§ (1) If it appears to the Lord Lieutenant or a Secretary of State expedient in the public interest that steps shall be taken for the speedy determination of the question whether any Irish Act or any provision thereof, or any Irish Bill or any provision thereof, is beyond the powers of the Irish Parliament, he may represent the same to His Majesty in Council, and thereupon the said question shall be forthwith referred to and heard and determined by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, constituted as if hearing an appeal from a Court in Ireland.
§ (2) Upon the hearing of the question such persons as seem to the Judicial Committee to be interested may be allowed to appear and be heard as parties to the case, and the decision of the Judicial Committee shall be given in like manner as if it were the decision of an appeal, the nature of the report or recommendation to His Majesty being stated in open Court.
§ (3) Nothing in this Act shall prejudice any other power of His Majesty in Council to refer any question to the Judicial Committee or the right of any person to petition His Majesty for such reference.
§ The CHAIRMANThe first Amendment I proposed to call, as I stated yesterday, stands in the name of the Noble Lord the Member for Maidstone (Viscount Castlereagh), but just at this moment a manuscript Amendment in a slightly different form has been handed to me. It contains two words which I think will place it outside the scope of the Clause. If it is moved without those words I can take it. The manuscript Amendment handed to me is to insert in Sub-section (1), after the word "Parliament" ["Beyond the powers of the Irish Parliament"], the words "or whether any Executive power in Ireland has been unlawfully or oppressively exercised or withheld." I think the words "or oppressively" would be outside the scope of this Clause, which is to deal with Acts or Bills 2312 ultra vires. Of course, it can be proposed to extend it from legislative to Executive matters, but I think we should not go beyond that. Perhaps the hon. Member will move it in that form.
§ Sir HILDRED CARLILEI beg to move, in Sub-section (1), after the word "Parliament," to insert the words "or whether any Executive power in Ireland has been unlawfully exercised or withheld."
As the result of your ruling, Sir, I move the Amendment in the modified form which you have just suggested, and leave out the two words "or oppressively." I think it is difficult to exaggerate the importance of this Amendment. The Clause extends to the Lord Lieutenant or a Secretary of State the power of obtaining from the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council a reasoned judgment not only on Acts of Parliament which may have been carried by the House of Commons in Dublin, but also upon Bills and individual propositions and provisions contained in any Bill. If that power is to be extended to the Lord Lieutenant and a Secretary of State, how much more necessary is it that a similar power should be given those functionaries on the Executive side. If it is important that Bills in the process of passing through the House should be at once considered, at the request of the Lord Lieutenant or a Secretary of State, surely, when those Bills have become Acts and are put into operation and handed over to the Executive authority, and they come far closer down to the daily life of the people, there ought to be an opportunity of submitting any question of excess of power exercised outside the Statute in the way proposed in the Clause. It becomes very necessary that some such provision should be inserted in the Bill on three grounds: First of all, there is the hasty way in which Bills have to be drafted in these days. It may be said that is not likely to obtain in Ireland, but I have not much confidence in that. I think what happens so frequently here in the Imperial Parliament is extremely likely to happen in connection with this subordinate Parliament. This hasty drafting arises not because of any inefficiency on the part of our permanent staff, far from it, but from the fact that the present Administration keeps us all the year round in the House of Commons turning out a huge quantity of legislation so that the permanent staff have no real leisure or time to properly and suitably draft the Bills submitted for our consideration. Side by side with that there 2313 is the fact that legislative proposals are constantly submitted under the Closure, gag, and kangaroo. Under these circumstances, it is most important some such provision as this should be inserted in the Bill. There is another ground, and it is the wide powers given in modern legislation to the Administration. I might refer by way of illustration to the National Insurance Act. The widest possible powers were given to the Insurance Commissioners in order to get over any sort of difficulty. The third consideration is the most important of all. The Administration always seems to have a tendency to exceed the provisions of the Statute.
§ 4.0 P.M.
§ Sir H. CARLILEI am glad to hear the hon. Member for Pontefract approves of that statement. I think it is amply borne out by the experience we have had in recent times. There is always a tendency to travel outside the scope of the Statute. That, of course, is of the very greatest importance. It may be said, although that obtains not infrequently in Great Britain, it is not likely to arise in Ireland, but there again I should be very sceptical indeed. We have to remember this legislative power in Ireland is going to be placed in the hands of the Nationalist party as the majority, and, when we are asked by the Government and by the hon. and learned Member for Waterford (Mr. John Redmond), not in so many words, but, in fact, to forget the record of the Nationalist party and their words, then I say they are asking more of us than can be really expected of human nature. We cannot forget the record of the Nationalist party. We cannot forget their words or their attitude towards law and order; we cannot forget their words on various occasions at home here or in Ireland, or in America or Australia, where they have gone from time to time to obtain those funds which the people of Ireland so entirely decline to provide. We cannot forget their words, and, in the hands of such people, we feel that the power contained in the Executive authority will be in great danger of being exceeded. On more than one occasion the Chief Secretary for Ireland has told us that minorities must suffer. All that we entirely realise.
§ Mr. LOUGHOn a point of Order. I would like to ask whether the line of argument which the hon. Member is adopting is in order. Is not the Clause confined to 2314 the validity of any law? Can merely Executive Acts be discussed in this way?
§ The CHAIRMANThe object of the Amendment which the hon. Member is about to move is to extend the appeal to the Executive Acts.
§ Mr. MOOREThis is simply intended as a safeguard. Does the right hon. Gentleman object to our having any safeguard at all?
§ The CHAIRMANThe hon. Member is not entitled to raise that now.
§ Sir H. CARLILEWe realise on this side the position of the minority under the Bill, and we feel that, unless some such protection as is provided in this Amendment is inserted in the Bill, then what the Chief Secretary for Ireland suggested will naturally follow, and minorities will suffer. It is our business, and I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will agree that it is also our duty, to see that if minorities must suffer, at least they shall not suffer unnecessarily; therefore we propose this Amendment. Under the Clause as it stands the Lord Lieutenant has no appeal in connection with Executive abuses. That power of appeal we think he ought to have. The power is given to the Joint Exchequer Board, and if, in connection with finance, it is desirable that an appeal should lie, surely it is much more desirable, when it may be a question of civil or religious liberty. On such a question there ought to be power of obtaining such advice, and it is more necessary surely in the case of a Lord Lieutenant and a Secretary of State than in connection with a merely money matter dealt with by the Joint Exchequer Board. The Lord Lieutenant can submit propositions on any proposed legislation, but we also want him to have the power to ask for advice, not only in connection with that legislation, but also in connection with Executive action, or, what is not less important, Executive inaction. The amended form of the Amendment includes Executive powers being, on occasion, withheld. Surely the Lord Lieutenant should have the power of obtaining legal advice of the highest character outside his own Executive. He must act on the advice of his Executive, but if he thinks the Executive in Ireland in connection with a Dublin Parliament is proposing something ultra vires, he ought to have the right to get reliable advice on that point. From time to time no doubt the Lord Lieutenant will 2315 wish to resign, or may think it his duty to resign, and if he contemplates doing so, in consequence of what may be submitted by the Executive, he certainly ought to have an opportunity of obtaining conclusive legal advice on any point about which he may be in doubt—any point as to whether he ought to retain the position to which he has been appointed.
In connection with the abuse of the Executive authority, even in this country there are cases which I need not elaborate, but which must be within the memory of the House. I need only draw attention to the experience of the Board of Education recently in connection with the Swansea school. That was a case in which the Executive travelled outside the scope of the Statute. We all know what the result was. The case was carried to the House of Lords. The Board of Education were unsuccessful, and it was shown that in that instance they had travelled outside the law, as indeed other Departments have done. The same applies to the experience of Form IV. in connection with the Finance Bill of 1910. That, too, was declared to be illegal, and, as I have been reminded by an hon. and learned Friend, Form V. also was declared to be illegal yesterday in the Courts. Again, there is the case which Mr. Thomas Gibson Bowles recently successfully carried through against the Treasury in connection with the premature collection of Income Tax upon the strength of a Resolution without waiting for the passing of the Finance Bill. These are sufficient cases in connection with the United Kingdom to illustrate the fact that there is a constant tendency for administrative power to be exceeded and for the administrative authority to travel outside the Statute. Then, in connection with Ireland itself, there is no difficulty in seeing that even at the present moment there is also a disposition to exceed statutory powers. I need only refer to the so-called Belfast riots, dealt with in the Courts the other day. Perhaps the most grave and serious question in connection with that case was the right claimed and exercised by the Crown Solicitor to order the police to deal with the prisoners as he thought fit, and to select his own particular magistrate to adjudicate upon the case.
§ The CHAIRMANIt appears to me that if these illustrations are to go on—
§ Sir H. CARLILEThey will not go on long.
§ The CHAIRMANIt appears to me that the hon. Member could cite a hundred and one cases. I do not object to his giving one or two illustrations, but he ought not to say anything about the merits of the cases. It would be obviously unfair to allow one speaker to put forward these cases without allowing speakers on the other side to deal with them.
§ Sir H. CARLILEI realise that entirely, and without meaning to argue with the Chair in any sense, I would suggest it is almost impossible to place these illustrations before the Committee in a way that will make the point clear unless one mentions how they bear on the subject under discussion. That was the only reason why I referred to them. I wished to show that at the present time in Ireland an individual official—the Crown-Solicitor—is exceeding his powers—
§ The CHAIRMANThe hon. Member is again prejudging the question. That point is not open to debate on either side of the case. If the hon. Member chooses simply to say that so-and-so is the case; that there is some doubt, and that the principle is undetermined, that, I should think, would be sufficient for his purpose.
§ Sir H. CARLILEI will leave it at that. I think I might also in passing refer to the fact that in connection with cattle-driving in Ireland I have a good illustration on the other side of the question—an illustration, not of the excess of authority or administration, but of where the Administration withholds the exercise of the powers deputed to it. I hope that, that will be the only illustration I shall need to mention in connection with this side of the Amendment. We are all familiar with the fact that there were some 12,800 cattle-drivers supposed to be operating in the South and West of Ireland, and, in consequence of the withholding, not of the exceeding of the powers, only some seventeen persons were convicted by juries, and bail was demanded in the case of some 1,528, so that over 10,000, through the withholding of the powers which devolve upon the Chief Secretary, went entirely scot-free. I think that is a strong illustration of the result of withholding these powers. Of course, we could hardly expect anything else, because the present Chief Secretary, speaking in the House of Commons on 13th March, 1907, said that the Criminal Law Procedure (Ireland) Act, 1887, would be, to all intents and purposes, dead and 2317 buried as long as the present Administration remained in power. That in itself showed that the present Administration intended to withhold the operation of the Statute, even although it was essential it should be put in force. We know quite well that, as a result, old Statutes were dug up dating back almost to the time of the Flood, and at last the Chief Secretary was supplied with the Statute 34 Edward III—a Statute 550 years old—which enabled him to bind over, without other penalty or imprisonment, those persons who had, in many cases, been proved to be guilty of cruelty in cattle-driving, boycotting, intimidation and other matters.
It was necessary at that time, and here again is an illustration pointing in the same direction, that the number of police should be increased. It could have been done, of course, under the Crimes Act, but some Statute had to be found to provide for the increase of police, and again an old Statute was raked up and put into force, a Statute of 1836, nearly eighty years old, so that the pledge was saved while law and order went to the dogs. That is an illustration of the evasion of the exercise of administrative authority, and I do not think I need refer to the calamity that would fall upon the country were that kind of thing to obtain under a Home Rule Parliament in Dublin. In conclusion, I submit that there is a very strong case indeed for inserting this Amendment in the Clause, in order that the Lord Lieutenant and the Secretary of State may have ready access to the settled opinion of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and that the safeguard which would result to minorities should be available to protect their interests. If the Nationalists and the Government really intend that minorities in Ireland shall be protected and that every opportunity shall be given, or, at any rate, that some opportunity shall be given to protect their interests in all their bearings, both the Government and the Nationalists, both the Prime Minister and the hon. and learned Member for Waterford (Mr. J. Redmond) will here together toe the line and accept this Amendment, so that their bona fides may be clear to all men and they may show that they have no intention under this Parliament they propose to set tip in Dublin to trample upon the feelings, liberties, and interests of the minority, whom they desire to bring within the scope of this measure.
§ Sir J. D. REESOn a point of Order, Mr. Whitley, I understand that the discussion which is to follow is to be confined to the question whether Executive acts as well as constitutional questions are to be referred to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Would it be possible in this discussion to consider the policy of referring constitutional and political questions to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and, if not, when will the Committee be able to consider that point?
§ The CHAIRMANWe discussed that for a long time yesterday.
§ Sir J. D. REESUpon this Clause?
§ The CHAIRMANYes, upon this Clause. We began this Clause yesterday.
§ Sir J. D. REESWill it be ruled out to-day?
§ The CHAIRMANThat question was disposed of yesterday.
§ Mr. HEWINSI hope very much that the Government will see their way to accept this Amendment. I think, in the first place, that they owe it as a duty to do so, because they have left parts of this Rill, which bear upon the Executive power of the new Irish Government, so extremely vague. I would first of all like to put it on much broader grounds. Both here and in nearly all countries at the present time representative institutions are rather declining. The Government will appreciate how much they have done to promote the decay of those institutions, and I cannot imagine that the new Irish Parliament will set a finer example than they have done. We may presume, when we have an Irish Government set up, that they will put into force every known function of the Executive to carry out the Nationalist aspirations of that country. If you consider the case of other parts of the British Empire—I am arguing for the moment not in any party sense—every Member of the Committee will agree that the most striking developments of Nationalism within the British Empire have taken place not so much in the use of legislative functions, operating within the terms of the instrument which confers upon them self-governing powers, but rather by the use of the powers of the Executive. I may take as an example—it is relevant to the Irish Bill—the growth of the treaty-making powers of the self-governing Dominions. As everyone is aware, treaty-making powers 2319 is a reserved service under this Bill, but notwithstanding the fact that it is a reserved service—I am not for the moment arguing whether the development is beneficent or the reverse—we are all aware of the great developments which have taken place in many of the Dominions in that regard by the sole use of the Executive power. When we consider this particular Bill, and that under the powers, which are not explicitly mentioned but which appear to be implied in the Bill, the new Irish Government may maintain its own agents in a foreign country, it is perfectly clear that unless the Executive power is closely safeguarded the Irish Parliament might easily act apart from this country.
It is exceedingly desirable, if you are going to have a separate Parliament in Ireland, that the functions of the Lord Lieutenant over everything in Ireland should be kept as far as possible on the same lines and within the same circuit as those of Great Britain and the rest of the United Kingdom. I cannot help feeling that under the powers conferred by this Bill it will be a very easy thing, unless there is some control over the Irish Government, for the whole system of Irish economic life to get far outside that of Great Britain. I may take another case from a different region. One of the greatest sources of the control and limitation of the power of the Executive in the United Kingdom for many generations past has unquestionably been the Parliamentary control of finance. Under this Bill you are destroying Parliamentary control of finance, not only in regard to Ireland, but in regard to Great Britain. You are setting up an unknown, unusual and abnormal authority, which is going to take away from you that power which has always been the great constitutional safeguard in regard to the Executive.
§ The CHAIRMANThere again the hon. Gentleman is raising matters which are in other parts of this Bill. I am not sure whether they are not altogether outside the Bill. It is quite enough to keep to the Amendment by itself.
§ Mr. HEWINSI bow to your ruling, Sir, but I should like to respectfully submit to you that it is impossible to argue whether the Executive should be subject to this limitation unless one is allowed to give illustrations as to how the Executive operates. One cannot readily discuss the powers of the Executive in the abstract.
§ The CHAIRMANI understood the hon. Member to take his illustration from the Exchequer Board, which we have dealt with under a previous Clause. If I am mistaken I apologise.
§ Mr. HEWINSIt was not the only case in my mind. The Exchequer Board, along with other parts of the Bill, combine to reduce the power of Parliamentary control over finance. However, I bow to your ruling entirely, and will not pursue the subject. I should like to say that the Executive power is unquestionably exercisable in regard to Irish services which are defined in Clause 4, Sub-section (6), and to get a more definite and accurate definition we have to go to Clause 2 and to the Sub-sections of that Clause. Without arguing the merits of any one of those particulars, I would simply observe that these reserved services and Irish services are so vaguely and unsatisfactorily defined that it would be quite impossible, apart from a judicial decision, to say whether or not they are a reserved service or an Irish service. Perhaps I may quote a case which is not in the Bill at all, but which may be inferentially included in the powers of the Irish Government. That is the question of Irish fisheries. Whether an Executive act in regard to Irish fisheries was rightly exercised or not depends upon the construction of this Bill. Irish fisheries are not specifically mentioned in the Bill, but I understand from an answer given to me by the Chief Secretary himself that Irish fisheries are a reserved service, because they come under Regulations drawn up in conformity with an Act passed to carry out an international understanding arrived at with France many years ago. Therefore you do not know for certain what is the ambit of the Executive powers of the new Irish Government.
Again, you do not know what powers are to come under the Sub-sections relating to trade with external countries, because you have given an exemption in regard to the powers of internal taxation. You say in one part of the Bill that the question of trade with external countries is to be excluded, and in another part you give an exemption with regard to internal taxation. Unless you have an appeal, such as is proposed by my hon. Friend, I do not see how in this or in any other case it is possible to say whether the Executive is exercising right functions or not. I should have thought that upon general grounds 2321 it was more important to have this careful safeguard with regard to the Executive and administrative powers of the Irish Government than it was to have it in regard to Bills. Bills and Acts of Parliament are public property. Everybody knows what they are, and there is a great mass of public criticism upon them. But with regard to Executive acts you do not know. It is the experience of every country that acts of fundamental importance to the future of the State may be taken by the Executive in regard to which we know nothing whatever. There are many instances which have occurred in the lifetime of the present Government, as they are well aware, where there has been great public criticism of the action they have taken, and where it is commonly said that, although they have not been able to carry certain Bills through Parliament in order to carry out their policy, they are carrying it out through acts of administration. That being so, in view of the known desire of the Irish party to take every opportunity of waving the national flag, we are bound, if we desire under this monstrous Bill to preserve as much as we can the integrity of the United Kingdom, to insert this Amendment
§ The ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir Rufus Isaacs)The speeches which have been made by both hon. Gentlemen in support of this Amendment in fact prove, as I think I shall demonstrate, that there is ample power already to deal with any act which is in excess of jurisdiction and which is unlawful.
