IRISH UNIVERSITIES BILL.

HC Deb 11 May 1908 vol 188 cc765-872

Order for Second Reading read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."

Mr. HUTTON (Yorkshire, W.R., Morley)

, in moving, "That this House refuses to take any step which would increase the strength for denominational interests in any branch of education in Ireland, believing that the interests of truth and the welfare of the nation demanded the "maintenance of an entirely free atmosphere, particularly in the region of higher education, and that this cannot be secured on a denominational basis" said, and therefore declines to provide further with the measure, that it was to him a matter of sincere regret that he should find himself in opposition to his right hon. friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland. There was no man in the House for whom he had a higher personal regard, and there were no proposals to which he would give a more sympathetic consideration than those coming from his right hon. friend. They all knew and recognised his great passion for furthering the interests of education, both in England, for whose educational interests he was responsible a short tune ago, and in Ireland, for which country he was responsible at the present time. But having regard to the proposal which he had laid before the House he did not think the right hon. Gentleman could be at all surprised, nor indeed would he complain, if he or some other Member put down an Amendment such as he now rose to move. He thought the Chief Secretary would naturally look for some sort of criticism or some kind of opposition from those who had been accustomed to look upon the matters dealt with in this Bill from the position which he (Mr. Hutton) and his friends occupied. That position was not so popular to-day as it was a few years ago; and it was a position which seemed to be becoming rather old-fashioned, but one which they had the honour to fill. A generation ago, the views which he held to-day in respect to education and religion and their common relation to the State were very prevalent in the Liberal Party, especially that section of it associated with Non- conformity. Though he could not hope to put their case before the House with the force he desired, at any rate, he was glad of the opportunity of stating in regard to this Bill some of the positions which he thought the Liberal Party ought not to desert. He recognised the courage of the right hon. Gentleman in tackling this question. Whether at the present moment it was politic was another matter. He believed the Government had taken on its shoulders the consideration of a great many topics of first-class importance, and he was a little surprised that they should have chosen the present moment for shouldering this question, which was a very thorny one indeed, and might prove thornier still before this Bill became law. The proposals of the right hon. Gentleman were, he thought, of a frankly denominational character. He had brought forward a proposal for the settlement of what had been a very difficult question, and no doubt he hoped to pass a measure which should be a settlement for a very considerable time. He was always suspicious of proposals which were to achieve a permanent settlement. He did not think when they looked back, at any rate on questions that related to education and religion, that they had been very successful with proposals that were to be far-reaching and effect a settlement. It was far wiser to proceed by steps in these matters rather than to attempt a revolutionary proposal and build on a foundation which the House and the country had never hitherto accepted. The Bill was frankly on a denominational basis. It might be said that there were no denominational tests, and that there were provisions to avoid all appearance at any rate of any denominational basis, but he thought it was well to brush away all these considerations, and frankly recognise at the beginning that the Bill proposed to settle the University question of Ireland upon a denominational basis. They had had from the hon. Member for East Mayo, in his speech upon the First Reading of the Bill, a reference to the Catholic demand in regard to this question. He understood that the Bill met their wishes. Of course he made no complaint about it on that ground. He was always very glad if any wishes as regarded education were met by the Government without departing from what he believed to be sound principles. But this Bill met what the hon. Member spoke of as the Catholic demand. He was always at a loss to know what were the Catholic demands. He made no pretence to an intimate knowledge of the question. All he could say about it was that he did not think he had ever missed a single debate upon the question. Though he never offered any remarks himself he had always during the time that he had had a seat in the House been an attentive listener to the interesting discussion of the question. What was it that constituted the Catholic demand in regard to the University question? The Queen's Colleges did not meet it. They were under the Episcopal ban, and because of that he supposed they had to go. There was instituted a Royal University. That had not met the Catholic demand, so he supposed it had to go. In addition they had Maynooth, which was in possession of a very handsome endowment, and another College. None of these met what the hon. Member spoke of as the Catholic demand. But this Bill did, and he thought that that was a confession, whether it appeared on the face of the clauses or of the grant charge, that it was frankly a denominational proposal. He did not know whether a University upon denominational basis met with the ideal of his right hon. friend or not. He did not know, if he were beginning de novo, whether he would set up a University on a denominational basis or not. But what he asked for was that, in treating this question, they should be frank with one another and say what were their ideals in regard to University education in Ireland or anywhere else, and ask the House if they could not get all they wanted at a time to take one step in the right direction. He frankly said that the denominational basis for Universities was not his ideal, and this Bill took not only one step but many steps in what he conceived to be a wrong direction. If he had any quarrel with the right hon. Gentleman it was that in a Bill of this kind they were taking substantial steps in a direction which led towards an ideal in regard to education which he believed to be fundamentally wrong. He could not presume to say what ought to be the characteristics of a University; he did not pretend to have made a sufficient study or to have sufficient knowledge, but he ventured to lay down two principles with which he did not think his right hon. friend or anybody in the House ought to quarrel. The first was that it ought to be open to and frequented by all classes of the community. It was all very well to say there was no prohibition, but every provision was taken with the exception of prohibiting the attendance of those who did not belong to the particular denomination. Otherwise every inducement was offered to students of a particular denomination to attend a particular University, and it was so arranged and so provided that what was bound to happen was that in the Belfast University they would have Presbyterians in a large majority; at Trinity there would be Anglicans and very few others; and in the other University there would be Roman Catholics and not many others. That was not carrying out, at any rate, the first principle he laid down, that any satisfactory University ought to offer every inducement to all classes of the community to attend. And in this particular case they were making the difficulty so obvious that they would have the three Universities, however free they might be on paper, actually available only to those belonging to one particular denomination or another. The other principle that he would lay down was that in all branches of learning there should be absolute freedom in regard to study, research, and teaching. He did not mean to say that any University must be expected to provide teaching upon every subject that might be desired, but where there were subjects provided for by University chairs, they ought to be assured that there was absolute freedom in study, in research, and in teaching. Was it likely that in regard to a University where they had secured a denominational atmosphere at any rate they were likely to have this absolute freedom? It was perfectly certain that although they might not have tests on paper they might have indirect as well as direct tests. A professor might find his classroom vacant because he had gone in his teaching beyond the limits prescribed by the doctrine of his Church. If he had been so venturesome as to do that, and no pressure could be brought to bear upon him individually and personally, pressure could be brought upon the students, and directly or indirectly they could very successfully bring tests to bear when they had provided that the Universities were to be frequented only by those of a particular denomination. The result of that would be that they would take every possible precaution to have theological "pens" and not Universities in the proper sense of the term. He always looked for education to be assisted by the State, and if it was to fulfil what he believed to be its proper functions, he always looked upon it as a unifying force. Where they had in an educational institution people of different classes and different denominations it brought out what was common to all and unified them. By this Bill they were making the Universities a dividing and not a unifying force, and that was a deplorable result. His right hon. friend was aware of the examples of other countries in regard to the development of University education. He did not pretend to be well acquainted with any particular style of University that had been established recently or the developments that had taken place. The only knowledge he had was from the Paper laid on the Table by the Government something like ten years ago as the result of inquiries in regard to Universities in all countries on the Continent. He did not see any grounds of encouragement from the result of those inquiries to give any support to this proposal of his right hon. friend. On the contrary, it seemed to him that the whole tendency was in the opposite direction, that Universities that had been denominational were all growing out of that atmosphere and spirit, and it seemed to him a deplorable thing that in these days they should be taking the utmost pains to go back to a state of things which it was hoped they had left behind. He believed there were many experiments in this direction in the United States of America. He believed there were a great many denominational Universities there. He should hardly think his right hon. friend would justify this experiment on the ground of the tendency that had exhibited itself in the United States, in the private establishment of denominational Universities. He did not suppose there was a single denominational University in the United States that had received any assistance out of State funds. All of them were the result of private benevolence and private charity. However they came into existence, they were there. Would his right hon. friend suggest that those Universities were equal to those that were not narrowed down in their view and outlook by denominational interests? Would he choose to send someone over whom he had influence to a denominational University? He knew of no experiments in any country that would give any encouragement to the new proposals which the right hon. Gentleman was asking the House to adopt. Thirty or forty years ago the question of tests in Oxford and Cambridge was dealt with. What would the right hon. Gentleman have said if at that time the Nonconformists had said: "That is not enough for us. We cannot send our sons to Oxford or Cambridge, because the influence of the Anglican Church will be too powerful for them; you must make provision which will prevent them from being contaminated? "He did not claim that Nonconformists should have a University established for their benefit, but the great thing was that they should be permitted to make the best use of their opportunities. The Episcopal authorities did their utmost to prevent the sons of Roman Catholics frequenting Oxford and Cambridge; but now that official ban had been removed, and the sons of Roman Catholics frequented Oxford and Cambridge Universities, to the advantage of themselves and of those two institutions. But, supposing the Government of that day had treated that demand in the same hesitating way as the Governments in days gone by had treated the Roman Catholic demand for University education in Ireland, what would have been the result? That ban would never have been removed. If the Government had not continually made concessions abolishing this, that, and the other in Ireland in order to meet denominational differences, long ago they would have had a University in Ireland which would have been agreeable to all denominations. The demand put forward in this Bill was exceedingly difficult to justify. It was rather extraordinary that under the Education Bill for England a special type of schools had been promised for Catholics, and under this Bill they were proposing a special type of University. The reason given in the case of the special schools was that Catholics were to have special treatment because they were in a minority and poor, and could not properly protect their own interests; on the other hand, Catholics in Ireland were to have this special kind of University because they were in a large majority. That was the whole theory of endowment at the hands of the State by a Liberal Government. It should be noted that this experiment was going to be tried in a country where they no longer had an Established Church. It was a most amazing result, after they had secured the disestablishment of one Church to proceed by statute with the endowment of all kinds of Churches when they came forward and demanded special consideration. In introducing this Bill his right hon. friend made special reference to the affiliation of colleges, and said that it would be done only under the most stringent restrictions. He did not understand that there were any restrictions of any kind upon the affiliation of colleges with the Universities. If those colleges were affiliated they were to have all the privileges that any constituent college could claim.

MR. DILLON (Mayo, E.)

No.

MR. HUTTON

said that that was his reading of the Bill. At any rate they were to have all the University privileges and degrees. At present Maynooth College possessed a handsome endowment. It had over 600 students, mostly clerical, who were pursuing their theological studies, and they were to have a full opportunity for receiving their degrees, after residence at Maynooth College. Did Maynooth College come under the clause referred to by the Chief Secretary in regard to tests? He considered that Maynooth or any other college would, under the educational restrictions laid down, have the full advantage of the University. In that case the education would be devoted to clerical students alone and Maynooth would be in a position to apply any kind of test they might choose. In that case it would be a very simple thing to have colleges affiliated with all the tests they might desire. He did not want to press that too hard, but it was a proof that there were ample opportunities provided, directly and indirectly, for making these Universities absolutely denominational in character, and that would be a disaster to education. The right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for East Mayo had made a statement to the effect that to have a high standard of University education was far more important than a high standard of elementary education; and that in the interests of the country it was necessary, first of all, to have a satisfactory standard of University education. He was not going to challenge that statement for a moment, because the type of education given at the University would stamp itself upon the elementary education, and the secondary schools, as well as on the men who were passing through the University. They were establishing three Universities for Ireland of a purely denominational order, which stamped denominationalism upon the students from the earliest days of their education through all its stages.

MR. DILLON

asked what the hon. Member meant by a denominational University.

MR. HUTTON

said he meant a University frequented, if not entirely, at least overwhelmingly, by people of one denomination. If they had the denominational atmosphere which it was the aim of Catholics to secure, they were bound to have these three Universities denominational in every sense of the word. They might have affiliated colleges with every kind of test.

MR. LUPTON (Lincolnshire, Sleaford)

said the Bill clearly laid down that "in no constituent college shall there be any test whatever."

MR. HUTTON

said it had already been pointed out that there was no other example in history where they had a college confined to clerical teaching recognised in a University system. If that was recognised there was no reason why many others should not be recognised. He regretted exceedingly that he had to offer opposition to the measure proposed by his right hon. friend, but he must say that his ideas of what ought to be the duty of the State with regard to the provision of education, and especially when it came into contact with religion, were directly contrary to the directions and intentions of this Bill, and, therefore, he was obliged to move the Amendment.

*DR. HAZEL (West Bromwich)

, in seconding the Amendment, said that the House might be disposed to regard his hon. friend and himself as facing fearful odds in the course they were taking, but he was fortified by the remark which fell the other day from his hon. friend the Member for Preston that when this House was most unanimous it was generally most wrong. He must admit certain misgiving at finding himself for the time acting with the hon. Member for North Armagh and his friends. He comforted himself with the reflection that consistency like adversity sometimes brought strange bed-fellows. He seconded the Amendment of his hon. friend because he came to the House pledged to his constituents to vote against the endowment of a denominational University whether overt or covert. Whatever the paper constitution, who would deny that in intention and in fact they had here two denominational Universities? He might not be able to answer the demand of the hon. Member for East Mayo to define a denominational University, but he knew one when he saw it, and there were two of them in this Bill. It really did seem passing strange to an sophisticated back bencher like himself that the Liberal Party should be asked to spend part of the session in endeavouring to expel the denominational atmosphere from the State-supported elementary schools in England and Wales, and another part of the same session in introducing the denominational atmosphere into State-supported Universities in Ireland. The Bill was against Liberal principles. It was one of the most cherished principles of the Liberal Party that State-endowed higher education should be undenominational. Here they had the concurrent endowment, as he took it, of three distinct denominations. They had one University mainly intended for Roman Catholics, and another in Belfast mainly intended for Presbyterians, while Trinity College tertius gaudens got away with endowments free to apply them to the uses of the Episcopalian Church. He supported the Amendment because what the Bill proposed was against the trend of modern educational policy in this and in every other country. The older Universities were getting rid as fast as they could of their denominational atmosphere, and the new Universities did not allow that atmosphere to be introduced. So far as regarded Belfast the attitude of that city was one at most of acquiescence. Belfast, before the Robertson Commission, repudiated any desire for a University, and now it was to have a University foisted upon it as a makeweight. What was the dose which had put to sleep the Nonconformist watchdogs while the right hon. Gentleman was burgling their safe? It appeared to be Clause 3 which prohibited tests— No test whatever of religious belief shall be imposed on any person as a condition of his becoming or continuing to be a professor, lecturer, fellow, scholar, exhibitioner, graduate, or student of, or of his holding any office or emolument, or exercising any privilege in either of the two new Universities, or any constituent college; nor in connection with either of those Universities or any such constituent college shall any preference be given to or advantage be withheld from any person on the ground of religious belief. If that clause was relied upon by his Liberal or Nonconformist friends, either as a guarantee of undenominationalism or as a guarantee for the freedom of the teaching of the professors, they were relying upon something which was utterly illusory. In the first place, the very constitution of the governing bodies of these new Universities would mean in itself a de facto religious test. They had it on record in the evidence of the ecclesiastical witnesses before the Robertson Commission and the Fry Commission that the governing body of a college or University to satisfy the Catholic demand must be dominantly Roman Catholic. They had it on record from another ecclesiastical witness that the laymen on the governing body must be such as would "generally defer at once to the ascertained wishes of the bishops." Any applicant for the post of professor or teacher in Belfast or Dublin might not legally be asked the question: "What is your religious belief? Are you of this, that, or the other faith?" But under this clause he might be asked questions which would amount equally to a religious test. He might be asked as a condition of his appointment whether he would teach or abstain from teaching a particular view, say, of history or of science. That being so, if he were rejected on that inquiry, and if a complaint were made, the governing body would be entitled to say: "We were not testing his religious belief. We were merely ascertaining whether he would be an efficient and suitable teacher," That was de facto a religious test. They had it further in the evidence of the ecclesiastical witnesses that it was the bishops who must determine the "boundaries of the scientific region" in secular subjects. The right hon. Gentleman took credit to himself in the able speech in which he introduced the Bill that he was sweeping away the declaration which at present had to be made by those who were appointed professors in the Queen's colleges at Cork and Galway. A portion of that declaration said that the professor was— Not to make any statement…injurious, or disrespectful to the religious opinion of any portion of my class.

MR. DILLON

There is more than that. Read it all.

*DR. HAZEL

said he proposed to apply his remarks to the portion he had read. Any hon. Member who wished to comment on any other portion could read it. He held that the abolition of declaration opened the way for denominational teaching of the most pronounced character. It made it perfectly possible in any one of these State-endowed colleges to carry on open proselytising, whether on the Protestant or the Roman Catholic side. It proved that the colleges which were to be provided for the benefit of the Roman Catholics would satisfy the requirements laid down by one of their ecclesiastical witnesses, who stated that the college must be "substantially a denominational college without tests." Referring to the question of the tenure of the present professors, the hon. Member said that was a matter on which considerable interest and even perturbation had been excited in the minds of the present staff at Cork and Galway. The Chief Secretary, in introducing the Bill, referring to Cork and Galway, used these words— Existing professors will of course go on and be professors of the new University, but upon the old terms. When they die or retire the Senate will appoint their successors. In the Bill, as printed, Clauses 12 and 13 proposed not that these gentlemen should go on as before but that on the "appointed day"—which was likely to be a fatal day to some of them—their places were to become vacant, and they were only to take them up again if they were reappointed by the Dublin Commission, whose names he did not at present know. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would be able to relieve the minds of those gentlemen, for at the present time the position seemed to them to be that they might lose their posts. Further, he asked, was this Bill to be a final settlement of the question? He knew perfectly well that some of his hon. friends on those benches had waived the objection which they held to denominational endowment, and had supported this Bill in the belief that it would at last settle the religious difficulty in regard to University education in Ireland, and would allow the education of that country, too long neglected, to advance as it ought to advance. What was the position? It was perfectly certain that the arbiters of the success or non-success of the scheme would be the Roman Catholic hierarchy. He found in an article which had recently attracted a good deal of attention, that a most distinguished Bishop well-qualified to speak for the Roman Catholics in Ireland, Dr. O'Dwyer, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Limerick, had expressed his great disappointment with the Bill. He said "it hurts the religious sense of the people," he objected to the omission of the bishops qua bishops from the governing bodies, and declared that their claim to be on the Senate should be pressed as a matter of principle. If Dr. O'Dwyer was speaking for any considerable number of Roman Catholic Bishops, he foresaw that this settlement, welcomed by almost everyone when the right hon. Gentleman introduced the Bill, was likely to be no settlement at all. He thought, therefore, they were justified in asking, and insisting on asking, whether this would be accepted as a final settlement or whether it would be used as a lever to get further concessions. He desired to say a word as to the position of Trinity College. He hoped he would be acquitted of any desire of making an attack on Trinity. Trinity was an Alma Mater of his, and he happened to be the possessor of a couple of her degrees, and to be misrepresented in this House by the right hon. Gentlemen the Members for the University of Dublin. He fully admitted the great traditions and possibilities that there were in Trinity for the advancement of the higher education of Ireland. He regretted exceedingly that it seemed likely that under this Bill and by the policy of those responsible for the government of Trinity, those great traditions and possibilities instead of being put to the service of the nation, were to be devoted to interests of a denomination or a party. It was intended, when Trinity was founded that she should be the nucleus of a great National University. That position was put forward with great force in the appendix of the Lord Chief Baron, Dr. Hyde, and Dr. Coffey, to the Report of the Trinity College (Dublin) Commission, and their arguments had never been answered. He contended that to reserve Trinity, as it would be practically reserved under this Bill, for the Unionists and for the episcopalian portion of the inhabitants of Ireland was an abuse of the intentions of the foundress. He did not want to enlarge at length on the position of Trinity, but he would say that so far as that college was concerned, he, for his own part, would have much preferred the scheme of Mr. Bryce. That scheme was based on the great conception, the magnificent ideal of a National University, with Trinity at its head. But Trinity would have none of it. The distinguished advocates who represented Dublin University, aided by the hon. and learned Member for Cambridge University, who was a safer guide on the aspects of Greek genius than on the aspects of Irish politics, carried the fiery cross round the Combination rooms of Cambridge and the Common rooms of Oxford, and raised a considerable academic uproar against the proposals of Mr. Bryce, with the result that they appeared to have frightened the present Chief Secretary into giving up the Bryce scheme. They said: "Trinity is saved." But saved from what, and saved for what? Saved from the possibility of being a great National University; saved for the use of the Ascendency Party and of the Episcopalian Church: That might be a victory, but from the general standpoint of education in Ireland it was not a victory to be proud of. He trusted that the right hon. Gentleman who seemed to have set out on a crusade of University reform would not stop at this Bill. He hoped that something would be done to carry out the recommendations of the Commission in regard to Trinity College. It called for reform at every turn. Anybody who examined the constitution and emoluments of the present governing body of Trinity would admit that it was not unfair to say that at the present moment Trinity was ruled by an elderly and highly-paid oligarchy. Another great institution that would be affected by this Bill was the Royal University of Ireland. The Royal University of Ireland was to be abolished. He held no brief for an examining University. It was by no means the best form of a University; but it was better than none at all. The Royal University, as everybody would admit, had done great and useful service to education in Ireland. Here he would like to drop a tear over the grave of the external student. The right hon. Gentleman proposed to kill him off at the end of a time-limit of five years, thereby axtending to him less mercy then was granted to the licensee. He thought that if the external student was to be entirely abolished in Ireland as the right hon. Gentleman proposed—as the Trinity College Commission proposed to abolish him also, so far as Trinity was concerned—if it were impossible to get a degree except by attendance at lectures not only would great injury be done to education generally, but injustice inflicted on teachers, clergymen, Nonconformist ministers, and many others of both sexes, who were content for the sake of education and of their own advancement, to work hard and long in order to be fitted to present themselves for examination. He trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would make some provision for external students alongside the new foundation as was at present done in the University of London. He did not want to go into a disquisition on the value of examinations and an examining body. They were discussed when the Bill was introduced. He remembered the Leader of the Opposition denouncing examinations amid the sympathetic cheers of his supporters behind him, some of whom had been ploughed with painful frequency in the more elementary examinations at 0xford and Cambridge. [OPPOSITION cries of "Name."] He could understand the right hon. Gentleman himself saying that he himself was not a success as an examinee. It was very difficult to imagine any undertaking in which the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition would not be a brilliant success; but from his own experience of examinations, active and passive, examiners liked definite answers; and if the present was any indication of the past he could quite believe that the answers of the right hon. Gentleman to questions on political economy would be a little too vague to earn the highest marks. At any rate, whether examinations were the best method of testing knowledge or not, they were a useful method and a very valuable incentive to the acquisition of knowledge. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary proposed that nobody should get a degree unless he attended college lectures. There was no educational magic about college lectures. He had heard and delivered too many to be under any delusion about their value. A young man or woman might obtain knowledge from admirably written text-books just as well as from badly taken lecture notes. That was rather a technical point, but he was sure the right hon. Gentleman, before this Bill passed into law, would hear that there was in educational circles a very strong consensus of opinion that it would be from an educational point of view a great mistake entirely to abolish the external student. There was one other point he would like to touch upon. The hon. Member for Cork, in the very eloquent speech in which he supported the introduction of the Bill—a speech which was a delight to everyone who heard it—said that one of the results of the Bill would be— The emancipation of the Catholic youth of Ireland from intellectual penal laws. It might be that the Catholic youth of Ireland did labour under intellectual penal laws; but who imposed them? If there were any they were not imposed by Parliament or by the Universities at present existing in Ireland, but by the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church. He did not want to trouble the House with minute details; but on this point it was necessary to remind it that in Trinity College, Dublin, Roman Catholics were admitted to degrees in 1793, and it had been open to them ever since. And it was stated in the Robertson Commission Report that— For fifty years after that date there was hardly a Roman Catholic layman of eminence who had not been educated at Trinity. Why did that stop? It was because of the episcopal ban which enacted the intellectual penal laws. Here was what the Report of the Royal Commission stated— There is a considerable body of Roman Catholic laymen in Ireland who would gladly send their sons to Trinity if they could do so with the approbation of their Church, and their views have been presented to us in evidence. They obeyed the ban and kept their sons away from Trinity; and, therefore, the intellectual penal laws, so far as they applied to young Catholics, were imposed not by Parliament, not by Trinity, not by the Royal Irish University, not by the Queen's Colleges, but by the Roman Catholic hierarchy. He knew that it was put on record by two Prime Ministers, by Mr. Gladstone and by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London that: "They had no right to go behind the Episcopal veto and ask whether it was justified or not"; but he contended that they were entitled to inquire how far the Episcopal demand was consistent. Anyone who had traced the course of events during the last few years would admit that there had been a gradual fall in the demand. Changing times changed the attitude; and he was not without the hope expressed by the hon. Member who moved the Amendment, that if this Bill had not been brought forward at this juncture they would have had a still further development and that Irish Catholic youths would have been allowed to go to an Irish University with the same freedom as English Catholics without injury to their faith or morals went to Oxford and Cambridge and to the other English and to the Scottish Universities. He believed that among the laity of Ireland there was no great desire for any special denominational University of this kind. He would quote from the Appendix to the Trinity College Commission Report a statement by a member of that Commission, a Roman Catholic, a gentleman of note in the educational world, a layman and a fellow of Trinity. That gentleman used these weighty words— I believe the demand (for the establishment of a college for Catholics in Dublin) is unreasonable and could not be conceded without grave injury to the interests of Irish lay Catholics and grave danger at no distant date to the peace of the country.

