§ MR. JAMES O'CONNOR (Wicklow, W.)said the Motion on the Paper which he should move before he sat down charged the Government with indifference to the destruction of property in Ireland through the overflowing of certain rivers. It was no recent complaint that the Government had neglected to look after the arterial drainage of that country which they undertook to govern. During the early part of the last century both landlords and tenants repeatedly appealed to the Government to protect their lands from 1316 the damage caused by recurring inundations. For thirty years after the Union the Government did nothing, and the owners and occupiers of flooded lands in the North and East, as well as the South and West of Ireland appealed in vain to the Government to render them some assistance so that their land might not be injured and their property in some cases completely destroyed. At length the Government woke up to the necessity of doing something, and they did it in their characteristically generous fashion. In 1831 they passed an Act of Parliament which enabled the owners and occupiers of property liable to be flooded to form joint stock companies for the purposes of arterial drainage. The Act did not provide any money for the purpose, no money was provided for even the initial expense, it merely condescended to tell the proprietors that they might carry out arterial drainage with the aid of private funds without suggesting where those funds, were to come from. Did the Government suppose that the landed proprietors 1317 of any part of Ireland could float large joint stock companies on the swollen waters of the Shannon, the Bann, the Barrow, and the Suck? What could anyone expect would be the result of such an Act of Parliament as that. It could not possibly have been expected that the impoverished tenants of so poor a country should contribute such large sums of money as would be required for this purpose, and the landlords certainly were not likely to put their hands into their own pockets, though it was very doubtful whether they had anything in their pockets at that time. At any rate, the Act of 1831 appeared to be an absolute mockery. Many years passed and the tenants and the owners suffered from the damage to property and injury to health caused by the flooding of their dwellings, many inches of mud being frequently left on the floors of the cottages when the waters subsided, leaving the people in despair.
Eleven years passed by, when the Government passed another Act which was even more generous than the former. The Act of 1842 enabled landlords to appeal to the Government to carry out drainage works, and the Government promised to undertake them under the superintendence of the Board of Works' engineers. This was the first time any mention was made of that Board though it was constituted in 1831, when the first Act was passed, but now the Board of Works came in and unfortunately they would find that all through the history of these attempts to drain the great rivers of Ireland the Board of Works had interfered, with almost disastrous effects, in nearly every case. Under the Act of 1842 the Government told the landlords and occupiers that the main source of the funds required for carrying out arterial drainage works should again be looked for from private means. That was another sham Act, but the Government certainly did add that they would contribute something to the improved value of the lands, which meant that after owners and occupiers had found thousands and thousands of pounds and carried out drainage works, and had improved and increased the value of the lands adjoining the rivers, the 1318 Government would come down and lend money on the improved value of those lands. In 1842 the terrible famine broke out in Ireland, and all the civilised world was horrified at the number of deaths which occurred from day to day from starvation, and the Government were shamed into doing something. They chose arterial drainage as a reproductive work and a number of schemes were started to give employment, and relief drainage works sprang up where required and people grew hopeful that they were going to have their land secured from almost annual floods. But in two years the Government discovered the famine was over and, immediately, they directed that all the works started by them to give employment to the people should be stopped. It was one of the most heartless things that any Government ever did; there was universal consternation in Ireland and there was a collapse of drainage work everywhere. Everything was thrown into the melting-pot and the people in their misery gave way to despair.
The Government left things as they were and no money was given for the purposes of carrying on drainage works until 1863. In 1863 an Act of Parliament came into existence under which the local authorities were authorised to start drainage boards. Provisional Orders were obtained under that Act and thousands upon thousands were spent. But whatever might have been done, the Bann had not been drained although the efforts made had drained the pockets of the people North and South. Although for fifty years the people had been paying drainage rates their lands were still flooded, their property was still swept away, and their crops were left rotting on the sodden fields. The same tale had to be told in respect to the Barrow, in reference to which inquiries had been held since 1847, but nothing had been done. A Commission of inquiry recommended that the Barrow, being a most important river, should be made a matter of national concern, and the same Report was made in regard to the Shannon. Commissioners had made similar recommendations in regard to the Suck, but 1319 that river was yet undrained, and whenever there was a rainfall crops were swept away. The Act of 1862 had in fact proved of no avail owing to the ineptitude of the Anglo-Irish Board of Works in Dublin, and to the inadequate assistance given by this country to drainage works in Ireland. The Shannon also was suffering from incompleteness of treatment, and there was no doubt, as a Commission had declared in 1887, that defective plans and miscalculations on the part of the Board of Works' engineers had contributed to the failure of many schemes. That was the whole thing in a nutshell. The neglect of the Government had been criminal having regard to the fact that the country was mainly dependent upon agriculture. Engineers of the Board of Works overruled and condemned each other's plans, and meanwhile the unfortunate people suffered the loss of their property.
One very important recommendation of the Commission of 1887 was that the rivers should be made national concerns and ought to be drained and made secure with public money. They also recommended that all arterial drainage should in future be taken out of the hands of the Board of Works and that a new department should be started to deal with the question of Irish arterial drainage as a whole. If that course were followed, probably a solution of the whole problem would be found, great as it was. It had been, said that £2,400,000 had been spent by this country in Ireland upon arterial drainage, but he failed to trace how the money had been spent. It was not spent on the Bann or the Barrow. Only £50,000 was given to the Suck, and there was not very much given to the Shannon in recent times. Where, then, did the £2,400,000 go? Much of the money had gone in the starting of drainage works which were afterwards abandoned. If £2,400,000 was spent during the famine, it could not be said that none of it was repaid, because special taxes were put on Ireland for the purpose of recovering the money advanced to the country during the famine year. He could not possibly see where the £2,400,000 went, but supposing it was spent on arterial drainage 1320 in a hundred years, how did that compare with what other countries had done? Belgium, which was little more than a quarter the size of Ireland, had spent £16,000,000 in the last twenty or twenty-five years. Belgium had been attending to her own affairs, collecting her own taxes, and spending them in the country for the benefit of the people and the improvement of the land. Belgium had her own army and navy and the busy port of Antwerp, because her money was not taken from Brussels to London and kept there. Her cash accounts were not kept by another Government where any amount of manipulation might be carried out. The Government of Holland, another small country, had spent £15,000,000 on drainage. Germany had spent £15,000,000, but being a large and rich country that, of course, was not much when compared with the sum spent by Belgium and Holland. France had spent £30,000,000 on arterial drainage. He doubted whether the drainage of any one of these countries was of quite as much importance as would be the drainage of the rivers in Ireland, which were in the habit of overflowing their banks and destroying a considerable amount of property. He hoped that hon. Members from Ulster would express their opinions with courage in regard to the condition of the Bann.
