Commons Sitting of 21 May 1908

Preamble
The House met at a quarter before Three of the Clock.

PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
Fishguard and Rosslare Railways and Harbours Bill [Lords] (King's Consent signified).—Bill read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
North-East London Railway Bill.—Read the third time, and passed.
Divorce Bills.—Ordered, That the Order of 19th May for the nomination of

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the Select Committee on Divorce Bills be read, and discharged.—(Mr. Joseph Pease.)
Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Tramways Bill (No. 2).—"To further extend the time limited for the purchase of lands and for the construction and completion of the Tramways and works authorised by The Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Tramways Act, 1903; to provide for the transfer to the Corporation of Nottingham of certain of the powers of that Act; to authorise the Corporation to construct additional tramways and a tramroad and street improvements; and for other purposes," presented, and read the first time; and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.
Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 2) Bill.—Eeported, without Amendment [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill to be read the third time To-morrow.
Electric Lighting Provisional Orders (No. 1) Bill.—Reported, with Amendments [Provisional Orders confirmed]; Report to lie upon the Table.
Bill, as amended, to be considered To-morrow.
Briton Ferry Urban District Council Bill [Lords].—Reported, with Amendments [Title amended]; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
Llanelly Gas Bill [Lords].—Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

MERTHYR TYDFIL CORPORATION BILL [LORDS].
Reported, with Amendments, from the Police and Sanitary Committee (Section B); Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.
MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to Amendments to Rhymney Railway Bill [Lords], without Amendment. That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to amend the Law relating to County Courts." [County Courts Bill [Lords.]

PORT OF LONDON BILL.
That they have appointed a Committee consisting of Five Lords to join
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with a Committee of this House to consider the Port of London Bill (pursuant to Message of this House); That they propose that the said Joint Committee do meet on Wednesday next, in Committee Room A, at three of the clock.

DUBLIN AND CENTRAL IRELAND ELECTRIC POWER BILL.
MR. JOHN O'CONNOR MR. JOHN O'CONNOR (Kildare, N.) moved that the Dublin and Central Ireland Electric Power Bill should be re-committed to the former Committee, with instructions to reconsider their decision on the preamble of the Bill, except with regard to the City of Dublin, the urban districts of Rathmines and Rathgar and Pembroke, and King's County. The hon. Member said the object of the Bill was for the purpose of creating electrical energy and distributing it either for power or lighting purposes, the chief object being power, which would have for its effect the establishment of certain industries in the locality. Already the promoters had promised that a certain manufacturer of car bide of calcium would establish a large factory if he could get the electrical power in the district, and they also had substantial promises from an American Paper Company. With regard to finance, that had been rearranged in consultation with the Chairman of Committees and the legal advisers of the House, and with regard to the opposition of Dublin and some adjacent areas, those districts had been struck out of the Bill. A third objection to the Bill was on the score of impracticability, but he pointed out that it was not an experimental process, and that its practicability had been demonstrated all over the world. He, therefore, submitted that, the three main objections to the Bill in Committee having been met, the measure should be recommitted.
Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Dublin and Central Ireland Electric Power Bill be re-committed to the former Committee.—(Mr. John O'Connor.)
MR. LUKE WHITEas Chairman of the Committee which considered the Bill, said that Dublin and the other areas mentioned having been struck out, the Bill became

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of a non-contentious character, and he now asked the House to re-commit the Bill to a Committee as desired.
Question put, and agreed to.
Bill recommitted to the former Committee.
Ordered, That it be an Instruction to the Committee that they have power to reconsider their decision on the preamble of the Bill as reported by them to the House, except in so far as the same relates to the City of Dublin, the Urban District of Rathmines and Rathgar, the Urban District of Pembroke, and King's County.—(Mr. John O'Connor.)

PETITIONS.
  CHILDREN BILL.
  Petition from Westbourne Grove, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
  COAL MINES (EIGHT HOURS) (NO. 2) BILL.
  Petitions in favour: Prom Farnworth; and Calderbank; to lie upon the Table.

  LICENSING BILL.
  Petitions against: From Birmingham; Bristol; Bury St. Edmunds; Cinderford; Lydney; North Birmingham; and North Herefordshire; to lie upon the Table.
  Petitions for alteration: From Beeston; Leeds (three); and London; to lie upon the Table.
  Petitions in favour: From Bagillt; Bloxwich; Brixton and District; Brynsiencyn; Caergwrle; Caerigceiliog; Chapelhall; Coedllai; Crediton; Devonport; Dowlais; Eaglesfield; Earlsheaton; Glasgow (three); Greenfield;.Kilmarnock (two); Lawley; Leeds (four); Lenton Boulevard; Liverpool; Llanerchumor; Llangristriobus; Long-bridge; Maerydre; Manchester; Merthyr Tydfil; Mold; Mostyn; Mother-well; Mynydd Isof; North Tawton; Nottingham (seven); Paddington; Peck-ham; Penydarren; Perth; Peterhead; Pontlottyn; Port Glasgow; Rhosrobin; Rutrerfelin; Stockstead; Trenddyn; and Tryddyn; to lie upon the Table.

  LIQUOR TRAFFIC (LOCAL OPTION) (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petitions against: From Inverness-shire; Lanarkshire; and West Kilpatrick; to lie upon the Table.
  Petitions in favour: From Aberdeen; Auchterarder; Buckie; Bucksburn; Chryston; Cullen; Dumfries; Edinburgh; Glasgow (three); Jamestown; Kilmarnock (three); Luncarty; Mother-well (two); Perth; Peterhead; Port Glasgow; Portpatrick; Shotts; Stone-haven; Troon; and Vale of Leven; to lie upon the Table.

  PORT OF LONDON BILL.
  Petition of Sheerness Urban District Council, against, praying to be heard by counsel; referred to the Select Committee on the Bill.
  PUBLIC-HOUSES (EXCLUSION OF CHILDREN) (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Petition from Vale of Leven, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  MINES AND QUARRIES.
  Copy presented, of General Report and Statistics for the year 1907, Part I. (District Statistics), Statistics of the Persons employed, Output, and Accidents at Mines and Quarries in the United Kingdom, arranged according to the Inspection Districts [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  EVICTIONS (IRELAND).
  Copy presented, of Return of the number of Evictions in Ireland for the quarter ended 31st March, 1908 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  MAGISTRATES (IRELAND).
  Return presented, relative thereto [ordered 2nd March; Mr. Devlin]; to lie upon the Table.

  LIGHT RAILWAYS ACT, 1896.
  Copy presented, of Order made by the Light Railway Commissioners, and modified and confirmed by the Board of Trade, amending the London United Tramways (Light Railways Extensions)

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  Order, 1904 (London United Tramways Light Railways (Extension of Time) Order, 1908) [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.

  LIGHT RAILWAYS ACT, 1896.
  Copy presented of Order made by the Light Railway Commissioners, and confirmed by the Board of Trade, amending the Wolverhampton and Cannock Chase Railway Act, 1901, and the Wolverhampton and Cannock Chase Railway (Light Railway) Order, 1907, in reference to the fund deposited in respect of the application for the Act of 1901, and otherwise (Wolverhampton and Cannock Chase Railway (Light Railway) Amendment Order, 1908) [by Command] to lie upon the Table.
  LIGHT RAILWAYS ACT, 1896.
  Copy presented, of Order made by the Light Railway Commissioners, and modified and confirmed by the Board of Trade, reviving the powers granted and extending the periods limited by the Clacton-on-Sea and St. Osyth Light Railway Order, 1904, for the compulsory purchase of lands and for the completion of the railway and works by that Order authorised; and for other purposes (Clacton-on-Sea and St. Osyth Light Railway (Extension of Time) Order, 1908) [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  LIGHT RAILWAYS ACT, 1896.
  Copy presented, of Order made by the Light Railway Commissioners, and confirmed by the Board of Trade, amending the Campbeltown and Machrihanish Light Railway Order, 1905, by increasing borrowing powers; and for other purposes (Campbeltown and Machrihanish Light Railway (Amendment) Order, 1908) [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  COMMONS ACT, 1876 (TOWYN TREWAN COMMON, ANGLESEY).
  Copy presented, of Report by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries upon an Application for a Provisional Order for the Regulation of Towyn Trewan Common, in the parishes of Llanfihangel-yn-nhowyn, Llechylched, and Llanfaelog in the county of Anglesey [by Act] to lie upon the Table, and to be printed [No. 151.]
  HOUSING OF THE WORKING CLASSES (IRELAND) [CONSOLIDATED FUND].
  Committee to consider of authorising the advance, out of the Consolidated Fund, of any sum necessary to meet any deficiency in the Fund of the Suitors in the Supreme Court in Ireland under any Act of the present session to provide further facilities for the erection of Houses for the Working Classes in cities and towns in Ireland (King's Recommendation signified), To-morrow.—(Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer.)
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS CIRCULATED WITH THE VOTES.

  Press Telegram Delays—The Budget.
  MR. SLOAN: To ask the Postmaster-General if he can say how many and of what nature were the complaints he received from the Belfast Evening Telegraph in reference to the transmission of press telegrams within the last three months; whether he is aware that copy having reference to the Budget of last week, and handed in at London, took two hours and a half to reach Belfast, with the result that an incomplete Report had to be published in the Belfast evening paper; and if he will make inquiries whether the cause is due not o any lack of zeal on the part of the officials at Belfast but to the fact that the staff is under-manned, especially in the afternoon when pressure is the highest.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) Complaints have been received from the Belfast Evening Telegraph respecting the transmission of press telegrams. There was, unfortunately, some delay on the Budget night to press telegrams to Ireland, owing not only to the great pressure of work but also to partial failure of several important wires. As regards the Belfast office itself the whole of the report appears to have been dealt with expeditiously, and I have no reason to think that the stag at that office is insufficient.

  Portsmouth Tug Crews.
  MR. BRAMSDON: To ask the First Lord of the Admiralty

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  whether he is aware of the number of hours that the crews of the tugs at Portsmouth are engaged in their work, namely, from ninety-five to 110 hours per week; that in consequence the men have frequently to be on duty three and four days and nights continously without any relief whatever, and are consequently discontented; whether he is also aware that during the month of January last the men worked 372 hours, February, 420 hours; and March, 446 hours; and whether he can promise that the matter shall receive attention so that these long hours may be reduced without delay.
  MR. BRAMSDON: To ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware that the tugs at Portsmouth are undermanned; that though the men work long hours no extra pay is allowed them; whether any new tug is being built, and, if so, will it be worked at Portsmouth as an addition to the others now in use there, and, if so, when; and whether he is aware that two emergency boats are kept ready day and night during spring tides with crews on board, and that Portsmouth is the only port where two such boats are so kept.
  (Answered by Mr. McKenna.) The points raised by my hon. friend in his Questions were brought before the Board by the men themselves at their interviews with the Board at Portsmouth in April last. Their written petitions and the statements they made at the interviews are now receiving careful consideration at the Admiralty.

  Lurgan Linen Trade.
  MR. J. DEVLIN: To ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to depression in the linen trade in Lurgan, every branch of which is affected, and to the fact that the artisans are leaving the town; and whether, in view of this state of affairs and of the depression in the linen trade in Belfast, he will appoint a Commission to inquire into the whole position of the linen trade in the North of Ireland.
  (Answered by Mr. Churchill.) There has been depression in the textile trade in
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  Lurgan, with consequent distress. I understand, however, that the migration of operatives from the town is not beyond what is usual at this season of the year. The position of this industry in the North of Ireland is being carefully watched by the Department, but I am not prepared, as at present advised, to appoint a special Commission.

  Putney Telephone Contract Delays.
  MR. CAVE: To ask the Postmaster-General whether, in view of the fact that in July, 1907, he contracted with certain residents in Kersefield Road, Putney, for placing telephones in their houses, and that the carrying out of such contracts has been delayed by reason of the refusal of the local authority to consent to the erection of telephone poles for the purpose, he proposes forthwith to refer the difference to the Courts; and, if not, whether, in view of the delay and inconvenience caused to the residents, he will consent to the telephones being fixed by the National Telephone Company, who are willing to undertake the duty forthwith.
  (Answered by Mr. Sydney Buxton.) The delay in the provision of the telephone circuits in question, as the hon. Member states, is due to the refusal of the Wands-worth Borough Council to grant the necessary wayleave. The Council have been urged to reconsider their refusal, with the object of obviating the necessity for legal action. I have no information respecting the National Telephone Company's ability to give the service.

  Vaccination—Conscientious Objectors.
  SIR MAURICE LEVY: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in view of the fact that The Vaccination Act, 1907, was passed for the purpose of rendering it unnecessary for conscientious objectors to vaccination to attend at a police court, he will communicate with all benches of magistrates in the country and point out that any resolution passed by such magistrates requiring conscientious objectors to vaccination to attend at a police court to get their statutory declarations witnessed by justices of the peace is opposed to the spirit in which the Act was passed, seeing

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  that it was intended to prevent applicants laving to lose a day's work and to go, often some miles, to a court for the certificate; and whether he is aware that, among other benches, the Bolton and Hanley benches have passed the resolution previously referred to.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) I think the "long title" of the Act correctly indicates its object, that is, to substitute a statutory declaration for the certificate previously required, and thereby to relieve an applicant from the necessity of convincing the justices that he has a conscientious objection. Several benches have passed a resolution to the effect that it is undesirable for justices to take these declarations except in open Court, on the ground, as I understand it, that generally speaking it is proper that justices should not transact magisterial business in their own houses, except in cases of urgency; though I was not aware that the Bolton and Hanley magistrates had done so. Such scruples seem to me to be unnecessary. A resolution cannot override the power of any justice to act individually by taking a declaration at his own house if he sees fit, and I think that few justices will wish to put poor persons unnecessarily to the expense and trouble of attending a distant Court by refusing to take their declarations. Moreover, a statutory declaration can be made before a Commissioner for Oaths, or other officer authorised for that purpose, as well as before a justice. In these circumstances I do not think that a circular of the kind suggested by my hon. friend is called for.

  On Licences.
  MR. CAVE: To ask the Prime Minister whether he can give the materials on which he founds his estimate that the number of on-licences to be refused under Clause 1 of the Licensing Bill during the statutory period of reduction will be from 30,000 to 32,000; and, if the estimate is founded on an investigation relating to certain licensing areas only, whether he will name the areas selected.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) My right hon. friend has asked me to answer this Question. I would refer
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  the hon. Member to the Answer given on 16th March to a somewhat similar Question put by the hon. Member for Ayr Burghs, and can only add that the Government framed the estimate in question to the best of their ability for the assistance of the House in judging roughly the total effect of the scheme of reduction provided for in the Bill, and that there is no further information on the point which the Government can usefully present to the House.

  The Congo—Seizure of SS. "Lapsley."
  MR. BENNETT: To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his attention has been called to the fact that the authorities of the Congo State have recently seized and confiscated the cargo of the steamship "Lapsley," which was manned by British subjects and engaged in legitimate trade along the river in the Kani district; and, if so, what action, if any, he proposes to take.
  (Answered by Secretary Sir Edward Grey.) No, Sir, my attention has not been called to this incident. I will, however, make inquiries into the matter, and shall be glad if the hon. Member will give me the information at his disposal.

  Supply of Army Horses.
  MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: To ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, if he can make any statement as to the result of his conference with the War Office in regard to the question of an efficient supply of horses for military purposes; whether any scheme has been formulated; and, if so, when will it be published.
  (Answered by Sir Edward Strachey.) The matter is still under consideration, and my noble friend is not yet able to make any statement on the subject.

  Agricultural Acts Consolidation Bill.
  MR. COURTHOPE: To ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, when the further stages of the Agricultural Holdings

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  Acts and Small Holdings Acts Consolidation Bills will be taken.
  (Answered by Sir Edward Strachey.) I understand from my noble friend that he hopes that the next stage of these Bills will be taken on Tuesday next.

  School Accommodation at Hawarden.
  MR. BRIDGEMAN: To ask the President of the Board of Education if he has received a petition from the ratepayers of Hawarden parish against the proposal to erect a new provided school for all standards; if he is aware that of the 740 children stated to need school accommodation 80 have now left the district; that neither the Church school of Shotton nor the neighbouring council schools of Queen's Ferry and Church school of Sandycroft are full; that the attendance in each of these schools has declined in the last year; and that the only house building projected in the neighbourhood is on the other side of the Dee, in the district of Sealand; and whether, under these circumstances, the Board will reconsider the proposal, in the interest of the ratepayers.
  (Answered by Mr. Runciman.) Yes, Sir; such a petition was received and duly considered. I am not aware that 80 children have left the neighbourhood, but if that be the case there would still remain 660 children for whom the only permanent school within the district apart from the Queen's Ferry School, which is overcrowded, accommodates 282. My information is to the effect that the Church school at Shotton and the Queen's Ferry School are full or over-full. The Sandycroft School is not available owing to distance. I see no reason for reopening the question as to the necessity of a new school; but, on the question of numbers, I will make inquiries as to the points which the hon. Member has raised.

  Duty on Award Stamps.
  MR. BRIDGEMAN: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer if he is aware that the uniform duty of 10s. on an award stamp imposed by Section 9 of the Inland Revenue Act of 1906 presses very hardly on small holders; and if he will
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  be able to alleviate this hardship in the Finance Bill of this year.
  (Answered by Mr. Lloyd-George.) The fixed duty was introduced in 1906 to obviate the hardships and anomalies created by the ad valorem scale previously in force. The change was made with general approval, and I do not think any further modification is called for.

  Income Tax Remissions.
  MR. BRIDGEMAN: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether persons who insure their lives are entitled to a remission of income-tax on the premiums on the sole condition that their net income is six times the amount of the premiums; whether the Board of Inland Revenue have this year attached the further condition that the insured person must make a full delcaration of the whole of his income; and whether this condition has been imposed by Parliament or by the action of the Board.
  (Answered by Mr. Lloyd-George.) The Board of Inland Revenue do not require a declaration of total income to be made by a person claiming an allowance in respect of life insurance, but only a statement showing that he possesses a taxed income equal to six times the amount in respect of which the allowance is claimed.

  France and the Death Duties.
  MR. BOWLES: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he can state the meaning of the following words used in Article 1 of the agreement between the United Kingdom and France respecting Death Duties, namely, all persons domiciled in France; and will he say whether they mean only such persons domiciled in France as have died in England, or on whose death property in England passes.
  (Answered by Mr. Hobhouse.) The reference is not to persons who, having a domicile in France, die in England, but to persons who, having a domicile in France, die possessed of moveable property in England.
  MR. BOWLES: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the

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  information to be furnished to the French Government under Article 1 of the Death Duties agreement of 15th November, 1907, includes information hitherto regarded as confidential and furnished confidentially to the Inland Revenue authorities for the purpose of enabling them to ascertain the duties; and will all the information to be furnished to the French Government under that article be also furnished to any British subject on application.
  (Answered by Mr. Hobhouse.) Except for the purpose of complying with the Article referred to, it is not proposed to alter the practice of the Inland Revenue authorities as to disclosure of the contents of documents rendered for fiscal purposes.

  Income-tax on Company Profits.
  MR. FELL: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer if he has taken into consideration the way in which income-tax is levied on the profits of companies and corporations without allowing for necessary writing off of capital and provision of reserve fund; and whether he proposes to amend the law to carry into effect such a change.
  (Answered by Mr. Lloyd-George.) The proposed change could not be made without infringing the essential principle of the income-tax, viz., that the tax should be levied on the full profits of a business, without reference to the purposes to which such profits are applied.

  Special Reserve—Battalion Bands.
  MR. HUNT: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether Line officers attached to the Special Reserve battalions are to pay the usual band subscription which is paid by the other officers of the battalion during its annual training.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) This question is now under consideration.
  MR. HUNT: To ask the Secretary of State for War what allowance will be made by the War Office towards the up-keep of bands of the new infantry Special Reserve battalions.
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  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) An annual allowance of £25, or so much less as has been actually expended, will be granted to each unit of the Special Reserve for a band.

  Breeding of Army Horses.
  MR. BRIDGEMAN: TO ask the Secretary of State for War if he can say what has been the result of his communications with the Board of Agriculture as to the best methods for encouraging the breeding of horses for the Army; and whether he will, for the information of horse-breeders and the benefit of the Army, formulate a scheme before the close of this session.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) I am not yet in a position to state the result of the negotiations with the Board of Agriculture, nor can I at present undertake to give a date by which a scheme will have been formulated.

  Cadet Corps.
  MR. ARTHUR PRIESTLEY: To ask the Secretary of State for War what is the present relation of cadet corps to units of the Territorial Force to which they were formerly attached; and whether he can make any announcement as to the future status of cadet corps.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) Existing cadet corps will for the present be administered by the War Office and not by the County Associations. A certain number of school corps will be invited to join the officers' training corps under the scheme outlined in the Army Order of 16th March. The future status of other cadet corps will be considered with the Associations, as soon as the Associations have had full time to work out the main questions connected with the Territorial Force which now claim their attention.

  Government Factory Estimates.
  MR. CARLILE: To ask the Secretary of State for War what is the explanation of the decrease of £239,000 in the Estimates for

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  materials and stores for Woolwich Arsenal, Enfield, and Waltham Abbey for the year 1908–1909.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) This decrease is partly due to reduced requirements in stores to be manufactured for the Army, the Navy, India, and the Colonies. It is also accounted for by a fall in the price of metals and by the abandonment of a proposed system which was provided for in the year 1907–1908 of charging to the Ordnance Factories Vote the value of component parts issued to the Ordnance Factories for repairs, etc., from Army and Navy stocks. I may add that no decrease in the reserve stocks of stores is contemplated.

  Volunteer Long Service Medal.
  MR. CARLILE: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether the Volunteer long-service medal will be granted to a Volunteer who served in that force from 23rd April, 1888, until it was disbanded on 31st March, 1908, and who enlisted in the Territorial Force on 15th April, and in which he is now serving.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane). Will the hon. and gallant Member kindly refer to the reply given to a similar Question put yesterday by the hon. Member for the Isle of Thanet Division of Kent?

  Army Service in India—Furlough Regulations.
  SIR BERKELEY SHEFFIELD: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is prepared to grant facilities to non-commissioned officers and men of good conduct serving in India, or on foreign service, for the means of returning home on furlough, as enjoyed by commissioned officers, in view of the fact that such a privilege would stimulate their re-engagement with the colours.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane). The matter is still under consideration with the India Office.

  Horses for the Territorial Army.
  MR. HUNT: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether, even if the
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  men for the Territorial Army are forthcoming, there are at present only about half the number of horses required, including those which are registered.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane). Approximately 124,000 horses are required to mobilise the Territorial Force. There is no doubt that there are more than enough suitable horses in the United Kingdom to meet this requirement, exclusive of those registered for the Regular Army.

  Belfast Health Commission Report.
  MR. J. DEVLIN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether any action has been taken either by the local authority or by the Local Government Board with regard to the Report of the Belfast Health Commission; whether he is aware that the Commission attribute the recurrence of typhoid to shell fish and insanitary conditions; whether any figures are available as to the quantity and source of supply of the shell fish referred to; whether he has any official Reports showing that not more than one-third of the drains and sewers in Belfast will stand the smoke test; and whether the Report is to remain a dead letter, or whether the Local Government Board will take action to see that the recommendations of the Commissioners are carried out.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) I refer to my Answer to the hon. Member's Question of the 4th instant on this subject. The Report is still under the consideration of the Belfast Corporation. Having regard to the many important recommendations made therein, the Corporation must be allowed a reasonable time for decision before the Local Government Board can take action. The various matters mentioned in the Question are referred to in the Report, but the Board have no more definite information on the subject than is therein contained.

  Queen's Colleges, Ireland.
  MR. FETHERSTONHAUGH,: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether, in withdrawing the

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  charter under which the Queen's Colleges were constituted and introducing a new charter, it is intended to give those professors of the Queen's Colleges who do not care to take service on the new terms an opportunity of retiring on fair terms as to pension, as was done in the case of the Marischal College, Aberdeen, and in the case of some officers of the late Queen's University in Ireland.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) Existing professors will be offered equivalent posts in the reconstituted colleges, but it is not proposed to give them compensation if they should not choose to accept such equivalent posts. I think the hon. and learned Member will find that no option was given in the cases to which he refers. The enactments governing those cases appear to be The Universities (Scotland) Act, 1858, Section 18 (2), and The University Education (Ireland) Act, 1879, Section 14.

  Macroom Council's Land Legislation Resolution.
  MR. SHEEHAN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has received a resolution from the Macroom Urban Council demanding that he should introduce a measure giving fixity of tenure, fair rents, and free sale to town tenants, and ascribing much of the evils of emigration and pauperism to the present system of town tenure; and whether legislation on the lines mentioned is contemplated by the Government.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) I would remind the hon. Member that The Town Tenants (Ireland) Act, 1906, provides for compensation to certain classes of town tenants for improvements and for unreasonable disturbance. The Government do not contemplate further legislation on the subject.

  Irish Labourers' Cottages—Lack of Kitchen Accommodation.
  MR. J. DEVLIN: To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention had been called to the inadequacy of the kitchen accommodation in the cottages erected
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  under the Labourers Acts in Ireland; and whether he would have inquiries made into the matter, with a view to the provision of more ample kitchen space in cottages to be erected in future.
  (Answered by Mr. Birrell.) The Local Government Board have given the whole question of the plans of labourers' cottages very full consideration in connection with the Act passed in 1906, and have issued model plans and a Memorandum on the subject to all rural district councils in Ireland. These provide that the kitchen or living room should contain from 1,200 to 1,400 cubic feet, preferably the latter. There has been no general complaint of the inadequacy of the kitchen accommodation provided in cottages already built.

  Clyde Herring Fishery.
  MR. LAMONT (Buteshire): To ask the Secretary for Scotland whether he will lay upon the Table a statement showing the number of hundredweights of herrings landed in the Clyde districts collectively and in Campbeltown, Inveraray, Rothesay, Greenock, and Ballantrae severally during the year 1907, in continuation of the statement furnished by him on 19th April, 1907.
  (Answered by Mr. Sinclair.) The following is the information desired by the Member:—

  District.

  Cwts.

  Campbeltown

  95,210

  Inverary

  13,698

  Rothesay

  6,285

  Greenock

  42,599

  Ballantrae

  15,709

  Total

  173,501

  Motor Car Fatalities.
  SIR G. KEKEWICH: To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is now prepared, seeing the number of fatal accidents due to motor cars and motor omnibuses, to introduce fresh legislation on the subject of motor traffic.
  (Answered by Mr. John Burns.) My right hon. friend has asked me to reply

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  to this Question. I do not think I can give any promise to introduce legislation dealing with this subject during the present session.

  Sheep Dipping Inspectors and the Welsh Language.
  MR. REES: To ask the hon. Member for South Somerset, as representing the President of the Board of Agriculture, whether he is aware that the last two sheep-dipping inspectors sent to Montgomeryshire were unable to speak Welsh with the hill farmers, some of whom are imperfectly acquainted with English; and whether he will take steps to provide Welsh-speaking inspectors in future.
  (Answered by Sir Edward Strachey.) It is the case that inspectors have recently been employed in Montgomeryshire who are unable to speak Welsh. As my hon. friend is aware, Welsh-speaking inspectors have recently been added to the staff and these inspectors are as far as possible employed in Wales, but it would not be practicable to arrange that none but Welsh-speaking inspectors should undertake business arising in Wales.

  Education Board Provisional Orders Confirmation (London) Bill.
  MR. A. ALLEN: To ask the President of the Board of Education whether the Board received a request from the London County Council, as the local education authority, to insert in the Education Board Provisional Orders Confirmation (London) Bill, recently introduced, certain clauses which have been frequently inserted in local Acts, and other than those which were inserted in the Bill; and what were the circumstances which caused the Board to refuse

  London.

  Outside London.

  Total.

  In district and separate schools

  7,281

  4,321

  11,602

  In cottage, scattered, and other homes

  4,782

  12,308

  17,090

  Public Works and Cornish Granite.
  MR. CROYDON MARKS: To ask the President of the Local Government Board whether
  to insert those clauses, having regard to the answer of the late President of the Board to a Question on 20th August, 1907, that the Board of Education were prepared, on the request of the local education authority to insert in Provisional Order Confirmation Bills, where the circumstances in the opinion of the Board justified such a course, those clauses which, having been frequently inserted in local Acts, are regarded in the practice of Parliament as model clauses.
  (Answered by Mr. Runciman.) Certain proposed additional clauses were forwarded by the London County Council with their petition for compulsory powers under Section 20 of The Elementary Education Act, 1870. Of these clauses the Board inserted in the confirming Bill such as in their opinion could be regarded as model clauses, and had been approved by Parliament as such. The Board did not feel justified in regarding others as model elauses, and, in accordane with their usual practice, did not insert them in the Bill; but they are in communication with the Parliamentary authorities on the subject.