AN HON. MEMBER (on the IRISH Benches)

A minority of one.

*DR. HAZEL

said he quoted the gentleman as one, as a fellow of Trinity, as a Roman Catholic, and as a gentleman of weight in the educational world. Well, that unreasonable demand was now being conceded. But they were having more than that. They were having, not one denominational University in Ireland, buy three. He objected, to a Presbyterian University and to an Episcopalian University as much as to a Roman Catholic University. He objected to the whole scheme of tripartite denominationalism and this Trinity of sectarian Universities, and preferred the scheme of Mr. Bryce of a single National University. There they would have had undoubtedly colleges at first denominational; they might have met and probably would have met with difficulties of administration, but there was in that scheme the potentiality in the future of a great National University. The difficulties would have disappeared with experience and before the integrating influence of a common interest in higher education. What were the Government doing by this scheme? They were stereotyping denominationalism. They were penning the Episcopalian, the Presbyterian, and the Roman Catholic, each in his own fold, leaving the Methodists bleating outside for admission. Higher education could be and ought to be a unifying force, an influence to break down the barriers and to lessen the differences that separated parties and creeds, and the right hon. Gentleman was using it in this scheme to strengthen those barriers and to perpetuate those differences. For these reasons, because he believed the Bill to be a social mistake, a political mistake, and an educational mistake, he begged to second the Amendment.

Amendment proposed— To leave out all after the word 'that' and insert the words 'this House refuses to take any step which would tend to increase the strength of denominational interests in any branch of education in Ireland, believing that the interests of truth and the welfare of the nation demand the maintenance of an entirely free atmosphere, particularly in the region of higher education, and that this cannot be secured on a denominational basis, and there- fore declines to proceed further with the measure.'"—(Mr. Alfred Hutton.)

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

MR. JOHN REDMOND (Waterford)

I do not rise for the purpose of entering upon any elaborate argument to prove the existence of the grievance from which the great majority of the people of Ireland have been suffering for generations and for centuries in this matter of Irish University education; because, I beg leave to say, with the utmost deference and respect to the hon. Gentlemen who have spoken, that grievance has come to be admitted by both the great Parties in the State. Neither do I rise for the purpose of entering upon an elaborate and detailed criticism of the clauses of this Bill, although upon one or two details of a vital character I shall have a word or two to say; but I recognise that in speaking of the clauses and details of the Bill generally it is more convenient and more regular to discuss them in Committee rather than upon Second Reading. Still less do I rise for the purpose of entering upon a prolonged answer to the two hon. Gentlemen who have spoken. Before I sit down I shall endeavour to deal with the main arguments which they put before the House, but I would like to say that although I differ profoundly from the view that they have expressed, I make no complaint whatever of the manner in which they have put that view before the House or in which they have dealt with this question. I have been concerned in many debates upon this question in the past, and I recognise in the speeches of the two hon. Gentlemen who have spoken, if I may be allowed to use the expression, a softer tone than that which we were accustomed to hear from the Gentlemen who represented what was called in these days the extreme Nonconformist view. I make no complaint whatever of their speeches. In fact, I rather gather from the speech of the seconder of the Amendment that he would have been in favour of passing Mr. Bryce's scheme.

*DR. HAZEL

May I point out that as between this scheme and Mr. Bryce's scheme, I prefer Mr. Bryce's. I prefer a single national University.

MR. JOHN REDMOND

I notice that it is always the scheme that is dead that is approved. "You praise the prophets that your fathers stoned and you stone the prophets of to-day." I understood the hon. Gentleman to say that he prefers Mr. Bryce's scheme. What does he mean by that? Does he mean that he would have supported that scheme or nothing of the kind. I gather that all he will say is that that is a better scheme, but he would have opposed it. I am sorry to have elicited that from the hon. Gentleman, because I was going on to give him some credit for having made some advance and for being willing to go as far as Mr. Bryce's scheme. But my object in rising is far different from this. I consider it desirable, and I think it is due to the Chief Secretary and to this House, to make plain at the earliest possible moment, and in the most direct and unequivocal manner, what is the attitude which the Irish Party take up with regard to the main principles of this measure, speaking, as I claim they are entitled to do, for the general body of the Catholic people of Ireland. I said that as to the existence of this grievance I will not say many words, and as to the urgent need for the redress of that grievance for forty years at least, it has been admitted by the leading statesmen of both Parties in this House that the majority of the people in Ireland have been suffering from a grievance in this matter. It is thirty-five years since Mr. Gladstone introduced his University Bill, and from that day to this various Ministers have made various attempts to settle the question. Almost every leading statesman on one side or the other has admitted that the grievance existed, and the plain facts of the case admit of no doubt or controversy. The hon. Gentleman who seconded the Amendment complained of a phrase used by my hon. friend the Member for the City of Cork about penal laws upon the intellect of young Irishmen in this matter of University education, and he tried to lead us to believe that these penal laws were really of their own making or of the making of the Church or the clergy of the Church to which they belonged. Why, the plain fact of the matter is that for over 300 years, a small—a very small—minority of the people of Ireland, have had the advantage of a highly endowed University institution in the shape of Trinity College, Dublin, but the overwhelming majority of the population, 75 per cent. of the population, until recent years, have been denied facilities for University education altogether, and down to this hour are deprived of any real University institution deserving that name except one to which their religious convictions make them object. The hon. Gentleman says that they ought not to have these religious convictions, but surely in this matter if you attempt to decide what is right or wrong in the religious convictions of your neighbours you are exercising religious tyranny. If 75 per cent. of the people of Ireland have a religious objection to going to a Protestant denominational University institution, surely they are entitled to ask that an institution shall be provided to which they can go. The only University institution that has been open to them up to to-day has been the Royal University. That is only a University in name. The hon. Member has quoted copiously from the Reports of some of the recent Royal Commissions, but he has not quoted what the Royal Commission to whose authority he adverted has said about this Royal University. What did that Royal Commission say? It described the Royal University— As an institution which suffered from incurable defects and which had lowered the ideal of University life and education in Ireland. While in Scotland you have four democratic Universities all in harmony with the religious feeling of the people, while you have in England a number of University institutions none of which are abhorrent to the religious opinions of the people in England, in Ireland there is practically none existing, except the Royal University, which is not a University at all, but a mere examining board. That is a grievance which has been admitted by both Parties in the State and by all enlightened statesmen of the last thirty or forty years. Neither need I dwell upon the incalculable injury done to Ireland by the delay in the settlement of the question. It is unnecessary to point out the consequence of this denial of University facilities to the youth of Ireland. We have been repeatedly told from the Front Bench, when we complained that Englishmen and Scotsmen were given office in connection with the government of Ireland—I never admitted it was a sufficient answer—that those in authority found it impossible to find men in Ireland qualified to fill those offices. In every walk of life Ireland has suffered from this want of University education. Now, Sir, this Bill undoubtedly affords a remedy. There have been many schemes proposed, and many advocated. There has been a good deal of difference among competent men as to what is the best scheme. We have various ideals: I do not say that I myself personally think this an ideal scheme. If I personally had the power to draft and carry a scheme it probably would be different in some essentials, perhaps in many, from this scheme, but let me point out how pathetic has been the attitude of the Catholics of Ireland upon this question. They have been willing all through the last thirty-five years to sink their individual preferences for this or that scheme. They have been willing to accept any scheme so long as it contained the vital essential principle of equality of treatment as between Catholics and Protestants in the matter of University education. I remember in 1889 when the Leader of the Opposition made his famous speech in which he said that the Catholics must give up all idea of a University; that they should be content to take a college and not a University; and then laid down three hard and fast conditions which he said the Catholics must accept before his Party would advocate that scheme. Well, Sir, the laity and clergy of Ireland accepted his conditions and agreed to his proposals, and then his proposals were dropped and never heard of after. Then in 1904 Lord Dunraven brought forward a scheme—nominally it was Lord Dunraven's scheme, but it was well known it was put forward on behalf of the Government of that day, and had the sanction and the approval of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover. Again conditions were formulated and the men who did not approve of that particular scheme were approached. Concessions again were made, and all men, whatever their ideas, recognising in this scheme something which approached equality of treatment, sank their differences and accepted it, clergy and laity alike; once again that scheme was dropped and never heard of again. Then Mr. Bryce proposed a scheme, and again there were differences of opinion as to whether it was the best or not, and again concessions were asked and again were made. Again men sank their differences of opinion, and all agreed—clergy and laity—to accept Mr. Bryce's scheme which we were told was the scheme of the Government. I think I am justified in saying on behalf of the Catholics of Ireland that, though there may be differences of opinion as to whether this is precisely the best and most ideal scheme or not, if they can recognise in it, and I believe they do, the beginning, at any rate, of a settlement of this University education question, and an element of equality, they will sink their differences and once again accept the scheme you propose. Is it to be conceived that under these circumstances any Members in this House, no matter how strong their views may be, will attempt to step in and after all these generations of young Irishmen have gone out into the world unequipped for the struggle of life, owing to the unsettlement of this question, take the responsibility of standing between Ireland and this boon, as I believe it will be? I said the details of the matter had better be left to the committee. There is one detail only that I will deal with, but it is a vital one. As I understand the finance of the Bill, no provision is made for the erection of a residential college. I speak my own view, and it is most strongly that that strikes at the very root of the matter. I take the view that the common life of the University which springs from residence is the most valuable part of University life. I confess I dread the idea of young men being brought up from all parts of Ireland to attend lectures in this new college and University, and instead of living in a residential college being scattered out in poor lodgings in back streets of the city. On this question I might also quote the authority of the Royal Commission. What will strike the imagination of the Irish people if there is no residential college? We are asking for equality. There in Trinity College, Dublin, before the eyes of the people, is the most magnificent residential college in the three Kingdoms. You propose to set up in Dublin a college without any residence whatever. Will that strike the people of Ireland as equality? The Royal Commission used these words— Unless what is done is done on an adequate and impressive scale it need not be done at all. It is necessary that in the majority of the buildings, the emoluments of the teachers and the equipment of the establishment, the institution should command respect and inspire enthusiasm. I most strongly urge upon the Government and upon those responsible in particular for the finance of this Bill that they should increase the finances so as to enable the building fund to include the building of residential quarters. Those who are interested in university education questions will remember Cardinal Newman's declaration upon this point. He went to the extreme of saying that he would rather have a University with residents and without teachers or lecturers or examiners at all, than the best teachers and lecturers and no University life. Let me read his words—they are very striking, and very short— I protest to you, gentlemen, that if I had to choose between a so-called University which dispensed with residence and tutorial superintendence and gave its degrees to any person who passed an examination in a wide range of subjects, and a University which had no professor or examiners at all, but merely brought a number of young men together for three or four years, if I must determine which of the two courses was the more successful in training, moulding, enlarging the mind, which sent out men the more fitted for their secular duties, which produced better public men, men of the world, men whose names would descend to posterity, I have no hesitation in giving the preference to the University which did nothing. That is an extreme presentation of the view which I for one hold strongly, and which. I believe, is held strongly in Ireland, and I urge upon the Government in the interests of equality and in the interest of the success of their scheme to enlarge the building grants which are proposed, so as to enable them to build residential quarters. Let me say just one or two words now in answer to the two hon. Gentlemen who have spoken. The hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment described this as the erection of a frankly denominational University, and a frank endowment of a particular religion. I cannot for the life of me understand what he means. My hon. friend the Member for East Mayo asked him what he meant, but he did not give a very precise or intelligible answer. Is this a denominational University—a University where there is no test for anybody, students, Senate, governing body or teachers, which is open to all classes, where there is no inducement to one man more than another to enter? The hon. Gentleman failed altogether to substantiate his statement that you were holding out inducements to Catholics to go into the so-called Catholic College in Dublin—inducements which we are not to hold out to Protestants or members of any other creed—where there is no inducement to any particular student of a particular denomination to enter, where the governing body is elective, where there is no endowment whatever of any religious teaching, where the professors are freely chosen and elected by the Senate, and where, even in the case of dismissal there is a power of appeal to a board of visitors. On that point I ought to safeguard myself by saying I think the provision of the Bill on this matter is far too stringent and is most unsatisfactory. If I understood the hon. Gentleman rightly, what he meant by a denominational University was an institution in which the atmosphere was denominational. How is he going to get away from that? Is there any University which by that test is not a denominational University? According to that test Trinity College is a denominational University, and so are Queen's College, Belfast, the Scottish Universities, and Oxford and Cambridge. You established a University at Khartoum the other day. I am sure the majority of students attending it are Mohammedans, and it has a denominational atmosphere. I was amazed at reading a letter the other day from a very eminent Presbyterian, County Court Judge Shaw. Here is what he said, after having reminded the Presbyterians that they had been battling for half a century for an undenominational or non sectarian system, and that they had got it embodied in the right hon. Gentleman's Bill— The undenominational system is all right, it appears, as long as it is worked by a majority of Protestants, but all wrong when it is worked by a majority of Catholics. In that sense this college in Dublin will have a denominational atmosphere. The majority of the students going there will be Catholics. You cannot help it. If the majority of the people in Ireland who are deprived of University facilities happened to be Mahomedans or Buddhists the institution would take their colour; but because the majority in Ireland happen to be Catholic, to say that you are in the name of undenominationalism to refuse to give an institution which has no tests, and which has the other characteristics that I have mentioned, seems to me an inconsistent and an unworthy attitude to take up. This scheme is not all that we have asked for. At one time or another the Catholics of Ireland have asked a good deal more than is contained in this Bill. In some respects I hope we shall be able to amend and enlarge it, but it will create a beginning. It will create a free University institution to which the Catholic youth of the country can freely go. It will open at last the gates of University education for the mass of common men in Ireland. Believing as I do that after freedom there is nothing more precious to a nation than enlightenment, my colleagues and I will accept the Bill, and after discussion in Committee upon these points, and other points of a similar character, will do all in our power to have it passed into law.

THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. HALDANE,) Haddington

The hon. Gentleman the Member for Waterford has touched on several points on which I do not propose to follow him now, and on one point I am not sure that I quite share his view. I think he attaches undue importance to the point of a residential college with all that a residential college carries with it. The tendency of modern Universities has been to get away as rapidly as possible from bricks and mortar, and concentrate effort on lecture halls for teaching, and not to set up residential buildings. However, it is not necessary to to go into that question just now. I can point to illustrations. I can tell the hon. Member for Waterford that excepting Trinity College and Oxford and Cambridge, I know of no University at this time that has got colleges such as the hon. and learned Member seems to desire on behalf the new University. But hostels and places of residence may be a very different thing, something on a more modest scale, which gives the lodgings which may be required for the students. That question remains open for discussion, and I only wish to guard myself from being thought to accept the views attached, not only by the hon. and learned Member but by others, to the importance of the collegiate buildings of Universities such as this. But I do not rise to deal with any point of such secondary importance in this great matter. I want to state the case of the Government for this Bill, and it is a very simple case. We hold that justice and expedience alike call for the redress of the great wrong under which Ireland continues to suffer. We hold that as year succeeds year, and that as in other countries besides our own, the development of higher education reaches greater and greater degrees, it is wholly indefensible that Ireland should be left without any participation in the advance which higher education is meted out elsewhere. The scheme of this Bill is one which has been designed to meet the difficulties of the situation. I wholly differ from my hon. friend the Member for Morley in his view that this is the response to a Catholic demand. It is a response to nothing of the kind. It is a response to an educational claim, a claim which we maintain has been deferred so long that it is one of the duties of this vigorous Parliament, which in other matters has succeeded where other Parliaments have failed, to take it up and try to provide the remedy required.

MR. HUTTON

Who has made that educational claim except on behalf of the Roman Catholics?

MR. HALDANE

Of all the narrow questions I have heard put to this House I think the question of my hon. friend is one of the narrowest. Does he imagine that nobody in Ireland cares for higher education except the Roman Catholics? Has he ever been to Belfast and looked into the question, or does he say that Roman Catholics are not entitled to ask for higher education? Is a man, because he happens to be of a kind of religion which is different from that of my hon. friend, to be penalised and denied the rights of a citizen? No such doctrine would be accepted by any large section of people at this hour of the day. What is the proposition in this Bill? It is to deal with a situation in which there is altogether inadequate provision for higher education in Ireland. Of course in doing that you have to deal with denominational difficulties, and the principle which underlies the Bill is this: We seek to put the educational case first, and then to reduce the denominational element to the very smallest we can possibly encompass. I venture to say that if this Bill passes, and if the system which it seeks to erect becomes a reality, then the case in Ireland will not be a case materially different from the case of those on this side of the Irish Channel. If my hon. friend will come to me and discuss the University question, I will take him into places where there is a denominational atmosphere pervading everything, but not in an offensive and mischievous way, and it will not prevail in an offensive or mischievous way if this Bill passes. I will show him that the whole atmosphere of the Scottish Universities is Presbyterian, and that the teaching of some of the professors is, and must be, based on Presbyterian lines. Yet I do not hear from my hon. friend any disposition to throw any difficulties in the way of those Universities. I can take him again to London University, with which is incorporated King's College, a denominational college, a college which justice demanded should be incorporated when we set up the new teaching University for London. I will take him to Oxford and to Cambridge, and in each the denominational atmosphere pervades everything. You cannot get rid of these things—you cannot eliminate them altogether. What you can do is to make sure that they do not interfere with education, and that they make no special demands on the funds of the State. Having defined in that way the purposes of the Bill, let us see what is the broad case on which it rests. In England we have within the last nine years created six new teaching Universities, and we now have ten of them. London University was called into existence some ten years ago, and since that Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, and we hear talk to-day of Bristol, have teaching Universities. That is an analogy which you cannot leave out of account in a Parliament which is responsible for the well-being of Ireland. No wonder the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London, who leads the Opposition, stated in 1899 to his constituents at Manchester that it was a blot upon Unionism that this state of things should exist, and that Ireland should be left out in this fashion; and it would be a blot upon the records of this Parliament if we did not do our best to deal with this question. Take Scotland, which has a population very nearly the same as that of Ireland. She has four teaching Universities. What is the result? The highest education is within the reach of every young man and young woman. They have the means by which they can take an honourable part in the life of the State, and by which they can rise to almost every position. But in Ireland there is a wholly different condition of matters. The state of things which is produced is, I think, really lamentable. A young Irishman of talent, cut off from the highest education, is debarred from many things which are open, with great advantage, to the poorer classes in this country, with the result that offices in Ireland tend to become filled up by those who are of one religious opinion, and that in Ireland there is a condition of things which we could not tolerate if we had to be responsible for it here. I remember some time ago talking this over with one of the most eminent Unionists in Ireland, a man of great knowledge of the country, and he read some words to me containing the point of view of the Catholic hierarchy. I would like to read what he stated. He said— The point of view of the hierarchy was to discourage young Catholics from passing from spheres of primary and intermediate education, which were in substance denominational, into the only higher sphere of University education which was at present open to them in Ireland. That is the denominational sphere. The concern of the bishops was not so much for denominational University teaching as lest under a mixed or undenominational system Catholic students should be exposed to agnostic influences, or influences positively hostile to Catholic doctrine. The result was that no really devout Catholic would go to any of the present teaching Universities or Colleges, with the exception of the one or two miserably equipped Catholic colleges, which, under the present system, struggled on unendowed It followed that the larger number of the most intelligent students, who had been drawn by the intermediate education system from the lower order of the Roman Catholics, were thrown upon the world with an incomplete education, without the ability to see how little they really knew, and so spoilt, by their success in their intermediate career that they had either lost or had not acquired the habit of self-control. These students found themselves with sufficient knowledge to be dissatisfied with the lot of their parents, but without sufficient education to fulfil their proper function of advancing through competitive examinations to the posts in the Civil Service, the Indian Service, etc., which, had they University education, many of them would have reached—they become an idle, discontented lot, picking up a precarious livelihood by occasional journalism, and, by their discontent, filling the Press with that underspirit of disloyalty and hatred of England which all self-respecting Irishmen deplored. I am giving the Unionist view of the effect of the want of higher education in Ireland. The quotation goes on— And I am certain it is true to this extent, that many positions in Ireland which could be filled honourably by Irishmen are not filled by Irishmen, or if they are they are positions filled by Protestant Irishmen, which ought to be filled in proportion to the opinions of the people The plan of the Bill is to avoid as far as possible the rocks on which Sir Robert Peel's Queen's College system and Mr. Gladstone's attempt failed. In those days the religious question preponderated over education. To-day in Ireland we have an indication that the educational question is preponderating over the religious question. There has been a disposition to give up extreme claims, which was noted in the speech of the hon. Member for Waterford, and to accept things which twenty-five years ago would not have been accepted, One of most notable advances is that upon which this Bill is very much based, the declaration by which the Catholic bishops at Maynooth, in June, 1899, laid down four things which were in fact the giving up of claims which had been made in days gone by, and which certainly would be made on behalf of strictly Catholic Universities. In the first place they said they were prepared to give up all claim to State funds for the teaching of religion. Secondly, they were prepared to accept the principle of the Test Act and to exclude all tests from their University. Thirdly, there was to be security of tenure to teachers. Fourthly, they were prepared to accept the principle, however reluctantly—though the time has come when they are ready to accept it for the great benefits of higher education to be given in the future for the people—that a majority of laymen should be on the governing body of the, University, and that is a marked and a great advance. Then there was a marked advance in the Assembly at Belfast, a few months afterwards. The University question was discussed and the Committee on Higher Education made a recommendation to the Assembly which, so far as I know, and I have watched the records ever since, has not been changed, that there should be equal treatment on the footing of two open Universities, one for the north of Ireland and one for the south of Ireland.

MR. SLOAN (Belfast, S.)

When was that?

MR. HALDANE

It was in 1898. It was the statement of the Committee on Higher Education, published to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Ireland, Dr. Leach, Moderator, on the 29th March, 1898. The proposition of it was that to this new northern University should be extended whatever independence or self-government may be accorded to the proposed Roman Catholic University. Then they went on to say that it was really a question of atmosphere. I want to come to what lies at the root of the whole matter. What is being asked for by the Catholics and Presbyterians in Ireland? What is it that they are desirous of having? They are anxious that the students who go to the University should not be, exposed to influences which would directly militate against their religious faith; in other words, they do not want their religion taught there, they do not want State funds used for the setting up of denominational teaching, but what they want is some security against their young men having their minds influenced by teaching of a kind which is directly hostile to the religions teaching to which they have been brought up. We have heard of something of that kind in other Universities, but they ask for it in Ireland in a very moderate form. They are content that in the appointment of the governing body, which for the first five years is to be appointed by the Crown, care should be taken in the selection of that body, so as to see that, while those constituting it are laymen—and laymen of distinction in science and learning, and by their representation of great commercial interests in the country—they should be people who would be trusted to see that no attack was made upon the religious faith of the students. I think in a country like that that demand is a very reasonable one, and one that we should accede to, and it is the only touch of denominationalism that there is in this scheme. In Ireland the question arises in a particularly direct way. Four-fifths of the Irish people are Catholics. ["No."] Very nearly, but I will not dispute about decimals. But suppose it is two-thirds, or three-fourths, and, as regards the south, far more than four-fifths of the people who would go to the southern University are Catholics. What we want is to secure, not only to them, but in the northern University also, that the governing body shall be men who can be relied upon to exercise a just judgment in this matter, and who will not try to run particularly hostile influences against the teaching of the students. For instance, they would not like in Belfast that the governing body should consist entirely of Episcopalians, nor would my hon. friend from Yorkshire like the governing body of the institution with which he is associated to consist entirely of Episcopalians. He would say—and very fairly—that it should be representative of the feeling of the locality, and I think both my hon. friends the Member for Morley and the Member for West Bromwich would agree that it is perfectly reasonable in the North of England, where feeling runs high upon religious questions, that you should try to avoid having a governing body of an aggressive kind which should interfere with the teaching. In fact, something of that kind underlies the feeling against untested teachers coming into our elementary schools. That is the plan of the Bill—simply through care taken by the Government in the choice of the governing body to give this moderate amount of security. But the primary purpose in selecting the governing body is to select the men who are most eminent in education, most representative of great interests, and who can be most trusted to make things a reality. Now, I come to another point. The hon. Member for Morley said— Oh, but your University is going to become denominational right through, because you have taken power to affiliate colleges, and these affiliated colleges will have all the privileges of the constituent bodies. He has not read the Bill or, if he has, he has not read the Charter. I will tell him the origin of the doctrine of affiliated colleges in the Bill. When we reconstituted in this House the teaching University of London in 1898, not only had we to provide for teaching by University professors in what was only an examining University up to that time, but we had to provide for teaching by teachers in colleges which were colleges of the University, and of colleges which were not even colleges of the University. There were institutions like King's College and University College which were autonomous, which we could not interfere with, and we had to do the best we could in the way of recognising the teachers of those institutions. We said to them: "If you will lay out proper courses for students who want to take University degrees, and if you will appoint proper teachers or submit the names of existing teachers whom we consider and approve, then teaching under those recognised teachers shall be recognised as qualifying for the work of the University, and we shall recognise your institution as a school of the University." In that way King's College and University College became in the first instance schools of the University, and subsequently, by special statute, colleges of the University. But there are many other institutions which were then and have since remained schools of the University. Now, what is a school of the University? It is a place where the student goes and pursues his course of training under particular teachers who have been approved by the University itself, and, permeated by its atmosphere, goes up to the University to be examined for his degree. It often happens that the teachers themselves are associated with the primary examination; that may or may not be. Well, that is just the plan we have taken here. There are the constituent colleges, which are the main bodies, but there are also the schools of the University—which are those affiliated institutions which will only be affiliated if and when the governing body has considered the quality of the teaching and the general surroundings of the institutions, and has determined that a student can qualify himself, by attending the teaching there, to come up for examination at the school. It does not make the school a constituent college of the University, and it does not give it any voice in the management of the University. The head of the affiliated college does not come under the governing body of the new University. Now I come to the reasons why we have interfered with the old state of things. Complaint was made by the hon. Member for West Bromwich that we had given the go-by to the external system, under which the University was a mere examining University, like the Royal University of Ireland, and it is said it was a retrograde step to abolish the only Irish University which was free from everything denominational. Whether the Royal University was as free from denominationalism as my hon. friends think, I am not sure, and there are questions of its fellowships which I do not wish to enter upon now. But the system of a federal examining University stands condemned to-day by the very highest educational tribunal. In 1892, Liverpool sought to get a separate charter, and Manchester and Leeds demurred to the break-up of the Victoria University which that involved. They said that the federal system worked admirably, and that it was a good thing for those students to come up and be examined by a wholly independent body. Liverpool replied that you cannot make your degree of the highest educational value unless education and examination go together, and while the independent element is brought into the test, the teacher is still there to certify what the pupil is, and to assist in judging his capacity. That matter was referred to the strongest educational tribunal which, I think, has ever sat in this country—a Special Committee of the Privy Council, presided over by the late Duke of Devonshire, on which sat Lord Rosebery, Lord Balfour, Lord James of Hereford, and Sir Edward Fry. Some of us who were keen about it gave evidence and were severely cross-examined, and a long and searching inquiry ended in a pronouncement which was designed as a guidance for the Government of the day in the grant of these charters. Under that pronouncement the federal system—and the system of the examining University a fortiori—stood condemned, and the Government was recommended to concentrate itself upon the principle of the teaching University, with close association between the teacher and the examiner. That is the great objection to the system which existed in Ireland. There there is a comparatively small teaching University—the University of Dublin. For the rest, three colleges, one in Belfast, the students of which have to go up to Dublin to be examined, one in Cork, and one in Galway, both at a great distance. Thus you have complete divorce between the testing and the teaching. Besides that, there is the little University College in Dublin which has a most honourable record, and which has kept its standard high against great and almost overwhelming difficulties—the college over which Dr. Delany has presided with great ability; further, a certain amount of teaching at Maynooth and Blackrock, but very little else. You have none of those magnificent technical colleges such as we have in Scotland, like the West of Scotland, the Heriot-Watt, and the other great colleges in Edinburgh and Aberdeen, and like those great institutions which are springing up at South Kensington, and are beginning to a bound all over England. Ireland is deprived of the highest education, and the system is such as prevents the highest education growing up and exercising its influence on the moulding of the people. Is it tolerable that that condition of things should continue? I say that the time has come when it is an imperative duty on the part of this Government to take up the thing in the spirit in which it has been taken up here, where we are trying more and more to bring University education as close as possible to our doors, and to extend it to people who need it, if possible, more than it is needed here where there are other facilities for education open which are not available there. The case is one of a crying injustice, and when history comes to be written and this Bill has passed, the wonder will be, not that it passed, but that Parliament should have tolerated so long a refusal of this measure of justice. I have touched upon the main points with which we have to deal, and I have stated why we propose to deal with them in this fashion. I was astonished to hear my hon. friend the Member for West Bromwich speak well of Mr. Bryce's scheme. It was admirable in many respects, but in the forefront of it was a Catholic college alongside an Anglican college and a Presbyterian college. There was denominationalism writ large. My own view is that it is a mistake to meddle with existing institutions in Ireland. You want to add to them, not to destroy them. Trinity College has a great and honourable record, and it is one of the bodies most dangerous to meddle with. The English statesman who lays his hand on that Ark of the Covenant shall surely perish. It is better to look to two great independent teaching Universities of a democratic type to which students can go at no great expense, which shall draw on the whole of Ireland and have affiliated and constituent colleges, presenting avenues through which the young people of Ireland may get access to the higher education hitherto denied to them. As to the suggestion that Belfast is having a University foisted upon it against its will, let me remind the House of the splendid contributions made by the citizens of Belfast for the development of the Queen's College, and their demand that the case of Belfast should be recognised. [Cries of "0h."] Is it not intolerable that hon. Members should demur to the proposition to recognise that this great city, with all its technical industries, should actually at this time of day in the year of grace 1908 come forward and say that a city like Belfast is to be denied the benefit of University education?

MR. GORDON (Londonderry, S.)

There was no suggestion of denial, but only that Belfast had not asked for it.

MR. HALDANE

Then so much the worse for Belfast. But the hon. Member is somewhat slandering the reputation of Belfast, which has taken an active part in calling for this higher education. To-day the leading citizens insist that, owing to the status and growth of the city, it is imperatively necessary that higher education should be available. The case of Belfast is not weaker than that of the rest of Ireland, and could be argued on the same grounds of justice and expediency. I believe our plan is the best plan. But one question I will ask hon. Gentlemen opposite. What is it you propose? Is it to do nothing? Is it to leave the present grievances unredressed—to say that there is no case for higher education, and that Ireland is not to have the same proportion of Universities as the other parts of the kingdom? Or have you some other proposal to make? If you have, then I trust that we shall hear something more of it, for as one concerned with education, I feel that the debate would be most barren and most unsatisfactory if we cannot in the course of it induce hon. Members who are resisting this Bill to come out into the, open and say what they propose. Is it to give no University to Ireland beyond what she has at present? There is silence, a silence that is eloquent. The Government's plan stands as a plan without a rival. In the name of education, of expediency, and of justice to Ireland I appeal to the House to give a vote in favour of this Bill which will mark without any possibility of ambiguity the determination of this progressive Parliament to redress a great wrong.

MR. JAMES CAMPBELL (Dublin University)

The position of the Chief Secretary is not an easy one. For four years this country has been in the throes of educational controversy on the question of religious teaching in primary schools; and hon. Members opposite have declared their undying hostility to providing denominational teaching at the expense of the State. A few years ago the Chief Secretary was the champion of his Party in that respect. He was the great foe to clericalism in primary education. Every one thought that he and his friends believed in those imperishable principles, and like the Pilgrim Fathers or the Covenanters, were ready to sacrifice everything for their undying hostility to clericalism and sectarianism in matters of education. What is the true position? Is it possible that these Gentlemen are now going to rivet the chains of clericalism, not upon young children, but on the rising manhood of Ireland? My hope for a solution of this question is of a totally different character. The hon. Member for West Bromwich twitted my right hon. friend and myself who represent the University of Dublin in this House, that we had lent our voices and aid to preventing the University of Dublin from accepting the possible position open to it as the great national University in Ireland. My withers are unwrung on this matter because I have on the public platform and on the platform of the College Historical Society declared that it is my hope and dream that Irishmen should refuse any solution which would shut students up in hostile sectarian camps; I had hoped that by contact and association the young men of different denominations would learn that toleration and respect without which progress is impossible, and the absence of which has destroyed every movement for the, social regeneration of Ireland. The feeling is ripe for such a solution, and the means are at hand. Trinity College, by a toleration far in advance of its time, opened its doors to Catholics in 1793; and in 1873 abolished all religious tests. Every prize and every position of emolument has been open to all since 1873, without distinction of creed or class. But, though this is the solution I had hoped for, I found no suggestion of it in the scheme associated with Mr. Bryce's name. That scheme was denominationalism in its worst form because it proposed not one great national University, but a separate and distinct college reserved exclusively for Roman Catholics, conducting its own examinations and conferring its own degrees. That would have been an intolerable position, which would have resulted in the degradation of Trinity College, and would not have advanced the interests of higher education in Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman knows that if his assertions are worth anything, the proposition which I have suggested would never have been accepted by the Roman Catholic, hierarchy, and without their consent the whole scheme would have been abortive.

MR. HALDANE

Was the offer ever made?

MR. JAMES CAMPBELL

The right Gentleman ought to know the history of the matter. There have been repeated and progressive advances made by the governing body which the Roman Catholics have rejected with scorn at the very outset, because it was plain the thing would not be possible. The idea in my mind, which I have frequently expressed, is that while in that particular I differ from the views of my right hon. colleague in the representation of the University, at the same time, seeing the attitude that was being taken up by the Roman Catholic hierachy on this question, and having regard to the attitude of the majority of the hon. Members below the gangway, I came to the conclusion, and to that conclusion adhere, that it was no right of mine to delay this matter of the grant of higher education to all my fellow-countrymen, or, at any rate, placing it within their grasp, and that my views should give way to that which apparently afforded the only possibility of a practical solution. Let me say also that I considered it an essential condition of any such scheme as that introduced by the right hon. Gentleman opposite, the skeleton of which is contained in the Bill, that it should be conditional upon its being impossible, so far as human foresight could provide against it, that such an institution should respond to the claims of the Roman Catholic hierarchy to be the sole arbiters in matters of higher education in Ireland. Does the Bill comply with that condition? When we speak of a denominational University as applied to Ireland we are speaking of a matter capable of a double sense. A denominational University may be denominational and yet free from ecclesiastical control. It may be that in a University of this kind in Ireland it is almost inevitable that it must be mainly, if not altogether, frequented by sons of Roman Catholics, and in that sense it is denominational; but that is not what is in the minds of those who dread and fear that it will become in fact and reality a strictly denominational University. What they dread is that it will become a University subject to and under the control of ecclesiastics, of the Roman Catholic Church. What will be the result of that? The right hon. Gentleman in introducing the Bill claimed great credit for the provisions which, according to him, were to prevent the possibility of any religious inequality or religious injustice. I confess that I think the right hon. Gentleman would have contributed to the future successful passage of the Bill if he had been more frank with the House, and had told it plainly that this was at least, in the narrower sense I have mentioned, a denominational University, and is so intended to be. But, so far from making that claim for it, he rather took credit in the opposite direction, and he relied on Clause 3, as affording an almost impregnable guarantee against this University lapsing into strict denominationalism. What is Clause 3? The first five or six lines provide that there shall be no tests. Will anyone pretend that that is any protection? There are no tests, political or religious, in the Local Government Act, 1898, and we all know how that has been administered in different parts of Ireland. What security is it, in face of the fact which has been alleged by those who support the Bill, that the best justification for it is that you have in the University of Dublin a denominational University, although for forty years there have been no tests of any kind possible or permissible within the walls of the University? Therefore it is plain, and the framers of the Bill are perfectly well aware, that no provision as to tests will be worth the paper it is written on. The third section concludes— Nor in connection with either of these Universities or any such constituent college shall any preference be given to or any advantage withheld from any person on the ground of his religious belief. What does that Mean? What is the sanction for it? Who is going to take care that that is enforced? You might as well let a cat loose in a room with a mouse and imagine there will be no undue interference with the liberty of the mouse. Let me test it. The remarkable thing about the Bill we are asked to discuss on Second Reading is that we have nothing but the skeleton in the Bill. The real substance is to be found in the Charters, which are not yet printed. Those Charters cannot be changed in Committee. The right hon. Gentleman, opposite said that practically there is no provision for application in the Bill; it is all to be found in the Charter; and yet the House has no voice in the framing of the Charters. Just consider the efficacy or utility of Clause 3. Suppose the Senate were to appoint to some of the professorships persons of the Protestant creed. What would be the result? The very next day the Roman Catholic hierarchy would publish their ban and anathema against the University. And they are bound to do so, for this reason—because they have declared time after time, as a matter of conscience and of religious faith and belief, that higher education is a question of faith and morals, and that it would be a deadly danger to the faith and morals of any of the Roman Catholic youth of Ireland to have, under any conditions or any safeguards, their teaching entrusted to any persons but teachers of their own faith. They have never departed nor receded from that decision, and I challenge anyone to contradict me on that point.

MR. GWYNN (Galway)

Since the hon. Member makes that challenge, I would point out that in the Catholic College conducted by the Jesuits at Dublin there are three Protestant professors.

MR. JAMES CAMPBELL

That is no answer. The hon. Member knows perfectly well what are the relations between the Roman Catholics and the Jesuits in the matter of teaching. I am speaking of the Roman Catholic bishops, not of Jesuits, and they have affirmed solemnly that under no conditions will they be any party to, nor can they as a question of religious conviction permit, the teaching of the Roman Catholic young men being entrusted to any except teachers of their own religious persuasion. So long as that is so it is perfectly ludicrous to talk about this abolition of any provision for tests as being a guarantee against its becoming a University of the strictest form. While I was perfectly willing to accept the principle of this Bill had I found in it a provision which would have prevented the possibility of such a danger, I can only say that when I come to call the attention of the House to a few of the more important provisions in it as supplemented by the Charter I shall demonstrate that it is not only a possibility, but almost a certainty, that it will ultimately become in the strictest ecclesiastical sense a denominational University. There were some precautions which the right hon. Gentleman might have taken to obviate such a result, but these he has deliberately thrown over. First of all, about the matter of affiliation. The right hon. Gentleman stated courageously and candidly on the First Reading of the Bill that he was quite certain that one of the things that ought to be done by the new Senate of the new University was to affiliate Maynooth. Let me tell the House that among the provisions of this Charter which you can neither alter nor amend——

THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (MR. BIRRELL,) Bristol, N.

The right hon. Gentleman is referring to the Charter. He knows perfectly well that the Charter is a matter of Royal prerogative, and therefore strictly speaking there is no Charter in existence, but, feeling as I did that it would be impossible for the House to get any fair view of this question until we gave some indication of what in all probability would be in these Charters, I have circulated what I have called preliminary draft Charters.

MR. JAMES CAMPBELL

Of course that makes matters worse, because certain things are to be provided for in the Charters which do not yet exist, and over which this House will have no control whatever. In dealing with the question of affiliation under the provisions of the contemplated Charters it will be possible to affiliate Maynooth and for all its students to obtain the degrees of this University without ever spending an hour within its walls or attending a single lecture given by its professors and without passing a single examination conducted within it. That is the consummation which they wish for. What will be the effect? The result of that will be to turn this institution into a glorified seminary. There is absolutely no provision in the Bill, and there is nothing in the contemplated Charters, which would prevent the Senate from filling up every vacancy by the appointment of a Roman Catholic bishop. When we come to look at the persons who have been nominated by the right hon. Gentleman for the Senate as result of the information conveyed by what he called his theological scouts, the whole thing seems like a gigantic joke. There are, I admit, a few names of distinguished men among them, but they are merely purple patches on a motley garment. A large proportion of them are men who are not distinguished in education or in any ordinary walk of life. Twelve out of the thirty-five are medical doctors, six of them being professors of the St. Cecilia School of Medicine, and all of them probably candidates for professorships in the new University. But the right hon. Gentleman has thought it necessary to go to Belfast for two members of the Senate, and who do you think these are? One of them Thomas McGuire, who seems to have no qualification of any sort or kind. I never heard of him in connection with a University. But the mystery was solved on Saturday, when the Irish Times pointed out that he was a practising solicitor in Belfast who happens to be a member of the United Irish League. I have practised in Belfast for years, and while I have not a word to say against the respectability of this Thomas McGuire, he is by no means in the front rank of his profession. Then there is Mr. Alexander Dempsey; his only qualification is that he is a doctor, who has been brought in to make up the twelve doctors, except the other reason be that he also is a member of the United Irish League. Then we are told that there is a clerk in the Civil Service put on the Senate. I have the misfortune never to have heard of him before, but I find he owes his qualification, for he does not profess academic——

MR. BIRRELL

Who are you referring to?

MR. JAMES CAMPBELL

Mr. MacNeill.

MR. BIRRELL

You are quite mistaken.

MR. JAMES CAMPBELL

Well, I never heard of him in connection with academic or educational matters, and the only qualification I can find that he possesses is that he is vice-president of the Gaelic League, which may be a very excellent qualification. But there is one other vital defect in connection with this Bill—the worst and the most serious blot of all—and that is the gross injustice it seeks to perpetrate on the School of Medicine in connection with the College of Surgeons in Dublin. I am convinced that when the right hon. Gentleman has the facts presented to him he will realise the injustice that he has unintentionally inflicted on this old institution. I do not for a moment suggest that the right hon. Gentleman seeks to weaken the safeguards in the Bill by which the youth of Ireland may be able to receive the benefits of a University education as far as possible free from ecclesiastical supervision or domination. In regard to this School of Medicine attached to the College of Surgeons in Dublin, let me state briefly what the position is. There are three Schools of Medicine in Dublin. Besides the Medical School attached to the College of Surgeons, there is Trinity College, in the University of Dublin, a school in which the students have to engage not merely in a long scientific medical training, but in an Arts course for the purpose of obtaining an Arts Degree. Its fees are comparatively high, and therefore it is not available to students whose means do not enable them to pay them, nor is it available to students who do not want to take out the Arts course, but want to curtail their training to acquiring the Medical Degree. Then there is St. Cecilia. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, this has been the medical faculty of the Catholic College, and, of course, it will become the medical school of this new University. That is, this school will be controlled by the Catholic bishops, who are governors of it, and are in possession of it. They run it; not only do they encourage it in every way in their power, but it is now notorious that in the south and west of Ireland no medical applicant for any post has any chance of appointment by local bodies unless he can show that he has a diploma of the St. Cecilia School. Therefore that school has a tremendous advantage as compared with the School of Medicine running in connection with the College of Surgeons. That school was established in 1734, and from that day to this it has been run most successfully. It has had no endowment from the State, and has lived on its own merits. I therefore commend these facts to hon. Gentlemen opposite who are interested in this matter of undenominational education, because it is a school that has had neither politics, nor particular religious views. It has been governed by gentlemen of all politics and creeds, and it has been gladly resorted to by many Roman Catholic students, who in a way disliked the atmosphere of St. Cecilia, while they were not prepared to enter the Trinity Medical School. This Medical School attached to the College of Surgeons has been, as I have said, a con-spacious success. There are three thousand graduates from it scattered over Ireland and other parts of the world holding its diploma. What is to be their position under this University Bill? As I have said, the University when created under this Bill will at once adopt St Cecilia as its School of Medicine. It will have all the benefits of magnificent equipments and State money, of prizes, scholarships, bursaries, and professorships; and how then will it be possible for the School of Medicine attached to the College of Surgeons to compete with it? It will inevitably go under, and in the result you will have set up a denominational University in Dublin, and, in so far as in you lies, and you are able to accomplish it, every man who comes out of Dublin with a medical degree is to bear a religious brand upon him, because you will have killed the only undenominational School of Medicine that at present exists in Ireland. Why should that be done? If you are going to set up a richly-equipped and endowed School of Medicine in competition or rivalry with the Medical School of the College of Surgeons, how can you resist a demand which is consistent with ordinary justice, consistent with the practice of this House, in regard to an institution created by Charter, and carried on successfully, as this has been, for 150 years, and to the satisfaction of public—which will enable this institution to compete with some degree of success with its endowed and dangerous rival? These are matters in which it seems to me this Bill is deficient. I do not apologise for dwelling on these points now. They are not Committee points, the more especially when, owing to a system which is unavoidable—for these Charters we have not yet seen, or only imaginary or suggested drafts of them—it is absolutely necessary that we should discuss them to-night, or if not, never get another chance. This Bill is capable, I believe, of providing possibly the only solution of a settlement of this vexed question of higher education in Ireland. But it will be only possible if it does so on lines which will prevent the institution from falling into the hands and under the complete control and domination of the Roman Catholic hierarchy of Ireland and becoming a glorified seminary. We have advanced very far, I fear, in that direction when we have made it possible and almost certain, as the right hon. Gentleman himself admitted, that the first thing this new Senate will do will be to affiliate Maynooth, and enable this large body of ecclastical students, not merely in Maynooth, but in every other institution in Ireland—for the provision which enables affiliation actually extends not merely to Maynooth, but to every institution which provides teaching. It is a most extraordinarily wide clause, and runs— Provided the University may accept the examinations and periods of study passed by students in the University or at other Universities or places of learning. So that in order to be affiliated to this new University all that is required is a "place of learning." It may not be a college or a University, but only a "place of learning." I would like very much to know who is to limit that definition. What I say is that it is wide enough to include and contemplate the affiliation of Maynooth. I say that under it it will be possible to turn out, as graduates of this new University, hundreds of young clergymen with a University Degree in Arts who have never spent one hour in a class-room in a University, never listened to one lecture, and never passed through a curriculum which the University prescribes. I say, that as long as that is in this Bill, as long as the system of election of the Senate is such as it is, the measure will be objectionable, because the system proposed enables only six out of thirty-five members of the Senate to be directly elected by Convocation. The rest are elected by small governing bodies inside the University, and there are only these six who are to be elected directly by Convocation. I think that is a very grave mistake, and that it gets rid of the suggestion that these men are going to be academically elected men. [An HON. MEMBER: There are only five not six.] I overstate the case, and I hear there are only five out of thirty-five, so that I gather that there is only one-sixth or one-seventh of the governing body directly elected by the graduates themselves. I feel deeply interested in the medical school attached to the College of Surgeons, although I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that I hold no brief for them. On the contrary, their interests are contrary to those of Trinity College, Dublin, because they are rivals of the University of Dublin, though they are a considerable distance away. All that they ask is that they should be left alone, and not have a competitor, who up to the present has been on level terms with them and with whom they have been able to compete successfully, given the immeasurable advantage of being provided with State money, and enabled to obtain expensive equipments of the most modern and up-to-date kind, by means of which it will crush the School of Medicine by decreasing the number of students and the number of licentiates, and necessarily decreasing the number who apply for the Fellowship of the College of Surgeons. It will strangle the College if that is done; that will be inevitable under this Bill. Unless precautions are taken you will destroy the only extra-University qualification in the whole of Ireland. To show how that problem will work out, let me tell the House that in the year 1906 there were sixty-eight students who obtained the qualification of the College of Surgeons, and there were only forty who obtained the qualification of the University of Dublin and only fifty-eight who obtained the qualification of the Royal University, showing that that extra-University qualification is a most popular one among medical students in Ireland. What is the case in England in the same year, 1906? Why, the conjoint qualifications of the College of Surgeons and the College of Physicians was conferred on 390 students, the total number from all the Universities in England being only 184, so that there were 390 young men in England who preferred to take this conjoint qualification of the College of Surgeons and the College of Physicians, as against the qualification at the same time conferred by the Universities in England. I make a strong appeal that the right hon. Gentleman will do something in this matter. They do not want to have their industry cramped in any way; they wish to go on with the same establishment and the same efforts which they have hitherto been making. They have contracted obligations of a pecuniary character which will last for many years to come in regard to their professors and their staff. I think it is a cruel injustice on the part of the State, and one which I do not think this House will tolerate, that a competing school should be set up by the State to crush out for the benefit of a rival an institution established a century and a half ago. If this is done there will be no school left for those students who detest the religious atmosphere in connection with their professional studies and who would like still to be allowed the opportunity of going to a school in which they can obtain excellent medical teaching, and at the same time breathe the pure atmosphere of civil and religious liberty.

MR. MCKEAN (Monaghan, S.)

thought the Chief Secretary was heartily to be congratulated upon the fact that the Amendment had been proposed and seconded and supported as it had been by the speeches to which they had listened. He would deal briefly with the speech of the last speaker. At first he thought from his action on the first Reading of the Bill that the right hon. Gentleman was in favour of the measure. Therefore, he did not pay particular attention to the early part of his speech, but as the right hon. Gentleman continued, he found he occupied the unique position of being both for and against the Bill at the same time.

MR. JAMES CAMPBELL

If the hon. Member had taken the trouble to read the Votes he would have found that I did not vote for the Bill on its First Reading.

MR. MCKEAN

I did not state that the right hon. Gentleman had voted for it. I referred to the position he had taken up, which is a totally different thing.

MR. JAMES CAMPBELL

What was the position?

MR. MCKEAN

You know your position. It is unnecessary for me to tell you what it was. Continuing the hon. Member repeated that the right hon. Gentleman occupied the remarkable position of being for and against the measure at the same time. One of the statements which the right hon. Gentleman made was that the bishops of Ireland would not allow a professor who was not a member of the Catholic faith to teach in any University institution there.

MR. JAMES CAMPBELL

I must ask the hon. and learned Gentleman to do me the justice not to misrepresent what I said.

MR. MCKEAN

What did you say?

MR. JAMES CAMPBELL

I did not say what you suggested. What I said was that the Roman Catholic bishops have time after time declared as a matter of faith and morals, that it is a religious duty to prevent the Roman Catholic youth of Ireland being taught by any teachers except those who belong to their creed.

MR. MCKEAN

Is not that the same thing put in circumlocutory language? The right hon. Gentleman had set aside, or was not aware of the fact that three of the professors of Catholic College were of the Protestant faith, and that college was approved by all the bishops of Ireland. It was not only owned, but approved by all the bishops of Ireland. That statement was a very fair specimen of the character of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman. Another remark he made as showing the results of this Bill had reference to what had happened in consequence of the Local Government Act of 1898, all over Ireland. But what about Belfast? The right hon. Gentleman had told them that the appointments on these local councils were all going to Catholics. But again he asked, what about Belfast and the Unionist districts; they, of course, appointed Catholics. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to be briefed by the Royal College of Surgeons. [An HON. MEMBER: What about Belfast?] What he had asked was whether the corporation of Belfast employed Catholics. How many Catholics were in their employment, and what were the emoluments which they enjoyed? He ventured to say that in Belfast the Catholic employees did not receive one five-hundredth part of what the Protestants did. [An HON. MEMBER: Figures.] The hon. Member could give the figures; he made the statement.

MR. MOORE (Armagh, N.)

Is the hon. Member aware that the county surveyor is a Roman Catholic?

MR. SPEAKER

Order, order.

MR. MCKEAN

, referring to the speech of the seconder, said that as the result of the culture which resulted from his University training the hon. Member had referred to a higgledy-piggledy lecture-room, and he hoped when the new University was started in Ireland it would cultivate more refined language than some of the English Universities. If it was the desire of the English people to have undenominational education it was the duty of the Government to satisfy the electorate. On the other hand, if the people of Ireland wanted denominationalism they had a constitutional right to it. They had to pay for it. The majority of the people of Ireland were Catholics, and they asked only that part of the money which they contributed to the Imperial Exchequer should be devoted to giving their children education such as they themselves wished for. In regard to tests for teachers he, as an Irish Catholic, objected entirely to the clause in the Bill which prohibited them. It would be an injustice to the teacher if he were shut out in this way from infusing into his teaching an element of religion, so far as he thought it right to do so. They knew that moral and religious principles were often much better infused in giving instruction than in a religious lecture. He objected in the strongest possible way to subsection 4 of Clause 7. He objected to anything which placed an official ban on religious teaching. The money of the State could be used for teaching geology or Sanscrit, or any thing else. The one thing it could not be devoted to was teaching religion. Why should it not be devoted to teaching religion? They did not ask for English money, or for Protestant money. All they asked was that a certain portion of the money contributed by Roman Catholics should be devoted to teaching not only what they required in the way of secular instruction, but also religious teaching. He spoke for himself in this connection, and also he believed for a considerable section of educated public opinion in Ireland. The Government, with State money, maintained police and prisons for the detection and punishment of crime, but they refused to devote a cent to the propagation of that influence which was calculated to prevent crime—the greatest of all human influences—religion. The hon. and learned Member for Waterford had pointed to the one great blot of this Bill, namely, the utter inadequacy of its financial provisions. Having regard to the fact that according to the findings of the Financial Relations Committee of 1894, Ireland was being overtaxed to the extent of £1,750,000 at that time, and to the fact that she had been overtaxed ever since to the extent of over £2,000,000 annually, she was entitled to more generous treatment in this matter. His hon. friend had estimated that the amount of conscience money owed by this country to Ireland was some hundreds of millions of pounds sterling, and they had, therefore, a right to claim more generous treatment from the Government. It was a shocking and scandalous thing that a rich country like England should plunder Ireland in this way, and that when it attempted to do something for Ireland in the way of higher education it should come forward in such a niggardly fashion. Maynooth had been referred to, and they were told of the endowment that that college had. Yes, but what about Trinity College, with an endowment of over £90,000? Some of that came from the State, but the greater part came from Catholic monasteries and the property of Catholic noblemen and gentlemen confiscated centuries ago. Because Maynooth got an endowment grant at one time, and at another a lump sum, that was held up as a reason why this Catholic University could not be established at all, or, if it was, it should be inadequately provided for. The Bill failed in the point of equality. All they asked for was equality of endowment. In the Bill the Government provided only £32,000 for the new college in Dublin, which was supposed to meet the wants of the Catholics of Ireland. According to the figures given by one hon. Gentleman, Trinity College had an endowment of £68,000. But that figure was incorrect. The total income of Trinity College was £95,000 a year. He agreed with the previous speaker in a great deal of his criticism of the Senate. As usual the hierarchy of Ireland had been attacked for the action they had taken in connection with Catholic education in Ireland, and as usual they had been lectured by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for North Armagh— This was a Bill for the bishops—a scheme to satisfy the bishops. Had not the bishops of Ireland a right to their views and convictions? Had they not a right to be heard? The hon. and learned Gentleman would not be satisfied until he saw all their heads on spikes placed round the Tower of London.

MR. HALDANE

Was the offer ever made?

MR. MOORE (Armagh, N.)

I said the Roman Catholic bishops had a perfect right to their views and convictions, but they had no right to State money.

MR. MCKEAN

State money! What was State money? Where did it come from? Was "the State" superior to the people? Was it not the people of Ireland who constituted the State of Ireland? Yet 3,300,000 people, who paid taxes far beyond their proper proportion were not to be allowed education such as they wanted. Such a thing was unconstitutional; it was unjust. The Bill, as the hon. and learned Member for Waterford had said, had the support, and all similar solutions had had, and would have, the support, of all the enlightened men in this House and the nation. When the Second Reading was taken, in one lobby would be found all the enlightenment of the House and in the other all the bigotry. There would be found supporting the Bill every man who was a true friend of Ireland and every true Imperialist, for this was a measure of Imperial importance. While he disagreed with the financial provisions, he believed that the Bill would conduce in some way to better education in Ireland, and believing the right hon. Gentleman would accept many Amendments in Committee he wished him and his Bill Godspeed through Committee.

MR. SLOAN (Belfast, S.)

said it was astonishing to him to see how the Government, which on the one hand was trying to undenominationalise education in England, was on the other trying to denominationalise public education in Ireland. The hon. Gentleman who had just sat down had said that every true friend of Ireland would be found in the lobby in favour of this Bill. He hoped the hon. Gentleman was not sincere in that remark, because many true friends of Ireland would be unable to vote for it. They could not lose sight of the facts, and the facts were simple. Belfast, he thought, did not ask for the Bill. Neither did he think Belfast wanted it at the price. And it could not be good for democracy that the youth of Ireland should be divided in this manner. They were going to make their protest, and to do the best they could to state their views impartially. The hierarchy in Ireland had been negotiating with the Chief Secretary, and he understood that the Presbyterian body, and all those directly concerned in the Bill, had been communicated with. But there was a body in Ireland of some real importance which had never been consulted one way or the other, and that was the Methodists, who were concerned, not so much about the Bill, as about the extern students, for a great many young men in Ireland would suffer from being isolated, because while using their spare time in trying to raise their standard of education they would be excluded from the facilities that they would otherwise have had at Trinity and Queen's Colleges. He did not think that was a thing which could be very well overlooked, though he supposed it was a matter for Committee. But how they were going to bring the young men of Ireland, who were indeed that country's hope for the future, to a better understanding of each other if they divided them up into sections, building ecclesiastical walls between them, was more than he could tell. Sectarian bitterness and bigotry would not be lessened by the Bill. They had in Belfast one of the finest technical institutions in the United Kingdom; but, even when that institution was built, and there was every facility given for technical instruction, the Roman Catholic bishop in the diocese of Belfast went to the corporation of that City and absolutely refused to allow Roman Catholic youths to go to that institute because the atmosphere was not a Roman Catholic one. The Protestant Corporation of Belfast, who were charged with bigotry, gave a special grant to the Roman Catholic body in Belfast for technical instruction of the Roman Catholic youth, and allowed the members of the Roman Catholic Church to ignore the facilities supplied in the ordinary course of events for Belfast. How were they going to get sectarian bitterness brought down if they allowed that sort of thing to go on? Trinity College was saved; the cry had been "Hands off our property." Trinity College and those associated with it, therefore, were quite prepared to support this measure, which was undoubtedly a denominational Bill. Of course there was to be no test; the University was to be open to everybody. But Episcopalians would be expected to go to Trinity College, and, in regard to the new University in Dublin, it was an understood thing, though it was not mentioned in the Bill, that in a short time the Roman Catholics would go there. Then as to the composition of the governing body, there was no getting away from the fact that it was ecclesiastical. He thought that they had in Ireland enough ecclesiastical law at the present time, and there was nothing democratic about this governing body.

MR. DILLON

Everything about it is democratic. It is the most democratic University in the United Kingdom.

MR. SLOAN

I fail to see anything democratic about the governing body; it is undoubtedly ecclesiastical.

MR. DILLON

Nothing of the sort. The hon. Member cannot have read the Charter or the Bill. It is not ecclesiastical in the least degree. It is the least ecclesiastical in the United Kingdom, and entirely democratic.

MR. SLOAN

said that if that was so, he accepted the statement of the hon. Gentleman; he certainly did not wish to dispute so high an authority. If he thought that the Senate was democratic, and that the extern students would have adequate facilities for home study, if he thought that it was a final settlement, and that it would remove a great injustice from the people of Ireland, he would not take up his present attitude towards the Bill. But he was not satisfied of that. He did not suppose that any man who wanted to see Ireland better than she was, who wanted to see the facilities for education better than what they were, would stand in the way of a just and reasonable reform for the betterment of the people. But it was because they were not satisfied that the Bill would effect those objects that they took up their present position. If they divided the youth of Ireland into sections how could they expect them to understand each other? There would be no social intercourse, and how could it be expected that they would understand what would be for the good and happiness of them all? If that could be brought about by the Chief Secretary and those who assisted him in introducing this Bill, he would be glad. But the Liberal Party would have to exercise a great deal of ingenuity to persuade the people of this country that their programme of denominational education for Ireland could be reconciled with their undenominational programme for England. He supported the education proposals of the Government in 1906 because he believed them to be sound, and because the teachers were free from the system of religious tests. He had also supported those proposals because he believed they would benefit elementary education in England, and he could not, in his conscience, vote for denominational education in Ireland coming from the same Party. He had listened to the speech of the hon. Gentleman who had moved the Amendment, and he thought that it must be the sound conviction of every true and conscientious Nonconformist in that House that if he supported the Government proposals for education in England, he could not conscientiously, or with any degree of satisfaction, support this proposal for the endowment of denominationalism in Ireland. The scheme of the Bill was very cleverly developed, but it was intended—no one denied it, even the hon, and learned Gentleman deliberately said it was so intended—for Roman Catholics. Why not call it a Roman Catholic University, and then they would know where they were? The Government had told them that this was not to be a State endowed Roman Catholic University, and in the next breath they were told that it might be so. If the Bill passed, as he supposed it would, he wanted to ask the Attorney-General for Ireland whether he would convey to the Chief Secretary this point. Under the Bill the national school teachers of Ireland had no opportunity either by their social position or by their means of getting a University training, and the question he wanted to put was whether those facilities which now existed would be given to them, whereby they might be able to do home study or to work in their spare time, and so equip themselves for a University degree without having to go to the University. There were serious obstacles in the way of national school teachers, and only some five or six of them had a University degree. The Government would do well to declare that this was a Roman Catholic Bill, or tell them what their object was. They all knew the Chief Secretary's courage and his troubles, and if he was going to sink with this Bill, he was afraid his sinking would not be a very honourable one. He was a man of strong educational views, and he believed he had good intentions towards Ireland, though sometimes he thought his judgment was carried away with his good intentions; but if he succeeded by this Bill in satisfying one Party it would be to the disagreement of another Party, which was the worst thing for Ireland. For that reason he opposed the Bill. It was opposed to and inconsistent with the Government's educational policy and with educational progress; it would separate more widely the youth of Ireland, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, and it would create a denominational atmosphere in University education not at all likely to be good for those for whom it was intended.

LORD EDMUND TALBOT (Sussex, Chichester)

As an English Catholic I should like to say a few words in support of this Bill. During the First Reading, debate my right hon. friend the Leader of the Opposition stated that in his opinion he doubted whether a better plan could be devised than the one contained in this Bill. I do not know that anyone could be very much surprised at that statement coming from him, considering that this Bill, unlike the Government plan of last year, is drawn very much on the lines the right hon. Gentleman advocated as a settlement of this question for a great many years. I should like to be allowed to make one or two criticisms in reference to this measure. The first is with regard to money. I very much doubt whether there is enough money so far as the college to be founded in Dublin is concerned. It seems to me that if a scheme of this kind is promoted at all, it is worth doing thoroughly well. Hon. Members must remember that the students who will take advantage of this new University scheme will not belong to the wealthy or leisured classes. I observed that the Chief Secretary in his speech on the First Reading suggested that, while he thought adequate financial provision was made in the Bill, money from private sources might, in future, be found for further endowments. Well, that is the first time that I have ever heard that those who are likely to frequent this College in Dublin are over-burdened with the good things of this world. I feel that it is of real importance that a college of this kind should be thoroughly equipped at first. It should be equipped absolutely up-to-date, so that the students taking advantage of it shall feel that they have a really good thing and start at once with a genuine pride, realising that it is their fault and theirs alone if they do not take full advantage of the educational facilities afforded them. I should like to criticise the non-residential character of the proposed college. I need not more than mention that, because that point has already been thoroughly well gone into by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Waterford, and I should like respectfully to associate myself and agree with everything he said on that point. There is a third point upon which I am not satisfied, and that is the affiliation question, and here, perhaps, I am in the somewhat dangerous company of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Morley who moved the Amendment this afternoon. Of course, I, like him, am thinking chiefly of Maynooth, but I remember in the evidence given by Dr. O'Dwyer, the Bishop of Limerick, before the Robertson Commission, a very striking passage indeed, in which he strongly advocated that in the Catholic University proposed at that time, the Maynooth students should come up to Dublin and take their two years' art course in Dublin and away from Maynooth. I venture to think that that would be a great advantage, both educationally and socially. Of course, I do not for a moment mean to suggest that these ecclesiastical students should lead a life not altogether in conformity with their position as ecclesiastical students, but I do mean that they should mix with the lay students in the lectures and in the classes, and I should hope, also in the games, and I believe that that would be a great advantage. Speaking of the Bishop of Limerick, I have observed in the Press that he has lately written an article; I have not seen or read the article myself, but I have seen comments in the Press on an article which he has written, severely criticising this Bill, and surprise seems to have been shown that he should have done so. I cannot say that it is any surprise to me at all, either that he or any other Catholic Bishop should severely criticise this Bill. This is no Bishop's Bill. Speaking for myself, and with all possible respect, and in so far as I am capable of forming an opinion, I should regret very much if the Catholic Bishops of Ireland did not accept this Bill, but to ask them to swallow it offhand is indeed asking a Catholic Bishop to partake of a very heavy and remarkably indigestible meal. It has been urged, I think by the Mover of the Amendment, or the Seconder, that University education of Catholics need not be given in Ireland, because English Catholics can go to the Universities in England—Oxford and Cambridge. But surely sentiment cannot altogether be disregarded in connection with this matter. It is quite true that Catholics in England can now go, and I am glad to say do go, to Oxford and Cambridge under certain definite conditions, but it must be remembered that we Catholics in England are in far too small a minority to have a University of our own, and therefore if proper conditions can be devised for us it is only natural and reasonable that we should be allowed to go to the Universities of this country. But the thing is entirely different in Ireland. There three-fourths of the population are Catholics, and there is literally no Catholic University teaching worthy of the name of which they can take advantage. Of course, I know perfectly well that Catholics do go and are admitted to Trinity College, Dublin, but Trinity College is a legitimate Protestant institution. That is to say, I do not know if I am quite orthodox in admitting that anything Protestant can be legitimate, but it was intended to be a Protestant institution, and it was founded as a Protestant institution. I rather expect it was also founded as a proselytising institution, but it happily has singularly failed in that. The real question that ought to be considered in regard to the point is surely this. If Trinity College, Dublin, was as Catholic as it now is Protestant, would genuine earnest-minded Protestants send their sons to that College? If they would not do that, and I do not believe they would, then I say, in common justice, the Catholics of Ireland ought to be given higher University education for themselves. I do not want to detain the House. I have always felt ever since I have been in this House, and ever since I have heard debates on this question both inside the House and outside, that on us Unionists a great responsibility rested in refusing a measure of this kind for the Catholics of Ireland. I do not believe that we can justify our opposition to Home Rule if we refuse University education to the Catholics who ask for it there; and I wish as an English Catholic to thank the Chief Secretary for having brought in this Bill and for having offered to my co-religionists in Ireland this boon of higher education. Of course it requires a very small elementary practical knowledge of politics to appreciate that there are in both Parties, and on both sides of the House, those who disagree with any proposition of this kind. It therefore is practically impossible for any Government to pass a Bill of this kind unless they have a large majority behind them, and I thank the Government, not only as a Catholic, but also as a Unionist, that they have seized this opportunity of giving to the Catholics of Ireland a boon which in my opinion has been too long deferred.

MR. KETTLE (Tyrone, E.)

said the noble Lord had addressed himself to the Bill from the point of view of the English Catholic. He need hardly say that they welcomed his support. As to whether the establishment of two free Universities without tests would be a set-back to the cause of Home Rule, he was sure they might be allowed to form their own opinion, and his opinion, he must say, was not the noble Lord's. While he welcomed his support of the measure, the House would fully understand that between the Party on those benches, which represented a nation, and the noble Lord and his friends who represented a small section of opinion in this country, there was fixed a great and impassable gulf. Perhaps, therefore, it was all the more significant that those whom the noble Lord represented should join with the Nationalist Party in offering a cordial support to the measure introduced by the Chief Secretary. The position of the Nationalist Party had been made perfectly clear by the hon. Member for Waterford. They did not welcome this measure because they believed it to be an ideal Bill, or even the best Bill possible and practicable in the circumstances. He, for his part, welcomed it because, having had some experience of University institutions at present open to Catholics in Ireland, he felt that any Bill was infinitely better than no Bill. When they condemned the Royal University as the Robertson Commission had done, Parliament was bound in honour and conscience to face at last the duty it had avoided and shrunk from for three generations. Such points as he wished to submit to the House would be mainly of an academical character. He did not want to prolong a discussion inspired mainly by religious prejudices—in some respects, he might almost say, by religious fanaticism—but let them get perfectly clear about the question of tests. The hon. Member for Monaghan had made a speech which it seemed to him might fairly represent the demand that could be put forward by Catholics in a purely Catholic country. He had made a speech representing the demand that was actually put forward, and he did not see why anyone should seek to go back upon it. Since 1897 they had been committed to the acceptance of a University Bill, introduced by either Party, entirely devoid of religious tests. The Chief Secretary had introduced that Bill, and they accepted it. He thought the mover of the Amendment was right when he said his views were somewhat old-fashioned; still more were those expressed by the junior Member for Trinity College. The attitude of mind of gentlemen from a certain part of Ulster would be that of the Chief Justice who once declared that the law of Ireland was not cognisant of such a being as an Irish Papist. The Catholic demand was simply that they in Ireland should have an opportunity of getting higher education without ceasing to be Catholics. The hon. Member was not content with no tests. He had in Clause 3 a most definite statement that no appointment would be governed by questions of religion. What he really wanted was a University with a positive test against Catholicism. They supported this Bill because it set up a University, the majority of whose students would naturally be Catholics because the majority of the population were Catholics, whose doors, distinctions, and degrees would be absolutely open to persons of every creed or no creed. That was the position, he took it, so far as the purely religious question was concerned. They had been told that Belfast did not want a University. If he might contrast the position of Belfast with that of Cork it was a little strange that Belfast, in which some section of opinion had expressed itself opposed to the establishment of a University, should be given one, while Cork, which was entirely unanimous in favour of one, should be deprived of it. But they had the true explanation of the attitude of that section in Belfast given unconsciously by the hon. Member for South Belfast. It was that Belfast was not getting its price. Belfast had adopted this attitude in order to be in a better position to buy, and when the Chief Secretary pressed the measure on, and it became certain that it was passing into law, he would see that position drop away into nothingness. The demand which had led to the establishment of these Universities in Ireland was not specifically a Catholic or a religious demand. Their case had always been that they were stricken, not only in their consciences as Catholics, but in their right as citizens. They had asked for religious equality, and not for religious domination. Could anybody say, apart from the religious question, that the University equipment of Ireland was at present adequate? In the national University there was a steady decline in the number of students. In the Royal University, with all its defects, they had had a steady increase. The number passing through the Royal University had increased by 50 per cent. in seven years. It had sent through its hands more than 4,000 last year. There was a growing demand in Ireland for a University fully equipped which would turn forth men of disciplined and adventurous minds, develop the natural resources of Ireland, and substitute prosperity for its present wretchedness. If there were no religious questions in Ireland and no differences of religion, some such measure as this would be imperatively called for by purely educa- tional needs. They were told by the junior Member for Trinity College that it was his hope and dream that all Irish University students should meet together in one institution. If that was good for Ireland why did they not apply it to England and Scotland? Why did they not have a Bill amalgamating the four Scottish Universities? He saw no reason why University students in Ireland should be mashed together in one academic tub more than University students anywhere else. To allow each province and each section of opinion to have its own characteristic mark or University institution was a thing to be welcomed and not deplored. These various Universities in Ireland would effect a real unification of feeling, first, by rivalry, and secondly, by good fellowship. He believed that in establishing these various Universities the Chief Secretary would contribute more to the unification of feeling in Ireland than if he were to secure any artificial and superficial unity by pressing all sections of opinion together within the walls of one University institution. Public opinion in Ireland regarded the constitution given to the University and the three colleges as on the whole satisfactory. When the hon. Member for South Belfast rose to oppose the Bill, though if he had not definitely said so he would have thought his speech was in support of it, the hon. Member for Mayo pointed out to him that it was the most democratic and self-governed University in the kingdom. He agreed that there were far too many doctors nominated to the Senate. That might perhaps be a new step in the campaign against consumption inaugurated by Lady Aberdeen. They all knew that the medical profession exercised a great and secret influence, and it could cause an extraordinary dislocation of society if it chose, by the simple but brutal expedient of sending in its bills. He owed a great deal too much to the medical profession to use any hard words about it. They were all very nice people. He knew most of them personally, but there were a great deal too many. There was a real danger that ought to be guarded against, that this new University institution in Dublin might become not in the least a glorified seminary but a glorified medical school. He was certain that nobody wanted to inflict any injury on the College of Surgeons. It obviously had a case, but when they analysed the speech of the right hon. Member for Trinity College they recognised the old wail of the threatened vested interest. But he would be glad to lend his personal support to the right hon. Gentleman in the one object in which all Irish parties agreed, that they ought to get some more money out of the pockets of the British Treasury. On the question of finance the hon. Member for Waterford had drawn attention to the inadequacy of the amount provided; £150,000, the sum given for the building fund of the new Dublin Colleges, did not seem to him a proposal that could be treated seriously, and he could not conceive that it was put forward seriously. He could not understand how the Treasury, which only a couple of years ago were content to give £200,000 for the building of the new College of Science in Dublin, which was at best a technological institute representing one faculty, tried to pretend that the demands of this new college could be met by a building fund of £150,000. He thought the objection to the establishment of a residential University, an objection which, though he was in a small minority on those benches, he entirely shared, was not put forward on academic grounds or any grounds of any respectable character at all. It was put forward in order that the Treasury might be able to cut the building grant smaller. The Secretary of State for War had thrown out one suggestion which might meet the needs of the situation—the establishment of hostels and not, properly speaking, of halls of residence in connection with the new University. The idea of a residential University was, after all, almost purely an English one. It did not exist in Continental Universities, and he thought the experience of history was that in proportion as it was more English it was less likely to be successful in Ireland. To pass from the building grant to the annual endowment of the new college—£32,000—anybody who had attempted to work out in detail the allowance to the various faculties and the salaries to professors must admit that that was a mean and beggarly sum on which to endeavour to get the college run satisfactorily. The college would make its mark mainly, if at all, in economics and in physical science. In physical science it would have to enter into very vigorous competition with the new English Universities. The professor of physics would be under continual temptation to go to Liverpool, Manchester, or somewhere else where the Chair carried a heavier salary. Unless they gave the Dublin College a fair start—or equal start in respect of money endowment—they could not hope that it would run satisfactorily. He wished to draw attention to what in his mind was a radical, though a very easily curable defect in the Bill. They had heard a good deal about external examiners. Article 19 provided that in every examination in the new University the papers should be set and the examination conducted by an external examiner who was not in any way associated or connected with the University itself. That seemed to him to have a little too much of the spirit of the Irish Council Bill. Were they going to build a University on a foundation of distrust of their own professors? It was quite true that the professors themselves were definitely placed in a subordinate position to the external examiners. The external examiner was to be appointed first and then to be associated with professors of the University itself to help. He protested most strongly against that. He held that Article 19 of Clause 1 bore out his contention in regard to the external examiners. The provision to be made with respect to them seemed to him to strike at the very root of academic automony. It was inspired with a spirit of absolute distrust of the men who were to be charged with the conduct of the new institutions. Were they going to perpetuate the old system which had ruined the Royal University? Were they going to compel men to teach a subject, not as they thought it ought to be taught, but as somebody else thought it ought to be taught? If that interpretation of the position of the external examiners were accurate, it went to the very foundation on which a University institution ought to be based. He thought they were all agreed that some provision must be made in regard to external students. A clear distinction must be made between the man who had both attended regular lectures and examinations, and the man who had simply read up and passed examinations. As to the position of women in the new University, if the Chief Secretary would examine that part of the Charter of the new Dublin College which dealt with women he would see that as it stood it would exclude from membership of the new Dublin college far the greater part of the women graduates of the Royal University, Dublin. He did not think that that was the intention, but certainly it would be the effect. Believing that that did not carry the approval of anybody, he asked that this particular part of the college Charter should be examined and amended. Provision was made that the appointments to the professorial chairs should be for six years only. That, he supposed, was because these appointments were to be filled up by the statutory Commissioners. There was nothing in the Bill or the Charter to show whether these appointments were to be renewed or new men placed in the positions—whether the professors who held for terms of six years were to have fixity of tenure. Unless they gave the men who occupied the professorial chairs fixity of tenure during good conduct they would perpetuate another vice the existence of which everybody admitted in connection with the Royal University. If the men only held their chairs for the brief period of six years, all the inducements would be to keep quiet and say nothing which might give offence. It seemed to him that when they had professors duly elected by these bodies they must give them an ad vitem aut cul pam tenure. He was glad to gather that that was the opinion of the Chief Secretary, and he hoped it would be made more explicit in the Bill than it was now. He thought that the provision which placed the examinations entirely in the hands of external examiners would, if persisted in, bring on the measure in actual working the most complete disaster. He hoped that the generous spirit in which the Chief Secretary had approached the question of University education in Ireland would be seen in the details of the measure. Every measure passed through this House founded upon trust in the Irish principle had been a success, and every measure founded upon distrust had been a dismal and melancholy failure.

*MR. C. J. O'DONNELL (Newington, Walworth)

said that like most of the speakers who had taken part in the debate he approached the question from a strictly academic point of view. He wished to say something regarding what seemed to him would be the effect of the Bill on existing University systems in Ireland. The first result of the measure would be the destruction of the Royal University. He had not much affection for the Royal, because it displaced the Queen's University, of whch he was a graduate. The argument always had been that the Queen's University was a failure. It had been said that it was condemned by the Catholic Church, and that Catholics refused to attend it. There were few statements more inaccurate. Considering the poverty of the Irish people the attendance was fairly large. The main point about the Queen's was the intrinsic excellence of its education, although in the matter of scholarship endowment it was starved. The scholarships provided in that University were of the most pitiable kind. There were only ten of £24 each in each college. That was a beggarly allowance, and he attributed the relative failure in the numbers attending Queen's College to that cause alone. He had never met any young Catholic who failed to go to Queen's University because he was prevented by his Catholic clergy. The Catholic did not want to be coddled in his religion. As a Catholic himself he did not see why the Catholics in Ireland should receive this special treatment. The Catholics in Ireland were 3,250,000 and in England there were about 2,500,000, but in England there was a very much larger class of men who were fitted for University education. If there could be a reasonable demand for a special Catholic University within the United Kingdom it would be in England, but when Cardinal Manning attempted to establish a Catholic University at Kensington he could only get seventeen students. Although the Catholic hierarchy in this country issued in 1873 a synodical letter warning Catholic parents that they could not send their sons to the national Universities without the peril of their losing either their faith or their morals, and that the sending them would be a grave sin, the reverend gentlemen who laid that down were wrong. The educated Catholics of England would not put up with that penal law. For twenty years they carried on an agitation, and in 1894 they submitted a Memorandum, signed by the Duke of Norfolk, the noble Lord the Member for Chichester, Lord Llandaff, and dozens of distinguished English Catholics, setting forth that if this principle of segregation was to be carried out it might be applied to Sandhurst, to the Inns of Court, and to other places where young Catholics came into contact with those of other religions. Those arguments were carried to Rome, and Rome was wise in giving full consent to Catholics sending their sons to Oxford and Cambridge. Their faith, instead of suffering, had been strengthened. A few days ago he received a letter from an English Catholic in which he said— English Catholics take the unassailable position that, whilst it is the parent's right to have his children thoroughly trained at school in his religion, its dogma, and its principles of conduct, it is absolutely necessary to give young men of ability, the future leaders of the community, the broadest and best education in the great National Universities. No sheep pens! Now, that was the real view of the Catholics of England, which he had tried to put into the Motion which he had placed on the Paper. He found that it was not only in England that this state of things obtained. Catholics of position and wealth everywhere insisted that their sons, while educated in the Catholic schools, should after that go into public Universities like other youths and join in the sports of the cricket field as well as in education. He did not like to say a hard word, but it was to his mind horrible to think of young Catholics being brought up to the age of twenty-two in sheep pens, and absolutely kept away from their brother Protestants in Ireland. Turn to Germany; there was not a more cultivated and distinguished body of Catholics anywhere than in Germany. They numbered close on 20,000,000; every man of them educated in a lay University; not only laymen, but also priests of the Catholic Church; and they took their degrees in a lay University. What was the result? There was no more manly and virile race in the world than the Catholics of Germany.

*MR. MACVEAGH (Down, S.)

Were, they excluded from professorships?

*MR. C. J. O'DONNELL

No they were not, and when Bismarck tried to oppress them he was soon driven to Canossa. Compare them with the Catholic aristocracy of France, and the way in which these were brought up! When persecution fell on them they took refuge in Monte Carlo and the Folies Bergères. As to the question of tests, it was perfectly true that there were to be no tests for professors, but there were tests for the Senates. There was to be only one Catholic on the Senate of the University of Belfast. That was a test. In the same way, there was to be only seven Protestants on the Senate of the University of Dublin; and that again was a religious test. The graduates of the Royal University of Ireland had drawn particular attention to this question, and said that the pledge which professors had to give that they would not make any statement derogatory to religion had been the main protection to the minority, but that protection was going to be knocked on the head. What about the minority in Cork? Was there to be no protectionto Protestants there on to Catholics in Belfast? He did not propose to support the Amendment; it was just as sectarian as the Bill. Nonconformists on his side of the House had taken the opportunity of this Bill to hang on to it a general attack on denominational education in every branch of teaching. He would have nothing to do with it. In conclusion, he regarded the matter both from its educational standpoint, and also from the Nationalist point of view. As hon. Gentlemen opposite knew, he had been a Nationalist all the days of his life, and had always hoped in the development of the Irish race. The only possible hope of Home Rule and of that development was in the union of Catholics and Protestants, the union of the Orange and the Green. Would they get that ideal advanced, would they get nearer to Home Rule by bringing up the young manhood of Ireland in three sectarian camps? He had always voted for Home Rule, but he would spare himself the trouble in future if this Bill became law. A nation which refused a national system of education was not worthy of self-government.

MR. DILLON (Mayo, E.)

The hon. Member for Morley, who moved this Amendment grounded his attack upon the Bill upon the statement that the Universities which the Bill proposed to set up were frankly and purely denominational. I took the liberty of interrupting him and asking him to give us a definition of the term "denominational institution" which he had used in the course of his speech, and I believe I shall carry the opinion of the House when I say that the hon. Member failed to meet that request. His attempt to define a denominational institution was, I think, a dismal failure. What did he say? He said that a denominational institution was to his mind a University where the great majority who attended it and the great majority of the professors also belonged to one religious persuasion, and where inducements were given, he went on to say, to one particular religious persuasion to attend that University. I venture to say as regards the first assertion, that it applies to every University in the United Kingdom, and as regards the second, that it does not apply to those Universities which this Bill, if it passes, undertakes to set up. According to the hon. Member for Morley, so great is his intellectual prejudice on this question, if a University is attended by a preponderance of men and professors of one particular religious creed, it is a denominational institution. What University in England will escape from that definition? Does it not apply to Oxford and Cambridge, to the University of London, and to every University in Scotland? Did we not hear the hon. Member for the University of Cambridge declare the other day—I confess it amused me—that not only are the members of these Universities in enormous preponderance members of one religion, but that when he was called to be a professor in the Edinburgh University, he was required to make a declaration that he would teach nothing which would interfere with the Westminster Confession. But has the indignation of the hon. Members opposite who moved and seconded the Amendment been roused by that declaration in favour of particular religious teaching? Why should the Catholics of Ireland be taken under the protection of this definition, and the Presbyterians of Scotland not? I say that the definition given by the hon. Member for Morley applies to every University in the United Kingdom; and what shall we say when we come to Ireland? Why has the indignation of the hon. Member slept so long in the case of Trinity College, Dublin, and the Queen's College, Belfast? Is Trinity College not attended by a vast preponderance of students of one denomination? In that College, where there are 100 Catholic students, making one-tenth or one-fifteenth of the whole, for 100 years there have been only two Catholic Fellows—one of whom was the most bitter anti-Catholic I have ever known—and, with one exception, there has never been a Provost who was not a clergyman of the Anglican Church, until the present Provost, Dr. Traill, was appointed. He was the first lay Protestant Provost for 100 years. And yet we are told that that is not a denominational institution! Take the Queen's College in Belfast. And here let me say that Presbyterians of Belfast have the sublime audacity by a deputation which, I understand, waited on hon. Members in this House to-day, to appeal against the institution of denominational education in Ireland as set up by this Bill. What is the history of the Queen's College in Belfast? Our opponents are proud to boast that the Queen's College, Belfast, has been an undenominational institution for forty or fifty years. A few Catholics have attended it, but the vast preponderence of students have been Presbyterians. But when I come to the professoriat, I find that when Queen's College was established, two Catholic professors were appointed, and from that day to this there has been only one Catholic and no head of the College who was not a Presbyterian clergyman. That is undenominational. Now, contrast that with the denominational institutions which the right hon. Gentleman is going to start for Catholics in Ireland. The hon. Members who moved and seconded the Amendment had evidently never read the Charters of these Universities, nor had the hon. Member for South Belfast, who abused measures which he had evidently entirely misconceived. What does the hon. Gentleman say for Cork, Galway, and Belfast, places where the population is not divided between Catholics and Protestants? Under this Bill it is proposed to establish colleges possibly to be used by Catholics. But do we propose to close the doors to Protestants in Dublin, Cork, and Belfast? In the new Dublin University one-fourth of the Senate will be Protestant. In the college in Galway, in a district where the Protestants do not number 5 per cent. of the population, one-third of the Senate are to be Protestant. In the college at Cork, where the Protestants are in a smaller proportion, the Protestant Bishop of Cork has been invited to join the governing body, a large proportion of which will be Protestants. That is an undenominational institution, where the vast majority of the population are Catholics; but in Belfast where you have a purely Presbyterian institution, where a Roman Catholic is not allowed to put his nose in, it is entirely undenominational because it is purely Presbyterian. That gives you an illustration of the fair-play which is given. We are charged with being advocates of clericalism and the slaves of the Bishops of Rome. Let us contrast these new institutions with the others. Trinity College for hundreds of years allowed no man to be Provost of the college except a Protestant. It was purely undenominational, because it was purely Protestant. Queen's College, Belfast, set up a claim that no man should be allowed to be head of the college unless he was a Protestant clergyman. In these new institutions it is proposed that a layman shall be at their head, and because it is proposed that they shall be open to all Irishmen, ineluding the Catholics of Ireland, it is said they are denominational. The truth of the case is that in these matters there is a great deal of hypocrisy. It is not true that these new institutions are denominational; they are institutions which will give an opportunity to the majority of the population of Ireland to obtain a University education without submitting themselves to an atmosphere of ascendancy which is intolerable to the Catholics of Ireland. The only argument which has been used on the opposite side with more or less weight and efficacy, and which, I admit, has considerable force, is the action of the Catholic bishops of this country when they banned Oxford and Cambridge and then removed the ban. I am thankful that we have emancipated the Catholics in this country in spite of themselves, and maintained the cause when they turned tail, but it is particularly painful to us to know that the action of the English Catholic bishops is the single argument against us. But everyone knows that the argument, though superficially of some weight, has no reality. I have always maintained that in a country where any religious creed forms a small minority, the members of that creed must make the best of their evil case, and they must be content to avail themselves of the institutions of the country in which they live; but that is no reason why in a country and a nation like Ireland, where the Catholics form the vast majority, they should be compelled to enter into institutions which are dominated, and must for years and years to come be dominated by their bitter enemies, and by men of other creeds. I say that the case of the Catholics of Ireland rests upon an entirely different basis, because what was proposed to us was that our children should be sent into institutions where they would be exposed to the influence of a hostile atmosphere, which we have learned from bitter experience is most prejudicial to them. It is not as a concession, or as a favour that we demand University education suitable for the Catholics of Ireland. We demand it as a right, because in the unfortunate historic past the entire provision for higher education in Ireland has been placed in the hands of a small intolerant and domineering minority of that country. Let me go to another point, to which I attach enormous importance. Some of the hon. Members who have opposed this Bill have opposed it on the ground of freedom of teaching. They say, "We want institutions in which we shall get freedom of teaching," and then, by a most extraordinary mental aberration, they proceed to complain of the action of the Chief Secretary in proposing to do away with the declarations now made by the Professors of the Queen's Colleges. Is not that a move in the direction of freedom of teaching? That declaration is to the following effect— I will carefully abstain from teaching or defending any doctrine or making any statement derogatory to the truths of revealed religion and disrespectful or injurious to the religion of any portion of my class. I think that that is one of the most extraordinary declarations ever placed upon any body of teachers in the world. Of course, it is impossible to enforce that, and there is a denomination in the north of Ireland, which is well-known, who hold firmly and teach this view, that all the world goes to hell, without the smallest hope of redemption, except themselves, viz., the Covenanters, and this declaration, if it were strictly enforced, would place anybody under a ban who said anything calculated to advance the view that anyone may be saved hereafter who is not a Covenanter, because that would be calculated to be disrespectful to the religious creed of a portion of the class. The very men who complain of the Chief Secretary for interfering with freedom of teaching blame him for abolishing that declaration. I attach very little importance to it, and, in my opinion, none of these declarations amount to anything. The hon. Member for Cambridge, I have no doubt, made a declaration that he would not teach anything but the Westminster Confession, but I do not think he thought of that until he had made his speech, and we are making a concession to those who wish for freedom of teaching when we consent to the sweeping away of this declaration. I have examined into the case of my own college; formerly Dr. Newman's, now the college of Dr. Delany, and what do I find? At that college, which is governed by Jesuits, no declaration of any sort or kind is required. What the Catholics in Ireland want and do not hesitate to say they want is a college which their sons can attend without being subjected to an atmosphere which, at every turn, will be hostile to the faith in which they have been brought up and to the national creed which is the creed of their fathers. This is not a Catholic but a national claim. We are asking for perfect freedom of teaching. It is not to be found in the Queen's Colleges or in Trinity College, but I believe it will be found in the system the right hon. Gentleman proposes. There has been criticism of the governing body of the college and the Senate, but that is only a temporary body. What I look to is the future, and I say that these institutions are democratic and mainly elected institutions, and that the governing bodies of the future will be moulded by the sons of the people who enter them. I have no hesitation in adopting what has been said by the chairman of our Party and our leader. So far as the principles of this Bill are concerned, we, who are entitled to speak for the general body of Catholics in Ireland, accept them and thank the right hon. Gentleman for having proposed them. In the hope of giving him courage to persevere with his Bill, I say that, if the right hon. Gentleman succeeds in turning it into an Act, he will render one of the greatest services to the Irish nation which it has ever been given to an English statesman to render.

MR. GORDON

said he had had frequently to speak on the question of education in this House, and everyone knew that he was most anxious that education in Ireland should be placed on the soundest possible basis. Irishmen, whether they called themselves Nationalists or Unionists, were all agreed, not only that it was highly desirable that the best possible University system of education should exist in Ireland, but at the same time that it was desirable and essential that any system to be instituted should be instituted on lines which would not be injurious to the country. Several hon. Gentlemen had referred to the injury which would be inflicted upon the country if the young people of the country were segregated into different premises according to their religious views, and that was in accordance with what one of the greatest educationists in Ireland (Dr. Starkie) said, as a part of his Report on the University question in Ireland. It was most desirable, necessary, and essential to the welfare of Ireland that the young men of Ireland should be brought into contact with each other in their early life. It would be the grossest injustice, not only to those whom he represented, but also to those represented by hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway, to say that their young men could not live together in one college. But that was what was going to be said by this Bill. The hon. Member for East Mayo had asked what was a denominational University. The House must remember that the very first thing they had to deal with in this matter was that they had two new Universities. There was already existing a University which Nationalist Members had always asserted was purely Protestant and Episcopalian. That was to remain and to carry on its work in that atmosphere of which they had heard so much. The Government were now creating two new Universities. If they were not to be denominational, why should there be two? Belfast was as near Dublin as Galway, and nearer than Cork. Was it not simply and solely because they must have a denominational University for one religious body, the Roman Catholics, in Ireland? He ventured to interrupt the Secretary of State for War when the right hon. Gentleman said they objected to any benefit being conferred on Belfast. Belfast did not ask for this University. He denied that the professors of Belfast Queen's College expressed the will of the people of Ireland in this matter. Those who were best able to express the views of the people of Belfast on the subject had spoken in no doubtful terms of this University. Because the right hon. Gentleman was driven to solve in some way this most difficult problem, in order to meet the requirements of one particular denomination in Ireland, he had to create two new Universities. One of them did not wish to be sectarian or denominational. Belfast University would try and avoid being so if it could, but the other could not help being so in every sense of the word. How was it that the Queen's Colleges, which were founded on lines similar to those on which the right hon. Gentleman had said he intended to found these new Universities, were not accepted by the Roman Catholic hierarchy of Ireland? They were nonsectarian. The religion of every student attending them was securely safeguarded. There Were no tests and no trace of denominationalism in them. But the Roman Catholic hierarchy would have none of them, and they banned and destroyed the University. The Government said they were not going to have a denominational University for the Roman Catholics of Ireland. He would call attention to the statement of the rev. Prelate, Dr. O'Dwyer, Bishop of Limerick, given in evidence before the Commission appointed to inquire into the question of Universities in Ireland in 1901, in which that gentleman said they could not have education divorced from religion. Was this Bill, therefore, likely to satisfy the requirements of the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland, unless, as he believed it would be, it was truly denominational in its character, however it might be described in an Act of Parliament. If it were not to be, why was the test of religion to be applied to the selection of the governing bodies? In Dublin there was to be a governing body of thirty-five, five of whom were to be Protestants. Why did the Government, at the very outset, begin by applying a religious list for Belfast if it was not to be a denominational institution. In Belfast, they had on the governing body, one Roman Catholic to thirty-four or thirty-five Protestants. Was it not a farce? Was it not because they knew that nothing would satisfy the Roman Catholics of Ireland in the shape of a University unless it was denominational? They would have this freedom from tests which would enable the professors to teach anything they pleased. The question of whether a University was denominational or not did not depend on the students who attended it. It depended upon what was the real tone and atmosphere that existed in it, and if they started by creating a particular atmosphere in these Universities that atmosphere would never be got rid of. The only thing that would make a University acceptable to the Roman Catholics of Ireland, was that it should have that atmosphere of which they had heard so much since 1902. Everyone knew what the Government had said and done with regard to it since they came into office, and also when they were in opposition. On every occasion when the question had arisen in respect to the schools in England right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite had said that when the State gave money they wanted it to be quite clear that there should be no denominational teaching supported by that money; that it was not enough to say that nothing was to be given for the purpose of denominational teaching in England. They would not tolerate it for a moment. But in this Bill they were appointing a governing body, which would appoint the professors of the Universities, and appointing that body with a preponderance of one denomination for the University in the South, and a preponderance of another denomination for the University in the North of Ireland. He would certainly be surprised to see hon. Members who had voted so long against denominationalism in England now apply a different rule, when it was a question of the education of Ireland and show that they were perfectly satisfied with denominationalism. He did not want to go into the matter at that late hour in any great detail, but there were one or two things that ought to be remembered in connection with the two Universities they were going to found. There were, he thought, 350 students in Belfast, 500 students in the three colleges at Cork, Galway, and the University College at Dublin, which they wanted to make constituent colleges. The chief body of the students who came up for examination in the Royal University were outside these colleges altogether. There were about 950 students who came from other institutions. About 280 students were taught privately. They wanted to provide University degrees and education for all the people in Ireland who were willing to accept them; but were these students to be excluded? How were they going to deal with them? The Secretary of State for War objected that the claim did not come from the Roman Catholics; but, in truth, did it not? He did not blame them. They were quite right, if they thought they had a grievance, to make their claim; but, if they wanted Ireland to have a better education without having denominational control, which any person could see, on the face of it, was given by this Bill, then why did not they come forward and say: "Let us have a system like the old Queen's University?" Everybody in Ireland, outside the Roman Catholics, would be satisfied with it. He could not conceive why the Roman Catholic Church would not accept it, except that they were never satisfied because they did not control that institution, and they would never be satisfied unless they controlled this University. The right hon. Gentleman, he thought, knew that as well as he did. The hon. Member for East Mayo had spoken of the whole of education in Ireland falling into the hands of a small, narrow, and intolerant minority. Any man who knew anything about education in Ireland knew that that was inaccurate. In the Royal University absolute equality was preserved upon the Senate by the Government of the day, so that no Party had any control whatever. The Dublin University had been open to Catholics for over a hundred years and many had availed themselves of it; all its emoluments and positions of trust had been absolutely open to everyone for thirty-five years. Surely, under those circumstances, it was idle to say that higher education—University education—was under the control of a small, narrow, or any one body in Ireland. Those whom he and his friends represented thought that if they passed the Bill they would inflict upon Ireland a gross injustice. They would put University education in a position which existed in no other country in the world; they would injure education of the people; and the three Universities would lead to a state of affairs in Ireland which would be very much worse than anything which existed at the present moment and which the Government said they were seeking to remedy. He thought the House ought to be slow before it assented to anything of the kind. Universities could not be pulled up by the roots every year; they were of slow growth; and, when they set about to establish a new University, it required care and thoughtfulness to see they were not establishing something destructive of education. He asked the House not to inflict upon Ireland the injustice of having what would be to all interests and purposes three sectarian and denominational Universities.

SIR E. CARSON (Dublin University)

I only rise to occupy the attention of the House for a very few minutes, because I think that the debate should not close without some speech being made different in tone from that which was delivered by my right hon. colleague representing the Dublin University. I say that for this reason: the House ought to recollect that this Bill has the support of the Leader of the Opposition, and whatever the responsibility of producing it may be, and whatever the effect in the country, I am sure that if he were here he would be the last to shirk the responsibility of supporting it. So far as I am concerned, I have supported the principle for many years, and intend to do so to-night and at the subsequent stages of the Bill. When we are granting this Bill to Ireland and are putting forward this measure of University reform, for heaven's sake let us do it in a spirit of generosity. I have heard a great deal said as to whether this is a denominational or undenominational Bill. I care not what you call it: I think it ought to be a Bill to satisfy the aspirations of those for the remedy of whose grievances it is put forward. We are told it is a denominational Bill. I have always said that Trinity College, which I represent, was not a denominational University because there are no tests; any student of any creed is welcomed there, and every position in the University is open to him. I understand that that is the principle of the Bill before the House, and I do not see how I could consistently say that Trinity College is undenominational and at the same time deny the same description to the Bill now before the House. When we talk of denominational and undenominational the question of atmosphere must always be considered. That may be difficult to explain, but I will say this, that if Trinity College was as Roman Catholic in its atmosphere as it is undoubtedly Protestant, would I, as an Irish Protestant, think of sending my son there? I have no hesitation ill saying I would not. Then what right have I to go to my Roman Catholic fellow-countrymen and say to them: "You make a mistake in not sending your sons to Trinity College; I can assure you there is nothing in the Protestant atmosphere of which they need be afraid?" That may be true, but I should be giving advice which I should not be prepared to accept. We are told that the setting up of these Universities is a retrograde movement. It will entirely depend on themselves as to whether they are a success or not. If, whether Roman Catholic or Presbyterian, they proceed to conduct their business and frame their curriculum on any narrow basis of sectarian differences they will be absolute failures. On the other hand, if they manage their business on the broad basis of liberty, which can alone gain success in education in any country, they will take their places as great Universities among those of the United Kingdom. I may hold views that do not entirely commend themselves even to many of those who think with me in Ireland; but I look forward to the day when these great, successful, liberal seats of learning, having made their way and formed their constituencies, showing themselves worthy in the great race of science and art, will come forward and say, as I hope Trinity College will: "Let us join together and make one great national University." I believe it is the duty of every Irishman, of whatever creed or politics, to wish God-speed to these Universities, and to do his best in a spirit of noble generosity to make them a great success; and I hope that the bringing of them into existence may be a step forward in the union of all classes and religions in Ireland for the progress of our country and its education.

MR. BIRRELL

The remarkable and striking speech to which we have just listened has made me, I am willing to confess, a happy man. I own that during the years I have been a member of this Government I have too often been disposed to exclaim with the sad prophet Jeremiah: "Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast born me a man of strife and contention." The right hon. Gentleman opposite and I prefer the paths of peace; and, having spent a pleasant and agreeable evening, and having just listened to the speech from the right hon. Gentleman the senior Member for Trinity College, Dublin, I really feel that there is very little for me to say. And yet, Mr. Speaker, it should be a source of pride and satisfaction to all of us that upon this subject—which has long been considered one of the thorniest and most controversial that could ever stand in the way of any Government—we have, although many people's theories and hopes have not altogether been realised, been able to introduce to this House a measure which, I think now we may safely say, is certain to pass—a measure which will, at all events, provide for a large section of the Irish people that higher education which, admittedly, they need; that, therefore, this difficult question has at last been solved, and that we are to-day taking part in what I hope will be the successful inauguration of liberal seats of learning in Ireland. I listened to the excellent speeches of my hon. friends behind me, but none of them approached this subject from the point of view that Ireland stands grievously in need of, and is entitled to have, immediately, a large measure of higher education. They ignored all these things. They spoke of what I might do were I at liberty to approach this question de novo. I am at liberty to approach no question de novo. What I should do under those singular circumstances I hardly know; I am sure it would be destructive to a great many gentlemen who have seats in this House. Happily for them, and happily for myself, I can do nothing of the kind. A certain amount of criticism has been passed with regard to why we have thought fit to establish a University in Belfast. Certain representatives of Ulster have assured me that Belfast does not want a University, that it stands in no need of a University, that no Member for Belfast or no member of the civic society of Belfast, has ever asked for a University, that I have, evidently, gone altogether out of my way to give them this boon, as many people consider it, as my own constituents in Bristol consider it, of a University; and that I have given it to them simply and solely for the purpose of setting up a Roman Catholic University in Dublin—that if it had not been for that it would never have occurred to anybody that Belfast should have had a University. That is not true at all. I cannot say that the whole of Ulster have come into Old Queen Street demanding and beseeching a University; but this I can say, that for many months past I have been in communication with many persons in Ulster who I consider are better qualified to represent the wishes of that community for a seat of learning than certain other persons, and they, one and all, agreed that they really want a University, that Belfast is suited to a University, that Queen's College in Belfast has already produced men of the utmost distinction, that the studies in chemistry and other sciences are carried on to the admiration of the world, and that there is in the province of Ulster, and in that part of Ireland generally, a quite sufficient area to support a University just as there is in my own constituency of Bristol. Such, at all events, is what I have been assured. But I can tell the House that the weakness of this proposal, which has been objected to, in associating Cork and Galway as constituent colleges, is because it is a federated University. I wish to heaven Cork and Galway were strong enough to support Universities of their own. If they had been it would have made my task in the preparing of the Bill and in the drafting of these Charters much easier, and I should have escaped many of the criticisms to which I have been exposed. As it is, being obliged to deal with Cork and Galway as constituent colleges of Dublin, the difficulties necessarily arose, and, as a University man, I was very glad to get Belfast out of the way, and, as a University man, I did rejoice that the academic body of Belfast, distinguished professors, were deeply anxious there should be a University in Belfast. What is the good of saving that only the academic body, the president and the professors, wanted a University? Surely that is a considerable admission to make when you are dealing with academic subjects. Then I also found there was a strong demand on the part of the young people of Ulster who had distinguished themselves highly in Arts and particularly in science. Here am I who have been accused of speaking disrespectfully of Ulster—which I never did and never shall—advocating the claim of Belfast to be on an equality with Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds, Sheffield, even of Bristol, in having a University of its own. I hope hon. Members have read the letter which appears in The Times of to-day from Dr. Dill, a most distinguished member of a most distinguished academic body, an Irishman by birth and partly by education, who was a distinguished tutor at Corpus Christi, Oxford, and is author of a book the perusal of which has done much to mitigate my hard lot during the last eighteen months, a book on Roman society during the first four or five centuries. Dr. Dill has a letter in The Times of to-day, and I do not hesitate to say that in that letter alone the case for a University in Belfast is made out. I am not going to engage in the rather nice inquiry as to what constitutes a denominational University; all I can say is I have done my best to make this University undenominational. I have put in Clause 3—hon. Gentlemen have read it from beginning to end—in which I have done my utmost so far as words to make a law can go; I have taken every step I could take in the endeavour that the Universities in Dublin and Belfast shall be undenominational. Then I am told that all these provisions, all the protection in the clause, are not worth the paper they are written on; that whatever I do the Universities must become denominational. Very well, if that be so you must have a denominational University or none at all. I cannot do more than take every step open to a man to secure that these Universities shall not be denominational. We know that in old days Oxford and Cambridge were directly denominational; they were intended only for members of the Church of England as by law established; you could not gain access to them unless you produced your certificate of baptism in the Established Church and were prepared to sign the Thirty-nine Articles. Then, after a time, you were allowed to enter as an undergraduate and to take a preliminary degree. But you were not allowed to become a Master of Arts, you could not become a fellow, or a member of the governing body of a college, or the head of a college. That was what we used to think was meant by the expression "denominational University." It meant a University confined by law to the members of a particular denomination. Nothing of that sort happens here. Anybody can go, and I am perfectly confident a great number of persons will go, to both these new Universities who do not belong either to the Presbyterian or to the Roman Catholic Church. We have done our best to secure that nobody shall be excluded from going, that every scholarship and every fellowship shall be open to everybody irrespective of religious opinions. We have done more than that, we have secured that the governing bodies of these Universities for all time, after you have got rid of the first five years, shall be composed of elected members, elected by the graduates, elected by the professors. Never mind the precise details, these are open to consideration; but what is not open to consideration is the perfectly free constitution of these governing bodies; they will be democratic bodies. It is said: "Oh, what does that matter? Universities have to be governed by a Senate." Well, we secure that the Senate shall be freely elected. What more can we do? Some people push it even further. They say: "That is no good. Senates are composed of men and women, and men and women all of them in Ireland belong to one religious faith or another." You proceed to inquire to what religious faith they belong, and then you discover that you have set up a University in a province where most of the people are of one way of religious thinking; consequently the graduates are for the most part of one way of religious thinking; they elect the Senate, and freely choose the men they want, and then it turns out that in the north these men are mostly Presbyterians and in the south they are mostly Roman Catholics. How can I help that? If you push this matter home you will come to this—that everybody who objects to Universities constituted like this, because they will give predominance in certain way of religious thinking, thinks that these kind of persons ought not to have Universities at all. I challenge anybody, the most confirmed and determined Nonconformist in this House, to pursue this matter home, to push it to its final and ultima ratio; and he will find that if he objects to a University simply because it is set up in a country where most of the people belong to one way of religious faith, and as a consequence that religious faith, is freely represented on the governing body if he objects to that, his objection is not to my scheme, but to the religion of these people. I cannot pretend to say what the future of these Universities may be, but really sonic people talk as if Roman Catholics had nothing to do with learning; as if a learned Roman Catholic hardly ever existed. I read in The Times to-day the obituary notice of a most distinguished Roman Catholic Jesuit priest who for forty long years played a great and distinguished part in the education of our fellow-subjects in India and whose studies were not directed to the humanities, which some people think are ghastly studies—I entirely differ from them—but to those exact, precise, scientific studies upon which so many people nowadays, and rightly I daresay, set so much account. Here was a most distinguished man, a doctor of science, a learned man, and some members who do not know an acid from an alkali talk in this way about Roman Catholic governing bodies. We Protestants, who have succeeded to Roman Catholic institutions and enjoyed our education in colleges founded by Williams of Wykeham and Lady Margarets and other devout Roman Catholic persons, have banged the doors of these institutions for centuries in the faces of people belonging to the same faith as their founders. We who have benefited by their education, enjoyed their literature, been brought up many of us in some places still under their influence, have the audacity to pretend that a University will be endangered and not be a true seat of learning because it may well be that Roman Catholics may have a predominant influence in it. I repudiate that from the bottom of my heart. Then we are told about those bishops who are going to destroy everything. The bishops in this matter have behaved with great generosity. They have withdrawn from their de jure representation, and have been content to rely so far as they need rely upon the free votes which those of them who wish to serve on governing bodies may openly obtain from Roman Catholic graduates. Those bishops who care for education, and many of the existing bishops are authorities on that subject, will have no difficulty. They will remain for all time—unless persuaded, as some people seem to fear, to abandon their religion and adopt ours—which will be a long process—these Roman Catholic bishops will remain responsible members of the hierarchy and will have no difficulty—those who are educationally equipped and educationally minded—in playing as spirited and distinguished a part in the conduct of their Irish Universities as English clergy still maintain in our old Universities of Cambridge and Oxford. Many subjects of detail have been referred to. I need not enter into them. There is only one other question about which I want to say a word—the subject of affiliation. Every University must have the right and has the right under certain conditions which it imposes itself and makes itself of affiliating institutions in the educational qualities of whose teaching it has confidence. The right of affiliation of institutions capable of giving University training cannot be denied. Every University must possess it. I hope they will always exercise it with profound caution. We are founding an institution that may last for 500 or 1,000 years, and what colleges may be affiliated in time to conic I do not know. I hope they will start with a very high ideal and with a conviction of the necessity of not frittering away their revenues upon a number of colleges distributed over the country where the members of these colleges cannot possibly get the full benefit of University education and breathe a University atmosphere. There is every indication that they will be very chary in granting their affiliation rights. Something has been said about external people who do not belong to the University, who read their text books at home and go to crammers and private institutions, whose object is to get letters after their name. In this matter of externals, although diplomas or anything else may be given to people who satisfy the examiners, I hope these Senates will be strenuous in their determination to secure that anybody who is a graduate of Dublin or Belfast is really a Dublin or a Belfast man. That will be the spirit in which we shall approach this question in Committee. In conclusion, I will only say that I am deeply grateful to the House for the kindly consideration given to this measure and to the right hon. Gentleman the senior member for Dublin University for predicting for this great institution a glorious and a long future.

MR. MOORE

wished to protest against the manner in which this Bill was being rushed through. It had been condemned by every Protestant Church in Ireland. It had been condemned by Methodists and Presbyterians, and their deputations were coming over to protest, but the Bill had been put down because of the advice of Dr. Delany, who had been the Chief Secretary's adviser throughout. ["Oh."]

MR. BIRRELL

On behalf of Dr. Delany I beg to say no such communication has passed. [MINISTERIAL cries of "Withdraw, withdraw."]

MR. MOORE

Then it was the one solitary occasion upon which Dr. Delany's advice had not been taken. Although the Government had no time to receive deputations from the Presby- terians or the Methodists, or from the Royal University, they found time last week to receive a deputation from the Irish pawnbrokers. Before the measure was rushed through the House and sent to a Committee upstairs, where its crude nature would not be brought to the minds of the English people, he wished to quote the opinion of one of their own leaders, uttered not so very long ago. This right hon. Gentleman, when in Opposition, said— The setting up of a University which is Catholic in tone, which is Catholic in atmosphere, which is really Catholic in every respect, is a thing which the vast majority of Members on this side of the House, who represent Nonconformist constituencies, will oppose. I have the greatest doubt about our own leaders.… We are rather afraid that our leaders will commit themselves to a proposal of this character which, if carried, will simply wreck the Party.… I sincerely trust our leaders will do nothing of the kind. Those were the words of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer. He was a leader himself now. Was he going to follow his own brave words of ten years ago, or was he going meekly into the lobby to vote with the Irish Nationalists, who on behalf of the Roman Catholic bishops had accepted this scheme? Were the great Liberal Party prepared to swallow these brave words? In this Bill they were making a deal with clericalism, which the right hon. Gentlemen said was the enemy. The only difference was that it was Roman Catholic clericalism and not the clericalism of the Established Church of England. In two or three years they would find the clerical authority in Ireland moving to dispense with their restrictions, and this Bill would become waste paper, and the man who had led them into that morass would be the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland.

question put.

AYES.
Abraham, William (Cork, N.E.)	Clive, Percy Archer	Harwood, George
Abraham, William (Rhondda)	Cobbold, Felix Thornley	Haslam, James (Derbyshire)
Acland, Francis Dyke	Compton-Rickett, Sir J.	Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)
Agnew, George William	Cooper, G. J.	Haworth, Arthur A.
Ainsworth, John Stirling	Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.	Hayden, John Patrick
Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch)	Cotton, Sir H. J. S.	Hazleton, Richard
Ambrose, Robert	Cowan, W. H.	Healy, Timothy Michael
Anson, Sir William Reynell	Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)	Hemmerde, Edward George
Anstruther-Gray, Major	Crean, Eugene	Henderson, Arthur (Durham)
Armstrong, W. C. Heaton	Crooks, William	Henderson, J.M. (Aberdeen, W.)
Ashton, Thomas Gair	Crosfield, A. H.	Henry, Charles S.
Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbert Henry	Crossley, William J.	Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon., S.)
Astbury, John Meir	Cullinan, J.	Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe)
Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth)	Curran, Peter Francis	Higham, John Sharp
Baldwin, Stanley	Dalmeny, Lord	Hobart, Sir Robert
Balfour, Robert (Lanark)	Davies, David (Montgomery Co.	Hobhouse, Charles E. H.
Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)	Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)	Hodge, John
Baring, Capt. Hn. G (Winchester	Davies, Timothy (Fulham)	Hogan, Michael
Barker, John	Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S.)	Holland, Sir William Henry
Barlow, Percy (Bedford)	Delany, William	Holt, Richard Durning
Barnard, E. B.	Devlin, Joseph	Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)
Barnes, G. N.	Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.)	Hope, W. Bateman (Somerset, N
Barry, E. (Cork, S.)	Dewar, Sir J. A. (Inverness-sh.)	Horniman, Emslie John
Barry, Redmond J. (Tyrone, N.)	Dickinson, W.H. (St. Pancras, N	Howard, Hon. Geoffrey
Beale, W. P.	Dillon, John	Hudson, Walter
Beauchamp, E.	Donelan, Captain A.	Hyde, Clarendon
Beckett, Hon. Gervase	Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness	Idris, T. H. W.
Bellairs, Carlyon	Duncan, J. H. (York. Otley)	Illingworth, Percy H.
Belloc, Hilaire Joseph Peter R.	Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)	Isaacs, Rufus Daniel
Benn, W. (T'w'r Hamlets. S. Geo.	Dunne, Major E. Martin (Walsall	Jardine, Sir J.
Bennett, E. N.	Edwards, Clement (Denbigh)	Jenkins, J.
Berridge, T. H. D.	Edwards, Enoch (Hanley)	Jones, Leif (Appleby)
Bethell, Sir J.H. (Essex, Romf'rd	Elibank, Master of	Jones, William (Carnarvonshire
Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon)	Esmonde, Sir Thomas	Jowett, F. W.
Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine	Evans, Sir Samuel T.	Joyce, Michael
Boland, John	Everett, R. Lacey	Joynson-Hicks, William
Bottomley, Horatio	Fell, Arthur	Kavanagh, Walter M.
Bowerman, C. W.	Ferguson, R. C. Munro	Kearley, Hudson E.
Bramsdon, T. A.	Ffrench, Peter	Kekewich, Sir George
Brigg, John	Field, William	Kennedy, Vincent Paul
Bright, J. A.	Findlay, Alexander	Kettle, Thomas Michael
Brodie, H. C.	Flavin, Michael Joseph	Kilbride, Denis
Brooke, Stopford	Flynn, James Christopher	King, Alfred John (Knutsford)
Brunner, J.F.L. (Lancs., Leigh)	Fuller, John Michael F.	Laidlaw, Robert
Brunner, Rt Hn. Sir J.T (Cheshire	Gibb, James (Harrow)	Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester)
Bryce, J. Annan	Gilhooly, James	Lamont, Norman
Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn	Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert John	Lardner, James Carrige Rushe
Buckmaster, Stanley O.	Glen-Coats, Sir T. (Renfrew, W.)	Layland-Barratt, Francis
Bull, Sir William James	Glover, Thomas	Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington
Burke, E. Haviland-	Gooch, George Peabody (Bath)	Lehmann, R. C.
Burns, Rt. Hon. John	Greenwood, G. (Peterborough)	Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich
Burnyeat, W. J. D.	Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward	Levy, Sir Maurice
Butcher, Samuel Henry	Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill	Lewis, John Herbert
Buxton, Rt. Hn. Sydney Charles	Guinness, Walter Edward	Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David
Byles, William Pollard	Gurdon, Rt Hn Sir W. Brampton	Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas
Carr-Gomm, H. W.	Gwynn, Stephen Lucius	Lupton, Arnold
Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.	Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B.	Macdonald, J.M. (Falkirk B'ghs
Causton, Rt. Hn. Richard Knight	Hall, Frederick	Maclean, Donald
Cecil, Lord John P. Joicey-	Halpin, J.	Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.
Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.)	Harcourt. Rt. Hon. Lewis	MacNeill, John Gordon Swift
Chance, Frederick William	Hardy, George A. (Suffolk)	Macpherson, J. T.
Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R.	Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worc'r)	MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.
Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.	Harris, Frederick Leverton	MacVeigh, Charles (Donegal, E.)
Clancy, John Joseph	Harrison-Broadley, H. B.	M'Callum, John M.
Cleland, J. W.	Hart-Davies, T.	M'Hugh, Patrick A.

The House divided:—Ayes, 352; Noes, 38. (Division List No. 86.)

M'Kean, John	O'Shaughnessy, P. J.	Strachey, Sir Edward
M'Kenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald	O'Shee, James John	Straus, B. S. (Mile End)
M'Micking, Major G.	Parker, James (Halifax)	Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon)
Magnus, Sir Philip	Partington, Oswald	Stuart, James (Sunderland)
Mallet, Charles E.	Paulton, James Mellor	Summerbell, T.
Manfield, Harry (Northants)	Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)	Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)
Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston)	Phillips, John (Longford, S.)	Talbot, Rt. Hn. J.G. (Oxf'd Univ.
Marnham, F. J.	Pickersgill, Edward Hare	Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)
Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry)	Powell, Sir Francis Sharp	Tennant, Sir Edward (Salisbury
Mason, James F. (Windsor)	Power, Patrick Joseph	Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire)
Masterman, C. F. G.	Price, C. E. (Edinb'gh, Central)	Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.
Meagher, Michael	Price, Robert John (Norfolk, E.)	Thomasson, Franklin
Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)	Priestley, W.E.B. (Bradford, E.)	Thompson, J.W.H. (Somerset, E
Meehan, Patrick A. (Queen's Co.	Radford, G. H.	Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton
Menzies, Walter	Randles, Sir John Scurrah	Torrance, Sir A. M.
Middlebrook, William	Raphael, Herbert H.	Toulmin, George
Mildmay, Francis Bingham	Rea, Russell (Gloucester)	Trevelyan, Charles Philips
Molteno, Percy Alport	Reddy, M.	Tuke, Sir John Batty
Mond, A.	Redmond, John E. (Waterford)	Verney, F. W.
Montagu, E. S.	Redmond, William (Clare)	Vivian, Henry
Mooney, J. J.	Rees, J. D.	Waldron, Laurence Ambrose
Morpeth, Viscount	Richards, Thomas (W. Monm'th	Walrond, Hon. Lionel
Morrell, Philip	Richards, T. F. (Wolverh'mpt'n	Walsh, Stephen
Morse, L. L.	Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)	Walters, John Tudor
Muldoon, John	Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)	Walton, Joseph
Murnaghan, George	Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)	Ward, W. Dudley (Southampt'n
Murphy, John (Kerry, East)	Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradf'rd	Waring, Walter
Murphy, N. J. (Kilkenny, S.)	Robinson, S.	Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.
Murray, James (Aberdeen, E.)	Roche, Augustine (Cork)	Wason, Rt. Hn. E (Clackmannan
Myer, Horatio	Rogers, F. E. Newman	Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)
Nannetti, Joseph P.	Ronaldshay, Earl of	Waterlow, D. S.
Napier, T. B.	Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter	Watt, Henry A.
Newnes, F. (Notts, Bassetlaw)	Russell, T. W.	Whitbread, Howard
Nicholson, Charles N. (Doncast'r	Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford)	White, J. D. (Dumbartonshire)
Nicholson, Wm. G. (Petersfield)	Salter, Arthur Clavell	White, Luke (York, E. R.)
Nield, Herbert	Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)	White, Patrick (Meath, North)
Nolan, Joseph	Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel)	Whitehead, Rowland
Norton, Capt. Cecil William	Schwann, Sir C.E. (Manchester)	Whitley, John Henry (Halifax)
Nugent, Sir Walter Richard	Scott, A.H. (Ashton under Lyne	Wiles, Thomas
Nussey, Thomas Willans	Seely, Colonel	Williams, J. (Glamorgan)
Nuttall, Harry	Shaw, Rt. Hon. T. (Hawick B.)	Williamson, A.
O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Mid	Sheehan, Daniel Daniel	Wilson, Hon. G. G. (Hull. W.
O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)	Sheehy, David	Wilson, J. H. (Middlesbrough)
O'Brien, William (Cork)	Shipman, Dr. John G.	Wilson, J.W. (Worcestersh, N.)
O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.)	Silcock, Thomas Ball	Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.)
O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)	Simon, John Allsebrook	Wodehouse, Lord
O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)	Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John	Wood, T. M'Kinnon
O'Doherty, Philip	Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie	Wyndham Rt. Hon. George
O'Donnell, C. J. (Walworth)	Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)	Young, Samuel
O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.)	Spicer, Sir Albert
O'Dowd, John	Stanger, H. Y.	TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr.
O'Grady, J.	Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N.W.)	Whiteley and Mr. J. A.
O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N	Starkey, John R.	Pease.
O'Malley, William	Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal)

NOES.
Acland-Hood, Rt Hn. Sir Alex. F	Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West)	Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel
Banbury, Sir Frederick George	Gordon, J.	Ridsdale, E. A.
Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.)	Hamilton, Marquess of	Sandys, Lieut.-Col. Thos. Myles
Bignold, Sir Arthur	Hedges, A. Paget	Seaverns, J. H.
Channing, Sir Francis Allston	Houston, Robert Paterson	Sloan, Thomas Henry
Clough, William	Lockwood, Rt. Hn. Lt.-Col. A.R.	Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)
Corbett, C H (Sussex, E. Grinst'd	Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Dublin, S.	Thornton, Percy M.
Cory, Sir Clifford John	Lonsdale, John Brownlee	Valentia, Viscount
Cox, Harold	M'Arthur, Charles	Wilson, Henry J. (York, W.R.)
Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.	M'Calmont, Colonel James	Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm
Craig, Capt. James (Down, E.)	Moore, William
Cross, Alexander	Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)	TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr.
Dilke, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles	O'Neill Hon. Robert Torrens	Alfred Hutton and Dr.
Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-	Pirie, Duncan V.	Hazel.

Main Question again proposed.

And, it being after Eleven of the clock, and objection being taken to further Proceeding, Mr. SPEAKER proceeded to interrupt the Business.

The House divided:—Ayes, 328; Noes, 49. (Division List No. 87.)

AYES.
Abraham, William (Cork, N.E.)	Collins, Sir Wm.J. (S. Pancras, W	Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis
Abraham, William (Rhondda)	Compton-Rickett, Sir J.	Hardy, George A. (Suffolk)
Acland, Francis Dyke	Cooper, G. J.	Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worc'r)
Agnew, George William	Corbett, C H (Sussex, E. Grinst'd	Hart-Davies, T.
Ainsworth, John Stirling	Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.	Harwood, George
Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch)	Cotton, Sir H. J. S.	Haslam, James (Derbyshire)
Ambrose, Robert	Cowan, W. H.	Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)
Armstrong, W. C. Heaton	Cox, Harold	Haworth, Arthur A.
Ashton, Thomas Gair	Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)	Hayden, John Patrick
Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbert Henry	Crean, Eugene	Hazel, Dr. A. E.
Astbury, John Meir	Crooks, William	Hazleton, Richard
Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth)	Crosfield, A. H.	Healy, Timothy Michael
Balfour, Robert (Lanark)	Crossley, William J.	Hemmerde, Edward George
Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)	Cullinan, J.	Henderson, Arthur (Durham)
Barker, John	Curran, Peter Francis	Henderson, J.M. (Aberdeen, W.)
Barlow, Percy (Bedford)	Dalmeny, Lord	Henry, Charles S.
Barnard, E. B.	Davies, David (Montgomery Co.)	Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon., S.)
Barnes, G. N.	Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)	Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe)
Barry, Redmond J. (Tyrone, N.)	Davies, Timothy (Fulham)	Higham, John Sharp
Beale, W. P.	Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S.)	Hobart, Sir Robert
Beauchamp, E.	Delany, William	Hobhouse, Charles E. H.
Bellairs, Carlyon	Devlin, Joseph	Hodge, John
Belloc, Hilaire Joseph Peter R.	Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.)	Hogan, Michael
Benn, W. (T'w'r Hamlets, S. Geo.	Dewar, Sir J. A. (Inverness-sh.)	Holland, Sir William Henry
Bennett, E. N.	Dickinson, W.H. (St. Pancras, N	Holt, Richard Durning
Berridge, T. H. D.	Dillon, John	Hope, W. Bateman (Somerset, N.
Bethell, Sir J H. (Essex, Romf'rd	Donelan, Captain A.	Horniman, Emslie John
Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon)	Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness)	Howard, Hon. Geoffrey
Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine	Duncan, J. H. (York, Otley)	Hudson, Walter
Boland, John	Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)	Hyde, Clarendon
Bottomley, Horatio	Dunne, Major E. Martin (Walsall	Idris, T. H. W.
Bowerman, C. W.	Edwards, Clement (Denbigh)	Illingworth, Percy H.
Bramsdon, T. A.	Edwards, Enoch (Hanley)	Isaacs, Rufus Daniel
Brigg, John	Elibank, Master of	Jardine, Sir J.
Bright, J. A.	Esmonde, Sir Thomas	Jenkins, J.
Brodie, H. C.	Essex, R. W.	Jones, Leif (Appleby)
Brooke, Stopford	Evans, Sir Samuel T.	Jones, William (Carnarvonshire
Brunner, J.F. L. (Lancs., Leigh)	Everett, R. Lacey	Jowett, F. W.
Brunner, Rt Hn Sir J.T (Cheshire)	Ffrench, Peter	Joyce, Michael
Bryce, J. Annan	Field, William	Kavanagh, Walter M.
Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn	Findlay, Alexander	Kearley, Hudson E.
Buckmaster, Stanley O.	Flavin, Michael Joseph	Kekewich, Sir George
Burke, E. Haviland-	Flynn, James Christopher	Kennedy, Vincent Paul
Burns, Rt. Hon. John	Fuller, John Michael F.	Kettle, Thomas Michael
Burnyeat, W. J. D.	Gibb, James (Harrow)	Kilbride, Denis
Buxton, Rt. Hn. Sydney Charles	Gilhooly, James	King, Alfred John (Knutsford)
Byles, William Pollard	Gladstone, Rt. Hn Herbert John	Laidlaw, Robert
Carr-Gomm, H. W.	Glen-Coats, Sir T. (Renfrew, W.)	Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester)
Causton, Rt. Hn. Richard Knight	Glover, Thomas	Lamont, Norman
Chance, Frederick William	Gooch, George Peabody (Bath)	Lardner, James Carrige Rushe
Channing, Sir Francis Allston	Greenwood, G. (Peterborough)	Layland-Barratt, Francis
Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R.	Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward	Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington
Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.	Guest, Hon. Ivor Churchill	Lehmann, R. C.
Clancy, John Joseph	Gurdon, Rt. Hn. Sir W. Brampton	Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich
Cleland, J. W.	Gwynn, Stephen Lucius	Levy, Sir Maurice
Clough, William	Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B.	Lewis, John Herbert
Cobbold, Felix Thornley	Hall, Frederick	Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David
Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)	Halpin, J.	Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas

Whereupon Mr. ASQUITH rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

Question put, "That the Question be now put."

Lupton, Arnold	O'Doherty, Philip	Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)
Macdonald. J.M. (Falkirk B'ghs	O'Donnell, C. J. (Walworth)	Spicer, Sir Albert
Maclean, Donald	O'Dowd, John	Stranger, H. Y.
Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.	O'Grady, J.	Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N. W.)
MacNeill, John Gordon Swift	O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N.	Stewart-Smith. D. (Kendal)
Macpherson. J. T.	O'Malley, William	Strachey, Sir Edward
MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.	O'Shaughnessy, P. J.	Straus, B. S. (Mile End)
MacVeigh, Charles (Donegal, E.)	O'Shee, James John	Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon)
M'Callum, John M.	Parker, James (Halifax)	Stuart, James (Sunderland)
M'Hugh, Patrick A.	Partington, Oswald	Summerbell, T.
M'Kean, John	Paulton, James Mellor	Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)
M'Kenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald	Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)	Tennant, Sir Edward (Salisbury
M'Micking, Major G.	Phillips, John (Longford, S.)	Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire)
Mallet, Charles E.	Pickersgill, Edward Hare	Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.)
Manfield, Harry (Northants)	Pirie, Duncan V.	Thomasson, Franklin
Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston)	Power, Patrick Joseph	Thompson, J.W. H (Somerset, E
Marnham, F. J.	Price, C. E. (Edinb'gh, Central)	Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton)
Maso, A. E. W. (Coventry)	Price, Robert John (Norfolk, E.)	Torrance, Sir A. M.
Masterman, C. F. G.	Priestley, W.E.B. (Bradford, E.)	Toulmin, George
Meagher, Michael	Radford, G. H.	Trevelyan, Charles Philips
Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)	Randles, Sir John Scurrah	Verney, F. W.
Meehan, Patrick A. (Queen's Co.)	Raphael, Herbert H.	Waldron, Laurence Ambrose
Menzies, Walter	Rea, Russell (Gloucester)	Walsh, Stephen
Middlebrook, William	Reddy, M.	Walters, John Tudor
Mildmay, Francis Bingham	Redmond, John E. (Waterford)	Walton, Joseph
Molteno, Percy Alport	Redmond, William (Clare)	Ward, W. Dudley (Southampt'n
Mond, A.	Rees, J. D.	Waring, Walter
Montagu, E. S.	Richards, Thomas (W. Monm'th)	Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.
Mooney, J. J.	Richards, T. F. (Wolverh'mpt'n)	Wason, Rt. Hn. E (Clackmannan
Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall)	Ridsdale, E. A.	Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)
Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)	Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)	Waterlow, D. S.
Morrell, Philip	Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)	Watt, Henry A.
Morse, L. L.	Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)	Whitbread, Howard
Muldoon, John	Robertson, Sir G Scott (Bradf'rd	White, J. D. (Dumbartonshire)
Murnaghan, George	Robinson, S.	White, Luke (York, E. R.)
Murphy, John (Kerry, East)	Roche, Augustine (Cork)	White, Patrick (Meath, North)
Murphy, N. J. (Kilkenny, S.)	Rogers, F. E. Newman	Whitehead, Rowland
Murray, James (Aberdeen, E.)	Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter	Whitley, John Henry (Halifax)
Nannetti, Joseph P.	Russell, T. W.	Wiles, Thomas
Napier, T. B.	Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford)	Williams, J. (Glamorgan)
Newnes, F. (Notts., Bassetlaw)	Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)	Williamson, A.
Nicholson, Charles N. (Doncast'r	Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel)	Wilson, Hon. G. G. (Hull, W.)
Nolan, Joseph	Scott, A.H. (Ashton under Lyne	Wilson, J. H. (Middlesbrough)
Norton, Capt. Cecil William	Seaverns, J. H.	Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh, N.)
Nugent, Sir Walter Richard	Seely, Colonel	Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.)
Nussey, Thomas Willans	Shaw, Rt. Hon. T. (Hawick B.)	Wodehouse, Lord
Nuttall, Harry	Sheehan, Daniel Daniel	Wood, T. M'Kinnon
O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Mid.	Sheehy, David	Young, Samuel
O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)	Shipman, Dr. John G.
O'Brien, William (Cork)	Silcock, Thomas Ball	TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr.
O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.)	Simon, John Allsebrook	Whiteley and Mr. J. A.
O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)	Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John	Pease.
O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)	Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie

NOES.
Acland-Hood, Rt. Hn. Sir Alex. F	Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-	M'Arthur, Charles
Anson, Sir William Reynell	Du Cros, Arthur Philip	M'Calmont, Colonel James
Anstruther-Gray, Major	Fell, Arthur	Mason, James F. (Windsor)
Baring, Capt. Hn. G. (Winchester	Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West)	Moore, William
Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.)	Gordon, J.	Morpeth, Viscount
Beckett, Hon. Gervase	Guinness, Walter Edward	Morrison-Bell, Captain
Bignold, Sir Arthur	Hamilton, Marquess of	Nield, Herbert
Butcher, Samuel Henry	Harris, Frederick Leverton	O'Neil, Hon. Robert Torrens
Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.	Harrison-Broadley, H. B.	Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel
Castlereagh, Viscount	Houston, Robert Paterson	Remnant, James Farquharson
Cacil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)	Joynson-Hicks, William	Renton, Leslie
Clive, Percy Archer	Lockwood, Rt. Hn. Lt.-Col. A.R.	Ronaldshay, Earl of
Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.	Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Dublin, S.	Salter, Arthur Clavell
Cross, Alexander	Lonsdale, John Brownlee	Sandys, Lieut.-Col. Thos, Myles
		Solan, Thomas Henry

Starkey, John R.	Valentia, Viscount	TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir
Talbot, Rt. Hn. J.G. (Oxf'd Univ.	Walrond, Hon. Lionel	Frederick Banbury and
Thornton, Percy M.	Wolf, Gustav Wilhelm	Caption Craig.

Question put accordingly.

AYES.
Abraham, William (Cork, N.E.)	Clive, Percy Archer	Harmsworth, Cecil B. (Worc'r)
Abraham, William (Rhondda)	Clough, William	Harris, Frederick Leverton
Acland, Francis Dyke	Cobbold, Felix Thornley	Harrison-Broadley, H. B.
Agnew, George William	Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)	Hart-Davies, T.
Ainsworth, John Stirling	Compton-Rickett, Sir J.	Harwood, George
Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch)	Cooper, G. J.	Haslam, James (Derbyshire)
Ambrose, Robert	Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.	Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)
Anson, Sir William Reynell	Cotton, Sir H. J. S.	Haworth, Arthur A.
Anstruther-Gray, Major	Cowan. W. H.	Hayden, John Patrick
Armstrong, W. C. Heaton	Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)	Hazleton, Richard
Ashton, Thomas Gair	Crean, Eugene	Healy, Timothy Michael
Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbert Henry	Crooks, William	Hemmerde, Edward George
Astbury, John Meir	Crosfield, A. H.	Henderson, Arthur (Durham)
Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth)	Crossley, William J.	Henry, Charles S.
Baldwin, Stanley	Cullinan, J.	Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon., S.)
Balfour, Robert (Lanark)	Curran, Peter Francis	Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe)
Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)	Dalmeny, Lord	Higham, John Sharp
Baring, Capt. Hn. G (Winchester)	Davies, David (Montgomery Co,	Hobart, Sir Robert
Barker, John	Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)	Hobhouse, Charles E. H.
Barlow, Percy (Bedford)	Davies, Timothy (Fulham)	Hodge, John
Barnard, E. B.	Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S.)	Hogan, Michael
Barnes, G. N.	Delany, William	Holland, Sir William Henry
Barry, E. (Cork, S.)	Devlin, Joseph	Holt, Richard Durning
Barry, Redmond J. (Tyrone, N.)	Dewar, Arthur (Edinburgh, S.)	Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield)
Beale, W. P.	Dewar, Sir J. A. (Inverness-sh.	Hope, W. Bateman (somerset, N
Beauchamp, E.	Dickinson, W. H. (St. Pancras, N	Horniman, Emslie John
Backett, Hon. Gervase	Dillon, John	Howard, Hon. Geoffrey
Bellairs, Carlyon	Donelan, Captain A.	Hudson, Walter
Benn, W. (T'w'r' Hamlets, S. Geo.)	Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness	Hyde, Clarendon
Bennett, E. N.	Duncan, J. H. (York, Otley)	Idris, T. H. W.
Berridge, T. H. D.	Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)	Illingworth, Percy H.
Bethell, Sir J.H. (Essex, Romf'rd	Dunne, Major E. Martin (Walsall	Isaacs, Rufus Daniel
Bethell, T. R. (Essex, Maldon)	Edwards, Clement (Denbigh)	Jardine, Sir J.
Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine	Edwards, Enoch (Hanley)	Jenkins, J.
Boland, John	Elibank, Master of	Jones, Leif (Appleby)
Bottomley, Horatio	Esmonde, Sir Thomas	Jones, William (Carnarvonshire)
Bowerman, C. W.	Essex, R. W.	Jowett, F. W.
Bramsdon, T. A.	Evans, Sir Samuel T.	Joyce, Michael
Brigg, John	Everett, R. Lacey	Joynson-Hicks, William
Bright, J. A.	Fell, Arthur	Kavanagh, Walter M.
Brodie, H. C.	Ffrench, Peter	Kearley, Hudson E.
Brooke, Stopford	Field, William	Kekewich, Sir George
Brunner, J.F.L. (Lanes., Leigh)	Findlay, Alexander	Kennedy, Vincent Paul
Brunner, Rt Hn Sir J.T (Cheshire	Flavin, Michael Joseph	Kettle, Thomas Michael
Bryce, J. Annan	Flynn, James Christopher	Kilbride, Denis
Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn	Fuller, John Michael F.	King, Alfred John (Knutsford)
Buckmaster, Stanley O.	Gibb, James (Harrow)	Laidlaw, Robert
Burke, E. Haviland-	Gilhooly, James	Lamb, Ernest H. (Rochester)
Burns, Rt. Hon. John	Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herbert John	Lamont, Norman
Burnyeat, W. J. D.	Glen-Coats, Sir T. (Renfrew, W.	Lardner, James Carrige Rushe
Butcher, Samuel Henry	Glover, Thomas	Layland-Barratt, Francis
Buxton, Rt. Hn. Sydney Charles	Gooch, George Peabody (Bath)	Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington
Byles, William Pollard	Greenwood, G. (Peterborough)	Lehmann, R. C.
Carr-Gomm, H. W.	Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward	Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich
Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.	Guinness, Walter Edward	Levy, Sir Maurice
Causton, Rt. Hn. Richard Knight	Gurdon, Rt Hn. Sir W. Brampton	Lewis, John Herbert
Cecil, Lord R. (Marylebone, E.)	Gwynn, Stephen Lucius	Lloyd-George. Rt. Hon. David
Chance, Frederick William	Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B.	Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas
Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R.	Hall, Frederick	Lupton, Arnold
Churchill Rt. Hon. Winston	Halpin, J.	Macdonald, J.M. (Falkirk B'ghs
Clancy, John Joseph	Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis	Maclean, Donald
Cleland, J.W.	Hardy, George A. (Suffolk)	Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.

The House divided:—Ayes, 344; Noes, 31. (Division List No, 88.)

MacNeill, John Gordon Swift	O'Grady, J.	Stanger, H. Y.
Macpherson, J. T.	O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N	Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N. W.)
MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.	O'Malley, William	Starkey, John R.
MacVeigh, Charles (Donegal, E.)	O'Shaughnessy, P. J.	Stewart-Smith, D. (Kendal)
M'Callum, John M.	O'Shee, James John	Strachey, Sir Edward
M'Hugh, Patrick A.	Parker, James (Halifax)	Straus, B. S. (Mile End)
M'Kean, John	Partington, Oswald	Straus, E. A. (Abingdon)
M'Kenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald	Paulton, James Mellor	Stuart, James (Sunderland)
M'Micking, Major G.	Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)	Summerbell, T.
Magnus, Sir Philip	Phillips, John (Longford, S.)	Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester)
Mallet, Charles E.	Pickersgill, Edward Hare	Talbot, Rt. Hn. J.G. (Oxf'd Univ.
Manfield, Harry (Northants)	Pirie, Duncan V.	Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)
Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston)	Powell, Sir Francis Sharp	Tennant, Sir Edward (Salisbury
Marnham, F. J.	Power, Patrick Joseph	Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire)
Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry)	Price, C. E. (Edinb'gh, Central)	Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.)
Mason, James F. (Windsor)	Price, Robert John (Norfolk, E.)	Thomasson, Franklin
Masterman, C. F. G.	Priestley, W.E.B. (Bradford, E.)	Thompson, J.W.H. (Somerset, E)
Meagher, Michael	Radford, G. H.	Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton
Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.)	Bandies, Sir John Scurrah	Toulmin, George
Meehan, Patrick A. (Queen's Co.	Raphael, Herbert H.	Trevelyan, Charles Philips
Menzies, Walter	Rea, Russell (Gloucester)	Verney, F. W.
Middlebrook, William	Reddy, M.	Waldron, Laurence Ambrose
Mildmay, Francis Bingham	Redmond, John E. (Waterford)	Walrond, Hon. Lionel
Molteno, Percy Alport	Redmond, William (Clare)	Walsh, Stephen
Mond, A.	Rees, J. D.	Walters, John Tudor
Montagu, E. S.	Richards, Thomas (W. Monm'th	Walton, Joseph
Mooney, J. J.	Richards, T. F. (Wolverh'mpt'n	Ward, W. Dudley (Southampt'n
Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall)	Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)	Waring, Walter
Morpeth, Viscount	Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)	Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.
Morrell, Philip	Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)	Wason, Rt. Hn. E (Clackmannan
Morse, L. L.	Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradf'rd	Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)
Muldoon, John	Robinson, S.	Waterlow, D. S.
Murnaghan, George	Roche, Augustine (Cork)	Watt, Henry A.
Murphy, John (Kerry, East)	Rogers, F. E. Newman	Whitbread, Howard
Murphy, N. J. (Kilkenny, S.)	Ronaldshay, Earl of	White, J. D. (Dumbartonshire)
Murray, James (Aberdeen, E.)	Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter	White, Luke (York, E. R.)
Nannetti, Joseph P.	Russell, T. W.	White, Patrick (Meath, North)
Napier, T. B.	Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford)	Whitehead, Rowland
Newnes, F. (Notts, Bassetlaw)	Salter, Arthur Clavell	Whitley, John Henry (Halifax)
Nicholson, Charles N. (Doncast'r	Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)	Wiles, Thomas
Nolan, Joseph	Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel)	Williams, J. (Glamorgan)
Norton, Capt. Cecil William	Schwann, Sir C.E. (Manchester)	Williamson, A.
Nugent, Sir Walter Richard	Scott, A.H. (Ashton under Lyne	Wilson, Hon. G. G. (Hull, W.)
Nussey, Thomas Willans	Seely, Colonel	Wilson, J. H. (Middlesbrough)
Nuttall, Harry	Shaw, Rt. Hon. T. (Hawick, B.)	Wilson, J.W. (Worcestersh, N.)
O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Mid	Sheehan, Daniel Daniel	Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.)
O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)	Sheehy, David	Wodehouse, Lord
O'Brien, William (Cork)	Shipman, Dr. John G.	Wood, T. M'Kinnon
O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.)	Silcock, Thomas Ball	Wyndham, Rt. Hon. George
O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)	Simon, John Allsebrook	Young, Samuel
O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)	Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John
O' Doherty, Philip	Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie	TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Mr.
O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.)	Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)	Whiteley and Mr. J. A.
O'Dowd, John	Spicer, Sir Albert	Pease.

NOES.
Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.)	Hedges, A. Paget	Ridsdale, E. A.
Bignold, Sir Arthur	Houston, Robert Paterson	Sandys, Lieut.-Col. Thos. Myles
Channing, Sir Francis Allston	Lamb, Edmund G. (Leominster	Seaverns, J. H.
Corbett, C H (Sussex, E. Grinst'd	Lockwood, Rt. Hn. Lt.-Col. A.R	Sloan, Thomas Henry
Cory, Sir Clifford John	Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Dublin, S.	Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)
Cox, Harold	Lonsdale, John Brownlee	Thornton, Percy M.
Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.	M'Arthur, Charles	Wolff, Gustav Wilhelm
Cross, Alexander	M'Calmont, Colonel James
Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West)	Moore, William	TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir
Gordon, J.	Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)	Frederick Banbury and
Hamilton, Marquess of	O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens	Captain Craig.
Hazel, Dr. A. E.	Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel

Bill read a second time.

Motion made, and Question put, "That the Bill be committed to a Com-

The House divided:—Ayes, 50; Noes 311. (Division List No. 89.)
AYES.
Anson, Sir William Reynell	Fell, Arthur	Moore, William
Anstruther-Gray, Major	Gibbs, G. A. (Bristol, West)	Morpeth, Viscount
Baldwin, Stanley	Gordon, J.	Morrison-Bell, Captain
Banbury, Sir Frederick George	Gretton, John	Powell, Sir Francis Sharp
Barrie, H. T. (Londonderry, N.)	Guinness, Walter Edward	Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel
Beckett, Hon. Gervase	Hamilton, Marquess of	Remnant, James Farquharson
Bignold, Sir Arthur	Harris, Frederick Leverton	Renton, Leslie
Butcher, Samuel Henry	Harrison-Broadley, H. B.	Salter, Arthur Clavell
Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H.	Houston, Robert Paterson	Sandys, Lieut.-Col. Thos. Myles
Castlereagh, Viscount	Joynson-Hicks, William	Sloan, Thomas Henry
Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor)	Lockwood, Rt. Hn. Lt.-Col. A.R.	Starkey, John R.
Clive, Percy Archer	Long, Rt. Hn. Walter (Dublin, S.	Talbot, Rt. Hn. J.G. (Oxf'd Univ
Cory, Sir Clifford John	Lonsdale, John Brownlee	Thornton, Percy M.
Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.	M'Arthur, Charles	Walrond, Hon. Lionel
Craig, Captain James (Down, E.)	M'Calmont, Colonel James
Cross, Alexander	Magnus, Sir Philip	TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir
Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers-	Mason, James F. (Windsor)	Alexander Acland-Hood and
Du Cros, Arthur Philip	Mildmay, Francis Bingham	Viscount Valentia.

NOES.
Abraham, William (Cork, N.E.)	Burnyeat, W. J. D.	Edwards, Clement (Denbigh)
Abraham, William (Rhondda)	Buxton, Rt. Hn. Sydney Charles	Edwards, Enoch (Hanley)
Acland, Francis Dyke	Byles, William Pollard	Esmonde, Sir Thomas
Agnew, George William	Carr-Gomm, H. W.	Essex, R. W.
Ainsworth, John Stirling	Causton, Rt. Hn. Richard Knight	Evans, Sir Samuel T.
Allen, A. Acland (Christchurch)	Chance, Frederick William	Everett, R. Lacey
Ambrose, Robert	Cherry, Rt. Hon. R. R.	Ffreneh, Peter
Armstrong, W. C. Heaton	Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S.	Field, William
Asquith, Rt. Hn. Herbert Henry	Clancy, John Joseph	Findlay, Alexander
Astbury, John Meir	Cleland, J. W.	Flavin, Michael Joseph
Baker, Sir John (Portsmouth)	Clough, William	Flynn, James Christopher
Balfour, Robert (Lanark)	Cobbold, Felix Thornley	Fuller, John Michael F.
Baring, Godfrey (Isle of Wight)	Collins, Stephen (Lambeth)	Gibb, James (Harrow)
Barker, John	Compton-Rickett, Sir J.	Gilhooly, James
Barlow, Percy (Bedford)	cooper, G. J.	Gladstone, Rt. Hn Herbert John
Barnard, E. B.	Corbett, C H (Sussex, E. Grinst'd	Glen-Coats, Sir T. (Renfrew, W.)
Barnes, G. N.	Cornwall, Sir Edwin A.	Glover, Thomas
Barry, E. (Cork, S.)	Cotton, Sir H. J. S.	Gooch, George Peabody (Bath)
Barry, Redmond J. (Tyrone, N.)	Cowan, W. H.	Greenwood, G. (Peterborough)
Beale, W. P.	Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth)	Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward
Beauchamp, E.	Crean, Eugene	Gurdon, Rt Hon Sir W. Brampton
Bellairs, Carlyon	Crooks, William	Gwynn, Stephen Lucius
Benn, W. (T'w'r Hamlets, S. Geo.	Crossley, William J.	Haldane, Rt. Hon. Richard B.
Bennett, E. N.	Cullinan, J.	Hall, Frederick
Berridge, T. H. D.	Curran, Peter Francis	Halpin, J.
Birrell, Rt. Hon. Augustine	Dalmeny, Lord	Harcourt, Rt. Hon. Lewis
Boland, John	Davies, David (Montgomery Co.	Hardy, George A. (Suffolk)
Bottomley, Horatio	Davies, Ellis William (Eifion)	Harwood, George
Bowerman, C. W.	Davies, Timothy (Fulham)	Haslam, James (Derbyshire)
Bramsdon, T. A.	Davies, W. Howell (Bristol, S.)	Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth)
Brigg, John	Delany, William	Haworth, Arthur A.
Bright, J. A.	Devlin, Joseph	Hayden, John Patrick
Brodie, H. C.	Dewar, Sir J. A. (Inverness-sh.)	Hazel, Dr. A. E.
Brunner, J.F. L. (Lancs., Leigh)	Dickinson, W. H. (St. Pancras, N	Hazleton, Richard
Brunner, Rt Hn Sir J.T (Cheshire	Dillon, John	Healy, Timothy Michael
Bryce, J. Annan	Donelan, Captain A.	Hedges, A. Paget
Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn	Duncan, J. H. (York, Otley)	Hemmerde, Edward George
Buckmaster, Stanley O.	Duncan, Robert (Lanark, Govan	Henderson, Arthur (Durham)
Burke, E. Haviland-	Dunn, A. Edward (Camborne)	Henderson, J.M. (Aberdeen, W.)
Burns, Rt. Hon. John	Dunne, Major E. Martin (Walsall	Henry, Charles S.

mittee of the Whole House."—(Sir Edward Carson.)

Herbert, Col. Sir Ivor (Mon., S.)	Montagu, E. S.	Samuel, Herbert L. (Cleveland)
Herbert, T. Arnold (Wycombe)	Mooney, J. J.	Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel)
Higham, John Sharp	Morgan, G. Hay (Cornwall)	Schwann, Sir C. E. (Manchester)
Hobart, Sir Robert	Morgan, J. Lloyd (Carmarthen)	Scott, A. H. (Ashton under Lyne
Hobhouse, Charles E. H.	Morrell, Philip	Seaverns, J. H.
Hodge, John	Morse, L. L.	Seely, Colonel
Hogan, Michael	Muldoon, John	Shaw, Rt. Hon. T. (Hawick, B.
Holland, Sir William Henry	Murnaghan, George	Sheehan, Daniel Daniel
Holt, Richard Durning	Murphy, John (Kerry, East)	Sheehy, David
Hope, W. Bateman (Somerset, N	Murphy, N. J. (Kilkenny, S.)	Shipman, Dr. John G.
Horniman, Emslie John	Murray, James (Aberdeen, E.)	Silcock, Thomas Ball
Howard, Hon. Geoffrey	Nannetti, Joseph P.	Simon, John Allsebrook
Hudson, Walter	Napier, T. B.	Sinclair, Rt. Hon. John
Hyde, Clarendon	Newnes, F. (Notts, Bassetlaw)	Smeaton, Donald Mackenzie
Idris, T. H. W.	Nicholson, Charles N. (Doncast'r	Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.)
Illingworth, Percy H.	Nolan, Joseph	Spicer, Sir Albert
Isaacs, Rufus Daniel	Norton, Capt. Cecil William	Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N. W.)
Jardine, Sir J.	Nurgent, Sir Walter Richard	Stewart-smith, D. (Kendal)
Jenkins, J.	Nussey, Thomas Willans	Strachey, Sir Edward
Jones, Leif (Appleby)	Nuttall, Harry	Straus, B. S. (Mid End)
Jones, William (Carnarvonshire	O'Brien, Kendal (Tipperary Mid	Strauss, E. A. (Abingdon)
Jowett, F. W.	O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny)	Stuart, James (Sunderland)
Joyce, Michael	O'Brien, William (Cork)	Summerbell, T.
Kavanagh, Walter M.	O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W.	Taylor, Austin (East Toxteth)
Kearley, Hudson E.	O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.)	Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe)
Kekewich, Sir George	O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool)	Tennant, Sir Edward (Salisbury
Kennedy, Vincent Paul	O'Doherty, Philip	Tennant, H. J. (Berwickshire)
Kettle, Thomas Michael	O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.)	Thomas, Sir A. (Glamorgan, E.)
Kilbride, Denis	O'Dowd, John	Thomasson, Franklin
King, Alfred John (Knutsford)	O'Grady, J.	Thompson, J.W.H (Somerset, E
Laidlaw, Robert	O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N.	Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton
Lamont, Norman	O'Malley, William	Toulmin, George
Lardner, James Carrige Rushe	O'Shaughnessy, P. J.	Trevelyan, Charles Philips
Layland-Barratt, Francis	O'Shee, James John	Verney, F. W.
Leese, Sir Joseph F. (Accrington	Parker, James (Halifax)	Waldron, Laurence Ambrose
Lehmann, R. C.	Partington, Oswald	Walsh, Stephen
Lever, A. Levy (Essex, Harwich	Paulton, James Mellor	Walters, John Tudor
Levy, Sir Maurice	Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek)	Walton, Joseph
Lewis, John Herbert	Phillips, John (Longford, S.)	Ward, W. Dudley (Southampt'n
Lloyd-George, Rt. Hon. David	Pickersgill, Edward Hare	Waring, Walter
Lupton, Arnold	Pirie, Duncan V.	Warner, Thomas Courtenay T.
Macdonald, J.M. (Falkirk B'ghs	Power, Patrick Joseph	Wason, Rt. Hn. E (Clackmannan
Maclean, Donald	Price, C. E. (Edinb'gh, Central)	Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney)
Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J.	Price, Robert John (Norfolk, E.	Waterlow, D. S.
MacNeill, John Gordon Swift	Priestley, W.E.B. (Bradford, E.)	Watt, Henry A.
Macpherson, J. T.	Radford, G. H.	Whitbread, Howard
MacVeagh, Jeremiah (Down, S.	Raphael, Herbert H.	White, J. D. (Dumbartonshire)
MacVeigh, Charles (Donegal, E.)	Rea, Russell (Gloucester)	White, Luke (York, E. R.)
M'Callum, John M.	Reddy, M.	White, Patrick (Meath, North)
M'Hugh, Patrick A.	Redmond, John E. (Waterford)	Whitehead, Rowland
M'Kean, John	Redmond, William (Clare)	Whitley, John Henry (Halifax)
M'Kenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald	Rees, J. D.	Wiles, Thomas
Mallet, Charles E.	Richards, Thomas (W. Monm'th	Williams, J. (Glamorgan)
Manfield, Harry (Northants)	Richards, T. F. (Wolverh'mpt'n	Williamson, A.
Marks, G. Croydon (Launceston)	Ridsdale, E. A.	Wilson, Hon. G. G. (Hull, W.)
Marnham, F. J.	Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln)	Wilson, J. H. (Middlesbrough)
Mason, A. E. W. (Coventry)	Roberts, G. H. (Norwich)	Wilson, J. W. (Worcestersh, N.)
Masterman, C. F. G.	Roberts, John H. (Denbighs.)	Wilson, P. W. (St. Pancras, S.)
Meagher, Michael	Robertson, Sir G Scoot (Bradf'rd	Wodehouse, Lord
Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N	Robinson, S.	Wood, T. M'Kinnon
Meehan, Patrick A. (Queen's Co	Roche, Augustine (Cork)	Young, Samuel
Menzies, Walter	Rogers, F. E. Newman
Middlebrook, William	Runciman, Rt. Hon. Walter	TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Mr.
Molteno, Percy Alport	Russell, T. W.	Whiteley and Mr. J. A.
Mond, A.	Rutherford, V. H. (Brentford)	Pease.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee.

And, it being after half-past Eleven of the Clock, Mr. SPEAKER adjourned

the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at seven minutes before Twelve o'clock.