§ Sir EDWARD CARSONDo you mean legislative Acts?
§ Sir RUFUS ISAACSNo, of course there is power to deal with any legislative Act; that is already in the Clause. It was discussed yesterday. The Amendment now proposed is of a different character. It is not confined to legislative Acts; it is, as its terms import, intended to extend to the unlawful exercise of the Executive power in Ireland. The instances given, particularly by the hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment, made it perfectly plain that what he referred to was administrative action.
§ Sir H. CARLILEOr inaction.
§ Sir RUFUS ISAACSYes, or inaction. The quesion is whether there should be an appeal given to the Privy Council in respect to such Acts as is given in regard 2322 to legislation. That is the point which he takes. It is a very important point, but I would point out to the Committee that if this Amendment were adopted it would be a far greater innovation than anything yet suggested in reference to this Bill. We have already been criticised by the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir E. Carson), in his most humorous vein last night, with reference to the powers we give to refer a Bill or any provision of a Bill to the Privy Council. I should very much like to hear him, when he is in the mood and if he chose, upon the policy of referring acts of administration to the Privy Council in order to determine whether they were lawfully exercised or not. No Government could possibly carry on; there must always be, as we have always recognised, an active Opposition to any Government that may be in power. The active Opposition can, if it likes, challenge any action of the Government. There is already ample opportunity given to do that. What the hon. Gentleman (Sir H. Carlile) is asking is that we should give an additional power by allowing an appeal to go at once through the Lord Lieutenant or the Secretary of State to the Privy Council. Let us see whether there is any necessity for it. Take the argument put forward by the hon. Gentleman (Sir H. Carlile). First of all he said it was necessary that this should be done because Bills were drafted hastily, and he went on to explain that he thought the interpretation of Acts of Parliament was very often very difficult. No doubt that is true, but that, is a question of law which has to be determined and which there is ample opportunity of determining in the ordinary course. It is a matter of everyday practice to have questions of that kind determined. It certainly is unnecessary for that. Then he said there were wide powers of administration. Again the same point applies. If there are wide powers it is intended no doubt by Parliament that there should be a full exercise of the powers which are conferred by the Statute.
§ Sir H. CARLILEOne of the illustrations I mentioned was the National Insurance Act, which gives power to Commissioners which lie outside the Statute altogether.
§ Sir RUFUS ISAACSBut if the powers are granted by the Statute they are rightfully applied. We are only dealing here with powers which are unlawfully 2323 exercised. The whole point of the Amendment is as to the unlawful exercise of powers. We are not here discussing any question other than that. We are not discussing the question whether the administration is good or bad. What we are discussing, and only discussing, is whether or not there is an unlawful exercise of power. Then the hon. Gentleman went further and said, no doubt quite correctly, that administration at times exceeds the powers of the Statute. No doubt Governments have had a tendency in the past, and I am afraid probably always will in the future, some slight tendency perhaps to strain their powers, it may be from wrong advice given, or from the wrong interpretation of a Statute. But, whenever that has happened, at once the Courts intervene and can pronounce their view, and no better argument could be adduced and no better instances need be given than those which were cited by the hon. Gentleman himself. I doubt very much whether he was quite aware of how he was answering his own argument, and what a complete defence he was making to the Amendment which he was proposing when he cited against the present Government the three instances. Let me state what they were to show how in each case there was administrative action which was alleged to have been wrongfully or unlawfully exercised. He cited the well-known Swansea case—the action of the Board of Education. There, as he quite correctly says, the Court came to the conclusion that the administration was unlawful, because it thought that the Board of Education had wrongly construed a particular provision in the Statute. That was the House of Lords' decision, and consequently, they said, that is an unlawful exercise, because yon have not the power which you profess to have by reason of the interpretation which you yourselves have placed upon it. The Court interfered and restrained the act. It is an instance of that class of proceeding to which we have adverted several limes in these Debates, by way of mandamus and certiorari, to prevent the unlawful exercise of power.
Then he referred to Form IV. The Courts have of recent years extended the power of the subject to prevent an unlawful exercise of the powers of the Executive. I am not complaining of it at all. Whatever has happened, whatever innovation has has taken place, has been rather in the 2324 nature of an expansion than of a curtailment of privileges. In the Form IV, actions it was stated and laid down that a declaration can be made by the Court as to whether an exercise of powers is lawful or not. That is a most complete means of testing whether the action is a lawful action or is not. Then the third instance which he gave—a very good instance—was to Mr. Gibson Bowles' action, which called into question a practice which was not a practice of this particular Government only, but which was the practice admittedly for something like sixty years, and on which Governments of both parties had acted without demur. Then Mr. Gibson Bowles challenged the action and took it into Court—he had no difficulty in getting into Court—and there the matter was disposed of. The last part of the hon. Gentleman's argument, when he comes to these instances, supplied the most complete answer to the first part and to the Amendment which he was proposing. My answer is that, in fact, there is already such power as the Amendment asks. If there were not such power, I should understand the argument and follow the Amendment, and there would be good grounds for asking that there should be provision made. But when we know that there is already the provision, then, I ask, what is the need for giving an appeal in this case to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council where, mark you, you would have a very great danger again of overlapping the jurisdiction of the ordinary Courts in Ireland, because in every Court-in Ireland the unlawful exercise of powers could be raised in the ordinary way by any subject. It is part of the answer that I gave yesterday to an argument addressed by the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Cassel) with reference to this question that there is already such power in the Courts in Ireland.
I really fail to understand why it is suggested that if there is already ample provision, we should go further and give this power, which is quite outside what is intended by the particular provision in the Statute. What we have to remember is that this Clause 29 is giving a power which, so far as I know, is quite unprecedented. At least we are giving a power of appeal, either by means of the Lord Lieutenant or the Secretary of State on these constitutional questions with reference to legislation which is either proposed or has been passed. But that is the first time that any such power has been given, and what we 2325 are asked to do now is to go very much further. After we have been very much criticised already for having given this power, which is said to be so dangerous an innovation, now we are asked to give it with regard to Executive power. At any rate, I should claim the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Cassel) as a supporter of the Government on this Amendment. He has not expressed an opinion on this particular provision, but he has told us that he is very much against Clause 29, and he told us yesterday that there ought not to be an appeal to the Privy Council, but that matters ought to be left in the ordinary way to the Courts as they exist in Ireland, and he strongly objects, and made a forcible protest in the limited time which was at his disposal, against Clause 29 and against the whole scheme. Therefore I am entitled to say on this Amendment, which goes very much beyond what we proposed, I should claim, and I think rightly, the support of the hon. and learned Gentleman. In short, the whole answer that the Government make with reference to this proposal is that it is quite unnecessary, that there is already the amplest power, and that to go further would be an innovation of a kind which it is really somewhat difficult: to contemplate, and the results of which I do not think any human bring can foresee.
§ Sir EDWARD CARSONThe right hon. Gentleman has dealt with this as if it was an impossible, a very ridiculous, and an unnecessary Amendment. I look upon the discussion of this Amendment as a matter of very great importance. I have said over and over again in this House that I was far more afraid of Executive action in Ill-land under the new Government than I am of legislative action, and my point in saying that has been misrepresented in the country as saying that I had no fear of the new Irish Government at all. I have had to write many letters contradicting the false conclusions drawn from what I said in this House. The reason why this is more important is that, of course, an Act of Parliament is a very public matter. It goes through its various stages, and, I suppose, will go through various stages unless they have one day a guillotine in the House of Commons in Ireland, and discussion can be brought up by Irish Members in some way, at all events, in this House, and can have public opinion focussed upon it, and it will go through, at all events, a perfunctory form of having the sanction or the Veto, as the case may 2326 be, of the Lord Lieutenant, who is set up in Ireland to carry on the Government there. But anyone who knows Ireland or who knows the history of Ireland for the last twenty years, the methods of intimidation, the methods of persecution, the methods of the leagues, which, unfortunately, permeate the whole of the South and West of Ireland, knows the oppression and the cruelty which are the ordinary weapons of the Nationalists in Ireland, and knows perfectly well that the only protection against these methods is the proper exercise of the Executive power; and everyone knows that to-morrow if the Executive protection which is given, more or less, by the present Chief Secretary, was withdrawn, there are many men now living in Ireland who could not continue to live there for another day. What the right hon. Gentleman does not see is that our apprehension is that the moment you hand over the Government to Gentlemen who have attained their ends by these methods, and they have got complete Executive control they will be faced by their own teachings and doctrines, which have become the everyday life of the vast body of people in Ireland, and that there may not be given to those people who live there, and who differ from them, by Executive power, that protection which it is unlawful to withhold, which they have a right to as citizens of a civilised country and which certainly ought, under the setting up of a new Parliament of this kind, to be guaranteed to them in some way or other.
I am not going over the old question of safeguards, but this is another instance that when we ask something in the nature of a real safeguard, we are told it is not necessary. The right hon. Gentleman twits me by saying that I could turn the whole of this into ridicule, because I turned into ridicule the safeguard as to the sending over of a Bill, or a provision of a Bill, which did not happen to be even discussed in the Irish House of Commons to the Privy Council for adjudication. That was no safeguard at all, and therefore it was granted. That is a sham safeguard. Now we are at reality as to what might be some measure of safeguard, and the right hon. Gentleman says, "You are perfectly well safeguarded already." He says, "All you have to do is to go to the Irish Courts, and then, whatever the Courts say, the Executive will carry out whatever is necessary for the protection of the public." May I say that there are many Acts which do not, and could not, go to the Irish Courts at all? But assuming 2327 and taking the right hon. Gentleman's statement that the Courts are the proper place to enforce your right to proper Executive action, our case is that instead of going to the Courts in Dublin or in Ireland, we ought to be allowed to go straight to the Privy Council, as the Court of Appeal from the Executive. When he gives me the answer about the Courts, I say that the Courts will be no protection, or, at least, may be no protection. At all events there is an apprehension that they may be no protection.
§ Sir RUFUS ISAACSThe only question here is whether there shall be a reference by the Lord Lieutenant or a Secretary of State straight to the Privy Council, or whether people should have recourse, in the first place, to the ordinary, Courts, and then appeal from the ordinary Courts to the Privy Council. That is the whole question.
§ Sir E. CARSONThat is the very point I am making. We ought to be allowed to go straight to the Privy Council on these matters. It is all very well to say to the Irish peasant, "You have not got your rights under this decree, or you have not proper protection, or you have put upon you certain forms which are outside of the power of the Executive," and you tell this peasant to go first with his case to a Court over there, then to take it to the Divisional Court, then to the Court of Appeal, and, lastly, with what he has left out of his money, to come over to the Privy Council. That man, or body of men, who have to complain of Executive action, ought to be able to go to the Lord Lieutenant and say: "Here is the way I have been treated by the Irish Executive. Refer that to the Privy Council, and let them secure for me my rights." That is the only way. What is the argument of the Attorney-General? He says this Clause is merely to refer constitutional questions arising upon whether the subordinate Parliament in Dublin exceeds its legislative functions or not, and that these are questions which can be properly submitted to the Privy Council. May I put this to the right hon. Gentleman: Is not every word of his argument applicable to the Executive action of the subordinate Parliament? He said, "You can raise these questions in the Courts." So you could raise in the Courts every question as to whether the subordinate Parliament had exceeded its powers in relation to the 2328 Acts they were passing, or whether they had done something in contravention of this Act. If, for instance, they had passed a tax not allowed by this Act, people could go to the Courts. There you have the same remedy as to legislative action which the Attorney-General is recommending to us in relation to the Executive, and surely it is far more important in relation to the individual liberty or property of the subject that his remedy against the Executive should be to go to the Privy Council, than it is that the question whether an Act of Parliament exceeds jurisdiction or not should be referred to the Privy Council?
It is far more important that the subject should have the right to say, "Let us have the view of the Privy Council on this through the Lord Lieutenant," than that the provision of an Act of Parliament should go to the Privy Council. The whole protection and existence of a man's living in Ireland, after this Bill passes, will depend far more upon the Executive protection of the rights of these men than upon any Act of Parliament which they will be able to pass in Ireland. At least, that is my opinion, and you refuse him that protection. You say in one case, it is quite true, that the Lord Lieutenant can refer the question to the Privy Council, but in the other, where it would be a real protection, you say the Lord Lieutenant should not be allowed to refer the question to the Privy Council. For my own part, I find it very difficult to follow the reasoning of the Attorney-General, and really I think the importance of this matter is that people should now be told, and that it should be perfectly understood by those who are going to spend their lives in Ireland, and also by the English and Scotch who care about the people of Ireland, that there is no protection, so far as this country is concerned, which is going to be given against the Executive action of the new Government you are setting up in Dublin. Let me take the instances which the right hon. Gentleman gave. He referred to Form IV. and Form V., which were held yesterday by the Courts, like most of the Forms issued by this Government, to be illegal. He mentioned also the case of Mr. Gibson Bowles. All these are cases challenging the action of the Executive, saying that the Executive are overriding an Act of Parliament, and they are a law unto themselves, which is the common practice, Very well. Why on earth should not these cases, which 2329 really are constitutional cases, be referred to the Privy Council as well as the constitutional cases you are going to refer under this Bill? I fail to see any answer to that in the argument of the Attorney-General. The cases which would arise in Ireland would be all cases naturally of infringement of liberty or infringement of the right of the subject, and to tell mo that is not more important to the individuals who are affected by it than the mere question whether an Act of Parliament is outside the powers of the Irish Parliament seems to me to be absolutely absurd.
There is another question to which I should like to call attention. I do not know whether the House remembers how curiously the Executive in Ireland is being constituted under this Bill. After the decision of yesterday the judges are entirely free of this House. The judges are appointed by the Irish Executive. They make their decrees, or, indeed, the Executive determines upon doing something, and they cannot do it without police, but they have not got the control of the police. This country has at once to give police to carry out the Executive acts, however unjust, of the Irish Government. Well, that is a very strange position. So far as I can see, there will be no way of inquiring whether what the police are wanted for is a proper or an unlawful act of the Executive in Ireland, for the police are for six years to be kept under the control of the Imperial Government. Surely under these circumstances, where you have the enforcement of an Executive act by a force supplied by the British Government, as it will then be, it is not an unreasonable thing to say, where so much depends upon the enforcement of the Executive act, and the enforcement is in the hands, not of the Irish Government but of the Imperial Government, that you should go to the Imperial Court to test any act said to be illegal when a question is raised as to the propriety of the Executive action. I cannot see under these circumstances why there should be such an objection to have these questions decided rather in the Privy Council than in the Courts in Ireland. I admit that the Attorney-General and I differ on-the main point. He thinks it is impossible that an Irish Government could do anything unlawful. He thinks that Irishmen living in Ireland, after this Bill passes, will all be changed by the passing of the Bill, and that there will be he such thing as the lessons learned day after day by the people of that country 2330 from the time they were children of the tyranny, oppression, persecution, and boycotting of the people who happen to differ from them in their various views. He thinks this state of things will vanish. It has become inherent; it is looked upon as the ordinary morality of the country. Surely under these circumstances it is not unreasonable—because you can in the future extend your Bill at any time if it becomes necessary—for us to ask that some small protection in regard to the Executive under which these people are to live should be inserted on the face of your proposals.
§ 5.0 P.M.
Mr. JOHN GORDON (Londonderry)One of the reasons why I am opposed to this Bill is that I fear the consequences of it. My fears are being increased day by day as I sit in this House and hear what goes on, and hear the speeches made from the Government Benches. Hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite tell us, and they have repeated the statement to the people of Ireland, that they are perfectly prepared to give any safeguards we ask for, or anything that might be within the limits of reasonableness to satisfy their fears, and to get rid of their objection, if possible, to the Bill. I do not believe their safeguards would act as a real protection, but whether there is any reality in the professions they have been making in the country or not, I do say that I have not heard since the Committee stage began a single safeguard suggested from this side of the House which has been accepted by the Government. Yesterday we had the proposal that the judges should be continued to be appointed as they are by the Imperial Parliament, and should be under the control of the Imperial Parliament. The Irish minority, whether rightly or wrongly, considered that that might be some safeguard if ever the calamity of this Bill was forced upon the country, but that was refused by the Government. Today it is suggested as a safeguard that if the Executive in Ireland unlawfully refused or withheld the protection of the Executive forces, there should be power, not by the individual, but through the Lord Lieutenant or the Secretary of State, who would be able to form an opinion whether there is any substance in the complaint or not, to go direct to the Privy Council in order to have the grievance remedied. That again is opposed, and why? Because the Attorney-General, from the safety of his position on the 2331 Government Bench opposite or in the City of London, where he knows he will not suffer in his person or property by any wrongful act of the Executive, tells us it is unnecessary, and tells us that if we are oppressed we can go to the ordinary Courts, and by that means get to the Privy Council. That is a nice solution for the people who are asked to suffer through the Acts of the Executive. The Government say to the minority in Ireland, "We are willing to consider your reasonable fears, although we do not agree that there is any cause for their existence, still we will be careful to do everything to got rid of your fears and to carry out our professions of regard to safeguarding the minority in Ireland."