  Poor Law Children.
  MR. L. HASLAM: To ask the President of the Local Government Board if he will state the number of Poor Law children at present maintained in the district and separate schools, and in the village communities of London and the provinces, respectively.
  (Answered by Mr. John Burns.) The number of children in separate establishments belonging to guardians of Poor Law unions in England and Wales on 1st January, 1908, was as follows:—
  any steps can be taken to suggest to public bodies requiring loans or public money for their contracts that, when inviting tenders for granite, the practice

  481
  of excluding Cornish granite by definitely specifying in the forms of tender that the granite must be from Norway, should be discontinued in the interests of the ratepayers, owing to the fact that Cornish granite has been proved considerably cheaper than Norwegian by the recently published tenders for the Birmingham Council House extension, and also from the fact that Cornish granite has withstood the severest tests for all purposes for many generations, whereas the Norwegian granite has not been so proved in this country.
  (Answered by Mr. John Burns.) I do not think that I can make any general suggestions to local authorities of the kind referred to in the question. If Cornish granite is cheaper than that imported from Norway, the local authorities would no doubt prefer to use it, other things being equal; but I am advised that it has not at present been proved that in all circumstances Cornish granite is cheaper than Norwegian.

  Boarded-Out Poor Law Children.
  MR. TOULMIN: To ask the President of the Local Government Board if he will state the number of Poor Law children boarded-out within and beyond the union at the date of the last Return; and the number of Poor Law children emigrated to Canada during 1907.
  (Answered by Mr. John Burns.) As regards the first point the most recent Return relates to the 1st January last. On that date 6,689 children were boarded-out within the union and 1,876 beyond the union. During 1907 the Local Government Board issued Orders authorising expenditure by boards of guardians in respect of the emigration to Canada of 397 orphan or deserted children. Expenditure in respect of the emigration to Canada of 447 other children was authorised during the year by Orders relating to the emigration of persons with their families.

  Ferndale Road Home for Pauper Children.
  MR. RAWLINSON: To ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware that about twenty Church of England pauper children, who are being
  482
  brought up in the Ferndale Road Home of the West Ham Guardians, have, during the past few weeks, been forced to attend a Nonconformist place of worship instead of the parish church, which they had previously attended; and, if so, what is the reason for the change.
  (Answered by Mr. John Burns.) My attention has not been called to this matter, but I will make inquiry with regard to it.

  Aged Persons in Receipt of Poor Law Relief.
  MR. T. R. BETHELL: To ask the President of the Local Government Board if he can state what proportion of persons over seventy years of age chargeable to the Poor Law unions are in receipt of outdoor relief, and whether there is any uniform practice among boards of guardians as to the granting of outdoor relief to the aged poor.
  (Answered by Mr. John Burns.) I am not in a position to state the precise proportion, but it is estimated that about three out of every four persons over seventy years of age who are chargeable to Poor Law unions and parishes are in receipt of outdoor relief. Boards of guardians in England and Wales, I think, usually grant outdoor relief to deserving aged persons who have no adequate means of subsistence, unless there is some cause which renders admission to the workhouse necessary in the interests of the pauper.

  H. M. S. "Ringdove."
  MR. WEIR: To ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he will state the speed of the gunboat "Ringdove," now on police duty in the Moray Firth, and stationed at Fortrose.
  (Answered by Mr. McKenna.) I must refer my hon. friend to the reply given to the same Question by the Secretary for Scotland on 18th May last.

  Home Production of HOPS.
  MR. COURTHOPE: To ask the President of the Board of Trade what was the Home production, imports, and exports of hops for each year prior to 1885–6 for which the figures are known.
  MR. CHURCHILL: There is no official record of the production of hops in the United Kingdom for a considerable period prior to 1885. The information as to the imports and exports of hops from 1875 to the present date was printed in the Votes in reply to a Question by the hon. Member for Gravesend on 19th May last.

  Promotion in the Customs Preventive Service.
  MR. SUMMERBELL: To ask the Secretary to the Treasury if he can state the number of promotions per annum from the grade of preventive man to that of preventive officer in His Majesty's Customs Department during the past seven years, the length of service of the preventive man before promotion, and the number of preventive men at present awaiting the forthcoming examination; and the number of preventive men who are at present on their maximum salary, and the total number who were on the staff at the end of 1906.
  (Answered by Mr. Hobhouse.) The following statement gives the information requested:—

  Year.

  Number of promotions of preventive men to preventive officers.

  Average length of service before promotion.

  Years.

  Months.

  1901

  37

  16

  4

  1902

  32

  16

  7

  1903

  34

  16

  1

  1904

  53

  15

  8

  1905

  33

  16

  2

  1906

  36

  16

  11

  1907

  31

  17

  5

  Number of preventive men awaiting the forthcoming examination, 60; number of preventive men who are at their maximum, 485*; number of preventive men on the staff at the end of 1906, 862.

  *Of the above 485 preventive men, 98 are finally excluded from promotion.

  Richmond Park.
  MR. CAVE: To ask the First Commissioner of Works whether he has received from certain schools and institutions in Mortlake an application for permission to play football and other games in Richmond Park; and, if so, whether there is any way in which effect can be given to the desire so expressed.
  (Answered by Mr. Harcourt.) I am giving this matter my sympathetic attention. But I am not at present in a position to make any statement.

  Realised Surplus for 1907–8.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer what portion of the realised surplus of the year 1907–8 was due to over-issues in 1906–7.
  (Answered by Mr. Lloyd-George.) The amount by which the Exchequer Issues for Supply Services in 1907–8 were reduced owing to the fact that issues had been made to Departments at the close of 1906–7 in excess of the requirements for their expenditure to that date, as subsequently ascertained, was £715,000.

  Clerks to Surveyors of Taxes.
  MR. SLOAN: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is aware that the scheme of re-classification of clerks to surveyors of taxes has not yet been brought in to operation; and will he state when such scheme is to be given effect to.
  (Answered by Mr. Lloyd-George.) So far as possible the scheme was brought into operation from the date of the Treasury authority, but full effect cannot be given to it until the necessary arrangements with the Civil Service Commissioners have been completed.

  Ireland and Old-Age Pensions.
  MR. DEVLIN: To ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, under the Old Age Pensions Bill, regard will be had to the difficulty of proving age in the case of Irish applicants, and special provision made to meet this difficulty; and, in the cases of small landholders claiming the pension, whether he could

  485
  state on what basis their present income will be calculated.
  (Answered by Mr. Lloyd-George.) I do not think it would be convenient to anticipate, by Answers to Questions in the House, discussion of the detailed provisions of the Bill.

  Huntingdon Volunteer Battalion Accounts.
  MR. WHITBREAD: To ask the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether he is aware that application has been made to the Chief Accountant, Eastern Command, by the officer lately commanding the Huntingdonshire Volunteer Battalion, Bedfordshire Regiment, for the payment of £1,299 9s. 3d., which was earned by the battalion as capitation and other grants for the year ending 31st October, 1907, and that of this sum only £50 has been paid to the said officer; and what are the reasons for the non-payment of the remainder of the sum.
  (Answered by Mr. Acland.) The legitimate debts of corps are being discharged by a grant from Army funds, so that the corps may be transferred to County Associations free of debt. No capitation grants have been paid to Volunteer corps on 1st April; the grant for 1908–9 is being paid to the County Associations on the new basis. The sum of £50 in question was an advance towards the sum required for payments of debts.

  Royal Warrant for Pay.
  CAPTAIN FABER: To ask the Secretary of State for War whether, with reference to Paragraph 576 of the Royal Warrant for Pay, which states that a sum of £14,200 a year shall be distributed for distinguished or meritorious service amongst officers of the Regular Army, he will state the number of general officers on the retired list receiving allowances from this source, the number of combatant officers under the rank of general officer receiving such allowances, and the number of medical, veterinary, and departmental officers on the retired list receiving such allowances.
  (Answered by Mr. Secretary Haldane.) If the hon. and gallant Member will refer
  486
  to pages 191 to 193 of the Army Estimates for 1908–9, he will find a complete list of all officers in receipt of such allowances.

  QUESTIONS IN THE HOUSE.

    Australian Commonwealth and the Navy.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty what is the new arrangement as to naval affairs arrived at with the Australian Commonwealth.
    THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIR ALTY (Mr. MCKENNA,): The general features of the scheme proposed by the Commonwealth Government in substitution for the present agreement have been already published by the Press. It is mainly an attempt to combine inter-changeability of the personnel of the Australian naval force with that of the Royal Navy, together with complete control by the Commonwealth Government over the material and personnel of that force while actually serving in the Australian vessels: The scheme as put' forward by Mr. Deakin is in bare outline, and requires much amplification before it can be discussed with advantage, while the difficulties inherent in the scheme itself are very great.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: Can the right hon. Gentleman state whether, pending the ratification of the establishment of the Commonwealth Navy, the subsidy continues to be paid?
    MR. MCKENNA: Oh, yes, Sir, it continues at present.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: Has any date been fixed for the end of the subsidy?
    MR. MCKENNA: I think it will automatically cease as it exists at present in 1913.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: Is it not the fact that as an outcome of the Colonial Conference recently held here, the Admiralty waived the subsidy when this scheme was first mentioned? Will it continue to be paid till the date mentioned or not?
    MR. MCKENNA: As soon as the new arrangement is made, the subsidy, in its present form, will come to an end, but till then, no doubt it will go on.
    MR. R. DUNCAN: Does the new arrangement include any joint obligation as to coaling stations in the Southern Pacific?
    MR. MCKENNAasked for notice of the Question.

    Nucleus Crew on H M. S. "Terrible"
    MR. BELLAIRS: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty for what reason a nucleus crew has been on board H.M.S. "Terrible" since November, 1906, during which period the ship has been disabled and under repair at Portsmouth; and whether the Board intend to continue keeping a nucleus crew on board this ship until her repairs are completed at the end of this financial year.
    MR. MCKENNA: It was convenient in regard to the maintenance of the vessel and her repairs to keep the nucleus crew for the time being, as the men were available. In reply to the last part of the Question, the Answer is in the negative.
    MR. BELLAIRSasked whether the convenience of making nucleus crews do this dockyard work was merely for economy, and was not the fighting training of the crew sacrificed by keeping them eighteen months in harbour.
    MR. MCKENNA: I should not consider it merely a matter of economy.

    Instruction in Seamanship for Midshipmen.
    MR. BEAUCHAMP: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether it is intended that an additional lieutenant shall be appointed to ships carrying midshipmen, to instruct them in seamanship, and to supervise their training, as indicated in Statement of Admiralty Policy, November, 1905, or whether this intention has been abandoned since it has been decided to appoint naval instructors to ships carrying the new scheme midshipmen.
    MR. MCKENNA: The instructions for the training of junior officers under the new system, as recently promulgated in Circular Letter No. 51 of the 1st May, 1908, provide for the performance of the duties which it was contemplated in 1905 would require the appointment of an additional lieutenant to the ships in which the midshipmen are borne. As naval instructors are available for appointment to these ships, it is not proposed to appoint an additional lieutenant unless experience shall show it to be necessary.

    Admiralty Brush Contracts.
    MR. T. F. RICHARDS: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware that many firms who contract for the supply of brushes for the Admiralty are not paying the standard rate of wages in their particular district; and whether he will assist in the prevention of sweating by giving the names of those firms in receipt of Government contracts.
    MR. MCKENNA: No complaints have been received by the Admiralty that brush contractors are not paying the standard rate of wages. The contracts contain the usual condition as to fair wages, and any specific complaint against a contractor shall be investigated. The question of publishing the names of Government contractors is at present under consideration.
    MR. W. THORNE: If it can be proved that any contractor is not paying the trade union rate of wages will the Admiralty strike him off their list?
    MR. MCKENNA: I should like to have the case brought before me before the punishment is considered.

    Case of Eli Bath.
    MR. HUNT: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the crime for which ordinary seaman Eli Bath was sentenced to five years penal servitude was that of knocking down a midshipman; whether a similar sentence passed in December, 1906, on signalman Abbott for attempting to sell a naval signal-book to the agent of a

    489
    foreign Power was reduced unconditionally to three years; and whether he will explain why a similar unconditional reduction was not made in Bath's case.
    MR. MCKENNA: The signalman Abbott was not charged as stated by the hon. Member. The charges were—(a) stealing a boat's signal-book, the property of His Majesty; and (b) improperly leaving his ship. He pleaded guilty; and the Board of that time considered that the offences did not warrant such a severe sentence as five years, and it was reduced accordingly. In the case of Eli Bath, the attack upon the midshipman was brutal and might have been fatal. Recent inquiries as to whether some clemency could not be shown in this case have been met with the answer that his conduct in prison has been unsatisfactory; and no action can therefore be taken.
    MR. HUNT: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the only thing against Bath in prison was his quarrelling with other prisoners, which may or may not have been his fault? Has he not been in prison now for three and a half years for a quite unpremeditated crime committed in a sudden fit of passion, and is not the revealing of naval secrets a very much more serious crime than that for which Bath is suffering punishment?
    MR. MCKENNA: Had these points been embodied in the original Question I might have been informed on them.

    Wireless Telegraphy in India.
    MR. REES: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for India whether communication by wireless telegraphy has been established between India and any other British Possessions; and whether any wireless telegraphy stations exist in the Indian Empire.
    THE UNDER-SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. BUCHANAN,): As far as I am aware, no communication by wireless telegraphy has as yet been established between India and any other British Possessions. Wireless communication has been established between Diamond Island and Port Blair and between Sangoa Island and the pilot steamer at the sand heads.
    SIR EDWARD SASSOON: was understood to ask if the Indian Government had been requested to make provision in the Estimates for the establishment of wireless telegraphy stations.
    MR. BUCHANAN: I should like to have notice of that Question.

    Taxation in India.
    MR. REES: I beg to ask the Under-secretary of State for India whether in any part of India 75 per cent. of their net profits are collected by way of taxation from the peasantry by the Government of India, or whether, when any rate at all approximating to this figure is collected, it is taken not from the cultivators of the soil but from the middlemen, who were comparatively recently converted into landlords in the Central Provinces by the British Government, such landlords or middlemen being under legal control in respect of the rent which they may levy from their cultivating tenants, which is fixed by law with due regard to the circumstances and customs of the locality.
    MR. BUCHANAN: In no part of British India is it the case that the land revenue assessment represents 75 per cent. of the net profits of the cultivator. In provinces where the land is held by zemindars, or landlords, the revenue assessment is ordinarily below 50 per cent of the rental, and in provinces where the State deals directly with the cultivating occupant, it is considerably less than half the net profits of cultivation. In zemindari provinces tenancy laws, regulating the amount of the rent payable by the cultivators to the zemindars, are in force.
    MR. REES: Is it not the fact that since British succeeded to native rule in India there has been a regular and progressive decrease in the share of the profits taken by the State from the cultivators?
    MR. BUCHANAN: I believe that is the case.
    MR.SMEATON: But is the right hon. Gentleman aware that what is termed the legal rent does not represent the real burden imposed on the cultivator, who has to borrow money,

    491
    often from his landlord, at exorbitant interest, and has not seldom to pay extras and to render personal service?
    MR. LUPTONasked if the 50 per cent. was not merely a nominal and theoretical figure, and if it did not amount in practice in some cases to 75 per cent. of the crop.
    MR. BUCHANAN: It is not theoretical at all.

    Imperial Cadet Corps.
    SIR BERKELEY SHEFFIELD: I beg to ask the Undersecretary of State for India whether the Government of India has yet submitted a definite scheme for the employment of officers commissioned from the Imperial Cadet Corps?
    MR. BUCHANAN: The Government of India have not yet submitted a scheme.
    SIR BERKELEY SHEFFIELD: When will it?
    MR. BUCHANAN: I am afraid I cannot say.

    Indian Tariffs.
    MR. HAROLD COX: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that, under the present Indian tariff, alcohol, sulphur, saltpetre, borax, hides, skins, pitch, tar, stone, marble, cement, lime, flax, hemp, and silk, and all sorts of dyeing and tanning materials, are subject to a 5 per cent. tax; and whether the articles so taxed are regarded by the Indian Government as raw materials or as manufactured articles.
    MR. BUCHANAN: The Answer to the first Question is in the affirmative. With regard to the second Question, the Indian Trade Returns show some of the articles in question under the head of raw materials and others under other heads. I have no other information as to how they are regarded by the Government of India.
    MR. HAROLD COX: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that a distinguished ex-Viceroy has recently suggested that this tariff should be applied to this country?
    MR. BUCHANAN: I am afraid I cannot answer that.
    MR. HUNTasked if the salt extracted from the sea by the Indian natives for their own use was treated as a manufactured article.
    MR. BUCHANAN: It is not imported into India.
    MR. HUNT: But do the Indian peasants have to pay taxes on the salt they thus extract?
    MR. SPEAKER: That does not arise out of the Question on the Paper.

    Indian Industries—Sulphuric Acid.
    MR. HAROLD COX: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that Mr. Holland, director of the Geological Survey, recently reported that a cheap supply of sulphuric acid would be the key to many industries now either non-existent in India or in a feeble condition; and whether in view of this Report, the Indian Government proposes to abolish the present tax of 5 per cent. ad valorem upon imported sulphuric acid.
    MR. BUCHANAN: The Secretary of State is aware that Mr. Holland reported that certain industries would be encouraged in India if sulphuric acid could be cheapened by being manufactured on the spot; but it does not seem probable that this result would be produced by the abolition of the 5 per cent. import duty, and I have no reason to suppose that the Government of India wish to abolish it.
    MR. HAROLD COX: May I ask whether the advantage to the industries of India would arise from the manufacture of sulphuric acid on the spot or from its cheapness?
    MR. BUCHANAN: I think the him. Member is under some misapprehension. I shall be glad to show him exactly what Mr. Holland said.
    MR. R. DUNCAN: If that taxation were remitted, would not the equivalent revenue have to be raised in another way?
    MR. BUCHANAN: Yes, probably that is the case.

    Indian Tariffs on Tools and Machinery.
    MR. HAROLD COX: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that, under the Indian tariff, workmen's tools and hand-driven machinery are, with some exceptions, subject to a 3 per cent. ad valorem tax; and whether it is part of the policy of His Majesty's Government that His Majesty's Indian subjects should be taxed upon the implements of their industry.
    MR. BUCHANAN: Tools and hand driven machinery with exceptions in favour of various classes of agricultural implements are on import liable to the general import duty of 5 per cent. ad valorem. The bulk of the tools used by workmen in India are not imported, and are therefore not affected.

    Indian Import Duties.
    MR. HAROLD COX: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he can state what is the total number of articles liable to import duties under the present Indian tariff; how many articles out of this total yield any appreciable revenue; and what is the total yield of the present British tariff.
    MR. BUCHANAN: The Indian tariff deals with groups of articles and I am unable to give the total number of articles liable to duty. About 89 per cent. of the Indian Customs revenue is realised from about twenty-six articles. The gross yield of the Indian Customs in 1906–7 was £4,351,000. The corresponding figures for the United Kingdom was £32,930,000.

    Asiatics and Mozambique.
    MR. REES: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will obtain and lay upon the Table, or in the Library, such anti-Asiatic legislation, if any, as is proposed by the Portuguese Government for its province of Mozambique.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION (Mr. RUNCIMAN,; for Colonel SEELY): My hon. friend has at present no information on this subject, but inquiry shall be made.

    British Indians in Trinidad.
    MR. REES: I beg to ask the Undersecretary of State for the Colonies, whether such statistics as are available indicate any higher degree of criminality in the British Indian immigrants into Trinidad than obtains in the case of other inhabitants of that island; and whether his Answer is based upon a comparison excluding or including mere breaches of the Immigration Ordinance.
    MR. RUNCIMAN (for Colonel SEELY): The statistics furnished by the Government of Trinidad show that, apart from convictions for breach of the Immigration Ordinance, the number of convictions for ordinary offences of East Indians in Trinidad compares favourably with that of the rest of the population. The Secretary of State is informed that the great majority of East Indians in Trinidad are industrious and law-abiding.

    Cost of East African Administration.
    MR. CATHCART WASON: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies if he can state the amount paid by the Government for the maintenance of the East Africa administration, the number of salaried Government officials and of salaried representatives of absentees and syndicates, approximately the number of bona fide settlers.
    MR. RUNCIMAN (for Colonel SEELY): The amount of the grant-in-aid of the East Africa Protectorate for the current year is £138,000. The Secretary of State is unable to furnish the other figures for which the hon. Member asks, but will ask the Governor to supply them, as nearly as they can be ascertained.

    Alcoholic Liquors in the New Hebrides.
    MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: I beg to ask the Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has any official information showing that French traders, alleging that gin is the only liquor prohibited in the New Hebrides, have landed large cargoes of wine, beer, and whiskey on certain of the islands; and whether he will take steps to expedite the appointment of British officials authorised to interpret and enforce the Convention.
    MR. RUNCIMAN (for Colonel SEELY): The Secretary of State has no information to the effect stated in the first part of the hon. and gallant Member's Question. Except with the joint permission of the British and French Resident Commissioners, it is unlawful to import into the New Hebrides any gin, whiskey, brandy, or other liquor containing alcohol and used for trade. Some of the British officials required to carry out the Convention have already been appointed. The staff will be increased as it is found necessary and possible.
    MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: Will the right hon. Gentleman cause inquiry to be made especially with regard to the island of Ambrym?
    MR. RUNCIMAN: I will convey that request to my hon. and gallant friend.

    Great Britain and Siam.
    MR. RIDSDALE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he is in a position to make any statement with regard to the negotiations with Siam.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir EDWARD GREY,): The Answer is in the negative.

    Brussels Sugar Convention.
    MR. VILLIERS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether all the contracting States except Great Britain received the assent of their several Parliaments before signing the additional Act and Protocol to the Brussels Sugar Convention.
    SIR EDWARD GREY: So far as I am aware, the Answer is in the negative. The matter is, of course, one of constitutional practice, which varies with each country.

    Italy and the Sugar Convention.
    MR. VILLIERS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether Italy has been granted a further space of three months before being compelled to decide if she will retire from the Sugar Convention or not; and, if so, whether His Majesty's Government could
    496
    also obtain a further extension of time in order that the subject may be discussed in this House.
    SIR EDWARD GREY: As regards the first part of the Question, I would refer the hon. Member to the Parliamentary Paper which has recently been laid, (Commercial, No 3, 1908). The Answer to the second part of the Question is in the negative. This country has ratified the additional Act, and there is no analogy between our position and that of Italy. I may also remind the hon. Member that Questions on this point were asked at the beginning of the session and that the Act was not ratified till 14th February some time after Parliament had met.
    MR. VILLIERSasked if the Sugar Convention of 1902 was ratified by Act of Parliament after it was signed by His Majesty's representative.
    Sir EDWARD GREY: Perhaps the hon. Member will give me notice of that Question.
    MR. AUSTIN TAYLOR: May I ask if, before the expiration of the three months, Italy decides to remain in the Convention she will be permitted to export sugar to this country, and will this country as a member of the Convention be a party to that arrangement?
    SIR EDWARD GREY: I do not quits follow the Question, but I observe it is hypothetical and I cannot therefore answer it.

    Employment of Children in Egyptian Factories.
    MR. G. GOOCH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will advise the Egyptian Government to make regulations with regard to the employment of children and young persons in factories and workshops in all cases in which such action is not prevented by the Capitulations.
    SIR EDWARD GREY: This question is already occupying the serious attention of the Egyptian Government, with a view to the adoption of remedial measures when practicable.

    Contracts for Nile Bridges.
    MR. HENRY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what course will be adopted to have tested the material that will be employed by the Compagnie de Fives-Lille in the order given that firm for bridges over the Nile; what arrangements have been made to have the bridges inspected whilst in course of construction and when completed; and if, when deciding to accept the tender of the French firm, any account was taken of the extra cost that might be involved in testing and inspecting in excess of what would have been incurred if the work had been executed in this country.
    SIR EDWARD GREY: I am not in a position to answer the first and second parts of the Question, the subject of which is a matter concerning the internal administration of Egypt, who have hitherto taken adequate measures to ensure good work and good material. I can, if desired, ascertain what the practice of the Egyptian Government is in such matters. As regards the last part of the Question, I am not aware that any saving would be entailed to the Egyptian Government in the cost of testing and inspecting if the work were executed by a British firm. The Egyptian Government must presumably treat British and foreign work without discrimination.

    Old-Age Pensions.
    MR. LEVERTON HARRIS: I beg to ask the Prime Minister whether the estimate which he gave on the introduction of the Budget of the cost of the scheme of old-age pensions includes the provision of a pension to those who are earning a wage of over 10s. but under 15s. a week, and who, in order to entitle them to a pension, may be expected to reduce their wages to 10s a week.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. LLOYD-GEORGE, Carnarvon Boroughs): No, Sir; nor is it intended to include persons who may artificially depress their income below the limit of disqualification.
    MR. PIKE PEASE: Will the Bill be introduced soon?
    THE PRIME MINISTER AND FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. ASQUITH,): I think that it would be for the convenience of the House if the Bill were printed and circulated as soon as possible. But inasmuch as I made a full statement on the subject in my Budget speech, I should suggest, if it is the general wish of the House, that the Bill should be presented and circulated at the earliest possible moment. It will not require a preliminary Financial Resolution.
    MR. MYER: May I ask whether the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman on the subject was a full statement of the provisions, or whether it was a statement of the full provisions?
    MR. ASQUITH: The subtlety of my hon. friend's distinction is too great for me to follow. He will be able to judge whether I made a full statement, or whether the provisions of the Bill are fuller than my statement.

    Case of Henry Squires, of Stratford.
    MR. W. THORNE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the case of Henry Squires, of West Street, Stratford, who was sentenced at the Old Bailey to twelve months' imprisonment on 12th March for stealing boots from a shop in Stratford; and whether, in consideration of this man's character and the nature of the evidence that was given against him, he could see his way clear to have the sentence reduced.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. GLADSTONE,): My attention has been called to this case, and I have made careful inquiries into the facts, but, after consultation with the learned Judge, I find no grounds for advising any reduction of the sentence.

    Tailoring Trade and the Particulars Clause.
    MR. CLAUDE HAY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he can now lay before the House of Commons the result of the investigations as to the complaints he has received respecting the non-observance in the tailoring trade of the

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    provisions of the particulars clause of the Factory Act.
    MR. GLADSTONE: I answered that Question last Monday.
    MR. CLAUDE HAY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that one of the Royal Warrant holders is infringing this particular clause.
    MR. GLADSTONE: That has no relation to the Question on the Paper. If the hon. Member wishes to deal with specific cases perhaps he will put the Question down.

    Deaths from Starvation.
    MR. SUMMERBELL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the Table of Deaths in London in the year 1907 upon which a coroner's jury has returned a verdict of death from starvation, or death accelerated by privation, will be published; and whether the Government will take steps to compile and publish a similar table for the whole of England and Wales, showing in what Poor Law Unions they take place.
    MR. GLADSTONE: The Return for 1907 is now in the hands of the Local Government Board, who are collecting the reports from the guardians on the cases returned by the coroners. I will consult my right hon. friend, the President of the Board, as to whether the reports can be expedited, and also whether any useful purpose would be served by extending the Return.

    Cinematograph Exhibitions.
    EARL OF KERRY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in view of his admission of the serious dangers of cinematograph exhibitions, and of his statement to the deputation from the London County Council on 28th February last, that he considered it most desirable these unlicensed exhibitions should be put under proper authority, he can see his way shortly to introduce legislation with this object.
    MR. GLADSTONE: I have not lost sight of this matter, but I am not in a position to say whether legislation can be introduced in the present session.

