underlies that speech as is in the extract I have just read, a thought with which I am in entire agreement. It is this, that Home Rule is as bad as anything can be, except, perhaps, devolution; Home Rule, at all events, is a logical and consistent system, which, however destructive of the United Kingdom, does at all events leave a machinery which may conceivably work in some fashion or another, while the scheme of devolution neither satisfies Irish aspirations nor British views of administration. It is a scheme intrinsically bad, and not only that, but a scheme which has no merits of any kind whatever; it does not satisfy what are called Nationalist aspirations, it certainly gives no satisfaction to my friends from Ulster below the gangway, and certainly no man sitting on this bench and responsible for the Government of Ireland would tolerate such a system for twenty-four hours.I would venture to say to my hon. I friends from Ulster who have spoken to-night that they hardly play, I think, a wholly worthy part in showing this extreme readiness of suspicion in dealing with those whose public career is before them, who belong to the same Party as themselves, who hold the same general views about the Constitution of the United Kingdom. Suspicion is the great weakener of causes, and if I were to base prophecies upon the lessons of history I should be almost disposed to remind my hon. friends that a cause in which suspicion is thus easily produced out of nothing is one predestined by its own act to failure. I hope for better things, and I believe letter things, because I hope and believe that this unworthy cloud of suspicion is but a passing and unhappy phase, and that a confidence which has most assuredly been deserved on one side will 1450 not be withheld on the other. Certainly I, who have taken part now for twenty years in heated and stormy debates in this House over the Irish question, never suspected that I should live, never thought that I should live, to be told that unless I could prove myself innocent of Home Rule I must be adjudged to be guilty. If no length of service, if no whole-hearted devotion, if no strenuous endeavour under difficult circumstances is to free a public man in this country from this unworthy suspicion of those who call themselves his followers, then, indeed, Sir, I think the strength of public life is sapped.
I do not wish to dwell upon this personal aspect. I am, indeed, almost sorry that I have been betrayed into the few words I have uttered upon it. I will conclude by touching upon the only remaining part of the subject which, I think, deserves treatment, namely, the reality of the charge that we have initiated a new policy, and with a consideration of what the true policy is which the Unionist Party should pursue to wards Ireland. I have been closely concerned with the government of Ire land, in one capacity or another, for almost twenty years; and during those twenty years I can truly say that I have had but one conception of what that treatment should be, and I have endeavoured, whether as directly responsible for the government of Ireland, or as a member of the Cabinet collectively responsible, or as a member of the Opposition who had such power as the Opposition may possess of guiding the legislation of his country, that ideal of mine has never changed. I will not say it was begun, but it was carried on by me during my tenure of the Chief Secretary ship. It was carried on by my right hon. friend the present President of the Local Government Board, and it has been carried on in direct succession by my right hon. friend the Member for Dover. We have been accused, and quite rightly accused, all of us, of being coercionists, if by coercionists is meant administrators who think that the first duty of a Government is to see that the law is obeyed and that private rights are respected. That is the basis of the 1451 whole. That is the fundamental principle upon which everything else must be built, and, if it is allowed to crumble, the towering structure, however ambitious, however beautiful in its; imaginative outlines, will certainly fall into ruin also. We are coercionists in that sense, in the first place. We are, in the second place, Unionists, because we believe that not merely is the continuance of a united kingdom necessary for Imperial purposes, though that consideration by itself is sufficient to make us what we are, but because we believe that Ireland, without the powerful support of England and Scotland, is financially and industrially incapable of a healthy or successful national life. [An hon. Member on the IRISH Benches: Give it a chance.] And, in the third place, we believe most firmly that a united Parliament, which is the basis of the Union, is not incapable of carrying out great reforms, greater reforms, indeed, than could be carried out by an Irish Parliament [Cries of "Oh" from the IRISH Benches], because it has behind it a greater power, a greater machinery, for aiding their execution. And we have shown that this is no vain and empty theory of ours, but it has found expression in actual practice.
I am not going through a list of all the measures that have been passed during the three Chief Secretaryships which I have mentioned, but I would remind the House of the Congested Districts Board, which was established in 1887. I would remind the House of the great Local Government Bill of my right hon. friend sitting on this bench, passed in 1898, and I would remind them of the Land Bill recently passed by my right hon. friend the Member for Dover. However these measures may be undervalued now, they were great efforts of constructive legislation, involving infinite labour both in this House and out of this House, and I doubt whether any period of Irish history will show such a constructive record as I have ventured to describe. That is the Unionist policy as I conceive it, and that policy suffered no change, no variation, in this mystic year of 1902, or with the advent of a new Under-Secretary for Ireland. It does not depend upon Under-Secretaries. It depends upon Cabinets, 1452 it depends upon Parties, it depends upon the great Unionist organisation without which this and every other Unionist Government is absolutely powerless. But do not let us, in a moment of insane suspicion—a suspicion which gives no pleasure to any Gentleman except to the few laughers on that side of the House—do anything to weaken or diminish the lustre of the achievements which I think will long live in the history of the relations between England and Ireland, and which form a brilliant contrast to even the best meaning legislation which has preceded them. I am far from desiring to take the glory of them as the particular Minister who was responsible for carrying them into effect, but I may claim that from those achievements the whole Unionist Party—my hon. friends from Ulster as well as the great body of Unionists in this country on whom they depend, may derive legitimate satisfaction. At all events, of this I am sure: that if from a combination of groundless suspicion and unfortunate ill-health my right hon. friend the Member for Dover could not carry on the work which he had taken in hand, his name will at all events remain as the author and begetter of the Land Bill, as the man who got it through this House and passed it into law; and that memory will far outlive those suspicions, cruel and unjust at the moment, but as passing as the storm cloud vanishing before the sunshine. I hope this House will not assent to the Motion, which, though indeed it be directed to the production of the documents, was avowedly intended as an attack upon my right hon. friend and upon myself—an attack which I believe to be absolutely unjustifiable and absolutely without foundation.
§ MR. ASQUITH (Fifeshire, E.)It is no part of my business to enter into the domestic affairs of hon. Gentlemen opposite, and I am not in the least disposed to quarrel with the faithful and candid diagnosis by the Prime Minister of the morbid symptoms which he discerns in the Party of which he is the distinguished head. He tells us that at this moment it is honeycombed with insane suspicion. Not a very happy state of things for a Party which is approaching a general election long 1453 delayed, and seeking to defer that event. But, as my right hon. friend the Leader of the Opposition said when he brought forward his Motion, his immediate object is not so much to pronounce censure as to obtain illumination. After listening carefully to the speech of the Prime Minister, I think the great bulk of the House will agree with me that not one single ray of light has been furnished on the only points to which this Motion is directed. Amid the fog of obscurity in which we still move, let me remind the Prime Minister and the House that there stand out clearly three plain, patent, and indisputable facts. What are they? First, that the late Chief Secretary has resigned. Next, that the Prime Minister has not resigned. Third, that Sir Antony MacDonnell retains his place in Dublin Castle. These are facts which are be yond the region of controversy; and yet they are as difficult, as impossible, I should say, now, as they were at the beginning of this debate, to reconcile as co-existing facts in our political system.
In this search after truth, what discoveries have we made in the course of the debate? Let me take the first question of all—a question to which neither the right hon. Member for Dover nor the Prime Minister has given any intelligible answer. Why did the right hon. Gentleman resign, and why did the Prime Minister accept his resignation? I have not the faintest idea. What cause was there for him to resign which did not logically and ethically—let me put the question in the most specific form—involve in a similar necessity the Prime Minister and all his colleagues in the Cabinet? What had the right hon. Member for Dover done of which they disapproved? Nothing. What had he left undone which they thought he ought not to have omitted? Nothing. What new fact had been disclosed which was not perfectly well known to them before? Nothing. It is idle to contend, as the Prime Minister contended, that he and his colleagues were not perfectly aware that for two and a-half years prior to the resignation of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, the Irish administration, largely through the agency of the masterful personality 1454 of Sir Antony MacDonnell, but mainly, I agree, through the efforts of the right hon. Member for Dover himself, had been conducted on lines which constituted an entirely new departure. The right hon. Gentleman asks, what is the evidence of that? He brushes aside the speech of Lord Dudley on entering office, when he spoke with all the authority of a man placed by the Prime Minister in a most important and responsible post, and speaking, as my right hon. friend reminds me, not only in his own name, but in the name of the Government, he declared, borrowing a phrase which used to be common on these benches, and in the truth and reality of which I believe, that in local affairs the policy of government should be in accordance with Irish ideas. Was that a new departure or not? The right hon. Gentleman brushes aside all this as if a declaration by the Viceroy in the name of the Government might be neglected as a thing to which nobody need pay any attention.
And then we come to the correspondence between Sir Antony MacDonnell and the right hon. Member for Dover. Was there ever such a correspondence between a Minister of the Crown and a subordinate entering the service of the State? We know that the whole of the proceedings were initiated by Lord Lansdowne; we have his own statement made in another place. He suggested to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover—I think I am representing him correctly—he suggested the appointment of Sir Antony MacDonnell to the post of Under-Secretary, at the same time pointing out that a man who had had a large and varied experience in great posts of administration could not be expected to take an office such as that, subject to the ordinary terms of appointment. From the first the basis of the arrangement between the Government and this distinugished servant of the Crown was understood; but the right hon. Gentleman has endeavoured to minimise the importance of the stipulations suggested by Sir Antony MacDonnell and cordially accepted, and much to his honour, by the right hon. Member for Dover; he left out one or two important facts. The maintenance 1455 of law and order, said the right hon. Gentleman, involves coercion, but he omitted to observe that Sir Antony MacDonnell had expressly refused to be a party to such a scheme of coercion as had been outlined by The Times news paper, and the reference to "administrative conciliation" further negatives the idea that he ever had in contemplation coercion as one of the ordinary instruments of administration. The right hon. Gentleman twits the hon. Member for Shields upon not understanding what is meant by co-ordination; I am not sure that anybody does really understand it. But at least co-ordination does not mean to most people increased centralisation of the Irish bureaucracy. I think that both the right hon. Member for Dover and Sir Antony MacDonnell were rightly advised in the endeavour to do everything in their power to secure the assent of all sections to a University scheme that would command general approval of the people of Ireland. Yet the right hon. Gentleman tells us there was no new departure.
His Government has for two and a-half years enjoyed the full benefit of what I may call the Wyndham-MacDonnell règime, a most substantial asset in the meagre, dwindling figures in the credit column of the balance-sheet of their reputation. I am not aware how far it helped their progress at a very critical stage of the fortunes of the English Education Bill in the months of September and October, 1902. At any rate, by universal consent it was the conferences between Sir Antony MacDonnell, Lord Dunraven, and the leaders of the Nationalist Party that, if they did not open the way for the Land Act of 1903, at least smoothed its passage and secured its successful operation. We may say that on the whole law and order has been maintained in Ireland under a policy of conciliation with a degree of success rarely paralleled in the past. There were charges of laxity of administration made by Ulster representatives, but they were refuted successfully time after time by the late Chief Secretary, to the satisfaction of the House and of his colleagues. All 1456 these results were largely due to the presence of a new spirit, the adoption of new methods at Dublin Castle, where there was an Under-Secretary accessible to every one, and a frequent visitor to remote parts of the country, where he was not afraid to interchange views with all sorts and conditions of Irishmen—with Unionist landlords, with Lord Dunraven, with parish priests, and even with local agents of the League. This was a new thing in Unionist ad ministration, and though it may have been very shocking to some Unionist consciences on the other side of the House it is, after all, the only way in which the work of administration can be carried out in a free country. The Government have had the full benefit of all that. And there is something more than that; for from those beginnings something in the nature of cooperation for public purposes between Irishmen of different camps and different schools, and, more extraordinary still, between governors and governed, was gradually emerging—the promise of that new era foreshadowed by Lord Dudley, in which the purely local affairs of Ireland would be largely governed by Irish ideas. It is the height of historical inaccuracy and of personal ingratitude for the right hon. Gentleman now to repudiate this new departure.
What brought about the crash? The Dunraven scheme of devolution was only, after all, the latest product of the series of conferences and exchanges of views so wisely initiated by Sir Antony MacDonnell between the various Parties in Ireland; but it gave the Ascendancy Party who had long been uneasy, and alarmed, and had felt that in this new departure the ground was slipping from under their feet, the pretext they wanted. Here, at last, they could discern, and persuade other people to discern, the cloven foot of Home Rule; and so throughout Ulster, as we saw last autumn, the tocsin was sounded. Cabinet Ministers and English lawyers lustily pulled the ropes with as much energy as the most fanatical Orangemen of Ulster. Simultaneously a campaign of panic and exaggeration was organised in the Press of this country. Then came what I suggest was the real 1457 explanation of these events. It was a simple case of intimidation. The Government took fright, and they ran away. They chose the cheapest and easiest, if not the most glorious, way out of the difficulty. While the Prime Minister and the Cabinet maintained their own seats on the sledge they threw the Chief Secretary to the wolves. So much is, I think, pretty clear. But when we try to find out what is the nature and the extent of the change in their policy we re lapse into the region of darkness; for here comes in the third of the three facts I have mentioned—the retention of Sir Antony MacDonnell at Dublin Castle. There is one point on which all persons in Ireland, to whatever Party they belong, are agreed. Not a man in Ireland does not think that the person who comes out of these transactions with most credit is Sir Antony MacDonnell, who is censured, and not any member of the Government who has censured him. That public reprimand of Sir Antony MacDonnell on the floor of this House for what was described as an indefensible error will, I venture to think, take high rank even among the achievements of this Government, as an act which was at the same time morally unjust and politically fatuous. It was morally unjust; for to attach a different meaning to the word co-ordination than that which it conveyed to the Chief Secretary and to the Prime Minister was Sir Antony MacDonnell's only offence; and it was politically fatuous because publicly to rebuke a high official and yet to retain him in a post of responsibility and of difficulty is to do all you can to undermine his authority and influence.
I must add that it is impossible, for me at any rate, not to feel in this case a certain amount of sympathy with the hon. Gentlemen from Ulster below the gangway. It is the one bitter drop in what otherwise would be an unmixed cup of triumph. They have got, or they think they have got, a Chief Secretary after their own heart in the person of the right hon. Gentleman whom I see opposite—a man who, they fondly think, will listen only to the right sort of people and will not stand any nonsense. But for all that, the new Chief Secretary, as they know, if Sir Antony MacDonnell is to be re- 1458 rained, is going to be subjected to a severe and most unnecessary test. Dublin Castle, so long as the present Under-Secretary is there, is an infected area; and they cannot, I gather from their speeches, dismiss from their bosoms a lurking fear that even this blameless English Tory—an English Tory, if the right hon. Gentleman will allow me to say so without offence, of a singularly primitive and uncomplicated type—a man whose demeanour, whose vocabulary goes straight to the heart of every loyalist in Ireland—they are not without their fears of what may happen if even this welcome, long-waited-for, and most promising figure has got to be exposed day by day to the dangerous contiguity of Sir Antony MacDonnell. Corruptio optimi pessima. I sympathise with hon. Gentlemen opposite; but looking at it from a totally different point of view, we on this side of the House feel that so long as Sir Antony MacDonnell is at Dublin Castle there is a substantial safe guard that the Irish Government will not, at any rate, be driven back into the more extreme forms of coercion and reaction.
The Prime Minister his not told us—he has left a good many things untold—which of the points set out in the correspondence between the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover and Sir Antony MacDonnell, assented to when the right hon. Member for Dover was Chief Secretary, and approved, as we know, at the time by Lord Lansdowne and the Prime Minister—which of these points are to be abandoned and which are to be retained. I am afraid the right hon. Gentleman the new Chief Secretary is only going to take his place in that long procession of, to use Lord Beaconsfield's phrase, "transient and embarrassed phantoms" who have tried to govern Ireland without any reliance upon or any contact with Irish opinion and Irish sentiment. The right hon. Gentleman told us in his peroration of the great constructive work that the Unionist Party had accomplished in Ireland, in the Congested Districts Board, the Local Government Bill, and the Land Bill. I will not speak of the Congested Districts Board; but the last two measures are the embodiment of principles violently and vehemently attacked 1459 by the Unionist Party at its very beginning. Who can forget Lord Salisbury's Newport speech, in which he declared that the very thing done under the auspices of a Tory Government, the creation of local authorities in Ireland, was infinitely more dangerous for the unity of the Empire than even the establishment of a central Parliament in Ireland? Who can forget the political capital made against the Home Rule Bill out of Mr. Gladstone's Land Bill of 1886? These great achievements of Unionist policy, after all, are borrowed from other quarters. I think it is a tribute which all on this side owe to say that the rule of the late Chief Secretary, with Sir Antony MacDonnell as his subordinate, will be a landmark in Irish administration. You may, I hope you. will not, refurbish the old
§ weapon of coercion; you may perorate about law and order—I see that the right hon. Gentleman has already begun to perorate—but history will recall that during the last three years Ireland has, under your auspices—under your unwilling guidance, perhaps, and, as I believe, under your unconscious guidance, but through the instrumentality of the late Chief Secretary and Sir Antony MacDonnell—Ireland has taken steps which can never be retraced on the road, and the only road, which leads to contentment and to loyalty.
§ Question put.
§ The House divided:—Ayes, 252; Noes, 315. (Division List No. 152.)
1465| AYES. | ||
| Abraham, William (Cork, N.E.) | Crooks, William | Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B. |
| Abraham, William (Rhondda) | Cullinan, J. | Hammond, John |
| Ainsworth, John Stirling | Dalziel, James Henry | Harcourt, Lewis |
| Allen, Charles P. | Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardigan | Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil) |
| Ambrose, Robert | Delany, William | Harmsworth, R. Leicester |
| Ashton, Thomas Gair | Devlin, Charles R. (Galway | Harrington, Timothy |
| Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert H. | Devlin, Joseph (Kilkenny, N.) | Harwood, George |
| Atherley-Jones, L. | Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh. | Hayden, John Patrick |
| Barlow, John Emmott | Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles | Hayter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur D. |
| Barry, E. (Cork, S.) | Dillon, John | Helme, Norval Watson |
| Beaumont, Wentworth C. B. | Dobbie, Joseph | Hemph, Rt. Hon. Charles H. |
| Benn, John Williams | Donelan, Captain A. | Henderson, Arthur (Durham) |
| Black, Alexander William | Doogan, P. C. | Higham, John Sharp |
| Blake, Edward | Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark) | Hobhouse, C. E. H. (Bristol, E. |
| Boland, John | Duffy, William J. | Holland, Sir William Henry |
| Bolton, Thomas Dolling | Duncan, J. Hastings | Hope, John Deans (Fife, West) |
| Brand, Hon. Arthur G. | Edwards, Frank | Horniman, Frederick John |
| Brigg, John | Elibank, Master of | Hutchinson, Dr. Charles Fredk. |
| Bright, Allan Heywood | Ellice, Capt EC (S. Andrw's Bghs | Hutton, Alfred E. (Morley) |
| Broadhurst, Henry | Ellis, John Edward (Notts.) | Isaacs; Rufus Daniel |
| Brown, George M. (Edinburgh) | Emmott. Alfred | Jacoby, James Alfred |
| Brunner, Sir John Tomlinson | Esmonde, Sir Thomas | Johnson, John |
| Bryce, Rt. Hon. James | Evans. Sir Francis H. (Maidstone | Joicey, Sir James |
| Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn | Eve, Harry Trelawney | Jones, D. B. (Swansea) |
| Burke, E. Haviland | Farrell, James Patrick | Jones, Leif (Appleby) |
| Burns, John | Fenwick, Charles | Jones, Wm. (Carnarvonshire |
| Burt, Thomas | Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith) | Jordan, Jeremiah |
| Buxton, Sydney Charles | Ffrench, Peter | Joyce, Michael |
| Caldwell, James | Field, William | Kearley, Hudson E. |
| Cameron, Robert | Findlay, Alex. (Lanark, N.E.) | Kennedy, Vincent P. (Cavan. W) |
| Campbell, John (Armagh, S.) | Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond | Kilbride, Denis |
| Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H. | Flavin, Michael Joseph | Kitson, Sir James |
| Causton, Richard Knight | Flynn, James Christopher | Labouchere, Henry |
| Cawley, Frederick | Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.) | Lambert, George |
| Channing, Francis Allston | Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry | Lamont, Norman |
| Cheetham, John Frederick | Freeman-Thomas, Captain F. | Langley, Batty |
| Churchill, Winston Spencer | Fuller, J. M. F. | Law, Hugh Alex. (Donegal. W.) |
| Clancy, John Joseph | Furness, Sir Christopher | Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall) |
| Cogan, Denis J. | Gilhooly, James | Layland-Barratt, Francis |
| Condon, Thomas Joseph | Grant, Corrie | Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington |
| Craig, Robert Hunter (Lanark) | Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir E. (Berwick) | Leigh, Sir Joseph |
| Crean, Eugene | Griffith, Ellis J. | Levy, Maurice |
| Cremer, William Randal | Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill | Lewis, John Herbert |
| Crombie, John William | Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton | Lloyd-George, David |
| Lough, Thomas | O'Shaughnessy, P. J. | Stevenson, Francis S. |
| Lundon, W. | O'Shee, James John | Strachey, Sir Edward |
| Lyell, Charles Henry | Parrott, William | Sullivan, Donal |
| Maenamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Partington, Oswald | Taylor, Theodore C. (Radclilfe) |
| MacNeill, John Gordon Swift | Paulton, James Mellor | Tennant, Harold John |
| MacVeagh, Jeremiah | Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden) | Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.) |
| M'Crae, George | Perks, Robert William | Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyr) |
| M'Fadden, Edward | Philipps, John Wynford | Thomas, JA (Glamorgan, Gower |
| M'Hugh, Patrick A. | Pirie, Duncan V. | Thomson, F. W. (York, W. R.) |
| M'Kean, John | Power, Patrick Joseph | Tillett, Louis John |
| M'Kenna, Reginald | Price, Robert John | Tomkinson, James |
| M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North) | Priestley, Arthur | Toulmin, George |
| M'Laren, Sir Charles Benjamin | Reckitt, Harold James | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Mansfield, Horace Rendall | Reddy, M. | Tully, Jasper |
| Mitchell, Edw. (Ferinanagh.N.) | Redmond, John E. (Waterford) | Ure, Alexander |
| Mooney, John J. | Reid, Sir R. Threshie (Dumfries | Villiers, Ernest Amherst |
| Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen) | Richards, Thomas (Y V. Monm'th) | Wallace, Robert |
| Morley, Rt. Hn. Jolin (.Montrose | Rickett, J. Compton | Walton, Joseph (Barnsley) |
| Moss, Samuel | Roberts, John Bryn (Eilion) | Warner, Thomas Courtenay 'I'. |
| Moulton, John Fletcher | Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.) | Wason, John Catheart (Orkney) |
| Murnaghan, George | Robsou, William Snowdon | White, George (Norfolk) |
| Murphy, John | Roche, John | White, Luke (York, E. R.) |
| Nannctti, Joseph P. | Roe, Sir Thomas | White, Patrick (Meath, North) |
| Newnes, Sir George | Rose, Charles Day | Whiteley, George (York. W. K.) |
| Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South) | Runciman, Walter | Whitley, J. H. (Halifax) |
| Norman, Henry | Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland) | Whittaker, Thomas Palmer |
| Norton, Capt. Cecil William | Samuel, S. M. (White chapel) | Williams, Osmond (Merioneth) |
| Nussey, Thomas Willans | Schwann, Charles E. | Wills, Arthur Walters (N. Dorset |
| O'Brien, James F. X. (Cork) | Seely, Maj. J. E. B. (Isle of Wight | Wilson, Fred. W. (Norfolk, Mid.) |
| 0'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Mid | Shaekleton, David James | Wilson, Henry J. (York. W. R.) |
| O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) | Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford) | Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.) |
| O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.) | Shaw, Thomas (Hawick B.) | Wilson, John (Falkirk) |
| O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.) | Sheehan, Daniel Daniel | Wilson, J. W. (Worccstersh. N.) |
| O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.) | Sheehy, David | Woodhouse, Sir J T. (Huddersf'd |
| O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool) | Shipman, Dr. John G. | Young, Samuel |
| O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.) | Sinclair, John (Forfarshire) | Yoxall, James Henry |
| O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.) | Slack, John Bamford | |
| O'Dowd, John | Smith, Samuel (Flint) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr. Herbert Gladstone and Mr. William M'Arthur. |
| O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.) | Soames, Arthur Wellesley | |
| O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N. | Soares, Ernest J. | |
| O'Malley, William | Spencer, Rt. Hn. C.R. (Northants | |
| O'Mara, James | Stanhope, Hon. Philip James | |
| NOES. | ||
| Agg-Gardner, James Tynte | Bignold, Sir Arthur | Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. |
| Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel | Bigwood, James | Coddington, Sir William,.. |
| Allhusen. Augustus Henry Eden | Bill, Charles | Cohen, Benjamin Louis |
| Allsopp, Hon. George | Bingham, Lord | Colomb, Rt. Hon. Sir John C. R. |
| Anson, Sir William Reynell | Bond, Edward | Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole |
| Arkwright, John Stanhope | Bousfield, William Robert | Compton, Lord Alwyne |
| Arnold-Forster, Rt. Hn. Hugh O. | Bowles, Lt.-Col. H. F. (Middlesex | Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow) |
| Arrol. Sir William | Brassey, Albert | Cox, Irwin Edward Bainbridge |
| Atkinson, Rt. Hon.. John | Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John | Cripps, Charles Alfred |
| Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hon. Sir H. | Brotherton, Edward Allen | Cross, Alexander (Glasgow) |
| Bagot, Capt. Josceline FitzRoy | Brown, Sir Alex. H. (Shropsl).) | Cross, Herb. Shepherd (Bolton) |
| Bailey, James (Walworth) | Brymer, William Ernest | Crossley, Rt. Hon. Sir Savile |
| Bain, Colonel James Robert | Bull, William James | Cubitt, Hon. Henry |
| Baud, John George Alexander | Butcher, John George | Cust, Henry John C. |
| Balcarres, Lord | Campbell, J. H. M. (Dublin Univ. | Dalkeith, Earl of |
| Baldwin, Alfred | Carlile, William Walter | Dalrymple, Sir Charles |
| Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (Manch'r | Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H. | Davenport, William Bromley |
| Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey) | Cautley, Henry Strother | Davies, Sir H. D. (Chatham) |
| Balfour, Rt Hn. Gerald W. (Leeds | Cavendish, V. C. W.(Derbyshire | Denny, Colonel |
| Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christch. | Cayzer, Sir Charles William | Dewar, Sir T. R. (Tower Hamlets |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich) | Dickinson, Robert Edmond |
| Banner, John S. Harmood- | Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. (Birm. | Dickson, Charles Scott |
| Barry, Sir Francis T. (Windsor | Chamberlain, Rt Hn. J. A. (Worc. | Dimsdale, Rt. Hon. Sir Joseph C. |
| Bartley, Sir George C. T. | Chamberlayne, T. (S'thampton | Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph |
| Bathurst, Hon. Allen Benjamin | Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry | Dixon-Hartland, Sir Fred Dixon |
| Beach. Rt Hon. Sir Michael Hicks | Chapman, Edward | Doughty, Sir George |
| Bentinck, Lord Henry C. | Clive, Captain Percy A. | Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- |
| Bhownaggree, Sir M. M. | Coates, Edward Feetham | Doxford, Sir William Theodore |
| Duke, Henry Edward | Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse | Pilkiiigton, Colonel Richard |
| Dyke, Rt. Hon.Sir William Hart | Jessel, Captain Herbert Merton | Platt-Higgins, Frederick |
| Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton | Kennaway, Rt. Hn. Sir John H. | Plummer, Sir Walter E. |
| Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas | Kenyon, Hon. Geo. T. (Denbigh) | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp |
| Faber, Edmund B. (Hants, W.) | Kerr, John | Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward |
| Faber, George Denison (York) | Keswick, William | Purvis, Robert |
| Fardell, Sir T. George | Kiraber, Sir Henry | Pym, C. Guy |
| Fellowes, Rt Hn. Allwyn Edward | King, Sir Henry Seymour | Quilter, Sir Cuthbert |
| Ferguson, Rt. Hn. Sir J. (Manc'r | Knowles, Sir Lees | Randies, John S. |
| Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst | Lambton, Hon. Frederick Win. | Rankin, Sir James |
| Finch, Rt. Hon. George H. | Laurie, Lieut.-General | Raseh, Sir Frederick Carne |
| Finlay, Sir R. B. (Inv'rn'ssB'ghs) | Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow) | Ratcliffe, R. F. |
| Firbank, Sir Joseph Thomas | Lawrence, Sir Joseph (Monm'th) | Reid, James (Greenock) |
| Fisher, William Hayes | Lawson, Hn. HL. W. (MileEnd) | Remnant, James Farquharson |
| Fison, Frederick William | Lawson, John Grant (Yorks. N. R | Renshaw, Sir Charles Bine |
| Fitz Gerald, Sir Robert Penrose | Lee, Arthur H. (Hants., Fareham | Renwick, George |
| Fitzroy. Hn. Edward Algernon | Lees, Sir Elliott (Birkenhead) | Ridley, S. Forde |
| Flannery, Sir Fortescue | Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage | Ritchie, Rt. Hon. Chas. Thomson |
| Flower, Sir Ernest | Leveson-Gower, Frederick N.S. | Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield) |
| Forster, Henry William | Llewellyn, Evan Henry | Robertson, Herbert (Hackney) |
| Foster, Philip S. (Warwick, S. W. | Lockwood, Lieut.-Col. A. R. | Robinson, Brooke |
| Galloway, William Johnson | Long, Col. Charles W. (Evesham | Rolleston, Sir John F. L. |
| Gardner, Ernest | Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Bristol, S) | Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert |
| Garfit, William | Lowe, Francis William | Rothschild, Hon. Lionel Walter |
| Gibbs, Hon. A. G. H. | Lowther, C. (Cumb., Eskdale.) | Round, Rt. Hon. James |
| Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick | Loyd, Archie Kirkman | Royds, Clement Molyneux |
| Gordon, Hn. J. E. (Elgin &. Nairn) | Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft) | Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool) |
| Gordon, Maj Evans-(T'rH'mlets | Lucas, Reginald J. (Portsmouth) | Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford |
| Gore, Hon. S. F. Ormsby- | Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred | Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander |
| Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon | Macdona, John Cumming | Samuel, Sir Harry S. (Limehouse |
| Goschen, Hon. George Joachim | MacIver, David (Liverpool) | Sandys, Lieut.-Col. Thos. Myles |
| Goulding, Edward Alfred | Maconochie, A. W. | Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert |
| Graham, Henry Robert | M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool) | Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) |
| Gray, Ernest (West Ham) | M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinburgh, W) | Seely, Charles Hilton (Lincoln) |
| Green, Walford D. (Wednesbury | Majendie, James A. H. | Seton-Karr. Sir Henry |
| Grcene, Sir E W (B'rySEdm'nds | Malcolm, Ian | Sharpe, William Edward T. |
| Greene, W. Raymond (Cambs.) | Marks, Harry Hananel | Shaw-Stewart, Sir H. (Redfrew) |
| Grenfell, William Henry | Martin, Richard Biddulph | Sinclair, Louis (Romford) |
| Gretton, John | Massey-Main Waring, Hn, W. F. | Skewes-Cox, Thomas |
| Groves, James Grimble | Maxwell, Rt Hn Sir HE (Wigt'n | Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East) |
| Guthrie, Walter Murray | Maxwell, W. J. H. (Dumfriessh're | Smith, H. C (North'mb. Tyneside |
| Hain, Edward | Melville, Beresford Valentine | Smith, Rt Hn J. Parker (Lanarks. |
| Hall, Edward Marshall | Meysey-Thompson, Sir H. M. | Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand) |
| Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F. | Middlemore. John Thorgmorton | Spear, John Ward |
| Hambro, Charles Eric | Mildmay, Francis Bingham | Stanley, Hon. Arthur (Ormskirk |
| Hamilton, Rt Hn Lord G. (Midd'x: | Milner, Rt. Hon. Sir Frederiek G. | Stanley, Edward Jas. (Somerset) |
| Hamilton, Marq. of (L'nd'nderry | Milvain, Thomas | Stanley, Rt Hon. Lord (Lancs.) |
| Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashford | Mitchell, William (Burnley) | Stewart, Sir Mark J. M'Taggart |
| Hare, Thomas Leigh | Molesworth, Sir Lewis | Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M. |
| Harris, F. Leverton (Tynem'th) | Montagu, G. (Huntingdon) | Stock, James Henry |
| Harris, Dr. Fredk. R. (Dulwich) | Montagu, Hon. J. Scott (Hants.) | Stone, Sir Benjamin |
| Haslam, Sir Alfred S. | Moon, Edward Robert Pacy | Stroyan, John |
| Hay, Hon. Claude George | Morgan, David J. (Walthamstow | Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley |
| Heath, Arthur H. (Hanley) | Morpeth, Viscount | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) |
| Heath, Sir James (Staffords. NW. | Morrell, George Herbert | Talbot, Rt Hn. J. G (OxfdUniv. |
| Heaton, John Henniker | Morrison, James Archibald | Thorburn, Sir Walter |
| Holder, Augustus | Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer | Thornton, Percy M. |
| Henderson, Sir A. (Stafford, W.) | Mount, William Arthur | Tollemache, Henry James |
| Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T. | Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C. | Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M. |
| Hoare, Sir Samuel | Muntz, Sir Philip A. | Tritton, Charles Ernest |
| Hobhouse, Rt Hn H. (Somers't, E | Murray, Charles J. (Coventry) | Tuff, Charles |
| Hogg, Lindsay | Murray, Col. Wyndham (Bath) | Tufnell, Lieut.-Col. Edward |
| Hope, J. F. (Sheffield, Brightside | Myers. William Henry | Vincent, Col. Sir C. E H (Sheffield |
| Hornby, Sir William Henry | Nicholson, William Graham | Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter) |
| Horner, Frederick William | Palmer, Sir Walter (Salisbury) | Walker, Col. William Hall |
| Houldsworth, Sir Wm. Henry | Parker, Sir Gilbert | Walrond, Rt. Hn. Sir William H. |
| Hoult, Joseph | Parkes, Ebenezer | Wanklyn, James Leslie |
| Houston, Robert Paterson | Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington | Warde, Colonel C. E. |
| Howard, J. (Kent, Faversham) | Peel, Hn. Wm. R. Wellesley | Webb, Colonel William George |
| Hozier, Hon. James Henry Cecil | Pemberton, John S. G. | Welby-Lt.-Col. A. C. E. (Taunton |
| Hudson, George Bickersteth | Percy, Earl | Welby, Sir Charles G. E. (Notts.) |
| Hunt, Rowland | Pierpoint, Robert | Wharton, Rt. Hon. John Lloyd |
| Whiteley, H. (Ashton und. Lyne | Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E. R. (Bath) | Yerburgh, Hubert Armstrong |
| Whitmore, Charles Algernon | Worsley-Taylor, Henry Wilson | |
| Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset) | Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir Alexander Acland-Hood and Viscount Valentia. |
| Willoughby de Bresby, Lord | Wrightson, Sir Thomas | |
| WiIson, A. Stanley (York. E. R.) | Wylie, Alexander | |
| Wilson, John (Glasgow) | Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George | |
| WiIson-Todd, Sir W. H. (Yorks.) | Wyndham-Quin, Col. W. H. |
Question put, and agreed to.