But why is this Amendment not accepted? I agree with my right hon. Friend, and every Unionist in Ireland will agree, that the greatest danger—I do not mean to say we would not run great dangers in legislation—but that the greatest danger to' the people in Ireland would be from the misuse of the Executive power conferred upon the Irish Nationalist party. Why? The Irish Nationalist party tell you, and you accept it, that they are the people who represent the wishes of the Irish nation. Any time since I have come into this House, and for a considerable time before it, these Gentlemen were in a position in which they could have exercised great restraining influence over the people who are their supporters in the South and West of Ireland. Have they ever done it? Have they ever denounced outrage, moonlighting, boycotting, cattle driving, or anything of that kind? At the present moment the country is suffering from it, and these Gentlemen do not take any means to put an end to it, and you are going to hand over to them the control of the Irish Executive. You are handing over that power to men who oppose the introduction of the police to protect boycotted farmers, and for the protection of men whose lives were in danger; and the men who will return those Gentlemen to power are themselves the instruments of outrage and crime in' the West and South of Ireland. I think it is no-wonder that the ordinary loyal and peaceable people of Ireland look forward with dread to the control of the Irish Executive being placed in the hands of such men. Why should not this Amendment be accepted? If it was accepted and no case arose for its being enforced what harm 2332 would arise? If cases do arise, where it is necessary to have such power, do you not think it is necessary to have such power to right matters that may be going wrong under the Executive? You have removed from the control of this House all opportunity of dealing with crime and injustice in Ireland which is now in the hands of this Executive For instance, there are at the present moment between 300 and 400 people boycotted who require-constant protection. Supposing the Irish Executive came in to-morrow and said, "We will withdraw that police protection." In your six years of office you might by a roundabout method have extended that police protection, but you are not legislating for six years.
You are legislating for a period long after you have ceased to have any control, and suppose the police were withdrawn, will the Attorney-General tell me how the Executive can be brought before the Privy Council or even before any Court? It is easy for him to talk to his majority in order to enable them to salve their consciences, but will he explain to me how, if police protection is taken from a man who has it at the present moment, that man will be able to bring the matter before the Courts of Law. Are we to be told that the Irish Nationalist party whose great organisation, the United Irish League is the author of all this crime and outrage and boycotting that they when they have the control of the police they will protect the lives and property entrusted to them, if you do not give people the right to test the matter in the Courts or before the Privy Council. One of the things that the people in Ireland would like most—that is the people who understand what is going on, not gentlemen who live in London and who probably never were in Ireland in their lives, and whose property is situated not in Ireland—one of the things those people in Ireland would most like to have would be the opportunity at all events of bringing forward in a prominent way the misconduct of the people to whom you are entrusting the control of the Executive. The right to go before the Privy Council would carry with it the power of allowing the English people to see what is going on. What do the people in England know at the present moment about many of the things going on in the South and West of Ireland? They do not know, as we do, how those matters bear so hardly upon the lives of individuals in Ireland; 2333 but they never will hear about it, if you hand over the control of the country to the Irish Nationalist party and leave them to manage it as they please.
§ The CHAIRMAN (Mr. Whitley)I am afraid the hon. and learned Gentleman is traversing the whole of the grounds open on Second and Third Reading. The discussion must be confined strictly to the refusing or withholding unlawfully the powers of protection by the Irish Executive.
Mr. J. GORDONI have no desire whatsoever to travel outside the limits of the Amendment, and I bow to your ruling at once, but I wanted to point to the necessity for having this power, and the only way I could point out that necessity is to show that there are circumstances which are likely to arise in the country exactly the same as have arisen in the past that would make it necessary that there should be this power of appeal. If this power of appeal is not given these things can go on, and I can see no means by which they could be limited, even giving the Courts of Justice and the judges the fullest desire to do everything right and proper. That was one of the points I put to the Attorney-General, and I hope he will tell us at the same time how any remedy can be provided for the subject in the Courts of Law if this Amendment is not accepted. I should like to know where it is in the Bill that they have a right of appeal to the Privy Council, and I should be thankful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman if he will point out to me where there is any right of appeal for any unlawful exercise or any unlawful withholding of the exercise of the Executive power in Ireland. I know, of course, that once a cause of action has arisen, then you can go to the Courts and right on to the Privy Council, but the Attorney-General knows as well as I do there are many cases where the subject would suffer grievously, and as against the Executive Government he would have no redress. I would like the Attorney-General to tell us what harm it would do, supposing everything is to go on right, under the new Constitution, to give this right of appeal to the Privy Council, and if it does no injury, then if it was only a matter of opinion amongst a certain section of the Irish people that it might be an advantage to have this power, why should that not be conceded to them? I think there is another way in which this appeal to the Privy Council would be of 2334 considerable advantage and would have a very steadying effect upon the administration of the Executive forces in Ireland, and that is, if the parties having that control knew that their conduct and the method in which they gave protection or exercised the powers of Executive control were to be the subject of appeal and could be brought over here to the Privy Council in England and could be made the subject of discussion throughout the length and breadth of England; that would have some effect, at all events, in making those people more-careful. I say, therefore, to the Government that if there is any substance behind their protestation they should accede to this Amendment or give some better answer than they have done up to the present.
Sir GILBERT PARKERI desire to bring another aspect of this question to the notice of the Committee which has not been dealt with by either of my hon. Friends. They have very largely directed their remarks to the difficulties which may arise to private individuals from the unlawful exercise of the Judicial or Executive power. This Government, I am certain, is most anxious, for their own credit, that there Bill should work well, if for nothing else. I ask the Attorney-General if he has considered this point. You may have this definite and peculiar circumstance in which the Irish Executive acting themselves, whether through Executive authority or action, may cross the lines of the Executive authority and action of this Government and the lines laid down by the Bill. They may think they are within their rights and prerogatives, but whatever party is in power in this country may believe that they are acting illegally and unlawfully in the exercise of their Executive power. In that case does the right hon. Gentleman not see that it would be most wise to have this appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in such cases? Let me give one or two reasons for it. There is in the first place a very great danger of a conflict of opinion as to whether the Irish Executive were acting within their powers or not. That would be very great danger of friction; between the Imperial Executive power and the Provincial Executive power infinitely worse than any private individual or set of private individuals objecting to an act of the Irish Executive. It would be a danger and difficulty which this Government or any Government at the centre of Imperial power would like to avoid. 2335 The reply of the Attorney-General may be, "Yes, but there are the Courts which can decide this question." I believe that the view taken by the Opposition on this question is so sound and so reasonable that, in resisting, the Government are laying themselves open to the task of being again influenced by their hon. Friends below the Gangway on my left. I cannot conceive, I honestly cannot conceive, how the Government can object. Since they permit legislative Acts to be referred to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, I cannot understand why there should not also be referred an act of administration in Ireland, which, if this Government challenges it—and they will challenge it, because circumstances may arise where their administration may cross the views and opinions of the Imperial Executive as to their authority and power—may well cause difficulty and provoke a very serious agitation between the two Governments, dangerous to the proper relations which ought to exist between the Irish Executive and the central superior Executive.
The Imperial Government, if such a difficulty were to occur, would first naturally make a protest to the Irish Executive, one, two, or three years after the Irish Executive had began its existence, and the Irish Executive would naturally resent what they would call interference. They would say to the Imperial Government, "You hold your view as to our act, but it is an unusual thing for the superior Government of a federal system to challenge the act of the provincial Government." My reply is that it is not. I would like to point out to the Attorney-General that there have been a great many cases in our Colonial experience, in the working of the Colonial Constitution, where just that kind of difficulty has occurred, and the matters have gone to the Supreme Court of the Federation, and afterwards, it may be, to the Privy Council. But in the publicity of the Courts the friction is always heightened. I am speaking of what I have seen. The friction is meanwhile heightened, and the matter is kept alive by the very fact of the extreme publicity attached to an appeal to the Courts. But it is a remarkable thing that when such cases come before the Privy Council of this Empire there is not the same agitation. There is a confidence, I do believe, in the minds of the community at large regarding our Privy 2336 Council, and regarding the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, which is far greater than that attached to the Courts themselves, because the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council is composed of the highest legal minds of our country.
Those difficulties have arisen in the past; they have been the cause of very serious friction between the provincial Government and the central Government; but here the whole thing is heightened, because in the provincial Governments their powers are clearly defined, and those powers never cross, as they are bound to cross here, with the reserved services. With the power to revise our financial system, with a separate Post Office, and so on, difficulties are likely to arise infinitely greater than have ever arisen in any one of our Commonwealth or federal Governments within the Empire. It is because of that, because not only of the private wrong, of the believed private wrong, or the suspected private wrong, through the unlawful exercise of power by the Irish Executive power, to the individual, but because the situation is of so delicate a kind under this Bill, if it works at all, that the Government ought, I think, in the interests of peace and amity, to which they have attached themselves, to which they have sworn their faith, to provide in this Bill for appeal, not only for legislative acts, but also for administrative acts, through which I believe will come greater danger of friction, of agitation, and of anxiety on the part of individuals and on the part of the Administration here at Westminster than has ever been experienced in the past. Therefore I support what my hon. Friend the Member for Hereford so strongly and so clearly put, that in view of the complicated conditions laid down for the exercise of the authority of the provincial Legislature in Ireland and the exercise of the Imperial authority, the Government ought not to turn a deaf ear, not to our appeal—it is not an appeal—but to our arguments, which we believe are well founded, and ought to be accepted as a reason for adopting the Amendment.
§ Mr. SCANLANIt is difficult to credit either the Proposer of this Amendment or the hon. and learned Member who supported it with even sincerity in making a proposal of this kind. The hon. and learned Gentleman who has just sat down referred to constitutional practice. If there is anything damnatory of the proposal made by the hon. Member for 2337 Hereford, it is constitutional practice. Has anyone ever heard, or has any constitutional lawyer ever laid down the doctrine that there should be a wider appeal to the Privy Council than is laid down in Clause 29 of this Bill? It is admitted by the right hon. and learned Member for Trinity College (Sir E. Carson) that in providing machinery for appeal to the Privy Council the Government in this measure have made such appeal much more easy of access than previous Governments have made them in connection with the Constitution afforded to the different self-governing Colonies of the Empire. In fact, immediately any hon. Gentlemen above the Gangway refer in broad terms to the Constitution, they give the strongest condemnation that can possibly be made of the proposal contained in this Amendment. The right hon. and learned Member for Trinity College says it is all very well to say to a peasant of the West of Ireland that he can go to the Courts of the country, and that he can afterwards proceed to the Privy Council, and if he did not get a remedy in the Courts of his own country, certainly he would be afforded a remedy when he went to the Privy Council. Has anything more ridiculous ever been put forward than that suggestion or argument of the right hon. Gentleman for Trinity College? Does he mean to say that there shall be established in regard to the Privy Council a direct appeal by every single peasant in Ireland? If we adopted a system of that kind it would reduce the Privy Council, which is the most august tribunal in the world, from the status it has at the present time into the position of a Petty Sessions, and nothing more.
If a peasant in Ireland has a grievance he has an appeal under the different forms of the law to the various Courts in Ireland, and there is that same measure of reliance on the justice dispensed in the Courts of Law in Ireland as obtains in England, Scotland, and Wales—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh, oh!"]—in regard to the administration of justice in those countries. The position of affairs at Belfast was referred to by the Mover of the Amendment, but let me remind him that what he and his Friends above the Gangway complain of is the misuse of power of the Executive in Ireland, and they have power to go to the Court of Appeal in Ireland, which consists of several judges who formerly sat on those benches above the Gangway. When the Opposition were in power they always had recourse to exceptional powers to 2338 secure a tribunal, and it was they who founded the Courts of removable magistrates and took cases out of the ordinary course of the law. It has been admitted that the proposal contained in the Amendment is unusual and has not been heard of before. What is the reason adduced in support of this unreasonable procedure in regard to Ireland, undreamt of by legislators above the Gangway in regard to any of our Colonies? The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Trinity College made a most important admission in this House a short time ago, that neither he nor any of his Friends believe that in any Parliament which is going to be set up in Ireland under the provisions of this Bill will there be any injustice attempted to be perpetrated on any person in Ireland through legislation—in point of fact, that the Irish Parliament will act fairly and justly and evenly as between different sections of the country, that neither they nor their friends in Ireland will be unjustly treated, and that there will be no discrimination.
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN (Mr. Maclean)The hon. and learned Member has used an expression which is unparliamentary.
§ Mr. MOOREI say it is an absolutely false description of the quotation. I ask that the quotation be read.
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANIt might be described as "incorrect."
§ Mr. MOOREI adopt the word "incorrect," and I repeat that it is grossly incorrect. May I ask now that the matter shall be cleared up or that the incorrect statement should be withdrawn? It is not fair that the hon. Member should wait until the right hon. Member for Trinity College has left the House and then make this charge about his speech behind his back.
§ Mr. SCANLANI do not wish to misquote the hon. Gentleman, but I think I am within the recollection of the Committee that what I said, so far from being a misrepresentation, is a very correct summary of what was said by the right hon. and learned Member.
§ Mr. C. CRAIGDoes that mean a withdrawal?
§ Mr. SCANLANI do not withdraw anything; I have nothing to withdraw. Let me put it a little more plainly, and I challenge any hon. and learned Member above the Gangway to contradict me. I do not wish to exaggerate in any sense, but what the right hon. Gentleman said was that so far as the Protestants of the North of Ireland or any part of Ireland were concerned, he had no fear that an Irish Parliament would legislate in any manner detrimental to their interests. If that is, and I submit it is, an admission from hon. Gentlemen above the Gangway that they have no fear of an Irish Parliament so far as legislation is concerned—
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANI think the hon. Member has dealt sufficiently by way of general reference as to the point raised about legislation, and that he should now direct his attention to the point of administration with which this Amendment deals.
§ Mr. SCANLANI am obliged for the suggestion from you. The point referred to is exactly the point I was coming to. The point I want to make is this: If we have an admission that there is no fear that an Irish Parliament will legislate detrimentally to the interests of Protestants, how can hon. Gentlemen above the Gangway expect the Committee or expect the country to believe that if the hands of the Irish Parliament are clean in regard to legislation that an Irish Parliament and an Irish Executive will soil those hands when it comes to the administration of the laws which the Parliament of Ireland passes? The suggestion made is, I submit, monstrous. I do not know what kind of Irishmen the Members of the Committee who do not belong to Ireland will think hon. Gentlemen above the Gangway are who have nothing to say of their own fellow-countrymen but to impute to them the worst character that could be ascribed to the people of any community in Ireland or in any country in the world. Can anyone point to an instance or conceive an instance of where you find a people enjoying a Parliament passing legislation against which there is no exception, and then, in order to wreak vengeance upon a section of the people in that country, stooping to such a disgraceful thing as to twist and turn the legislation in order to act oppressively towards a minority or any section of the people of the country? They ask for safeguards in administration. When they get a safeguard in ad- 2340 ministration they are very sick of themselves for having asked for it. We have here the right hon. and learned Gentleman the junior Member for Trinity College (Mr. J. H. Campbell). If there is going to be oppression you may have it in education, and in such an instance as in Trinity College, Dublin. He sought to leave Trinity College, Dublin, outside the administration of the Irish Parliament. That point was conceded to them, and immediately there is an agitation got up in Ireland against the exemption of Trinity College, and in Trinity College itself.
§ Mr. J. H. CAMPBELLIs this in order? Because if it is, it will involve a reply from me.
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANThe hon. Member is using it by way of illustration. I think there are limits as to what an illustration should be, and that he is elaborating it now.
§ Captain CRAIGI presume, after the rambling statements made by the hon. and learned Gentleman, that we will have the opportunity of covering the same ground in order to protect ourselves?
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANI have already dealt with the hon. Member's remarks, and I will endeavour to pursue the same course with hon. Members subsequently.
§ Mr. SCANLANI readily pass on from Trinity College. I quite understand the tenderness of the right hon. and learned Gentleman about his conduct in reference to Trinity College. Therefore, I do not think it would be right for me to embarrass him in any way. We are told, as a further reason why this is necessary, that there are outrages perpetrated on a wholesale scale in the West and South of Ireland, and that the people of England know nothing of those outrages, and that if the executive power of the Irish Parliament is not under the control of the Privy Council that such conduct may continue. I deny absolutely the accuracy of every statement made by Gentlemen from Ireland or any of their Friends above the Gangway in reference to outrages. There are no outrages in Ireland at the present time—[HON. MEMBERS: "Where is Birrell?"]—and there never has been any outrage in Ireland in which any man in the South or West was persecuted on account of his religion. Those hon. 2341 Gentlemen above the Gangway say that the English people know nothing about those outrages. The fact is that every hon. Gentleman above the Gangway from Ireland occupies his time, when he is not sitting here, in going about to the constituencies in England and Scotland trying to convince the people in England and Scotland that such outrages are taking place in Ireland, and the people in England and Scotland do not believe them. I venture to make the assertion that once we have had the admission from the leaders of the Unionist party in the North of Ireland that they are not afraid of legislation, that neither the Committee nor the country will accept their claim that there should be any exceptional control over the action of the Executive in Ireland. It is necessary surely for every Parliament that the Executive shall be untrammelled. The proposal of this Amendment is to weaken the Executive of the Irish Parliament. It would oppressively burden the Privy Council, and, as I have said, reduce the status of the Privy Council to the status of an ordinary Petty Sessions Court, and therefore I oppose the Amendment.
Mr. BALFOURThe hon. Gentleman who has just sat down tried to pick a quarrel with a great many Gentlemen on both sides of the House, most of them absent. The last person he attacked was the Chief Secretary, because he stated that he, the Member for Sligo (Mr. Scanlan), had gone about the country saying there were no outrages in Ireland, a statement which is entirely inconsistent—
§ Mr. DEVLINOnly in Belfast.
Mr. BALFOURThat he went about England and Scotland saying that there are no outrages in Ireland except at Belfast, and he infers that the whole of the English and Scottish people believe him, but there is one person who does not believe him, and that is the Chief Secretary.
§ Mr. KEATINGHe said on account of their religion.