    Cardiff Flogging Sentences.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that in a case of one man, John Jones, sentenced to be flogged at the recent Cardiff Assizes, the victim of the outrage did not appear as a witness, and the accused was convicted on the evidence of one policeman who said he saw what took place at a distance, while in the case of two other men, Downey and Burns, who were also sentenced to be flogged at the Cardiff Assizes, the evidence was that they threatened to shoot the prosecutor with a revolver which was not loaded and was without a trigger, and that the prosecutor admitted that he had not been hurt; and whether, having regard to the fact that these sentences were pronounced before the Criminal Appeal Act came into operation, what explanation, if any, has he to give for his refusal to consider them.
    MR. GLADSTONE: No one named Jones was sentenced to be flogged at the recent Cardiff Assizes, and I do not know to what case the hon. Members refers in the first part of the question. Downey was not sentenced to be flogged in respect of the case described by the hon. Member. He was convicted, with Bews (there was no prisoner of the name of Burns) of robbery with actual personal violence in another case, and was sentenced to five years penal servitude and twelve strokes with the cat. A petition from him was considered by me, but I saw no grounds for interfering with the sentence. Bews, not Burns, received a sentence of ten months' hard labour, but was not sentenced to be flogged.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his refusal to consider the flogging sentences passed at the recent Assizes at Cardiff before the punishment was inflicted is at variance with the practice of the late Viscount Ridley when at the Home Office, who stated on the 28th March, 1900, that it was undesirable to inflict an irrevocable punishment, that he had cases before him when the sentence of flogging had been imposed in which it had been extremely difficult to decide whether the crime itself had been committed, and that in any of the cases,

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    when he had come to the decision that the sentence ought not to have been inflicted, it would have been a very painful reflection to him if the flogging had been inflicted; and whether he will explain the reason of the distinction between his practice in dealing with such cases and that of a former Home Secretary.
    MR. GLADSTONE: There has been no alteration in the practice. Any case where an application is made to me by or on behalf of a prisoner sentenced to corporal punishment would be considered by me in the same way as it was considered by my predecessor—and if I found any ground for interference, I would advise remission of the sentence, or part of it. In the recent cases at Cardiff, I carefully considered the petitions addressed to me by three of the prisoners, but I could find no ground that would justify interference.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Having regard to the nature of this punishment did not the right hon. Gentleman think it his duty to inquire whether flogging should be inflicted or not, especially in view of the fact that the majority of His Majesty's Judges never do inflict it?
    MR. GLADSTONE: I acted entirely as my predecessor did.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: But did not Sir Matthew White Ridley state that he considered every case before the flogging was inflicted and was very thankful that he had done so?
    MR. GLADSTONE: I understand that he only considered those cases in which appeals were made.

    Remission of Flogging Sentences.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department how many sentences of flogging for robbery with violence were remitted from July, 1895 till October, 1900; and how many sentences of flogging for that crime were remitted between December, 1905, and the present time.
    MR. GLADSTONE: So far as I can ascertain, there were five eases of remis-
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    sion in 1899, and four in 1900. All these, except two, were cases where the prisoner was ordered to be flogged more than once, and where the second or third flogging was remitted, not because of any question as to the propriety of the conviction, but solely because of the objection to such repeated punishments. There have been no remissions since 1905; but I may add that there have been no cases in which a prisoner has been ordered to be flogged more than once. During the years 1906 and 1907, seven persons were sentenced to corporal punishment for robbery with violence, but in none of these cases was any application made to me by the prisoner with regard to his sentence.

    Railway Passengers' Bicycles.
    MR. W. THORNE: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether the Departmental Committee on Railway Rates will be prepared to consider the question of passengers, bicycles being included in the statutory allowance of luggage as in other countries.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. CHURCHILL,): I presume my hon. friend refers to the Railway Conference at present considering certain general questions relating to railway traffic and organisation. I doubt if the Conference will be prepared to take up the subject of rates and conditions of carriage of particular articles.

    Practices of Insurance Societies.
    MR. J. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is now in a position to announce his decision with regard to an inquiry into or legislation dealing with the practices of insurance societies, friendly societies, and kindred organisations.
    MR. CHURCHILL: I do not feel convinced at present that the best way to deal with the matter would be by a formal inquiry. Such a course might cause unnecessary apprehension and tend without any sufficient cause to disturb the confidence of the insuring public. The Board of Trade have, however, been in communication with the Chief Registrar of Friendly Societies, who is issuing a notice to collecting societies, pointing out the recent decisions in the Courts in

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    regard to insurable interest, with a view to steps being taken to comply with the law. I propose to adopt a similar course towards industrial assurance companies.

    Atherton Railway Disaster.
    MR. LONSDALE: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he will state what results have attended the representations made to railway companies on the subject of the medical examination of engine-drivers, following upon Colonel Yorke's Report upon the accident near Atherton.
    MR. CHURCHILL: The companies inform me that, generally speaking, engine-men are medically examined on entering the service, after illness or injury, and in any other case where the superior officer thinks it desirable. They add that they recognise that the subject is an important one, and that it will continue to receive their attention. The question is one of difficulty, and the Board of Trade is bound to consider the various and conflicting interests which are involved.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILLasked if the attention of the right hon. Gentleman had been drawn to the case of the engine-driver who a few days ago dropped dead on his engine?
    MR. HUDSON (Newcastle-on-Tyne)inquired if much irritation was not caused by the various standards of medical examination, and if the Board of Trade would be willing to set up one standard on its own authority?
    MR. CHURCHILLreplied that he was aware of the CONFLICTING views, but he did not think the Board would be justified in making any new departure at present. The matter would be considered.

    Lapsed Insurance Policies.
    MR. JOWETT: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will consider the advisability of calling for a Return from the various industrial assurance companies, showing the extent to which they have gained financially by reason of lapsed policies.
    MR. CHURCHILL: I am advised that it would not be practicable to obtain the information asked for without statutory powers which the Board of Trade do not
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    possess. I would, however, call attention to the fact that forfeiture cannot be incurred by any insured person except after due notice given in accordance with the provisions of Section 3 of the Collecting Societies and Industrial Assurance Companies Act, 1896.

    Disputed Life Policies.
    MR. JOWETT: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will endeavour to ascertain in regard to industrial assurance companies the number of policies for which premium has been paid up to the death of the insured person, the liability for which has been denied by the companies concerned, and the total value of such policies.
    MR. CHURCHILL: I am considering what steps can be taken to obtain fuller information on this subject. It does not appear from the hon. Member's Question whether he is concerned solely with refusals to pay on the ground chat the insurer had no insurable interest, or whether he desires information as to the total number of policies the liability for which is denied on any grounds. Perhaps he will be so good as to write to me on this point.

    British Representatives Abroad.
    MR. CARLILE: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will give a Return showing the number and the dates of their appointment of the consuls and trade representatives accredited to the various foreign countries and self-governing Colonies for each year since 1897.
    MR. CHURCHILL: The hon. Member will find the information in regard to the consuls in the Foreign Office List. Since 1897 four trade correspondents have been appointed in South Africa, six in Australia, and three in New Zealand, all remunerated by fees. I am now considering the appointment of a salaried trade agent in each of the self-governing Colonies.

    Marine Department, Survey Staff Clerks.
    MR. C. DUNCAN: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that there are about thirty men, known as survey staff clerks,

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    employed in the London and outport offices of the Marine Department, and that the average service of these clerks is about seventeen years, whilst some have a record of thirty years service; and whether, in view of their eligibility, after only six years service, for promotion to Second Division clerkships under the Order in Council, dated 29th November, 1898, he will ascertain why no such promotions have yet been made; and whether he will see that the total absence of promotion in this respect is redressed by filling future vacancies for Second Division clerkships in his Department from amongst these men.
    MR. CHURCHILL: I am aware of the facts stated in the first part of the Question. The clerks to the surveyors form a separate class, and I am informed that there have been very few opportunities of promoting them to the Second Division. One clerk was transferred to the Board of Trade and afterwards promoted to the Second Division, and the possibility of making further promotions under the terms of the Order in Council as occasion arises will not be overlooked.

    Rhymney Valley Postmen's Pay.
    MR. CLAUDE HAY: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General when it was decided that the postmen in the Rhymney Valley were to be placed in the fifth class; and whether some of these men have already signed the official papers by which they have accepted service in the fifth class.
    THE POSTMASTER-GENERAL (Mr. SYDNEY BUXTON,): As I informed the hon. Member on the 30th ult. it has not as yet been possible definitely to decide into which classes the sub-offices in the Rhymney Valley should be placed. They were placed provisionally in Class V. in the announcement made to the Staff in the Post Office Circular of the 14th February, 1908. At the same time the staff were informed that the arrangement was provisional.

    Transmission of Valuable Articles by Post.
    SIR EDWARD SASSOON: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether he is now prepared to offer the same facilities as those afforded by most of the Continental Post Offices for the despatch of
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    registered boxes, of manageable dimensions, containing jewellery and other articles of value.
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: This matter has been under my consideration for some time, and I hope to be able soon to commence the service experimentally with one or two of the nearer Continental countries.

    Knightsbridge Work.
    MR. HORNIMAN: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General why the work now being executed at St. George's Place and Knightsbridge was not commenced earlier in the year; whether the work is now being carried on night and day, and when the same will be completed.
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: The work was to have been begun as long ago as 2nd April, but unfortunately, through a misunderstanding on the part of one of the engineers, the necessary formal consent had not been obtained from the Corporation of Westminster. The work is being carried on night and day, and will be finished, I hope, by the end of the month.

    Canadian Pacific Route to Japan.
    MR. BRIDGEMAN: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General if he is aware that passengers booking through passages by the Canadian and Canadian Pacific route to Japan, by steamer leaving Liverpool on 29th May, have at the last moment been informed that owing to the action of the Post Office the connecting steamer from Vancouver to Japan has been postponed for a fortnight; and what was the reason for subjecting these passengers to such inconvenience, and for thus discouraging the all-British route to the advantage of foreign services.
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I am not aware what information has been given by the Canadian Pacific Railway Company to intending passengers; but I may state that arrangements have been made for the institution of a mail service to Japan via Canada every three weeks during the summer months instead of every four weeks; and as a consequence the mails which under the former arrangements would have left Vancouver on the

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    8th June in connection with the sailing from Liverpool on the 29th instant will leave Vancouver on the 3rd June in connection with a sailing from Liverpool on the 22nd instant. The next despatch from Liverpool will be on the 12th June.
    MR. BRIDGEMAN: Would it not have been possible to issue a statement for the information of passengers?
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I thought the company would have done so.
    MR. BRIDGEMAN: When did the Post Office make the change?
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: It has been under negotiation a considerable time. It was, as a matter of fact, proposed by the company itself.

    Tube Messengers at the Central Telegraph Office.
    MR. MYER: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether he has now considered the possibility of reducing the number of hours of attendance of the tube messengers employed at the Central Telegraph Office, as promised on the 6th January, 1907, in reply to a memorial from that staff submitted nearly two years ago.
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I hope shortly to be in a position to announce my decision in this matter.

    Postage to Morocco.
    MAJOR ANSTRUTHER-GRAY: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether he can now give any information with regard to the postal facilities with Morocco, having in view the fact that the French, German, and other foreign countries have a postage of about 1d. per ounce, while the British, who still retain more than half of the trade, have to pay 2½d.
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I am not at present in a position to make an announcement on the subject.
    MAJOR ANSTRUTHER- GRAY: As the matter has been under inquiry since the 26th March last, cannot the right hon. Gentleman indicate some date for the announcement?
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I am in communication with the Treasury. No decision has yet been come to and I am afraid it will not be for some time.

    Cable Communication with the Colonies.
    MR. CARLILE: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he can now state what are the arrangements which have been made in order to increase the cable communications between the Mother Country and the various self-governing Colonies.
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: No recent arrangements have been made in order to increase the cable communications between the Mother Country and the various self-governing Colonies, nor have any of the Colonies proposed that such arrangements should be made.
    MR. CARLILE: Is the subject under consideration?
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: There has been no suggestion thrown out as yet.

    Bicycles and the Passenger Duty.
    MR. W. THORNE: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether receipts by railway companies from passengers, who are not allowed to take their bicycles with them by certain trains, are liable to passenger duty.
    THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. HOBHOUSE,): Yes, if they are in other respects chargeable.

    Marquess of Waterford's Wicklow Estate.
    MR. JAMES O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Blackditches, county Wicklow, estate of the Marquess of Waterford has been sold, or is about to be sold, to the tenants; whether the tenants of the estate, including Mrs. Mary Cullen, evicted in 1882, are to be reinstated; and, if not, will Mrs. Cullen and the other evicted tenants be provided with farms on the estate or elsewhere; and whether there is any untenanted land on the Blackditches property of the Marquess of Waterford.
    THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. BIRRELL,): No proceedings for the sale of this estate are

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    pending before the Estates Commissioners, and no application for reinstatement has been received from Mrs. Cullen. The Commissioners are not aware that there is any untenanted land on the property.

    Arrests for Unlawful Assembly at Athlone.
    MR. HAYDEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that at three o'clock on the morning of the 6th May the police in the Athlone district of county Roscommon arrested a number of persons on a charge of unlawful assembly connected with the letting of some grazing lands, and detained these persons in the police barracks for several hours; whether he can state why these persons could not have been proceeded against by way of summons, and, if not, why they were not arrested at a less inconvenient hour; whether he is aware of the character of the evidence against them and of the fact that it was denied by the defendants; whether, under the circumstances, he will cause to be cancelled the bail bonds into which they were compelled to enter; whether he is aware that during the proceedings it transpired that Sergeant M'Elroy had three times endeavoured to induce a man named Burke to apply against the county for compensation for alleged injury to a heifer; and whether it is any portion of the duty of the police to work up claims of this character against the ratepayers of the country.
    MR. BIRRELL: The persons in question were arrested at five o'clock in the morning, with the exception of one who was arrested at four o'clock. The police considered it desirable to make the arrests early in the morning in order to avoid the possibility of disturbance. It is not the practice to proceed in such cases by way of summons. The defendants were taken before the Resident Magistrate at 10.30, being thus given a sufficient interval to obtain breakfast and employ legal aid. I cannot enter into any question as to the sufficiency of the evidence, nor have I power to cancel the recognisances. Sergeant M'Elroy denies having attempted to induce Burke to make a claim for compensation; he merely visited Burke, in accordance with the usual practice, in order to ascertain whether any claim for compensation was being made.

    Ulster Land Tenancies.
    MR. J. DEVLIN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he could state the number of acres of land held under the eleven months system in Ulster, giving details according to county divisions; and whether he could state the number of persons in each county in Ulster who hold land under this system, and the acreage in each case.
    MR. BIRRELL: I would refer the hon. Member to the House of Commons Return No. 250 of 1906, which gives details of the untenanted land in every rural district in Ireland. The Government have no information as to what quantity of this land may be held under the eleven months system, nor am I aware of any means, short of an exhaustive investigation over the entire country, by which that information could be obtained.

    Clancarty Estate, Ballinasloe.
    MR. JOHN ROCHE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state the cause of delay in giving the grass lands upon the Clancarty estate, near Ballinasloe, to the tenants as promised.
    MR. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners have estimated a price for the untenanted land on the estate in question, and it is proposed that this land should be allotted to the tenants on the estate and sold to them with their holdings. The purchase agreements for the tenants' holdings have only now been lodged, and the sale therefore cannot be sanctioned for a considerable time to come. The Commissioners cannot deal with the untenanted land apart from the tenanted.

    Lord Ormathwaite's North Kerry Estate.
    MR. FLAVIN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that Lord Ormathwaite has agreed to sell his estate in North Kerry to the tenants and also agrees to have evicted tenants put back into their evicted farms; and whether the Estates Commissioners will immediately reinstate Thomas Walsh, an evicted tenant on this estate, who has

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    been on the roadside for over twenty years, and other tenants as well.
    The hon. Member further asked if, seeing that the landlord had now agreed to sell to the tenants, there was any reason why the Estates Commissioners should not reinstate these men at once, especially in the cases where the holdings are vacant.
    MR. BIRRELL: I will inquire into that. The Estates Commissioners made an offer in 1906, for the purchase of the holding from which Thomas Walsh had been evicted, but the offer was refused by the owner. The Commissioners now propose to acquire compulsorily certain land on the estate, and if they should do so they will consider the question of providing Walsh with a holding on the land so acquired.

    Mr. Jeremiah Keane's Ballynooneen Holding.
    MR. FLAVIN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether Mr. Jeremiah Keane, of Listowel, has offered for sale to the Estates Commissioners his non-residential holding at Ballynooneen, North Kerry, for division amongst the labourers and the enlargement of small holdings; whether the land has been inspected and reported upon; and whether an offer has been made by the Estates Commissioners to Keane, and, if not, when will it be made.
    MR. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners have had an inspection made of the farm held by Mr. Keane, and have informed the landlord that if he procures the surrender of the holding they will make an advance of £542 for it as untenanted land to be distributed according to a scheme to be approved by the Commissioners. The landlord has signified his willingness to accept this offer, but upon the condition that the sale of the remainder of his estate should be proceeded with at once. With a view to the consideration of this condition, the Commissioners have called upon their inspector for a report upon the estate generally.
    MR. FLAVINsaid he believed the landlord had already sold the whole of his estate.
    MR. BIRRELL: That does not, accord with my information.

    Ballylongford Untenanted Lands.
    MR. FLAVIN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he can state if Mr. J. D. Crosbie has offered for sale to the Estates Commissioners his untenanted land situated near Ballylongford, North Kerry; if so, when was it offered for sale; when was it inspected and reported upon; and whether, in view of the number of small holdings and labourers, in the district, as well as some evicted, tenants, the Estates Commissioners will acquire this land as soon as possible.
    MR. BIRRELL: Proceedings for the sale to the Estates Commissioners of Mr. J. D. Crosbie's estate, comprising both tenanted and untenanted land, were instituted in March, 1907. The estate was inspected and the report of the inspection was received on 28th March last. The Commissioners will proceed with the case as soon as possible, but they are obliged to have regard to the priority of other cases.
    MR. FLAVIN: This is a very small estate; surely the evicted tenants here might be reinstated immediately.
    MR. BIRRELL: I am afraid that the delay in dealing with these transactions has been so great that we cannot ignore the claims of priority in the matter of inquiry.

    Colthurst Estate, Ballyvourney.
    MR. SHEEHAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland, if he can-state the nature of the 448 acres of untenanted land on the Colthurst estate at Ballyvourney; how much of this is woodland; what extent has been let for grazing purposes, and what area, if any, could be utilised for distribution amongst the labourers and small landholders in the district; will he state what is the extent of the plots in the village of Ballyvourney; are there any tenancies in these, and could they be made available for the purposes of The Labourers Act, 1906; and whether there is any untenanted land in the neighbourhood of the home farm at any time let to Jeremiah Hegarty as a

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    grazing letting, and, if so, has this been acquired by the Estates Commissioners.
    MR. BIRRELL: The Estates Commissioners are not at present in a position to add anything to the Answer which I gave to the hon. Member's Question on the 18th instant, but they will direct their inspector to inquire in due course into the matters of detail mentioned in the present Question.

    Cattle Driving Prosecution at Mount Bellew.
    MR. JOHN ROCHE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that, at an open court held in Mount Bellew, in the county of Galway, on 28th April last, the magistrates refused to allow witnesses to be examined in cases against Thomas Connor and Matt Fahy, when applications were made to estreat their recognisances, though their solicitor denied the truth of the complaint, and demanded that evidence should be heard on both sides; whether such refusal to hear witnesses was in accordance with Section 20 of the Petty Sessions Act; whether Section 34 of the Petty Sessions Act, dealing with recognisances, was complied with; whether, seeing that no special form of proof of such non-performance is provided by statute, the ordinary proof must be given as provided by Section 20 of the Petty Sessions Act, and evidence heard on both sides; whether he is aware that the magistrates admitted in evidence, as proof of the non-performance of the conditions of the recognisances, certificates of such non-performance signed by one magistrate at the foot of the recognisances dated 31st March, 1907, though no offence or conviction was proved; what jurisdiction had the magistrates to admit such certificates in evidence as proof of the non-performance of the conditions referred to; what order, if any, did the magistrates make on this occasion; and, considering all the circumstances of the case, will he take steps, if fines were imposed, to have these fines remitted or else very much reduced.
    MR. BIRRELL: On 2nd November, 1907, Thomas Connor and Matthew Fahy were charged with cattle-driving, and were bound over, with sureties, to keep the peace and be of good behaviour for
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    twelve months. On 27th March, 1908, they were again charged with cattle-driving, and the resident magistrate, holding the case to be proved, certified in due form on the recognisances the non-performance of the condition, and again ordered the defendants to find sureties for a fresh period of twelve months. On 28th April an application to estreat the first recognisances was made to the magistrates at Petty Sessions. The magistrates unanimously held that the certificates of forfeiture on the original recognisances were binding on the Court, and they declined to go into any other evidence of breach of the condition of the recognisances. They accordingly ordered the recognisances to be estreated in the sum of £2 each in the case of the principal parties, and £1 each in the case of the sureties. The question whether the magistrates were right in their interpretation of the Acts bearing upon the case is one for the decision of a higher Court, and it is not for me to express any opinion upon it. It was open to Connor and Fahy to appeal against the order estreating their recognisances.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: Can the right hon. Gentleman state whether the magistrate who made the order estreating the recognisances was the one who made the original commitment?
    MR. BIRRELL: I will inquire.

    Shillelagh Mails.
    MR. JAMES O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that letters coming by the second mail from Dublin to Shillelagh are detained in Rathdrum from 8 am. until the following morning; that the Dublin papers are not delivered in Ballinglen until the day after publication, although delivered at the other stations on the Shillelagh line; can he explain why the Ballinglen district is so inconvenienced by the present arrangements; and will he see that in future letters and papers are dropped at Ballinglen by the train which drops the mails at Aughrim and other stations on the same line.
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I have called for a report on this subject, and when I have received the necessary information I will send the hon. Member a reply.

    Ireland and the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
    MR. HAZLETON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether the appointment of the right hon. Member for Carnarvon to be Chancellor of the Exchequer in Ireland, notified in the Dublin Gazette of the 12th May, was made in consequence of the provisions of Section 14 of the Act of 1816, consolidating the Exchequers of Great Britain and Ireland; if so, who is the second of such Commissioners: and whether, seeing that Section 14 of the Act of 1816 provides that such Commissioners are to be in addition to the number of Commissioners which may now by law be appointed for executing the office of Treasurer of the Exchequer of Great Britain, the number of the Commissioners for Ireland is in addition to the number for Great Britain.
    MR. HOBHOUSE: My right hon. friend was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer of Ireland under the Act 4, George IV., cap. vii, which prescribes that the offices of Chancellor of the Exchequer of Great Britain and Ireland respectively shall be held by the same person. The powers given by Section 14 of the Act of 1816 have not been exercised for many years.
    MR. HAZLETON: Why have the powers of this section not been enforced?
    MR. HOBHOUSE: I am not responsible for what preceded my appointment to my present office. Therefore I cannot answer the Question, I am afraid.

    Unclaimed Bank Balances.
    MR. J. MACVEAGH: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he can state if the Bank of England has a complete record of the unclaimed balances lying to the credit of depositors since the establishment of the Bank; if so, whether he can state the total amount; and, if not, whether he can state the total amount within the past 100 years; whether any interest has been placed to the credit of the unclaimed balances; and whether he can state the total cash value in the same period of bank notes issued by the Bank of England but not presented for repayment.
    MR. HOBHOUSE: The Bank of England in relation to its private customers is in the same position as any other bank, and the Treasury is not entitled to call for information as to the accounts of those customers. The Bank of England allows no interest on deposits. The treatment of Bank of England notes which have remained outstanding for more than forty years is dealt with by Section 6 of the Bank Act, 1892, under which Returns are annually presented to Parliament. I have no information as to the amount of outstanding notes beyond that which is contained in these Returns. The Bank is always liable to pay a genuine note on presentation, whatever its date of issue.
    MR. J. MACVEAGH: The hon. Gentleman has not stated the total amount that the Bank of England has drawn from these sources in the last 100 years?
    MR. HOBHOUSE: I have stated that the Treasury is not entitled to call for information as to the accounts of the customers.
    MR. J. MACVEAGH: Is it a fact that the Bank of England has no more moral claim to these balances than the man in the moon, and as the joint stock banks of the country are carrying on the same practice and making a handsome profit out of it, does not the hon. Gentleman think that it is time that somebody-stepped in?
    [No Answer was returned.]

    Sir Robert Holmes.
    MR. J. DEVLIN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether the late Treasury Remembrancer, Sir Robert Holmes, had still a year to serve in his office before he could be retired under the 65 rule; whether he had, before he resigned his office, accepted a directorship of the Bank of Ireland; whether this was contrary to the regulations of the Civil Service; and whether the fact that this resignation had been received or tendered was not announced to the public, in order to keep the applications for the office confined to a small area of Treasury clerks.
    Mr. HOBHOUSE: Sir Robert Holmes will attain the age of sixty-five in December next. He intimated to the Treasury in March last his desire to resign, and he was only retained in office after his election as a director of the Bank of Ireland until his successor could be appointed. It is not usual to announce such resignations to the public; and there is no foundation for the suggestion in the last paragraph of the Question.
    MR. MOONEY: Did Sir Robert Holmes, while still a Civil servant, inform the Treasury that he had accepted the appointment of a director of the Bank of Ireland, or did the Treasury first get the information from an outside source and call on him to resign the Remembrancer-ship?
    MR. HOBHOUSE: I understand that Sir Robert himself communicated to the Treasury the fact of his election, and they did not first learn it from an outside source.
    MR. MOONEY: Did he inform the Treasury of his intention to become a director before his actual appointment?
    MR. HOBHOUSE: I understand that he did so.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Is there not a distinct rule in the Civil Service precluding any Civil servant from becoming a director of a public company? Why was Sir Robert allowed to remain after he had accepted such a position?
    MR. HOBHOUSE: He only remained for the convenience of winding up the business of his office, and then it was for but a fortnight.
    MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: When Mr. MacCartney was appointed Deputy Master of the Mint he had to resign his directorship on the London and North Western Railway at once.

    The Official Secrets Bill.
    MR. BELLAIRS: I beg to ask the Prime Minister if, in view of the controversial character of the Official Secrets Bill and the prospective congestion of business, the Government intend to introduce the Bill in this House.
    MR. ASQUITH: The Official Secrets Bill has already been introduced into the House of Lords.
    MR. BELLAIRS: My Question refers to the House of Commons.
    MR. ASQUITH: And I have replied that the Bill has already been introduced into the other House.
    MR. BYLES: When it comes down to this House, having regard to the extaordinary provisions contained in it, will the right hon. Gentleman take care there is ample opportunity for discussing it.
    MR. SPEAKER: That is a hypothetical Question.

    Imperial Transport Organisation.
    MR. CARLILE: I beg to ask the Prime Minister whether he can lay upon the Table of the House the scheme, if any, which His Majesty's Ministers are prepared to suggest as suitable for increasing the transport organisation within the Empire.
    MR. ASQUITH: I am not sure that I understand the hon. Member's Question. But so far as I do understand it I am not aware of any scheme of the kind being in contemplation.
    MR. CARLILE: Does the right hon. Gentleman propose to consider the question in view of the competition we are subjected to by foreign shipping subsidised by foreign Powers?
    MR. ASQUITH: I do not think I can add to my Answer.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: Is it not a fact that a very few years ago a Committee exhaustively inquired into the whole of this question? I will tell the hon. Member all about it.
    [No Answer was returned.]

    Sessional Arrangements.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I beg to ask the Prime Minister whether he will consider the advisability of so arranging the business of the Session each year that the House may be enabled

    519
    to rise for the recess not later than the end of June.
    MR. ASQUITH: If we can succeed in arranging our business, as I hope we may, so as to rise for the recess in July, I think that is as great a change as we can at present propose, or as will be found consistent with the general convenience.
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: Is the right hon. Gentleman in a position to state what particular portion of July?
    MR. ASQUITH: I think it will be very near the end. (Cries of "Which end?")
    MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I hope the right hon. Gentleman will so arrange it that it will not be at any rate after July 12.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
MR. AKERS-DOUGLAS: In asking the Prime Minister a question as to the course of business next week, may I be allowed to express a hope that, inasmuch as peculiar interest attaches to the Budget Resolutions this year, seeing that provision for old-age pensions is included, the right hon. Gentlemen will give the House more than Monday for their consideration?
MR. ASQUITHsaid that the Income Tax Resolution would be taken on Monday, and he hoped they might come to a conclusion on it on that evening. There would be ample opportunity for again discussing the matter on the Second Reading and on the Committee stage of the Finance Bill, and also on the Old-Age Pension Bill itself. On Tuesday, the business would be the Sessional Order enabling the House to take the report of Money Resolutions after eleven o'clock, the report of the remaining Resolutions in Committee of Ways and Means, and the introduction of the Finance Bill; and on Wednesday the Irish Universities expenses Resolution in Committee and a number of small Bills.
MR. CHAPLINsaid there was a considerable desire on the part of many Gentlemen who represented county constituencies to raise a debate on the question of the absence of
520
any provision in the Budget for the relief of local taxation, and, in the circumstances, as well as in view of the importance of the proposal as to old-age pensions, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would see his way to accede to the suggestion of his right hon. friend.
MR. ASQUITHsaid that with every desire to facilitate, and not curtail, discussion on these matters, he really did not think this was a request to which he ought to accede. The right hon. Gentleman would have the most ample opportunities for discussion on the Finance Bill.
SIR E. SASSOONwas understood to ask if the Licensing Bill would be proceeded with before the Budget?
MR. ASQUITH: No, Sir.

EDUCATION (LOCAL AUTHORITIES) BILL.
Reported, with Amendments, from Standing Committee A. Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 152.]
Minutes of the Proceedings of the Standing Committee to be printed [No. 152.]
Bill, as amended (in the Standing Committee), to be taken into consideration upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 233.]"

SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).
Sir WILLIAM BRAMPTON GURDONreported from the Committee of Selection: That they had discharged the following Member from Standing Committee A, Mr. Rothschild; and had appointed in substitution, Mr. Stanier.
Sir WILLIAM BRAMPTON GURDONfurther reported from the Committee: That they had added to Standing Committee A the following Fifteen Members in respect of the Access to Mountains Bill):—Mr. Younger, Sir Arthur Bignold, Sir Samuel Scott, Mr. James Mason, Viscount Castlereagh, Mr. Maddison, Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, Mr. Arnold Herbert, Mr. Lamont, Mr. Trevelyan, Mr. Ainsworth, Mr. Lehmann, Mr. Bryce, Mr. Guy Wilson, and Mr. Gulland.
Sir WILLIAM BRAMPTON GURDONfurther reported from the Committee: That they had discharged the following Member from Standing Committee C (in respect of the Irish Universities Bill), Mr. William Redmond; and had appointed in substitution (in respect of the Irish Universities Bill), Mr. Clancy.
Reports to lie upon the Table.

NEW BILLS.
  POOR LAW AMENDMENT (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  "To simplify the mode of raising the assessment for the Poor in Scotland," presented by Captain Waring; supported by Mr. Williamson and Mr. James Murray; to be read a second time upon Tuesday next, and to be printed. [Bill 234].

CONTEMPTS OF COURT.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. CHERRY,)said that, in asking leave to introduce a Bill to amend the law as to contempt of Court, he desired to state the circumstances which had led him to introduce the Bill and the reasons which induced him to look for the general support of the House. It would be within the recollection of the House that a debate took place on the 10th March last on a Resolution moved by the hon. Member for South Kilkenny on the subject of contempt of Court, and that a Resolution condemning the present law and calling for its amending was adopted by a very large majority in the House. The only contentious or controversial matter which occurred during the progress of that debate arose from a reference made, both in the resolution and in the speeches of the bon. Members who proposed and seconded it, to one particular case, viz., that of the Member for North Westmeath, who was at the time undergoing a sentence of imprisonment for contempt of Court. The House was aware that that matter of controversy had now; fortunately disappeared. Mr. Justice Ross, the Judge who sentenced the hon. Member for North Westmeath, had on his own motion, and without any pressure having been put upon him by the Government, or, so far as he was aware,
522
by any person else, made an order releasing the hon. Member, on the ground that his health had suffered from his continued incarceration. He thought that whatever opinions hon. Members on both sides of the House held as to the particular action of the hon. Member for North Westmeath whether they approved or disapproved of his methods, they could all congratulate themselves on the fact that his imprisonment had now been terminated, and he thought they were all agreed that it reflected to the credit of the learned Judge that he took into account all the circumstances of the case and acted in a merciful manner in releasing the hon. Member before the term of his imprisonment had expired. However that might be, it removed the only subject of contention that arose, for during the progress of the debate on the 10th March there appeared to be, as far as he could judge, a unanimity of opinion on both sides of the House that the law in this respect required amendment. He mentioned in the course of his remarks that a Bill had been introduced in the House of Lords as far back as 1883, by the late Lord Selborne, which proposed to amend the law in several distinct respects. That Bill passed through the House of Lords without a division at any of its stages, came down to the House of Commons, was dropped owing to the want of time at the end of the session, and never passed into law. During the progress of the discussion it was suggested chat a Bill enacting the main provisions of that Bill should be introduced, and that appeared to have been received with general favour in the House. The right hon. Gentleman, the junior Member for the University of Dublin, stated that he would have no objection to the provisions of that Bill being enacted provided that it applied not to Ireland alone, but to the whole country, meaning Ireland and England, and that statement was adopted by the late Chief Secretary for Ireland in a speech which he subsequently made, and at the conclusion of his speech he reiterated the view that had met with; the general acceptation of the House, that the law required amendment, and that the provisions to which he had referred were in his opinion unobjectionable. He was happy to say that, having communicated with the highest legal authorities in England, his hon. and learned friend the

523
Attorney-General, the Lord Chief Justice, and the Lord Chancellor, they all agreed that although the matter was not one of very much importance in England, owing to the fact that committals for contempt of court were very rare, scarcely any having occurred in a recent period, the law might with advantage be amended, and that the provisions which he proposed to embody in the Bill would be a distinct improvement of the law. He therefore, with the concurrence of the Attorney-General, asked leave to introduce a Bill which would apply both to England and to Ireland, but not to Scotland, as he understood the law of Scotland on the subject was quite different, and as a matter of fact the Bill of 1883, although it applied to England and Ireland, did not apply to Scotland. The Bill he asked leave to introduce was with the exception of a few verbal changes owing to changes in the law introduced since 1883, a reproduction of the Bill of 1883, except that he omitted certain sections dealing with ecclesiastical offences. The occasion of the Bill of 1883 was the imprisonment of a clergyman of the Church of England, and one of the clauses dealt particularly with that matter. He did not desire to enter into these ecclesiastical matters, or to encumber the Bill by any reference to them, and therefore he had omitted any clauses dealing purely with ecclesiastical matters. There was another clause also dealing only with wards-of-court which he had omitted, because he did not think it necessary, but if there was any desire that it should be introduced he would be prepared to listen with favourable attention to any such proposal. The first clause of the proposed Bill provided that the maximum term of imprisonment to be imposed upon any person for any contempt of Court was three months, and that applied to Courts of all jurisdictions. The next clause dealt with fines and provided that the maximum fine to be imposed should be £500 in a Court of superior jurisdiction, and £20 in a Court of inferior jurisdiction. The third clause provided that no security was to be required by any Court to be given by any person against the continuance or repetition of any contempt of Court, but if there was a continuation or repetition of the contempt the person so offending would be liable to be imprisoned again for three months and to have a fine
524
imposed on him with the same limit as the maximum amount. Other clauses provided that any person in custody at the time of the passing of the Act, if he had been in custody more than three months, was entitled to immediate release, and if a period of three months had not elapsed since his order for imprisonment, then on the expiration of three months from the date of his committal, he should similarly be entitled to release. Another provision of an important character was that, if in any case any person had suffered damage to himself or his estate by reason of any acts of any person guilty of contempt of Court, the Court might in addition to any fine or term of imprisonment, order the person so guilty of contempt to pay such damages as the Court might adjudge. There was a clause dealing with appeals, and providing that every order for imprisonment or imposing a. fine, whether the contempt was of a civil or a criminal nature, was to be the subject of appeal in the same manner as any other order of the High Court. Those were the main provisions of the Bill which he asked leave to introduce. He begged to move.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the law relating to contempts of Court."—(Mr. Cherry.)
MR. JAMES CAMPBELL, said he did not propose to criticise the provisions of the Bill. He understood his right hon. friend to say that it was proposed to apply the Bill to England as well as to Ireland, and that the object was to impose a limitation both as to the amount of fine and as to the duration of imprisonment, and also to provide an appeal in the case of every committal for contempt. He was sure the House would be prepared to allow the Bill to be read a first time, but it was not to be understood that the attitude of the Opposition necessarily meant that they accepted all the details of the measure which they had not seen or had time to consider. The Bill seemed to be rather elaborate in its features, and more extensive and far-reaching than the legislation proposed in 1903. The only matter he would be inclined to criticise was the suggestion contained in the Bill that three months was to

525
be the maximum penalty in the matter of imprisonment. It seemed to him, perhaps not so much in Ireland as in this country, that that would be a very cheap alternative for a defaulting trustee to pay if, by going to prison for three months, he could retain a trust estate of large dimensions. He gathered, however, from the statement of his right hon. friend that there was a power in the event of continuing contempt to repeat the sentence, and that would perhaps meet the case.
Question put, and agreed to.
Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Attorney-General for Ireland, Mr. Birrell, and Mr. Attorney-General.
Bill "To amend the Law relating to Contempts of Court," presented accordingly, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Monday next, and to be printed. [Bill 235.]

SUPPLY [7th ALLOTTED DAY].
Considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
Mr. EMMOTT (Oldham) in the Chair.

CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1908–9.

  CLASS III.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £160,978, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1909, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Irish Land Commission."
  MR. JOHN ROCHEcalled attention to the serious situation which had arisen on the Clanricarde estates owing to the opposition to, or rather the defeat of, the Evicted Tenants Bill of last year—in fact he might add the defeat of all previous legislation passed by the House in its desire to settle the land question. In order that the House might understand the present position he would refer to the history of the case. The origin of the trouble on the estate arose
  526
  out of the failure of the crops in 1885. That was not confined to the Clanricarde estates alone. The effects were felt all over the western seaboard of Ireland. The tenants approached their landlords with the request that they should contribute something in the shape of a temporary abatement of the rents then due, to enable them to tide over the difficulty with which they were faced. He was pleased to be able to state that the poorer landlords almost without exception met their tenants in a fair and conciliatory spirit, with the result that peace and harmony prevailed on these estates at the present moment. Clanricarde did not even acknowledge the memorial of the tenants. The first acknowledgment they had from him were writs from the Superior Court for the rents. The amount then due would not be equal to the cost incurred in obtaining the judgments in the Superior Court. At the time there was no such thing as a plan of campaign in Ireland at all. It was not mentioned for twelve months afterwards, and he had no hesitation in saying that no man living was more responsible for the plan of campaign programme than Clanricarde himself. Having got these judgments he proceeded to evict the poor tenants on the 19th August, 1885. A large force of police was drafted into the place and the people naturally resented the evictions. They collected in large numbers and when the sheriff appeared at the houses of the tenants about to be evicted the tenants offered him rents due in full, and in addition, the costs which would have been incurred by Clanricarde if he had proceeded in the ordinary way before the County Court. The sheriff had no power to accept anything short of a pound of flesh, and between 19th and 27th August the houses of the tenants were captured by the enemy. There were between 500 and 600 police and soldiers on the scene for nine or ten days and the House could imagine the enormous expense incurred by the State in connection with these evictions, in order that Clanricarde might wreak his vengeance and vindictiveness on the unhappy tenants. Sir Michael Hicks Beach, now Lord St. Aldwyn, who was Chief Secretary at the time, in an interview with Clanricarde's agent pointed out the difficulty and trouble that would arise in future evictions and urged that Clanricarde should recognise the claims

  527
  of the poor tenants as the poorer landlords had done throughout the length and breadth of the country. The correspondence was published in the Journals of the House. The then Chief Secretary distinctly stated that unless the claims of the tenants were recognised and concessions made similar to those made by other landlords, the forces of the Government if required by Clanricarde in future would not be given for the work. That had no effect, and Joyce retired. Then the present man, a bankrupt, came down and took up the job. Evictions went on until they reached the number of 170. During all the time the tenants never ceased to display their willingnes to come to a reasonable settlement He might also mention that Lord Eversley, then a prominent member of the Gladstone Government, sought to interfere and went down to the district with the object of holding a demonstration. On the eve of the demonstration, Lord Clanricarde at last recognised claims made by the tenants; but only to this extent, that if the tenants paid every shilling of arrears due up to date, they would receive 20 per cent. off the last half-year's rent. It was needless to say that it was impossible for the tenants to accept those conditions. After all the misery and expense that was incurred, halting legislation was taken up in this House, with the result of which they were all conversant. All the legislation of the past had not been of the value of a fraction of a penny to the tenants on the Clanricarde estates. The Land Bill of 1903 was introduced and promises were made by the Government of the day that that Bill would be calculated to settle the entire agrarian trouble in Ireland, and particularly that the congested districts in the western portion would be dealt with in a generous spirit and that the evicted tenants would be restored to the land. But under that Bill when it became law not a solitary evicted tenant on the Clanricarde Estates had been reinstated or derived a fraction of benefit whatever from it. So passed four years and then another Bill was introduced, known as the Evicted Tenants Bill. The present Chief Secretary for Ireland in introducing the Bill described it as "a measure to enable both Houses of Parliament to keep faith with the Irish people within the terms of the Land Conference and to affect the speedy
  528
  restoration of the evicted tenants to their holdings." But he did not rest his case on the description of the Bill entirely on the statement of the Chief Secretary. In another place the Earl of Mayo, who had been a member of the Land Conference, said that—
  "it was essential that a good understanding should be arrived at."
  Now, he asked, was there any man in the House who believed for one moment that the Land Bill of 1903 would ever have been placed on the Statute-book had it not been for the faith that those promises and that understanding which the hon. Members on those benches accepted would be honourably kept? Lord Lansdowne said on the Second Reading—
  "We are pledged to a measure of reinstatement of some kind. If you throw out the Bill it will be said that you have receded from the kind of undertaking which we arrived at in 1903."
  The Earl of Arran in the same debate said—
  "The reinstatement of the evicted tenants is to bring the spirit of peace to the tenants of Ireland. Let every evicted tenant be reinstated so long as that is not done at the expense of injustice to anybody else."
  Before he sat down he would show that there was not the slightest intention of doing injustice to anybody. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Dublin in the debate in February last on the Bill in the House of Commons said that—
  "it had been contended that the settlement of the evicted tenants was part of the agreement of 1903,"
  and the right hon. Gentleman went on to define that agreement and to say—
  "There can be no doubt whatever that in the interests not merely of these unfortunate people themselves, but in the interests of the successful working of the great Purchase Act, their reinstatement was looked upon as an essential element."
  The Evicted Tenants Act was passed by the Commons. It went to the House of Lords where it was mutilated almost beyond recognition, so that the Irish Members could not accept any responsibility for it. It was, however, accepted by the Government, and it raised the hopes of the people on the Clanricarde estate, who believed that the Estates Commissioners would have compulsory powers to acquire land for their settlement. The Commissioners then set 'to work and sent down inspectors to

  529
  inquire into the condition of the estate. As he (Mr. Roche) and his friends had foreseen, it was found that, with one exception, the planters welcomed the Bill, and desired that it should begin to operate immediately—the exception being that of a man who had been given a post as bailiff and gatekeeper on the estate, with a large salary. The Commissioners proceeded to acquire holdings, and that moment Clanricarde objected. The case was tried before Judge Wylie. The planters as well as the tenants were represented in the Court, desiring a settlement. The Judge decided on behalf of the Commissioners and planters. Clanricarde appealed, and while the appeal was pending he himself received letters from several planters begging him to use whatever influence he possessed with the Commissioners, to hurry them up and take the land from them, to allow them to go out with the compensation provided for in the Act, and permit the new tenants to come in. And they stated that one of the reasons for this request was that it was spring, the time for sowing the crops. The planters added that they themselves were not going to grow any crops that year, and unless the new tenants were let in the arable parts of the land would be valueless and become derelict that year. Upon receiving that letter he put a Question in the House which was answered last April. The Answer was that the matter was pending in the Court of Appeal and until the Court decided the Commissioners could take no further action. The Court of Appeal decided last week. Clanricarde seemed to be very fortunate when he appealed to the Court of Appeal. This was not the first time he had gone to the Court to upset the finding of the Judge. He knew nothing of the gentlemen who formed the Court of Appeal, and he cared less, but after their decision he held it was the duty of the Government at once to take up this question and give effect to a Bill which would put the matter right. The Massarene estate was to some extent on the same lines as the Clanricarde estate. Evictions took place and new tenants were placed on the land. But let the Committee contrast the difference between the two. On the Massarene estate the clauses of the Land Bill and the Evicted Tenants Bill were allowed to operate, with the result that
  530
  the planters had gone, the old tenants had come in, and £7,400 of Irish State money had been expended on the operation which had restored peace and harmony on that estate. On the Clanricarde estate both planter and evicted were shut out by the decision of Court of Appeal. They were dealing with a cruel and' relentless creature whom most of them had never seen since he inherited the estate thirty-five years ago. Since then he had never been in Ireland. He did not even return on the death of his mother, and his sister had to protect the family vault from exposure at her own expense. Any one who would study the history of this estate for the last thirty years would find across its face a trail of blood and tears. One of Clanricarde's agents was shot in the open day. Naturally such an event excited a great deal of attention and comment, most of it unfavourable to Clanricarde, who vilified his agent. The agent's wife took proceedings in the Courts to vindicate the character and honour of her husband, and what did Clanricarde do? He met her action by an appeal to the Court for an injunction and restrained her from publishing the letter which would have vindicated the honour of her husband. Clanricarde attempted to play the same game with Blake Joyce, who came in after. But Joyce took proceedings, and the Court recognised his claim and awarded him damages. But, of course, the convenient Court of Appeal to which Clanricarde then went reversed the judgment. Such was the character of the man whose victims, through their representatives in this House, appealed to the representatives of a free people and implored them to stay the hand of this cruel and relentless creature, and send them a message of hope that they might know that a brighter future was in store for them. He begged to move the reduction of the Vote by £100.
  Whereupon Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £160,878, be granted for the said Service."—(Mr. John Roche).
  MR. LARDNERsaid that in supporting the Motion of his hon. friend he would, he was afraid, have to trouble the Committee with some figures. Towards the end of last year the Evicted

  531
  Tenants Bill was passed into law, and the feeling of this House was one of gratitude, of joy that there was a possibility of peace being brought to one of the most unfortunate classes of the Irish community. But a fortnight before the measure was introduced the Estates Commissioners issued a special Report of all their proceedings up to 31st May, 1907, in respect of persons applying as evicted tenants for restoration to their holdings. That Report showed that 8,401 applications had been received, 6,143 had been inquired into and reported on, and 2,935 had been rejected on one of eight grounds, none of which were in any case disclosed. Up to the 31st May, 1907, 1,033 tenants had been provided for either by restoration to their old holdings or to others, 946 had been restored to their old holdings, and eighty-seven to new holdings that had been provided for them. The Commissioners also reported that they had not been able to inquire into or report on 2,658 applications up to that date, but they estimated that there would be 400 suitable applicants in this number, so that with the 1,609 reported cases there were at 31st May, 1907, over 2,000 evicted tenants to be reinstated, and that to that date, 31st May, 1907, 1,033 tenants had been reinstated or otherwise provided for. A few days since a Return authorised by Section 3 of the Evicted Tenants (Ireland) Act was put at the disposal of this House, which disclosed a very strange state of affairs. It was a Return giving the particulars of all the tenants or the representatives of tenants who had been reinstated since the passing of the Act of 1903, in their holdings up to the 31st December, 1907. The figures showed that up to 31st May, 1,033 had been reinstated, whilst the total number reinstated up to the 31st December, according to the latter return, wore 1,036. That was to say between June and December three tenants were reinstated. That would seem to show that the Act of last year had been a failure. There was no doubt after what they had heard from the hon. Gentleman who moved the reduction that it was a failure so far as the Clanricarde estate was concerned. He was not inclined to blame the Estates Commissioners for being unsympathetic or to blame them for any breach of duty, but he must say that he thought there was gross delay at the Com-
  532
  missioners' office. It might be due to want of sufficient staff or due to unsuitable office accommodation. But in Ireland there was this great public department carrying out the transfer of land to the tenants, fixing fair rents of the land which was not sold, collecting the interest on over £30,000,000 of land that had been purchased by the Land Commissioners, and in the six months from June to December they had only reinstated three tenants. The office was contained in five or six old houses, very like a Bloomsbury- lodging - house. It was like a rabbit warren, one house opening into another, and boring from one room into another as the work increased. If a private business grew as had the work of the Estates Commissioners, the owner of that business instead of taking up one old house after another, would build himself a suitable office with adequate accommodation.
  MR. BARRIEsaid so far as he was aware the provision of accommodation for the Land Commission was not included in the Vote.
  THE CHAIRMANsaid that the Vote referred to the work of the Land Commission, and if the members of the Commission were hampered in their work by inadequate office accommodation, it was not out of order to refer to it.
  MR. LARDNERventured respectfully to submit that one of the reasons why the work of the Land Commission was impeded and delayed was want of proper accommodation. They might be told that a most up-to-date office for the Examiners of Tills had been provided in Nassau Street. It certainly looked imposing, and when one went up in the lift one felt most unlegal, but if they wanted to get any business done they had better take up their abode there. The work of the Land Commission should be done in one building and under one control, in order that it might be done expeditiously and with proper attention. He was informed that the staff was not sufficient, and that the department was wholly undermanned. It was necessary that there should be an adequate staff if the 2,000 evicted tenants were to be reinstated within a reasonable period. He would like to show what was the process which had to be followed

  533
  where an evicted tenant sought to be reinstated. Take the case of a tenant who had been evicted twenty years. He made his application for reinstatement, and he received a printed acknowledgment. Four or five months afterwards he was visited by a gentleman who sometimes came without notice and occasionally having previously notified his intention of coming. The evicted tenant had a chat with him, and they looked over the farm. After the lapse of another three or four months came a letter stating that the Commissioners had considered his application for reinstatement and had decided not to accede to the application. The unfortunate tenant wrote to ask "Why?" He got a reply that it had been decided to reject his application. "Why?" he again very properly asked. The reply he received was that it was not the practice of the Commissioners to disclose the grounds of their refusal. He objected to that method of procedure in the very strongest way, and he would, in this connection, like to read to the House the possible grounds of objection which might be raised against the application of an evicted tenant for reinstatement. There were eight in number, first, that the eviction had taken place over twenty-five years ago; second, that the applicant was a herd or a caretaker; third, that he voluntarily sold or surrendered his farm; fourth, that he lost the holding through creditors or through family disputes; fifth, that he was unsuitable to work the land by reason of age or infirmity, or want of farming experience and habits of industry, or he was incompetent for other reasons; sixth, that he was not a bona fide evicted tenant, or representative of a bona fide evicted tenant; seventh, that the applicant was not an evicted tenant but a defaulting annuitant for a purchased farm; and lastly, that the applicant had at the present time a holding sufficient for his requirements. Now, under 4 and 5 the claim of any evicted tenant for reinstatement, no matter how strong his case was, might be rejected if an inspector was unfriendly to the applicant. He did not wish to say that the Commissioners had abused or would abuse in the powers, but they were relying on the report of an inspector who probably had only one short interview with the applicant. Then take the case of a hostile landlord who did not want to see evicted tenants restored to
  534
  their holdings. He plied the Commissioners with letters stating the bad qualities of the man, that he was not industrious, not sober, that he was old and infirm, incompetent, or that there were other reasons against him which an agent could very easily find. The tenant never heard of these communications; possibly a poor and illiterate man, out of his farm for years, living by his daily earning without means to enable him to get professional assistance to prosecute his claim. He did not think that was right. He claimed in the very strongest way that the applicant for reinstatement should be told the definite ground on which his application had been refused. He asked the Chief Secretary to see that the Commissioners in rejecting claims in the future, set out the plain grounds of the rejection; then the evicted tenant would know where he stood, and would have an opportunity of refuting, if he could, the statements made against him. An inspector went to look at a holding in the North of Ireland, and said he saw no reason why the evicted tenant should not be restored. His parting message was—"You had better send up a letter of character from the sergeant of police." He was sure that everyone in that House would be surprised to learn that the evicted tenant farmer had to depend upon a letter as to his character provided by a sergeant of police in order to get reinstated in his old holding. Then as to the delay in the payment of free grants. He had personal knowledge of a case in which an unfortunate woman, had made application for a free grant, and though she had repeatedly renewed it, she had always received the reply that the matter was under consideration. He urged the Chief Secretary that the grants should be made at the time of the reinstatement, and should not be delayed. It was not conferring great benefit on a man to restore him to a farm which had deteriorated to the last degree, and had gone back to prairie condition. In the case of evicted farms which he knew, the buildings were in ruins, the fences destroyed, and the drains choked. Yet it was off such a farm that the unfortunate woman to whom he referred had been waiting anxiously for the last two years for this dole which would give her a fresh start in life. If the 2,000 tenants who were still on the road were to be sent back in our day,

  535
  something must be done to strengthen the hands of the Commissioners and expedite their work. Remember the Evicted Tenants Bill of last year only operated for four years, and unless some thing was done which would enable the Commissioners to deal with the last champions of landlord tyranny, there was little hope of peace and prosperity for Ireland, or of the evicted tenants getting back to the homes they loved, to till the land which Providence intended them to cultivate and enjoy.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. BIRRELL,): I have listened with great respect and attention to the hon. Member for East Galway, who I know has done his best to try and secure peace and harmony. He speaks with knowledge and experience of the evicted tenants in his neighbourhood. The hon. Member dealt with what has happened to the Evicted Tenants Act of last session. I cannot say that I am very much surprised at the consequences, and of course I would be the last, having had the advantage of a legal training, to criticise, even if it were useful to do so, the reasons why the Court of Appeal in Ireland had occasion to reverse—I do not doubt they had good legal grounds for their view—the decision of the Court below. I am very glad that the provision in question was not part of the original Bill. It was introduced in the House of Lords, and I accepted it with profound reluctance, being indeed doubtful as to what construction might possibly be placed upon it by a Court of law. I was of two minds for a long time as to whether the Bill was worth having, subject to that condition. However, not having been very fortunate in my legislative efforts, I was desirous of seeing the Bill put upon the Statute-book, and I reluctantly consented to the proviso being added. The House will remember what the proviso was. A restriction was placed on the power of acquiring tenanted land by compulsion, and the proviso was that no tenanted land should be acquired compulsorily which was in the possession or occupation of a bona fide tenant using or cultivating the same as an ordinary farmer in accordance with proper methods of husbandry. The case of these bona fide tenants was pleaded with great vehemence by gentlemen opposite and also by noble Lords in another
  536
  place, and we were charged with proposing a most tyrannous Act because it was suggested that we contemplated the turning out from his farm of a bona fide tenant who was unwilling to go. We pointed out that there was no probability of any such tyranny being exercised by the persons authorised to put the Act into force, but we were told that it was not for Parliament to rely at all on the discretion of outside authorities, but that it was its solemn duty to secure that no person being a bona fide farmer occupying a farm from which someone had been evicted should be turned out against his will. Of course-everybody must feel there was a certain force in that contention, particularly those ignorant of the circumstances of the case and of the nature of the nobleman in question and his relations with his tenants. I will only read the observation that fell from the lips of Lord Lansdowne in the House of Lords to show that the view he took of this proviso was that it was simply to protect those planters, upright and struggling men, who had remained there for a great many years, who liked the holdings, were on good terms with their neighbours and did not want to go, and the proviso which was introduced in the House of Lords was introduced to secure these persons. This is the language which he used—
  "What is the difficulty which looms so-large in the way of His Majesty's Government? They urge that a great many of these planters are men of straw, that they are 'caretakers,' and that the number of bona fide farmers who would come within our definition is a very small one. Wry well. That shows, I think, that the difficulty which they will, have to deal with is a very small difficulty, although the total number of cases is a large one. The 'caretakers,' the nondescripts, the birds of passage, will not be protected under the terms of our Amendment. Then there are other of these planter-tenants who no doubt will be perfectly willing to move elsewhere under the liberal inducements which are to be offered to them; those men are willing to go and need not be considered. What then remains? Only that residuum—that handful of courageous men—who are farming their land properly, who have their farms stocked, who are paying their rent and who wish to remain where they are. Those are the men you want to be able to turn out in order to make room for the agitators who have been concerned in the discreditable events of the last few years."
  That is a frank, clear statement by the wielder of many legions in another place, and that showed clearly what the

  537
  general view of this proviso was. It was to protect those tenants who were occupying farms from which the former holders had been evicted and who did not want to go. That was an argument difficult to resist. I do not think it was capable of being resisted by persons with a peculiar knowledge of the circumstances of the locality. As a general proposition it appealed to them that an honest man who was cultivating his farm well and did not want to go should not be turned out of his home and house where he had lived for years, and the Leader of the Opposition showed how undesirable and improper and unfair it was that such a man should be taken up by the root and sent away. Of course, that is not now the interpretation that the Court of Appeal has put upon the proviso. The interpretation they have put upon it is that if he is there cultivating his land properly he cannot be sent away, even though he is glad to go and has accepted the terms which are offered him. I remember visiting this place and quite accidentally I saw two or three of these planters. I was most careful, being, I trust, an honest man, to tell them that the Act secured to them the amplest protection, that they were under no obligation to go, and if they did not want to go they were protected and entitled to remain, and I certainly, not being altogether indifferent to courage where I have seen it, spoke to them in terms of encouragement in their attitude of doing what was best for themselves. I found them a little sore about the manner in which they had been brought there, and they thought they had not been treated quite fairly. I am bound to say they spoke in kindly terms of the parish priest, saying that he had always stood by them, and had done his very best to secure that they should not be exposed to the pains and penalties sometimes imposed on people adopting an unpopular cause in Ireland, and that although they had had at times to suffer some hardships their attitude generally towards their neighbours, although they were Protestants and had come from afar, was by no means an unkindly one. But they wanted to go; they had had enough of it, and Lord Lansdowne's view of the proviso, which he himself introduced, and insisted on, in another place, was that it was not intended to interfere with the settlement of this difficult question by the removal of those persons ready to
  538
  go. So I say that, whilst in no way criticising the language of the law, we all of us know, who have ever had occasion to defend or attempt to explain an Act of Parliament in a Court of law, that it is of no use telling the Judge what the intentions of the framers were. They very properly will not allow you to read a speech, either of a Minister in charge of the Bill or of the hon. Gentleman opposite in charge of the Minister in charge of the Bill, or to make any reference whatever to the nature of the discussion. They say: "I can only read this Act of Parliament according to the laws of grammar." I will not trouble the House with the legal decisions, but they came quite clearly to the opinion—the three Judges in the Court of Appeal—that there was an insuperable obstacle placed upon the acquisition compulsorily of un-tenanted land if it was being held by a planter, bona fide carrying it on in accordance with the rules of husbandry. The moment you find that, you are powerless, and there it must remain; this Act, which we had hoped would become the means of conciliating, and of removing the difficulties in regard to Lord Clanricarde's tenants, is entirely powerless. I confess I am not wholly disposed to let the matter stop there. I think we all of us, both in this House and in another place, can have no other anxiety than to remedy our error. It may be our fault, the clumsiness of our expression, the hasty mode in which the negotiations were conducted between the two Houses, at the end of the session, but when there is not time to turn round, when you have to make up your minds in a few moments on the meaning of a proviso suddenly held at your head, and told that you must accept that or nothing, there is some excuse for the blunder which both Houses have made in this matter. I have had an opportunity of consulting with the Prime Minister, and, as the other place is not very much employed at the present time, I do not think it would be a bad plan, if we can, to introduce elsewhere a Bill of one clause—three or four words will make it perfectly plain that the transaction can be carried out without the consent of the landlord. I feel quite certain that when Lord Lansdowne is reminded of the language which he employed, language so exactly in accord with the wishes of us all,

  539
  that measure will be accelerated in all its stages, and we shall be in the position before very long of not only having given effect to our wishes, but in such a legal form as will prevent them being made waste paper in any Court of Law. The Evicted Tenants Bill was received in this House very fairly indeed. We all remember the speech of the right hon. Member for South Dublin, and I am bound to confess that the whole of the debates were friendly. Let bygones be bygones. We do not want to go into the history of these evicted tenants, we do not want to inquire too closely how it came about. The Land-Conference made it part of their conditions that the restoration should be done as quickly as possible. Unfortunately restoration is always difficult and takes a long time, but the Act contemplates, as quickly as possible, getting rid of this troublesome thing. The Act does this, no doubt, in spite of the opposition of hon. Members opposite, who fought hard on this one particular point. I urged that it was best not to have this proviso. I thought it was dangerous and unnecessary, though I cannot but acknowledge that there was some force in the argument, taken separately and simply as an ethical maxim. Therefore, although I have some little regard for my reputation as a lawyer, I was not unwilling to accept it, although I was a little anxious as to what interpretation a Court of Law would put on it, and if I had pressed for the point I feel sure it would have been made perfectly plain. The proviso was tagged on as a whole, and was not amended. I accepted it, and it has upset us altogether, and therefore I think the House will agree that there will be no injustice in seeking to rectify that one particular error, and to secure that it means no more than Lord Lansdowne said it did. And now with regard to this general process I want to make a very short statement. I do not think there is any dispute about the figures, although they are not worked out right down to the present day. The number of evicted tenants that had been reinstated under Section 2 of the Act of 1903 down to 31st May, 1907, was 1,033, but the number now is 1,595. Therefore 562 have been reinstated during the last twelve months. Of this number, 429 have been reinstated by landlords and 133 by the Commissioners on land purchased by them. The Commissioners
  540
  are disposed to think that, on the whole, and having regard to the difficulties of the question, these figures are not unsatisfactory. The Act of last session only came into force on 24th October, so that they have only had six months experience of its working. We are all, in the matter of land purchase and the restoration of evicted tenants, in a great hurry. We all want to see the job done as quickly as the financial arrangements will allow. But it is only fair to remind the House that we cannot, in dealing with a Land Act, proceed with red-hot haste, and we have to submit to a good deal of delay. The first thing you have to do is to find out where there is suitable land for compulsory acquisition. Then you have to find out who is the owner—and this I can assure the House is sometimes a most difficult task—and you have to place yourself in communication with him. You have to give the public notice through the Gazette and you have to serve copies of the notice upon all the parties interested. A report has to be obtained and sent in to the Commissioners, who have to meet and consider it. You may then have to give the owner a month to make up his mind about your offer, and if he refuses it then there has to be a time fixed for the hearing of the case, and his objection has to be determined judicially. You have to allow the owner time to appeal. He may claim that the land you want is part of the homo farm and you cannot buy it. We cannot, however anxious we may be, comply with the necessary procedure in less than six months. Since October we have used the powers of the Act to acquire land compulsorily for the purpose of the restoration of these evicted tenants in thirty-five cases. In one of these cases, owing to the ultimate readiness of the landlord to accelerate the processes, we have carried it out and, all objections being waived, we have concluded the matter and nine evicted tenants have been reinstated on the land. In the other cases, objections have been lodged, and the time for the consideration of those objections has not yet been reached. With regard to the Clanricarde estate, we were willing to pay the price, and then Lord Clanricarde, being advised that this Act does not bear the interpretation we hoped it would, made his appeal, with the result with which the Committee are

  541
  acquainted. Though I am as much annoyed at the delay as anybody, I do not think it can be said that, during the six months in which the rules have been in force, the Estates Commissioners have acted otherwise than as quickly as they could. There are difficulties in the way of the Commissioners in this work of the restoration of evicted tenants. Many of these tenants will not take any land except that from which they were formerly evicted. In many cases they cannot get the land from which they were formerly evicted, because it is in the possession of bona fide tenants, and the evicted tenants refuse to take other untenanted land which we offer to them. Then, again, sometimes when they are willing to take untenanted land in lieu of their old holdings, the people in the locality do not at all welcome their coming there. It is only fair to bear in mind that evicted tenants are not the universal favourites that we may be led, from debates in this House, sometimes to think is the case. This applies both to land under the Act of 1903 and to land compulsorily taken under the Act of last year. Then the evicted tenants want to remain in their own county. That is a very natural wish, but the difficulty is that, in many of the counties, there is no untenanted land available for them, and therefore the situation becomes one of very great difficulty. These are some of the causes which have led to delay, but, great as is that delay, I do not think that, with the present staff at their disposal, I can honestly hold out any prospect of its being very materially reduced. I am engaged in the most searching inquiry as to where the delay occurs, as to where all this leakage of time is. I confess the delay does startle me. The delay does not occur in the examiners' office or in the distribution of the money, but in the inspection of the estates and the preliminary survey which is carried out with an insufficient staff. It is a delay of two, three, and sometimes four years. There is undoubtedly a considerable leakage somewhere, and the House of Commons is entitled to know where it is. Some people say it is the Treasury, but they are able to reply that with regard to land purchase they have never refused an actual demand for money which has been put properly before them. Whether they have always allowed a sufficient staff is quite another
  542
  matter. With regard to the housing of the Land Commission, I do not think that that is a really important point.
  MR. JOHN REDMOND: Will the right hon. Gentleman say what sort of inquiry he contemplates? Is it by a Departmental Committee?
  MR. BIRRELL: NO, I have a much better plan than that; I am inquiring myself by a series of examinations and cross-examinations of the people in the place, and of the members of the Land Commission, and I would be very glad to be assisted by any number of persons. But I really do not think that in a matter of that kind, at present at all events, there is much occasion for a public inquiry, because I think I will be able to elicit the facts for myself. I am prepared to receive any assistance I may stand in need of.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: When does the right hon. Gentleman hope to report?
  Ms. BIRRELL: I shall be perfectly prepared to communicate to the House without unnecessary delay the result of my investigations. The hon. Member for Monaghan spoke of the refusal of the Commissioners to give their grounds of objection. I am bound to say that I do not think it would be possible for the Commissioners to give their grounds of objection. Although the House is most anxious to do justice to the evicted tenant and to see him restored, you should remember that he is not exactly in the position of a litigant. He has thrown himself on the mercy of the House, and perhaps he has not had a full measure of it. We are doing our best to restore a great; number of persons who of necessity are exceedingly poor; some are aged, and there is no use putting them upon the land unless they have the strength and energy to employ a free grant properly in the work of the farm. It would not facilitate or accelerate the working of the Act if every person whom the Commissioners refused was entitled to demand a rehearing in consequence of some criticism which he would be sure to offer upon the nature of the grounds on which the Commissioners had acted, and therefore I cannot hold out any assurance on that

  543
  point. Having regard to the delicacy of their operations, I think the Commissioners must be trusted. I certainly think the delay in the making of free grants is a matter that should be looked into at once. I should have thought that, as soon as an action was decided in favour of the evicted tenant and a farm had been found for him, it would be obviously desirable and convenient to see that he was put into a position to make something of it. It is cold comfort to put a poor person on a barren bit of land unless you supply him with the means of making his living out of it. I have not heard any complaints on that matter, although I have no doubt that they exist. [An HON. MEMBER: They will be pointed out in a few minutes.] I will promise to make inquiries into the matter. It is obvious that the free grant should accompany the placing of a person on the land.
  MR. LONSDALEasked whether anything had been done to remove the financial block in the working of the Land Act. The Prime Minister in reply to a deputation in November last promised that in two months a scheme would be submitted to the House. Six months had elapsed and nothing had been done.
  MR. BIRRELL: I do not remember the Prime Minister saying so, but the hon. Gentleman is no doubt accurate. I am not in a position at the present moment to lay before the Committee any useful information as to the mode in which we propose to deal with the financial block.
  MR. JAMES CAMPBELLsaid the right hon. Gentleman had expressed a desire to know what were the causes of the delay which undoubtedly had characterised the proceedings of the various Land Commissions since 1903 up to the present. He could give him some assistance. He would suggest that the right hon. Gentleman should begin in the first place with the Estates Commissioners. All in this House knew that one of the cardinal and essential principles of the settlement which was supposed to be carried into law by the Act of 1903, was that where the tenants' rents wore judicial rents, and whore the landlord was willing to sell, and the tenants were willing to buy, within what were called the zone
  544
  figures, there was to be no further investigation as to security. He quite agreed that when the question of the zones came up for decision in Committee during the progress of the Bill of 1903, a strong complaint was made by some hon. Members below the gangway against that provision, but to the credit of those who were responsible for that land settlement that portion was adhered to and found its place in Section 1 of the Act. But from that hour the Estates Commissioners had deliberately set themselves to override that provision, and the result had been that in cases which came within the exact terms of Section 1, and where the sales ought to have gone through without the least delay, months had been wasted in the most frivolous investigations, and questions put by the Estates Commissioners solely for the purpose of getting behind the provisions of the Act and assuming jurisdiction which this House refused to confer on them, namely, the power of inquiring into the security. They did not sin without light and loading, because two or three years ago the question came up in a well-known case which went to the Court of Appeal. That Court declared in express terms that if the cases came within the zones the Estates Commissioners had no right or power to put those queries to the tenants or the landlords where the queries were manifestly only concerned with the question of security. That decision, from that hour to this, had been deliberately disobeyed by the Estates Commissioners.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: At the instance of the Treasury.
  MR. JAMES CAMPBELLsaid he did not know who was responsible, but the fact could not be contradicted. A few months ago another case was taken to the Court of Appeal, and again the Court told them that they were deliberately violating the law, and that the questions they were putting with the object of beating down the vendor were outside their jurisdiction. He could give the Chief Secretary the names of the estates referred to if he wished to have them. He had been consulted over and over again in regard to estates where the vendors had been tormented for months with queries with regard to

  545
  the history of the holdings, all of which were outside the jurisdiction of the Commissioners. Therefore, if the right hon. Gentleman wanted to find out the causes of the delay, he would recommend him to begin at the fountain head, and he would find that the action of the Estates Commissioners in the direction referred to was largely responsible. He did not say that if the law were otherwise these investigations might not be very proper, but when Parliament had determined, as the result of a compromise, to give this concession to vendors whose tenants had had fair rents fixed, it was improper and wrong for the Estates Commissioners to attempt to overrule that solemn decision. Again, with reference to the recent decision as regards the powers of the Estates Commissioners in dealing with tenanted land which they proposed to purchase compulsorily for the purpose of restoring evicted tenants, no one reading the language of the Act could entertain the slightest doubt that the Court of Appeal was right. The Chief Secretary had no doubt as to the effect of the Amendment made by the House of Lords in the Evicted Tenants Bill, for he candidly stated that the introduction of these words was a triumph for Lord Clanricarde. There was nothing novel in the procedure of the House of Lords in that respect, because the right hon. Gentleman would recollect that when the Bill was in the House of Commons he himself had an Amendment down on the Paper in precisely the same language, but owing to the fall of the guillotine it was not reached. He would also remind the right hon. Gentleman that he suggested to him, with the view of avoiding argument, that when his Amendment was reached he was inclined to give it some favourable consideration. What was the history of the Amendment? When the Bill of 1903 was going through the House of Commons it was distinctly stated by the hon. and learned Member for Waterford—and he thought also by the hon. Member for East Mayo—that he for one could be no party to ever seeking to apply compulsion to any tenant or so-called planter who was a bona fide farmer.
  MR. JOHN REDMONDsaid that that was not the case where a
  546
  bona fide planter wanted to give up his holding.
  MR. JAMES CAMPBELLsaid he would come to that. What he was stating now was the history of the introduction of the Amendment, and they must begin at the beginning of a history and not at the end. The hon. and learned Member for Waterford stated distinctly that he would never ask oh behalf of his party that compulsion should be applied to disturb planters in their holdings who were bona fide cultivating them as farmers. On the strength of that statement he took the liberty of putting down the Amendment which met with the fate to which he had referred, and afterwards the House of Lords' Amendment was introduced. Hon. Gentlemen below the gangway forgot and the right hon. Gentleman overlooked the fact that there were two persons in Ireland as well as in England and Scotland who were interested in a holding—the landlord as well as the tenant. Under the Act of 1881, if a tenant chose to sell his holding—as those planters might do to-morrow—the landlord had the right to serve a notice of pre-emption, and to have the value of that holding determined, and to purchase it himself. The landlord had an interest in retaining a good tenant who had cultivated his farm as a farmer, and in not having that tenant displaced against the will of the landlord, and having forced upon him by the Estates Commissioners a tenant who might have been one of the worst and most impoverished persons in the community—a man who might have been the centre of disorder and disturbance, a man who had actually taken part, as a ringleader, in crime and intimidation in the district. Was it to be said that Parliament last year intended that the bona fide good farmer, presumably solvent and who paid his rent, was to be compulsorily got rid of in favour of such a man? There was a fallacy in the argument of hon. Gentlemen below the gangway. They overlooked the fact that the landlord had still some interest in his property in Ireland, and that he should be protected from the State coming down in the persons of the Estate Commissioners and saying—"We will turn out the bona fide honest, hard-working tenant who was

  547
  cultivating his land as a farmer in order to reinstate this other man, without your being consulted."
  MR. A. ROCHEsaid that the plaster Was anxious to go, but the law would not allow him to go.
  MR. JAMES CAMPBELLsaid that in that respect the law was perfectly just and consistent. He would put the ease to the hon. Gentleman who interrupted him, that if he were the fortunate owner of house property in the hands of decent, respectable men paying rent, and if the State came to these men and ordered them to break their contracts with him against his will and without consulting him, so that their places might be taken by men who had subjected him for a number of years to intimidation and annoyance, would he say that the State acted with wisdom and justice? He would further point out that in the case of the farmer to whom he referred, there was no great hardship to the tenant, except that he would not get the extra year's purchase to induce him to go. But on the other hand, he could sell his farm in the open market without the consent of the landlord; but in that case the landlord had the right to step in and say he would buy it. If they deprived the landlord of his rights under the evicted tenant legislation, why should not the landlord say, "I will not allow these tenants to be compulsorily bought out by a bribe from the State without my consent." He maintained that the Chief Secretary must have construed the Lords' Amendment in that sense, otherwise: he failed to see how he could have described it as "a triumph for Lord Clanricarde." Not only that, the right hon. Gentleman said on 26th August last that the introduction of the Lords' Amendment "had made compulsory reinstatement impossible." It was, therefore, no use the right hon. Gentleman saying now that the Amendment came upon him as a surprise. The right hon. Gentleman was a distinguished lawyer himself, and had the assistance of the Attorney-General and of the Solicitor-General for Ireland, and was it now to be said that the construction of an Act of Parliament was to depend on the construction of a man who was not a lawyer himself.
  MR. BIRRELL: It showed the intention of an honest man.
  MR. JAMES CAMPBELLsaid he supposed the right hon. Gentleman would not exclude himself from that category. The right hon. Gentleman said that, "the result of the Lords' Amendment is to make the compulsory acquisition of land impossible; and it is a triumph for Lord Clanricarde." He was astonished that the right hon. Gentleman should have stated just now that that Amendment took him by surprise and that he was not aware of it.
  MR. BIRRELLstated that if he said that he must have said what was rather foolish, because there had been a good deal of land acquired compulsorily under that Act.
  MR. JAMES CAMPBELLsaid that he held no brief for Lord Clanricarde.
  MR. BIRRELL: I hope not.
  MR. JAMES CAMPBELLsaid it was not a question of Lord Clanricarde but a question of the law of the land. It would be a very dangerous precedent if they were to begin to tinker or tamper with this question merely because the Act had failed to carry out the wishes of hon. Gentlemen below the gangway in regard to this particular landlord. He knew that before the trouble began in 1885 this Clanricarde estate was undoubtedly regarded and admitted to be alow-rented estate; and the best evidence of that was to be found in the fact that a large percentage of the tenants on it had never ventured to challenge the fairness of their rents in the jurisdiction of the Landed Estates Court.
  MR. A. ROCHEsaid the tenants were in arrears.
  MR. JAMES CAMPBELLsaid that that was the first time he had ever heard it suggested that the existence of arrears prevented a tenant's going into the Landed Estates Court. [Cries of "Oh!" from the IRISH Benches.] The hon. Gentleman would correct him if he was wrong, but he believed that in the case of some of the Clanricarde tenants who did come into the Land Commissioners' Court the rents were raised.

  549
  The fact was uncontrovertible that prior to 1885 the rents on Lord Clanricarde's estate were of such a character that those who applied to the Land Court to have them revised had their rent raised. In 1885 a demand was made for 20 per cent. reduction is excess of what was being asked of the surrounding landlords. That was refused. Then Lord Clanricarde was selected for this intimidation and low-rent campaign because he was unpopular, and an absentee landlord whose fondness for money had got him into bad odour. That trouble had now been put an end to for twenty years, and these men who had been put into the farms, who came within the category of bona-fide farmers and cultivators of the soil, were to be turned off. Whilst those men could sell their lands outside the provisions of the Evicted Tenants Act subject to the landlords' right to buy them, under the Act they could not do so until the Estates Commissioners had come to terms with the landlord. The difficulty in this question was one of money. It seemed to him that if a tenant had to compensate a bona-fide farmer, if they were going to deprive the landlord of the tenant and inflict upon him a man who from two points of view was objectionable, it was only reasonable to say that the landlord should be able to put a veto on it. He was not prepared to give support to any attempt to promote vindictive legislation for the purpose of injuring a particular individual who might be obnoxious to hon. Gentlemen below the gangway. No case had been made out for the purpose of remedying a suggested error in drafting, in language which was as clear as daylight, and the construction of which was actually present to the mind of the right hon. Gentleman.
  MR. DILLONthanked the Chief Secretary for the course he had announced his intention of taking in this matter. He did not think he could do letter than introduce a one-clause Bill in accordance with the disclosed intention of the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Lords. The right hon. Gentleman who had just addressed the House and who, when not in his war-paint, was a most kind-hearted man, had just given the Committee a specimen of the old tone which used to be adopted before the Act of
  550
  1903 was passed when speaking of the evicted tenants. What was the language of the right hon. Gentleman? It was no longer a question of protecting the planters, it was to keep out those wicked criminal agitators and disturbers, the evicted tenants, who might be a centre of disturbance and crime. He thought all that kind of thing had been abandoned, and that after the Act of 1903 there was to be a clean slate, and that all these bitter memories were to be wiped out. It seemed to him like the case of Rip Van Winkle that a man should come forward now when both Houses of Parliament had committed themselves to a policy of restoring those evicted tenants and say that these men, because they were agitators and disturbers, ought not to be restored to their homes. Of course, the right hon. Gentleman was perfectly right in saying that the Judges in Ireland were bound by the statute apart from the intention of those who introduced the Act, but the right hon. Gentleman went further and wanted to thrust down their throats that this Amendment or proviso was introduced in the House of Lords for the purpose, not of protecting the planters, but of protecting Lord Clanricarde. He maintained that that was the very purpose which the Lords themselves repudiated.
  MR. JAMES CAMPBELL: Why then was it described as a triumph for Lord Clanricarde?
  MR. DILLONsaid that was what the right hon. Gentleman said he feared. Could the right hon. Gentleman quote a single noble Lord who said that that Amendment was brought forward to protect Lord Clanricarde? Not one; they distinctly repudiated that, and said they were doing it to protect the planters. He thought the Chief Secretary was very wise in giving the House of Lords an opportunity now of showing their sympathy in this matter, and he would be very much surprised if they did not support this Bill, which would enable those new tenants who were genuinely anxious to go to accept the terms offered them. What was the situation at present on the Clanricarde estate? He put on one side for the moment the question of possible disturbance and bitterness. The right hon. Gentleman said that for some years past

  551
  the trouble upon the Clanricarde estate had been settled. Was that all the right hon. Gentleman knew about rural Ireland? Anyone responsible for the government of Ireland must have been surprised at those words. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of a settlement. A settlement, when in Portumna and Woodford there were 150 families living three years out of their homes. Was that the kind of settlement which the right hon. Gentleman, even from the political point of view, could view with satisfaction? But putting that aside altogether, what was the condition of things in that part of the country? Let the Committee look at it from the economic point of view. There planters were not cultivating their land, they had been anxious to get away, and they had put in no crop owing to this unfortunate mistake made by the House of Lords in inserting an Amendment which he did not believe they intended to have the effect it had had. This state of affairs prevailed owing to the interpretation of the Court of Appeal in Ireland—and the Court of Appeal in Ireland had a most sinister record in regard to land. They had destroyed one Act after another, and this House had been asked time after time to undo the work of the Court of Appeal in Ireland upon this very question of land. Many of those planters were brought there on false pretences from far-away parts of the country and without any knowledge of the conditions into which they were to be introduced. They were placed upon the land having sold their own homes in the North, and he was told that they were by no means thankful to Lord Clanicarde. They had put no crop in, and the land was lying waste and derelict. They had this extraordinary state of things. The evicted tenants had no land and were anxious to get back to their homes. The planters wanted to get away, and for this purpose a special Act of Parliament was passed, but Lord Clanricarde said "No, these men must be kept there, the intentions of Parliament must be defeated." He had a telegram sent to him that day from Portumna, saying that one of these planters was decreed at Gort for £170, and had abandoned his holdings; two others, Holmes and Johnston left previously. Elliott was decreed in January for over £200. Several of the planters had put in no crop, yet these
  552
  were the kind of tenants the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dublin University pleaded for. That was the interpretation of the law, he would not say a false interpretation, but it was most distinctly against the expressed intention of both Houses. Could any reasonable Member say that this condition of things ought to be allowed to continue? He confessed he was amazed and disappointed to hear the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Dublin University say that in his opinion nothing ought to be done. That was the whole substance of his speech: the right hon. Gentleman would leave this wretched district to stew in its own juice, breeding crime, misery, and misfortune, and actually reducing a whole tract of country to a condition of uncultivated nature. He thought it would be universally admitted that this condition of things could not be allowed to continue, and he most heartily congratulated the Chief Secretary on the promise he had made that without delay he would introduce a one-clause Bill in the House of Lords, and give them the opportunity, which he confidently believed they would take, of carrying out their avowed intentions of last year. If the Bill passed the the House of Lords there would be no difficulty in passing it in the House of Commons, and the horrible Clanricarde struggle would be brought to a conclusion. In regard to the general condition of the evicted tenants of Ireland, he, for one, most heartily appreciated the great difficulty of the task, and he and all his colleagues were grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for having passed the Evicted Tenants Bill last year, and for the exertions which they knew he had made to expedite that work. He was sure the right hon. Gentleman would admit that these unhappy people, many of them twenty or twenty-five years out of their homes, who had again and again during the last ten years been promised reinstatement by successive Governments, and who had had three separate measures passed through the House, would be embittered by this disappointment year after year, and by their still being left wandering about, leading the wretched, demoralising, miserable lives that most of them had to lead. No wonder they were impatient, and he was sure that the right hon. Gentleman would do

  553
  everything in his power to carry out this work. They could not understand what was the cause of the delay, and those who were connected with the national organisation in Ireland were in receipt of extraordinary statements as to what were thought to be the causes. He agreed with the right hon. Gentleman as to the difficulties about the disposition of these tenants who required untenanted land. He knew the greed for land in Ireland was tremendous, but the people of Ireland were essentially a peasant people they loved the land, and like all people who love the land they loved it sometimes to excess. It was a source of trouble which they fully understood. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman, to use an American expression, would as much as possible "speed up" the Commissioners on this particular question of the evicted tenants. Criticism had been passed more than once on the progress made under the new Evicted Tenants Act, and it had been pointed out that only nine evicted tenants had compulsorily been reinstated in the last six months, out of thirty-five cases proceeded with. But according to his information it would be a most mistaken impression to get abroad that this was the full effect of the compulsory measure. He was informed that in a vast number of cases, before the passing of the Act, many landlords had absolutely refused to allow the evicted tenant to be reinstated, but now that they knew a compulsory clause could be enforced against them they came forward and gave voluntarily in order to avoid what might be taken compulsorily. When a man knew that compulsion was in reserve, he naturally preferred to come forward and act of his own free will. It would be very unfair, after the exertions of the right hon. Gentleman in passing the compulsory Act, to allow the House to gather the impression that this was the whole result. He believed a large proportion of the 500 tenants reinstated since last session had been restored in consequence of the passing of the compulsory measure. He would merely, in passing away from that point, call the special attention of the right hon. Gentleman to the fact that on Lord Lansdowne's estate there were still -fifteen or twenty campaign evicted tenants to reinstate.
  MR. BIRRELLwas understood to say that he thought the arrangements for purchase on Lord Lansdowne's estate had now been completed. He did not know how far that covered these cases.
  MR. DILLONsaid the right hon. Gentleman was now speaking of the Kerry estate. He was himself speaking of the Queen's County estate. On the Kerry estate of Lord Lansdowne there were no campaign evictions. On the Masserene estate, also, there were three or four cases unprovided for, although the vast bulk of the tenants had been reinstated. He believed that the right hon. Gentleman, from his sympathetic spirit, would do all that was possible in these matters. He wanted to say a word or two on the question of the delay in the general working of the Land Commission. The right hon. Gentleman had given another promise to which he attached the greatest possible value. He thought that it was of the utmost importance that they should know where they stood as to the causes of these delays. There, had been in Ireland the greatest misconception as to these causes. Some people there believed that it was the Treasury holding back the money, but the Treasury said they had never refused money. He did not profess to know himself, but these were the statements floating about in Ireland. Another statement in Ireland was that the Commissioners, to use a trade union expression, were, at a hint from the Treasury, doing what was termed "ca' canny." He did not know himself whether that was so. Others said that it was due to an insufficient staff. He believed that the delay was largely due to that cause. Then there was the idea that, after all, it was only human nature that the staff of the Commission, having only a temporary job, were not in a violent hurry to conclude it. He was afraid there was some possibility that if a man had £800 a year, and knew that it would end with the job, with no sort of compensation or pension, he would want rather a "driving boss" to keep him working hard. He did not say that in any spirit of offence against the staff; it might be entirely unjust. He rejoiced to learn that the right hon. Gentleman was conducting an investigation, in

  555
  a manner which he had no doubt was most effective, to find out the real cause of the delay. Some people said it was due to the delay caused by the investigation and inspection of estates. If that were true, and the staff was insufficient, then it ought to be increased. The staff of inspection could be most easily increased, because there was a very large supply of people in the country quite competent to inspect estates. They had heard a statement from the right hon. Member for Dublin University, a statement which he had never heard before, that the delay was largely due to the perversity of the Estates Commissioners, who had endeavoured to get behind the law and to abrogate the zones. The best way to meet that was to do away with the zones and save the time of the Commissioners. The statement of the right hon. Gentleman was very one-sided. "Why have all these difficult investigations?" the right hon. Gentleman asked. Had he never heard of a case of attempted fraud? He had heard of a great many in which there had been attempted frauds of the grossest character in connection with the system of zones.
  MR. JAMES CAMPBELL: In the case to which I referred there was not a suggestion of fraud.
  MR. DILLONsaid he did not say there was. But did not the right hon. Gentleman see how absurd his argument was? If any number of fraudulent transactions had been discovered, of course that put the Commissioners on their guard and forced them to investigate. One of the most amazing transactions he ever heard of was that in which a man, by the operation of the zones, endeavoured to get a price far in excess of the value of the land, and there had been transactions where the relations between the landlords and the tenants were of a fraudulent character, the tenant signing for a price far in excess of what he could afford to pay, on condition that the landlord handed a considerable sum back to him. There had been hundreds of cases in Ireland where the landlord and tenant, by a collusive arrangement, had signed agreements for second term rents which were never fixed by the Court at all, and the landlord would hand back
  556
  part of the price. The system of zones had again and again led to these doubtful transactions, and that was one reason, no doubt, why the Commissioners were compelled to adopt a suspicious and inquiring attitude in some of the cases to which the right hon. Gentleman alluded. When this question of the efficiency of the zones in doing away with delay was raised in 1903, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover said the delays did not occur through the necessity for inspection, because the estates had to he inspected in any case, but they occurred in the investigation of title. He did not believe the cause, which was new to him, put forward by the right hon. and learned Gentleman was a substantial cause of delay, and he rejoiced that the Chief Secretary, when they came to discuss the Land Bill later in the session, would be able to give them an authoritative statement of the causes of delay in the Land Commission, so that they might be in a position to know what they ought to demand and to press for. There could be no doubt that the state of affairs was exceedingly serious. They had the agreements signed, and according to the information he had received it would take nearly seven years to deal with those agreements, which were now lying in the office, so that if there was not another agreement signed it would be seven years before the present accumulation was cleared off. That condition of things could not be allowed to continue. It was impossible. Public opinion in Ireland would rise up against it. One of the most urgent things to be found out was what were the real causes of the delay, and when they were ascertained all sections of Irish representatives would join in a resolute effort to remove them.
  MR. WALTER LONG: I do not desire to detain the Committee more than two or three minutes, but I think it would be desirable I should say a word before the Attorney-General replies. With regard to the general case more largely dwelt upon by the hon. Member for East Mayo, I think it will be found that whatever dispute there may be as to the cause of the delay there is a general consensus of opinion that it is

  557
  deplorable in the interests of all concerned, and that it is altogether unexpected in its extent. The House ought certainly to be in possession of all information available in order that we may do our best to find some way out of what is at the moment a most unsatisfactory situation. There is no doubt, if the latest report we have at our disposal is well founded, a considerable number of years, even larger than the hon. Member for Mayo has suggested, must elapse before you can get any completion of the present transactions, which, so far as the parties are concerned, are practically settled, all that is wanted being the final approval of the Estates Commissioners and the paying over of the money. The Government will find a general agreement on all sides of the House to support any measure calculated to bring these transactions to a conclusion. I want to say one word about a case which arose earlier in the debate with regard to the Clanricarde estate. The Chief Secretary quoted some words used by the Leader of the other House, and suggested that the operation of this Act so far as the Law Courts in Ireland are concerned, had not been what was anticipated by my noble friend in the House of Lords. I should not like to commit myself—I am not a lawyer, and therefore I do not know whether the Law Courts were justified from a lawyer's point of view in the decision at which they arrived; but whatever lawyers may think, we are bound to accept the decisions of the Bench, and the decision in this case was that this tenant, however willing to sell, was not to be bought out. The facts presented by the Chief Secretary do not give a complete statement of the case which must be considered before we make up our minds. The Chief Secretary told the Committee that this particular tenant was most anxious to go, and that his land would be available. What the Committee do not possibly realise except those who are Irish Members—and I speak of it with bated breath myself, because there is nothing more difficult to understand—are the technicalities of the various Irish Land Acts. They are a labyrinth in which anyone might easily lose himself, and the Chief Secretary and the Attorney-General will
  558
  agree that under the Act of 1881 if a tenant wishes to sell his tenant right—in other words, to get out—he has the power to do so, but his landlord has the right of pre-emption. The actual power is given to the tenant under the Act of 1881. Before we accept the statements laid down to-day as being a just cause for further legislation, the House ought to know by what process the sitting tenant is to be persuaded to give up his holding. If the State provide a certain sum of money to enable the evicted tenants to be restored to their holdings, and the money is used to bribe the sitting tenant to quit—using the word in no offensive sense—by offering him special terms in order to get him out, it is not quite fair to the tenant who is anxious but unable to go because of the interpretation placed upon the Act by Courts of Law. It is quite obvious that he has power to go under the Act of 1881 and get the market value of his property, but the landlord has the right of pre-emption which would in this case prevent the land being made available for the restoration of evicted tenants. Everybody will realise that whatever view may be taken of Irish landlords, good or bad, what Parliament decided is that money shall be available to buy out the landlord and to replace him by the tenant. But Parliament has never suggested that you are to bribe the sitting tenant to go in order to put into his place a man whom the landlord considers to be a bad tenant and who will farm the land at a disadvantage. I am not suggesting that the tenant would in this case be bad, but we must not be assumed as far as this side of the House is concerned to have committed ourselves to the general conclusion at which we might appear to have arrived without knowing more of the facts of the case and the way in which the sitting tenant is to be persuaded to sell his holding. It must be remembered that this safeguard which was inserted in the House of Lords was only made to cover the case of a bona fide tenant cultivating his land in a proper manner, and therefore it does not apply to any of these cases of which so much was made in the debates on the Evicted Tenants Bill where a man is not a bona fide tenant or where he is

  559
  not carrying out his business as a farmer in a proper agricultural manner. Therefore it narrows itself down to this very small principle, whether a man is a good farmer, doing his business in the best way he can, according to his intelligence and his industry, and only anxious to go because, as I understand it, he is offered terms so favourable that they overcome his reluctance. The Chief Secretary indicated that these men were so un-comfortable and so dissatisfied with their lot that they were anxious to go. But the Act of 1881 provides legitimate means by which they can go if their condition is as described. I very much question whether Parliament, when it was debating these details of the Evicted Tenants Act, meant that, while there was machinery provided under the Act of 1881 which enables the tenant to go if he wishes, you should use this Act to bribe a man to go, and offer him special terms to clear out against the will of the landlord, and give opportunities of purchase under the Act of 1903 to a tenant, who in the opinion of those who have experience of the property, is not likely to be a good or satisfactory tenant. Therefore I think we must reserve our decision on these points until we have a little fuller information. I am glad to gather that there is to be a fuller statement later on in the session, and that being so it is obviously more convenient that we should not go into the whole financial discussion now. I think it is only right to enter this caveat against what otherwise might appear to be a general acceptance of conditions which will require a little more investigation.
  MR. CHERRYsaid he wished to refer to the charge made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dublin University against the Estates Commissioners. He had, with all the responsibility of his position as a former Attorney-General for Ireland, accused there officials who were appointed by his own Government of having deliberately disregarded the law laid down by the Court of Appeal. The Estates Commissioners were entitled to be defended against that charge. With full knowledge of their proceedings, which he had followed from the day the Land Act was passed, he said the
  560
  charge was entirely unworthy. He did not believe there was the slightest foundation for it; it was one of the most unfounded charges that had ever been made. He knew to what the right hon. Gentleman referred. It was laid down by the Court of Appeal some years ago that in cases within the zones the Land Commission was bound to consider the security as adequate and was not entitled to make inquiry into individual cases. That was quite true as regarded particular holdings which had been sold, but the Estates Commissioners decided that before they proceeded to consider the question of individual holdings at all, they were entitled, in considering whether or not they would declare the land to be sold an estate, to investigate its security, for the purpose of, seeing whether they, in the interests of the Treasury, should sanction the sale of the estate at all. The right hon. Gentleman said that that was a deliberate disregard of the decision of the Appeal Court. But if it was it was affirmed by the present Master of the Rolls. Mr. Justice Meredith decided that the action of the Commissioners in making that investigation before sanctioning the sale of an estate was a part of their duty. It was not until quite recently that the matter was brought before the Court of Appeal, which overruled the decision of Mr. Justice Meredith, and pending the overruling of the decision it was acted on by the Estates Commissioners and by Mr. Justice Wylie, the present Judge of the Land Commission Court. He did not think any charge had been made against the two Judges who had taken the view he mentioned, and he did not think any charge could be or ought to be made against the Estates Commissioners either. The Estates Commissioners in discharging most difficult and responsible duties were entitled to the same protection as the Judges, and their conduct ought not to be attacked by hon. Members in the House. The right hon. Member for South Dublin had adopted a kindly tone on the evicted tenants question, and he believed he would agree with him in thinking that if that question was to be finally settled the Clanricarde estate must be settled, for it was the one serious spot, the one open sore. It was obvious, having regard

  561
  to the decision of Mr. Justice Wylie, who agreed with the Commissioners that the matter was neither so clear nor so simple as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Trinity College appeared to suppose. They proposed to ask the House of Lords to pass a short Act on lines which agreed with what was undoubtedly the opinion of Lord Lansdowne, and he trusted it would receive the treatment which was desired. It was argued from the opposite side that it would be an unfair thing to compel landlords to put out good solvent tenants and have them replaced by tenants who were not equally solvent and acceptable, but if this Act was put into operation that case would not arise, because tenancy would cease. It would be for the purpose of acquiring that land out and out, in which case Lord Clanricarde would in that respect disappear. He would incur no risk, because he would not be brought in contact one way or another with the new purchasers. It would not be a case of hardship for him more than for any other landlord who had sold his property to allow evicted tenants to be reinstated. It had been asked from what fund the money would come. He replied from the Reserve Fund which was intended by the Act of 1903, and so far as he was concerned he thought it could not be better spent in the interests of peace and good will to Ireland than in settling the Clanricarde estate.
  MR. T. M. HEALYhoped that in this matter the Tory Party would not tie themselves to the skirts of Lord Clanricarde. The right hon. Gentleman opposite had quoted the expression used in the House of Lords upon this question, but he would like to appeal to the general body of the Tory Party in this sense. He thought they were making a great mistake in making these Irish questions a battle horse, and they were being forced into it by a very small section of their leaders. They all remembered just before the late Government left office the differences between Lord Londonderry and Mr. Chamberlain upon the fiscal question. Lord Londonderry took up the free trade line and Mr. Chamberlain adopted the protective line. Consequently there was a section of the Tory Party who wanted to keep this Irish difficulty in the front in order to submerge the fiscal question, whereas
  562
  the general body of the Tory Party desired to put the fiscal question forward in order that the Irish question might be forgotten at the Dissolution. Unfortunately, it happened that in this House there was a very strong section of Irish politicians returned on the Tory side who wished to keep the agrarian sore open for political purposes, but there were many Irish Peers who wanted the Irish land question settled, and he ventured to make an appeal to the Irish peers in the House of Lords led by Lord Lansdowne not to take up on this question the line adopted by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Trinity College. He wished to point out to the House that Trinity College itself had something to lose upon this question. If the Irish land purchase question remained unsettled what would happen? He had turned up the 39th section of the Act of 1903, and he found that under that Act Trinity College was getting a grant of £5,000 per annum, and had been receiving it year after year. Where did that grant come from? Why, out of a fund that would soon be bankrupt unless this purchase difficulty was settled, viz., the Irish Development Grant. So that after all Trinity College had a stake in this matter. He had not for many years been in the West of Ireland or taken part in the Western campaign, with which many of his hon. friends were more intimately concerned, but he did say that deep down in the heart of every Irish Member there was a determination that these Clanricarde tenants should not be deserted. On this point he wished to express his feeling of gratitude to the Chief Secretary, because the moment this question was mentioned, with gallantry and chivalry he at once came forward and said that this subject was part of the bargain, and that he intended to bring in a Bill in another place to settle it. That was business, and it was good business for the Irish landlords. There was not a day passed without some Irish landlord, and even some of the Irish peers, coming and making appeals to them to do something to settle this great financial block, which was a curse to both landlords and tenants. What was happening? At present the tenants were paying a quarter or a half per cent. in interest above the statutory compact and the landlords were also being kept out of their

  563
  money. He knew instances where landlords were not receiving anything like the equivalent of their old rents, in the shape of interest. Take for example the case of a small landowner. Perhaps the old rental was about £300 a year and the landlord was not getting paid by the State and probably only in interest from the tenants about £200 a year. Was that a state of things which they could allow to continue with equanimity? What was the position of the tenant? Instead of paying twenty years purchase this delay would cause them to have to pay probably twenty-seven or twenty-eight years purchase for their holdings. What would the Member for Trinity College gain by keeping up this miserable business on the Clanricarde estate? Would he even get the thanks of Lord Clanricarde? No, he would not even get a halfpenny postcard. Would he get the thanks of the other Irish landlords? He ventured to say that with the exception of Lord Londonderry, who wanted the fight to turn upon Ireland, all the statesmanlike minds of the Tory Party in the House of Lords would pass the Bill he had referred to without any difficulty. It was not now their desire to make Ireland the battle horse. At the recent election the Member for North-West Manchester came forward and in the very beginning of his campaign he stated how Ireland was weltering in bloodshed and disorder. When the right hon. Gentleman went to assist him at the election was that the line he took?
  MR. JAMES CAMPBELL: Yes.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Were those the lines taken when members of the Tory Party went down to Wolverhampton, Dundee, Stirling Burghs, and where-ever Irishmen were? On those occasions did they shout with a wild hurrah for Lord Clanricarde and down with the evicted tenants? All this was bad business for the Tory Party, although it was so small a question and only affected 120 men who had been for twenty-five years looking forward with some hope to this Parliament to fulfil the promise it had made again and again. As to the cause for delay in land purchase, he believed it was quite true to say that no doubt the Treasury had never refused any definite sum of money whenever it was wanted. Yes, but they
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  always took care by the manner in which they managed the staff that the Estates Commissioners should never be able to demand more than a definite sum of money, and he viewed with great suspicion the sending of this new Treasury Remembrancer to Dublin. What had happened? It had gone beyond a joke. The Estates Commissioners wrote to England and said they wanted more staff. There was a traitor to the Estates Commissioners in the office. He would not mention his name. Some hon. Members could guess it. That official saw this letter going over, and the Treasury here in London sent back to him for his private counsel the letter of the Estates Commissioners demanding more staff. And from the office in Dublin the Treasury were supplied with such answers as could be put forward to the demand of the Estates Commissioners, and actually it was out of the Estates Commissioners' office that the Treasury got the materials by which to reply to their own demand. The new Remembrancer would render that all unnecessary. Wherever he had been dug up from he was a new man, and had never been in Ireland before. He had been sent over to Ireland with a view to preventing, if he could, any increase in the staff; to prevent any increase, of course, in the demands upon the Treasury. He had been sent to put a brake on this question of land purchase. That was the whole matter. The Irish landlords were taking the situation very meekly, and he thought the right hon. Member for Dublin University and the right hon. Member for South Dublin and their friends in the House of Lords would be much better advised from the point of view of their own party, from the point of view of those Imperial interests and that Imperial flag which they were constantly flaunting under their noses, if they asked the present Government "When is British faith to be kept both with Irish landlords and Irish tenants?" The British Government pledged themselves, whether they liked it or not, five years ago, that they would settle the land question or would find money for doing it. They had taken upon themselves the settlement of this question, of buying out all the English garrison, yet these men were not likely to handle the coin for the next five, six, or seven years. If, in the

  565
  recent South African war, £1,000 worth of goods had been taken from a shopkeeper for the British troops, and if a British officer had pledged the British nation to pay the amount as soon as the war was over, what would the shopkeeper have thought of British faith if he had been kept waiting five, six, or seven years for payment? That was the position of the Irish land question. Was that British faith? Was it upon such a system as that that British honour and commerce had been maintained? Would the Tory Party find it more to their interest to quarrel over the restoration of 120 evicted tenants—to keep them in hot water cost some £4,000 or £5,000 a year—than to effect a settlement of a great question? He appealed to the Conservative Members who had the interests of peace and order at heart to allow this very small matter on the Clanricarde estate to be settled by the right hon. Gentleman, and he could tell Irish Peers his own belief was that they would thereby aid in effecting a larger settlement. If they did not they could hardly expect from the Irish representatives that co-operation which was so desirable in order to bring the whole purchase question to a satisfactory and speedy determination.
  MR. FLYNNon behalf of the Irish Party congratulated the Chief Secretary on the prompt action he proposed to take in connection with the Clanricarde question. Very few men could be found in this country to defend the tyrannical, rapacious, and unjust conduct of Lord Clanricarde. About a week ago there appeared in the Irish news-pipers extracts from Returns issued by the Estates Commissioners, but these Returns were not yet available for Members of this House. On applying at the Vote Office a few days ago for the Returns he was informed that one copy in "dummy" had been placed in the library. It was very inconvenient that the Irish Members who were interested in matters of this kind should not be put in possession of information immediately the Dublin newspapers were furnished with it. The same cause of complaint occurred frequently in regard to other Departments, and he hoped something would be done to facilitate the circulation of information required by the Irish Members in re-
  566
  lation to matters which came up for discussion. As to the Chief Secretary's request for information regarding the delay in the procedure of the Estates Commissioners he would refer the right hon. Gentleman to what was done in regard to inspectors. Since the Act of 1903 was passed one very great defect in the administration arose from the frequent removal of inspectors from districts with whose circumstances they had become acquainted. The circumstances were often of a complicated nature and it took an inspector a considerable time to inform himself. In the county of Cork, where there were many evicted tenants, he knew a district where there had been four or five inspectors, one after another, and each had to get to understand the merits of the cases and to ascertain whether the tenants were bona fide persons or impostors who did not deserve any consideration whatever. These changes of inspectors meant interminable delay. The latest arrival was utterly ignorant of the circumstances in the district, and the whole process of collecting information had to be gone over de novo. It meant a vast amount of personal inconvenience and drudgery to the Irish Members connected with the constituencies where the evicted estates were situated. He knew one estate where the first inspector communicated with him and he gave him all the help in his power in acquainting him with the circumstances. That inspector also got into communication with the tenants and priests in the locality, and no sooner had he come to understand the case and reported upon it to the Estates Commissioners, than he was succeeded by another inspector. At present the fifth inspector was going over the ground. Besides involving delay in bringing matters to a definite issue, the system of changing the inspectors so frequently was wasteful. The work of reinstatement was very slow. The Act of 1903 had now been five years in operation and up to December last only 1,036 tenants had been reinstated. That was a very deplorable and disappointing state of things. He was glad to hear from the Chief Secretary that the number reinstated up to date was 1,595. He made this complaint in regard to the Estate Commissioners in no spirit of hostility, but only as a matter of criticism.

  567
  They all recognised the very difficult and complicated work that they had to discharge. The difficulty was much greater than the first Commissioners encountered under the Act of 1881. But, notwithstanding all that, regrettable delay had occurred, and there had not been that expedition which was expected from them. The question of untenanted land was not altogether confined to the West of Ireland, although it was most acute in those districts where cattle-driving operations had been carried on. It was unquestionably a matter of urgency in the counties of Roscommon, Meath, and Galway, where the people felt it intensely. He cared not how long or short he held a seat in this House, but he was forced by the traditions of the Irish land reformers and of those who had engaged themselves for years in the work of social reform, not to denounce these men who took part in cattle-drives. They might be mistaken in their methods at present, but the evil was a crying evil. The question of untenanted land was, however, not exclusively confined to the West of Ireland. The Chief Secretary was wrong in saying that outside that area it was difficult to find untenanted land. There was too much of it, he was sorry to say, in his own county of Cork. There were there large tracks of good land from which the tenants were driven before 1874 or 1880, but who did not come within the operations of the Act of 1903. The land was lying idle or was largely taken on the eleven months system by farmers who had plenty of land already. The Land Commissioners were very dilatory—he would not say negligent—in their dealing with that land. In his own constituency he knew of four or five places where there were tracks of untenanted land of from 500 to 800 acres, and one of at least 2,000 acres. On the other hand there were plenty of good tenants who were striving to get land on account of their old holdings being now occupied. On the Leader estate there were 2,000 acres untenanted The landlord sold that untenanted land—at least, the agreement to sell was signed in June, 1905—but the excuse which the landlord gave for not giving it up to the Estate Commissioners was that he had not yet received a penny of the purchase money. The difficulty there lay with the Estate Commissioners who failed in their duty
  568
  in regard to it. It was time that these Commissioners wakened up to a sense of their duty. There was another case where there was 1,080 acres of untenanted land. The vendor proposed to sell that land to the Estate Commissioners, but to repurchase 880 acres of it for his own use and benefit. His point was that the Commissioners should not have considered the absurdity of recommending an application of that kind, or of entertaining it for one moment. But they would have taken action had it not been for a series of indignation meetings which were held in the neighbourhood. Then there was the estate of Doneraile. After two years of continual pressure, they had got the Commissioners to recognise that there were on that estate 500 or 600 acres of untenanted land quite available for a dozen evicted tenants in the locality, who could not get holdings elsewhere. There was another class of tenants who were reluctant to approach landlords who held their land in their own hands. After the Amendment introduced in last year's Bill by the House of Lords the tenants felt that it was a waste of time to approach the landlords who held the evicted holdings in their own hands. The Estate Commissioners had shown the greatest reluctance in inducing those landlords to reinstate the tenants or to make an estate of the land with which the Commissioners could deal. Hon. Members on the Irish benches had done an incredible amount of work in their endeavour to help the restoration of the evicted tenants to their holdings The Estate Commissioners had no reason to complain of the many questions which Members put in regard to these cases. They were entirely owing to their anxiety to settle this vexed question, and he assured the Chief Secretary that the Irish Members would co-operate with him in every way in his efforts for the evicted tenants.
  MR. GORDONwished to impress on hon. Members below the gangway that too much of the time and attention of the Estates Commissioners ought not to be given to the minor question of the evicted tenants. There were far greater and more import, ant questions to be dealt with in the carrying out of the Land Purchase Act of 1903; for instance, in cases where the landlord and tenant had agreed to come

  569
  to terms. It was all very well to talk about the reinstatement of the evicted tenants, but it was a little too much to expect that the whole time and attention of the Estate Commissioners should be given to that matter. He did not want to say much about the restoration of the evicted tenants. He and his colleagues were satisfied that the Bill should be passed, and it was passed, and he hoped the Act would work well. The Chief Secretary had said that over 1,500 tenants had been restored. That showed that the Act was working wonderfully well. Reference had been made by the Chief Secretary to the restoration of the evicted tenants. It must be remembered that in this matter they were buying out a spot of land in the centre of an estate. Provision was made in the Act giving the landlord power to object to the sale of land in the centre of his property for the tenant to set up a farm. Would it not therefore be desirable that when such a case occurred there should be some means by which a large area should be fixed upon and taken by the tenant. This was a question that could be considered when the Chief Secretary brought in the Bill he had promised. In reference to the delay in the work of reinstating tenants, all the causes suggested should be carefully considered with a view to eliminating them as far as possible. He could not understand why the Estates Commissioners should set up for themselves anything that caused unnecessary delay. He did not say they did it purposely, or that they did it without good reason, but at the same time what they did often resulted in delay. The best course such a tribunal could adopt was to take the law as they found it whether it was good or bad, and administer it as well as they could. It was not possible to say off-hand what should be done, but it was a matter that demanded most serious and anxious consideration. He would earnestly ask the Chief Secretary to see whether he could provide the money necessary to work the Act properly. He was perfectly satisfied that the right hon. Gentleman of all others would be most delighted to find a means to enable the Act to be carried out successfully. If he did this he would earn the thanks, not merely of the Nationalists, but those who represented Unionist constituencies, for upon this one question of the land there was no disagreement
  570
  between the two parties representing both the tenants and the landlords. The Nationalist Members were wrong in suggesting that the representatives of the landlords wished to stand in the way of a settlement of this question.
  MR. CULLINANsaid the hon. and learned Gentleman who had just sat down had said that the demand of the tenants for reinstatement was almost outrageous. The hon. and learned Member, who followed the passage of the Land Act through this House in 1903 very closely, must remember perfectly well that when he and his friends were anxious to obtain this £112,000,000 for the landlords the passage of that Act would have been resisted by the whole of the Nationalist Members but for the distinct pledge given by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover, then Chief Secretary, that the evicted tenants would be restored to their holdings, or to holdings found for them, as soon as possible. Directly hon. Members above the gangway got their Act they seemed to forget all their pledges. Two matters that had occurred that evening had given great satisfaction to the Nationalist Party. The first was the assurance given by the Chief Secretary with regard to all those important matters raised by the hon. Member for East Galway, and the second was his promise to deal with them immediately. Another matter of great importance was the statement by the right hon. Gentleman with regard to the number of evicted tenants who had been reinstated in the last six months. The right hon. Gentleman said that of those restored 500 had been restored with the consent and approval of the landlords, He could not say the same with regard to the landlords in his part of the country. But he would appeal to the Chief Secretary upon this question of voluntary agreement, that where the landlords would not consent to the reinstatement of the tenants he would take immediate and drastic steps to compel them. There was a large and extensive landlord in his own constituency who would not sell to his tenant. He had one solitary evicted tenant. The Estates Commissioners came down to him and offered him a price for the holding, which he refused. They then offered a price which was in excess of what was offered for the land

  571
  adjoining the holding. What did the landlord do? He got his own agent to value the farm. That agent put a considerably higher value upon it than the Estates Commissioners offered, and then the landlord asked the evicted tenant, a widow, if she would consent to pay this excessive price, £200 more than the Commissioners offered, and said that if she would he would give her the difference between that price and the price offered by the Estates Commissioners. If she had accepted that he would have got an excessive price and set a precedent, so far as the sale of the holdings on his estates were concerned, which would result in his obtaining £20,000 in excess of what he should receive for his land. That was a fraud on the Estate Commissioners, and in cases of that kind he thought the Estate Commissioners should take immediate steps to obtain compulsory powers. He did not condemn cattle-driving, though hon. Gentlemen above the gangway would be delighted to see it all over the country, and he thought it was hard upon those who, like himself, had been trying to make these bargains and get the evicted tenants reinstated, to find themselves impeded in this way and to find hon. Gentlemen above the gangway, in such speeches as that delivered this evening by the right hon. Member representing the Dublin University, trying to lead them on. He believed the Chief Secretary was absolutely sincere and anxious to see peace and prosperity restored to the country. He believed that carrying on in a determined manner, the policy of restoring the evicted tenants to their holdings, would be like taking the bread and butter Of hon. Gentlemen above the gangway, who desired to see a continuance of disorder.
  MR. BARRIE, said that he came from a part of Ireland where they knew little about the evicted tenants; at the same time, as he had said before in that House, he had a certain amount of sympathy with them. They were largely the victims of the Irish Land League, which showed no sort of responsibility towards them in the long course of years which had succeeded the Plan of Campaign. Under the Act of last year some of the tenants had been restored, and he hoped that a good many more would be restored in the next few
  572
  months. Since the Bill was passed last year by far the greater number of evicted tenants had been restored to their holdings, or to other holdings, under the Land Act of 1903. He might also remind the House that the total number of evicted tenants at the time of the passing of the Act of 1903 was supposed to be 800, but ince that the number had shown a marvellous facility of growth, and last year they had tenants coming from all quarters to qualify as evicted tenants, and ready to take the good things which a bounteous Government was prepared to give them. His interest was more largely enlisted on behalf of the tenants who paid their rents and fulfilled all their honourable obligations, who availed themselves of the Land Act of 1903, who industriously cultivated their land, and who, many of them, found that in the course of three or four years the Government had been unable to settle for the estate and invest thorn as tenant proprietors. There were at the present moment between 90,000 and 100,000 tenant farmers anxiously inquiring the reason of the delay in settling the farms which they had purchased under the Land Act of 1903. Explanations were offered by both sides of the House as to the cause of the delay, but he agreed in part with the hon. Member for East Mayo that there were several different explanations. He did not think that the fact had been sufficiently brought before the House that last year the House consented to an increased staff for the Land Commission Department amounting in round figures to £20,000 while in the Estimate before the Committee, they were asked to increase it by a further £10,000. He respectfully suggested that £30,000 per annum should enable the Government to employ a very substantial additional staff to facilitate the work of this important Department. Whatever was the explanation he was bound to remind the Chief Secretary that the average tenant farmer believed that this phenomenal delay in placing him in his holding was caused by want of money, and that this; was the real explanation which lay behind the present difficulties of the Department. But, whatever the explanation was, the fact remained that the proportion of estates which had been settled had remained practically at £5,000,000 per annum during the time this Government had been in office. He was sure

  573
  that his hon. friends below the gangway would agree with him that in all parts of the country there was a growing dissatisfaction with the present state of affairs, and if this debate had done nothing else than to bring more forcibly before the Chief Secretary than previously the need of getting rid of that dissatisfaction, it would not have been altogether in vain. He begged very respectfully to ask the Chief Secretary to pursue his inquiries with the utmost rapidity, and he hoped that the right hon. Gentleman at an early day would be able to come before the House ready to give them an explanation of the delay that had taken place in the past, and to assure them that it would not longer continue.
  MR. KILBRIDEsaid that if he desired to see land purchase in Ireland brought to a stop he did not know that there were any men on whose political conduct he could more implicitly rely for assistance in that direction than that of the right hon. Gentleman who sat on the front Opposition Bench, and of some of the Members who sat behind him and who had spoken that night. The right hon. Gentleman the late Attorney-General for Ireland, as they all knew and were glad to acknowledge both in that House and outside, was a highly intellectual man. They were happy to acknowledge that in his profession he was second to none, but they regretted that, when he put on his war paint and entered into politics, he got rid of all his genial qualities and showed himself a most bitter Unionist, in many cases an opponent of the material welfare of the country, and certainly an opponent of good order and satisfaction among the people of Ireland. There was a section in Ireland and there was a section in England who were never very much concerned with the land, and who were, therefore, never very much in love with the Land Purchase Act of 1903. He saw one of the Labour Party on the other side of the House who was probably never very enthusiastic on the question of advancing £112,000,000 on the credit of the British taxpayer to buy out the Irish landlords. There was no man in Ireland or outside of it who had followed the course of the land question who was not aware of the fact that the Land Act of 1903 would never have been put upon the Statute-
  574
  book unless the Irish people had received the assurances of the then Chief Secretary, the Member for Dover, that the two main purposes of the Act of 1903 were to reinstate the evicted tenants and give relief to the wounded soldiers of the land war, and to re-people the places from which the people were driven in Connaught and other parts of Ireland. There might be some people in Ireland and outside of that country who really were not convinced of the honesty of those statements. There were some persons who had not carefully read the history of the connection between England and Ireland. Dr. Johnson said—
  "If we unite with you we unite to rob."
  There were people who believed that while there was unity between ancient and hereditary disputants in Ireland, between the landlords and the tenants, it was for nothing but the purpose of robbery. If he wanted to advocate before any audience that such was the real intention which the Government had at that time, if he wanted to say that the purpose of the landlords was to get hold of the £112,000,000, and that they had no notion whatever of putting themselves about to keep the other part of the contract, namely, the restoration of the evicted tenants on just and equitable terms, and the redistribution of un-tenanted lands in Connaught and other places, he need do nothing more than quote the speeches of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dublin University and some others to prove that there was a great deal of truth in that contention. What had the right hon. Gentleman done that night? What had other hon. Gentlemen above the gangway who had spoken done? They had endeavoured to impress upon the Chief Secretary that it was monstrous that all this time of Parliament should be taken up in dealing with the question of the evicted tenants, and that the Treasury should be prepared to shovel out British money for the landlords to put in their pockets. Any unsophisticated farmer sitting in the gallery would be bound to come to the conclusion that the light hon. Member for the Dublin University really regretted that any time of Parliament was wasted last year oh the Evicted Tenants Bill. He did not see how the farmer could come to any other conclusion from the speech which

  575
  the right hon. Gentleman had delivered. But, of course, they all knew the right hon. Member for Dublin University. If ever there was a partisan the right hon. Gentleman was one. Sometimes when he saw the right hon. Gentleman in the House he had to rub his eyes, so changed was he from what he was outside. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman, notwithstanding what had been said just now by the hon. Member for Derry, whether they would have had a Land Act in 1903, in 1887, or in 1881, but for the agitation in Ireland. When he heard the hon. Member for Derry talking about the law-abiding Ulster tenants being anxious to take the benefits of the Act of 1903 he remembered that these gentlemen, not at all differing from their representatives, never risked anything, but were always prepared to take the profits that others obtained for them. He asked the Vice-President of the Department of Agriculture to remember that the farmers whom the hon. Member represented made no inconsiderable income Out of the legislation passed in that House for the Congested Districts Board, and other similar measures. A stranger would imagine that they were born in castles and had nothing to do with potatoes. The right hon. Member for Dover had said over and over again that the part of the Act of 1903 dealing with the evicted tenants question was meant mainly to apply to districts where the land war existed, and he left the House under no misapprehension on the point that it was designed to restore every evicted tenant in Ireland—the wounded soldiers of the land war—who had sacrificed their homesteads in the interests of Irish land reform and Irish nationality. But the object had not been attained. Last year the Chief Secretary said the evicted tenants on the Lansdowne estate had been restored. That was not so. At the present moment there were fifteen or twenty evicted tenants or direct representatives of evicted tenants on the estate who were still in the position they were in in 1902, and for whom nothing whatever had been done. The policy of the right hon. Member for Dover was that where untenanted land came into the possession of the Estates Commissioners, those who had first claim on the
  576
  land before the uneconomic holdings were enlarged, or before the sons of farmers were provided with new holdings, were the evicted tenants or their direct representatives. He agreed with the Chief Secretary that there was not much comfort in restoring an evicted tenant who had been on the roadside for twenty-five years if he did not have a free grant to give him a start in life. There were two or three cases in connection with the Lansdowne estate, in which the Commissioners had absolutely refused to make free grants. He was personally acquainted with the cases. There was one letter of 27th November, 1907, in which the Commissioners said they had sanctioned an advance of £100 for buildings and a free grant of £200 for the purchase of stock, and the applicant was put down as having received the grant, though he had personal knowledge that at the date of the return she had not received a penny of it. The hon. Members for Waterford and East Mayo had made personal application to the Commissioners for free grants to a man who was returned as having had a grant towards buildings and who had not received a penny for the purchase of stock. He could never understand on what principle the Commissioners proceeded when they were reinstating a number of evicted tenants. To some they made no free grants at all and to others they did. Perhaps they acted on the report of an inspector if they had no personal knowledge as to the condition of the individual. If the tenants in the plan of campaign who were evicted in 1887–8 and had been on the roadside ever since were to be restored under a general Act of Appeasement he could not understand why some were to have free grants and others not, or why some should have £300 for the building of houses and others only £100, the same amount of money being expended on building the houses. There was a very important point with regard to the redistribution of untenanted land which had not yet been touched upon. He would ask the Chief Secretary to bear in mind an extraordinary letter from the Estates Commissioners to a board of guardians or district council. He did not know whether it was written by one Commissioner without the knowledge of the other two, or by two without the knowledge of the third, or whether it Was written with the consent of all

  577
  three. They said they would take care that when they purchased large quantities of untenanted land and it came to a question of redistribution, no man who had taken part in, given support to, or practised cattle - driving should receive any grant. In coming to the House that day he had noticed a masoned-up doorway and was told by a policeman that it was the entrance to the old Star Chamber. Were the Estates Commissioners to constitute themselves a Star Chamber? How were they to know who took part in cattle - driving or who maintained cattle-driving? If the right hon. Gentleman was going to tell the House and the country that the Estates Commissioners were to constitute themselves a Star Chamber and convict men behind their backs without a scintilla of evidence, not giving the accused party the opportunity of denying the charges made against them by policemen or interested parties looking for the land perhaps themselves, he would bring about his ears a good deal of annoyance which he had no desire that he should be troubled with. He did not understand, when the Estates Commissioners bought untenanted land or a plan of campaign estate, by what process they left out some direct representatives of evicted tenants and some who were actually evicted themselves and gave others a grant of £200 to build a new house. The Return showed a grant given for the purpose of stocking the land to a man who could be seen every day in the week walking between Trinity College and St. Stephen's Green in the uniform of the Dublin Metropolitan police. The name was William Dorley, and the Return showed how much public money he got. Dorley was undoubtedly a representative of one of the evicted tenants, but while they built him a house and gave him £200 of public money they left others who had no means of livelihood on the road.
  And, it being a quarter past Eight of the Clock, and there being Private Business set down by direction of the Chairman of Ways and Means under Standing Order No. 8, further proceeding was postponed without Question put.

  TYNE IMPROVEMENT BILL. (BY ORDER.)
  Consideration, as amended, deferred till Thursday next, at a quarter past Eight of the Clock.
SUPPLY.

  (CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS ESTIMATES, 1908–9.
  Postponed proceeding on Question proposed on consideration of Question, "That a sum, not exceeding £160,978, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1909, for the salaries and expenses of the office of the Irish Land Commission."
  Which Question was, "That a sum, not exceeding £160,878, be granted for the said service,"—(Mr. John Roche,)—resumed.
  Question again proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £160,878, be granted for the said service."
  MR. CALDWELLin the Chair.
  MR. JOHN REDMONDsuggested that it would be well to withdraw this Vote and take up the Vote for the Agricultural Department. It was evident that before the end of the Session it would be necessary for them to have an opportunity of discussing some of the larger questions which arose in regard to the Land Commission Vote, and it would be an unfortunate thing if, by coming to a decision upon this Vote to-night, that opportunity was taken away from them. So far as the hon. Member for Galway's motion for a reduction was concerned, he was willing to withdraw it. They were all quite satisfied with the Chief Secretary's reply with reference to the Clanricarde Estate, and he would suggest that the Government should withdraw the Vote, and bring it up again on another occasion.
  MR. KILBRIDEhoped, the Government, in dealing with the Massareene Estate tenants, would see that the reserve fund was not applied.
  MR. CHERRYsaid he would certainly keep that point in mind. In regard to what the hon. and learned Member for Waterford had said, they were quite willing to accede to his request to withdraw the Vote.
  MR. JOHN ROCHEsaid that after the satisfactory reply made by the Chief

  579
  Secretary, for which he desired to thank him, he asked leave to withdraw his motion.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  Original Question age in proposed.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  CLASS II.
  £120,788, to complete the sum for the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction, Ireland.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMONDsaid he desired to take this opportunity of raising for the consideration of the Committee the question of afforestation in Ireland. He asked the Vice-President of the Agricultural Department to be good enough to make a statement, if he was in a position to do so, as to his own attitude and the attitude of the Government towards the afforestation movement in Ireland. It would be remembered that last winter a Departmental Committee was appointed to inquire into the whole subject of forestry in Ireland, and as he happened to be a Member of that Committee he thought he might claim for it that in a very short time it made, on the subject of forestry, what had been described as the most exhaustive investigation that had ever taken place. It often happened with Departmental Committees that they dragged on for a weary length of time and the public began to despair of any conclusions being arrived at. With regard to this particular Committee no time was lost; the investigation was entered upon at once; it was a thorough investigation from every point of view, and within the last month or so the Report of the Committee had been presented to the Department, and he supposed it was available to hon. Members. He did not desire to go into any lengthy description of the findings of the Committee, but he might say that the conclusions arrived at were amply justified by the evidence offered by a great number of witnesses. The Members on the Committee represented very generally the expert knowledge of the country on forestry. Lord Castletown, who had
  580
  been deeply interested in the subject in connection with the Forestry Association, and other gentlemen well qualified to speak, assisted the work of the Committee. Evidence was taken of every conceivable description. They had expert evidence as to the suitability of Ireland from climatic and other points of view for the growing of trees. Evidence was also given as to the industries that were likely to be improved and kept going by means of forestry, and they had evidence of an extraordinary character as to the amount of money lost to Ireland every year because of its utter neglect of forestry. They found that thousands of pounds were being spent every year in Norway and Sweden and other countries for the purchase of wood pulp used in the manufacture of paper. They had also evidence given by those engaged in the timber trade in Ireland including furniture manufacturers and other business men, who were almost unanimous in stating that they greatly feared they would not be able to keep their industries going unless some serious attention was paid to the industry of forestry in Ireland. Many of those wood industries in Ireland kept thousands of hands employed, and it would be an extremely disastrous thing if for the want of a little attention to forestry they were closed down. He knew that very little attention had been paid to the subject of forestry in Scotland and in England, but still less attention had been paid to the question in Ireland. There was only one country in the world as far as they could ascertain where there was a smaller area of land under forestry than in Ireland, and that was Iceland. The area of land under trees in England and Scotland was far smaller than in any other European country. Before the Committee expert evidence was given that from many points of view there was no country in the world more suitable for the successful growing of trees than Ireland. A leading authority on forestry in Scotland, the hon. Member for Leith Burghs, told the Committee from his own observation that he knew Ireland afforded greater facilities for the growing of many kinds of timber than Scotland, England, or any country he knew of. The Committee were told of many kinds of trees which could not be grown in Great

  581
  Britain which flourished and did well in Ireland. Surely it was not surprising that the Committee, in view of these facts, were unanimously in favour of something being done to preserve the forests at present in Ireland, and to see that other forests were planted. Two or three alternative schemes were reported upon, and it was pointed out that this matter of tree planting and the re-afforestation of a country must be and could only be carried out by the intervention of the State. They could not expect private individuals to embark on any scheme which would be sufficiently extensive to be of national benefit hereafter. Therefore, the State must intervene, and in doing so they would only be following the example of every other State in the world. If he had time he could easily give surprising illustrations from Germany, France, and all other nations where forests were a source of great national wealth. He was not going to ask the Government to adopt any particular one of the several schemes worked out by the Departmental Committee. He would confine himself to expressing the hope that the matter would not be allowed to rest. Whether the recommendations of the Committee were acceptable from the financial point of view or not, everybody would admit that the subject was one which ought to be taken up by the Government. The Report laid great stress on the fact that at this particular juncture there was an opportunity for the State's dealing with forestry in Ireland, which had never been afforded before, and which, if allowed to slip, might never occur again in their lifetime. The Land Purchase Acts had brought this question greatly to the front. The Estates Commissioners had pointed out over and over again that they had been embarrassed by the fact that there was no power in Ireland to enable them, in dealing with land purchase, to deal with forests and trees. What was the result? In many parts of the country the land was in process of changing hands. Forests had been destroyed. He was far from saying that tenants who bought land were anxious wantonly to destroy the timber on the land. Farmers were quite alive to the advantage of having the shelter
  582
  of timber. But a great many of the landlords before they sold their property said to themselves that they might as well get all they could out of it, and they cut down the trees without any thought of the future. The result was that for some time past there had been a most lamentable destruction of timber. The value received had been comparatively trifling, because the timber, being immature, had fetched very little in the market. This process of cutting down timber had been carried out to some extent by the tenants, but to a larger extent by the landlords, and the whole proceedings had resulted in waste and disaster. The Government had now an opportunity of acquiring, with beneficial results to the whole community, existing forests and plantations, and for the purpose of afforestation land which was not suitable for anything else. The evidence given before the Committee showed that there were about 1,000,000 acres of land in Ireland perfectly suitable in every way for the planting of trees, and useless for anything else. Under these favourable circumstances he appealed to the Vice-President of the Board of Agriculture to state his views on the Report of the Committee, and to say whether he could hold out any hope that the Government would act in the matter. Like every other scheme, this involved a question of money. They were always told that it was very hard to get money from the British Treasury. The Treasury, like other capitalists, were quite willing to provide money when it was made clear to them that nothing would be lost, and that, on the other hand, something would be gained. The Committee showed in the scheme they worked out that the expenditure of a moderate sum in tree planting in Ireland would in course of years prove a most profitable transaction. Of course, it would take a long time to show a profit, and that was why private capitalists could not be expected to embark in the work. Men could not wait forty, fifty, or sixty years, but the State could very well do so in a matter of this kind. Therefore, he did not think they ought to be shy in asking the Treasury for money. Supposing the Treasury would not look with favour on the request, they were on this subject,

  583
  as on all other subjects connected with Ireland, brought back face to face with the question of self-government. Was there any man in his senses who would say that, if there was a responsible government in Ireland, the country would be left in the condition in which it was now in regard to forestry? With the exception of Iceland, Ireland was the only country in the world where this matter had not received some attention. If the Irish people had had their own Government for the last 100 years, this matter would not have been allowed to fall into its present lamentable state. One of the last things that the old Irish Parliament did was to vote a considerable sum of money for the purpose of encouraging afforestation. From that day to this, so far as he knew, not a single thought had ever been given to the question. There was now a disposition all round to recognise that there were certain things which Irishmen of all classes and creed were entitled to ask, and which ought to be granted. How could any man say, whatever his politics or religion, that in view of the history of this matter, it was not a reasonable thing to come and ask the Government at long last to do something in the matter? The hon. Member for Leith Burghs, who was a great authority on the subject of afforestation, had declared that the Report of the Committee was the most important and enlighteneng document on forestry ever presented to this House. If hon. Members would read the Report they would find that there was a strong desire among people of all classes that this source of wealth should be cultivated in future. He was sure that the Vice-President, whose sympathies were with the people, would do his best with the Treasury. He hoped that hon. Members from all parts of Ireland would support the claim for money to carry out this work, so that the hon. Gentleman when he went to the Treasury would be able to say that he had a united Ireland behind him.
  MR. POWERexpressed the gratitude of his colleagues to the hon. Member for East Clare for introducing this subject, and for the care and trouble he took as a member of the
  584
  Committee which inquired into it. This was a matter on which men of all politics and creeds could agree. Anyone who read the Report would see it was generally recognised that in every country naturally the duty fell on the State to attend to afforestation and to advance money at a liberal rate of interest for the carrying out of the work. He believed that the work could be made essentially productive. It was work which, if it was to be successfully done, should be done on a large scale, and private capitalists did not care to put money in such an enterprise, because they got no return for a considerable number of years. He asked the hon. Gentleman to note that localities protected from north and north-west winds grew most admirable timber. On the Connemara Mountains, which had an eastern exposure, plantations were made a number of years ago, and they were now doing splendidly; if larger areas were enclosed and properly drained, better results would follow. He insisted that re-afforestation was most desirable from a sanitary point of view. They all knew what ravages were caused in certain parts of Ireland from what was called the white plague; these were quite appalling. It was generally considered that the disease arose from the conditions under which the poor people lived—their poverty and their bad food; but there could be no doubt that climate had a great deal to do with it, and it was acknowledged that the climate of Ireland would be largely improved by its re-afforestation. They knew that a largo number of small forests in the country had disappeared. He could not blame the landlords altogether, because they were as a rule poor, and when they saw plantations, the felling of which would bring them in considerable sums of money, it was natural that they should sell their trees. Unfortunately, in too many cases immature timber was cut down, and, so far from the forest area of the country being increased, it had rather decreased. He thought that there was now opportunity for the Estates Commissioners to acquire tree-denuded lands and hand them over for forest cultivation. In his own county of Tipperary the county council were really anxious to do what they

  585
  could to forward this matter. What was called an "Arbor Day" was appointed some years ago on which the children and others planted trees in different localities. Unfortunatey the day selected for that purpose was 1st November, which happened to be a holy day of the Church to which most of the people belonged. But there was no reason why the date of "Arbor Day" should not be changed. His hon. friend informed him, and he knew it was the fact, that his county council had supported the different recommendations of the Committee, all of which, together with the evidence, were well worthy of perusal. He was aware that the Vice-President of the Department was in favour of this matter and had acknowledged that a great deal of Ireland was fitted for little else than tree growing, and if the hon. Gentleman saw that this work was seriously tackled he believed it would be productive of much benefit to Ireland both from a material and from a sanitary point of view.
  MR. NOLANthought that they were all indebted to his hon. friend the Member for East Clare for having introduced this question, which he considered was one of the most important matters that could be discussed in relation to the material well-being of the country. The suitability of Ireland from its size and climate for the growth of useful timber had been established beyond the possibility of doubt by the fact that at one time Ireland was one of the best-wooded countries in Europe, or perhaps in the world. Even to-day, on the tops of some of the hills and mountains, where at present not a shrub grew, the stumps of great forest trees were to be found, proving that these hills and mountains had at one time been covered with dense forests. Then those who were acquainted with the history of the much-vaunted British Navy in the early part of last century were aware that the wooden walls of England, so called, were built to a very large extent of Irish oak, and there was no better oak in the world. It had been stated with absolute truth that in any country where the timber had been destroyed that country was doomed to destruction, and on the other
  586
  hand it had been proved, by practical experiment, that in countries where there were large tracks of barren land incapable of supporting man or beast these had been restored to fertility by a judicious system of planting. The best illustration of this was to be found in the south of France where the Government stepped in and reclaimed a large province from sandy waste. They began by planting grass to bind the sand, and then by planting the Maritime Pine and other trees. A country which at one time would not afford a living to a rabbit now supported 200,000 prosperous peasants, and was even now the health resort of people from this country. Again, they wanted employment in Ireland for their young men, and anything like a good and comprehensive scheme of re-afforestation in Ireland would find immediate work for between 40,000 and 50,000 men. It might be, and had been asked, what was the reason why Ireland was now stripped of forest trees, and had become one of the barest countries in Europe? It was indisputable that, in the first instance, the forests of Ireland were largely destroyed by the Government of this country for military purposes, because they offered an impediment to the march of the invading English armies, and afforded shelter to the natives. The work of ruin then commenced was carried out to the bitter end by an alien landed aristocracy grafted on to Ireland by the British' Government. To satisfy the monetary wants of these gentry such of the forests as had been left by the Government were cut down and sold. Consequently, the Government of England owed it to Ireland to do something now to restore the forests of that country. In connection with the benefits which would accrue to Ireland from re-afforestation in addition to the provision of employment for no many thousands of young men, he might mention that forests would avert the disastrous floods to which Ireland was subject year after year. In the autumn and winter season thousands and thousands of acres of the richest land in Ireland were laid under water. A system of arterial drainage might be necessary, and it was a very good thing in itself, but it was beginning at the wrong end. The place to begin at was

  587
  where tie rain fell on the mountain and hillsides, from which it rushed down into the plains and laid them under water, whilst at the same time it washed away the soil from the mountains and hillsides, which, carried away by the water, silted up the lakes, rivers, and harbours, and caused trouble there. He knew there were difficulties in the way of planting because in some parts the mountain sides were exposed to the whole force of the storms from the Atlantic, and in those parts it would be difficult to get a plant of any kind to grow. It might be almost necessary to build a wall to protect the plants from the storms of the west until they were strong enough to resist the force of the gales, and in their turn became the protection of the belts of timber which would be planted on the hillsides. He was glad to hear that the Report of the Committee was now ready and about to be circulated to Members. He rejoiced to hear that statement, because there were many Members who ought to know a great deal more of this subject. That they knew very little about it was probably due to the fact that they had been engaged in a fierce and bitter struggle in regard to other things, and in consequence this very important question had been neglected. The one comfort in the present position was that they now had a Vice-President of the Board of Agriculture who had goodwill and a practical turn of mind. He believed the hon. Gentleman would turn his attention to this matter, and do something in regard to it. Even if the hon. Gentleman was a greater man than he was the obstacles standing in the way of his carrying out so great a work would probably prove to be too much for him. But he hoped that the hon. Gentleman, with his usual courage, would attack the problem and do something to promote this great work, which would be a great service to the present and a source of great blessing to the future generations of Ireland.
  MR. MULDOONdesired to associate himself with the statement made by the hon. Member for East Clare and to assure the hon. Member who was now Vice-President of the Board that in Ireland there was the greatest feeling upon this subject. He hoped the hon. Gentleman would signalise his
  588
  advent to office by taking some steps in the direction indicated by the hon. Member for East Clare. He, however, was afraid that the difficulties in the hon. Gentleman's way would prove too much for him. But the time was opportune, because the land was passing now from one class to another, and the anxiety in Ireland was great, with regard to the disappearance of the woods, at this moment. He hoped in the land legislation to be promoted this year some provision would be inserted to prevent the waste that was going on at the present time in that direction. As to the difficulties in the way, he was afraid the appointment made by the Treasury recently of one of their clerks to the position of Treasury Remembrancer was a sinister appointment so far as the financial relations between the two countries were concerned. He had noticed a disinclination to raise the wages of the workmen in the Phoenix Park from 15s., but the salary of the. Treasury Remembrancer had been increased by £200. Until the hon. Gentleman became the Vice-President Irishmen had no confidence in the Board of Agriculture, and he hoped the hon. Gentleman would do all that lay in his power to justify the confidence placed in him in all parts of Ireland and would make a commencement in this important matter of forestry. He, however, rose to call attention to the treatment meted out to one of the officials in the forestry branch of the Department. Mr. Ellison, who carried on the business of afforestation, was an officer of acknowledged competence and capacity. He was threatened with dismissal six months ago. Nothing was done then, but he had now been notified that his office of Inspector of the Department of Forestry would come to an end in three months time. If the Board of Agriculture was going to commence this important work in forestry, why were Mr. Ellison's services being dispensed with at this time? There was no more competent man for this work in Ireland at the present time, and feeling in the county of Wicklow on the way in which he was being treated was very strong. The head of the Department ought to follow the declared policy of the Government to govern Ireland according to Irish ideas, and he had had an index of the feeling of Wicklow on this question.
  MR. JOYCEdesired to associate himself with the hon. Gentleman who had just spoken on the question of forestry in Ireland, and to express the hope that this important question would be pressed home on the Board of Agriculture. He rose, however, for the purpose of drawing attention to another branch of the Department, that dealing with technical education in Ireland. When the Department was formed the people of the country took up the question of technical education in a very wholehearted way. The county councils and borough councils, who were in many cases already too highly rated, cheerfully burdened themselves with still heavier rates to forward the movement of technical education. Since its formation, he had been a member of the Technical Education Committee of his own city, and he had also for four years been a member of the central board in Dublin. This question, like that of afforestation, embraced all shades of opinion in Ireland. Men from all parts and of all shades of political opinion and religion, worked in the most harmonious manner in the interests of technical education, which had been more or less—and more rather than less—starved by the Treasury. He would like to know why there was not a representative of the Treasury present. If there had been one present, he would perhaps have spoken to him more strongly than he was speaking, because the Treasury had treated the public bodies in Ireland in a most scandalous manner. The Vice-President of the Department, during his tour of Ireland, had seen for himself the necessity of increased expenditure in connection with technical education. Towns and cities had burdened themselves in no small way by raising considerable sums to build institutions, and obtain requisites for technical classes. When public bodies had done this and people had shown themselves anxious to take advantage of technical education in large numbers, why should the Treasury have stepped in and cribbed, cabined, and confined the efforts made? The Vice-President of the Department, when at Limerick last winter, saw the technical classes at work, and finding that they had had to borrow £10,000 to help to to build a new institute, he was so struck with the requirements, that he
  590
  publicly stated that he would do his very best with the Treasury to get a special sum of money for Ireland which he would divide fairly over the whole of the country as free grants towards the building or equipping of technical schools. They were sorry to find that the hon. Gentleman had failed, but they were not a bit surprised. The English Treasury always balked at giving a small sum for any purpose in Ireland. They were not begging this money from the Treasury. They asked it as a right, because they filched ten thousand times more from them every year. They never balked at millions when they were for palatial buildings for the War Office or the Admiralty, but when it was a question of equipping the youth of Ireland to fight the battle of life by giving them the opportunity of technical classes and putting them on an equal footing with other boys, then the Treasury always put its foot down and gave excuses. He asked the Vice-President in conjunction with the Leaders of the Nationalist and Ulster Unionist Parties to try and bring pressure to bear upon the Treasury to get a fair instalment of money to be devoted as free grants towards building technical institutes or equipping technical classes in Ireland, They were satisfied to bear their fair share of the burden; but the Vice-President knew that the institute in Limerick had to be cut down from £16,000 to £10,000, because that was the amount they would be able to borrow. The institute therefore would not be fully built or equipped. They would greatly have liked to have had the £5,000 or £6,000 which the Vice-President promised to get for them.
  THE VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOR IRELAND (Mr. T. W. RUSSELL,: I tried to get it.
  MR. JOYCEsaid they built on that promise with a reasonable hope that the money would be granted, and that they would be able to build and equip their schools in a proper manner. This did not apply to Limerick alone; it applied all over Ireland. They saddled themselves with heavy rates and tried to

  591
  forward the great system of technical instruction, and it was not too much to ask the English Treasury out of the immense surplus sums at their disposal to devote a small sum to enable the county and borough councils in Ireland to equip their schools in a fair and reasonable manner. He hoped the Vice-President would continue to press the matter upon the Treasury. He would certainly have the support of the Irish Party, and he hoped he would have the support of the Unionist Party in Ulster. It would be money well spent in the interests of the Irish people.
  MR. BARRIEthought that on the subject of afforestation Ireland was absolutely united. He hoped they would have an intimation from the Vice-President of the Board of Agriculture that the Government, realising the urgency and importance of the matter, would see their way to do the generous thing and begin some experimental planting and to promise that they would do something substantial in a very few years. Reference had been made to "Arbor" day, and he would be happy if it could be revived and a more suitable date selected for the purpose. In doing so they would be following the example of America, where it was very popular. It had also been mentioned that Ireland imported wood pulp very largely for paper making. It would, of course, be many years before they could hope to have a full home supply, but it seemed strange when Ireland was so suited for tree growing that they should require to import their material for paper making. He wished to refer to some of the other activities of the Department, The last speaker dealt very eloquently with the question of an additional grant for the building of technical schools. He was more than pleased to hear that the city of Limerick felt such confidence in the value of technical education that they had erected an institute costing the substantial sum of £10,000. They, however, who represented rural constituencies thought that cities of importance like Limerick had financial resources that made it less necessary for them than for smaller towns to rely upon the generosity of the Treasury, and they hoped they would be
  592
  able to press their claims upon the Treasury with more success this session than last.
  MR. CARLILEcalled attention to the fact that there were not forty Members present.
  House counted; and, forty Members being found present—
  MR. BARRIE, continuing, said that with regard to winter dairies he would be glad if the President would tell them what progress had been made since last year. They were fully alive to the importance of Ireland being a butter-exporting country, not in the summer season only, but during the whole course of the year. It was not entirely satisfactory to find in their large cities Danish butter frequently sold in the winter. It was rather inconvenient to have this Estimate presented before the annual Report of the Department was in their hands, but they knew that very great progress had attended the efforts of the Department during the last season, while acknowledging that it was with some surprise that he found an additional amount of £5,000 put down for increased salaries. That was a very substantial increase. It included an increase of £200 to the Secretary of the Department. He thought Mr. Gill deserved the increase it was proposed to give him and he hoped it would not be questioned. The additional grant for arts and sciences was of the greatest encouragement to technical schools all over the country, but the expansion of the allowance was likely to increase because of the liberal policy pursued during the past two sessions. They now had three grades of classes, and under the new scheme of allowances the grant-in-aid for the senior classes was very substantial indeed, and had been very welcome to technical committees. But the very success which had attended this more liberal policy would lead to larger demands next session. He hoped the Vice-President would bear that in mind, and satisfy the Treasury that no money had been better invested in Irish education in the present generation. He was most anxious to see this policy continued and extended. He was sorry he

  593
  could not congratulate the Department on. equal success in the development of the fisheries of the country. One explanation frequently urged was the want of a proper coastal patrol. The Department had for several years employed two detective steamers, but how a sensible body of men could expect to patrol the fisheries effectively, with vessels of nine knots, to overtake and capture trawlers which could steam fifteen knots, was one of the conundrums which he would leave the Department to explain. There was to be an addition to the fleet, but they did not know what the speed of the new cruiser would be.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: Between fourteen and fifteen knots.
  MR. BARRIEsaid that was progress in the right direction, though he would rather have had a knot or two more. Taking it all in all they were satisfied with the progress the Department was making and they realised that the Vice-President had acquitted himself successfully, except in one important particular. It would be the general desire of the House to remember that Sir Horace Plunkett was the real author of the Department. A number of Nationalist Members had actively associated themselves in the work of the Department when it was in charge of Sir Horace Plunkett, and they would bear him out that except in one important point no change had been made in the general line of the work of the Department. It was therefore with the more regret that in one matter a very sudden change had taken place in the view of the Vice-President who had expressed himself as disapproving of the annual sums that had been for several years given to the Agricultural Organisation Society. There was a sharp diversity of opinion on the Agricultural Board, but it was thought that satisfaction had been reached in the compromise suggested by the Vice-President that the grants hitherto given to that society in aid of Agricultural Societies all over the land should be continued for the next three years diminishing annually. A little later Sir Horace Plunkett delivered a lecture in the course of which he criticised previous criticisms of a prominent Member of the Nationalist
  594
  Party. An over-zealous friend of his sent that lecture to a well-known Nationalist in St. Louis. It was then said that Sir Horace Plunkett, the head of the Agricultural Society, had no right to make the criticism that he did so long as he was receiving a subsidy from the Department. The arrangement made by the Council which was to continue for three years was suddenly altered by the Vice-President and the Council, and the grant terminated on the ground that Sir Horace Plunkett had been a party to the sending of this now famous letter which did not bear the interpretation which the Vice-President placed upon it. That treatment was unfair to Sir Horace Plunkett, who had always acted unselfishly. He also complained that that was not the way a public board should be treated. He wished to associate himself in the remarks made in condemnation of the course taken by the Rev. Father Finlay, who, on Tuesday, raised a protest against it at the meeting in Dublin. He had always held that the House and the Government had not treated Sir Horace well, and he was sorry to see the Council approving the further course taken by the Vice-President in connection with that letter. That was the only criticism he had to make on the conduct of the Vice-President. He had admired the energy which he had displayed in furthering the work of the Department, but he was keenly disappointed that he should have so acted. There was a letter in the Irish limes that day, over the signature of Sir Horace, repudiating absolutely that he knew anything of that latter being sent to America. The bulk of the House were prepared to accept the word of honour of Sir Horace Plunkett in this matter.
  MR. J. MACVEAGHsaid he had listened to the high tribute of praise which had been paid to Sir Horace Plunkett. His only regret was that this enthusiasm for Sir Horace Plankett's services had so lately manifested itself. He had not forgotten that it was the Unionist Party in Ireland that drove Sir Horace Plunkett out of public life, because he had the temerity to appoint an Irish Catholic as Secretary to the Agricultural Department. For this the

  595
  Unionist Party selected an official candidate with the result that Sir Horace Plunkett's seat was handed over to the Nationalists. From the day they drove Sir Horace Plunkett out of Parliament to the present hour the Unionists would not touch him with a 40 ft. pole, and in all the vacancies which had taken place in Ulster since that time they would not even allow Sir Horace Plunkett to get within talking distance of the electors. If Sir Horace Plunkett was all that the hon. Member for North Londonderry had claimed, why was his name not mentioned in conection with the representation of Fermanagh, and why did the hon. Member not retire in favour of this saviour of Ireland? Probably the hon. Member had his eye upon a Judgeship, and he preferred to stay where he was. He thought it was rather hard lines upon the Vice-President of the Board of Agriculture that he should be blamed for all the doings of Sir Horace Plunkett, when the two hon. Members sitting on the Unionist Benches were the men who had kept him out of Parliament. He wished to re-echo the expression of regret which had fallen from the hon. Member for the City of Limerick at the absence of any representative of the Treasury. He anticipated that the Vice-President would offer them any amount of sympathy and would say he had no money for them. During this debate, beyond a fleeting visit of half a minute paid by the Secretary to the Treasury, there had been no representative of the Treasury to listen to the statements from the Irish Benches, or to answer questions which were of very grave import to the people of Ireland at the present time. He anticipated that when a count was moved some one would come in from the Treasury, but even then they failed to put in an appearance. Although the Treasury officials were paid large salaries they would not come in to listen to the debate, and he appealed to the Vice-President to make a note of what had been said about them. The hon. Member for East Clare and the hon. Member for South Louth had spoken upon the question of afforestation. He thought that was a matter which ought to receive the prompt and serious attention of the Treasury. Large planta-
  596
  tions and woods were now, through the operation of the Land Act, passing from the landlords, and unless they were acquired by the State they would fall into the hands of the timber merchants. Now was the opportunity for the British Government to step in and save the situation. He hoped the Vice-President would make reports to the Treasury in favour of acquiring those woods before such a course was rendered impossible. He agreed with what had been said about the importance of the fishing industry, and the necessity for the Department of Agriculture taking some more serious steps. The hon. Member for Derry had expressed the hope that there would be some better patrolling of the coast by steamers. He also was anxious that that should be done, but it ought not to be done at the expense of the funds of the Department. The amount available for the fisheries was about £10,000, about £4,000 of which was absorbed in patrolling the coast, which only left £5,000 or £6,000 available for actual fisheries work. That was only a caricature of attending to the fisheries of Ireland. If the explanation was that they had not sufficient money, he hoped the Vice-President would tell them plainly and place the responsibility where it ought to be placed—on the Treasury. The fishing population in Ireland was decreasing and the fishing industry was gradually dying out, and if something was not done immediately the result would be one which everybody would regret. He would like the Vice-President to tell them if anything was being done with regard to the spraying of potatoes. He trusted they would have a statement upon that question. Another important matter was the stopping of the sale of adulterated manures and seeds. Those articles were produced not by Irish but by English manufacturers, and they were being dumped in Ireland by English agents. He thought the Department ought to do something to put an end to a system which was defrauding and swindling the farmers of Ireland.
  [Mr. EMMOTT took the Chair.]
  MR. HUGH LAWsaid that comment had been made upon the

  597
  paucity of the resources at the command of the Vice-President in the development of Irish fisheries. Probably no one felt more than he that an expenditure of £10,000 a year was exceedingly inadequate for proper development of what might be one of the greatest industries, and he hoped that the hon. Member would ask the Secretary to the Treasury to make special note of the matter. Anyone who looked at the return of the value of the fish landed on the Irish coasts and at the return for Scotland would be struck at once with the extraordinary contrast which the figures presented. And even from the comparatively miserable sum which the Irish fisheries yield a considerable allowance had to be made for fish landed from vessels which were not Irish. The practical matter, however, to which he wanted to draw the attention of the Vice-President was the familiar subject of whales. He would ask very seriously what steps he contemplated in view of what appeared to many to be a very serious danger menacing the fisheries of the west coast of Ireland. At considerable cost and great effort a relatively great industry had been built up, especially by the Congested Districts Board on the west coast of Donegal. He could not contemplate what would happen if anything should occur to destroy that industry in his own district, for instance, where the Poor Law valuation was only £12,000 a year and the value of the fish landed at one pier in 1906 something like £20,000. It was quite clear that was an industry they could not afford to play with. A Norwegian whaling company proposed to establish a whaling station on the coast of Donegal. In deference to representations made to the Irish Government and the Board of Trade the company withdrew its application and proceeded to transfer its attention to the coast of Mayo. It was not a local, but a national matter. The operations of a whaling company extended over a large area and he wished the Vice-President to state how he proposed that the regulations as to the restriction of whaling to the limits approved were to be enforced. The hon. Gentleman had already told him in answer to a Question that it would be done by the fleet at the disposal of the Department. He was
  598
  under the impression that the fleet consisted of one vessel.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: Two vessels.
  MR. HUGH LAWsaid the hon. Gentleman had a greater naval power than the Sultan of Morocco who had only one vessel.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: The two-Power standard.
  MR. HUGH LAWhad no doubt they were excellent boats, admirably commanded, but he wished to know how these two vessels could watch the operation of the whaling vessels in addition to patrolling the whole coast of Ireland. The attitude of the Department was that if a whaling station was established in a district where there was no existing fishery, no harm could be done. The hon. Gentleman was aware that that was not the view held in Shetland, where a whaling station was established a few years ago. He had had figures supplied to him showing that whaling operations were most dangerous to fisheries. In one district in Shetland in the year before the whaling station was established, that was to say, July, 1901, 6,000 crans of herrings were landed, and in July, 1907, the number had sunk to seven crans. In another district 3,000 had sunk to nothing. In another district, 19,000 had sunk to four. In another, 3,000 had sunk to none. In another, 4,000 had sunk to nothing. In another, 10,000 had sunk to 100. In another, 30,000 had sunk to 6,000, which though but one-fifth of the former figure yet represented the smallest diminution within the whaling area. While that was the case within the area over which whaling operations were carried on, his information was that the fish landed over Shetland showed no decrease at all. That was relied upon as showing that the whaling had not been deleterious. There had been, he was informed, an actual increase in the fish landed outside the area of the whaling operations, and if that was so, the fact gave greater significance to the figures he had quoted as to the falling off in the whaling area. So far as he could see, there was nothing in the bye-laws to prevent a whaler from fishing in any

  599
  water north or south provided the whaler kept outside the three-mile limit, and seeing that the greater part of the fisheries was carried on outside the three-mile limit, it seemed to him that wherever a whaling station was established there was still great danger to the fisheries on the whole coast. He wished to know what measures the Department proposed to take to safeguard the interests of the fisheries.
  MR. POWERsaid he desired to remind the Vice-President of the Board of Agriculture that many years ago the Scottish ports succeeded in getting from the Admiralty a boat or two to protect the fisheries, whereas the Irish representatives who had been asking for a similar service had not been successful. He was informed that the Scottish coasts were patrolled by three boats. He would not go into the question of trawling beyond saying that there was no doubt that in the North Sea the supply of fish was decreasing every year. He believed that, unless something was done to protect the fisheries beyond the three-mile limit, there would continue to be a great deal of destruction of immature fish. He drew the hon. Gentleman's attention to the Port of Dunmore, where last year no fewer than thirty-six large herring-fishing craft came into the capital harbour, although he was sorry to say not so many of them were Irish. Dun-more was twelve miles from the nearest railway communication, and it was difficult when there was a large catch of herrings to get their hauls to market. It was true that the herring were erratic in their habits. He remembered four years ago the catch was so large and the difficulty of getting the fish to market so great that tons and tons of the fish were carted on to the land for manure. He asked the Vice-President of the Council to do what he could to improve the communications between the fishing station and the nearest railway.
  MR. GUESTwished to know the opinion of the Board of Agriculture upon the financial statement put forth in the Report of the Committee on Forestry. Those who had read that Report must have been impressed with the general consensus of opinion as to the
  600
  profitable results of sylviculture when carried on to a large extent instead of in small plantations. He hoped the Vice-President would be able to indicate where there were large tracts of land in Ireland which might be usefully and profitably planted, and if the Irish Government were prepared to assist re-afforestation on a large scale by the compulsory acquisition of land. Were the Government prepared to make any recommendations to the House on the subject? There was a precedent for this in the recent English Small Holdings Act.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid that they had had a very interesting debate with only one unpleasant feature, and that was the charge against himself in connection with the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society. The Member for North Londonderry stated that the one and only thing during his year of office to which he objected was that he thought he had committed a great error in undoing the work of Sir Horace Plunkett in this respect. He would state what had actually taken place. When he wont into office it was true that he found a Parliamentary Grant to the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society of £4,000 a year in existence. It had been much more than that some years ago. He further found that great dissatisfaction existed amongst the traders in the country with the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society. It had been said that he objected to cooperation. He believed in co-operation, and that it was necessary in present circumstances; but he held that if co-operation was to exist it ought to be self-supporting, and not to be dependent upon State aid. He therefore proposed that a grant of £3,000 should be continued for the year that was running, then reduced to £2,000 the following year, and then to £1,000, and that thereafter the Vote should cease. The Agricultural Board adopted the view of the Council and that arrangement was agreed to. The hon. Member for North Londonderry said that this compact had been set aside. The hon. Member was right in saying that the arrangement had been set aside, but he was not right in putting the responsibility upon himself. He

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  was faced one morning by the most extraordinary letter, which had been sent to the newspapers by a well-known gentleman who had at one time been in the service of the Department and was a warm friend of Sir Horace Plunkett, announcing that the Department had cut off the supplies, that the people of the country must choose between the parties, that they must make up their minds "to clear,"—he used the exact words—"Dillon and the Parliamentarians" out. And he said that he had been requested by Sir Horace Plunkett to forward a newspaper containing a report of his speech. Therefore he (Mr. Russell) concluded, perhaps wrongly, that Sir Horace Plunkett had probably also given a hint to send a letter along with it. He had to make up his mind what to do. He saw the work of the Department imperilled. He saw there was danger so far as the Nationalists were concerned, of its being imperilled. It was not the object of the Board to give £3,000 for the purpose of clearing "Dillon and the Parliamentarians" out. That Board was the supreme authority. The Council had no executive power. Here was what took place. After the full draft of this letter and of the speech delivered by Sir Horace Plunkett at the annual meeting of the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society had been considered this resolution was arrived at. They decided that the impression which these letters, articles, and speeches had created, namely the association of the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society with hostility to a political party and to certain trading interests, greatly increased the difficulties of the Department already for some years very considerable in helping forward the co-operative movement in Ireland and made it impossible for the Department in the interests of their schemes throughout the country to continue their present relations with the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society.
  MR. BARRIE: How many members of the Board were present?
  MR. T. W.RUSSELLsaid there was a full attendance of the twelve members. That resolution was passed unanimously.
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  The Board agreed to continue the grant for the present year in order that no official with whom an engagement had been made should suffer. He called the Board to consider it and he gave his advice before the decision was arrived at. He took the responsibility now, but he wished it to be understood in Ireland that a full Board came to the conclusion that the work of the Department would be seriously imperilled if they were associated with the work of clearing "Dillon and the Parliamentarians" out. He hoped that both organisations now would be allowed to go their own way and that they had heard the last of this unsavoury business. He came now to the subjects which had been raised in the course of the debate, all of which involved the raising of money. Take afforestation. The position he had been placed in was this—he saw that the country was being denuded of timber; the landlords who had not sold were cutting it down; the tenants who had bought not realising the value of the timber, were cutting it down and selling it. The Commissioners when they sold an estate had to sell the timber and there was no market but with the timber merchant. He appointed the Departmental Committee, which reported without delay, so that the question was really urgent. In two cases the Department had stepped in when the Commissioners were selling, but that was not work originally contemplated by the Department, and unless something was done the Commissioners must proceed and sell the timber. There was no necessity for compulsion in this matter. The land was being sold and if the timber was not got now they would not be able to get it hereafter. That was another cause of urgency. The county councils were anxious to help, but nothing could be done when the land had changed hands. All public bodies and all public men who had studied the matter saw the necessity for it and were engaged in pressing it. The question really was, then, How was the difficulty to be met? It could not be met by private enterprise. No private person do it. The State alone could do it, and it was not so much a question of expenditure, as of investment. The Government, invested in a Scottish forest the other day and they did well. It did

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  not mean a large expenditure of money at all; it meant a modest investment to begin with. The hon. Member for Clare and other hon. Members had pressed him to take action in the matter. He had taken action. In the first place he had made out a case by establishing the Committee; and he had made as strong appeals to the Treasury as he possibly could. He had pointed out all the facts, that the opportunity would pass if it was not availed of, that it was not a question of expenditure, but of investment, and that it was a modest sum to begin with; and all he could say was the Treasury gave him the necessary money for the committee of investigation. He would plead that they should not allow that money to be thrown away but should enable them to go forward at once. They had everything ready to begin and he really had hopes that they would succeed in getting the work done. He knew the Treasury had other calls for money for Ireland just now—for the Universities Bill, for the congested districts, and for other things—but he hoped he would have a look in and be able to get this work started. The next question was one raised by the hon. Member for Wicklow, with regard to an official of the Department, and he said that he (Mr. Russell) ought to remember that the Liberal Party were pledged to govern Ireland according to Irish ideas. He really wanted the hon. Member for Wicklow to tell him if this was an Irish idea: Mr. Ellison was engaged to carry out a forestry experiment in County Wick-low. The work was finished, and they had nothing more for him to do. He was under three months notice. All the public bodies in Wicklow had protested against his dismissal, but was there anybody in this House who would tell him that he ought to spend £300 a year upon a man for whom he had no work? Was that an Irish idea?
  MR. MULDOON: Will the hon. Gentleman say whether he has not got a gentleman from Scotland doing the same work and what salary he is giving him?
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: There is no gentleman from Scotland or anywhere else who is taking his place. I have told him his case will be considered on the first opportunity and I cannot go beyond that. I really do not think I ought to be
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  pressed to keep a man for whom I have no work.
  MR. MOONEY: What work have you got for Mr. Porter to do?
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I have work for Mr. Porter. He is earning his salary. And as a Civil servant Mr. Porter could not be dismissed.
  MR. MOONEY: Since when?
  MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid he was doing as hard work as any other man in the Department at the present time. Mr. Ellison came upon a temporary engagement, and he had no right to keep him when his work was done. The hon. Member for Limerick had raised the question of building grants for technical schools. He admitted the importance of it. Nothing had struck him so much as the rapid progress in technical education in Ireland. It was not more than four or five years since the great work began; and there were now, apart altogether from work in secondary schools, which was very great, 129 technical schools and institutes almost entirely in the urban districts of Ireland. There was no question of its success. He quite agreed it was a great hardship for local authorities to have to dip into the rates for building technical schools and institutes. What took place was this. There were nine or ten towns in Ireland which had pledged their rates for building purposes. Every town could not afford to do that. That, however, was not the only difficulty. When they got their loan for technical education buildings, the first charge upon it was for interest and sinking fund, so that technical education was actually robbed of part of the grant. He had done his best, and he had been refused. The Treasury had the last word. The Member for Limerick who was on the Technical Board heard the Treasury letter read the other day. He knew that the Board made the best case possible, but they were not able to get the money, and without it they could not give the building grant. He promised to do his best to get it but he had failed, and that was all he could say.
  MR. JOYCE: Oh, you must try again.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid the Department had been interested in winter dairying for years. It was a great loss to Ireland that to all intents and purposes they only made butter for seven or eight months in the year, and that there were four months when they practically made none. They lost the English trade, which went to Denmark, and it was very difficult to get back. It was a great drawback and a great hardship. They had been carrying out experiments to convince the Irish farmer that it was possible to have winter dairying and to make it pay. He had had a deputation of farmers from Limerick, but they would not touch it. They were, however, carrying out further experiments—an elaborate experiment had been carried out in Cork at the Agricultural Institute, and another at a creamery which paid higher prices in winter than in summer, and they were doing their best to convince the farmers that it was possible to do this, to make money, and not lose it. It was a great drawback to the butter trade in Ireland that it should cease for four months and lose the market. The hon. Member had also referred to the question of fisheries. In 1899 Parliament constituted the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction the fishery authority for Ireland, and in its wisdom set aside £10,000 a year for the purpose of developing the industry and managing and regulating it. It was true the Sea Fisheries Fund of £25,000 was also handed over. Parliament provided and intended that that should be dealt with in giving small loans to fishermen. The hon. Member for North Derry was very jocular over the absurdity of supposing that a vessel like the "Helga" could catch trawlers. But the vessel had gone to the Black Sea and a new "Helga" was launched on Saturday, which could steam at fourteen to fifteen knots, and which he thought would be very successful. The whole policing of the coast, amounting to something like £5,000 a year, came out of the £10,000 set aside for the development of the industry. Hon. Members came to him every day. One had asked him the other day for the repair of a pier, which ought to be done. It would cost a trifle of £12,000. How could he do it with the money at his disposal? He had not the power of getting it from
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  the Treasury. Parliament must see to that. He was only letting the light in. It was perfect nonsense for Members to come to him day after day as they did. They presented most excellent cases, and many of them were urgent. They asked for money for piers, boat slips, and all sorts of things. At the most he had £5,000 a year to go round the whole coast of Ireland, and it could not be done. In regard to spraying potatoes they had already twenty seven inspectors in the West of Ireland making the arrangements. They were providing for the machines to be sold at cost price or hired, and were doing their best to see that the spraying material used would be genuine and not spurious. That was a very difficult operation considering the number of English companies that were trying to foist spurious material on them. They were leaving nothing undone in the West of Ireland and they were not confining themselves merely to congested districts. There were regions outside the congested districts which were quite as much in need of help as the congested districts themselves. They were making preparations and they would do their best to see that no damage arose from lack of spraying. As to the question of adulteration of seed and manure and feeding stuff, there were companies engaged in selling calf meal that was not only useless, but absolutely pernicious, and it was an extraordinary thing that these were English companies. But the Irish people were not without blame, because Irish materials could be had. But such was the invincible prejudice in Ireland itself against everything Irish that they could not get the people to buy them, and they were buying these English mixtures when they could get the Irish materials at less money and absolutely pure. What were they to do? A black list of these English companies had been suggested, but the Law Officers had stopped him from making a black list.
  AN HON. MEMBER: Would the hon. Gentleman mention the names of the English companies now?
  MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid they could not publish the names. They would subject themselves very likely to half

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  a dozen libel actions. That might do for the lawyers, but it would not do for the Department. What he had offered to do was this. He had said that if the Irish Members wanted the information he would give it in Parliament, where he was quite safe in doing it. The question of whaling was a new one. It was only a few months ago that they had had to deal with it, and the hon. Member for Donegal was hardly fair to the Department. It had been proposed to start a whaling station off the coast of Donegal. They had satisfied themselves that it was dangerous where there was a fishing industry. They had issued a bye-law prohibiting it. They had now gone to the West of Ireland. They had bought or leased an island from the Congested Districts Board where there was no fishing industry. There was no law against it and the Department had no power to stop it. What he proposed to do was to introduce a Bill giving the Department power to prohibit or sanction the industry as they thought fit. Their expert advisers stated that the evidence was not conclusive as to the injurious character of the industry. Of course they could not be issuing bye-laws for every part of the coast, and therefore they proposed to get power under a Bill which would put the responsibility upon the Department. With regard to Donegal he had only the same answer to make, viz.—that all the money of the Department had been appropriated and until more money was provided he could not do anything in the matter.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMONDreferred to the request which had been made for repairs to the pier in the county of Clare. The erection of this pier had been arranged for in one of the poorest fishing districts. It was to cost £1,200, and the money was allocated. The Agricultural Department was to give a certain amount, and so was the county council, but because of some technical disability attaching to the action of the county council they were prevented from handing over their share of the money. The late Chief Secretary promised to introduce a Bill upon this point before he went to America, but he forgot all about it, and for lack of that measure giving the county council the necessary power those
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  poor unfortunate fishermen had been denied this pier. Nobody opposed the Bill and he would like to know when it was going to be introduced. It could be introduced at once and then the pier could be built.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid he was quite ready to introduce the Bill if the Treasury sanctioned it.
  MR. POWERsaid the patrolling of the coast was costing £5,000 a year. He wished to know if it was a fact that the Admiralty largely patrolled the Scottish coasts and saved the Scottish Department that expense. If that was the case why could a similar-thing not be done for Ireland by the Admiralty and thus save them this expense?
  MR. FFRENCHsaid it had been stated that £12,000 would be required for the improvements he had referred to. He wished to point out that it would not cost so much. What they required was an extension of about 60 yards and that could be done for about £4,000. The Wexford County Council had expended thousands upon the fishery piers and surely they were entitled to a little-assistance from the Board of Agriculture in a matter of this kind.
  Vote agreed to.
  Resolution to be reported upon Monday next; Committee to sit again upon Monday next.

  PORT OF LONDON BILL.
  Ordered, That the Lords Message [this day] relating to the time and place of meeting of the Joint Committee on the Port of London Bill be now considered.
  Lords Message considered accordingly.
  Ordered, That the Committee of this House do meet the Lords Committee as proposed by their Lordships.—(Mr. Whiteley.)
  Message to the Lords to acquaint them therewith.
  Adjourned at six minutes after Eleven o'clock.