What was the Government going to do? Were they going to allow this state of things to continue in Ireland? They knew very well that there was no possibility of the Irish people, tenants and owners, subscribing the money required for such a great work as arterial drainage. The tenants found that they had as much as they could do in making their rents. How would the landlords sell their land? Would they expect twenty-five years purchase for land which was covered with water every other year? If they did, he doubted very much whether they were likely to get it. He would ask the Chief Secretary to give some assurance to the people of Ireland that the Government meant to take this question seriously in hand and deal with it in a generous and effective manner. There was no use tinkering with the question any longer. It had been too long trifled with, and 1321 the time had come when the Government should decide on some course. It was the duty of the Government to protect the property of the people of the country which they undertook to govern agains the will of the people themselves. He did not believe it would take quite so much money as the late Chief Secretary said last year. The right hon. Gentleman said it would take £20,000,000 to carry out effectively the arterial drainage of Ireland. That was a great exaggeration. No doubt it would take a great deal of money, and if the Government said that they had no money he would ask them to take £1,000,000 a year out of the over-taxation account until this drainage work was finished. It was the business of the Government to find the money which was necessary to save the lives and property of the people of that country. It was possible they might be told that another inquiry would be necessary. There had been a good many of these inquiries in Ireland, and what had come out of the whole of them? Nothing whatever. The representatives of Ireland wanted the Government to take in hand some practical solution of the question, and if they did not do so he thought they should surrender the government of the country to the people themselves.
§ *MR. JOHN O'CONNOR (Kildare, N.)seconded the Motion. He said that while differences of opinion existed on many matters connected with the government of Ireland, his hon. friend had to-night introduced a subject on which there was perfect agreement between all Parties in the House. In his investigation of the subject he found last year the lion of the Bann lying down with the lamb from the beautiful Barrow, and a little child of the lordly Shannon leading them on their peaceful watery way of a terial drainage. That, he considered, was a manifestation of unity which might be regarded as free from hostile and repellent elements. He found that last year hon. Members from the North of Ireland were prepared to disrupt and destroy their own Government in the interest of the Bann. While the representatives from the North and South of Ireland were agreed on this subject, he found 1322 also that the Government itself was in favour of the arterial drainage of Ireland. It was a Conservative Government which appointed the Commission in 1887 to report on the question of arterial drainage in Ireland. In 1888 the then Chief Secretary for Ireland, the present Prime Minister, introduced three Bills dealing with this important subject, not one of which was passed. It was the late Chief Secretary who appointed an eminent hydraulic engineer last year to inquire into the drainage of the Bann and to report, and he reported. It was the present Chief Secretary who had appointed an eminent hydraulic engineer this year to report on the drainage of the Bann, and he would report.
Why was there such perfect agreement on this subject? It was because arterial drainage in Ireland, as elsewhere, was regarded as of national importance. Among the many reasons why it should be so regarded, there was one which stood out pre-eminently beyond the others, namely, the existence of clouds in Ireland. It was said by the late Lord Beaconsfield, when Mr. Disraeli, that all the evils of Ireland might be traced to the fact of its close proximity to the melancholy ocean. That statement was exploded by the Royal Commission, because they said that much of the evil of Ireland was due to the existence of clouds. Clouds might be beautiful from an æsthetic point of view, but they did not respect political principles. A Nationalist cloud springing up out of the Barrow might, with favouring winds from the South-West, sail north, and in summer flood time—in that period which embraced the 12th of July—might in its darkness and obliquity burst and damp the ardour of those celebrating the glorious, pious, and immortal memory of William III. Of course, an Orange cloud might return the compliment and deluge the banners of the Papists in their treasonable practices. Hence it was a national subject, and therefore he found that last year Orange and Green were blended in the lobby in hostility to the Government, who, with words of sympathy on their lips, had no promise of performance and no hope of remedy of an admitted evil. "Adversity makes strange bedfellows."
1323 In all civilised countries where the area of cultivable land was limited, the greatest attention had been paid to the subject of arterial drainage. He found from a report written by one of the commercial secretaries of the legation in Holland, and dated as far back as the sixties, that no less than £300,000,000 had been spent on the drainage of Holland. He had been at a loss to know what there was in the sand-hills, rabbit warrens, and swamps of Holland that entitled it to have spent upon it a sum equal to half the normal National Debt of Great Britain whilst a beggarly £1,500,000 was considered good enough to spend upon the most fertile soil of one of the fairest lands in the whole world. He could not understand it except for one reason, namely, that Holland was governed by the Dutch for Dutchmen, and Ireland was governed by the English for Englishmen. About three years ago the Associated Chambers of Commerce of this country applied to the Foreign Office to ask the Consular representatives abroad to inquire and report on the waterways of Europe. He would give a few quotations from their reports. The first and most interesting was that in regard to Austria-Hungary. After stating that in Austria alone £21,000,000 had been expended on river regulation, the report said—
The method 'had a twofold object, in view.' Firstly, the regulation works are carried out in the interests of navigation by deepening channels, and, secondly, in the interest of agriculture by preventing, as far as possible, the overflowing of river banks in time of high water or floods.In Hungary, as in Austria, except at the Iron Gates, no navigation tolls are levied, and the capital expended in developing and improving the waterway is sunk for the common weal, and no direct interest on the invested capital is looked for.The same report said that in Hungary no less a sum than £22,000,000 was spent on the regulation of rivers and the construction of canals. The Hungarian Government paid in respect of one waterway alone, Iron Gates—sinking fund, £62,500; maintenance, £8,330; repairs, £11,040; in all £81,870. They received £72,000 in tolls. International treaties permitted and empowered Hungary to levy shipping taxes to the amount 1324 of the actual cost, but they did not do it.In Belgium the capital expended during the period between 1875–1900 on waterways—which included the upkeep of embankments and the regulating and adapting of river beds—with a view to uniformity was £16,000,000. The State administered the greater portion of the waterways. The report said—
It is impossible to estimate even approximately the extent to which the improvement of the waterways has contributed in the great development of traffic.In France, between 1871 and 1878, £9,640,000 was spent on waterways, and between 1879–1900 £18,000,000, making in all £27,640,000. The natural waterways had been radically transformed on the Rhone since 1860 by an expenditure o £3,240,000, or £15,360 per mile. On the Seine from Paris to Rouen there had been expended since 1878 £2,680,000, or £17,631 per mile. Just think of it. He asked Ulster Members to think how, if their ancestors had succeeded in separating Ireland from England, they would have fared if they had come within the sphere of influence of the French Republic, The banks of the Bann would have been to-day a blooming flower-garden, instead of a dismal swamp sending its mendicant Members to this House to beg a crumb of comfort from their master's table.Practically the whole of the waterways system is the property of the State, which maintains it out of its public funds free of all tolls.In Germany it was thought that the great floods that took place in the eighties were due to the navigation works which had been carried out at great expense, and a Commission was appointed in 1892 to inquire into the statement which was made, rightly or wrongly, by the farmers whose lands had been affected. The Commission found that the statement of the farmers had no justification, but they recommended that certain work should be carried out to improve the flow in flood time. Unlike the Commissions that sat on the subject in Ireland, their recommendations were instantly carried out and over £1,000,000 was expended on five rivers for the purpose of saving the lands from being 1325 flooded. A regular system of giving information of floods was established and organised for all the rivers, and this had proved most effective. The report contained the following—Notice of high or low water or the approach of ice is at once communicated by telegraph, telephone, postcard, or messenger to interested persons or districts. In some districts this is done through the Press.In the Elbe and Vistula districts a special telegraph and telephone system was established in 1890 and 1894 at a cost of over £10,000. On the Rhine, Elbe, and Oder it is now possible to give due notice of floods, etc., based on a close Study of the upper reaches of the river.Whenever danger is apprehended either through high water or ice a special service of men is employed for the particular stretch of river.He had read these quotations merely or the purpose of backing up the representation of his hon. friend who opened the discussion that this was a national question everywhere.Proceeding to deal with the case of Ireland, the hon. Member said he would take first the case of the Barrow, not because it happened to run through his own constituency and because many of his constituents were constantly suffering from this much neglected river, but he did so because it had been singled out by the Commission as an example of the neglect of arterial drainage in Ireland by England. It drained 408,000 acres, 45,000 of which were subject to floods three times a year. The Report of the 1887 Commission said that the Barrow district suffered more from floods than any other part of Ireland, and that altogether the condition of the district might be described as deplorable. In the year 1871 this deplorable condition of things was pointed out to the then Marquis of Hartington, the present Duke of Devonshire, who was acting as Chief Secretary for Ireland, by one whose words ought to have received attention—the Marquis of Drogheda—as representing himself and the other proprietors of land in the district. He described the condition of things which prevailed, and read the terms of the following resolution passed at a meeting attended by the whole of the owners of land by the Barrow—
That large tracts of land on the course of the River Barrow are frequently covered with flooded waters which, besides destroying or 1326 impairing vast quantities of crops, remain in a state of stagnation often for many weeks together, flooding numerous dwellings of the labouring classes. Often rendering the use of the public highways of the country impossible or dangerous, and rising into the streets, gardens, and houses of many of the towns in the district to the serious injury of the health of the population.What had been done since then? Had anything been done for the Barrow? Nothing! Yes, the Prime Minister introduced three Bills in the year 1888, and n doing so, said—The Barrow remains the chief example of the evils incident to the want of arterial drainage in Ireland.That was the language used seventeen years after the resolution of the owners. It would be the same that evening, seventeen years after those Bills were introduced and withdrawn, and it would be the same seventeen years to come, when some future Irish Member drew attention to the scandalous neglect. What were those evils? It had been stated by the Commission of 1887 that the temperature in the middle part of Ireland, owing to these constant floods, was lower than in the North or South; that it was cold and unsuited to agriculture, that the sky was cloudy and prevented the ripening of grain; that the health of the people was prejudiced by damp; and that the towns suffered doubly, first from the want of drainage and then by the lack of locomotion when they were flooded. The health of the people was ruined; epidemics of fever followed the floods, and trade came to a standstill because the people could not get into the towns, which also suffered indirectly by the want of that progressive condition which followed from surrounding farms being in that prosperous state they would be in if free from periodical inundations. To remedy this state of things the Prime Minister, when Chief Secretary for Ireland, proposed certain works rather in excess of those recommended by the Commission of 1887. The Commission recommended an expenditure of £354,000, but the right hon. Gentleman said he was prepared to encourage an expenditure of £360,000, £125,000 of which was to be charged on the improvement area, £20,000 on the catchment area, and £215,000 to be a free grant. They were 1327 in fact, to have no more clouds in Ireland—no more rain but the golden rain of English beneficence! What had become of that scheme? It was dead and had gone to that place which was said to be paved with good intentions. What was the use of arguing to the farmers on the banks of the Barrow, "You ought to be industrious and drain your land." What was the use of the farmer draining his land unless there was some arterial scheme into which he could drain it? That was the work they claimed ought to be done by the Government; it was work which had been done in every other country in the world except Ireland—Ireland which was governed by England.He would give them another example of neglect. It was that of the Shannon. An old friend of his, now dead—once a respected Member of that House—said he knew of no fewer than seven Commissions that had sat on the Shannon. Lord Monck presided on a Commission which sat in Ireland, which reported in the year 1882, and which stated that a large extent of land along the whole course of the Shannon was subject to inundations at all times of the year. The spring and autumn floods often caused great damage, the former by spoiling the quality of the grass, the latter by damaging, and sometimes by altogether carrying off the hay. This Commission compared the interests of navigation with the interests of agriculture, and reported clearly in favour of the latter. Mr. Manning, the engineer employed at that time by the Public Works Board, said that no complete control of the Shannon existed, and he pointed out how control could be obtained. The Report recommended—