Mr. BALFOURI thought the hon. Gentleman said there were no outrages in Ireland. [HON. MEMBERS: "No, no."] Then I fail to understand what that observation has to do with this Amendment at all. It was only one of two or three very singular observations which the hon. Member for Sligo made, and the worst of which was the observation with which he began. He 2342 quoted, or professed to quote, a statement made by my right hon. and learned Friend the senior Member for Trinity College (Sir E. Carson) in his speech made earlier this afternoon. What my right hon. and learned Friend said was this: that of the two modes of oppression which the minority in Ireland had to fear if Home Rule was passed, he was much more afraid of Executive than of legislative oppression. The version of that which the hon. Gentleman the Member for Sligo gives us, is that my right hon. and learned Friend has committed himself to the proposition that under no circumstances has any Irishman in any part of Ireland got anything to fear from the legislative action of the Irish Home Rule Parliament. I heard the speech of the right hon. and learned Gentleman and there was nothing in the speech to suggest such an interpretation of it. The hon. Member was not content to begin his speech with that, but he maintained the proposition in spite of contradictions from friends of mine behind me, and he ended his speech with the same statement. A more extraordinary perversion of a statement which was fresh in the recollection of everybody in the Committee I do not think I ever heard.
I do not rise to defend the right hon. and learned Gentleman who does not require any defence from me or even to deal with the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down. I did not quite catch the general purport of his argument, but, so far as I understood it, and he will correct me if I am wrong, it was that it was a monstrous and incredible supposition that any Irishman should wish to misuse the law, to oppress any other Irishman. I entirely agree with Mr. Gladstone in saying that Irishmen have no extra dose of original sin, but I do not think they have any extra dose of original virtue. I do not for a moment think that they are worse than the rest of mankind, but are they necessarily better than the rest of mankind. Are they so much better than Englishmen and Scotchmen. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."] No, and yet in the very same speech in which the hon. Member said Irishmen were incapable of misusing the law against any other Irishman, he accused my right hon. and learned Friend, he accused me, and he accused the British Government of having misused the Irish law against Irishmen. If we are so wicked, I do not know why he should necessarily be so virtuous. At all events I think it is perfectly grotesque to say that the innate love of fair play is 2343 so deeply rooted and stands on such a solid and unassailable basis amongst Irishmen that it provides against the misuse of the law by the Executive when you come to deal with the semi-angelic community which the present Administration, most naturally under those circumstances, desire to relieve from any interference by the inferior persons of inferior moral standing who live on the other side of St. George's Channel.
May I turn from the hon. Gentleman the Member for Sligo to what seems to me to be the kernel of the question we are discussing. The Government allow that there ought to be a direct and immediate appeal to the Privy Council upon the question as to whether an Act is or is not outside the powers given to the Irish Parliament. They think such a direct appeal is wise and desirable, and, indeed, I think they are quite right. By so doing they practically establish the Privy Council as corresponding to what in America would be called for certain purposes the Supreme Federal Court, and the Privy Council must occupy some analogous position of that kind. Let me turn from the cases in which the Government allow there ought to be an appeal to this Federal Court, to the cases in which they think there ought not to be appeal to the Federal Court. They think there ought not to be an appeal when an individual is aggrieved by some action extra vires of the Executive acting under an Act which they interpret in one way, and which may, or may not, be capable of that interpretation. What we ask the Government to do in such a case is to give an appeal to the Federal Court, as they do in the larger cases where the Lord Lieutenant is concerned. I think that is eminently reasonable. What the Government say in reply to the Amendment is that the proper remedy of anybody aggrieved in this particular way is to go to the Irish Court and work up through the Irish Courts ultimately, if he likes, to the Privy Council. That is a tremendous burden to throw upon a particular individual. I speak with modesty on the subject, but I believe that in the United States of America, when an individual is aggrieved by any action which he thinks is ultra vires, though he cannot appeal directly to the Supreme Federal Court, he can appeal immediately to a Federal Court. But there is no opportunity for appealing to a Federal Court under your Bill. There are no Federal 2344 Courts except the Supreme Federal Court, the Privy Council. You have handed over the whole appointment of the judges to the Irish Government. You have disinterested yourself in the administration of justice altogether in Ireland, except in so far as an appeal lies to the Privy Council. If you carry out the true analogy of your federal system you ought to have subordinate Federal Courts to deal with such questions, if you will not allow an immediate appeal to the Federal Court in existence under your Bill.
I think the right hon. Gentleman was perfectly justified in his speech earlier in the evening when he pointed out that there would be a remedy in the sense that an action might lie whenever the powers of the Executive were exceeded. But let me point out that that appeal in all the earlier stages lies only to Irish Courts appointed by the Irish Administration. As the question to be decided is whether a particular action of the Executive is outside the powers given by this Act, the appeal should not be to an Irish Court, but to a Federal Court, and the only way of getting it to a Federal Court under the system established by this Bill is to give an immediate appeal to the Privy Council. The hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Scanlan) told us that the result of that would be that the Privy Council would be overwhelmed with small, petty appeals on small, petty cases. I do not think that that would happen at all. The danger my hon. Friends wish to avoid is that an Act might be passed per incuriam which was outside the scope of this Act, or containing a Clause so wide that when the Act came to be applied it was seen to be outside the powers given to the Irish Parliament. I do not think that an Irish Court appointed by the Irish Government is the proper tribunal to decide a question of that kind. That is a danger which should be guarded against, and as far as I understand the framework of the Bill, the only possible way of guarding against it is to give an immediate and direct appeal to the only tribunal which you have left for Irishmen to appeal to—the only federal tribunal, to repeat the metaphor that I used earlier in my speech, the Privy Council, which not merely has jurisdiction over Great Britain and Ireland, but also is the final Court of Appeal for the Colonies. I suggest that the Government might consider whether they could not grant this appeal. I do not see that it can hurt the Privy Council or 2345 embarrass the course of justice. What you want is to give confidence to every Irishman that, however much the powers you give to the Irish Executive and the Irish Legislature may be abused, at all events they shall be abused within and not without the law. That is not very much, but it is something, and it is something which the Government would do well to concede.
§ Mr. MOOREI think that in this Debate we only wanted an Irishman to get up and put a veto on any safeguard for his fellow countrymen, and this notwithstanding that the hon. Member for Waterford again and again has said that anything the Irish minority asked in the way of safeguards he, for his part, would be only too delighted to give them. But that is outside the House. If he nods his head now in acquiescence, the Government will at once grant it. But the hon. Member for Mayo (Mr. Dillon) and the hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. Devlin)—I hope I do them no injustice—go about the country protesting against the idea of the minority getting any safeguards. That is their point of view, and the hon. Member for North Sligo (Mr. Scanlan) is evidently an adherent of that school of thought, though not a very enlightened one.
§ Mr. DEVLINWill the hon. and learned Gentleman say when I stated that I objected to safeguards being given?
§ Mr. MOOREI am not going into argument. If the hon. Member did not do so, I withdraw the statement. I have much more important matters to deal with. The Attorney-General is always very sanguine and optimistic. He speaks absolutely light-heartedly about the methods under this Bill. Of course he does, as he is not affected to the extent of a single shilling or in life or limb or in any other way. He is just vacuus coram latrone viator; it is nothing to him. But we who have to bear the burden might be forgiven if we feel a little sore from time to time that the Government's professions of willingness to grant safeguards are not carried out. This is really a very important point. The Government have two methods of procedure: either they get up and protest and then do nothing, or else they say, as the Attorney-General said last night, "If we do this for you, will you give up your opposition to the rest of the Bill?" That is a very unfair way of bargaining. Our opposition is based on principle, and we are asked to consent to something which 2346 we loathe and detest on terms that the Government give us a meticulous Amendment now. I want to deal first of all with a misrepresentation of our position, made no doubt accidentally, but repeated again and again by the hon. Member for North Sligo. He took the opportunity of doing it, although his attention was called to the fact, when my right hon. Friend the Member for Trinity College (Sir E. Carson) was absent from the House. What did my right hon. Friend say? It was not the travesty represented for party purposes by the hon. Member for North Sligo. Speaking in this House on October 29th, my right hon. Friend said:—
The hon. and learned Member for Waterford (Mr. John Redmond), in his impassioned way, appeals to us and says, 'Do you think we are going to pass legislation as against Protestants? Do you think we are going to pass legislation that will be persecuting the Protestants?' Has anybody ever said that? I certainly have never said that.The Committee will judge whether the speech has been fairly represented. You have to take it as a whole, not sentence by sentence.I certainly have never said that. I give my Irish fellow countrymen credit who would be inclined in any wise, or from any motives, to interfere with their fellow countrymen on account of religion, that it would not be by legislation. Nobody supposes that any Government would pass an Act of Parliament to permit of the cruelties of boycotting, but the party can carry on the most dangerous system of tyranny and interference, and are still carrying it on, as the Chief Secretary knows. That is not done by law. People do not do these things by law. It is not done by law except so far as it is done by the law of the League. But still it goes on, and there is no use in talking to us as the lion, and learned Member for Waterford does, saying, 'Do you think that any such law as that would he passed?' I answer, 'Very well, I do not think it would be passed; I think it would be too absurd, and I know perfectly well that when a tyranny of that kind is attempted to be carried out, it is not carried out in that way at all; it is carried out either by conniving at it or by not enforcing the law against it.'"—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 29th October, 1912, col. 298, Vol. XLIII.]That is paraphrased and repeated ad nauseam as an admission that Irish Unionists have no fear of what a Parliament may do in Dublin by legislative action. The words cannot bear that meaning in their fair sense. If they mean that they have no fear as to legislative action, they convey the keenest apprehension as to administrative action, and it is that with which this Amendment deals. I do not blame the hon. Member for North Sligo; he was simply following his Leader; he did not hear my right hon. Friend's explanation.
§ Mr. SCANLANI am sure the hon. Gentleman does not wish to misrepresent, but his statement is quite incorrect. I 2347 have been present here during the whole of the proceedings to-day since Question Time.
§ Mr. MOOREThen I withdraw the statement that the hon. Member was not present and simply say that he did not understand. But he is simply following the example of his Leader the hon. Member for Waterford, who went to Sheffield and made use of exactly the same distorted paraphrase for the purpose of influencing English constituencies. In this month's "Review of Reviews," under the hand of the hon. Member for Waterford, you have a considered statement in black and white, which I ask the Committee to read in connection with the actual words of my right hon. Friend's speech. The statement is as follows:—
Since this article was written the extraordinary admission has been made by the Irish Unionist leader that he has no fear of the Irish Parliament passing any law oppressive to Protestants as such. See the Debate in the House of Commons on October 29th. This admission really destroys the whole 'Ulster' case.6.0 P.M.That is a very good opinion, but does anyone think that it is a fair account or summary of the speech? I do not think that any reasonable man on reading the report would say so. I do not think that anyone who did not want to serve the lowest form of party purposes could possibly put into my right hon. Friend's mouth the statement that we were free from all apprehension as to the action of the Irish Parliament. I pass from the statement of the hon. Member for North Sligo, simply saying that it is a very incorrect misrepresentation, and one that I trust will not be repeated by anyone who has heard the actual words used by my right hon. Friend. Let us come to the Amendment, because extraneous matters have been introduced. I want the Committee to remember the position we are now in when we come to consider the question of giving an individual an appeal. In the first place you will have a Government in office which it is admitted will have power to repeal the Habeas Corpus Act. There is no difficulty about repealing the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland. By the Government's own admission they have given the Irish Parliament power to do it. The Habeas Corpus Act is one of the greatest checks on the abuse of power by the Executive. You are putting this power into the hands of a party who would repeal that Act to-morrow so far as it affects Ulster. Surely if that part of our Charter of Liberty is to 2348 be taken away, as is not only possible but probable, we have to look at what restraints there may be upon the action of the Executive. The Attorney-General said that at present under the Bill we have all the safeguards that are necessary against abuse of Executive action. He said that we could go to the Privy Council now. I speak of the Privy Council as different from the House of Lords. The Attorney-General referred to Mr. Bowles' action, to the Swansea school case, and to various other cases with which we are familiar, in which the Courts have restrained abuse of power on the part of the Executive, and he said that we had these powers as the Bill stands at present. We have not, because if the Attorney-General's findings are right there is no power of appeal. This Bill, in so far as the Law Courts go; gives no power of appeal that we do not possess at present. It is not suggested that any new and additional legal power of appeal has taken the place of the House of Lords. What is our remedy? Our remedy is to go to the Courts for a writ of prohibition, it may be to suit one case, for a writ of certiorari in another, and for a mandamus in another. I do not think the Attorney-General would suggest that we have any other remedy than that—I mean in regard to the general mandatory jurisdiction of the Court.
The Attorney-General has said that we have a power of appeal at present, and that the Bill merely substitutes the Privy Council for the House of Lords. I want to convince the Attorney-General that that is not so. In the first place, what is the position? You have suspended the Habeas Corpus Act. I am assuming that; that is my argument; for you have given power to do it; you would not reserve it. We asked you to do so, and you would not. Why did you decline to reserve it if you did not intend to allow it to be exercised? You gave us yesterday Nationalist judges. Our Supreme Court of Judicature is to be adorned by the class of gentlemen who spoke yesterday. I do not want to say anything against them; but what is the outstanding fact? That we in the North of Ireland have no confidence in them whatever. [Laughter.] I really do not know why hon. Members can laugh at that. They perhaps do not intend to live in Ireland, and think it is a joke. It is not a joke to us. Here is our case—and I ask the Attorney-General to follow it, because I will say he is reasonable, and I will say, too, 2349 that the Chancellor of the Exchequer is reasonable. Suppose there is an abuse of the Executive authority, the only remedy we have on the Attorney-General's own showing—if we do not pass this Amendment—is that we have to go to the judges of the Nationalist Courts in Dublin for a writ of prohibition, or a mandamus, or a writ of certiorari. If this Court does what we anticipate they will do, they will refuse our application, and we have no further remedy. It has been decided on two or three different occasions that where a Court of Appeal has refused an application, no appeal lies with the House of Lords. Therefore the only Court we can go to, if there is an abuse of power, is a Court which will be packed with Nationalist judges in Dublin; that is on the legal side. I agree an appeal will lie with the House of Lords—I think the Attorney-General will probably agree with me—if the right were granted. But we should not want to appeal if the right were granted.
If an injury takes place, and we are refused redress by a partisan bench, we have no remedy whatever before the Privy Council in any form. We ought to have an appeal from the Government of Ireland on the law side—I am putting it roughly—or in a case where it is mixed law and fact—in whatever way you distinguish it, from an abuse of the Executive power. You leave us absolutely hand and foot bound at the mercy of the decision of the Nationalist Court in Dublin. I am entitled to assume that it would be a Nationalist Court; we would have no power whatsoever to go beyond their refusal. That was not present, I am sure, in the Attorney-General's mind when he made use of the arguments he did. I cordially agree with what my right hon. and learned Friend has said, that our greatest danger from this Parliament is not legislation but administration, and not only administration in the sense of exercising powers—and what a free hand they have to exercise their powers, for they can suspend the Habeas Corpus Act! Not only, I say, in an abuse of their powers, but in the withholding of power!
Take a case going on at present. I am not going to discuss the merits of it. At present the Government in Ireland for some reason or other have taken an extraordinary alarm about the state of affairs in Belfast. Without notice to the representatives of the people—that is, the corporation—without even the courtesy of a 2350 letter, they have drafted into the city 200 extra police during the last couple of months. The question arises: who is going to pay for these police? The people of Belfast consider this is not a local matter—I am not discussing anything sub judice—but let me say that on the ordinary rules of population the people of Belfast say that they are entitled to a free quota of 950 police. In Belfast they get thirteen police free for every 10,000 of the population. In Roscommon and Clare they get thirty-one free police, and twenty-five extra police in Cork. This matter can be threshed out at present, since the Crown—that is, the Irish Government—send in their demand for pay for these extra police which the corporation claim should not be charged for. If Belfast refuses to pay the Crown can get an order on the Crown side to strike a rate of pay for the police, or they can sue the corporation in a civil action. That is the way the matter lies at present. The people are quite content. They are not going to be content in a matter of this sort if you start a bench of judges such as I have stated, and if you put the administration of the law in a position that the people have no confidence in it. You need not pretend they will have any confidence in it when you are dealing in the way you are with Ulster and the people who wish to remain in the present connections. Under this Bill they have no remedy whatever.
Why should not these people be allowed to have an independent tribunal, which they would value, because it may be independent? There is another case. The Chief Secretary admitted it not so very long ago, and this illustrates the way the Executive power is wrongly withheld. A Local Government Board auditor went down to Sligo. Sligo has a Nationalist corporation. Last July one of the members thanked God in a public speech that they were Nationalists and Roman Catholics. The way they carry on their public business is this: The Local Government Board Auditor went down and found there was £550 in rates due from members of the Sligo Corporation themselves—that is, those members owed the community £550. Of course, if these Nationalist corporators did not pay the rates, the community they represent lose, and it is for the Unionist minority in Sligo, who do pay their rates, and are made pay their rates—
§ Mr. SCANLANIs the hon. and learned Gentleman in order under this Amendment in referring to the position of matters in 2351 Sligo? Can he discuss the position of the corporation or the ratepayers, and, if he can, is it in order to absolutely misrepresent them?
§ The DEPUTY-CHAIRMANAs I understand, the hon. and learned Gentleman was using the case as an illustration. The hon. and learned Member himself used another case. But perhaps the hon. and learned Member who is speaking need not elaborate his illustration.
§ Mr. MOOREI do not wish to say anything controversial, but the matter has appeared in the Irish Press, and was embodied in a question to the Irish Secretary on 9th May. He never suggested that it was not absolutely true. We threshed it out in a Debate in this House, and it is only a convenient contradiction by way of an interlocutory observation that comes out now for the first time by way of denial. Supposing the facts are true—I believe they are—what happens? At present the Local Government Board—if the Chief Secretary does not prevent them from doing their duty—will surcharge the guardians for not collecting the rates due by these gentlemen. In that way the Unionist ratepayers who do pay their rates will get justice. But if the new state of affairs comes about the gentlemen who are ruling Sligo Corporation, and who will rule in the new Parliament in Dublin will not trouble about the enforcement of the payment of rates or taxes, or any debts owing by their own members. There is no doubt of it. That will be withholding power. In a case like that the Unionists in Sligo who go on paying their rates will have no remedy whatsoever, for the Irish Local Government Board, manned by Gentlemen below the Gangway, will not lift a finger to help them and the Irish Courts will refuse to give them redress, and he will have no power to come to the Privy Council here. Scandals of this sort come under our own observation day by day. Everybody in Ireland knows about them. They are now connected by the central authority. If you are going to take away that central authority there will be absolutely no way of preventing these things going on day by day, for there will be no control over the gentlemen who sympathise with those who do them. It is not an unreasonable thing when we ask for the protection of an independent British tribunal for the individual who is wronged either by an abuse 2352 of power or an abuse in withholding power. On the Attorney-General's own admission, we have no appeal from a mandamus or any motion on the Crown side.
§ Sir RUFUS ISAACSI did not admit it.
§ Mr. MOOREPerhaps the Attorney-General will look at the authorities. What I have stated was my view, and I consulted my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dublin University, and he concurs. That being the position, it is not unreasonable that we should ask for an appeal to the Privy Council, especially as the Attorney-General, in the course of our discussions on this Bill, began to say to every criticism, "You have an appeal to the Privy Council." There is a phrase or a motto which I think the Attorney-General has reversed and made it read Ruat Justicia fiat cælum. I shall certainly support this Amendment, and I trust the Government will see their way to accept it.
§ The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER (Mr. Lloyd George)The hon. and learned Member has raised one fresh point in the course of this Debate, and I should like him to listen to my statement in order to see whether I appreciate his point. The Amendment proposes that there should be an appeal to the Privy Council—that at any rate the Lord Lieutenant should have the right to refer to the Privy Council an act of administration by the Irish Executive. Our answer to that is that the subject in Ireland can resort to the Privy Council, but that he must in the first instance go to the Courts in Ireland. The hon. and learned Gentleman says he cannot get beyond the Courts in Ireland if the Courts in Ireland refuse that right. I agree that is a very serious point. He says there is no appeal from the Courts in Ireland if a writ certiorari or a mandamus is refused by them. That is not the information we have got at the present moment, but I agree it is a very serious matter, and if the hon. and learned Gentleman's statement of the law—and I am challenging it—is correct, then I agree he has pointed out a serious flaw which would have to be put right.
§ Mr. MOOREI think he will find that it is so, if he reads the case of the Gosford Estate and the Boroughs Estate, on certiorari.
§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGEThat is certiorari, not mandamus. I think there is 2353 an appeal from mandamus, not from certiorari. I think that it is important that the Irish subjects should have the power in the last resort to get to the Privy Council, and if the hon. and learned Gentleman is accurate in his statement of the law then I think the hon. and learned Gentleman may take it that we will look into it, and if it is the case, then it will be put right upon Report. I come now to the general position, which I shall argue on the assumption that there is a right of appeal to the Privy Council, and that if there is not a right at the present moment there will be a right eventually in this Bill. I now come to the position as stated by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City (Mr. Balfour). His contention is that the Lord Lieutenant ought to have the same right to go to the Privy Council, practically to override the acts of the Executive as conferred by the Bill in the case of an Act of Parliament or of a Bill. I think that is a very serious proposition. The right hon. Gentleman says, "I am assuming that Irishmen are not worse than other people. I do not say they are any better; they are just like the rest of human nature." But the right hon. Gentleman is really assuming that they must be very much worse because he asks for a power which is not conferred by any Constitution in the British Empire. There is no Constitution in the British Empire where a power of this kind is conferred upon a Lord Lieutenant or a Governor-General to go to the Privy Council to interfere with the act of the Executive direct. In every case the subject of course can go eventually to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council for the purpose of setting aside the action of the Executive if it is ultra vires; but in the first instance they have to resort to the Courts of their country and that is really the only point here. They go to the Courts in Ireland in the first instance and if the Courts in Ireland support the action of the Executive, there will be an appeal to the Privy Council subject to the point the hon. and learned Member (Mr. Moore) has made.
If you give a direct right of appeal to the Privy Council, you practically supersede not merely the Executive, but you supersede the Courts and you brush them on one side. It is giving a right to go direct to the Privy Council before going to the Courts in Ireland themselves. That is a proposition never embodied in any Constitution ever sanctioned by this House. 2354 The right hon. Gentleman says, "You have conferred powers of that kind upon the Lord Lieutenant in the case of a Bill." That is a very different matter. "When you propose it should be done in the ease of a Bill there you have got a document; it only occurs once in a way and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council will decide upon a document in front of them, bur when you come to an act of the Executive it bears upon evidence. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council can hear evidence—it may be an act of everyday occurrence—and it would be a very serious matter for the Privy Council to deal with and it would be a still more serious matter for the Executive which might be constantly interfered with by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. You might have the Privy Council practically governing Ireland instead of the Executive. That I think would be a very serious matter and I am sure the right hon. Gentleman does not argue in favour of a proposition of that kind. There has been a good deal of discussion in the course of this afternoon with regard to the difference between legislation and the action of the Executive. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sligo (Mr. Scanlan) I think quite correctly summarised, what was said by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Trinity College (Sir E. Carson) who is here at the present moment.
§ Sir E. CARSONI generally am here.
§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGEYes, I know. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sligo said that the right hon. and learned Gentleman had stated in the course of the discussions in this House that he did not fear that any act of the Irish Legislature would be oppressive to Irish Protestants. Then, if that is true, my hon. and learned Friend went on to argue, there ought to be no distinction between legislation and administration. That is purely a matter of inference and argument, but the statement made by my hon. and learned Friend was challenged, and challenged rather truculently, by two or three hon. Members opposite. The hon. Members who interrupted would have completely refuted their own interruption by quoting the actual words used by the right hon. learned Gentleman on that occasion. I am going to quote a few more words because they bear directly on this controversy. These were the words used 2355 by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Trinity College:—
The hon. and learned Member for Waterford in his impassioned way appeals to us and says, 'Do you think that we are going to pass legislation as against Protestants? Do you think we are going to pass legislation that will be persecuting the Protestants?'And the right hon. and learned Gentleman asked:—Has anybody ever said such a thing? I certainly have never said that I give my Irish fellow countrymen credit who would be inclined in any wise, or from any motives, to interfere with their fellow countrymen on account of religion, that it would not be by legislation.That is the whole of the statement made by the hon. Member for Sligo. It was the only statement of fact he made, namely, that the right hon. and learned Gentleman had made that statement in reference to legislation.
§ Sir E. CARSONI put it to the right hon. Gentleman, does he think that is a fair summary of my statement, when after that I say there would not be oppression by legislation, but there would be my administration? Is it fair merely to quote that I said there would not be oppressive legislation against Protestants?
§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGEIf the right hon. and learned Gentleman had been here when my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sligo made a statement, he would have known I am perfectly right in the statement I make. The hon. and learned Member for Sligo made that statement of fact, and the hon. Gentleman who interrupted him did not say it was an incomplete statement, but they said it was grossly inaccurate. Later on, in the course of that Debate, my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney-General said this—
§ Sir E. CARSONAre you going to refer to no more of what I said?
§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGEIf the right hon. and learned Gentleman likes. But it was read before—
Nobody supposes that any Government would pass an Act of Parliament to permit of the cruelties of boycotting, but the party can carry on a most dangerous system of tyranny and interference, and are still carrying it on.I am going to read another passage. My hon. Friend the Attorney-General later on, in reply to the right hon. and learned Gentleman, said: "Both these right hon. Gentlemen"—that is, the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Trinity College, and the right hon. 2356 Gentleman the Member for the Strand (Mr. Long)—Both these right hon. Gentlemen, who speak no doubt with great authority on Irish affairs, have demonstrated absolutely clearly that there is really no anxiety in their minds that those who profess the Protestant religion will be oppressed by anything done by means of legislation.And then the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Ronald M'Neill) asked—Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman be good enough to specify any person who expressed the contrary opinion?Sir Rufus Isaacs: Then I am all the more delighted, and I am sorry that the hon. Member for Mid-Armagh is not present. I take it he has not said it, and does not think it.An Hon. Member: Nobody has said it.Sir E. Carson: You ought to quote when you make a charge.And my right hon. Friend goes on further, and says this—Then we come to the next step, What is it we are discussing? When I hear these disclaimers, which, I may be permitted to say, without offence, do credit to hon. Gentlemen opposite—Sir E. Carson: I disclaim nothing. I cannot disclaim what I never said.
§ Sir E. CARSONHave you anything to quote different from that?
§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGEOn the contrary, I do not want to quote anything different. What I quoted is exactly what I wanted to quote, and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sligo drew the inference from it, but he never imputed the inference to the right hon. and learned Gentleman. On the contrary, he first summarised the statement of the right hon. Gentleman and he then said why should he draw a distinction between legislation and administration. That may be a good or a bad argument, but it did not misrepresent the right hon. and learned Gentleman, and I still think the argument is a good one. If the Irish Parliament is so constituted that acts of legislation passed by them will not cause any anxiety even now in the moment of heated controversy to any Protestant or raise the fear that there will be any persecution or oppression, why should Acts of administration be of a totally different character? After all, if they want to persecute the Protestants, they could do it much more effectively, or at any rate just as effectively, by legislation.
§ Sir E. CARSONYou do not know Ireland; that is why you say that.
§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGEI do know something about Ireland, but I do not pretend to know so much about it as the right hon. I and learned Gentleman.
§ Sir E. CARSONIf you did, you would be upon our side.
§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGEThat would depend upon what part of Ireland I was living in. It is very much a matter of residence or domicile, I think. After all, the position is a perfectly clear one. If the Executive power is unlawfully exercised or withheld by any act of Irish administration, there is resort to a tribunal which everyone will admit is an independent one—that is the Privy Council. The only difference between the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Balfour) and ourselves is this: He says, "Brush aside the Irish Courts, ignore them, and get to the Privy Council through the Lord Lieutenant." But he may be a partisan. The right hon. Gentleman assumes all the partisanship is in Ireland, but you may have a partisan Lord Lieutenant.
§ Captain CRAIGYou have one now.
§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGEWell, but not for the first time. After all, they are party men; they are appointed by the party that happens to be in power. I do not say they are partisan in any offensive sense of the term.
§ Captain CRAIGVery offensive.
§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGEI am not going to follow that, but the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Balfour) does not assume that an Irish Lord Lieutenant is capable of partisanship. What the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London argued was that he should be allowed to brush aside the Irish Courts and come straight to the Privy Council. Our proposal is that you should, in the first instance, do as we do in every other Constitution in the Empire—
Sir GILBERT PARKERIn our Colonies the Court they have recourse to is not a provincial Court like that which will be established in Ireland, but a Supreme or Federal Court, and therefore the cases are not on all fours.
§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGEBut, after all, it is a Colonial Court. You have to go in the first instance to the Colonial Court before you go to the Privy Council, and that is all we propose here. We propose that you should go to the Irish Court first and afterwards to the Privy Council. You do not want the Privy Council to be constantly at the elbow of the Executive, in- 2358 terfering with their action and saying this or that is illegal. That would be a very dangerous interference with the action of the Executive, and we cannot possibly assent to it. The point which has been raised by the right hon. and learned Gentleman shall be taken into account, and if it turns out to be correct we shall certainly put down an Amendment on Report to meet it.
§ Mr. BONAR LAWOne of the curious results of the conditions under which we are discussing this Bill—even with all your desire, Mr. Chairman, if I may say so with respect, to give us some opportunity of discussion—is that all the Rules of Order are disappearing. The whole object of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman was to deal with the previous speech made by my right hon. Friend which dealt with legislation, whereas this Amendment deals with the powers of the Executive. I do not complain, for it is a good thing to have a discussion of some kind under the arrangements the Government have laid down. I am bound to say that I was surprised that the Chancellor of the Exchequer thought it worth his while to make such use of the quotation from my right hon. Friend's speech. In the first place, there is nothing in the least new in what my right hon. Friend said. So far as I am concerned, I remember perfectly well that either on the First or Second Reading I pointed out that obviously the danger which the minority in Ireland feared is Executive action, and that unless there is some means of securing that the Executive will act fairly, then it is no good talking about safeguards, because there is no possibility of having them, and you should at once admit that the only safeguard is complete trust in the sense of fair play of the Irish people. Now let me deal with what the Chancellor of the Exchequer considers a fair use of the quotation from my right hon. Friend's speech. He says that the hon. and learned Member for Waterford has made no unfair use of that quotation. [An HON. MEMBER: "It was the hon. Member for Sligo."]
§ Mr. JOHN REDMONDI did not speak at all.
§ Mr. BONAR LAWI am going to ask all fair-minded men, including the hon. and learned Gentleman, if they think that the use made of that quotation was fair? First of all, this is the use made of it. In an 2359 article on this question he used these words—
The extraordinary admission has been made by the Irish Unionist Leader that he has no fear of the Irish Parliament passing any law offensive to Protestants as such (see debate in the House of Commons, 29th October).This is what follows:This really destroys the whole Ulster case.I was surprised to find the Attorney-General cheer that quotation.
§ Sir RUFUS ISAACSI said that the statement as to what had fallen from the right hon. and learned Gentleman was a perfectly accurate statement of the facts, and that the argument drawn from it was a totally different thing.
§ Mr. BONAR LAWWhat I gathered was that the right hon. Gentleman approved of the use which was made of that quotation. This is what it amounts to. I am not going, unless I am asked to do so, to read the quotation, but this may be taken as a fair summary of it:—"I do not believe there is any danger of Protestants being persecuted by legislation." That is the first point, and he went on to say, "But I do believe they will be persecuted by administration." Now, is it a fair use of that quotation to say that we admit they would be persecuted by legislation and that that destroys the whole Ulster case, without for a moment saying it was followed immediately by the admission that there would be persecution by administration. In other words, all that it amounts to is this: My right hon. Friend practically said there is no danger of murder being committed by bow and arrow because they have a revolver, which will make it more effective. As regards this Amendment, I am free to say at once that I do not think it is of much value, and I think it would be very difficult to bring it into effective operation. I do not understand why the Government should pretend that it is useful in regard to this question which we discussed yesterday, and that they should say it is not of use in regard to a matter which may affect the personal liberties and rights of individuals in Ireland. It is no answer for the right hon. Gentleman to say, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer said just now, if you do this you are setting the Privy Council not only over the Executive, but over the judiciary. You did that yesterday, and, if it is right in the one case, it is right in the other.
§ Mr. LLOYD GEORGENo.
§ Mr. BONAR LAWI should have said, "Legislature as well as Executive." That is what I meant. You did that yesterday, and I want to point out what the value of it is. Like my right hon. Friend, I have always said, both on the platform and in this House, that it is absurd to suggest that the Irish Parliament will put into an Act of Parliament a proviso that Protestants are not to be allowed this position or that. Nobody but a lunatic would suggest that. I never have thought that there was any great danger, and I do not think so now, of any oppression of Protestants by the Roman Catholic Church as such. I do believe, however, that in Ireland they have faith in their religion which has the strongest influence on the great mass of people in the South and West of Ireland, and so long as religious feelings exist, any unscrupulous politician can use religion to get complete control of the Government of Ireland, and, by means of the political influence he has so created, he can and will discriminate against Protestants as such. That is being done now, and this is where protection would come in. I know this Amendment would not enable you to deal with a matter in which the Executive were oppressive, but it does enable you to deal with an Act of the Executive which is illegal. I know that under the Bill you are not allowed to discriminate on account of religion. If in regard to appointments it was found that they were invariably given to the men of one religion and belonging to one particular party, it is at least an open question whether you could not appeal on the ground that that is illegal and get some protection under this Amendment. In the case mentioned by my hon. and learned Friend behind me, there is no doubt whatever as to what happened in Sligo. This Amendment would be put into operation by the Lord Lieutenant, and he would say that such a case was a public scandal, and he would at once put machinery into operation to bring it before the Privy Council, and it would be put an end to. That is not anything vexatious. But it would not be done according to the Bill unless the Lord Lieutenant thought it was in the public interest. Now I put it to the Attorney-General and to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Is that not a case, more than anything we discussed yesterday, where people in Ireland ought to have recourse to some body which is Imperial and which is not completely under the influence of the Irish Government? The whole point about this in 2361 regard to this Amendment is this: The Chancellor of the Exchequer says it is not done in any other country or Colony. That may be perfectly true, but there is no country or Colony in the world with such a Constitution as this. You profess that Ireland will still be a part of the United Kingdom. One moment you are using the analogy of one of the Dominion States as against the whole Dominion of Canada, and the next moment you are using the whole Dominion of Canada as an analogy against some other State. If you take any of our Dominion Powers, like Nova Scotia or New Brunswick, they have an appeal to the Canadian judges. In the case of the United States the individual States have a right of appeal to a federal judge. In this case we are giving no right of appeal to the central authority. What does it all amount to? You tell us that it is the same thing because you cannot appeal to the Irish judges. The assumption is that the Irish Executive is acting unfairly, and that the Irish Executive is supported by a majority of the Irish Parliament. What is the position of the judges? They can be removed by an Address of the very body which is doing the injustice. I put it to any fair-minded man that if you make a pretence of any kind of giving safeguards, surely here is a case where the appeal ought to be an appeal to some Court over which we have some control and not a Court which is controlled by Ireland.
§ Mr. T. M. HEALYIf this is a genuine point, there is a way of meeting it. I protest against listening here day after day to charges against our country and against our people. We have sat for three centuries under the most terrible form of oppression ever invented by man. Our race has not been merely decimated, but almost destroyed. We have lived under a system of landlordism which has made your name abhorrent, and which had to be abolished, on the admission of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Balfour), as the most impossible system of administration in the world. Now, when largely by your own good sense and your own administration you have abolished the unclean thing and done away with all the causes of mischief and horror and hatred in the country, you come here, and, forgetting your own past, forgetting the iron that has entered into our soul, pose as people who have never oppressed any man, and turn round and imagine in us all these horrible forms of iniquity, which, if we cared to turn up the 2362 pages of history, we could prove were your own crime. I confess I find it rather hard to listen to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Trinity College (Sir E. Carson), for whom I have a deep respect and a great liking, talking about oppression when I remember his course under the "twenty years of resolute government," and how he would bring forward a charge of conspiracy against a man on Monday and prove it by something the man did one week afterwards. These cases are in the Books. There is the Kelly case, there is John Sullivan's case, and there is a number of them. You talk about the right of appeal, and there being no appeal in criminal causes. Who deprived us of the right of appeal? We were deprived of that appeal on 17th May, 1887, after a pledge of the most solemn kind. I remember the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Balfour) came down and at that box solemnly promised us an appeal in every case of removable magistrate, and because two of his own friends, one called Bruen, wrote letters in the "Times" he withdrew from his promise. Now you say you are afraid of us. Perhaps your own conscience ought to make you afraid.
Forgiveness to the injured doth belong;They ne'er forgive who do the wrong.If you believe in these protestations, and if you are sincere, go back to the proposals of Mr. Gladstone in 1893. Certainly, as far as we are concerned, we do not shrink from such a proposition. I cannot speak from more than recollection, because I have not read the Bill for fifteen years, but my recollection is that Mr. Gladstone came forward and met in advance arguments of that kind, and set up what he called, I think, the "two Exchequer Judges," who were to be Imperial judges. Very well, in the name of God, take your Exchequer judges.
§ Mr. BONAR LAWHear, hear.
§ Mr. HUME-WILLIAMSThe protection proposed in the Amendment goes such a short way that I cannot conceive why it is not accepted by the Government. We are told it raises an abnormal and unusual condition of things. Yes, but the whole circumstances are abnormal. The appeal to the Court of the Privy Council has been set up by the Government. After all, it is their creation. I do think, as far as the validity of laws passed by the Irish Parliament go, the Government have made an honest attempt to provide that laws shall be made only within the powers of 2363 the Irish Parliament, and that an independent tribunal shall decide whether they are so or not. It is to be found in several Clauses of the Bill. In Clause 29, which we are now considering, the Government provide the Lord Lieutenant or a Secretary of State may go even before an Act is passed, and obtain the opinion of the Privy Council as to whether or not a Bill is within the power of the Irish Parliament. In Clause 30 there is a provision to the same effect. In Clause 21 there is a proviso inserted that if an Irish Act of Parliament contravenes an English Act, then in so far as it contravenes the English Act, it shall be void. I think it is clear an earnest attempt has been made on behalf of the Government to provide an independent tribunal to see the laws of that Irish Parliament do not go beyond their powers. It is not the laws, however, we fear; it is the Executive power that will result from the laws. Nobody who knows the condition of Ireland at the present time can doubt that the real danger you ought to provide against in future is not the making of improper laws but the misuse or misreading of those laws by the Executive which has to carry them into effect, and the speeches of my right hon. Friend the Member for Dublin University, which have been quoted and re-quoted and commented upon, all point out that it is the administration and the Executive the minority in Ireland have really to fear, and not the improper passing of laws. You have amply guarded against the one, and you have left the other untouched. You provide against that which is not the danger, and you do not take the modest step suggested to provide against the other. If you are going to offer the Privy Council as a sort of expensive guardian angel, it should at any rate be open to all.
The Attorney-General says you can apply to the ordinary judges of the land, but, as the Leader of the Opposition pointed out yesterday, you have entirely altered and affected the position of independence of Irish judges for all future time. See what the position and power of these distinguished gentlemen are to be in the future. You have provided they can be removed by a purely political majority. You have provided they can be removed by a joint Address of the two Irish Houses presented, not to the King, but to the Lord Lieutenant, who, the Chancellor of the Exchequer ingenuously admits, may well be a partisan. It may be desired to move some judge who in the opinion of that majority 2364 has shown himself not willing to do that which the then ruling majority thinks he ought to do. The Address is passed by the majority of the day in the House of Commons. You then approach the other House. A question was asked by the hon. Member for Mid-Armagh (Mr. Moore), as to whether or not, if the Senate did not agree to the House of Commons, there would be a Joint Sitting. The question remains without, an answer, but to my mind it is immaterial, because, if, as I suppose you would, have this Joint Sitting, it is obvious the unfortunate minority, or the majority if there were one, in the Senate against the presentation of such an Address would be flooded by the majority which came up from the other House. You, therefore, pass the Address at the bidding of the Government of the day, and, having done that, you present it, not to the King, but to the Lord Lieutenant of the day, who, the Chancellor of the Exchequer quite rightly admits, may be a partisan, and who will certainly act under the order of his Executive from the first stage of this procedure to the last.
What is to be the position of the judge? In the past he has, at any rate, known he could only be removed from his office by an Address of this House and the other House, and that his duty in Ireland was unaffected by any opinions that might be formed on his behaviour in Ireland. He always had the consolation of knowing he could not be removed except for misconduct, determined by the English House of Commons. You are going to leave the Sword of Damocles always hanging over his head if he does not give judgments and decisions which are in accordance with the wishes of the majority of the Irish Parliament, by whom he may be removed by what is a political process. You have taken a fatal step to sap the independence of the judiciary in Ireland. It has taken us centuries in this country to build up the independence of the bench. The very greatest advantage that civilisation can achieve is an independent and fearless judical system. The judge, to whom you say all these questions have to go in the future, will have lost the protection he has enjoyed up to the present day, because he can be removed by a political vote in the Irish House of Commons presented to a political partisan instead of coming to this House.
§ Sir RUFUS ISAACSIt is the same with the English judges here.
§ 7.0 P.M.
§ Mr. HUME-WILLIAMSThat is an entirely different question. Can anybody 2365 deny that in Ireland questions which the judges, and more particularly the criminal judges, have to deal are mostly questions of politics. Politics is at the bottom of half the crime with which the judges have to deal in Ireland. You have only to look at the Returns presented to this House and you will see that where the Crown is prosecuting in Ireland they are unable to get convictions in case after case, because they come before juries who allow their political sympathies to warp their sense of justice. You cannot shut your eyes to that condition of things in Ireland. If you are providing that there are circumstances under which the subject may go straight to the Privy Council, surely this of all others is the one case in which he ought to be given such a right. The Chancellor of the Exchequer says if he desires to raise the question whether or not, for instance, the Executive is rightly or wrongly interpreting an Irish Act of Parliament or an English Act of Parliament applicable to Ireland he may appeal, at his own expense, to the Irish Courts, without any hope of being ultimately recouped his expenses by the Crown, and he may wend his weary and expensive way through the Irish Courts right up to the Privy Council. I think the Attorney-General must have felt the force of that argument when dealing with the question arising under another Section giving power of appeal by the State to the Privy Council as to whether or not any new tax imposed is an Imperial tax and can be discontinued. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to think it right to give a direct appeal in that case. Why should it not be right to do it also in this case? Why is the subject desirous of raising a question of great importance, whether or not the Executive is acting within or without its powers, why is that subject to be obliged to do that at his own expense, while if he raises the question whether a tax is within the power of the Irish Parliament he can do it by going direct to the ultimate tribunal instead of wending his way through all the Law Courts. I regret that this Amendment does not go further. It only gives the power to the Lord Lieutenant and the Secretary of State to take such questions to the Privy Council. It is modest in the extreme, but it is only a just corollary of the promises already made, and I venture to think that if this Government are honest in their desire to give us safe- 2366 guards, seeing that they have done so much to destroy the independence of the judiciary, the least they can now do is to leave this question open to those who desire to go direct instead of making them appeal through the expensive and circuitous course already suggested.
§ Mr. CHARLES CRAIGThe Attorney-General, in the speech he made earlier in the day, based his remarks on a huge fallacy; because he said he anticipated that the Irish Parliament which this Bill will set up will contain an active Opposition. That is a very great fallacy, and this Amendment, and indeed all the Amendments that have been put forward by hon. Friends of mine on this side, have been advanced on behalf of the minority, not only in the North of Ireland, but also on behalf of the Protestants and Unionists who are spread over the rest of Ireland. Does the right hon. Gentleman imagine for one moment that, in the Home Rule Parliament proposed to be set up, there will be anything in the shape of an active Opposition such as we have, for instance, in this House of Commons? I agree with him. If he thinks for one moment that as soon as the Irish Parliament is set up there are going to be two parties, as in this country, a Conservative party and a Liberal party, that would be all right. But we know whatever parties there may be in an Irish Parliament, as set up under Home Rule, the Unionist and Protestant minority will, whenever any question affecting their interests is at stake, be faced by a united body of Nationalists and Roman Catholics, who will combine together against them, therefore it is a fallacy to suggest that there is going to be anything in the nature of a considerable Opposition which will ever have any effect on the action of the Government of the day in Ireland.
The right hon. Gentleman said also that this was a great innovation—the greatest innovation he had ever heard of. He said also that this did not exist in any of our Colonial Legislatures. I should like to remind the right hon. Gentleman that the case we are discussing now is totally and altogether different from the case of any Bill which heretofore has been discussed for the purpose of giving self-government to any of our Colonies. It has been pointed out over and over again in this House, when it has been proposed to give self-government to any of our Colonies, or any groups of Colonies—when it has been proposed to set up a federal system— 2367 negotiations have gone on for years, and in every case when these negotiations came to be embodied in an Act of Parliament, there was entire and absolute agreement amongst all the political parties in the various Colonies. But that is conspicuously absent in this case. There are two parties in Ireland more strongly and bitterly opposed to one another than any two parties in this country, or any two parties in any Colony throughout the world. The hon. and learned Member for North Cork (Mr. T. M. Healy) worked himself up into gnashing of teeth on the subject of what he considers to be the wrongs that Roman Catholics and Nationalists have suffered in the past. Supposing these allegations were true—[An HON. MEMBER: "Thanks for the supposition."] I admit that in the past in Ireland things have been done on both sides which everyone regrets. But I will never admit the hon. and learned Member and his Friends have a monopoly of grievances by any manner of means. I am, however, not going into that. It would be a very difficult matter for the hon. Member to prove that he and his party were less blameworthy than any other party has been in the past. I am quite willing to admit that great wrongs have been suffered and done by both political parties in the past. But that goes back 200 years, and it is unbusinesslike and ridiculous in the extreme to constantly hark back on what happened 200 years ago.
Everybody admits that Great Britain during the past sixty years has been successfully doing all in her power to make up for the deficiencies of administration in Ireland two centuries ago. But we believe, and in this I am sorry to have to disagree with some of my hon. Friends near me, that as a minority we would be persecuted and dealt with unfairly by hon. Members below the Gangway. We believe that whether that persecution or bad treatment takes the form of legislation or administrative action it will be there. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer told us that nothing like this had ever been proposed before, or was contained in any other Constitution within the Empire. I say there never has been an occasion when circumstances were even remotely like those which obtain on the present occasion. We are bound to be a permanent minority in Ireland, having our hereditary enemies—for that is what they are in fact—put into a position in which 2368 they can, if Home Rule ever becomes an accomplished fact, grind us down under their heels. That is the firm conviction of every man whom we represent in the North of Ireland, and is it too much to ask from the Government that they should give us-this one small safeguard that is here asked for? During the discussion it has been assumed by various speakers that the concession we are asking for is one to be used by any individual. That is not the case. What is asked for is not that any individual who feels himself aggrieved by reason of the Executive power in Ireland having been unlawfully exercised should have a right of appeal—in view of the fact that an Amendment to that effect was beaten last night, we could not ask that—but we simply ask that a Lord Lieutenant, or the Secretary of State, who believe that any Executive power in Ireland has been unlawfully exercised or withheld, should have the power to go direct to the Privy Council. That, I think, would be for the public interest. Is it too much to ask that these two officers of State should have that right? Is it likely that those two officials, who must be responsible men, are going to use this power, if it is granted, in any vexatious or frivolous way?
Many of my hon. Friends have endeavoured to show, and indeed have clearly shown, how grievous injustice can be done to the minority in Ireland by administrative action, either by withholding the law or by not allowing it to run its proper course, and they cited a long catalogue of instances. The best example I could give is the action which has been pursued by the present Government in Ireland during the last four or five years. We know, unfortunately, that in spite of the denial of the hon. Member who spoke below the Gangway, outrages, such as cattle driving and crimes of that kind, have been very rife in certain parts of Ireland during the last five years. We claim that the Government, personified by the Chief Secretary, whose absence to-day, although it is his Bill we are discussing, has not yet been explained, has been grossly negligent in the exercise of his duties with reference to the suppression of outrages and cattle drives. We have no doubt in our mind that if he desired he could suppress all forms of outrage. It has been done in the past, and, as everybody knows, when the present Government came into power, Ireland was in a very much more peaceful condition than it has been during the greater part of the time hon. Gentlemen have been in power. Here we have, 2369 even under a Union Government, a serious dereliction of duty on the part of the person who is principally responsible for law and good government in Ireland. If that can be done under a Union Government of the United Kingdom and Ireland, is it not certain that it will be done if the Nationalist party form the Government in Ireland? All that they will have to do is to hold their hands. If certain supporters and friends of their own consider that a section of the community has too much land, or farms which are too large, and proceed to drive the cattle or boycott those persons, or get rid of them in some way they think best, the Government, being either afraid of losing the support of their friends, or, perhaps, agreeing with the object of their campaign, do nothing with the power which they hold in their hands for preventing this state of things. I do not desire to deal with the interlude furnished by the hon. Member for North Sligo (Mr. Scanlan), when he, very unfortunately for himself, I think, produced a portion of the quotation from the speech of my right hon. and learned Friend below me. I can only say, in spite of what has been said by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that I do not think I ever heard during the course of my Parliamentary career—which is now unfortunately nearly ten years in extent—a more mean use of a quotation, nor have I ever heard a more one-sided or unfair quotation read in this House.
§ Sir J. D. REESIt is quite easy for the hon. Member for North-East Cork (Mr. T. M. Healy) to go back to past history and accuse the British Government of crimes in governing Ireland, which, by the admission of the hon. and learned Member for Waterford (Mr. J. Redmond), has become prosperous. The question now is, What are the safeguards under the Constitution which is to be given that are required for those who are dissatisfied with the prospects before them, and why should not the right of representation and appeal be extended to Executive Acts? I should like to say a word or two from the point of view of an ex-official, which has, so far, not been put to the House. Before doing so, I should like to say how grateful the Committee must be to the Chancellor of the Exchequer for having emphasised so clearly what was the real significance of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman below me, of which so improper and base a use has been made, because it was entirely perverted and turned from the meaning which it was intended by my right 2370 hon. Friend to convey. I would ask the Government why they should stint the right of appeal, reference and representation under this Clause? If a new Constitution is to be imposed upon a country sharply divided into two parties, it will be desirable that every right of appeal and reference should be extended rather than restricted. The hon. and learned Member for North-east Cork, in his speech last night, said that the judges who were appointed from England were as foreign in Ireland as if they came from Persia or Morocco. I believe that Persia was rather famous for good judges, but that is by the way.
Under the existing circumstances in Ireland it is a positive advantage that the judges should come from the outside. It makes for impartiality in judgment, and the fact that that will now be taken away, and that the judges will no longer have that characteristic of high impartiality which proceeds from having no connection with either side, makes it all the more necessary that there should be this protection it is proposed to extend by the Amendment in respect to Executive or administrative Acts. The hon. and learned Gentleman asked, whoever heard of any oppression in Ireland or of differences between the Protestants and Catholics. I should be as accurate in asking whoever heard of any differences between Hindus and Mahomedans in India, or that they were other than the best of friends. I think the hon. and learned Gentleman's statement was entirely erroneous. From what little knowledge I have of Ireland I should say that the absolute division, both political and religious, in Ireland, makes it absolutely necessary that this right of representation should be extended in the manner proposed by the Amendment. What makes that the more clear is that what the Committee has to consider now is the present position; not what happened when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Balfour) was Chief Secretary for Ireland, but what is now being said by those who will be in power under the new Government. The hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon), in a recent speech, said:—
When we come out of the struggle we will remember who were the people's friends and who were the people's enemies, and we will deal our reward to the one and our punishment to the other.He being the people's friend, and the people being those who agree with him. The hon. Member for East Mayo apparently has the people of Ireland in his pocket, in the same way that the Chancel- 2371 lor of the Exchequer is the people's friend in this country, and has the people of the United Kingdom in his pocket.
§ The CHAIRMANI think that I have heard the hon. Member make this speech on several preceding evenings. I do not quite see its relevance to this particular Amendment so far.
§ Sir J. D. REESIs it or is it not relevant to this Amendment to point out what is going to be the position of the minority in Ireland, which makes it the more necessary that this right of representation should apply to administrative Acts? If that is so, I submit I am in order in referring to two speeches I intended to quote from—the other one was by the hon. Member for West Belfast—showing that it is the intention of the Executive in Ireland, as soon as the Bill becomes law, to oppress the minority.
§ The CHAIRMANThat may be a point for Second or Third Reading. The hon. Member's point evidently is that Ireland Ought not to be trusted with Executive power. This Amendment only deals with the illegal exercise of Executive power if it is granted.
§ Sir J. D. REESMy submission was that these two recent speeches, showing the manner in which that power was going to be exercised, emphasised the need for extending the power of reference under this Clause to administrative Acts. However, I will not pursue it further. Either the Chancellor of the Exchequer or the Attorney-General has said that there is no precedent for this proposal of a reference in respect of administrative Acts to the Privy Council. I believe I shall be in order in pointing out this case. I do not say it is an exactly parallel case. It is suggested that Ireland will have, under this Bill, the position of a provincial Legislature. Provincial Legislatures in India are under the supreme Government there, and completely under the control of the central Legislature. There was a case which attracted considerable attention in this House when the Government of India, by an administrative Act, deported certain Bengali gentlemen. Immediately, those
§ who objected to that Act—which, I think, was a just and necessary one—were able to move the Secretary of State and Parliament by going to the India Office, and I think it was owing to that that they were able to get that Act cancelled, so that these gentlemen were set at large again. In the case suggested, namely, that the minority in Ireland will be oppressed under this Bill, some power analogous to that possessed by those who objected to the act of the Government of India should be possessed by those who are subject to what has actually been described from the Government Benches as a provincial Government in Ireland. They will stand in need of every such safeguard that can possibly be conceded to them, and the safeguard suggested by this Amendment is one of the most necessary that could possibly be devised. It was suggested that this would not be necessary because there are the Courts in Ireland, which will be sufficiently capable and impartial to deal with the case, but those who want to exercise this right will first have run the gamut of all the Courts in Ireland. If I may return to my analogy for one moment, there are High Courts and Supreme Courts in India, and there is also an appeal to the Privy Council here in England. The Privy Council here frequently reverses, and has reversed many times lately—contemptuously reversed—the action of the Courts in India, and has given justice to the subject. Why does the subject require less protection in Ireland?
§ Mr. CROOKSHear, hear!
§ Sir J. D. REESThe hon. Member does not want anybody to have protection. He wants to grind everybody down to powder with his trade unions. I suggest that all the protection which has been needed in the circumstances in India, which I have endeavoured to sketch, will be required under the new Constitution in Ireland, and for that reason I urge the Government to accept the Amendment.
§ Question put, "That those words be there inserted."
§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 185; Noes, 318.
2375| Division No. 383.] | AYES. | [7.28 p.m. |
| Agg-Gardner, James Tynte | Baird, John Lawrence | Banbury, Sir Frederick George |
| Aitken, Sir William Max | Baker, Sir Randolf L. (Dorset, N.) | Barnston, Harry |
| Amery, L. C. M. S. | Balcarres, Lord | Barrie, H. T. |
| Anstruther-Gray, Major William | Baldwin, Stanley | Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth) |
| Ashley, Wilfrid W. | Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (City, Lond.) | Bennett-Goldney, Francis |
| Bentinck, Lord Henry Cavendish- | Haddock, George Bahr | Peel, Captain R. F. |
| Beresford, Lord Charles | Hall, D. B. (Isle of Wight) | Peto, Basil Edward |
| Bigland, Alfred | Hall, Fred (Dulwich) | Pole-Carew, Sir R. |
| Bird, Alfred | Hambro, Angus Valdemar | Pollock, Ernest Murray |
| Blair, Reginald | Hamersley, Alfred St. George | Pretyman, Ernest George |
| Boscawen, Sir Arthur S. T. Griffith- | Hamilton, Lord C. J. (Kensington, S.) | Quilter, Sir William Eley C. |
| Boyle, William (Norfolk, Mid) | Hamilton, Marquess of (Londonderry) | Randies, Sir John S. |
| Boyton, James | Hardy, Rt. Hon. Laurence | Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel |
| Bridgeman, William Clive | Harris, Henry Percy | Rees, Sir J. D. |
| Bull, Sir William James | Harrison-Broadley, H. B. | Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall) |
| Burdett-Coutts, William | Helmsley, Viscount | Rothschild, Lionel de |
| Burn, Colonel C. R. | Henderson, Major H. (Berks, Abingdon) | Royds, Edmund |
| Butcher, John George | Herbert, Hon. A. (Somerset, S.) | Rutherford, Watson (L'pool, W. Derby) |
| Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward H. | Hewins, William Albert Samuel | Salter, Arthur Clavell |
| Cassel, Felix | Hickman, Colonel Thomas E. | Samuel, Sir Harry (Norwood) |
| Cator, John | Hill, Sir Clement L. (Shrewsbury) | Sanders, Robert Arthur |
| Cautley, Henry Strother | Hills, J. W. | Sanderson, Lancelot |
| Cave, George | Hill-Wood, Samuel | Scott, Leslie (Liverpool, Exchange) |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Hoare, Samuel John Gurney | Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) |
| Cecil, Lord Hugh (Oxford University) | Hohler, Gerald Fitzroy | Smith, Rt. Hon. F. E. (L'p'l, Walton) |
| Cecil, Lord R. (Herts, Hitchin) | Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield) | Spear, Sir John Ward |
| Chaloner, Col. R. G. W. | Hope, Major J. A. (Midlothian) | Stanier, Beville |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Worc'r.) | Home, Edgar (Surrey, Guildford) | Stanley, Hon. Arthur (Ormskirk) |
| Chambers, James | Houston, Robert Paterson | Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston) |
| Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry | Hunt, Rowland | Starkey, John Ralph |
| Clay, Captain H. H. Spender | Kerr-Smiley, Peter Kerr | Staveley-Hill, Henry |
| Clive, Captain Percy Archer | Kerry, Earl of | Steel-Maitland, A. D. |
| Cooper, Richard Ashmole | Klmber, Sir Henry | Stewart, Gershom |
| Courthope, George Loyd | Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement | Strauss, Arthur (Paddington, N.) |
| Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.) | Knight, Captain Eric Ayshford | Sykes, Alan John (Ches., Knutsford) |
| Craig, Ernest (Cheshire, Crewe) | Lane-Fox, G. R. | Sykes, Mark (Hull, Central) |
| Craig, Captain James (Down, E.) | Larmor, Sir J. | Talbot, Lord Edmund |
| Craig, Norman (Kent, Thanet) | Law, Rt. Hon. A. Bonar (Bootle) | Terrell, George (Wilts, N.W.) |
| Denniss, E. R. B. | Lawson, Hon. H. (T. H'mts., Mile End) | Terrell, Henry (Gloucester) |
| Dixon, Charles Harvey | Long, Rt. Hon. Walter | Thompson, Robert (Belfast, North) |
| Duke, Henry Edward | Lonsdale, Sir John Brownlee | Thomson, W. Mitchell- (Down, North) |
| Faber, George D. (Claphom) | Lowe, Sir F. W. (Birm., Edgbaston) | Thynne, Lord Alexander |
| Faber, Captain W. V. (Hants) | Lyttelton, Rt Hon. A. (S. Geo., Han. S.) | Tobin, Alfred Aspinall |
| Falle, Bertram Godfray | Lyttelton, Hon. J. C. (Droitwich) | Touche, George Alexander |
| Fell, Arthur | MacCaw, Wm. J. MacGeagh | Tryon, Captain George Clement |
| Fetherstonhaugh, Godfrey | Mackinder, Halford J. | Tullibardine, Marquess of |
| Finlay, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert | Macmaster, Donald | Valentia, Viscount |
| Fisher, Rt. Hon. W. Hayes | M'Neill, Ronald (Kent, St. Augustine's) | Wheler, Granville C. H. |
| Flannery, Sir J. Fortescue | Malcolm, Ian | White, Major G. D. (Lancs., Southport) |
| Fleming, Valentine | Meysey-Thompson, E. C. | Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.) |
| Fletcher, John Samuel | Middlemore, John Throgmorton | Willoughby, Major Hon. Claud |
| Foster, Philip Staveley | Mildmay, Francis Bingham | Wills, Sir Gilbert |
| Gardner, Ernest | Mills, Hon. Charles Thomas | Wilson, A. Stanley (York, E.R.) |
| Gibbs, George Abraham | Moore, William | Winterton, Earl |
| Goldman, Charles Sydney | Mount, William Arthur | Wolmer, Viscount |
| Goldsmith, Frank | Neville, Reginald J. N. | Wood, John (Stalybridge) |
| Gordon, John (Londonderry, South) | Newdegate, F. A. | Yate, Col. C. E. |
| Gordon, Hon. John Edward (Brighton) | Newton, Harry Kottingham | Yerburgh, Robert A. |
| Goulding, Edward Alfred | Nicholson, William G (Petersfield) | Younger, Sir George |
| Grant, J. A. | O'Neill, Hon. A. E. B. (Antrim, Mid) | |
| Gretton, John | Orde-Powlett, Hon. W. G. A. | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Sir |
| Guinness, Hon. W.E. (Bury S. Edmunds) | Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend) | H. Carlile and Mr. Hume-Williams. |
| Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne) | Parkes, Ebenezer | |
| NOES | ||
| Abraham, William (Dublin, Harbour) | Benn, W. W. (Tower Hamlets, St. Geo.) | Clancy, John Joseph |
| Acland, Francis Dyke | Bentham, G. J. | Clough, William |
| Adamson, William | Bethell, Sir John Henry | Clynes, John R. |
| Addison, Dr. C. | Black, Arthur W. | Collins, Godfrey P. (Greenock) |
| Agnew, Sir George William | Boland, John Pius | Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) |
| Ainsworth, John Stirling | Booth, Frederick Handel | Condon, Thomas Joseph |
| Allen, Arthur Acland (Dumbartonshire) | Bowerman, C. W. | Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. |
| Allen, Rt. Hon. Charles P. (Stroud) | Boyle, Daniel (Mayo, North) | Cotton, William Francis |
| Arnold, Sydney | Brace, William | Craig, Herbert James (Tynemouth) |
| Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry | Brady, Patrick Joseph | Crean, Eugene |
| Atherley-Jones, Llewellyn A. | Brocklehurst, William B. | Crooks, William |
| Baker, H. T. (Accrington) | Bryce, J. Annan | Crumley, Patrick |
| Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury, E.) | Buckmaster, Stanley O. | Cullinan, John |
| Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark) | Burke, E. Haviland- | Dalziel, Rt. Hon. Sir J. H. (Kirkcaldy) |
| Baring, Sir Godfrey (Barnstaple) | Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Davies, Ellis William (Eifion) |
| Barlow, Sir John Emmott (Somerset) | Buxton, Rt. Hon. S. C. (Poplar) | Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth) |
| Barnes, G. N. | Byles, Sir William Pollard | Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.) |
| Barran, Sir J. N. (Hawick) | Carr-Gomm, H. W. | Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardigan) |
| Barton, William | Cawley, Sir Frederick (Prestwich) | Dawes, James Arthur |
| Beale, Sir William Phipson | Cawley, H. T. (Heywood) | De Forest, Baron |
| Beauchamp, Sir Edward | Chancellor, Henry George | Delany, William |
| Beck, Arthur Cecil | Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S. | Denman, Hon. R. D. |
| Devlin, Joseph | Kellaway, Frederick George | Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central) |
| Dickinson, W. H. | Kennedy, Vincent Paul | Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.) |
| Dillon, John | Kilbride, Denis | Priestley, Sir W. E. B. (Bradford, E.) |
| Donelan, Captain A. | King, Joseph | Primrose, Hon. Neil James |
| Doris, William | Lambert, Rt. Hon. G. (Devon, S. Molten) | Pringle, William M. R. |
| Duffy, William J. | Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade) | Radford, George Heynes |
| Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) | Lardner, James Carrige Rushe | Rea, Rt Hon. Russell (South Shields) |
| Duncan, J. Hastings (Yorks, Otley) | Lawson, Sir W. (Cumb'rld, Cockerm'th) | Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough) |
| Edward, Clement (Glamorgan, E.) | Leach, Charles | Reddy, Michael |
| Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor) | Levy, Sir Maurice | Redmond, John E (Waterford) |
| Edwards, John Hugh (Glamorgan, Mid) | Lewis, John Herbert | Redmond, William (Clare, E.) |
| Elverston, Sir Harold | Lough, Rt. Hon, Thomas | Redmond, William Archer (Tyrone, E.) |
| Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.) | Low, Sir Frederick (Norwich) | Rendall, Athcistan |
| Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford, N.) | Lundon, Thomas | Richards, Thomas |
| Essex, Richard Walter | Lyell, C. H. | Richardson, Albion (Peckham) |
| Esslemont, George Birnie | Lynch, Arthur Alfred | Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven) |
| Falconer, James | Macdonald, J. Ramsay (Leicester) | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) |
| Farrell, James Patrick | McGhee, Richard | Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs) |
| Fenwick, Rt. Hon. Charles | Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J. | Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford) |
| Ferens, Rt. Hon. Thomas Robinson | MacNeill, J. G. Swift (Donegal, South) | Robinson, Sidney |
| Ffrench, Peter | Macpherson, James Ian | Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke) |
| Field, William | MacVeagh, Jeremiah | Roche, Augustine (Louth) |
| Fiennes, Hon. Eustace Edward | M'Callum, Sir John M. | Roe, Sir Thomas |
| Fitzgibbon, John | M'Curdy, Charles Albert | Rowlands, James |
| Flavin, Michael Joseph | M'Kean, John | Rowntree, Arnold |
| France, Gerald Ashburner | McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald | Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland) |
| George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd | M'Laran, Hon. H. D. (Leics.) | Samuel, J. (Stockton-on-Tees) |
| Gilhooly, James | M'Laren, Hon. F. W. S. (Lincs., Spalding) | Scanlan, Thomas |
| Gill, A. H. | M'Micking, Major Gilbert | Schwann, Rt. Hon. Sir C. E. |
| Ginnell, Laurence | Manfield, Harry | Scott, A. MacCallum (Gias., Bridgeton) |
| Gladstone, W. G. C. | Markham, Sir Arthur Basil | Seely, Col. Rt. Hon. J. E. B. |
| Glanville, Harold James | Marks, Sir George Croydon | Sheehy, David |
| Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford | Marshall, Arthur Harold | Sherwell, Arthur James |
| Goldstone, Frank | Martin, J. | Shortt, Edward |
| Greenwood, Granville G. (Peterborough) | Mason, David M. (Coventry) | Simon, Sir John Allsebrook |
| Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward | Masterman, Rt. Hon. C. F. G. | Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe) |
| Griffith, Ellis Jones | Meagher, Michael | Smith, H. B. Lees (Northampton) |
| Guest, Major C. H. C. (Pembroke) | Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.) | Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.) |
| Guest, Hon. Frederick E. (Dorset, E.) | Menzies, Sir Walter | Snowden, Philip |
| Guiney, Patrick | Millar, James Duncan | Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N.W.) |
| Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway) | Molloy, Michael | Sutherland, John E. |
| Hackett, John | Money, L. G. Chiozza | Sutton, John E. |
| Hall, Frederick (Normanton) | Money, John J. | Taylor, John W. (Durham) |
| Hancock, John George | Worrell, Philip | Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) |
| Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) | Morison, Hector | Taylor, Thomas (Bolton) |
| Hardie, J. Kerr | Morton, Alpheus Cleophas | Tennant, Harold John |
| Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds) | Muldoon, John | Thomas, James Henry |
| Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-shire) | Munro, R. | Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton) |
| Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale) | Munro-Ferguson, Rt. Hon. R. C. | Thorne, William (West Ham) |
| Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West) | Nannetti, Joseph P. | Toulmin, Sir George |
| Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N.E.) | Needham, Christopher | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Haslam, James (Derbyshire) | Neilson, Francis | Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander |
| Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth) | Nicholson, Sir Charles N. (Doncaster) | Verney, Sir Harry |
| Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry | Nolan, Joseph | Wadsworth, J. |
| Hayden, John Patrick | Norman, Sir Henry | Walsh, Stephen (Lancs., Ince) |
| Hayward, Evan | Norton, Captain Cecil W. | Walters, Sir John Tudor |
| Hazleton, Richard | Nugent, Sir Walter Richard | Walton, Sir Joseph |
| Healy, Maurice (Cork) | Nuttall, Harry | Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent) |
| Healy, Timothy Michael (Cork, N.E.) | O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) | Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton) |
| Helme, Sir Norval Watson | O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.) | Wardle, George J. |
| Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool) | Waring, Waiter |
| Henderson, J. M. (Aberdeen, W.) | O'Doherty, Philip | Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay |
| Henry, Sir Charles | O'Donnell, Thomas | Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan) |
| Higham, John Sharp | Ogden, Fred | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney) |
| Hinds, John | O'Grady, James | Watt, Henry A. |
| Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H. | O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.) | Webb, H. |
| Hodge, John | O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N.) | White, J. Dundas (Glas., Tradeston) |
| Hogge, James Myles | O'Malley, William | White, Sir Luke (Yorks, E.R.) |
| Holmes, Daniel Turner | O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, S.) | White, Patrick (Meath, North) |
| Hope, John Deans (Haddington) | O'Shaughnessy, P. J. | Whyte, A. F. (Perth) |
| Horne, C. Silvester (Ipswich) | O'Shee, James John | Wiles, Thomas |
| Howard, Hon. Geoffrey | O'Sullivan, Timothy | Wilkie, Alexander |
| Hudson, Walter | Outhwaite, R. L. | Williams, John (Glamorgan) |
| Hughes, Spencer Leigh | Palmer, Godfrey Mark | Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarthen) |
| Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Rufus | Parker, James (Halifax) | Williams, Penry (Middlesbrough) |
| John, Edward Thomas | Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek) | Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Worcs., N.) |
| Jones, Edgar (Merthyr Tydvil) | Pearce, William (Limehouse) | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth) | Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A. (Rotherham) | Winfrey, Richard |
| Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen) | Philipps, Col. Ivor (Southampton) | Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glasgow) |
| Jones, Leif Straiten (Rushcliffe) | Phillips, John (Longford, S.) | Young, Samuel (Cavan, East) |
| Jones, William (Carnarvonshire) | Pirie, Duncan V. | Young, William (Perth, East) |
| Jones, W. S. Glyn- (T. H'mts, Stepney) | Pointer, Joseph | Yoxall, Sir James Henry |
| Jowett, Frederick William | Pollard, Sir George H. | |
| Joyce, Michael | Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H. | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. |
| Keating, Matthew | Power, Patrick Joseph | Illingworth and Mr. Gulland. |
§ And, it being after half-past Seven of the Clock, the CHAIRMAN proceeded, pursuant to the Order of the House of the 14th October, successively to put forthwith the Question on any Amendments moved by the Government of which notice had been given, and the Questions necessary to dispose of the business to be concluded at half-past Seven of the Clock at this day's sitting:—
§ Government Amendment: Leave out the word "he" ["he may represent the same"], and insert instead thereof the words "or whether any service is an Irish service within the meaning of this Act or not, or if the Joint Exchequer Board, in the exe-
2378§ cution of their duties under this Act, are desirous of obtaining the decision of any question of the interpretation of this Act, or other question of law, which arises in connection with those duties, the Lord Lieutenant, Secretary of State, or Board, as the case may be."—[The Attorney-General.]
§ Government Amendment proposed: After the word "thereupon" ["and thereupon the said question"], insert the words "if His Majesty so directs."—[The Attorney-General.]
§ Question put, "That the Amendment be made."
§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 320; Noes, 189.
2381| Division No. 384.] | AYES. | [7.40 p.m. |
| Abraham, William (Dublin, Harbour) | Dalziel, Rt. Hon. Sir J. H. (Kirkcaldy) | Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale) |
| Acland, Francis Dyke | Davies, E. William (Eifion) | Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, W.) |
| Adamson, William | Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth) | Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N.E.) |
| Addison, Dr. Christopher | Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.) | Haslam, James (Derbyshire) |
| Agnew, Sir George William | Davies, M. Vaughan- (Cardigan) | Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth) |
| Ainsworth, John Stirling | Dawes, J. A. | Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry |
| Allen, A. A. (Dumbartonshire) | De Forest, Baron | Hayden, John Patrick |
| Allen, Rt. Hon. Charles Peter (Stroud) | Delany, William | Hayward, Evan |
| Arnold, Sydney | Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas | Hazleton, Richard (Galway, N.) |
| Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry | Devlin, Joseph | Healy, Maurice (Cork) |
| Atherley-Jones, Llewellyn A. | Dickinson, W. H. | Healy, Timothy Michael (Cork, N.E.) |
| Baker, Harold T. (Accrington) | Dillon, John | Helme, Sir Norval Watson |
| Baker, Joseph Allen (Finsbury) | Donelan, Captain A. | Henderson, Arthur (Durham) |
| Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark) | Doris, William | Henderson, J. M. (Aberdeen, W.) |
| Baring, Sir Godfrey (Barnstaple) | Duffy, William J. | Henry, Sir Charles S. |
| Barlow, Sir John Emmott (Somerset) | Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) | Higham, John Sharp |
| Barnes, George N. | Duncan, J. Hastings (Yorks, Otley) | Hinds, John |
| Barran, Sir John N. (Hawick B.) | Edwards, A. Clement (Glamorgan, E.) | Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H. |
| Barton, W. | Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor) | Hodge, John |
| Beale, Sir William Phipson | Edwards, John Hugh (Glamorgan, Mid) | Hogge, James Myles |
| Beauchamp, Sir Edward | Elverston, Sir Harold | Holmes, Daniel Turner |
| Beck, Arthur Cecil | Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary) | Holt, Richard Durning |
| Benn, W. W. (T. Hamlets, St. George) | Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford, N.) | Hope, John Deans (Haddington) |
| Bentham, G. J. | Essex, Richard Walter | Home, C. Silvester (Ipswich) |
| Bethell, Sir John Henry | Esslemont, George Birnie | Howard, Hon. Geoffrey |
| Black, Arthur W. | Falconer, J. | Hudson, Walter |
| Boland, John Plus | Farrell, James Patrick | Hughes, S. L. |
| Booth, Frederick Handel | Fenwick, Rt. Hon. Charles | Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Rufus |
| Bowerman, C. W. | Ferens, Rt. Hon. Thomas Robinson | John, Edward Thomas |
| Boyle, D. (Mayo, N.) | Ffrench, Peter | Jones, Edgar (Merthyr Tydvil) |
| Brace, William | Field, William | Jones, H. Haydn (Merioneth) |
| Brady, P. J. | Fiennes, Hon. Eustace Edward | Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East) |
| Brocklehurst, W. B. | Fitzgibbon, John | Jones, Leif Stratten (Notts, Rushcliffe) |
| Bryce, John Annan | Flavin, Michael Joseph | Jones, William (Carnarvonshire) |
| Buckmaster, Stanley O. | France, G. A. | Jones, W. S. Glyn- (T. H'mts, Stepney) |
| Burke, E. Haviland- | George Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd | Jowett, Frederick William |
| Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Gilhooly, James | Joyce, Michael |
| Buxton, Rt. Hon. S. C. (Poplar) | Gill, A. H. | Keating, Matthew |
| Byles, Sir William Pollard | Ginnell, Laurence | Kellaway, Frederick George |
| Carr-Gomm, H. W. | Gladstone, W. G. C. | Kennedy, Vincent Paul |
| Cawley, Sir Frederick (Prestwich) | Glanville, R. J. | Kilbride, Denis |
| Cawley, Harold T. (Lancs., Heywood) | Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford | King, J. |
| Chancellor, H. G. | Goldstone, Frank | Lambert, Rt. Hon. G. (Devon, S. Molton) |
| Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S. | Greenwood, Granville G. (Peterborough) | Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Crlckiade) |
| Clancy, John Joseph | Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward | Lardner, James Carrige Rushe |
| Clough, William | Griffith, Ellis Jones | Lawson, Sir W. (Cumb'rld, Cockerm'th) |
| Clynes, John R. | Guest, Major Hon. C. H. C. (Pembroke) | Leach, Charles |
| Collins, G. P. (Greenock) | Guest, Hon. F. E. (Dorset, E.) | Levy, Sir Maurice |
| Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) | Guiney Patrick | Lewis, John Herbert |
| Condon, Thomas Joseph | Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway) | Lough, Rt. Hon. Thomas |
| Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. | Hackett, J. | Low, Sir F. (Norwich) |
| Cotton, William Francis | Hall, F. (Vorks, Normanton) | Lundon, T. |
| Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth) | Hancock, John George | Lyell, Charles Henry |
| Crean, Eugene | Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) | Lynch, A. |
| Crooks, William | Hardie, J. Keir | Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester) |
| Crumley, Patrick | Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds) | McGhee, Richard |
| Cullinan, John | Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-shire) | Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J. |
| MacNeill, J. G. Swift (Donegal, South) | O'Shee, James John | Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe) |
| Macpherson, James Ian | O'Sullivan, Timothy | Smith, H. B. L. (Northampton) |
| MacVeagh, Jeremiah | Outhwaite, R. L. | Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.) |
| M'Callum, Sir John M. | Palmer, Godfrey Mark | Snowden, Philip |
| M'Curdy, Charles Albert | Parker, James (Halifax) | Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N.W.) |
| M'Kean, John | Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek) | Sutherland, John E. |
| Mc. Kenna Rt. Hon. Reginald | Pearce, William (Limehouse) | Sutton, John E. |
| M'Laren, Hon. H. D. (Leics.) | Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A. (Rotherham) | Taylor, John W. (Durham) |
| M'Laren, Hon. F. W. S. (Lincs., Spalding) | Philipps, Col. Ivor (Southampton) | Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) |
| M'Micking, Major Gilbert | Phillips, John (Longford, S.) | Taylor, Thomas (Bolton) |
| Manfield, Harry | Pirie, Duncan V. | Tennant, Harold John |
| Markham, Sir Arthur Basil | Pointer, Joseph | Thomas, James Henry |
| Marks, Sir George Croydon | Pollard, Sir George H. | Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton) |
| Marshall, Arthur Harold | Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H. | Thorne, William (West Ham) |
| Martin, Joseph | Power, Patrick Joseph | Toulmin, Sir George |
| Mason, David M. (Coventry) | Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central) | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Masterman, Rt. Hon. C. F. G. | Price, Sir Robert J. (Norfolk, E.) | Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander |
| Meagher, Michael | Priestley, Sir W. E. B. (Bradford, E.) | Verney, Sir Harry |
| Meehan, Francis E. (Leitrim, N.) | Primrose, Hon. Neil James | Wadsworth, John |
| Menzies, Sir Walter | Pringle, William M. R. | Walsh, Stephen (Lancs., Ince) |
| Millar, James Duncan | Radford, George Heynes | Walters, Sir John Tudor |
| Molloy, Michael | Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (South Shields) | Walton, Sir Joseph |
| Money, L. G. Chiozza | Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough) | Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent) |
| Mooney, J. J. | Reddy, Michael | Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton) |
| Morrell, Philip | Redmond, John E. (Waterford) | Wardle, George J. |
| Morison, Hector | Redmond, William (Clare, E.) | Waring, Walter |
| Morton, Alpheus Cleophas | Redmond, William Archer (Tyrone, E.) | Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay |
| Muldoon, John | Rendall, Atheistan | Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan) |
| Munro, R. | Richards, Thomas | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney) |
| Munro-Ferguson, Rt. Hon. R. C. | Richardson, Albion (Peckham) | Watt, Henry A. |
| Nannetti, Joseph | Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven) | Webb, H. |
| Needham, Christopher T. | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) | White, J. Dundas (Glas., Tradeston) |
| Neilson, Francis | Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs) | White, Sir Luke (Yorks, E.R.) |
| Nicholson, Sir Charles N. (Doncaster) | Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford) | White, Patrick (Meath, North) |
| Nolan, Joseph | Robinson, Sidney | Whyte, A. F. (Perth) |
| Norman, Sir Henry | Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke) | Wiles, Thomas |
| Norton, Captain Cecil W. | Roche, Augustine (Louth) | Wilkie, Alexander |
| Nugent, Sir Walter Richard | Roe, Sir Thomas | Williams, J. (Glamorgan) |
| Nuttall, Harry | Rowlands, James | Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarthen) |
| O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) | Rowntree, Arnold | Williams, Penry (Middlesbrough) |
| O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.) | Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland) | Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Worcs., N.) |
| O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool) | Samuel, J. (Stockton) | Wilson, W. T. (Westhoughton) |
| O'Doherty, Philip | Scanlan, Thomas | Winfrey, Richard |
| O'Donnell, Thomas | Schwann, Rt. Hon. Sir C. E. | Wood, Rt. Hon. T. McKinnon (Glas.) |
| Ogden, Fred | Scott, A. MacCallum (Glas., Bridgeton) | Young, Samuel (Cavan, East) |
| O'Grady, James | Seely, Col. Rt. Hon. J. E. B. | Young, W. (Perthshire, E.) |
| O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.) | Sheeby, David | Yoxall, Sir James Henry |
| O'Kelly, J. (Roscommon, N.) | Sherwell, Arthur James | |
| O'Malley, William | Shortt, Edward | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. |
| O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh, S.) | Simon, Sir John Allsebrook | Illingworth and Mr. Gulland. |
| O'Shaughnessy, P. J. | ||
| NOES. | ||
| Agg-Gardner, James Tynte | Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward H. | Fisher, Rt. Hon. W. Hayes |
| Aitken, Sir William Max | Cassel, Felix | Flannery, Sir J. Fortescue |
| Amery, L. C. M. S. | Cator, John | Fleming, Valentine |
| Anstruther Gray, Major William | Cautley, Henry Strother | Fletcher, John Samuel |
| Ashley, W. W. | Cave, George | Foster, Philip Staveley |
| Baird, J. L. | Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Gardner, Ernest |
| Baker, Sir Randolf L. (Dorset, N.) | Cecil, Lord Hugh (Oxford University) | Gibbs, G. A. |
| Balcarres, Lord | Cecil, Lord R. (Herts, Hitchin) | Goldman, Charles Sidney |
| Baldwin, Stanley | Chaloner, Colonel R. G. W. | Goldsmith, Frank |
| Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (City, Lond.) | Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Worc'r.) | Gordon, John (Londonderry, South) |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Chambers, James | Gordon, Hon. John Edward (Brighton) |
| Barlow, Montague (Salford, South) | Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry | Goulding, Edward Alfred |
| Barnston, Harry | Clay, Captain H. H. Spender | Grant, J. A. |
| Barrie, H. T. | Clive, Captain Percy Archer | Gretton, John |
| Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth) | Cooper, Richard Ashmole | Guinness, Hon. Rupert (Essex, S.E.) |
| Bennett-Goldney, Francis | Courthope, George Loyd | Guinness, Hon. W. E. (Bury S. Edmunds) |
| Bentinck, Lord H. Cavendish- | Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.) | Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne) |
| Beresford, Lord Charles | Craig, Ernest (Cheshire, Crewe) | Haddock, George Bahr |
| Bigland, Alfred | Craig, Captain James (Down, E.) | Hall, D. B. (isle of Wight) |
| Bird, A. | Craig, Norman (Kent, Thanet) | Hall, Fred (Dulwich) |
| Blair, Reginald | Denniss, E. R. B. | Hambro, Angus Valdemar |
| Boscawen, Sir Arthur S. T. Griffith- | Dixon, Charles Harvey | Hamersley, Alfred St. George |
| Boyle, William (Norfolk, Mid) | Doughty, Sir George | Hamilton, Lord C. J. (Kensington, S.) |
| Boyton, J. | Duke, Henry Edward | Hamilton, Marquess of (Londonderry) |
| Bridgeman, William Clive | Faber, George D. (Clapham) | Hardy, Rt. Hon. Laurence |
| Bull, Sir William James | Faber, Captain W. V. (Hants, W.) | Harris, Henry Percy |
| Burdett-Coutts, William | Falle, Bertram Godfray | Harrison-Broadley, H. B. |
| Burn, Colonel C. R. | Fell, Arthur | Helmsley, Viscount |
| Butcher, J. G. | Fetherstonhaugh, Godfrey | Henderson, Major H. (Berks, Abingdon) |
| Carlile, Sir Edward Hildred | Finlay, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert | Herbert, Hon. A. (Somerset, S.) |
| Hewins, William Herbert Samuel | Mildmay, Francis Bingham | Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston) |
| Hickman, Colonel Thomas E. | Mills, Hon. Charles Thomas | Starkey, John Ralph |
| Hill, Sir Clement L. | Moore, William | Staveley-Hill, Henry |
| Hills, J. W. | Mount, William Arthur | Steel-Maitland, A. D. |
| Hill-Wood, Samuel | Neville, Reginald J. N. | Stewart, Gershom |
| Hoare, Samuel John Gurney | Newdegate, F. A. | Strauss, Arthur (Paddington, N.) |
| Hohler, G. Fitzroy | Newton, Harry Kottingham | Sykes, Alan John (Ches., Knutsford) |
| Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield) | Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield) | Sykes, Mark (Hull, Central) |
| Hope, Major J. A. (Midlothian) | O'Neill, Hon. A. E. B. (Antrim, Mid) | Talbot, Lord E. |
| Horne, W. E. (Surrey, Guildford) | Orde-Powlett, Hon. W. G. A. | Terrell, George (Wilts, N.W.) |
| Houston, Robert Paterson | Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend) | Terrell, Henry (Gloucester) |
| Hume-Williams, William Ellis | Parkes, Ebenezer | Thompson, Robert (Belfast, North) |
| Hunt, Rowland | Peel, Captain R. F. (Woodbridge) | Thomson, W. Mitchell- (Down, N.) |
| Kerr-Smiley, Peter Kerr | Peto, Basil Edward | Thynne, Lord A. |
| Kerry, Earl of | Pole-Carew, Sir R, | Tobin, Alfred Aspinall |
| Kimber, Sir Henry | Pollock, Ernest Murray | Touche, George Alexander |
| Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement | Pretyman, E. G. | Tryon, Captain George Clement |
| Knight, Captain E. A. | Quilter, Sir William Eley C. | Tullibardine, Marquess of |
| Lane-Fox, G. R. | Randies, Sir John S. | Valentia, Viscount |
| Larmor, Sir J. | Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel | Wheler, Granville C. H. |
| Law, Rt. Hon. A. Bonar (Bootle) | Rees, Sir J. D. | White, Major G. D. (Lancs., Southport) |
| Lawson, Hon. H. (T. H'mts, Mile End) | Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall) | Williams, Col. R. (Dorset, W.) |
| Locker-Lampson, O. (Ramsey) | Rothschild, Lionel de | Willoughby, Major Hon. Claud |
| Long, Rt. Hon. Walter | Royds, Edmund | Wills, Sir Gilbert |
| Lowe, Sir F. W. (Birm., Edgbaston) | Rutherford, Watson (L'pool, W. Derby) | Wilson, A. Stanley (Yorks, E.R.) |
| Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. A. (S. Geo., Han. S.) | Salter, Arthur Clavell | Winterton, Earl |
| Lyttelton, Hon. J. C. (Droitwich) | Samuel, Sir Harry (Norwood) | Wolmer, Viscount |
| MacCaw, Wm. J. MacGeagh | Sanders, Robert A. | Wood, John (Stalybridge) |
| Mackinder, Halford J. | Sanderson, Lancelot | Yate, Col. C. E. |
| Macmaster, Donald | Scott, Leslie (Liverpool, Exchange) | Yerburgh, Robert A. |
| M'Neill, Ronald (Kent, St. Augustine's) | Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) | Younger, Sir George |
| Malcolm, Ian | Smith, Rt. Hon. F. E. (L'p'l, Walton) | |
| Meysey-Thompson, E. C. | Spear, Sir John Ward | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Mr. |
| Middlemore, John Throgmorton | Stanley, Hon. Arthur (Ormskirk) | Stanier and Sir J. Lonsdale. |
§ Question put, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
2382§ The Committee divided: Ayes, 315; Noes, 186.
2385| Division No. 385.] | AYES. | [7.50 p.m. |
| Abraham, William (Dublin, Harbour) | Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S. | Ffrench, Peter |
| Acland, Francis Dyke | Clancy, John Joseph | Field, William |
| Adamson, William | Clough, William | Fiennes, Hon. Eustace Edward |
| Addison, Dr. C. | