Commons Sitting of 31 May 1905

Preamble
The House met at Two of the Clock.

MR. SPEAKER'S ABSENCE.
The House being met, the Clerk at the Table informed the House of the unavoidable absence of Mr. Speaker, owing to continued indisposition.
Whereupon Mr. JAMES WILLIAM LOWTHER, the Chairman of Ways and Means proceeded to the Table, and, after Prayers, took the Chair as Deputy-Speaker, pursuant to the Standing Order.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Ilfracombe Harbour and Improvement Bill. Lords Amendments considered, and agreed to.
Midland Railway Bill. As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
Great Central Railway Bill [Lords]. Read a second time, and committed.
Dublin United Tramways Bill (by Order). As amended, considered; to be read the third time.
Dundee Water Order Confirmation Bill. Lords Amendment considered, and agreed to.

RAILWAY BILLS (GROUP 6).
Mr. KEARLEY Mr. KEARLEY reported from the Committee on Group 6 of Railway Bills; That, for the convenience of parties, the Committee had adjourned till Monday, 26th June, at half-past Eleven of the clock.
Report to lie upon the Table.
Education Acts Amendment Bill. Second Reading deferred from Wednesday, 7th June, till Thursday, 6th July.
Rhymney Railway Bill [Lords]. Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
London Southern Tramways Bill. Reported [Preamble not proved]; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.]

RAILWAY BILLS (GROUP 8).
Mr. ASHTONreported from the Committee on Group 8 of Railway Bills; That, for the convenience of parties, they had adjourned till Monday next, at half-past Eleven of the clock.
Report to lie upon the Table.

PRIVATE BILLS (GROUP E).
Sir HENRY AUBREY- FLETCHERreported from the Committee on Group E of Private Bills; That, for the convenience of parties, the Committee had adjourned till Friday, at a quarter before Twelve of the clock.
Report to lie upon the Table.
Lautour's Divorce Bill [Lords]. Reported, without Amendment; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill to be read the third time.
Malone's Divorce (Validation) Bill [Lords]. Reported, without Amendment; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill to be read the third time.
Malone's Divorce (Validation) Bill [Lords], and Lautour's Divorce Bill [Lords]. Ordered, That the Minutes of Evidence and Proceedings in the House of Lords on the Second Reading of Malone's Divorce (Validation) Bill [Lords], and Lautour's Divorce Bill [Lords], together with the Documents deposited in each case, be returned to the House of Lords.—(Mr. Serjeant Hemphill.)

PRIVATE BILLS (GROUP I).
Sir JAMES WOODHOUSEreported from the Committee on Group I of Private Bills; That, for the convenience of parties, the Committee had adjourned till Monday next, at half-past Eleven of the clock.
Report to lie upon the Table.

PETITIONS.
  LIQUOR TRAFFIC LOCAL VETO (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition from Ratho, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS (SUNDAY) BILL.
  Petition from Morecambe, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  HARWICH HARBOUR.
  Copy presented, of Abstract of the Accounts of the Receipts and Expenditure of the Harwich Harbour Conservancy Board from the time of their incorporation down to and inclusive of the 31st March, 1905, etc. [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 182.]
  FISHERY BOARD (SCOTLAND).
  Copy presented, of Twenty-third Annual Report of the Fishery Board for Scotland, being for the year 1904. Part, I., General Report [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  PRIVATE LEGISLATION PROCEDURE (SCOTLAND) ACT, 1899.
  Copy presented, of Report by the Chairman of Committees of the House of Lords and the Chairman of Ways and Means in the House of Commons, under The Private Legislation Procedure (Scotland) Act, 1899, that they are of opinion that the Wemyss Dock Order ought to be dealt with by Private Bill and not by Provisional Order [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 183.]

  NATIONAL EDUCATION (IRELAND).
  Copy ordered, "of Minutes of the Proceedings of the Commissioners of National Education relating to Rule 127 (b) of their Code of Regulations."—(Mr. Walter Long.)
  Copy presented accordingly; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 184.]

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Laying of New Electric Cable from Whale Island to Stamshaw Lane, Portsmouth.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty was a new electric cable laid from Whale Island to Stamshaw Lane, Portsmouth, in the autumn of last year; if so, for what purpose was this cable laid; by whom was this work performed; whence were the materials for it derived; and what was the cost of the work and the materials, respectively.
  (Answered by Mr. Arthur Lee.) In the autumn of last year the captain of H.M.S. "Excellent" obtained from the Naval Store Officer, Portsmouth Dockyard, a new cable to replace a worn out and defective cable connecting the Semaphore Signal at Whale Island with Stamshaw Waiting Room. The cost of the material amounted to £33 9s. 2d., and the work was carried out by the ship's company of H.M.S. "Excellent."

  Homing Pigeons for use of the Navy.
  SIR THOMAS DEWAR: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty, having regard to the fact that some time since the Admiralty issued invitations to owners of homing pigeons to reserve a certain number of their birds for use in time of war, or on such occasions as they might be required, will he state how many responses have been received; whether any birds have been tried; and, if any, how many, and with what result.
  (Answered by Mr. Pretyman.) Admiralty approval was given in May, 1904, for the organising of the homing pigeon fanciers of the United Kingdom into a corps of pigeon owners who would be willing, on the outbreak of war, to devote their birds to the naval service. So far up wards of 2,000 secretaries and members of flying clubs have been communicated with, with the result that some 600 members have been enrolled in the organisation. It was intended to have had a practical test of the system during the manœuvres this summer, but owing to the decision arrived at not to carry out

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  the manœuvres the trial has been postponed.

  Post Office on Licensed Premises at Maghery, County Tyrone.
  MR. SLOAN: To ask the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that the sub-post office in Maghery is in charge of a publican; and whether, in view of this fact being a disqualification, he will instruct the postmaster at Moy, county Tyrone, to have the office removed to more suitable premises.
  (Answered by Lord Stanley.) I am aware of the fact to which the hon. Member calls attention. The present arrangement is a temporary one, as the office is vacant, and I am making inquiries as to the practicability of moving it to other premises.

  Breaking of Cable of Barrels Lightship.
  MAJOR JAMESON: To ask the Secretary to the Board of Trade if he will state if the Barrels lightship cable broke inside or outside the recently repaired portion; whether the mushroom was sighted at the time the cable was overhauled; and if the chief officer who examined the chain was the same who wrongly marked the Margaretta Shoals buoy, Galway Bay.
  (Answered by Mr. Bonar Law.) I am informed by the Commissioners of Irish Lights that they are unable to say where the Barrels lightship cable broke, a considerable quantity having been lost when the vessel drifted from her station. The mushroom was not sighted when the cable was overhauled. As regards the last part of the Question, I am informed by the Commissioners that the Margaretta buoys have never been incorrectly marked.

  Light Motor-Cars in use in Great Britain.
  MR. SOARES: To ask the President of the Local Government Board whether an estimate can be given of the total number of light motor-cars now in use in England, Scotland, and Wales; if so, what is such estimate.
  (Answered by Mr. Gerald Balfour.) According to the Return moved for last
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  year by my hon. friend the Member for the New Forest Division, up to the 1st April, 1904, 28,073 motor-cars and motor-cycles had been registered in England and Wales, and 1,903 in Scotland. I am not in a position to give an estimate of the total number now in use.

  Motor-Cars—Danger Sign Posts on Roads.
  MR. SCARES: To ask the President of the Local Government Board how many local authorities have caused to be set up sign posts within their areas denoting dangerous corners, cross roads, and precipitous places, pursuant to Section 2 of Clause 10 of the Motor-Car Act of 1903; and what steps the Local Government Board has taken to secure the observance of that section.
  (Answered by Mr. Gerald Balfour.) The Local Government Board issued circulars calling the attention of the local authorities to the enactment referred to, and stated that it appeared to them that certain symbols which had been suggested for the sign posts by the County Councils Association and the Municipal Corporations Associations might conveniently be adopted. The Act does not require the local authorities to report their action in this matter to the Board, and I am not able to say how many of them have caused sign posts to be set up.

  Convictions under Section 1 (1) Motor Act of 1903.
  MR. SOARES: To ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he can state the number of convictions during the past twelve months in England under the first clause of the Motor Act of 1896; how many of such convictions were for a first offence; and how many for a second offence.
  (Answered by Mr. Gerald Balfour.) According to information received from the police authorities of England and Wales, outside the Metropolitan police district, there were 837 convictions under Section 1 (1) of The Motor-Car Act, 1903, during the last twelve months. I am unable to state the number for that period as regards the Metropolitan police district, but I am informed that during the year 1904 there were 168 convictions under the sub-section in that district.

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  The Local Government Board have no information as to how many of the convictions were for first and second offences respectively.

  Report of British Commercial Mission to Persia.
  MR. CHARLES HOBHOUSE: To ask the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Report of Mr. Newcomen, the head of the British Commercial Mission to Persia, has yet been received; and, if so, whether it will be printed as a Parliamentary Paper.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Brodrick.) The final Report of the Commercial Mission sent from India to Southern Persia has not yet been received. On its receipt, the question of presenting it to Parliament will be considered.

  Statues in Westminster Hall.
  MR. LYELL: To ask the hon. Member for Chorley, as representing the First Commissioner of Works, at what date the statues now in Westminster Hall were erected; and whether, in view of the historic associations of Westminster Hall, some more suitable site for them will be found.
  (Answered by Lord Balcarres.) The statues in Westminster Hall were erected there between 1866 and 1871 under circumstances explained in House of Commons Sessional Paper 152 of 1868. The First Commissioner fears that he cannot give any pledge to find another site for them; but he will consider the matter.

  Precautions against Fire in Factories and Workshops—Appointment of Select Committee.
  MR. TENNANT: To ask the Patronage Secretary to the Treasury when he proposes to set up the Select Committee to inquire into the means of prevention of and escape from fire in factories, workshops, shops, warehouses, and composite buildings, to which the Home Secretary has given his assent.
  (Answered by Sir A. Acland-Hood.) I hope to be able to set up the Select
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  Committee referred to by the Member prior to the Whitsuntide adjournment.

  Port Clerkships—Promotions from Staff of London Customs Tea and Dry Goods Accounts Office.
  MR. JAMES O'CONNOR: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that, on the reorganisation of the London Customs Tea and Dry Goods Accounts Office in 1901, some eight senior abstractors of long service and Departmental experience were voluntarily transferred from the out ports to seats in the new office, carrying a £30 allowance; that, although they were recognised by their Board and the Treasury as eligible for a port clerkship, only the name of one of three seniors has been submitted to the Treasury for promotion to the lower grade of port clerkships; and that the three seniors were, six months ago, informed by their collector that the Board of Customs had accepted their names for recommendation to the Treasury for promotion; and whether he will see that these officers get the promotion which they were led to expect.
  (Answered by Mr. Victor Cavendish) Only one of the three abstractors referred to by the hon. Member fulfilled the conditions governing promotions to the lower grade of port clerkships.

  Police Band for Belfast.
  MR. SLOAN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the Corporation of the City of Belfast made a recommendation to the Inspector-General of the Royal Irish Constabulary regarding the desirability of establishing a police band for Belfast; will he say whether the Inspector-General has yet given his sanction for such; and, if not, will he explain the cause of the delay.
  (Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) The recommendation referred to has been received by the Inspector-General, who is considering whether the exigencies of the public service will permit of the establishment of a police band for Belfast. A definite reply cannot yet be given.

  Sanitary Condition of Killyleagh, County Down.
  MR. SLOAN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that complaints have been repeatedly made by the inhabitants of Killyleagh, county Down, regarding the insanitary condition of their homes and the inferior supply of pure water for domestic purposes; and what action, if any, does he propose taking to remedy this state of affairs.
  (Answered by Mr. Walter Long.) In February, 1902, the rural district council forwarded to the Local Government Board particulars of proposed works for the water supply of Killyleagh, and the Board fixed an area of charge for the cost of the works, So far as the Board are aware, no steps have since been taken by the council to provide the water supply, but as no formal complaint in the matter has been received the Board are unable to take action under Section 15 of the Public Health Act of 1896.

  Delay in Holding Court-Martial on Quarter- master-Sergeant Allen (Northampton Regiment).
  DR. SHIPMAN: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that Quartermaster-Sergeant Allen of the Northampton Regiment, who was acquitted by Court-martial on the 13th April last of charges of falsifying accounts, was under arrest for seven weeks before being brought to trial, although a man of good character and with no previous charge against him, and that the Court-martial was not held till more than five weeks after the charges were drafted and sent to headquarters; and whether he can give the reason for such delay, especially in a military judicial proceeding.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Arnold-Forster.) In the first place, owing to the complicated character of the case, the General Officer Commanding found it necessary to make several references to the Judge Advocate-General before the charges could be framed. On the 11th March the application was submitted to the War Office. The subsequent delay was due to the employment of counsel
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  on both sides and the necessary arrangements involved thereby.

  Annuities for Crimean Veterans—Case of Ex-Sergeant Major John O'Connor.
  MR. HATCH: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether the medals and annuities for distinguished or meritorious service have yet been issued to all the Crimean veterans; and, if not, whether, in view of the services of these old soldiers and the fact that many of them are in straitened circumstances and feeble health, he will give instructions for the immediate issue of the medal to at least all ex-non-commissioned officers, notably to John O'Connor, late sergeant-major and military clerk, late of the 63rd Manchester Regiment, whose case has on several occasions been commended to the favourable notice of the War Office by high officers.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Arnold-Forster.) The amount allotted for annuities being limited, such rewards can only be given as vacancies occur. The grant is confined to soldiers or ex-soldiers above the rank of corporal, who must be recommended by the officers commanding the regiments to which they belonged. Since 1st April, 1904, when the sum allowed for these rewards was increased, forty-nine Crimean vetcrans have been granted the annuity and medal, but there are still several recommended who have not yet been provided for. Special consideration is, however, given to their cases when annuities fall vacant, due regard being had to the amount of the grant held by the corps to which they belonged. Sergeant-Major John O'Connor was granted an annuity of £10 from 1st April, 1904, with a medal for meritorious service.

  QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

    Ragging on H.M.S. "Kent."
    MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty can he explain why the midshipman of His Majesty's ship "Kent" who fired at and wounded his superior officer was allowed to withdraw from the service; was any Court-martial held upon the

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    midshipman in question, or was any punishment inflicted upon him; does the Board of Admiralty hold that in cases where an officer of the Fleet has used a lethal weapon against another officer, the Admiralty have power to dispense with a Court-martial and thus to render impossible the punishment prescribed by the Naval Discipline Act; and, if so, does this apply to men as well as to officers.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I beg also to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty can he state for what reason the midshipman of H.M.S. "Kent," who shot the sub-lieutenant, had been threatened to be cobbed or beaten; was it for a breach of the King's Regulations; had this midshipman ever been cobbed before, and had he been bullied by his fellow officers; was the sub-lieutenant, who was shot, in uniform and in the execution of his office at the time; has he received a hurt certificate; and will he be entitled to any compensation for his wounds.
    THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. PKETYMAN, Suffolk, Woodbridge): With regard to the hon. Member's two Questions, I have nothing to add to the statements made in the House on May 18th† in reply to a Question by the hon. Member for South Donegal, and subsequently in debate.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLES: Do the Admiralty propose to allow officers of the Fleet to fire at and wound superior officers and then be withdrawn from the service without Court-martial? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that this is destructive of the whole discipline of the Fleet?
    MR. PRETYMAN: In this matter there are three parties concerned—the officer injured and his friends, the officer who inflicted the injury and his friends, and the naval service. Neither of the first two parties, I am in a position to state, desires, from their point of view, that this matter should be further dragged before the public. The third interest, and the most important—that of the naval service—has been most carefully
    † See (4) Debates, cxlvi., 748
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    considered by the Admiralty, and the action taken has been taken with due regard to the interests of the service. The interests of the service would, in their opinion, suffer and not gain if any further details were dragged before the public.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I really must press this. Is the discipline of the naval service to be subjected to the desires of persons implicated in affairs of this sort?
    MR. JOYCEWhy try to hush up the scandal?
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Does the hon. Member remember that in November last a boy was sentenced to twenty-four strokes of the birch for striking his superior officer? Is there one law for the rich and another for the poor? Is a midshipman to be allowed to shoot his superior officer with impunity while a boy who strikes his officer is punished?
    MR. PRETYMAN: A few days ago the hon. Member was justifying this act.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: And I think the Admiralty have justified my action by not bringing up this boy for trial to show what provocation he received.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid that he should put down another Question, and, if he did not get a better Answer, he should take the appropriate course.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I wish to ask the Home Secretary whether he will put down for to-morrow or to-morrow week the Vote for the salary of the First Lord of the Admiralty or some other Vote on which I can call attention to the refusal of the Admiralty to explain why they have allowed a midshipman who fired at his superior officer and shot him through the cheek to retire from the service without being Court-martialled?
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. AKERS-DOUGLAS, Kent, St. Augustine's): It is generally understood that to-morrow will

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    be devoted to the Local Government Board Vote. The hon. Member had better consult through the usual channels as to the best means of getting the discussion he asks for.

    Royal Engineer Commissions for Wool- wich Cadets.
    MR. TUFF: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether arrangements will be made to secure for the cadets who will be leaving the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, in July next, the average number of commissions in the Royal Engineers.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. ARNOLD-FORSTER, Belfast, W.): The number of commissions to be given to the Royal Engineers and Royal Artillery is based, from time to time, on the requirements of the service, and no hard-and-fast proportion can be laid down. As far as can be seen the numbers in July will be about one-third of the cadets to the Royal Engineers and two-thirds to the Royal Artillery.

    Witchcraft in Gloucestershire.
    MR. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the practice of witchcraft at May Hill and other parts of Gloucester; whether he is aware that, in the case of a family named Markey, four members last week lost their reason and one attempted to commit suicide at a place called Blakeley, as a result of these practices; and whether, in view of the alarm in the locality, he can state what action will be taken by the authorities to suppress witchcraft.
    MR. AKERS-DOUGLAS: I have made inquiry into this very curious case. I find that Markey and his wife consulted a supposed witch about some money which they believed to have been stolen, and that subsequently three members of the family became insane, while the wife left the house and remained concealed in a wood for nearly four days. If sufficient evidence is forthcoming to justify a prosecution, proceedings will be taken by the local police against the woman who was consulted.

    Docking Horses' Tails.
    MR. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the Secretary of Stats for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the speech delivered at Northampton on Friday by the Duke of Grafton, where his Grace condemned as fearful cruelty the practice prevalent in London and throughout England of docking horses' tails and pulling out the hairs by the roots; and whether he can state if instructions will be issued to the police to prosecute in such cases.
    MR. AKERS-DOUGLAS: I have not seen any report of the speech referred to. In the case of cruelty to a horse it is open to anyone to prosecute under the Cruelty to Animals Act 1849. I have no reason to think that any special instructions to the police are necessary.

    Malicious Injury to Horses at Solihull
    MR. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether any complaints have lately been made by farmers in the neighbourhood of Solihull as to the cutting of the tails of their horses; and, if so, whether any effort has been made to trace the authors of these crimes.
    MR. AKERS-DOUGLAS: I have made inquiry from the local police and find that the manes and tails of three horses in the neighbourhood were cut on the night of the 19th instant, and that a man was arrested on the following day and is now in custody on the charge of having committed these offences.

    Old Bailey Calendar.
    MR. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether he can state the total number of charges preferred at the present sessions at the Old Bailey, and the number under each of these headings: murder, attempts to murder, manslaughter, forgery, coining, conspiracy, robbing, and indecency; and how often these sessions are held.
    MR. AKERS-DOUGLAS: I have no official information on this subject, but I may refer the hon. Member to the summary of the Central Criminal Court Calendar which was given in The Times

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    of yesterday (May 30th), where figures are given as to the offences to be tried. The Central Criminal Court holds twelve sessions in each year.
    MR. MACVEAGH: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that more serious crimes are investigated at one sessions of the Old Bailey than are committed in all Ireland in one year?
    [No Answer was returned.]

    The Greenwich Murder.
    MR. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the fact that a cripple named Bowring was murdered at Greenwich on Saturday; and whether the police have obtained any clue as to the perpetrator of the crime.
    MR. AKERS-DOUGLAS: The person who is supposed to have perpetrated this crime is in custody.

    Doncaster Crime.
    MR. VINCENT KENNEDY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the case of Rex versus Walter Webb, at Doncaster, on May 20th, who was charged with a criminal assault on a girl thirteen years old, when the mother of prose-cutrix was also charged with procuring the girl; and will he introduce legislation to secure that such trials shall be heard in camera.
    MR. AKERS-DOUGLAS: If, as appears to be the case, the hon. Member refers to the preliminary investigation of a charge by magistrates acting under the Indictable Offences Act, 1848 (11 and 12 Victoria, cap. 42, Section 19) the question whether that investigation should be conducted in public or not is one for the discretion of the magistrates. I should not be in favour of fettering that discretion by an Act of Parliament.

    Monastic Institutions and the Death Duties.
    MR. T. L. CORBETT: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether application is made
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    by the Inland Revenue authorities for payment of estate and succession duties on the death of individuals who held property for monastic and conventual institutions on undeclared trusts.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. AUSTEN CHAMBEHLAIN, Worcestershire, E.): The Inland Revenue would claim estate and succession duties on property held by a deceased person on trust for a Roman Catholic monastic institution where they had evidence of property being so held. In the case of a community of nuns, the death of a trustee would not give rise to any claim for death duties.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLES: May I ask whether these institutions pay corporation duty?
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I must ask for notice of that.

    Return of Public Income and Expenditure.
    SIR HENRY FOWLER: I beg to ask Mr. Chanellor of the Exchequer why, in the Return of the gross public income and expenditure for the year ending 31st March, 1905, the income from Excise is stated at £30,750,000, and from Estate Duties at £12,350,000, but in the financial statement presented to the House by the Chancellor of the Exchequer the income from Excise Duty is stated at £36,066,000 and the income from Estate Duties is stated at £16,669,000; and why, in the Return, the payments to Local Taxation Accounts are stated at only £1,156,867 when they really were £9,696,000.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: The Public Income and Expenditure Account, to which the right hon. Gentleman refers in his Question as the Return, is prepared under the Sinking Fund Act, 1875. That Act requires that it shall be "an Account of the Public Income and Expenditure of the United Kingdom according to the actual receipt and issue of moneys on the Exchequer Account." It cannot therefore, include the receipts of revenue which under various Acts are paid direct by the Revenue Departments

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    to the Local Taxation Accounts, and do not pass through the Account of the Exchequer. The Financial Statement which is presented to the House in connection with the Budget is prepared for the convenience of Members, so as to show the aggregate revenue raised by the State, including the revenue paid to the Local Taxation Accounts as well as that paid to the Exchequer Account. The receipts under the two heads are distinguished, and the Exchequer figures as there shown agree with those which the right hon. Gentleman quotes from the Return. As regards the sum of £1,156,000 about which the right hon. Gentleman inquires, that sum only represents the amount paid in pursuance of statutes from the Consolidated Fund to the Local Taxation Accounts; and it necessarily does not include the sums paid direct to those Accounts out of the assigned revenues which are given at page 2 of the Statement (Parliamentary Paper 119) as amounting to £9,813,000, making the aggregate amount with which the Local Taxation Accounts are credited up to £10,970,000 (in round thousands).
    SIR HENRY FOWLER: May I ask whether there is any distinction in the receipt of this money as between the revenue and the Exchequer. The death duty levied on an estate is paid in one lump sum to the revenue, and allocated afterwards. It becomes part of the gross public income.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I do not think the right hon. Gentleman has observed that the Return has to be prepared to show the actual receipt and issue of moneys on the Exchequer Account. This money never reaches the Exchequer Account; it is intercepted beforehand. Therefore, a statement which is to show only what is paid into or out of the Exchequer Account could not include that item. Accordingly, the Return is not a complete statement of the money raised by Imperial taxation, as I made clear in my Budget statement.
    SIR HENRY FOWLER: Would it not be more convenient if one form of Accounts were adopted. At present there is a great difference of opinion as to what
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    the taxation of the country is. Differences of ten millions constantly occur in the debates in this House. Has not the time arrived when, week by week, a proper, intelligible, accurate statement should be presented to the country?
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I think it would be a great convenience if all parties could agree on a single form in which the accounts should be presented, instead of having separate Returns moved for by individual Members who all desire the figures presented in a different form. At present I am under a statutory obligation, by the Act of 1875, to present the particular Return to which the right hon. Gentleman objects, and if that were adopted as the only form it would be open to the objection of being incomplete.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLES: Is the Chancellor of the Exchequer aware that the vicious process of interception, by which £20,000,000 is withdrawn from the account, was not introduced until after the Act of 1875. In consequence of the interception of that money, can he not consider the propriety of introducing some Bill to amend the present form of accounts?
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I have just carried one Bill through its Committee stage, and there is another Bill I have promised. The prospect of adding another amending Bill to these has no great attraction for me at this moment. The fact that the interception of revenue has taken place since 1875 does not dispense me from presenting this Parliamentary Return.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLESasked whether the right hon. Gentleman would undertake to accept a recommendation of the Public Accounts Committee on the subject.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Clearly I cannot say beforehand what my attitude would be to proposals which have not yet been submitted. Any recommendation from the Committee as to the form in which public accounts are presented will have my most serious consideration. The hon. Gentleman the Member for

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    King's Lynn holds strong views as to the particular forms which should be used, but others consider them the most misleading that could be adopted.
    SIR HENRY FOWLER: My request has reference to the accounts presented weekly and published in the newspapers, which are not presented under the Act and are in the entire discretion of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Sir William Harcourt, when Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced his intention of making the alteration, and the officials of the Department must have known that he would have done so if he had not been ejected from office.
    MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: I was not aware of that, nor did I understand that that was the point of the right hon. Gentleman's later Question. I will consider the matter. As far as my experience goes, the weekly Returns of revenue and expenditure seem to give rise to more misunderstanding than possibly any other Returns. It not infrequently happens, from the anxiety of the Government to give full information to the public, that they give information which the public are unable to digest. I am not at all certain that any good purpose is served by making these Returns at all.

    Local Government Accounts.
    MR. COHEN: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether the Departmental Committee to consider the practicability of a standard form of accounts being prescribed for local authorities has been appointed; whether it has taken any evidence on the subject; and whether it is intended to take the opinion of professional accountants in accordance with the recommendation of the Joint Select Committee on Municipal Trading.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. GEKALD BALFOUK, Leeds, Central): The Committee has not at present been appointed; but the matter is receiving my attention and the appointment will be made as early as practicable. The Committee will no doubt take evidence from professional accountants.
    MR. COHEN: Much the same Answer was given so far back as March 7th†

    Southwark Burial Scandal.
    MR. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention has been called to the fact that the local authority in Southwark allowed a child named Campbell to lie unburied and uncoffined for sixteen days after death, and that the father was refused facilities for the burial until he had worked two days breaking stones for the guardians, although the mother was starving; and whether the Local Government Board has taken, or intends to take, any action in the matter.
    MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I have seen a newspaper report of the case referred to, and I am making inquiries with regard to it.

    Outbreak of Glanders at Fulham.
    MR. CHANNING: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture whether he has considered the circumstances disclosed at the inquest held on May 20th on George Charles Nichols, a horsekeeper of the Andrew Star Omnibus Company, Fulham, who was found to have died of acute glanders, and, further, the recommendation of the jury that veterinary inspectors ought to have power to compulsorily apply the Mallein test to in-contact animals with a view to stamp out this disease; whether he is aware that in one London hospital only no less than seven similar fatal cases to man have been diagnosed; whether he is aware that out of sixteen recently purchased Australian horses in the same omnibus stud twelve have been found to have glanders; and whether, having regard to these circumstances, he will take the necessary steps to have the Mallein test compulsorily applied to all in-contact animals in case of outbreaks of glanders, and to provide a full veterinary inspection and the application of the Mallein test in the case of horses imported from Australia or any country in which glanders is prevalent or suspected.
    † See (4) Debates, cxlii., 575.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (Mr. AILWYN FELLOWES, Huntingdonshire, Ramsey): I have received from the London County Council full information as to the results of their inquiries into the regrettable circumstances to which the hon. Member refers. Although it is a fact that the horses reacting to the Mallein test in this case were of Australian, origin, it is not by any means clear that the horses were affected with glanders when imported, and it seems on the whole more likely that they contracted the disease since their purchase in London in January last. The desirability of amending the Glanders Order in the direction indicated is a subject which is receiving my careful consideration, but there are difficulties, both administrative and financial, in the way of the compulsory adoption of the Mallein test in connection with outbreaks of glanders which I have not so far seen my way to overcome. I am at the same time making inquiries with a view to deciding whether any action can usefully be taken in the direction of controlling the importation of horses into this country. I have not before me the information referred to by the hon. Member with regard to one of the London hospitals, but the London County Council have been good enough to inform me that during the last five years twelve cases of human deaths from glanders have been brought to their notice, in six of which a connection was traced to outbreaks of that disease in horses.
    MR. CHANNING: I shall put another Question on this subject.

    The Scottish Churches Dispute Bill.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department on what day before Whitsuntide the Bill dealing with the Scottish Churches will be introduced, in accordance with the undertaking given by the Prime Minister.
    MR. AKERS-DOUGLAS: I understand it is the intention of my right hon. friend to introduce this Bill next week—probably on Wednesday.

    Outrages on Children in Glasgow.
    MR. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the Lord-Advocate whether his attention has been called to the outrages perpetrated on children at Rutherglen, Glasgow, last week; whether be can communicate to the House the contents of the police reports on these outrages; whether any hope is entertained of the recovery of the victims; and whether any arrests have been made.
    THE LORD-ADVOCATE (Mr. SCOTT DICKSON, Glasgow, Bridgton): The Procurator-Fiscal has reported to me that on Thursday 25th instant, about noon, two boys aged respectively nine years and three years and eleven months had been stabbed near Rutherglen—the former was only slightly cut on the back and is now going about, the latter was mortally wounded and died the following night. The person who is believed to have committed the outrages was apprehended on the following day and has been charged with murder.

    Sale of the Caldbeck Estate, Queen's County.
    MR. DELANY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Estates Commissioners have received a protest from Mrs. Mary Anne Wall, Ballacolla, Queen's County, a tenant on the Caldbeck Estate, against being included amongst the tenants who signed agreements to purchase, and alleging her signature to an agreement to purchase, forwarded to the Estates Commissioners on behalf of the vendor, to be a forgery; and, if so, will he say what course he proposes taking in this matter.
    THE SOLICITOR-GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. JAMES CAMPBELL, Dublin University): No, Sir; but an agreement to purchase signed by James Wall has been lodged, and Mrs. Wall has sent in an objection, stating that she, and not James Wall, is the tenant. This objection will be inquired into before the sale is sanctioned.

    Irish Agricultural Department.
    MR. DELANY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of

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    Ireland whether, since it has been represented that the scale of remuneration proper to their grade is paid to the Catholic gentlemen of the Agricultural Department who have eleven years service, perform high class work, viz., the conducting of registries, the interviewing of callers, and the drafting and writing of correspondence, and have salaries of only £97 10s. a year, he will state what was the scale of salary originally fixed by the Treasury as proper for the grade of chief clerk in the Department; has such original amount since been exceeded; and, if so, by how much; and on what principle did the Department exceed the scale at first considered adequate for the position.
    MR. JAMES CAMPBELL: My right hon. and learned friend replied to a similar Question pat by the hon. Member on March 14th.† I have nothing to add to that reply.

    The Irish Police and the Gaelic League
    MR. VINCENT KENNEDY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will explain why the police are endeavouring to treat as criminal the operations of the Gaelic League, which has for its object the advancement and propagation of the Irish language; how many of the branches of the league have been visited by the police; and whether the discovery of anything of an incriminating character has resulted from such visits.
    THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALTER LONG, Bristol, S.): It is not the fact that the police are endeavouring to treat as criminal the operations of the Gaelic League, nor, so far as the Inspector-General is aware, have any branches of that organisation been visited by the police.
    MR. VINCENT KENNEDY: Has any special order been issued to the police about the league?
    MR. WALTER LONG: Not that I am aware of.
    † See (4) Debates, cxlii., 1389.

    Alleged Wrongful Arrest at Derrybrien.
    MR. DILLON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state on what grounds Timothy Fallon, of Derrybrien, county Galway, was arrested by the police and brought before a magistrate; whether T. Fallon was subsequently summoned for the same alleged offence; and whether the charge was dismissed unanimously by the magistrates.
    MR. WALTER LONG: An action for false imprisonment has been instituted against the constable who made this arrest, and I must decline to make any statement on the subject while the case is sub judice.

    Police Searches for Firearms in Ulster.
    MR. DILLON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland when the last search for arms was made in Belfast, Lurgan, Portadown, or Derry; and whether firearms are not frequently used during disturbances in these districts.
    MR. WALTER LONG: The last search for arms was made in Belfast in 1886, and in Londonderry in 1888. No searches have been made in Lurgan or Portadown. Shots have been fired by both Parties in the North of Ireland; fortunately, however, serious results have rarely followed, but the practice is none the less reprehensible. Detection is difficult in such cases, but the police use their best endeavours to bring offenders to justice.
    MR. DILLON: Can the right hon. Gentleman explain why searches are made in Roscommon, where arms are not used, but are not made in the North of Ireland, where arms are used?
    MR. WALTER LONG: I must ask for notice of that.

    Irish National Education—Mr. Dale's Report.
    MR. DILLON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can now say that he will lay upon the Table of the House the comments on Mr. Dale's Report sent

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    in to the Government by the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland and referred to by the Commissioners in their last annual Report.
    MR. WALTER LONG: The last published Annual Report of the Commissioners embodies substantially, and in considerable detail, their general observations on Mr. Dale's Report. The communications from the Commissioners which contain these observations are incomplete in themselves, since they make references to previous correspondence of a Departmental and confidential character that passed between the Irish Government and the Commissioners. For this reason I am unable to lay on the Table their observations as a separate Paper.

    Mr. Charles O'Connor's Floughena (Mayo) Estate.
    MR. DILLON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the estate of Mr. Charles O'Connor, of Floughena, in county Mayo, has been brought before the Estates Commissioners for sale to the tenants; and, if so, what steps have been taken by the Commissioners to meet the claim for reinstatement of the representatives of Thomas Durkan, who was evicted from a farm on this estate.
    MR. WALTER LONG: No, Sir; but if the estate should come before the Commissioners, they will consider an application for reinstatement which has been received from Mary Durkan.

    Case of Constable Anderson.
    MR. DILLON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will lay upon the Table the official Minutes and Correspondence connected with the case of Constable Anderson which Lords Cadogan and Spencer asked to be made public.
    MR. DILLON: I beg further to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will let the hon. Member for Mayo East have a full attested copy of the evidence given at the public Court of inquiry on which Constable Anderson was dismissed from the Irish Constabulary.
    MR. WALTER LONG: I desire to remind the hon. Member that my predecessor the right hon. Member for Dover, on the 13th July† and 3rd August† last, declined to lay these documents on the Table of the House. I fully accept my right hon. friend's decision In this matter, and am moreover, unable to act on the suggestion in the second Question that an attested copy of the evidence taken at the Court of inquiry should be supplied to the hon. Member.
    MR. DILLON: Then do I understand that the right hon. Gentleman will not allow us to see the evidence?
    MR. WALTER LONG: Yes, I think that is the result of my Answer to the Question.

    The Irish Executive and the Estates Commissioners.
    MR. DILLON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been directed to the pledge given by the hon. Member for Dover, on July 1st, 1903; and whether, in pursuance of that pledge, he will not publish the instructions and orders to the Estates Commissioners contained in the letters received by them from the Irish Executive, and which instructions and orders are referred to in the Report of the Commissioners as controlling their action equally with the Act of Parliament.
    MR. WALTER LONG: The statement made by my right hon. friend on the occasion referred to was that "he had not yet decided on the exact form of publication, but he agreed that the regulations should come before the House in some way." The regulations in question were those which are provided for by Section 23, Sub-section 8, of the Act. As I have already repeatedly stated, no such regulations have yet been made.
    MR. DILLON: Did the right hon. Gentleman, in making the promise to the House, refer to any proposal to issue secret regulations?
    † See (4) Debates, cxxxvii., 1485.
    ‡ See (4) Debates, cxxxix. 724.
    MR. WALTER LONG: So far as I am aware, no secret regulations have been made. There have been communications between the Estates Commissioners and the Government, but these are always treated as confidential. I have promised, and intend to keep the promise, to lay the regulations on the Table as soon as possible.
    MR. DILLON: Was it not the impression of the House, on July 1st, 1903, that all orders and regulations issued by the Irish Executive to the Estates Commissioners should be laid on the Table?
    MR. WALTER LONG: I cannot possibly say what the impression of the House was. My right hon. friend promised that the regulations, when issued, should be published. None have yet been issued, but they will shortly be issued, as they are now practically complete. I have done my best to hasten their publication, but they deal with questions of great difficulty and delicacy, and it is necessary that they should be very carefully drawn. I certainly have issued no secret regulations.
    MR. DILLON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland what are the reasons for keeping secret the instructions and orders contained in the letters received by the Estates Commissioners; and whether the Irish Government propose to continue the practice of issuing secret instructions and orders to the Estates Commissioners.
    MR. WALTER LONG: Sir, the reason is that these memoranda were of a, Departmental and confidential character. I may repeat what I have already more than once stated, that inasmuch as the Department of the Estates Commissioners is a branch of the Executive Government, communications of a Departmental character must necessarily pass from time to time between the Commissioners and the Government, which, like all other communications of an inter-Departmental character, are treated as confidential, in accordance with well-established practice, and, as such, will not be published. The issue of instructional orders or regulations of the nature contemplated by
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    statute is, however, on a different footing, and I have already undertaken to lay such regulations, when settled, on the Table of the House.
    MR. DILLON: That is not a sufficient Answer to my Question whether the Government propose to continue the practice of issuing secret regulations?
    MR. WALTER LONG: I have stated that I am not aware that the Government has issued secret orders. Communications are always passing between the Executive and different branches of the Government, but secret orders have not, to the best of my knowledge, been issued, and certainly not by me.
    MR. DILLON: The Attorney-General said that in the correspondence with the Commissioners there were contained instructions and orders; and they must be secret because you refuse to communicate them to the House.
    MR. WALTER LONG: The word "instructions" may be interpreted in different ways. As far as I know, nothing in the nature of regulations governing the general action of the Commissioners has been issued by the Government. When the Commissioners applied to the Government in regard to the administration of the Act, the Government, as in duty bound, gave advice; but it is the invariable practice to regard such communications as confidential.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELL: Then are we to understand that for eighteen months the Land Act has been worked on the basis of communications with the Executive Government?
    MR. WALTER LONG: The Member can understand what he likes. I cannot alter my Answer that no regulations have yet been issued. As soon as regulations are issued they will be laid on the Table; and I undertake that they shall not be altered or varied except by new regulations, which will also be laid on the Table.
    MR. JOHN REDMOND: But the Commissioners in their Report refer to regulations overruling them.

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    Are we not entitled to see those regulations?
    MR. WALTER LONG: I should say no, Sir. That is not the question we ale now speaking of—namely, the issue of regulations for the general instruction of the Commissioners. They will be issued, and as soon as they are ready they will be laid upon the Table of the House.
    MR. DILLON: I wish to submit a point of order. I wish to ask whether we are not entitled to obtain from the Government the instructions which are referred to in the Report of the Estates Commissioners submitted to the House of Commons. We have been informed by the Attorney-General for Ireland that these instructions were contained in written letters. We were assured in this House that we should have full information to enable us to criticise the Report of the Commissioners.
    THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. ATKINSON, Londonderry, N.)said that his observation referred only to the evicted tenants' question.
    MR. DILLON: That is a most important admission. We now know that written instructions were given in reference to the action of the Commissioners in regard to reinstating the evicted tenants. We have the Report of the Commissioners stating that their operations were controlled by the instructions they received. Are we not entitled to obtain from the Government those instructions referred to in the Report?
    MR. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I do not think that is a question of order. It is a matter for argument in debate, but there is no authority in the Chair to compel the production of these instructions.
    MR. JOHN REDMOND: Is it not the practice that a Minister cannot quote from a document without producing it? Are we not entitled to have this document produced?
    MR. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I do not think there has been any quotation from it in this House.
    MR. DILLON: Certainly; it is quoted in the Report of the Commissioners.
    MR. JOHN REDMOND: It is not a question of quotation by a Minister, I admit. It is a quotation of a document by the Estates Commissioners in their Report, and I submit that the same rule applies to this as to quotations by Ministers.
    MR. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I do not think the rule can be carried as far as that. The rule is a well-ascertained one. If a Minister in this House quotes for the purposes of argument one or more sentences from a document he is bound to produce the whole document.
    MR. JOHN REDMOND: In this case a Minister has presented to the House a Report in which reference is made to other documents. I say that the rule therefore applies.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: In the Report of the Estates Commissioners, who are responsible to and controlled by this House, there is a distinct reference to the instructions received by them from the Government. The Attorney-General says he gave the advice to the Government on which the Commissioners acted. I think we ought to have the whole case before us.
    MR. DILLON: The Commissioners say that their proceedings under Section 23 have been regulated by the provisional rules and the instructions received from time to time from his Excellency the Lord-Lieutenant. Yet Ministers tell us no instructions have been given. I think we are entitled, at any rate, to an explanation of this extraordinary contradiction between Ministers and the statement in the Report presented to the House by the Estates Commissioners.
    MR. DEPUTY-SPEAKER: I see no reason for altering my decision. There has been no quotation by a Minister from a particular document, and the rule only applies to that.
    MR. BLAKE: Surely the action of the Commissioners up to

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    the present must have been regulated by some instructions, and if we are entitled to have the regulations which are now in preparation to regulate the action of the Commissioners in the future, we are equally entitled to have those by which they have been regulated in the past.
    MR. WALTER LONG: And my answer is that there have been no regulations issued as contemplated by the Act up to the present, but there have been constant communications between the Executive and the Commissioners, and it would be an unheard of departure from practice to disclose such communications.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Then does the right hon. Gentleman wish the Estates Commissioners to correct their Report?
    [No Answer was returned.]

    Crookstown Labourers' Cottages.
    MR. SHEEHAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that, on the representation of Denis Healy, of Lower Belmount, Crooks-town, the Bandon Rural District Council caused a cottage with an acre of land attached to be built on the lands of Mrs. Henry Wall, Crookstown; and will he say if possession of this cottage has been given over to Healy; if not, what proceedings have been taken by the district council in connection with its occupation, and has any tenancy been declared.
    MR. WALTER LONG: Healy was one of four labourers who made representations for this cottage. At the local inquiry Mrs. Wall offered to give the site provided that another of the four, named Callaghan, who was a labourer in her employment, should get the cottage; and this offer was accepted by the district council.

    Protection of Irish Agricultural Interests in England.
    MR. JOYCE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state how many public bodies in Ireland have forwarded resolutions asking for the appointment
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    of an Irish Commissioner in England to look after Irish agricultural interests, in the same manner as Denmark and Sweden does, and what answer has been given to those requests.
    MR. WALTER LONG: Resolutions have been received from eight public bodies, and formal acknowledgments have been sent. The Department's transit inspectors visit the principal British markets, interview merchants engaged in the sale of Irish and foreign, produce, and make inquiries generally as to the marketing of the produce.

    Technical and Agricultural Grants to Kerry.
    MR. MURPHY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state the amount contributed by the Congested Districts Board for the purpose of technical or agricultural schemes in the county of Kerry in the year 1904–5; and if he can give the names of the schemes assisted by such grants, and the amount allowed to each scheme.
    MR. WALTER LONG: I have for warded to the hon. Member a statement giving in detail the information asked for.
    MR. MURPHY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state whether the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction made grants to any persons in the county of Kerry in the year 1904–5, other than to the County Council of Kerry; and, if so, what were the amounts of such grants and to whom were they given.
    MR. WALTER LONG: No grants for agricultural or technical instruction were made by the Department out of their endowment fund to persons in Kerry, other than the county committee, in the year 1904–5.

    Ulster Members and Crime in Ireland.
    MR. ROCHE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that Lord Ashtown, county Galway, issued a circular last February

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    calling upon his friends to form an association for the purpose of collecting information re boycotting and agrarian offences, to be supplied to the Ulster Tory Members, and asking for funds to promote same; that about two weeks ago Lord Ashtown purchased the estate of the late Mr. Galway, upon which eighteen tenants are living, upon an average valuation of £2 10s. each; that there is a considerable amount of untenanted land upon the estate, and that the tenants sought to buy; and whether, in view of the provisions of the Land Act of 1903, he will say what steps, if any, the Executive intend to take to extend the benefits of the Act to those tenants and prevent such occurrences in future.
    MR. WALTER LONG: I am not aware that the fact is as stated in the first part of the Question. I am informed that the Land Judge has expressed his intention of accepting Lord Ashtown's offer for the purchase of the estate referred to. The tenants opposed the acceptance of this offer, but, as the estate was unencumbered, and as no receiver over it had ever been appointed, the learned Judge held that the compulsory provisions of the Act of 1896 were not applicable. The number of tenants is, I understand, correctly stated; their holdings are small, and there is a considerable amount of untenanted land which it has been the practice to let for grazing. The learned Judge was satisfied that for at least two years past the letting of this grazing land has been boycotted by the tenants. No action on the part of the Executive is called for.

    The Vote of Censure.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I beg to ask the Home Secretary whether he can hold out any prospect that the House will soon see the Prime Minister again in his place and what arrangements the Government contemplate for the Motion standing in the name of my right hon. friend the Member for Berwick.
    MR. AKERS-DOUGLAS: I have seen the Prime Minister this morning, and I am in a position to offer the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Berwick Monday next for the vote of censure.
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    My right hon. friend the Secretary for the Treasury promised on Monday last that the earliest possible day should be given. Monday is that earliest day, and I shall be ready to place that day at the disposal of the right hon. Gentleman. With regard to the first Question which the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition asked me, I have every reason to hope that my right hon. friend the First Lord of the Treasury will be in his place to-morrow.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: At the time when the Secretary for the Treasury spoke of fixing the earliest possible day, I remember I suggested that the convenience of the House should be consulted; and I am bound to say that, while I think any day this week would have been suitable, I do not think any day next week is likely to be convenient for the great majority of Members of the House. Therefore I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to reconsider the matter and make other arrangements.
    MR. AKERS DOUGLAS: I have carefully considered the question with the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House, and I am afraid I can offer no other day than Monday next. I would point out to the right hon. Gentleman the objections to the postponement. The character of the Motion is exceptional. It is not an ordinary Motion; it is a direct vote of censure upon the Prime Minister, and ought to be dealt with as speedily as possible. [OPPOSITION cries of "To-morrow."] The right hon. Gentleman himself treated the matter as one of urgent public importance, because he moved the adjournment of the House on this question last week. Therefore, so far as I am concerned as representing the Prime Minister on this occasion, I am afraid I can hold out no hope of any day before the holidays except Monday next.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I greatly regret the tone in which the right hon. Gentleman has thought fit to deal with this matter, which ought to be a matter of amicable arrangement between the two sides of the House. The arrangements of hon. Members were made on the supposition that this Motion was to come on last Tuesday, and therefore

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    many hon. Members have made arrangements to go out of town next week. There are other circumstances which have occurred which increase the tendency in that direction; but if the right hon. Gentleman wishes to have an early day why does he not select tomorrow? We are ready to go on with it tomorrow if the right hon. Gentleman will give us that day, and not select a day next week which will be notoriously inconvenient.
    MR. AKEES-DOUGLAS: First of all let me apologise if in any way my manner gave the impression that I had answered the Question of the right hon. Gentleman in any discourteous spirit.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: There was no discourtesy. It was the words of the right hon. Gentleman.
    MR. AKERS-DOUGLAS: It certainly was not my intention to be discourteous. I said I had every reason to hope that my right hon. friend would be present to-morrow; but I cannot guarantee his presence to-morrow, and therefore I cannot fix that day in the absence of my right hon. friend, who is the Minister challenged and who must reply to this question. So far as the day for the Motion is concerned I am afraid I cannot depart from the offer I have made.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The right hon. Gentleman appears to forget that it is not our fault that it did not come off yesterday.
    MR. AKERS-DOUGLAS: I am perfectly certain there is no person in the House or in the country who more deeply regrets that it did not come off yesterday than the Prime Minister himself.
    SIR EDWARD GREY: I am not quite clear how the matter stands now with reference to the proposal of the Government as to a day for the Motion. Do I understand that the Home Secretary states that the Motion must be taken on Monday or not at all, and that the Government will not give any other day? Because the Leader of the Opposition has
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    pointed out that that is an inconvenient day. More than one unforeseen cause has occurred to disturb the course of public business since my Motion was put on the Paper. Do I understand from the Home Secretary that the position of the Government is that they offer us Monday, but meet us with a point blank refusal as to any later day?
    MR. AKERS-DOUGLAS: I have already pointed out that it is very desirable that the Motion should be dealt with before the vacation, because I do not think that a Motion challenging the bona fides of the Prime Minister ought to remain on the Paper for a long period. If the right hon. Gentleman would take the Motion off the Paper I daresay my right hon. friend would at a later period give the right hon. Gentleman another opportunity. At all events, Monday is the first day at our disposal; and whether the Motion should be postponed till after Whitsuntide is a question which the right hon. Gentleman should put to the Prime Minister.
    SIR EDWARD GREY: I gather from he Home Secretary that the main difficulty of appointing another day, assuming it is impossible to take the Motion his week, is the matter of form of keeping the Motion on the Paper. I should be willing to remove the Motion provided should be regarded as at liberty to replace it when the Government can offer day which will suit the general convenience of the House.
    MR. AKERS-DOUGLAS: I am as anxious for the general convenience as right hon. Gentlemen opposite; but all I an say now is that I can only offer Monday before the Whitsun holidays. If the right hon. Gentleman desires to take the course he has adumbrated perhaps he will put a further Question to-morrow or on the adjournment to-night.

    Report of Sir W. Butler's Commission.
    SIR JAMES WOODHOUSE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department a Question of which I have sent him private notice,. viz., whether it is a fact that the Report f Sir William Butler's Commission which he Secretary of State for War presented

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    to the Public Accounts Committee was presented as a confidential document, and whether there is any reason why the contents of the Report should not at once be made public to the House and the country.
    MR. AKERS-DOUGLAS: I see no reason at all why this Paper should not be laid, but as a matter of courtesy I should first like to consult the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: It was said by the Secretary for War the other day that presenting the Report to the Public Accounts Committee was tantamount to presenting it to the House. Why, then, is the House not in possession of it? The proper course in a matter of this sort is to present the Papers to the House first and then for the House to refer them to the Public Accounts Committee.
    MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: Perhaps I may be allowed to explain. The Committee on Public Accounts desired that the Report should be presented as soon as possible, and as soon as it was received it was presented to the Committee. But the printing of the evidence on which the Report is based has not yet been completed, and I thought it would be in accordance with all precedent that the Report and the evidence should be presented at the same time. The printing of the evidence is now so far advanced that we shall be practically able to present both the Report and the evidence either to-morrow or the day after.
    AN HON. MEMBER: After the Whit by election!
    SIR A. HAYTBRas Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, said that he personally could see no reason why the Report, a copy of which had been supplied to each member of the Public Accounts Committee, should not be presented to the House. The Committee had not been able to commence their inquiry into the alleged scandals because they had not yet had the evidence. So far as the Committee were concerned, they had no objection
    350
    to the Report and the evidence being placed before the House, and ho had asked the members of the Committee not to make public the Report until it had been presented to the House.
    SIR HENRY FOWLERasked the Secretary for War under what authority he had referred this document to the Public Accounts Committee, marking it "Confidential?"
    MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that in marking the document "Confidential" I had no intention whatever to withdraw it from the cognisance of the House. That is the ordinary inscription placed on documents emanating from the War Office. It is not a question of withholding the document from the House, but a question of the rapidity of printing.
    SIR HENRY FOWLER: Then there would be no objection to any member of the Committee handing a copy to the Press?
    MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: That is not a matter on which I should like to express any opinion. I can see no objection if any members of the Committee think it part of their duty. I think it is better that the Report and the evidence should be presented at the same time, and I do not see that the public advantage would be served by accelerating the presentation of the Report by a couple of days.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLES: Does the right hon. Gentleman suggest that it would be proper on the part of a member of the Committee to hand his copy to the Press? I should strongly object to such a proceeding.
    SIR A. HAYTER: I think it would be much better that this matter should be left until the evidence is printed.
    MR. GODDARDasked whether the word "Confidential" on a document did not mean that a member of the Committee was precluded from showing the document to other Members of the House?
    MR. BLAKEexpressed a strong hope that the invariable rule of the Public Accounts Committee that all documents that came before it should be regarded as confidential should not be departed from in this case. It would be a great misfortune if it were. He might add that six or eight weeks ago the Committee foresaw difficulty with regard to the evidence and asked the War Office to get it printed from day to day, so that there might be no delay in its correction.
    MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERentirely agreed with the hon. Gentleman. The circumstances were that the Chairman of the Committee asked him to forward him a copy of the Report and he did so, and he thought that necessarily involved sending a copy to the other members of the Committee. As to the propriety of his action, it seemed to him in accordance with the general view of the House that these documents should be regarded as confidential. The delay in presenting the evidence was due, not to printing, but to the correction of proofs.
    SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANalso agreed with his hon. friend as to the expediency of maintaining the doctrine that an ordinary document communicated to the Public Accounts Committee for its purposes should be regarded as confidential; but this was a Report presented to Parliament at the instance and in consequence of Questions put by Members of the House. Therefore, it was not a confidential document in any sense of the word. He adhered to his statement that in the case of a Report of this sort the proper course was to present it to the House and then let it be refered to the Committee.
    MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERsaid he must explain, in correction of a misapprehension of the right hon. Gentleman, that the Report was not in any way the result of any representation made in the House. It was the result of action taken by himself as soon as he was made aware that these difficulties had occurred. It was the result of a Report made by a Committee appointed by him on his own Motion after reference to the House. It was his desire that the House should be made acquainted with the tenor of the
    352
    Report. He had perhaps erred in acquiescing in the request of his right hon. friend the Member for Walsall to forward him an advanced copy of the Report; but he had no desire to keep the Report back. It would be presented as soon as the evidence was received.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLES: Was the Report laid in dummy?
    [No Answer was audible.]

  NEW BILLS.
    RIGHTS OF WAY (SCOTLAND) BILL.
    "To amend the Law relating to Rights of Way in Scotland," presented by Mr. Buchanan; supported by Mr. Bryce, Mr. Thomas Shaw, Mr. Crombie, and Captain Sinclair; to be read a second time upon Wednesday, June 28th, and to be printed. [Bill 234.]
    STREET TRAFFIC REGULATION BILL.
    "To provide for the Regulation of Traffic in Streets," presented by Mr. Shackleton; to be read a second time upon Wednesday next, and to be printed. [Bill 235.]
    UXDER SHERIFFS (IRELAND) BILL.
    "To regulate the appointment, duties, and remuneration of Under Sheriffs in Ireland," presented by Mr. John Gordon; supported by Mr. Lonsdale, Mr. T. L. Corbett, and Mr. Charles Craig; to be read a second time upon Wednesday, June 21st, and to be printed. [Bill 236.]

  COMMITTEE (ASCENSION DAY).
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. AKERS-DOUGLAS, Kent, St. Augustine's)formally moved the Motion standing on the Order Paper in his name.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Committees do not sit To-morrow, being Ascension Day, until Two of the clock."—(Mr. Secretary Akers-Douglas.)
  SIR JOHN LENGsaid it was well known that great inconvenience was caused not only to Members of this House but to those who were promoting Private Bills in Committee by delaying the meeting of Committees on Ascension Day from 11 or 11.30 a.m. till 2 p.m. Why should this Motion be made? The Prime Minister three or four years ago stated that the Government of that day did not insist upon its being passed, and the right hon. Gentleman gave sufficient reasons why the practice should be allowed to fall into desuetude. Every hour of Parliamentary time, especially in connection with the procedure of Private Bills, was precious. The cost to promoters of Private Bills was already large enough without adding another day's expenses to the charges. Hon. Members were sent there to do the business of the country; and he saw no reason why, year after year, this practice of delaying business for hours, for which there might have been some excuse in former times, should be continued. It was out of no disrespect to those hon. Members who wished to attend a religious service on Ascension Day that he moved "That the Committee sit to morrow at Twelve o'clock." There were
  opportunities for those hon. Gentlemen to discharge their religious duty earlier in the morning. Moreover, it should be remembered that a large number of Members of this House and those interested in Private Bills were not influenced by these religious sentiments. He begged to move, "That the Committees meet tomorrow at Twelve o'clock, noon."
  SIR BRAMPTON GURDONseconded the Amendment. He made a special appeal to the Prime Minister, or the right hon. Gentleman who represented him, to see whether an arrangement could not be made with the Chaplain, of the House to hold an early service for the benefit of those members, if there were any such, who wished to attend service on Ascension Day.
  Amendment proposed—
  "To leave out the word 'two,' and insert the word 'twelve' (Sir John Leng) instead there of."
  Question put, "That the word 'two' stand part of the Question."
  The House divided:—Ayes, 199; Noes, 135. (Division List No. 189.)

  AYES.

  Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.)

  Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

  Flower, Sir Ernest

  Acland-Hood, Capt. Sir Alex. F.

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

  Forster, Henry William

  Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

  Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbyshire

  Galloway, William Johnson

  Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel

  Cayzer, Sir Charles William

  Gardner, Ernest

  Allsopp, Hon. George

  Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

  Gilhooly, James

  Anson, Sir William Reynell

  Clive, Captain Percy A.

  Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick

  Arrol, Sir William

  Coghill, Douglas Harry

  Gordon, Maj Evans(T'rH'mlets

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Colomb, Rt. Hon. Sir John C. R

  Gore, Hon. S. F. Ormsby-

  Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt Hon. Sir H.

  Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole

  Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon

  Bain, Colonel James Robert

  Cripps, Charles Alfred

  Graham, Henry Robert

  Baird, John George Alexander

  Cross, Herb. Shepherd (Bolton)

  Green, Walford D. (Wednesbury

  Balcarres, Lord

  Cubitt, Hon. Henry

  Greene, W. Raymond (Cambs.)

  Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey)

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Grenfell, William Henry

  Balfour, Rt Hn. Gerald W. (Leeds

  Dalrymple, Sir Charles

  Gretton, John

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Davenport, William Bromley

  Gunter, Sir Robert

  Banner, John S. Harmood-

  Denny, Colonel

  Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F.

  Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

  Dillon, John

  Hamilton, Marq. of (L'nd'nderry

  Bartley, Sir George C. T.

  Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph

  Hammond, John

  Bill, Charles

  Doogan, P. C.

  Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashford

  Bingham, Lord

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Hare, Thomas Leigh

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

  Doxford, Sir William Theodore

  Haslam, Sir Alfred S.

  Boland, John

  Duke, Henry Edward

  Hayden, John Patrick

  Bond, Edward

  Esmonde, Sir Thomas

  Heaton, John Henniker

  Boscawen, Arthur Griffith-

  Fellowes, Rt. Hn Ailwyn Edward

  Holder, Augustus

  Bowles, T. Gibson (King's Lynn

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

  Hoare, Sir Samuel

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

  Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

  Hope, J. F. (Sheffield, Brightside

  Brotherton, Edward Allen

  Fisher, William Hayes

  Houldsworth, Sir Wm. Henry

  Brymer, William Ernest

  Fitzgerald, Sir Robert Penrose

  Hoult, Joseph

  Bull, William James

  Flannery, Sir Fortescue

  Howard, J. (Midd., Tottenham

  Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

  Flavin, Michael Joseph

  Hudson, George Bickersteth

  Hunt, Rowland

  Milvain, Thomas

  Ritchie, Rt Hon. Chas. Thomson

  Hutton, John (Yorks, N. R.)

  Mitchell, William (Burnley)

  Robertson, Herbert (Hackney

  Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse

  Montagn, G. (Huntingdon)

  Roche, John

  Jeffreys, Rt. Hon. ArthurFred.

  Moon, Edward Robet Paey

  Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert

  Joyce, Michael

  Morgan, David J (Walthamstow

  Round, Rt. Hon. James

  Kennedy, Vincent P. (Cavan, W)

  Morrison, James Archibald

  Rutherford, John (Lancashire)

  Kenyon, Hn. Geo. T. (Denbigh)

  Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer

  Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford

  Kenyon-Slaney, Rt. Hn. Col. W.

  Muntz, Sir Philip A.

  Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander

  Kilbride, Denis

  Murphy, John

  Samuel, Sir Harry S. (Limehouse

  Knowles, Sir Lees

  Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)

  Seton-Karr, Sir Henry

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)

  Myers, William Henry

  Sheeban, Daniel Daniel

  Law, Hugh. Alex. (Donegal, W.)

  Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

  Skewes-Cox, Thomas

  Lawson, Hn. H L. W. (Mile End)

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)

  Spear, John ward

  Lawson, John Grant (Yorks, N. R

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

  Stanley, Hon Arthur (Ormskirk

  Lee, Arthur H (Hants., Fareham

  O'Dowd, John

  Stanley, Edward Jas. (Somerset

  Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

  O'Malley, William

  Stewart, Sir Mark J. M 'Taggart

  Leveson-Gower, Frederick, N. S.

  O'Mara, James

  Stroyan, John

  Llewellyn, Evan Henry

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley

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

  Palmer, Sir Walter (Salisbury)

  Sullivan, Donal

  Loyd, Archie Kirkman

  Parker, Sir Gilbert

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft)

  Parkes, Ebenezer

  Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M.

  Lundon, W.

  Pease, Herbert Pike (Darlington

  Tuff, Charles

  Macdona, John Cumming

  Percy, Earl

  Valentia, Viscount

  MacIver, David (Liverpool)

  Pitkington, Colonel Richard

  Walrond, Rt Hn. Sir William H.

  MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

  Platt-Higgins, Frederick

  Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)

  Maconochie, A. W.

  Plummer, Sir Walter R.

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

  MacVeagh, Jeremiah

  Power, Patrick Joseph

  Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset)

  M'Hugh, Patrick A.

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

  M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinburgh W

  Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

  Wilson-Todd, Sir W. H. (Yorks.)

  M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire)

  Purvis, Robert

  Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart

  Majcndie, James A. H.

  Pym, C. Guy

  Wrightson, Sir Thomas

  Malcolm, Ian

  Rankin, Sir James

  Young, Samuel

  Manners, Lord Cecil

  Ratcliff, R. F.

  Marks, Harry Hananel

  Reddy, M.

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir

  Maxwell, Rt. Hn. Sir. H. E(Wigt'n

  Redmond, John E. (Waterford

  John Kennaway and Mr.

  Maxwell, W J. H. (Dumfriesshire

  Reid, James (Greenock)

  Mount.

  Middlemore, John Throgmorton

  Renwick, George

  Mildmay, Francis Bingham

  Ridley, S. Forde

  NOES.

  Abraham, William (Rhondda

  Davies, M. Vaughan (Cardigan

  Jacoby, James Alfred

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Delany, William

  Johnson, John

  Allen, Charles P.

  Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh.

  Jones, David Brynmor(Swansca

  Allhusen, Augustus Henry Eden

  Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles

  Jones, William (Carnarvonshire

  Ashton, Thomas Gair

  Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)

  Kitson, Sir James

  Atherley-Jones, L.

  Duncan, J. Hastings.

  Labouchere, Henry

  Barlow, John Emmott

  Dunn, Sir William

  Lambert, George

  Benn, John Williams

  Edwards, Frank

  Lamont, Norman

  Blake, Edward

  Elibank, Master of

  Langley, Batty

  Brand, Hon. Arthur G.

  Ellice, Capt EC. (S. Andrw'sBghs

  Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall)

  Brigg, John

  Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas

  Layland-Barratt, Francis

  Bright, Allan Heywood

  Emmott, Alfred

  Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington

  Brown, George M. (Edinburgh)

  Fenwick, Charles

  Leigh, Sir Joseph

  Bryce, Rt. Hon. James

  Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith)

  Lough, Thomas

  Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

  Findlay Alexander (Lanark, NE

  Lyell, Charles Henry

  Burke, E. Haviland

  Flynn, James Christopher

  M'Crae, George

  Burns, John

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  M'Kenna, Reginald

  Burt, Thomas

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

  Mansfield. Horace Rendall

  Caldwell, James

  Gordon, J. (Londonderry, S.)

  Meysey, Thompson, Sir H. M.

  Cameron, Robert

  Grey, Rt Hon. Sir E. (Berwick)

  Mooney, John J.

  Causton, Richard Knight

  Hain, Edward

  Nannetti, Joseph P.

  Cawley, Frederick

  Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil)

  Norton, Capt. Cecil William

  Channing, Francis Allston

  Hayter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur D.

  Nussey, Thomas Willans

  Cheetham, John Frederick

  Helme, Norval Waston

  O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Mid

  Clancy, John Joseph

  Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H.

  O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.)

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  Partington, Oswald

  Craig, Robert Hunter (Lanark)

  Higham, John Sharp

  Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden)

  Crombie, John William

  Hobhouse, C E. H. (Bristol, E.)

  Pemberton, John S. G.

  Crooks, William

  Holland, Sir William Henry

  Pirie, Duncan V.

  Cross, Alexander (Glasgow)

  Horniman, Frederick John

  Rea, Russell

  Dalziel, James Henry

  Hutchinson, Dr. Charles Fredk.

  Reid, Sir R. Threshie (Dumfries

  356

  357

  Renshaw, Sir Charles Bine

  Smith, Rt Hn J Parker (Lanarks

  Wallace, Robert

  Richards, Thomas (W. Monm'th)

  Smith, Samuel (Flint)

  Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

  Roberts, John Bryn (Eition)

  Soames, Arthur Wellesley

  Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan)

  Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)

  Spencer, Rt Hn. C. R. (Northants

  Whiteley, George (York, W. R.)

  Robertson, Edmund (Dundee)

  Stanhope, Hon. Philip James

  Williams, Osmond (Merioneth

  Robson, William Snowdon

  Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)

  Wills, Arthur Walters (N. Dorset

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  Taylor, Theodore C. (Radeliffe)

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.)

  Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye

  Tennant, Harold John

  Wilson, John (Falkirk)

  Royds, Clement Molyneux

  Thomas, J A (Glamorgan, Gower

  Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh. N.)

  Runciman, Walter

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

  Yoxall, James Henry

  Russell, T. W.

  Thorburn, Sir Walter

  Sohwann, Charles E.

  Tollemache, Henry James

  TELLER FOR THE NOES—Sir

  Shackleton, David James

  Tomkinson, James

  John Leng and Sir Brampton Gurdon.

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Toulmin, George

  Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  Sloan, Thomas Henry

  Villiers, Ernest Amherst

  Main Question put, and agreed to.

  Ordered, that Committees do not sit To-morrow, being Ascension Day, until Two of the Clock.

  AGRICULTURAL RATES ACT, 1896, ETC., CONTINUANCE BILL.
  Read a third time, and passed.

  GOVERNMENT SHIPS BILL.
  [SECOND READING.]
  Order read, for resuming adjourned debate, on Question [17th May] "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  Question again proposed.
  MR. RUNCIMANsaid he did not propose to add anything to the remarks he was making when the Bill was last under discussion, except once more to enter his protest against men engaged by the Admiralty or other Government Departments in civil employment being brought under the Naval Discipline Act.
  THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. PRETYMAN, Suffolk, Woodbridge)said that since this Bill was debated some days ago the objection then taken had been considered by the
  Admiralty, and they had come to the conclusion that there was no necessity to put the hired crews of the vessels concerned under the Naval Discipline Act at all, except in case of war, in which event special measures would be open to the Admiralty. Therefore, the Bill was really one to enable the Admiralty to make regulations to govern these ships and their hired crews in peace time. In view of the opinion expressed in the House, the Admiralty were prepared to withdraw all reference to the Naval Discipline Act. They now proposed only to take power to apply all or any of the provisions of the Merchant Shipping Act, and, in addition, to make regulations for one purpose only, to which the Merchant Shipping Act was not applicable, viz., to provide these ships with proper crews. In Committee Amendments would be introduced in the direction he had indicated, and any others that might be placed on the Paper could be then discussed. He hoped that with that understanding the House would give the Bill a Second Reading. As Amendments would be made in Committee there would of necessity be also a Report stage, and it would be much more convenient to discuss matters of detail in Committee than on the Second Reading.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes, 201; Noes, 164. (Division List, No. 190.)

  AYES.

  Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

  Arnold-Forster, Rt Hn. Hugh O.

  Baird, John George Alexander

  Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel

  Arrol, Sir William

  Balcarres, Lord

  Allhusen, Augustus Henry Eden

  Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

  Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey)

  Allsopp, Hon. George

  Bailey, James (Walworth)

  Balfour, Rt. Hn. Gerald W (Leeds

  Anson Sir William Reynell

  Bain, Colonel James Robert

  Banbury, Sir Frederick George

  Banner, John S. Harmood-

  Green, Walford D. (Wednesbury

  Muntz, Sir Philip A.

  Barry, Sir Francis T. (Windsor)

  Greene, W. Raymond-(Cambs.)

  Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)

  Bartley, Sir George C. T.

  Grenfell, William Henry

  Myers, William Henry

  Bignold, Sir Arthur

  Gretton, John

  Parker, Sir Gilbert

  Bill, Charles

  Gunter, Sir Robert

  Parkes, Ebenezer

  Bingham, Lord

  Hain, Edward

  Pease, Herb. Pike (Darlington)

  Blundell, Colonel Henry

  Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F.

  Pemberton, John S. G.

  Bond, Edward

  Hamilton, Marq. of (L'nd'nderry

  Percy, Earl

  Boscawen, Arthur Griffith

  Hardy, Laurence (Kent, Ashford

  Pierpoint, Robert

  Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

  Hare, Thomas Leigh

  Pilkington, Colonel Richard

  Brotherton, Edward Allen

  Haslam, Sir Alfred S.

  Platt-Higgins, Frederick

  Brymer, William Ernest

  Heaton, John Henniker

  Powell, Sir Francis Sharp

  Bull, William James

  Helder, Augustus

  Pretyman, Ernest George

  Butcher, John George

  Hoare, Sir Samuel

  Pryce-Jones. Lt.-Col. Edward

  Campbell, J H. M. (DublinUni.

  Hobhouse, Rt Hn H (Somers't, E

  Purvis, Robert

  Carson Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

  Houldsworth, Sir Wm. Henry

  Pym, C. Guy

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

  Hoult, Joseph

  Rankin, Sir James

  Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbyshire

  Howard, J. (Midd., Tottenham)

  Ratcliff, R. F.

  Cayzer, Sir Charles William

  Hozier, Hon James Henry Cecil

  Reid, James (Greenock)

  Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich)

  Hudson, George Bickersteth

  Renshaw, Sir Charles Bine

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. (Birm.

  Hunt, Rowland

  Renwick, George

  Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A. (Wore.

  Hutton, John (Yorks. N. R.)

  Ridley, S. Forde

  Clive, Captain Percy A.

  Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse

  Ritchie, Rt Hon. Chas. Thomson

  Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E.

  Jeffreys, Rt. Hon. Arthur Fred

  Rollit, Sir Albert Kaye

  Coghill, Douglas Harry

  Kennaway, Rt Hon. Sir John H.

  Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert

  Cohen, Benjamin Louis

  Kenyon, Hon. Geo. T (Denbigh)

  Rothschild. Hon. Lionel Walter

  Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse

  Kenyon-Slaney, Rt. Hon Col. W.

  Round, Rt. Hon. James

  Colomb, Rt. Hon. Sir John C. R.

  Kerr, John

  Royds, Clement Molyneux

  Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole

  Kimber, Sir Henry

  Rutherford, John (Lancashire)

  Corbett, A Cameron (Glasgow)

  Knowles, Sir Lees

  Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford

  Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

  Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)

  Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander

  Cripps, Charles Alfred

  Lawrence, Sir Joseph (Monm'th

  Samuel, Sir Harry S (Limehouse

  Cross, Alexander (Glasgow)

  Lawson, Hn. H. L. W (Mile End)

  Saunderson, Rt. Hn. Col. Edw. J.

  Cross, Herb. Shepherd (Bolton)

  Lawson, John Grant (yorks. N. R

  Seton-Karr, Sir Henry

  Cubitt, Hon. Henry

  Lee, Arthur H (Hants., Farcham

  Skewes-Cox, Thomas

  Dalkeith, Earl of

  Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

  Sloan, Thomas Henry

  Dalrymple, Sir Charles

  Leveson-Gower, Frederick N. S.

  Spear, John Ward

  Davenport, William Bromley

  Llewellyn, Evan Henry

  Stanley, Hon. Arthur (Ormskirk.

  Denny, Colonel

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

  Stanley, Edward Jas (Somerset)

  Dickson, Robert Edmond

  Loyd, Archie Kirkman

  Stewart, Sir Mark J. M Taggart

  Dickson, Charles Scott

  Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft

  Stroyan, John

  Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph

  Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred

  Strutt, Hon. Chas. Hadley

  Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

  Macdona, John Cumming

  Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)

  Doxford, Sir William Theodore

  MacIver, David (Liverpool)

  Thorburn, Sir Walter

  Duke, Henry Edward

  Maconochie, A. W.

  Thornton, Percy M.

  Elliot, Hon. A. Ralph Douglas

  M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinburgh W

  Tollemache, Henry James

  Fellowes, Rt Hn Ailwyn Edward

  M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire

  Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M.

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

  Majendie, James A. H.

  Tritton, Charles Ernest

  Fielden Edward Brocklehurst

  Malcolm, Ian

  Tuff, Charles

  Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

  Manners, Lord Cecil

  Tuke, Sir John Batty

  Fisher, William Hayes

  Maxwell, Rt Hn Sir H. E (Wigt'n

  Walrond, Rt. Hn Sir William H.

  FitzGerald, Sir Robert Penrose

  Maxwell, W. J H (Dumfriesshire

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

  Flannery, Sir Fortescue

  Melville, Beresford Valentine

  Whiteley, H. (Ashton und. Lyne

  Flower, Sir Ernest.

  Meysey-Thompson, Sir H. M.

  Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset)

  Forster, Henry William

  Mildmay, Francis Bingham

  Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

  Galloway, William Johnson

  Milvain, Thomas

  Wilson-Todd, Sir W. H. (Yorks.)

  Gardner Ernest

  Mitchell, William (Burnley)

  Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart

  Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick

  Montagu, G. (Huntingdon)

  Wrightson, Sir Thomas

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

  Moon, Edward Robert Pacy

  Gordon, J. (Londonderry, S.)

  Morgan, David J. (Walthamstow

  TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir

  Gordon, Maj Evans (T'rH'mlets

  Morpeth, Viscount

  Alexander Acland-Hood and

  Gore, Hon. S. F. Ormsby-

  Morrison, James Archibald

  Viscount Valentia.

  Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon

  Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer

  Graham, Henry Robert

  Mount, William Arthur

  NOES.

  Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.)

  Atherley-Jones, L.

  Boland, John

  Abraham, William (Rhondda)

  Barlow, John Emmott

  Bowles, T. Gibson (King's Lynn

  Ainsworth, John Stirling

  Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

  Brand, Hon. Arthur G.

  Allen, Charles P.

  Benn, John Williams

  Brigg, John

  Ashton, Thomas Gair

  Blake, Edward

  Bright, Allan Heywood

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  361

  Brown, George M. (Edinburgh)

  Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

  Rea, Russell

  Bryce, Rt. Hon. James

  Hobbouse, C. E H. (Bristol, E.)

  Reddy, M.

  Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn

  Holland, Sir William Henry

  Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

  Burke, E. Haviland-

  Horniman, Frederick John

  Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

  Burns, John

  Hutchinson, Dr. Charles Fredk.

  Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)

  Burt, Thomas

  Jacoby, James Alfred

  Robertson, Edmund (Dundee)

  Caldwell, James

  Johnson, John

  Robson, William Snowdon

  Cameron, Robert

  Jones, David Brynmor (Swansea

  Roche, John

  Campbell John (Armagh S.)

  Jones, Leif (Appleby)

  Roe, Sir Thomas

  Campbell, Bannerman, Sir H.

  Jones, William (Carnarvonshire

  Russell, T.W.

  Causton, Richard Knight

  Joyce, Michael

  Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)

  Channing, Francis Allston

  Kearley, Hudson E.

  Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel)

  Cheetham, John Frederick

  Kitson, Sir James

  Schwann, Charles E.

  Churchill, Winston Spencer

  Labouchere, Henry

  Shackleton, David James

  Clancy, John Joseph

  Lambert, George

  Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford)

  Craig, Robert Hunter (Lanark)

  Lamont, Norman

  Sheehan,Daniel Daniel

  Cremer, William Randal

  Law, Hugh Alex. (Donegal, W.)

  Shipman, Dr. John G.

  Crombie, John William

  Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall)

  Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

  Crooks, William

  Layland-Barratt, Francis

  Smith, Samuel (Flint)

  Dalziel, James Henry

  Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington

  Soames, Arthur Wellesley

  Davies, M. Vaughan (Cardigan

  Leigh, Sir Joseph

  Soares, Ernest J.

  Delany, William

  Leng, Sir John

  Spencer, Rt. Hn. C R. (Northants

  Dewar, John A. (Inverness-sh.

  Levy, Maurice

  Stanhope, Hon. Philip James

  Dillon, John

  Lough, Thomas

  Stevenson, Francis S.

  Doogan, P. C.

  Lundon, W.

  Sullivan, Donal

  Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark)

  Lyell, Charles Henry

  Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

  Duncan, J. Hastings

  Mac Neill, John Gordon Swift

  Tennant, Harold John

  Dunn, Sir William

  Mac Veagh, Jeremiah

  Thomas, J A (Glamorgan, Gower

  Edwards, Frank

  M'Crae, George

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

  Elibank, Master of

  M'Hugh, Patrick A.

  Tomkinson, James

  Ellice, Capt. E C (S Andrw'sB'ghs

  Mansfield, Horace Rendall

  Toulmin, George

  Emmott, Alfred

  Mooney, John J.

  Trevelyan, Charles Philips

  Esmonde, Sir Thomas

  Murphy, John

  Villiers, Ernest Amherst

  Fenwick, Charles

  Nannetti, Joseph P.

  Wallace, Robert

  Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith)

  Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

  Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

  Findlay, Alexander (Lanark, N E

  Norman, Henry

  Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan)

  Flavin Michael Joseph

  Norton, Capt. Cecil William

  Whiteley, George (York, W. R.)

  Flynn, James Christopher

  Nussey, Thomas Willans

  Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

  Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry

  O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Mid

  Williams, Osmond (Merioneth)

  Gilhooly, James

  O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny

  Wills, Arthur Walters (N Dorset

  Gladstone, Rt Hn. Herbert John

  O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.

  Wilson, Chas. Henry (Hull, W.)

  Goddard, Daniel Ford

  O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

  Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.)

  Grey, Rt. Hn. Sir E (Berwick)

  O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.)

  Wilson, John (Falkirk)

  Gurdon, Sir W. Brampton

  O'Dowd, John

  Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh. N.)

  Hummond, John

  O'Malley, William

  Young, Samuel

  Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil

  O'Mara, James

  Yoxall, James Henry

  Harwood, George

  O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

  Hayden, John Patrick

  Parrott, William

  TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr.

  Hayter, Rt. Hon. Sir Arthur D.

  Partington, Oswald

  M'Kenna and Mr. Runcimnan.

  Helme, Norval Watson

  Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden)

  Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H.

  Pirie, Duncan V.

  Bill read a second time, and committed for Monday next.

  NAVAL LANDS (VOLUNTEERS) BILL.
  [SECOND READING.]
  Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question [May 15th], "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  Question again proposed.
  MR. CALDWELLaid this was only a one-clause Bill but was most rar-reaching in its effect. In
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  order to understand the nature of the Bill they had to go back to the year 1892, when the Military Lands Act was passed. According to that Act the Secretary of State might purchase land for military purposes, build sheds, and the like. Under that Act land might be purchased for military or naval purposes by the Secretary of State for War or the First Lord of the Admiralty, but these were Imperial purposes and had no relation whatever to private individuals, the locality, or the Volunteer corps. Here they were dealing with land and not accoutrements or anything of a movable nature, but with the acquisition of

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  land. Upon what principle should a Volunteer corps acquire land for naval purposes as provided for under this Act? He was aware that they had to get the consent of the Secretary of State, who could send down inspectors to investigate as to the suitability of the land and see that proper provision was made for the safety of the public. Was it not a very extraordinary thing to empower a Naval Volunteer corps to purchase land for naval purposes and that they should be responsible for the borrowing of the money giving the land and also the grant which was given to the Naval Volunteers as security? They were making grants to Volunteers, both military and naval, and what was the use of giving the grant if it was to be held as security for certain lands used for military and naval purposes.
  In the case of the military there might have been something to be said for this at the time when the Volunteer corps was essentially a Volunteer corps, and when it did not pretend to be part and parcel of the military organisation as it had become lately. We had now an altogether altered state of matters both in regard to the military and Naval Volunteers. The Naval Volunteers were not now allocated to this country alone; they might be sent, outside the country. That was a distinction which existed in the case of the Naval Volunteers which did not exist in the ease of the military. The land which the Naval Volunteers were likely to take was land somewhere near the sea and as far away from dwellings as possible. Therefore it would probably be land that was practically of no other use. Take the case of a naval battery, which, he supposed, was one of the purposes for which land would be wanted. The land would first be purchased, and then a large amount of money would be expended in order to make it fit for the purposes of a battery. Power was being taken to borrow money for that purpose. Of what use was the land and the battery when the place had ceased to be used as a battery? But it was proposed to make the grants of the Volunteer corps liable as security for the money borrowed on that land.
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  When the Military Lands Act was passed in 1892 the Volunteer force was not as it was now a part of the regular Army organisation. At that time the powers given were intended very much for providing rifle ranges, and, generally speaking, rifle ranges were easily accessible from a city or populous place. That land, if not used as a rifle range, would have a value corresponding very much to the value given for it as a, rifle range. In connection with the Military Lands Act it was stated at the time that drill halls were wanted for the Volunteers. In the case of drill halls and the land on which they were built, there was perhaps something to be said for the locality making a little contribution. This Bill said not merely that a Volunteer corps might hold land, but that the council of a county or borough might hold land on behalf of one or more Volunteer corps. He maintained that the loyal people of a borough or a county district should not have the local funds saddled with the cost of providing what it was essentially the duty of the Imperial Government to provide. It was absolutely necessary that we should have these lands for military and naval purposes. On what reason or principle should a locality be in any way made responsible for the providing of land for purposes of that kind? Supposing a town council or county council borrowed money to provide a rifle range for a Volunteer corps there was likely to be something of value left when the land ceased to be used as a rifle range. In the case of a drill hall, obviously the buildings might be utilised in some way by the town council, and probably very little loss might be sustained. The land would probably rather increase in value, because the tendency was for land in towns to increase in value.
  Another point was that the money was to be borrowed from the Public Works Loans Commissioners, repayable within fifty years, at 3½ per cent. interest, or such rate as might be fixed by the Treasury. Why should a responsibility extending over fifty years be placed either on a Volunteer corps, a county council, or a town council in order to provide land for naval and military purposes? What would be the effect

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  supposing a Volunteer corps was disbanded? Where the land was held by the corps of course there was no difficulty because the Secretary of State for War, as representing the Government, was responsible for the loss in connection with that property. The land would become vested in the Secretary of State, subject to the repayment of any money borrowed and not repaid. The sum required, in so far as not provided by sale, was to be provided out of moneys voted by Parliament. But if land was held by a county council or a borough council, and the corps was disbanded, the council might appropriate the land to any purpose which could be approved of by the Local Government Board, or might sell it for the best price possible, and then any money received from the sale was to be applied towards the repayment of the money borrowed, and so far as not required to be applied for that purpose should be applied to any purpose to which the capital moneys were properly applicable and which were approved by the Local Government Board. Supposing there was a deficiency in the case of the county council or the borough council, then that was to be a burden on the county or the borough rates.
  It might be asked why there should be all this roundabout transaction when a Volunteer corps had become responsible for the land. The Volunteer corps had to borrow the money and to give the Government grants in security of repayment. Power was given by the Act of 1897 to borrow in respect of buildings, as the Act of 1892 only applied to land. Buildings were not included under the Act of 1897, but the powers were afterwards extended to the purchase, construction, or alteration of permanent works for the purposes of Volunteer corps. In the case of a battery, for instance, that would include everything necessary to make up a military work. Another power was given in 1900 to county councils and borough councils to lease land to any Volunteer corps for military purposes for a period of ninety-nine years. That was a very precarious sort of undertaking; and it was obviously a very roundabout
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  way of getting money out of the Public Works Loan Commission. They lent the money, but if the money was not repaid, it was wiped out every year in the Public Works Loans Act. That was how they never knew exactly the amount of expenses which had been incurred. Then if the Volunteer corps was disbanded the lease was to vest in the Secretary of State subject to repayment. That was to say, the Secretary of State would be responsible, not only for the unexpired portion of the lease, but for the money borrowed as well. By the Act of 1903 a county council or borough council might, at the request of a Volunteer corps, hire land for military purposes for a period of twenty-one years. The object was that as limited owners were not in a condition to sell the land, it was advisable to confer power on them to lease land for not less than twenty-one years. But all these powers given to county councils and borough councils of hiring land, etc., were not for any local benefit whatever, but solely for the benefit of naval and military purposes for which the responsibility rested on the State. Naval Volunteers were organised for the purpose of defending the country as a whole, and not for the purpose of defending that part of the country where their buttery happened to be situated.
  His contention was that all expenditure for naval and military works—batteries, rifle ranges, etc.—should be a national, not a local charge. That was more especially the case in regard to Naval Volunteers, who by recent Acts could be taken out of the country on emergency and were an essential part of the Imperial service. Hence the locality should not be burdened with the expense of providing them with batteries or other means of training. Every service in this country should be kept within its own sphere; local rates for local purposes, and Imperial taxation for Imperial purposes. Much was heard as to the extent to which local rates were rising; but why should the local rates be burdened with expenses for purposes which had nothing to do with the locality? He did not wish to move the rejection of the Bill, because he knew that there might be cases in which the

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  Admiralty might be able to get land for the desired purpose themselves. He did not object to the Admiralty having all the powers to borrow money to provide everything necessary for the training of the Naval Volunteers; but he objected to the county councils and the borough councils being in any way involved in a matter of this kind. He protested against the Naval Volunteers having to give security for money borrowed to buy or lease land for batteries out of the grants which Parliament voted to them for efficiency as a Volunteer corps; and he strongly objected to county councils and town councils being made responsible in a matter which concerned the country as a whole.
  MR. LOUGHsaid there must be some misunderstanding in regard to proceeding with this Bill. The announcement was made the previous evening that the Agricultural Rating Act Continuance Bill was to be first taken. The Government Ships Bill was allowed to be taken without any discussion. He would not go the length of saying that there was a definite pledge that no other business would be taken; but there was a general understanding that no other business would be taken, and there was general surprise that discussion had arisen on the Naval Lands (Volunteers) Bill, and hon. Members were indebted to the hon. Member for Mid.-Lanark for his able and lucid statement in regard to that measure. He asked the right hon. Gentleman if he would allow this debate to be adjourned? There was a general understanding that this Bill, which presented opportunities for a good deal of discussion, would not be taken that afternoon. The Memorandum ought to be enough to warn the House not to proceed hastily with the Bill. It was not a good argument to say that because the military authorities had power to acquire land similar power should be given to the naval authorities. It was an entirely different matter. Hon. Gentlemen opposite objected to power being given to local authorities to borrow money; but Bills of this character almost invariably proceeded from those hon. Gentlemen themselves. He thought more time should
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  be given for the consideration of the measure.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. AKERS-DOUGLAS, Kent, St. Augustine's)said he could not admit there was any breach of faith in taking the Bill. He stated in reply to a Question that the Agricultural Rating Bill would be taken as the first order, and the Government Ships Bill as the second order; hut that did not mean that no other business would be taken. As regarded the statement of the hon. Gentleman that more time should be given for the Second Reading, he would point out that the Second Reading was part heard, so to speak, three weeks ago. Therefore, there was nothing to be founded on that argument. He would be quite prepared, if this stage of the Bill were taken, not to proceed further to-day. He hoped the hon. Gentleman would accept his assurance that he did not give a pledge that no further Bills would he considered.
  MR. O'MARAsaid that after the masterly statement of the Member for Mid.-Lanark the House should not pass the Bill without adequate discussion. He objected to the Bill on two grounds. Firstly, it was legislation by reference, which rendered it difficult for hon. Members to understand, what was proposed. It would have been much simpler to have introduced a Bill on the lines of the Military Lands Act. It was generally believed in the country that the Admiralty was better managed than the War Office; and it would have been better if the Admiralty had worked on their own lines rather than have followed the War Office. He also objected on another ground. The Bill would remove control of expenditure from Parliament. If the money were needed for the purpose of purchasing land for Naval Volunteers then Parliament should be given the option of saying whether it agreed or not. The Estimate ought to be put down in the usual way. This roundabout way of spending money was against all the principles of sound finance.
  SIR ALBERT ROLLITsaid that having regard to the description

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  of the speech of the hon. Member for Mid Lanark as masterly, it would be a pity to waste the afternoon. He wished to express his surprise that of all men the hon. Member for West Islington should suggest what was practically a Derby Day adjournment. He thought that the better sense of the House would prevail; and that business would be proceeded with. He did not for a moment suggest that the Bill was not open to very considerable objection. In how many cases had the Military Works Act been put into operation? He objected to the proposal that the Government should be paid out of the rates for providing land for naval purposes. At the same time he was most strongly in favour of giving every facility to the Volunteers, naval or military; and if there was any such prospect he would be the last to interpose any obstacle. The Volunteers were, however, like the Militia, in a state of chronic doubt as to their ultimate fate. That was the difficulty. This Bill was not a Bill to enable the State to do its duty to the Volunteers; if the Volunteers did their duty to the State the State ought to do its duty to the Volunteers; this was a Bill to allow the corporations and the Volunteers themselves to do what the State ought to do for them. After the Volunteers had under the Act spent their money and the corporations the money of the ratepayers, the result might be that the lands and buildings might be left on their hands. The work of the defence of this country was primarily the duty of the State, and under no Bill or Act of Parliament should the Volunteers be under the obligation to erect batteries for the defence of the nation. The thing was absurd on the face of it. The question of a drill hall for Naval Volunteers was a different question, but with regard to all those things which were essential to the proper training of the State forces they should be furnished by the State.
  How many corporations had applied the Military Lands Act? Had it been generally applied by the municipalities it would have been a strong argument in favour of this Bill, but that was not the case. Some corporations,
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  he was aware, had given land for the purpose in their own locality, and perhaps that meant that if the corps ceased to exist the possession of the land; would be resumed, and if such gifts were made all the better for the Volunteer forces and of course the State, the performance of its duties thereby being delegated to another body which had nothing to do with the general defence of the country. Exception was taken by some corporations to the terms upon which they were permitted to borrow from the rates for such a purpose as this. The Military Lands Act gave fifty years in which to repay a loan which was based on the security of land. Land was a permanent asset. However bad a man might be he could not run away with an acre of land, and in his opinion the time for repayment in such a case should be eighty or a hundred years. In the Committee stage of this Bill he should move to increase the term of repayment. Again, why should the ratepayers be called upon to make good the ultimate deficiency, if any? They had already performed their, obligations and if there was ultimately a deficiency it should be borne by the community. He saw no reason under the Military Lands Act for putting that obligation on the ratepayers. If they thought it right and wise to help the Volunteers, he saw no reason why they should be prevented from doing so, but they should not be allowed to assume an ulitmate liability of this kind for posterity to discharge.
  He agreed with the hon. Member for Mid-Lanark that it was mean and shabby to take as part of the security the capitation grant. The capitation grant was given in order to enable the Volunteers to perfect themselves in their military and naval duties. It was granted for the sustentation of the corps, and to say under this Act of Parliament, "You may build drill halls and so forth but we shall take the capitation grant as security," was not only unwise but unworthy on the part of any Government which put such proposals before the House. Whatever might be said about the Volunteers they had saved the country large sums of money in the past, and he believed with a very short training they would be a most effective force for

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  home defence in any emergency in the future. At the present moment we were discouraging them and wiping out such corps as the Militia and Volunteer submarine miners and the like, and making changes the value of which was extremely problematical, and would probably soon be changed again, yet at the same time we were passing Acts to enable other people to do what was really the duty of the State. While he should support the Second Reading of the Bill, in Committee he should endeavour to make such alterations as he deemed desirable to adapt it and the Military Lands Act, to practical and just application in the interest of the State.
  MR. BUCHANANsaid he regarded the debate as somewhat hollow. The general object which the Bill had in view had his sympathy, but he joined the hon. Gentleman opposite in the comments he had made on the way in which the Bill was to be carried out. There was a well-known case in his own county where the people were desirous of getting a range. They took advantage of the Military Lands Act, with the result that they were involved in litigation which terminated in a cost of £700 to themselves and they did not get the range. He was sorry to say anything in opposition to the Home secretary, but he did not think it tended to the dignity or the usefulness of this House that an arrangement should be made that the House should adjourn when this debate had come to a conclusion, and the orders of the day had been gone through. There were twenty-one Government orders on the Paper, and he thought, having disposed of the first two orders, the House should proceed to consider the other orders it had before it. If such an arrangement was allowed to be carried through, it would not lay in the mouth of the Government hereafter to find fault with and to put pressure on the House to make arrangements for the acceleration of business.
  MR. DALZIEL, as a thorough believer in the making of mutual arrangements, differed from the remarks of the last speaker. Progress had been made, not because hon. Members desired to shirk their duty, but
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  because they had postponed their criticism to enable the Government to get particular stages of certain Bills. It was to the best interests of the House that whenever possible mutual arrangements should be made and carried out. If the sitting were continued the House would have to discuss measures which no one had the least notion would be reached that day. The Bill under consideration was clearly not generally acceptable to the House. His main objection was that it involved legislation by reference, which was sufficient justification for opposing any Bill. But as there would be an opportunity for dealing with the matter in Committee, he was prepared to postpone his remarks.
  THE CIVIL LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. ARTHUR LEE, Hampshire, Fareham)said that criticisms had been made, on the one hand, by those who objected to the principle of the Bill, and on the other, by those who, although regarding the privilege as having been rightly extended to military Volunteers, objected to its extension to Naval Volunteers. Personally he could not understand why any preferential treatment should be accorded in this matter as against the Navy. The argument seemed to be that military Volunteers would be employed in this, country, whereas Naval Volunteers would not. Obviously if Naval Volunteers were to be of any use whatever they must be employed upon the sea: if engaged in naval operations they must follow the enemy wherever he might go. That objection, therefore, was not a very valid one. The hon. Member for Lanarkshire had tried to draw a distinction between the value of drill halls and other property acquired by Naval Volunteers and the value of similar property belonging to military corps. He could not follow the hon. Member's argument on that point, as the requirements in the two cases were precisely similar. In reply to other objections he could assure the House that there was no proposal or intention to apply this money to batteries either for defence or for drill purposes. Batteries for drill purposes, if required by Naval Volunteers, were provided by the Government out of naval funds. What was required was that drill halls for shore exercises should

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  be provided for Naval Volunteers in the same way as for military Volunteers.
  MR. CALDWELLpointed out that the Act of Parliament which it was proposed to incorporate gave power for permanent works, without any limitation whatever.
  MR. ARTHUR LEEsaid there was no desire or intention on the part of the naval authorities to erect batteries or to apply these funds to any purpose but the provision of drill halls and sheds of similar nature to those already supplied for military Volunteers; consequently the argument that the sites would be less valuable in the event of the disbandment of a corps fell to the ground. There was no reason to suppose that a site would not have the value it originally possessed or that any charge of a serious nature would fall on either naval funds or local authorities.
  MR. LOUGHasked how often the Act had been put into operation.
  MR. ARTHUR LEEsaid the Military Lands Act was being continually applied.
  SIR ALBERT ROLLITsaid that his point was more particularly as to its application by borough councils. He knew of few, if any, instances.
  MR. LOUGH: Can we have figures?
  MR. ARTHUR LEEsaid that statistics could probably be supplied, but he could assure the hon. Member that the Act had been very often applied. In most Cases the money was borrowed, not by the local authorities, but by the Volunteers themselves under the provisions of this Act.
  SIR ALBERT ROLLITsaid he did not doubt its application by Volunteers; his reference was to its application by borough councils.
  MR. ARTHUR LEEsaid that it depended upon the willingness or otherwise of local authorities to assume the burden. If they were willing in the interests of the country at large to assume that responsibility there was
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  no justification for preventing them. The local authorities of the city of Glasgow were particularly anxious to assume the burden on behalf of the Volunteer corps there, but were unable to do so under present conditions. Objection had been raised to legislation by reference. The original Bill consisted of twenty-nine clauses, and it was in accordance with the well-established practice of the House, where there was no desire to change the principle but simply to extend its application, that the whole of the provisions of the original Act should not be brought up to be rediscussed.
  Objection had been taken to local authorities being permitted to assume a share of the burden. He did not by any means anticipate that a charge would fall on the local authorities in all cases, but, in any event, any loan would be well secured. It was secured, first of all, on the land, and then on the Government grant. The hon. Member for South Islington described that as a mean proposal, because the grant was given to the Volunteers to increase their efficiency. But surely one of the first essentials for these corps, if they were to be efficient, was that they should have proper facilities for drill, and he could not see why this should not be a proper charge to place on the grant, as the primary purpose of the hall would be to increase the efficiency of the corps. As to its being the duty of the Government to provide drill halls, the Government assumed a certain financial responsibility with regard to Volunteer corps, which responsibility they discharged by money grants. It would be inadvisable to attempt to force the Government to pay both in meal and in malt. The contribution in the form of a grant was the most convenient, and, so far as he knew, no serious objection had ever been taken to it. He failed to see how hon. Members could differentiate between naval and military corps in this matter. If it was right that the principle should be extended to military Volunteers it was equally right that the same advantages should be given to Naval Volunteers, who were not contemplated at the time of the original Act, otherwise they would undoubtedly have been similarly treated. The principle of the present Bill was extremely simple, being merely to remove

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  the existing preferential treatment against Naval Volunteers. The period of borrowing was open for discussion, he agreed, but he thought it could be more properly dealt with in Committee. He did not think the local authority would be the people upon whom the burden would fall. The only object of this Bill was to place the Naval Volunteers on the same footing as the other Volunteers, and therefore he hoped the House would allow the Bill to be read a second time.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid the hon. Member for Fareham stated that the Act of 1893 did not provide these powers of borrowing because at that time the formation of these Naval corps was not then contemplated. He thought the hon. Member was wrong, because there had been Naval Volunteers before, but they were found to be ineffectual and useless for naval purposes and that was the real reason why the Act of 1893 did not provide for the Naval Volunteers. Recruiting had almost stopped for the Royal Naval Reserves, although this was a force which would be of real service and could be sent into the Fleet at a day's notice. The Government had stopped recruiting for the Royal Naval Reserves, whilst on the other hand they were encouraging the formation of the Naval Volunteer force. A land Volunteer force was an excellent institution and soldiers could be very quickly made, but that was not the case with the sailor. They must have sailors ready made before they were any use in the Fleet, and when they took young men like city clerks and others and dressed them in uniform they were only deluding themselves. Some of the Naval Volunteers had got their uniforms and that was about all they had got. He objected to the Naval Volunteers being encouraged by a Bill of this kind to enter upon a course of borrowing which would be as ruinous to the corps as it would be ruinous, if persevered in, to the country. If a Bill had been introduced to enable them to acquire some thousands of acres of sea and to build ships, there might have been some meaning it. What did Naval Volunteers want with drill halls? There were Volunteer drill halls all over the country which
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  could be let to the Naval Volunteers without the necessity of building others. In all the naval ports the Naval Reserve drill-halls could be utilised for the Naval Volunteers.
  With regard to what had been said about referential legislation, an emphatic protest had been made against this kind of legislation in another place. In 1893, at his instigation, the Behring Fisheries Bill was re-enacted and embodied in the Bill in the shape of a schedule. Why could they not put the Act of 1893 in this Bill in the schedule? Whenever a referential Bill was brought up the House should insist upon the Bills referred to being put in the schedule. He entirely objected to the new system of Naval Volunteers because he believed they were perfectly useless, and he protested against public money being devoted to support them, especially when it was accompanied by stopping enlistment in the Royal Naval Reserves. He also objected to the still more demoralising suggestion that borough councils were to be their accomplices in such ventures. The principle was altogether dangerous and the measure required reconsideration.
  SIR A. HAYTERsaid it should be remembered that the military Volunteers numbered 250,000 men, whilst the Naval Volunteers only numbered about 6,500 last year, whilst this year they had gone down to 4,700. Of the 6,500 only 3,600 were efficient. In regard to ranges and drill halls being required there was all the difference in the world between these two forces. The business of the Naval Volunteers was to pursue the enemy on the sea, and surely they did not want borough councils to acquire land for them. This Bill was wrongly conceived altogether, and to pledge the Government grant to the Volunteers as security for the land was most objectionable.
  And, there being no further Business set down for the Afternoon Sitting, Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER left the Chair until the Evening Sitting.

  EVENING SITTING.

    CRIMINAL LAW AND PROCEDURE (IRELAND) ACT, 1887.
    MR. JOHN O'CONNORsaid that seventeen years ago, when he had the honour of introducing a Motion of this kind before, he was replied to by the hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh, whom they were glad again to see in his place. They had many a wordy war across the floor of the House and there had been many an angry scene in which he and those who sat with him and the hon. and gallant Member took part, but all were ready to admit that the hon. and gallant Gentleman had always borne himself in an honourable and gallant manner, and no one was more glad than he to see the hon. and gallant Member again amongst them.
    No section of the Members of this House ought to be more concerned with this Motion than those who represented English constituencies. The law it sought to repeal was an outrage on the English Constitution, which had been slowly built up on the patience, sufferings, and struggles of the English people. In Ireland that Constitution had been frequently suspended; it had been suspended no less than eighty-six times since the Union, and he would point out to representatives of the Government here to-night that whatever might have been the ideas of their predecessors upon the subject when they introduced these Coercion Acts, not one of them had dared to come down to the House with a proposal to make them permanent. Mr. W. E. Foster, while Chief Secretary for Ireland, ruled the Irish people very severely and dealt most severely with Members on the Nationalist side of the House, but when it was suggested to him in 1881 that he might make the Coercion Act he was then proposing permanent, he replied that he would never dare to do any such thing, that he would never give any man such powers as he had himself by that Act, because he said he had confidence in himself that he would not abuse those powers, but he would never hang a sword of Damocles over the heads of the Irish people for another to take down at will. Even he, who they only
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    now remembered as a young man, who came to their country and aided the people when they were suffering from famine, strong and bold man as he was, would not take on himself the latitude he might have done and propose a permanent Coercion Act for Ireland.
    It was generally said in these discussions that this was only a Procedure Act and that it did not change the law, but procedure was a very important thing in the administration of law, which was originally devised to protect the liberties of the subject. Therefore it was idle to say that a change in the procedure did not change the law itself. He renumbered distinctly that when the Crimes Act of 1882 was being passed in this House, an Act that provided for the trial of persons accused of certain offences mentioned by the Act by a Commission of Judges and not by a jury, that great Irish lawyer and Judge, Baron Fitzgerald retired from his office and resigned his Judgeship rather than administer a law which he said struck at all the fundamental principles of law and justice. Before this Act was brought in, and before the Government—which had now, with a short interval, been twenty years in power—came into office, speeches were made in the country entirely different in character to those made after the Conservative Government came into power, and the man who created most influence in the country and brought about that condition of things which made a Conservative Government possible in 1885 said, before proposing coercion—
    "The Government must have terrible facts and terrible evidence to support their demand."
    That was the language held by Lord Randolph Churchill and all those who constituted the Government when they came into office. The Act he now proposed to repeal by his Motion was brought in 1887 when the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, then the Chief Secretary for Ireland, said—
    "I stated before and I state again that we do not rest our case on statistics of agrarian crime in Ireland."
    The right hon. Gentleman did not rest his case on the statistics because they would not support the introduction of any such Bill and would not justify it. The right hon. Gentleman relied upon

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    the speeches made by Irish Members of Parliament to their constituents and by other gentlemen, the principles contained in which speeches had since been affirmed by this House by the Home Rule Bill of 1893 and the Irish Land Act of 1903. But the right hon. Gentleman had a weak case even then, and to supplement the effect of the speeches which he had quoted, said in justification of this measure that—
    "Some members of the National League had only in view this disinterested object, but he could not forget that the league leant in part on those secret societies which worked by dynamite and dagger."
    The right hon. Gentleman used those words on March 28th, 1887 and on that evening the First Reading of the Bill was carried. On April 28th, a month after, there was published in The Times the Piggott forged documents and on the same evening the Second Reading of the Bill was carried. He bracketted the statements of the Prime Minister, then Chief Secretary of Ireland, with the letters of Piggott which appeared in The Times on April 28th. The charges then made recklessly by the Prime Minister from his place in the House, and which were backed up by the assassin paper The Times, were within a year afterwards, after much toil and trouble on the part of the Irish people, refuted by the Royal Commission, but the falsehood, had done its work. Pigott had perished by his own hand, but The Times newspaper still vented its spleen on that portion of the Empire which had so excited its hatred, and the Act was put on the Statute-book ready to the hand of any future Chief Secretary who might be weak enough to yield to the enemies of Ireland.
    This Act was passed ostensibly for the prohibition of and the dealing with crime. In fact it was passed for an entirely different purpose. The first section recreated practically what was once known in the history of this country as the Star Chamber. It was idle to urge, as had been urged, that this Act would inflict no injury whatever on law-abiding persons. He had in the course of his experience come into collision with a similar section of one of these Acts prevailing in Ireland. He remembered once being summoned to a Star Chamber inquiry which was opened
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    to inquire into a certain matter in county Cork. He had noticed that most of the people examined before these inquiries were examined on almost every matter except the one they were called upon to testify—and when he was called upon he was determined to have a test case with the magistrate. When he appeared before that gentleman he asked him whether he was going to confine himself to the subject-matter of the summons. The magistrate turned upon him savagely and asked him how he dared to ask such a question. He replied that he had not only dared, but unless he had that assurance would refuse to be sworn, and as a result the magistrate committed him to prison before the day was out. In the course of a week he was liberated and on the following morning received a similar summons. He again appeare before the magistrate, who said, "Well, sir, have you changed your mind," to which he replied, "No, sir, have you changed yours?" The interview was of a very angry character and he was sent back to prison. Then he took another course; he sent a letter to the Chief Secretary of the day and in return had a reply of a kind but firm character, and on the third occasion when he appeared before this magistrate it struck him that this gentleman had also received a letter, because he said he had never intended to go further than the summons. He was then duly sworn, asked a few questions about a matter of which he mew nothing, and was allowed to go. He asserted that he was brought there not to give any information but for the purpose of being annoyed and persecuted.
    It was nonsense to say that this law affected no law-abiding person—he claimed to be as law-abiding as anyone on the opposite side—because another section of this Act created a special jurisdiction which practically for all purposes abolished trials by jury in Ireland. He remembered, in 1888, that he made a speech to his constituents for which he was afterwards prosecuted under this very clause. In that speech he had not incited anybody to commit a crime or to do an act of intimidation, yet the indictment upon which he was prosecuted was that he had incited some person unknown to intimidate a person or persons unknown against taking a

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    farm unknown the property of a person unknown to those who drafted the indictment, and, though the House, would hardly believe it, on that indictment he was sentenced by two magistrates to four months imprisonment. But that was not the worst feature of this clause, because under this clause all those cases of conspiracy in trade disputes that had lately been tried in this country by the High Court, cases against workmen that had been tried before the High Court and taken from thence to the Court of Appeal and to the House of Lords, would, if they had occurred in Ireland, have been tried under this clause by two magistrates and the benefit of a jury would have been entirely denied to the people interested. It was not only that the procedure was bad in this respect, but the section put the liberties of the people into the hands of a set of magistrates whose position depended entirely upon their complacency with the authorities and who were removable by the very persons who ordered the prosecutions.
    The next clause enabled the Government to have persons tried by special juries and to change the venue. That was doubtless made out to be a very harmless provision, but the way in which it worked out was that an accused man might be taken into a county where the majority of the people differed from him in faith and politics, and be tried before a jury selected from a special panel. Not only had the Crown a special list of jurors, but it was specially marked by those who knew the jurors' politics, so that by the exercise of its unlimited right of challenge the Crown was able to put into the box a jury composed of men entirely opposed to the accused. Whether the trial was properly conducted or not, the accused, under these circumstances, could not possibly have the idea that he was being fairly tried.
    The next important section empowered the Lord-Lieutenant to proclaim an association if he was satisfied that it was interfering with the administration of the law. That was a most unconstitutional provision, and in the hands of unscrupulous men was capable of being used for any purpose whatever. Lord Londonderry had
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    recently stated that the Chief Secretary was going to govern Ireland according to Unionist principles and for Unionist interests. What did that mean? Under this clause, at the very time when land transactions were taking place and the people needed the counsel of their advisers, meetings could be suppressed and branches of the United Irish League dissolved. At the time of the Land Act of 1881, Mr. Parnell announced his intention of having a number of test cases brought into Court in order to secure the fixing of a standard, and thus to save the people the cost of having their rents fixed individually. But no sooner was the announcement made than he was clapped into gaol. In like manner, in 1887, the country was proclaimed soon after the Ashbourne Purchase Act had been put into operation, and now again when land transactions were taking place proclamations were threatened. Under this clause the Act could be made to serve every Unionist purpose. It was administered by Unionists; the Chief Secretary, the Attorney-General, and the Solicitor-General were Unionists, and all the magistrates who had to administer the Act were drawn from the same Party; so that the law could be used, not to put down crime—for that did not exist—but to suppress one class in the interests of another. Writing of the Bill in 1887 Sir G. Trevelyan said—
    "The real defect of this measure in that it is a coercion Bill directed against the spoken and written expression of opinion, and which will be worked by administrators who have proved beyond all question that they are actuated by the strongest Orange sympathies."
    That was true then, and it was true to-day; the spirit which prevailed in Dublin Castle then prevailed still. Shortly before that time there were in the Castle men who sympathised with the people—Mr. Hamilton and General Buller—the latter of whom, like Sir Antony MacDonnell, was sent over to see things with a fresh eye. He divested himself of his sword and went amongst the people, with the result that, backed up by Mr. Hamilton, he reported that the people had grievances which ought to be redressed. Then a Unionist Government came into office, and he got his discharge, just as hon. Members opposite were now

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    seeking to get Sir Antony MacDonnell discharged.
    Seeing that the Act was not warranted by the condition of the country, why was it maintained? Certain causes of irritation had been to a large extent removed. The Land Act of 1903 and its predecessors were working out the salvation of the country in one direction. Land was changing hands, the period of evictions might be said to be over, and that fruitful source of whatever crime existed in the past being removed there was no necessity for the continuance of the Act. Moreover, it had been utterly useless in the past. In 1895 the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Montrose stated that eleven convictions had been obtained, and added—
    "But I believe, and in that I am supported by the great authority of Lord Spencer, that with the exception of the Phœnix Park cases everyone of those convictions would have been obtained without a special inquiry."
    The right hon. Gentleman was strongly of opinion that the ordinary law was sufficient. And what good had the Act done? Between 1889 and 1892, 3,243 persons were imprisoned under its provisions, and another 189 were sentenced between 1901 and 1903. Did any hon. Gentleman opposite believe that a single one of those persons was from their point of view a better man than before? Twenty- three Members of Parliament had suffered forty-four terms of imprisonment between them, and was it supposed that any of them were any better affected towards English rule in Ireland in consequence? The Act was utterly useless for its purpose, and for this and other reasons he asked why such a blur should be kept on the Statute-book. He trusted he had given sufficient reasons for abandoning a causeless, irritating, and insulting law, which was neither justified by the conditions of the country nor effective in conducing to its happiness. He begged to move.
    MR. HUGH LAWpointed out that recent developments in Ireland gave to this Motion an actuality and urgency which some months ago might have lacked, as it was perfectly
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    clear that the pendulum was once more swinging in the direction of active coercion. The only alternatives before any Government which attempted to administer Ireland were full and free trust in the people and coercion. There was no middle course, though attempts had been made to find one. The late Lord Salisbury said that Ireland was to have twenty years of resolute Government. That turned out to be coercion pure and simple. Long before the twenty years were over coercion was found by the authorities to be a very unpleasant method of government, and an experiment in conciliation was tried by the present President of the Local Government Board. During the first months of he Secretary ship of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover the pendulum reverted to coercion, but the policy being found unsatisfactory a fresh experiment in conciliation was tried. By the inevitable law of fate which doomed to futility every attempt to govern Ireland except in accordance with the will of the people the pendulum had once more swung, and they were again face to face with coercion.
    How long was this to go on? Had the Government any end in view? Had they any policy? The late Chief Secretary during the latter part of his administration had a policy, summed up by the Lord-Lieutenant as attempting to govern Ireland within the Union according to Irish ideas. The present Chief Secretary professed himself unable to understand what the phrase meant. If not according to Irish ideas, according to whose ideas were the Government going to govern Ireland? It could not be according to English ideas, as certainly English ideas would not approve of the proclamation of meetings or the dragging about public roads of Members of Parliament who attempted to address their constituents. The truth was the Government were proposing to govern Ireland according to the ideas of a little dwindling faction from the North-East of Ireland, men who were never tired of defaming their own country who made the catch-cry of "persecution of the minority'' an excuse for the coercion of the majority, and whose idea of persecution was exactly the same as when

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    Thomas Moore wrote his "Humble Petition of Orangemen" about a hundred years ago—

    'To the people of England, the Humble Petition

    Of Ireland's disconsolate Orangemen, showing

    That sad, very sad, is our present condition,

    Our work is all gone, and our noble selves going;

    That forming one-seventh—within a few fractions

    Of Ireland's seven millions of hot heads and hearts,

    We hold it the basest of all base transactions

    To keep us from murdering the other six parts."

    If the Chief Secretary listened to those men they would drag him down as they had dragged down so many of his predecessors. He need look for no constructive policy from them. He would make no advance in the governing of Ireland, and his Chief Secretary ship would not be remembered as having added anything to the welfare of the country. Those men could hinder, exasperate, and retard, but they could net stop the advancing march of the nation. He begged to second the Motion.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That, in the opinion of this House, the presence of The Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act on the Statute-book is a gross violation of the Constitution, without parallel in any other portion of His Majesty's dominions, and that the Act should be immediately repealed."—(Mr. John O'Connor.)
    COLONEL SAUNDERSONsaid that after a prolonged absence it was like old times to come down to the House and take a humble part in a coercion debate. Hon. Gentlemen opposite seemed to imagine that the Ulster Members had the great happiness of guiding the counsels of Dublin Castle, but he could assure them that they had no more influence in that direction than any other Members of the House who openly and candidly expressed their opinions. From Questions that had been asked recently it might be supposed that His Majesty's Government were of opinion that Ireland was remarkable for the
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    amount of crime, and that, to use Mr. Gladstone's words, Irishmen had been supplied with a "double dose of Original sin." That was all beside the question under discussion. He was happy and proud to believe that in regard to crime, as ordinarily understood, Ireland had a favourable position as compared with other parts of the Empire. ["Hear, hear!" "Then why attain coercion?"] Because the Act was not directed against ordinary crime. The Motion before the House declared—
    "That, in the opinion of this House, the presence of the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act on the Statute-book is a gross violation of the Constitution, without parallel in any other portion of His Majesty's dominions."
    The hon. Member might have carried the terms of his Motion further; he might have said that no other country had such an Act on the Statute-book. Would the hon. Member go further and also say that no civilised country had such a society as the Irish National League? He would venture to say that there was no other country which, if it had to deal with such a society associated with so much crime and outrage in the past, would meet it with so lenient a measure as the Act now condemned by hon. Members opposite. No law-abiding man of any class or creed or section of politics was in the least interfered with by the existence of such an Act. The hon. Member opposite gave an account of something which occurred in his earlier days which was the cause of his being temporarily withdrawn from the sphere of freedom. Then he informed the House that since that time he had been a law-abiding citizen. He did not know the circumstances of the hon. Member's case, but what he should like to know was, could any hon. Gentleman opposite bring forward a case in which any man in Ireland who chose to live within the ordinary laws of the land had been interfered with, and was interfered with, by this Act.
    It had been said over and over again in the House that the Crimes Act interfered with the liberties of the Irish people. Certainly it interfered with the liberties of some of the Irish people, because some of the Irish people held an entirely different idea

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    of the meaning of liberty than that which he attached to it. [NATIONALIST cheers.] He was very glad that those words of his were acceptable to hon. Gentlemen opposite. His idea of liberty was that any man, whoever he might be, was free to pursue his vocations, whatever they were, within the law; so far as he could make out from hon. Gentlemen opposite, not only from their speeches in that House but especially from their speeches on the other side of the St. George's Channel, their meaning of liberty was the liberty of a certain set of Irishmen to force another set of Irishmen to obey their dictates. That was not his idea of liberty, and if the Act which they now desired to repeal interfered with that liberty, then it was a proof that no better Act could be passed for Ireland. If any stranger could have come into the House for the first time and heard an Irish debate, and listened to the speech of the hon. Member for North Kildare, he would never have imagined that in Ireland there existed such a thing as the Irish National League. Anybody who took the trouble to read the newspapers, and to follow the course pursued in Ireland by hon. Gentlemen opposite and by their friends who guided the procedure of that association, would see that there was at the present moment in Ireland an organisation which had for its object—quite outside the law—guided by their own policy, which had the power and authority in many parts of Ireland of constraining Irishmen certainly to do that which they did not desire to do.
    What was the main object of the Irish League? Its main object was with regard to the land. They did not attack landlords now, because the House had removed the property of landlords from their own keeping. The National League at the present moment appeared to devote its energies to planting the people on the land. That was so in a large part of Ireland where grass land existed. These grass lands were to be broken up and divided amongst those in Ireland, who either had no land, or if they ever had had land had lost it. That was the ostensible object of the league. He had no objection to the league if its objects were pursued in a legal manner. But how were they pursued? How
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    was its policy carried out in Ireland? Was it carried out as policy had been in England, in Scotland, or in Wales, by Members of Divisions going down and giving calm and peaceful advice us to how its lawful object should be achieved. He thought he could show the House that the National League in Ireland at the present moment did give advice, but gave it in very strong language which certainly was not of a Parliamentry character. He took, for instance, a meeting in Ireland, reported in the Freeman's Journal. In a speech delivered by the Rev. Canon M'Alpine, that gentleman said—
    "Now I say, and I accept the fullest responsibility for my words, that in a crisis like this, should the State fail to discharge the first duty which it owes to the community—namely, to preserve and to support life—our people would be the veriest fools if they allowed themselves to starve so long as fat sheep were grazing on the hillside or sleek kine were browsing on the plain."
    Would hon. Gentlemen accept that for their policy as enunciated by a, priest and politician? That was the advice given by a gentleman who occupied a prominent position in the Irish National League. He would give them another instance. This was what Mr. O' Reilly said at a meeting of the United Irish League at Kilconnell on December 11th last—
    "I do not want you to make the green grass red again with the blood of martyrs. I am opposed to murder in any form. But I would nearly sympathise with the devil if he were to come up and sweep a grabber to hell."
    That was good stout National League advice. He went on to say—
    "Now I appeal to all present to immediately take out cards of membership of the United Irish League, and not only that, but to be prepared to give the life of the damned to any person who is condemned by that organisation.
    That was the way advice was given by the Irish National League. It was all very well for hon. Gentlemen to make eloquent speeches in that House, but did they approve of that language? If they did not, why did they not say so in Ireland. He had still another instance. This was Mr. Kelly, who made a speech in South Galway in November last. This gentleman said he often thought, on learning of the extravagant prices being paid for land, that the people must be gone mad. Some of these people deserved to be shot down as John Blake had been

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    shot, and the revolver was there still. Whenever a man was found going into the enemy's camp he should be brought down. That was the advice of an organisation to cope with which this Act had been put on the Statute-book. No man had defended the Act more e'oquently than the hon. Member for South Tyrone, and in those days no hon. Member brought forward more cases of the tyranny of the Irish National League than he did. Now the hon. Member for South Tyrone talked of "gerrymandering." These might be different ways of politicians in Ireland who were carried away by their national sentiments and their un-national eloquence. Here was a quotation which he thought the House ought to hear and some hon. Gentlemen opposite ought to remember. At a meeting of the South Galway Executive of the United Irish League held at Loughrea on April 16th, Father Newell, C.C., spoke as follows in condemnation of outrages—
    "It there is anything that merits my approbation it is the condemnation of those outrages on brute beasts and other outrages that might bring disgrace into our ranks. I see no member of the Ballinderry branch of the league here, and I do not come before yon because my brother happens to be the parish priest there. I come to condemn the outrages that have been committed in Ballinderry under the guise of nationality. You all know the outrages that have been committed there. Their efforts were directed against the process-server and with what result? That the branch of the league has degenerated, and has even committed sacrilegious acts under the guise of nationality. They have gone into the Catholic Church and brought out pews belonging to the bailiff. I say we are un-Irish and un-Christian, and unworthy of the name of Nationalists if we cannot fight the enemy outside the church. I have come here to withdraw our allegiance from the Ballinderry branch. It is unbecoming of Irishmen and Catholics to resort to such base, treacherous, unmanly tactics. I would not be a man if I did not come here to give expression to my feelings."
    What had been the result? The services in Father Newell's church had since been boycotted by his former congregation, who had also refused to pay him his Easter dues. That came from a priest in Ireland who understood the character and nature of the Irish Nationalist League, and this was the organisation which would have absolutely supreme command in Ireland if this law was entirely removed from the Statute-book. This Act pressed
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    upon no law-abiding Irishman, add if it pressed on the other kind of Irishman, the more it pressed the better.
    The hon. Gentleman who had just sat down had said that there were two ways of governing Ireland—(1) by coercion, and (2) according to the will and wishes of the Irish people. Did he mean the will and wishes of the kind of Irishmen opposite, or of the kind of Irishmen on the Unionist Benches? If hon. Gentleman opposite were able to get up and say that a great change had taken place in Ireland, that they were conscious, and that the Irish people were conscious, of the immense generosity that had been shown by Great Britain and the House of Commons to the Irish people, and that they were ready to bury the hatchet, and to forget and forgive and not allow their minds to dwell upon those things in the past which they would like to raise—if they said that, there might be some way of meeting them. But he saw no signs of reformation—he saw no signs in the speeches made in the House and elsewhere that the generosity of the House and the country at large, which had showered almost £200,000,000 upon Ireland to help to settle the land question—he saw no signs of any softening of their animosity towards Great Britain. On the contrary, speeches were made on he other side of the House which, far from tending to mollify the existing asperity, roused and kindled anew those animosities which ail true Irishmen would like to see obliterated.
    He had had some experience of Ireland. His family had dwelt in Ireland for nearly 400 years. He himself had now almost reached the allotted span of life. He had been in the House for many years, and he believed hon. Gentlemen opposite, although they disagreed with him, would believe him when he said he also loved his country, although the saw it from a different point of view. But from his point of view the lesson which the House ought to learn, and any Government ought to take to heart, was that there were two things that ought to be remembered by those who desired to govern Ireland and make it a peaceful country—one was an unswerving enforcement of justice, and the other was to seek the sympathy of

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    the Irish people. Without law and order they would have those periodical recurrences which all Irishmen ought to regret. But if the Government was animated, as he believed this Government was, by the sentiments he had mentioned, they would lay the final foundation on which the peace, happiness, and prosperity of his country might rest.
    MR. HAVILAND BURKEsaid he hoped it would not be considered that he was paying any empty compliment when he said that he was glad to see the hon. and gallant Member in his place once again in the House, because he, at any rate, attempted no mystery upon the House of Commons. He was glad to see him in his place as representing truly, consistently, and straightforwardly the Ascendancy Party and the old Orange policy in the House of Commons. The hon. and gallant Member stood there as representing a Party in Ireland which contended that the majority of the Irish people had no right to be consulted as to the government of their own country. For his own part he preferred the position of the hon. and gallant Member to that of a man who, under any subtle subterfuge, came there to split hairs as to the government of Ireland.
    But what, after all, was the question? It was this, that Ireland, alone in the whole British Empire, was singled out as the place that might not have the right of trial by jury. Any broken-down wreck, who might have disgraced himself, as some of them had done, without character, record, or qualification, might be made a resident magistrate, and two of these creatures, dependent for their livelihood on pleasing Dublin Castle, had it in their power to decide whether a Member of that House, or any other man, might or might not be sent to serve various terms of imprisonment, with or without hard labour. But, quite apart from any partisan question whatever, this was a thing that the House sooner or later would have to deal with, and he ventured to say to such Members of the Liberal Party as might be tempted to treat the Irish question as a matter of no account that they would have before long to
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    seriously consider this as a vital and far-reaching constitutional question. The papers contained columns as to the terrible sufferings of men who went to prison for refusing to pay rates under the Education Act. The people of this country would have to turn their attention sooner and more seriously than they might dream of to the question of Irish Members of this House having to undergo in prison two or three months hard labour under the Coercion Act passed by this Parliament. If there were any Members of the Liberal Party in this House who thought they could trifle with the question of coercion and drop Home Rule, he told them that there were plenty of men on the Irish Benches and elsewhere who would not allow them to do so, and who were going to make this question one of the first magnitude.
    It was absolutely scandalous that so little should have been heard in that House in regard to an Act not passed in circumstances of exceptional urgency to meet a special case of public excitement, but passed as a permanent Act. It was a blot on the escutcheon of the British Empire that an Act should have been passed insulting the whole of the Irish people—an Act by which any two swashbucklers and bottlewashers appointed by Dublin Castle might sentence the chairman of an Irish county council, or a Member representing an Irish constituency, to serve for a more or less long term in an Irish prison with hard labour. This Motion dealt with the whole constitutional grievance between Ireland and Great Britain, and even if a guarantee were given that no prosecution could happen under the Act within the lifetime of the youngest man now on those benches, he said without hesitation that the Act would be an outrage and an injustice which it would be their duty to bring before the House whenever they could. It was not a question of the number of prosecutions, or the amount of punishment inflicted; the great cardinal question involved was that the kingdom of Ireland—kingdom was the word used in the Act of Union—was under this exceptional law. So long as that Act endured it would be a standing insult to and outrage on the people of Ireland.

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    It had been pleaded that this exceptional Act of Parliament was wanted because evidence could not be got to back up the prosecution when a Government prosecution was brought. Might he refer to circumstances which occurred in a place very much nearer the House than Ireland—a part of the kingdom called London. Only two months ago there was a case at the Old Bailey where two men were sentenced to seven years penal servitude for this crime. They waylaid a respectable working man's wife, robbed her, brutally knocked her about, rushed her into a doorway, and violated her. When the sentence was about to be passed a local inspector of police said that these men were only members of a large and well-organised band which had the whole district in terror, and that the great difficulty which the police had to contend with was that they could not get people who were habitually blackmailed and assaulted by these ruffians to come forward and give evidence. Not long ago a respectable factory girl was coming out of a workshop in broad daylight near Trafalgar Square when she was shot and wounded, and the only explanation was that she had given evidence against a bully who had assaulted her. The police had no clue to the offender. He had been making a very careful record of such cases, and, when he had it completed, hon. Members opposite would be surprised to find the number of cases in which inspectors of police in London had come forward time after time before Judges and complained that their difficulty in putting down the ruffianism which was rampant in London was due to the fact that people dared not for the sake of life and limb come forward and give evidence against the offenders. Would the legal Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench bring forward a Suspects Bill for London? Why should they not do so when they had the evidence of the police authorities given before magistrates and Judges that whole districts in London were terrorised and that evidence could not be procured?
    The police records of crime in Ireland, as compared with Great Britain, showed that there was no crime in Ireland worth talking about. In England magistrates from the moment they
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    were appointed were absolutely independent of Liberal or Tory Government officials. What was the position of the resident magistrate in Ireland? He was appointed by the Lord-Lieutenant, who could dismiss, transfer, or remove him; he was responsible only to Dublin Castle. He was an absolute political hack. There was not a decent clerk in the Post Office who was not more independent of the Government than an Irish resident magistrate. He knew perfectly well that, when he was appointed to try a case under the Coercion Act, if he did not please his master he was liable to go, and probably would go. Looking at this matter from the point of view of the public interest, what was the effect of the Crimes Act? It was to create an absolute contempt for law in Ireland, a justifiable contempt which he shared to the full. It might be said that he had not suffered much. He had not suffered anything to be compared with many of his colleagues, but did hon. Members think that he had forgotten, or that he would ever forget, the outrage that was put on him when he was sentenced by a half-pay officer and a retired policeman to two months hard labour, and three months more if he did not get bail, for going down to his own constituency to address a public meeting? Did they think that that was a sore which would ever cease to rankle and fester in his mind? This was a question which would have to be dealt with as one of privilege. He would advise hon. Members before they talked about the iniquities of Russia, or the evil doings of Turkey, to consider very much more closely than they were doing at the present time what was being done in Ireland. He would advise them not to maintain the hypocrisy of lecturing the Government of St. Petersburg about its autocratic methods while they denied to men serving in that House the constitutional right of addressing their own constituents. This was a matter affecting the rights and privileges not only of Irish Members, but of all Members of the House. On these grounds he heartily supported the Resolution.
    MR. O'MALLEYsaid the right hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh had quoted isolated

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    speeches in which strong language had no doubt been used. He did not think the isolated cases which had been referred to by the right hon. and gallant Member could in any way be charged against the national movement. The United Irish League was most strongly opposed to the use of any strong language that might in any way be a hindrance to the work in which it was engaged. Here and there in Ireland speeches were made at times which were reprehensible, and which the Nationalist Members, the Irish people generally, and certainly the organisation with which they were associated, were as anxious to condemn as hon. Members opposite. But in order to justify the statement of his hon. friend the Member for West Donegal that the policy of the Government was tending in the direction of coercion he would quote a letter which appeared in that day's Freeman's Journal. It was from the Rev. Canon M'Alpine, and dealt with an article which appeared in the Dublin Daily Express a few days ago. The letter was sent to that journal, and a copy of it to the Freeman's Journal. It was as follows—
    "Mount St. Joseph's, Clifden,
    "29th May, 1905.
    "To the Editor 'Daily Express,'
    "Sir—From an intimate knowledge of the district, from a visit paid to three police stations in the parish, and from an interview with Mr. Glasgow, D. I., R.I.C., I am in a position to state that there is not the smallest particle of truth—that there is absolutely no ground whatever for what appeared in a recent issue of your paper, 'that here in Clifden a large grazier had to unconditionally surrender his grazing forms because his cattle and sheep were found drowned in trenches every day, and his herds refused to work for him, and that other petty little outrages such as wall razing, breaking of gates, etc., had also come to light.'
    "In the name of common sense, and for the credit of Irish journalism, may I ask what reason can you give for publishing such lying statements of an innocent people? Clearly, between you and your contemporary the Irish Times, a regular rivalry subsists just now on Irish matters as to who will do most in libelling an individual, defaming a district, and maligning a community. Respice finem.—Yours,
    "P. CANON M'ALPINE, P.P., V. G."
    It would be clearly understood from that letter that an attempt was being made at the present moment in Ireland to justify the Chief Secretary in introducing
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    once more the old weapon of coercion to cure Irish grievances. But as coercion had been tried for very many years, and had invariably failed, he and his friends on those benches, and the Irish people, would look on with equanimity at the career of the right hon. Gentleman who occupied the position of Chief Secretary at the present time. He believed that at the end of the right hon. Gentleman's career coercion, if he indulged in it, would be ultimately to the advantage of the Irish cause.
    He would give another illustration of the new policy which had been inaugurated in the last few weeks in Ireland. It was generally recognised in this House by all Parties that a great many of the ills and sufferings of the Irish people were due to the land problem of the West—due to the fact that the greater portion of the best lands in the West were now in the occupation of graziers, while the tenants in Connemara, Mayo, Donegal, Sligo, and other western counties, were trying to eke out an existence on the non-economic holdings surrounding the large tracts of grazing lands. When the Land Act of 1903 was passing through the House the late Chief Secretary fully recognised the evil, and stated that the Act was calculated and intended to remove it. The people of Ireland were frying from the country now in greater numbers than in recent years, and, in view of the poverty of the country and the periodic famines which occurred there, it was not surprising that violent speeches should be made from time to time at political meetings. That condition of things was undoubtedly due to the fact that the land problem of the West was still unsolved, and that something must be done to enlarge the non-economic holdings by taking from the graziers the lands which they now held, and handing them over to the tenants. Therefore the Irish people, very naturally and properly, through their organisation, were directing all their efforts to that end.
    During the previous week there occurred in his constituency a case which he would refer to particularly. In the village of Glann, near Oughterard, a miserable mountain district where every tenant was living

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    on a non-economic holding, and barely eking out an existence, there were some grass farms. These grass farms were reclaimed by the hard labour and sweat of tenants who were evicted some years ago. One of these grass farms was in the hands of a man named Patrick O'Toole who lived twenty or twenty-five miles away from the place. He was a shopkeeper and a bailiff, and, being a bailiff, he was a handy man to the landlord of the district. He was made a justice of the peace some years ago. He was able to pay a high price for the grass farm which he held on the eleven months system. The Glann and Oughterard branch of the United Irish League met, and very properly considered the advisability of Mr. O'Toole giving up his grass farm. The secretary wrote Mr. O'Toole a letter, to which he begged hon. Members opposite to listen, because it threw light on the western problem and the policy which the Government were at present pursuing. The letter was in the following terms—
    "Glann and Oughterard,
    "U. I. League,
    "April 12th, 1905.
    "SIR,—At a meeting of the above held at the league Rooms, Oughterard, on the 9th inst., a resolution was adopted calling on all grazing tenants holding grazing lands in the parish to surrender same on or before next May, in the interest of poor tenants holding uneconomic holdings, we have to ask you are you prepared to surrender your Glann farm within the time mentioned.
    "A reply from you is expected on or before Thursday, 20th inst.

    B. RUTLEDGE

    Hon. Sees., U. I. L.

    W. MCDONOGH

    "To Mr. Patrick O'Toole, J.P., Annaghvane, Connemara."
    There was no strong language used in that letter. It was an invitation to Mr. O'Toole to give up his grass farm in the interest of the poor tenants of the district. What happened? Mr. O'Toole handed the letter to a policeman [Cries of ''Hear, Hear" from Conservative Members] and Mr. Rutledge was arrested and brought before the stipendiary magistrate, who had accepted bail of £100, with two sureties of £50 each, for his appearance at the next Galway Assizes. Probably that was legal, but all he could say was that the next time
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    he was in Connemara he should refer to this case, he would not write a letter to Mr. O'Toole, but he would denounce Mr. O'Toole, and all the other Mr. O'Tooles who held these grass farms, and let the Government prosecute him if they liked. If legitimate action of that sort had not been taken in Ireland during the last twenty-five or thirty years he should like to know where the Irish question would be to-day. He merely rose for the purpose of drawing attention to this particular case. He had no doubt that this man would be tried before the assizes and that he would probably get a year or two's imprisonment. But the very fact that he was sent to prison would constitute him a hero in the eyes of the whole of the Irish people. If that was the way Ireland was to be governed then, he maintained, the hostility which existed between England and Ireland would continue, and the Irish problem would remain unsolved. He hoped the Chief Secretary would not pursue this career of coercion which he was entering upon, and that the right hon. Gentleman would not take the advice of the Irish representatives, led by the right hon. Member for North Armagh, who sat behind him. He appealed to the right hon. Gentleman to take a lesson from the past; but if the right hon. Gentleman indulged in his career of coercion he believed it would be ultimately to the advantage of the Irish cause.
    MR. ASQUITHsaid he wished, in a few sentences, to state the reasons which would induce him to vote in favour of the Motion, as upon many occasions he and those who sat with him had voted for similar Resolutions in the past. He could not recollect in his Parliament try experience any Government measure which met with a resistance so strenuous and so relentless as the Crimes Bill of 1887 did from the Opposition of that day. Parliamentary conditions were harder then than now. They had no 12 o'clock rule; and he remembered low that Bill was fought line by line and word by word night after night, up to 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning, in one of the hottest summers on record. It was o meet that strenuous and pitiless resistance that the expedient of closure

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    by compartments was first invented. Looking back to the circumstances of that time after nearly twenty years, he wished to record his conviction that never was there an opposition better warranted by the circumstances of the case, or one that would be more properly repeated on the same scale if similar occasion arose.
    Speaking for those who belonged to the Liberal Party, why did they then, and why did they now, contemplate with such peculiar repugnance this special piece of legislation? The answer was very simple. It was because the Crimes Act of 1887 embodied, and so long as it remained on the Statute-book would continue to embody, two principles which in their view as Liberals were foreign to the spirit and to the very genesis of our Constitution. In the first place, it put into the hands of the Irish Executive a discretionary power, practically unlimited both in point of space and in point of time, to suspend in Ireland some of the elementary safeguards of personal liberty. In the second place, and he was not sure that this was not even more important, it conferred that power not in regard only to a special emergency, of the gravity of which Parliament could judge, when the occasion arose, upon the evidence; but it conferred that power as one of the everyday ordinary weapons in the armoury of the Executive, and as part and parcel of the permanent law of the land. There had been occasions in the history, not only of Ireland, but of Great Britain, when it could be plausibly argued—he did not say convincingly—that such an exceptional state of things had been created that the ordinary machinery of the law, however well adapted to normal conditions, required to be supplemented and strengthened and made more summary in its operation. He did not think that experiments made in that spirit had been particularly successful in their results. But even in the darkest days of reaction, of Sidmouth and of Castlereagh,
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    the most high-flying of ministers always recognised that it was for Parliament to decide in each particular case whether such an expedient was necessary. The authors of this legislation had for the first time boldly put aside all our constitutional traditions and principles. It was reserved to them to propose that, for instance, the question whether trial by jury in regard to certain classes of offences should absolutely cease to exist, should for all time be left to the uncontrolled discretion of the Irish Executive. People talked about governing Ireland according to Irish ideas. Let them think of governing Ireland according to English ideas. Was there a single Member in this House who in any stress of emergency would permanently entrust the Executive sitting on the Front Bench opposite, from whatever Party it wag selected, with any such power with regard to the liberties of Englishmen?
    He thought his hon. friend was justified in asking the House in the terms of his Motion to say that this Crimes Act was in principle an unconstitutional measure. It might be said that this was only a theoretical objection, that it was an academic point. The epithet "academic" might as well be applied to some of the noblest and most notable protests ever made in that House, by Pym and Burke and others, which in these days Englishmen without distinction of Party looked back upon with pride and gratitude. But he was not afraid to push the matter a stop further. If they dismissed these constitutional points as being merely theoretical, he would ask this question:—Had the legislation of 1887 been justified by its fruits? They were often told that the restoration of order in particular districts in Ireland had been due to the existence of this law and the exercise by the Executive of the powers which it conveyed. He confessed that he himself was sceptical about there being any demonstrable relation between the

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    alleged cause and the alleged effect. He was perfectly certain that if what might be called the police and magisterial side of Irish administration during the last eighteen years had been conducted upon the same methods and in the same spirit as in England and Scotland, the foundations of social order would have been infinitely less liable to disturbance. Hon. Members who sat on his side of the House were as anxious as anyone on the Treasury Bench could be that the law should be enforced, that order should be maintained, and that personal liberty should be safeguarded in Ireland. But they parted company with those who originated this legislation, and those who now defended it, when they came to talk of means and methods. From the point of view of practical administration it seemed to him that the Crimes Act, so far from removing, had gratuitously aggravated the difficulties of Irish government.
    What was the root-difficulty in the administration of the law in Ireland? What was it? How did it arise? How was it to be accounted for? No one would have the hardihood to assert that the Irish people sympathised with crime. Their criminal statistics, compared with the statistics of England and Scotland, were extremely favourable to them. The difficulty was, as everyone knew whose eyes were not blinded by prejudice, not that the Irish people were in sympathy with crime, but that they were out of sympathy with the methods and Ministers of the law. In England and Scotland, and, he thought he might say almost without qualification, in every other part of His Majesty's dominions throughout the British Empire, the vast majority of the people looked upon the
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    agents and officers of the law as their friends and fellow-workers. In Ireland, too often in the past, too often now, the exact contrary was the case. What was the remedy? Surely it was not to do what the authors of this legislation did, to clothe the officers of the Executive in a country where they had already this antecedent antipathy between the bulk of the population and the administrators of the law, with extraordinary and extra-legal powers, the result of which must be, as they predicted in 1887, and as every succeeding year had shown, to widen and deepen the chasm, already, as Heaven knew, wide and deep enough, between the law on the one side and the people on the other. He expressed his own deliberate opinion when he said that no worse service was ever done to the cause of order in Ireland than the enactment of this statute. The remedy was to be looked for in an entirely opposite direction. It was to establish, or re-establish, if they could, in Ireland that harmonious co-operation between popular sentiment on the one side, and Executive authority on the other, which in the long run, as all experience showed, was the only effective security for the maintenance of order. It was to endeavour to bring about in Ireland what had been brought about spontaneously in almost every other part of His Majesty's dominions, the reconciliation of those two forces which in Ireland, and in Ireland alone, were permanently estranged the one from the other. A strong ruler, and there was an immeasurable difference between strength and noise, would, if he were wise, look in that direction and not either to the enactment or the enforcement of provisions such as those of the Crimea Act for the real solution of the difficulty which vexed the

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    right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, which vexed his predecessors, and which would vex his successors until at last the Parliament of this country recognised the essential conditions of Irish government.
    THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALTER LONG, Bristol, S.)said the right hon. Gentleman who had just addressed the House declared that there was an immeasurable difference between strength and noise. Many of those who listened to the right hon. Gentleman, whose memories of the past history of legislation in that House were not so short as his appeared to be, must have had irresistibly brought to their minds the conviction that there was a still greater difference between words and actions. The right hon. Gentleman had made one of the most remarkable speeches to which he had ever listened. He had declared, if his words meant anything, that the Party of which he was a distinguished and leading member were pledged to the repeal of this measure. And in justification of that declaration he had reminded the House that he and the Party with which he was associated offered to the Crimes Act the most strenuous opposition of which they were capable. But what a commentary on the Parliamentary action of the right hon. Gentleman and his Party! Since that Act was passed had the right hon. Gentleman and his Party had no opportunity of translating words into action?
    MR. ASQUITH: None whatever.
    MR. WALTER LONGsaid the right hon. Gentleman interjected "None what-
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    ever." But for three years the right hon. Gentleman and his friends were responsible for the government of the country; for three years it rested with them to repeal that legislation, if they had thought it desirable, which he had declared was the most injurious to the best interests of Ireland that had ever been passed. Why did not he and his friends do it?
    MR. ASQUITH: During the whole of those three years the Act, under the administration of my right hon. friend, remained a dead letter, and no one knows better than the right hon. Gentleman that, although it takes two Houses of Parliament to pass an Act, the veto of one House would prevent its repeal.
    MR. WALTER LONGsaid they now heard the strong man in support of his own argument. He thought the right hon. Gentleman was worthy of a better line of argument than that. He fell back on the other Chamber. If the right hon. Gentleman believed that this Act of Parliament was the greatest wrong ever done to Ireland he might at all events have tried to repeal it. Instead of trusting to what he believed the other House would have done, he might at least have invited the House of Commons to repeal the Act. The right hon. Gentleman had another argument, and a still more interesting one. The right hon. Gentleman had a holy horror of "law and order perorations." He would have thought that the right hon. Gentleman would have been the last man in the House to find fault with perorations. He had always regarded him as a master in the art of peroration, and, as he was for a time a distinguished head of the Home Office

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    he had also looked upon him as a strong Minister prepared to enforce the law. If the right hon. Gentleman found fault with law and order perorations, it could only be, not because he disapproved of law and order. but, because he disapproved of the form of the peroration. That ought to be to a Gentleman exceptionally endowed with the gifts of oratory a matter for sympathy rather than condemnation. This was not the only Irish subject which the right hon. Gentleman looked upon with some dislike; he had been rather chary about his references to Home Rule, and he thought they could set the one against the other. For his own part he was not ashamed of anything he had said in regard to the maintenance of order in Ireland. His withers were unwrung even under the condemnation of the right hon. Gentleman, in regard to what he had said either inside or outside this House in regard to the maintenance of law and order in Ireland.
    The right hon Gentleman said that the enactment and retention on the Statute-book of this statute was in itself an insult to Ireland and an injury to Ireland, and that it estranged Ireland and Great Britain. The right hon. Gentleman gave as a second reason for the inaction of himself and his colleagues that, under the administration—let him say the strong, the independent, and courageous administration—of the Member for Newcastle, now the hon. Member for Montrose, there was no resort to the Crimes Act, and, therefore, it was not necessary to repeal it. That was a curious argument, but in the speech made by the right hon. Gentleman it was not the administration of the Act which had been represented as an insult to Ireland, but its presence on the Statute-book. [An
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    HON. MEMBER on the IRISH benches: It is an insult.] The right hon. Gentleman said that the presence of this Act on the Statute-book was the cause of the estrangement between England and Ireland. But that was not the argument that had been put forward below the gangway. The argument put forward had been that a new policy had been adopted in Ireland, and that the present Chief Secretary had embarked upon a policy of coercion.
    MR. JOHN REDMONDsaid that last year when the right hon. Member for Dover was Chief Secretary the same Motion was proposed, and they on the Irish Benches said then that the presence of this law on the Statute-book was an insult to Ireland.
    MR. WALTER LONGsaid he was quite aware of that, and of the fact that the same charges were made against the Chief Secretary then as now, though the then Chief Secretary was extolled as the apostle of conciliation and the present Chief Secretary was denounced. That did not alter the argument he was addressing to the House. Repeal of the Crimes Act had been advocated on the ground that the presence of the Act was in itself an insult. How was it an insult?
    MR. DILLON: It suspends the Constitution.
    MR. WALTER LONGsaid that if it suspended the Constitution, why did not hon. Gentlemen opposite repeal it when they had the opportunity? How could the presence of the Act on the Statute-book be an insult to Ireland if the Act

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    at present was not employed, and if it could only be employed in circumstances which made it absolutely impossible to deal with what some people opposite said was not crime, but what he certainly held to be one of the most insidious, difficult, and dangerous forms of crime. It had been said with perfect truth that the condition of Ireland to-day showed a marked improvement. That was a fact at which all must rejoice, and all must desire to see the improvement maintained. He was not going to contest the proposition that this was an exceptional Act or to argue whether or not it had a parallel in other countries, because that did not seem germane to the discussion. The Act was placed on the Statute-book to enable the Government to deal with forms of crime which required exceptional powers to deal with them; and he confessed that when he heard speeches from right hon. Gentlemen opposite denouncing the Act, when he remembered that they had had the chance of repealing it and did not do so, and that their own Act of 1882 gave them powers to deal with every one of these difficulties in the same drastic way, he thought it was a little bit dangerous for those who might be responsible, and who, indeed, seemed to think they would very soon be responsible, for the government of this country, to declare, as they had declared that night, that they were prepared to strip themselves of those powers.
    What was the actual position they had to consider? He knew that hon. Gentlemen opposite contested the value and accuracy of figures connected with agrarian outrages. [A NATIONALIST MEMBER: Always; they are bogus.]
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    He would not take that observation seriously. [A NATIONALIST MEMBER: You took Sheridan seriously.] He could show from figures that certain classes of agrarian crime had increased in number. He could show, though it might be difficult to realise it, that the amount of grass land unlet to-day as compared with this time last year was very much larger. The significance of that was to be found in this—that one of the beneficent results which it was hoped would follow from the Land Act of 1903 was the division of the grazing land amongst the holders of uneconomic holdings. That was the object which hon. Gentlemen opposite said they had in view, and it had been enthusiastically advocated by speakers in Ireland. [An HON. MEMBER: And by the Government when they were passing the Act.] It was one of the objects of the Act, and a legitimate object; but it depended on how they attempted to achieve it. If they attempted to achieve it by forcing grazing tenants by the tyrannical methods of intimidation and terrorism to quit their holdings, they were doing something which was altogether wrong, which could not be justified, and with which the law was bound to interfere. Take the resolutions passed by the various branches of the United Irish League. They had for their object the breaking up of grazing land. He knew that hon. Members opposite described the statistics which he had given as bogus, and as being an improper test to apply to ascertain the condition of things in Ireland.
    This, however, was not a question to be decided by the number and character of crimes committed in parts of Ireland as compared with parts of England, or in

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    one part of Ireland as compared with another part. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Fife told them with absolute truth that it was not by this test that they could decide. He said there must be in the country an acceptance by the people of the laws under which they were governed. If the right hon. Gentleman accepted the logical conclusion of that argument—if he accepted the policy of Home Rule in its completeness—the argument was sufficient for his purpose. But if he did not accept the logical conclusion of Home Rule his argument was a mere delusion for himself and an attempt on his part and of those who followed him to deceive the country as to the real issues before it. He did not blame the hon. Members below the gangway opposite for cheering the sentiment that we could not govern the country unless the people were prepared to accept the laws by which we governed them. That was the view they had consistently held with great ability and at great sacrifice in and out of season, in ill luck and in good luck. But that was not the view held on the benches opposite except in isolated parts. It would be interesting to know whether they were prepared to surrender all attempt to govern Ireland according to existing conditions and to govern it under Home Rule conditions. The right hon Gentleman's views were in no degree shared on the Government side. He quoted the language of the hon. Member for South Tyrone, who two years ago admitted that Ireland was contented and peaceful, but said—
    "Yon may have a recurrence of past incidents, you may again have a condition of things under which you cannot govern the country without tins legislation, and therefore I will be no party to its repeal."
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    Not being prepared to govern the country according to Home Rule views, they said the House could not be asked to repeal a statute of this kind until not only terrorism, outrage, and crime were repudiated, but until it was recognised that in order to secure the successful working of the land legislation there must be steadfast abstention from anything like illegal action. So long as people were not prepared to reinforce the law by their active support and sympathy so long would it be impossible to ask this House to remove an Act of Parliament which the Executive Government might require in times of stress and difficulty not for the suppression but for the protection of the liberties of the people.
    He denied that the Act involved suspension of the liberties of the people. There was an entire failure on the part of hon. Gentlemen opposite to realise the condition of things with which from time to time they were face to face in Ireland. It was said that the Government were animated solely by a desire to protect the rights and property of the landowning class. Was that the class mainly affected by the agitation now going on in Ireland? Was there nothing to be said for the tenant-farmer who desired, within the law, to occupy the holding which in many cases he and his family had held for many years, out of which he thought he could make a fair living and for which he was prepared to pay a fair rent? Was nothing to be said about the form of coercion which sought to compel him to give up that holding for no other reason than that some of his neighbours would rather have the land for someone else. They desired to make the land more available for

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    distribution, and that, wherever possible, uneconomic holdings should be made economic, but it was not to be tolerated that these objects should be attained by reprehensible and illegal means. The time had not yet arrived when they could with justice and with wisdom remove this particular Act from the Statute-book, and he asked the House to resist the Motion. He believed that a great improvement was going on in the condition of Ireland. He agreed with his hon. and gallant friend the Member for North Armagh—whose return to the House they all so heartily welcomed, and whose complete restoration to health and strength they all hoped for—that there were signs of a return of prosperity and contentment amongst the people of Ireland. That condition of things would be strengthened if the people of Ireland realised that within the maintenance of the law there was to be found not merely protection for the property of the rich but also protection for the property and the liberties of the poor. When that lesson had been learned the House might be asked to repeal the Crimes Act, but not now could that repeal be justified; and he therefore asked the House to reject the Motion.
    MR. DILLONsaid that since the Union eighty-three Coercion Acts had been passed, but there were peculiarities attaching to the existing Act that specially justified the Motion. This was the first of the kind to be made perpetual, and it was the first that upon its introduction had been resisted by one of the great English Parties. That made no difference in the manner in which it was regarded by the Irish people, but the moral sanction that the agreement of both Parties gave was wanting in the existing Act. How
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    futile was it for the Government to attempt to maintain the Act in face of the declaration of the Opposition that they would take the first opportunity o remove the Act from the Statute-book! In the face of such a declaration it could only be to irritate and exasperate the Irish people that the Government Persisted in maintaining the Act. The Liberal Party did not repeal the Act in 1894, because if they could have passed Home Rule the Coercion Act would have been automatically repealed, but they governed Ireland without coercion, and when the present Government returned to power they were for a time ashamed to use the Act. He contended that the Coercion Act was passed in dishonour and forced through the House, the members of the Government being parties to the conspiracy. Pigott and The Times entered into the foulest conspiracy that was ever concocted against the liberties of the Irish people, and this Act was the child of that conspiracy. The right hon. Gentleman had made a lame defence against the charges brought against his Administration, and he charged him with being a party to a change of policy in Ireland that had encouraged the propaganda of bogus charges.
    MR. WALTER LONGgave an emphatic contradiction to the statement. There was no foundation whatever for any charge of the kind, and he reminded the hon. Member that the statistics of crime were compiled by the police. He would remind the hon. Member that the statistics of crime had to pass through the Office of the Under-Secretary for Ireland, and therefore the accusation that they were bogus charges lay against the Under-Secretary as well as himself.
    MR. DILLONsaid that it was not the statistics of crime, but the Answers given by the right hon. Gentleman himself in the House that he referred to. As an illustration of what he meant he cited the case of Mr. Persse, about whose adventure the newspapers in this country had rung. What was the history of the attack upon Mr. Persse's house. The newspapers of this country rang with the details of this atrocious outrage, and it was said that a body of armed men attacked Mr. Persse's house and fired into it through the windows. It was said that a brave English lady handed a double barrelled gun to Mr. Persse, who rushed out of the house and blazed away right and left at the invaders. This account of the incident went all over England. They put Questions in the House about it, and they were told that
    the case was being carefully inquired into by the police. For weeks that account of the story was allowed to do duty without any official contradiction. What had turned out to be the case? That the whole story from beginning to end was a deliberate invention, invented by Lord Ashtown and his gang of liars who were organised for the purpose of blackening the reputation of Ireland. It was not on account of the official statistics that he blamed the right hon. Gentleman, but what he did blame him for was that by his Answers and by his silence he gave countenance to those infamous charges and encouraged this campaign of bogus outrages.
    Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes, 106; Noes, 163. (Division List No. 191.)

    AYES.

    Abraham, William (Cork, N.E.)

    Gilhooly, James

    Murphy, John

    Ainsworth, John Stirling

    Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert John

    Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South)

    Ambrose, Robert

    Goddard, Daniel Ford

    Norman, Henry

    Ashton, Thomas Gair

    Grey, Rt. Hn. Sir E.(Berwick)

    O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Mid

    Asquith, Rt Hn Herbert Henry

    Hammond, John

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

    Barry, E. (Cork, S.)

    Hardie, J. Keir (Merthyr Tydvil)

    O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.

    Beaumont, Wentworth C. B

    Hayden, John Patrick

    O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)

    Bell, Richard

    Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H.

    O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)

    Blake Edward

    Henderson, Arthur (Durham)

    O'Dowd, John

    Boland, John

    Isaacs, Rufus Daniel

    O'Malley, William

    Brigg, John

    Johnson, John

    O'Mara, James

    Bright, Allan Heywood

    Kennedy, Vincent P. (Cavan, W

    O'Shaughnessy, P. J.

    Buchanan Thomas Ryburn

    Kilbride, Denis

    Parrott, William

    Caldwell, James

    Lamont, Norman

    Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden)

    Campbell, John (Armagh, S.)

    Law, Hugh Alex. (Donegal, W

    Purvis, (Robert

    Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H.

    Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall)

    Reddy, M.

    Causton, Richard Knight

    Layland-Barratt, Francis

    Redmond, John E. (Waterford)

    Cheetham, John Frederick

    Leese, Sir Joseph F (Accrington

    Rickett, J. Compton

    Clancy, John Joseph

    Leigh, Sir Joseph

    Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion)

    Cremer, William Randal

    Lough, Thomas

    Robson, William Snowdon

    Dalziel, James Henry

    Lundon, W.

    Roche, John

    Delany, William

    Lyell, Charles Henry

    Roe, Sir Thomas

    Dillon, John

    MacNeill, John Gordon Swift

    Runciman, Walter

    Doogan, P.C.

    MacVeagh, Jeremiah

    Shackleton, David James

    Douglas, Charles M.(Lanark)

    M'Arthur, William (Cornwall)

    Sheehan, Daniel Daniel

    Duncan, J. Hastings

    M'Crac, George

    Shipman, Dr. John S.

    Emmott, Alfred

    M'Hugh, Patrick A.

    Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)

    Evans, Samuel T(Glamorgan)

    M'Kean, John

    Soames, Arthur Wellesley

    Fenwick, Charles

    M'Kenna, Reginald

    Spencer, Rt. Hn CR (Northants)

    Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith)

    Mansfield, Horace Rendall

    Sullivan, Donal

    Findlay, Alexander(Lanark NE

    Markham, Arthur Basil

    Flavin, Michael Joseph

    Mooney, John J.

    Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)

    Flynn, James Christophen

    Morley, Rt. Hn. John (Montrose

    Thomas, David Alfred (Merthyn

    Tomkinson, James

    Whitley, J. H. (Halifax)

    TELLERS FOR THE AYES—

    Trevelyan, Charles Philips

    Wilson, John (Durham, Mid.)

    Patrick O'Brien and Mr.

    Walton, Joseph (Barnsley)

    Woodhouse, Sir J T (Huddersi'd

    Haviland-Burke.

    Wason, Eugene (Clackmannan)

    Young, Samuel

    NOES.

    Agg-Gardner, James Tynte

    Gore, Hon. S. F. Ormsby-

    Morrison, James Archibald

    Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel

    Greene, W. Raymond (Cambs.)

    Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer

    Anson, Sir William Reynell

    Gretton, John

    Mount, William Arthur

    Arnold-Forster, Rt Hn Hugh O.

    Groves, James Grimble

    Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C.

    Arrol, Sir William

    Hall, Edward Marshall

    Muntz, Sir Philip A.

    Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John

    Hambro, Charles Eric

    Murray, Charles J. (Coventry)

    Bailey, James (Walworth)

    Hamilton, Marq of (L'nd'nderry

    Parkes, Ebenezer

    Bain, Colonel James Robert

    Hare, Thomas Leigh

    Percy, Earl

    Balcarres, Lord

    Hay, Hon. Claude George

    Pierpoint, Robert

    Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey)

    Heath, Arthur Howard (Hanley

    Pilkington, Colonel Richard

    Balfour, Rt. Hn. Gerald W (Leeds

    Heath, Sir James (Staffords NW

    Platt-Higgins, Frederick

    Banbury, Sir Frederick George

    Helder, Augustus

    Plummer, Sir Walter R.

    Banner, John S. Harmood-

    Henderson, Sir A. (Stafford, W.)

    Pretyman, Ernest George

    Bartley, Sir George C. T.

    Hickman, Sir Alfred

    Pryce-Jones, Lt.-Col. Edward

    Beach, Rt Hn Sir Michael Hicks

    Hornby, Sir William Henry

    Randles, John S.

    Bignold, Sir Arthur

    Houldsworth, Sir Wm. Henry

    Reid, James (Greenock)

    Bill, Charles

    Houston, Robert Paterson

    Renshaw, Sir Charles Bine

    Bingham, Lord

    Hudson, George Bickersteth

    Renwick, George

    Blundell, Colonel Henry

    Hunt, Rowland

    Ridley, S. Forde

    Bond, Edward

    Hutton, John (Yorks. N.R.)

    Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield)

    Boscawen, Arthur Griffith

    Jebb, Sir Richard Claverhouse

    Robertson, Herbert (Hackney)

    Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John

    Jeffreys, Rt. Hon. Arthur Fred.

    Rolleston, Sir John F. L.

    Bull, William James

    Kennaway, Rt Hon Sir John H.

    Round, Rt. Hon. James

    Butcher, John George

    Kenyon-Slaney, Rt. Hn. Col. W.

    Royds, Clement Molyneux

    Campbell, JHM (Dublin Univ.)

    Kerr, John

    Rutherford, John (Lancashire)

    Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.

    Kimber, Sir Henry

    Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool)

    Cavendish, V.C.W.(Derbyshire)

    Knowles, Sir Lees

    Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford

    Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J A. (Wore

    Laurie, Lieut.-General

    Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander

    Chapman, Edward

    Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow)

    Sandys, Lieut.-Col. Thos Myles

    Clive, Captain Percy A.

    Lawrence, Sir Joseph (Monm'th

    Saunderson, Rt. Hn. Col. Edw. J.

    Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E.

    Lawrence, Wm. F. (Liverpool)

    Seely, Charles Hilton (Lincoln)

    Colomb, Rt. Hon Sir John C. R.

    Lawson, John Grant (Yorks NR

    Seton-Karr, Sir Henry

    Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow)

    Lee, Arthur H. (Hants, Fareham

    Sinclair, Louis (Romford)

    Corbett, T. L. (Down, North)

    Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage

    Smith, H. C. (North'mbTyneside

    Dalkeith, Earl of

    Llewellyn, Evan Henry

    Smith, Rt. Hn. J Parker (Lanarks

    Dalrymple, Sir Charles

    Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Bristol, S

    Stewart, Sir Mark J M'Taggart

    Davenport, William Bromley

    Lowe, Francis William

    Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M.

    Denny, Colonel

    Loyd, Archie Kirkman

    Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley

    Dickson, Charles Scott

    Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred

    Tollemache, Henry James

    Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph

    Macdona, John Cumming

    Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M.

    Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-

    MacIver, David (Liverpool)

    Tuff, Charles

    Doxford, Sir William Theodore

    Maconochie, A. W.

    Walker, Col. William Hall

    Duke, Henry Edward

    M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool)

    Walrond, Rt. Hon Sir William H

    Fellowes, Rt. Hn. Ailwyn Edward

    M'Iver, Sir Lewis (Edinburgh W

    Welby, Lt.-Col. ACE (Taunton

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

    M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire)

    Wentworth, Bruce C. Vernon

    Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst

    Majendie, James A. H.

    Whitmore, Charles Algernon

    Finch, Rt. Hon. George H.

    Malcolm, Ian

    Willoughby de Eresby, Lord

    Finlay, Sir R. B. (Inv'rn'ssB'ghs)

    Martin, Richard Biddulph

    Wilson-Todd, Sir WH (Yorks.)

    Fisher, William Hayes

    Maxwell, W. J. H. (Dumfriesshire

    Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E. R (Bath

    FitzGterald, Sir Robert Penrose

    Melville, Beresford Valentine

    Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George

    Forster, Henry William

    Milvain, Thomas

    Yerburgh, Robert Armstrong

    Galloway, William Johnson

    Montagu, G. (Huntingdon)

    Gardner, Ernest

    Montagu, Hon. J. Scott (Hants

    TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir

    Godson, Sir Augustus Frederick

    Morgan, David J (Walthamstow

    Alexander Acland-Hood and

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

    Morpeth, Viscount

    Viscount Valentia.

    Gordon, J. (Londonderry, S.)

    Morrell, George Herbert

    STANDING COMMITTEE (ACTION OF CHAIRMAN).
    Order for resuming adjourned debate on Question [4th April]
    416
    read, and discharged. Motion withdrawn.
    Adjourned at a quarter after Twelve o'clock.