That it [the Shannon] remain in the care of the Commissioners of Public Works, who shall, while maintaining the navigation, regulate the depth of water so far as is in their power with a view primarily to the drainage of the country.The Allport Commission of 1887 confirmed that conclusion and added—This river, draining as it does so large a portion of Ireland, and being the outlet of several other important rivers, occupies an exceptional position, and is of national importance.The Commission pointed out that the waters had overflowed the banks of the Shannon until they had covered nearly 1328 21,000 acres, and they said it was futile to expect that the cost should be laid on the riparian owners, having regard to the fact that the Shannon was the largest river in the three kingdoms, that it was 125 miles long, and that no fewer than twenty-three tributary rivers and streams discharged their waters into it. They pointed out that the end to be attained was not the relief of lands on its margin but a lowering of the levels of the floods which would render it much more easy to undertake the improvement of the various important tributary rivers and streams. His hon. friend had referred to the case of the Suck, and he would add nothing to what he had said as to that. It was proposed in 1888 that the sum of £165,000 should be spent on the Shannon, £35,000 to be charged on the improvement area and the balance to be equally raised by loans to the catchment area and to the Government works already established there. There was to be no free grant. The Commission of 1887 recommended that £180,000 should be the amount of the charge on the district and that £100,000 should be granted by the State, it being held that with these two sums—making £280,000 Mr. Bateman's complete scheme could be carried out. It was necessary the whole system should be grappled with, otherwise the plan would be entirely inadequate. Yet nothing had been done up to the present, and the Shannon remained as much a crying evil as the Barrow.Finally he came to the case of the Bann. He supposed he ought to apologise to hon. Members opposite for mentioning that case, but still it was an Irish river. The money already spent on the navigation of the Bann and the drainage of the country round about had been lost. Lord Monck's Commission said the works did not accomplish the drainage results which were expected of them, and there was no prospect of improvement. This scheme was now maintained at the expense of the cesspayers, many of whom strongly objected to supporting it and considered it was extremely mischievous. They recommended that the Navigation Board should be dissolved and that drainage trustees should be appointed 1329 to deal with the Bann solely in the interests of the drainage of the country. There was a complication arising from a weir at Toome which did not operate owing to the height of the water in the Lower Bann. It was clear that the whole trouble arose from the condition of the Lower Bann on account of a defect in the original design of the drainage works. An eminent hydraulic engineer appointed last year by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover estimated that it would take £150,000 to make effective the drainage of the Bann, whereas the then Chief Secretary in 1888 proposed an expenditure of £65,000 and the Commission of 1887 recommended an outlay of £75,000, £20,000 of which was to be a free grant. Nothing, however, had been done, and the story of the Bann was one of incompetence and neglect not confined to either Party in the State. It was due solely to the attempt of one country to deal with the affairs of another country. Last year the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Armagh was very indignant in dealing with the subject; he complained that they had got nothing but sympathy from the British Government and that their patience was exhausted. Was their patience still exhausted he wondered. Would they that night vote for the Government or against it? Would they withdraw their support from the Government because Sir Antony MacDonnell, who was willing to give them more than sympathy in this matter, still sat on his stool in Dublin Castle?
What a commentary was the whole story on the incapacity of Parliament and of this country to deal successfully with the affairs of another nation. The present Prime Minister in 1888 introduced his three Bills with high-sounding phrases—"the era of neglect was to give place to a policy of kindness and conciliation." The contract of the Union was to be acted upon. Restitution was to be made. In 1886, after the Liberal Party had been defeated on the Home Rule question, Mr. Hanbury came to him and said—
I have been reading the history of your country, and I say England cannot tax itself sufficiently to make restitution to you for the destruction of your industries.1330 Again, the Prime Minister said in 1888—I am bound to say I think we owe something in the nature of an historic debt to Ireland. I think that of all the transactions of which Englishmen and Scotchmen—I do not know that I ought to say Scotchmen, because some of those transactions took place before the Union—have, to be ashamed of in their dealings with Ireland, the transactions by which the English Parliament made use of its superiority over Ireland to destroy her budding industries was the most shameful. Bad as the penal laws wore, they were the offspring of bigotry and political terror, and the motives that prompted them are elevating as compared with the mean and sordid action of the English Parliament in crushing the Irish industries.Those Bills of 1888 were then introduced in a spirit of restitution to Ireland. What had become of that policy? The Bann and the Barrow had overflowed their banks full forty times since then, spreading poverty and pestilence throughout the land. Hundreds and thousands of pounds had been dangled before the eyes of the Irish people, but they wereLike dead sea-fruits that tempt the eyeBut turn to ashes on the lips,ashes of disappointment to the Irish people. Last year when this subject was discussed the then Chief Secretary said they had no money. Were they any better off to-day? When the Union was carried, they claimed to be able to deal with the grievances of Ireland. Had they shown their competence? Had they become bankrupt since 1888 when such large promises were held out to the Irish people? Up to the time the Irish Parliament was destroyed Ireland attended to these matters for herself, and in 1800 when that Government was destroyed she was actually considering this very question, If she had only been allowed to go on in the manner she was then proceeding, if she had only had the use of her own taxation, if she were free from the load of debt incurred for wars in which she had no interest, it was reasonable to suppose that this all-important question would long since have been attended to, and the utter failure of the English Parliament to appreciate the grievance and supply a remedy was its utter condemnation in the mind of every Irishman.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That, in the opinion of this House, 1331 the indifference of the Government for more than a century to the state of the main Irish rivers having resulted in the frequent flooding of large tracts of country, followed by great destruction of property and serious injury to lands and dwellings and to the public health, it is the duty of the Government to devise and carry out a system of drainage which will afford adequate protection for the lives and property of the people."—(Mr. James O'Connor.)
§ *MR. CHARLES CRAIG (Antrim, S.)said that there was much in the speeches of both the mover and the seconder with which he could agree. He could not, however, pretend to say much about other parts of Ireland and would confine himself principally to the question of the drainage of the Lough Neagh and River Bann area. An attempt had been made in the past to deal with that question, but he was sorry to say that the state of affairs to-day was almost as bad as it was sixty years ago, before the works were started. Perhaps the House would excuse him if he went rather into detail upon this question. Lough Neagh was the largest lake in the three kingdoms. It was eighteen miles long, and twelve miles broad, and was practically as large as the Isle of Man. There were ten or twelve rivers of considerable size running into Lough Neagh as well as a vast number of smaller streams, and the whole of the water from an immense catchment area of over 1,400,000 acres had to be conveyed to the sea by one single river. The distance from Lough Neagh to the sea was about thirty miles, and the drop was only about forty feet. Consequently, hon. Members would see that the Lower Bann was a more or less slow-flowing river, and it was impossible for the enormous amount of extra water which collected in the Lough in flood time to get through quickly to the sea. This caused the level of the water in Lough Neagh to rise, with the result that the low-lying lands were often seriously flooded.
The nuisance of the flooding and the serious injury it caused was of very old standing. It was not until 1840 that Irishmen interested in the welfare of the North of Ireland 1332 could get the Government to move in the matter. Soon after that an Act was passed to promote the drainage of lands and the improvement of navigation, and application was made to the Government by the landowners affected by the flooding of Lough Neagh and the Bann to remedy the evil, and the Commissioners of Public Works, who were also appointed Commissioners for the purpose of the Act, appointed Mr. MacMahon to inspect and report upon the question. He duly inspected and reported thereon and presented plans and specifications for the remedying of the flooding evil, and for the improvement of the navigation. The cost was to be £109,000 for the drainage, and another £74,000 for the navigation. The land owners interested, after mature consideration, decided that the work should be done and that they would bear the cost. But instead of costing £109,000 the total amount spent on the drainage works was £150,000, or £41,000 more than the unfortunate owners had agreed to pay. The works, moreover, took twelve years to complete instead of three. He did not know of any board which had brought down upon its own head more well—deserved abuse than the Board of Works. One of the reasons for the excessive cost—another testimony to the unbusinesslike methods of the Board of Works—was that, instead of giving the contract to a contractor—and large contractors at the time were very numerous—they decided to do the whole of the work themselves, sending down an engineer and numberless assistant engineers, paymasters, clerks, and workmen. Soon after the work was started the famine broke out, and it was thought by the Board of Works and the Government that this would be an excellent opportunity of employing many workmen throughout the country in need of work. A large number of men from various parts of Ireland were therefore collected together for this work. He did not complain of that, but he thought those sharing the cost of the work had reason to complain that on their shoulders should fall the extra cost of £41,000 incurred by employing relief hands and turning a purely business transaction into a philanthropic transaction. Because no contractor 1333 was employed, and because this undertaking was used as relief works by the Government, the cost came to £41,000 more than the estimate, and in the year 1880 no less a sum than £166,000 had been paid in principal and interest for these drainage works.
For the first ten years after the works were completed they had more or less the desired effect. But in the subsequent ten years the floods got the upper hand again; and after twenty years and at the present time the state of affairs around the shores of Lough Neagh and on the banks of the Bann was almost as bad as it was fifty or sixty years ago. A large number of Commissions had sat on the subject, and there had been a large number of Reports. His complaint against the Government was that they had been promising and reporting, and holding Select Committees for the last twenty-eight years, and yet nothing had been done. The engineer who prepared the plans and supervised the work was a Government engineer and was not appointed by the owners affected; the work was carried out entirely by the Government, although the cost was borne by the people affected. That being the position, it was the duty of the Government to remedy the defects of their own servant fifty years ago. The original designs and plans made by Mr. MacMahon, the Government engineer, in 1842, when he was reporting, allowed for a discharge capacity of 400,000 cubic feet per minute, but investigations since made proved this was wrong, and that to accomplish the end in view a discharge capacity of 700,000 or 800,000 cubic feet per minute was needed, or double the discharging capacity allowed for in Mr. Mac Mahon's estimate. That was one of the matters upon which they hoped to get some light. He thought under the circumstances they had a good claim that the whole of these works should be put right at the expense of the Government.
They had had many promises on this subject from the Government and from the late Chief Secretary, and in the year 1903, when he was seeking election, he was distinctly told that he might inform his intended constituents that the matter would be seriously dealt with during the 1334 ensuing session. He made free use of that promise, and no doubt many voted for him in the belief that an attempt would be made to relieve their condition. The late Chief Secretary put a thousand pounds on the Development Grant as an earnest of his intentions. But nothing came of that. In March of last year the secretary of the Bann Drainage Committee received a letter from the then Chief Secretary which illustrated exactly the view he, and indeed every Chief Secretary who had had to deal with it, took of this matter. In that letter he stated that the Board of Works had readily complied with Sir Antony MacDonnell's desire that the greatest expedition should be used, in spite of the many and serious claims upon the time of their engineer involved by works executed under the Marine Works Act and other duties of immediate urgency. He maintained that the drainage of the Bann was quite as urgent, and much more urgent, than any work under the Marine Act.
Their complaint in the North of Ireland was that money was spent freely on works in other parts of Ireland which were no more necessary than the rectification of the drainage of the Bann, and that the only part of Ireland which was thoroughly loyal could not, after eighteen, years of waiting, get a remedy for an evil which everyone admitted, while hundreds of thousands of pounds were being poured into other parts of Ireland. Much of this money no doubt would be wasted. Ireland was dotted with monuments of the inefficiency of the Board of Works, and all round the coast were harbours on which immense sums had been spent which were practically useless. However, he hoped a better era was beginning to dawn under the reign of the present Chief Secretary. He hoped the Chief Secretary would act differently to his predecessors, who, while promising a great deal, had done nothing at all. The late Chief Secretary appointed Mr. Dick to make a further survey. He would not say anything about Mr. Dick's capacity as an engineer, but, knowing the estimation in which the Board of Works was held, he thought it was an act of folly to appoint this engineer. If his report was thoroughly favourable 1335 all, no doubt, would be well, but if it was unfavourable it was certain that the people interested would say, "Oh, this is only the report of the engineer of the Board of Works, and it is not worth the paper it is written on." Considering the amount of feeling that there was on this question, he thought the late Chief Secretary should have avoided sending down any man connected with the Board of Works to make this survey, it would have been far better to have employed an independent engineer, and the Chief Secretary should have taken care in regard to such an appointment that the person appointed was approved of by the people interested. With regard to the last appointment he had not heard that any persons in the locality concerned had been consulted. So far as he could ascertain the facts, Mr. Dick did not make a thorough survey, but he took up the plans of the preceding engineer. The conditions of eighteen years ago were not the conditions of to-day. Farms were now drained in a far superior manner, and the water ran off much quicker. A vast amount of sand and mud must have been deposited in the bed of the river in recent years, and this must have altered the depth of the river in many places. In regard to the appointment of Sir Alexander Binnie he hoped that the Chief Secretary would see that he made an absolutely independent survey.
§ MR. MACVEAGH (Down, S.)He is not going to make a survey at all; he is only going to present a report.
§ *MR. CHARLES CRAIGsaid he hoped Sir Alexander Binnie would be definitely instructed to make a thorough survey, and that he would take into consideration the opinions of those living in the locality. Under no circumstances had the Board of Works ever paid any attention to the advice and opinions of the people living on the spot. No matter how eminent an engineer Sir Alexander Binnie might be, he had probably never seen the Bann, and it seemed to him that the men who had suffered so long from this flooding ought to know something about the river. Many of them had their own theories about the cause of flooding, and it would do Sir 1336 Alexander Binnie no harm to hear those opinions. Last year the Ulster Unionists voted with Gentlemen opposite on this question, but as the present Chief Secretary had given an earnest of taking action, he and his hon. friends would not vote on the present occasion.
§ MR. O'DOWD (Sligo, S.)said the Resolution of his hon. friend the Member for Wicklow which they were engaged in discussing had his earnest and hearty support. Not alone had this Resolution the support of his hon. friends around him, but it had also, he ventured to think, the support and approval of every Irish Member, no matter to what school of political thought he might belong. And why? Because they recognised—and all Irish Members recognised—that the subject dealt with in the Resolution before the House was one of the gravest national importance. It was one of national importance, because the drainage of the rivers of Ireland would affect and beneficially affect numbers of people of all classes and creeds in the country.
This question in its national aspect had been so ably and so exhaustively dealt with by his hon. friends who had preceded him that he would not weary the House with any stale platitudes of his own. He might, however, point out in passing that here was an admitted Irish grievance from which Unionists as well as Nationalists suffered, and which the Government, through the machinery of their numerous Irish boards and departments, could speedily redress. Would they prove themselves equal to the occasion? Would they even now make a beginning and tackle this question which had been so sadly neglected by successive Governments in the past? The Government professed an anxiety to develop Irish resources; they boasted that they were able and willing to do all for Ireland that a native Parliament could do. Let them prove the sincerity of their professions by adopting the Motion of his hon. friend and beginning at once with a scheme for the drainage of Irish rivers. But it was too much to expect that they would do so, not withstanding the undeniable fact that such a scheme, if adopted and carried out, would be the means of averting 1337 periodic famines in many districts, of converting hundreds of thousands of acres, now practically valueless owing to constant overfloodings, into good arable land, and of bringing happiness, if not prosperity, to the doors of thousands of small farmers scattered all over Ireland. There was no doubt but that it would enormously increase the wealth and prosperity of the country. It was a pity therefore, that a Government which could afford to spend millions on the prosecution of an unjust war in South Africa, and could find money to engage in fruitless expeditions against the Grand Lama and that Will-o'-the-Wisp of the desert, the Mad Mullah, could not furnish a trifle to aid in carrying out a project which would be attended with the happy results he had indicated. The question was one of supreme national moment, and as such should be dealt with in a broad, liberal, and statesmanlike spirit by any Government which wished to keep up the pretence that they were able and anxious to govern Ireland for the benefit of the people and with a view to the material advancement of the interests of the country.
The drainage of the Bann, the Barrow, and the other great rivers in Ireland had been mentioned, and would again be mentioned before the debate closed, and with everything that had been said in regard to these rivers he was in thorough agreement. He hoped, however, that he might be pardoned if he mentioned the case of the negligence of the Government in regard to the drainage of the Owenmore in the county of Sligo. Attempts had been made from time to time, in one shape or other, to do something for the drainage of the other great rivers, but although the people of South Sligo in the poor province of Connaught had been agitating and asking some aid from the Government for the drainage of this river during the past sixty years, a deaf ear had always been turned to their demands for justice and fair play. The Owenmore was not a navigable river. It took its rise in a scheduled congested district, and flowed for a considerable distance through that district, continued its course through South Sligo, and owing to its crooked course and choked condition was liable to periodical flooding. This meant ruin 1338 to the hundreds of small farmers inhabiting the valley through which it flowed; last year the drainage caused by these floods was so great that a great public meeting was held in Ballymote in August last, presided over by the very rev. Canon Loftus, and attended by clergymen and magistrates of all denominations. Strong resolutions were adopted, but nothing had been done.
In 1847, the year of the famine, an estimate was made for the drainage of this river by the then county surveyor. It was estimated that 8,000 acres could be reclaimed at an outlay of £7,000, but the Government of that day spent the money in relief works elsewhere and the work was abandoned. In 1879 another effort was made to institute a scheme for the drainage of this river, but the landlord's consent could not be obtained, and the scheme once more fell through. In 1895 the Liberal Government was approached, and they were inclined to give a grant, but they left office immediately after, and their benevolent intentions were not followed up by their successors. Again, in 1896, a great meeting of all creeds and classes was held in Ballymote. This meeting was presided over by Colonel Cooper, the lord-lieutenant of the county, a Unionist landlord, and a firm supporter of the Government of that day. A memorial was adopted praying for a grant-in-aid, but the usual stereotyped answer was returned, "No money available." There were in Ireland, the Congested Districts Board, the Department of Agriculture, and many other Departments too numerous to mention. This river flowed through three scheduled congested districts, and its drainage would mean the reclamation of 8,000 acres of land, now practically valueless, but what had the Congested Districts Board or the Department of Agriculture done in the matter? Nothing! Was it too much to expect that even now at the eleventh hour the Government would open its eyes and give financial aid and encouragement to a scheme which would be productive of so much good? There was a free grant given towards the drainage of the Suck some years ago. It was given, as was stated, under exceptional circumstances. 1339 There were exceptional circumstances here also, and he hoped the Chief Secretary would hearken to the appeal he made on behalf of the poor people of his constituency, and give a helping hand in the direction of having this river drained. By doing so he would be helping in a measure to repair the neglect of the past.
§ MR. DELANY (Queen's County, Ossory)pointed out that this question had been considered by two Commissions—the Viceregal Commission of 1885, and the Royal Commission on Public Works in Ireland of 1887—both of which reported strongly in favour of a scheme of drainage for the Barrow. On the strength of those Reports the present Prime Minister, then Chief Secretary for Ireland, introduced a Bill in 1888. That measure was not proceeded with. In the following session he introduced a more comprehensive Bill, proposing to carry out works on the Barrow to the extent of £360,000, of which £215,000 was to be a free grant, and the remainder raised on the improved land within the riparian area. That Bill did not pass, and since then nothing whatever had been done. But the matter had not stood still; the evil had gone on increasing, and the need for action became more urgent every day. Several times in the year the people in the districts affected had to leave their homes in the poorer quarters, some having to be rescued by means of ambulances for which the guardians had to pay, some went to the workhouse and others to their friends, and then when the floods abated they returned to their miserable homes. It was impossible to understand how they existed. Disease was promoted, and epidemics might be expected at any time. He hoped the Chief Secretary would make some practical answer that night. Personally, he did not approve of the suggestion for 1340 the establishment of another department in Ireland; there were too many departments already. Nor did he approve of the work being given to the Board of Works; there were all over the country too many monuments of the stupidity and incapacity of that department. What he suggested was that committees of the county councils should be entrusted with the work. If money and machinery were put into their hands he believed that the confidence in their capacity would be amply and fully justified.
§ THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALTER LONG,) Bristol, S.said that before dealing with the main question he might refer to a comparatively small matter which had been raised in the debate, viz., the circumstances under which Sir Alexander Binnie had been appointed to report on river drainage in Ireland. Hon. Members were under a misapprehension. The local drainage board was consulted in the appointment of Sir Alexander Binnie, and that gentleman had a perfectly free hand to make what surveys and examinations he thought necessary in order that he might furnish a report which, he hoped, might prove a valuable one. He understood, however, from the debate that what hon. Members opposite wanted was not further investigation, but immediate action. Probably the most practical speech in the debate was that made by the hon. Member who spoke last, and he had suggested that committees of the county councils should do the work. That was a practical suggestion with which he would deal later. The Motion was one in which fault was found with the Governments of the last 100 years for neglecting arterial drainage in Ireland, but the mover and seconder of the Motion had urged the necessity, not so much 1341 of dealing with arterial drainage, as of making these rivers into waterways.
§ MR. KILBRIDE (Kildare, S.)You cannot make a waterway of the Upper Barrow.
§ MR. WALTER LONGsaid the short but pertinent interruption of the hon. Member disposed of the greater portion of the speeches of the mover and seconder of the Motion. The £2,500,000 spent on arterial drainage in Ireland had been contrasted with the many millions spent in Holland. But the latter was a question not of arterial drainage but of waterways. Those two questions must be dealt with separately. What he understood was wanted was that the evils which arose from the overflowing of these rivers should be dealt with. That was a question solely of arterial drainage. So far as the Bann and the Barrow were concerned he was afraid that there could be no doubt that from time to time immense damage to property resulted from the present condition of these rivers. It was undoubtedly the case that if rivers overflowed in an agricultural district not only were fields and houses submerged, but there must be serious injury to the industry of the district. It had been said that everything that had been done hitherto had been wrongly done. While he did not wish to absolve the Irish Government and the Board of Works from all responsibility and all blame, he thought they were not as much to blame as hon. Gentlemen opposite seemed to think. They had consulted local opinion to a greater extent than they had been given credit for, and many of the evils of which complaint had been made were due to the fact that they 1342 had taken so much advice that they had in the long run taken a course which had resulted in the least benefit to the district which they desired to serve. Undoubtedly they had consulted local opinion, but it was the unanimous feeling that the guiding opinion had been a mistaken one. The result had been unsatisfactory.
The boards under the existing Acts were obviously out of keeping with the present time. This was not a general debate on Irish government—the river boards dealing with these rivers were out of date, and owing to the changes in land tenure the formation of those boards became more difficult every year. A suggestion had been made to transfer the powers to a committee of county councils, and in England legislation had set up joint committees of contiguous counties to deal with pollution, of rivers, but the difficulty of dealing with flooding was quite different to that of dealing with pollution, and more information was required. ["No, no!"] There was necessity for reform; the present condition of things could not continue, but a procedure must be found to bring about a systematic and successful result.
§ *MR. JOHN O'CONNORasked the Chief Secretary if he remembered an Answer which he gave to him, probably about a week ago, in reply to a Question on the Paper as to whether the Government was prepared to introduce a Bill extending the provisions of Section 20 so as to establish joint boards of county councils in respect of the rivers flowing through their respective districts. Was he now prepared to promise them a short Bill?
§ MR. WALTER LONGsaid he was quite willing to consider such a suggestion, but he was afraid this would not be sufficient. More advice was required, and there must be co-operation in the dealing with the upper and lower parts of a river; the difficulties in the one and in the other part were different and required different remedies. More information was wanted as to the best way to deal with some of these difficulties, and he believed that the best course to adopt would be to have a short examination by three experts, one an engineer, and two experts connected with local government. He believed that after an examination of that kind they might get a reform of the Local Government Act of 1898, and with such additional powers they might be able to deal with the question satisfactorily. After that any additional money granted might be wisely spent. That was the conclusion he had arrived at, and if his suggestion was acceptable to both sides he would undertake the appointment of such a Committee without any delay, and he did not think it would take very long to make a practical Report upon the whole question.
§ MR. JOHN REDMOND (Waterford)said the speech they had just listened to was an exact counterpart of many speeches they had heard on Irish subjects from successive Irish Governments. Of course the right hon. Gentleman was able to plead that his knowledge of the question was small and that he had had very little time to look into it. He supposed, however, that he had consulted those who were conversant with it, and yet he had made no definite proposal whatever. The right hon. Gentleman had admitted 1344 a grievance which had been in existence for generations, and then he threw out vague suggestions as to the possibility of amending the Local Government Act.
§ MR. WALTER LONGWhat I said was that while I favoured the extension of Section 20 of the Act of 1898 I did not believe that it would cover the ground.
§ MR. JOHN REDMONDsaid that what the right hon. Gentleman did was to throw out that suggestion, and then he added that he did not pin himself to it. The suggestion as to the appointment of a small Committee was a most extraordinary one, and he declined to take any share of the responsibility for it. He saw no reason for any further inquiry, and if the right hon. Gentleman had come to a settled conclusion on the subject he should act on his own opinion and appoint the inquiry. The constitution of the proposed Committee was absurd, and he wanted to know who the local government experts were to be. The right hon. Gentleman sugggested that this Committee should consist of an eminent engineer and two local government officials.
§ MR. WALTER LONGI never used the word "officials." I said experts.
§ MR. JOHN REDMONDsaid he should like to know what the right hon. Gentleman meant by experts.
§ MR. WALTER LONGsaid that they would be men experienced in the affairs of local government, but not officers connected with the Government.
§ MR. JOHN REDMONDinvited the right hon. Gentleman to come to some definite conclusion on the question, and asked whether these experts were to be selected by the county councils in Ireland or whether they were to be men sent over from England. Until the right hon. Gentleman gave some more definite statement he should take no responsibility whatever for the suggestion he had made. The right hon. Gentleman had not met their case, and in these circumstances he hoped his hon. friend would go to a division.
§ MR. KILBRIDEpointed out that an extension of Section 20 would not deal with this difficulty, because what suited the upper reaches of the river would not suit the lower reaches. It might apply all right to the Shannon and the Bann, but it had no application to the Barrow. A conference of the county councils concerned was held a few months ago and they came to the conclusion that a joint board should be formed, consisting of the representatives of the county councils of the counties through which the river flowed, to deal with the whole question of the drainage of the Barrow. One would imagine from the speech made by the right hon. Gentleman that the Government had done something to improve the condition of the River Barrow, but
§ as a matter of fact they had never spent one penny on the drainage of that river. The bed of the river had become silted up, and obstructions years ago had been allowed to be constructed across the river; and if the county councils were only given power to remove those obstructions by levying a very small rate on the areas affected they could relieve the flooding to a very large extent. Unless something was done the farmers and inhabitants of those areas would be very seriously affected. Frequently the houses were flooded, and the health of the people had suffered considerably. He hoped something would be done to deal with the upper reaches of the River Barrow, and if the Government would not do anything, at least they might give the localities power to do it themselves.
§ MR. DILLON (Mayo, E.)called attention to what he regarded as a serious omission in the Chief Secretary's statement, in that he had given no hint as to whether the Government contemplated providing any money for the operation. As no hope had been held out that any money would be provided for this purpose he hoped they would proceed to a division.
§ Question put.
§ The House divided:—Ayes, 79; Noes, 120. Division List No. 189.)
1347| AYES. | ||
| Ambrose, Robert | Cremer, William Randal | Hammond, John |
| Ashton, Thomas Gair | Delany, William | Hardie, J Keir (Merthyr Tydvil) |
| Barry, E. (Cork, S.) | Devlin, Charles Ramsay (Galway | Hayden, John Patrick |
| Boland, John | Dillon, John | Healy, Timothy Michael |
| Brigg, John | Doogan, P. C. | Helme, Norval Watson |
| Bright, Allan Heywood | Evans, Samuel T. (Glamorgan) | Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H. |
| Caldwell, James | Ffrench, Peter | Henderson, Arthur (Durham) |
| Campbell, John (Armagh, S.) | Field, William | Higham, John Sharp |
| Causton, Richard Knight | Findlay, Alexander (Lanark, N E | Johnson, John |
| Cheetham, John Frederick | Flavin, Michael Joseph | Jones, Leif (Appleby) |
| Crean, Eugene | Gladstone, Rt Hn. Herbert John | Jones, William (Carnarvonshire |
| Joyce, Michael | Nannetti, Joseph P. | Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion) |
| Kennedy, Vincent P.(Cavan, W | Nolan, Col. John P. (Galway, N.) | Roche, John |
| Kilbride, Denis | Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South) | Roe, Sir Thomas |
| Lamont, Norman | O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Mid | Schwann, Charles E. |
| Law, Hugh Alex. (Donegal, W.) | O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.) | Shackleton, David James |
| Lawson, Sir Wilfred (Cornwall) | O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W) | Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford) |
| Layland-Barratt, Francis | O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.) | Sheehan, Daniel Daniel |
| Levy, Maurice | O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.) | Sullivan, Donal |
| Lundon, W. | O'Dowd, John | Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyr) |
| MacNeill, John Gordon Swift | O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N) | Whitley, J. H. (Halifax) |
| MacVeagh, Jeremiah | O'Malley, William | Wilson, John (Durham, Mid) |
| M'Crae, George | O'Shaughnessy, P. J. | Young, Samuel |
| M'Fadden, Edward | Parrott, William | |
| M'Hugh, Patrick A. | Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES— |
| M'Kean, John | Power, Patrick Joseph | Captain Donelan and Mr. |
| M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North) | Reddy, M. | Patrick O'Brien. |
| Murphy, John | Redmond, John E. (Waterford) | |
| NOES. | ||
| Agg-Gardner, James Tynte | Fergusson, Rt. Hn. Sir J. (Manc'r. | Morgan, David J (Walthamstow |
| Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel | Finch, Rt. Hn. George H. | Morpeth, Viscount |
| Allhusen, Augustus Henry Eden | Finlay, Sir R.B. (Inv'rn'ssB'ghs) | Morrison, James Archibald |
| Anson, Sir William Reynell | Fisher, William Hayes | Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer |
| Arnold-Forster, Rt. Hn. Hugh O. | Flannery, Sir Fortescue | Mount, William Arthur |
| Arrol, Sir William | Forster, Henry William | Murray, Charles J. (Coventry) |
| Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John | Foster, PhilipS. (Warwick, S.W. | Percy, Earl |
| Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hon. Sir H. | Gardner, Ernest | Platt-Higgins, Frederick |
| Bagot, Capt. Josceline FitzRoy | Gordon, Hn. J. E. (Elgin & Nairn) | Plummer, Sir Walter R. |
| Bailey, James (Walworth) | Gore, Hon. S. F. Ormsby | Pretyman, Ernest George |
| Bain, Colonel James Robert | Gray, Ernest (West Ham) | Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward |
| Balcarres, Lord | Greene, W. Raymond (Cambs.) | Purvis, Robert |
| Balfour, Rt. Hn. A. J (Manch'r | Gretton, John | Reid, James (Greenock) |
| Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey) | Hamilton, Marq. of (L'donderry | Renwick, George |
| Balfour, Rt. Hn. Gerald W. (Leeds | Hare, Thomas Leigh | Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield) |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Hay, Hon. Claude George | Robertson, Herbert (Hackney) |
| Bignold, Sir Arthur | Henderson, Sir A. (Stafford, W.) | Rolleston, Sir John F. L. |
| Blundell, Colonel Henry | Hickman, Sir Alfred | Round, Rt. Hon. James |
| Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John | Hoare, Sir Samuel | Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool |
| Brotherton, Edward Allen | Hoult, Joseph | Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford |
| Brymer, William Ernest | Hunt, Rowland | Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander |
| Bull, William James | Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse | Sandys, Lieut.-Col. T. Myles |
| Butcher, John George | Jessel, Captain Herbert Merton | Seton-Karr, Sir Henry |
| Campbell, J.H.M.(Dublin Univ. | Kenyon-Slaney, Rt. Hn. Col. W. | Spear, John Ward |
| Carlile, William Walter | Keswick, William | Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Lancs. |
| Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H. | Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow) | Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M. |
| Cavendish, V.C.W.(Derbyshire) | Lawrence, Sir Joseph (Monm'th) | Tuff, Charles |
| Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich) | Lee, Arthur H. (Hants., Fareham | Tuke, Sir John Batty |
| Chamberlain, Rt Hn. J. A. (Worc. | Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage | Walker, Col. William Hall |
| Chapman, Edward | Leveson-Gower, Frederick N S. | Walrond, Rt. Hn. Sir William H. |
| Clive, Captain Percy A. | Long, Rt Hon. Walter (Bristol, S) | Welby, Lt-Col. A.C.E.(Taunton) |
| Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. | Loyd, Archie Kirkman | Whiteley. H. (Ashton und. Lyne |
| Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse | Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft) | Willoughby de Eresby, Lord |
| Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow | Macdona, John Cumming | Wortley, Rt. Hn. C. B. Stuart |
| Dalkeith, Earl of | M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool) | Wrightson, Sir Thomas |
| Dalrymple, Sir Charles | M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinburgh W. | Wylie, Alexander |
| Davenport, William Bromley | Majendie, James A. H. | |
| Dickson, Charles Scott | Martin, Richard Biddulph | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir |
| Doughty, Sir George | Melville, Beresford Valentine | Alexander Acland-Hood and |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Mildmay, Francis Bingham | Viscount Valentia. |
| Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton | Montagu, G. (Huntingdon) | |
| Fellowes, Rt Hn Ailwyn Edward | Montagu, Hon. J. Scott(Hants.) |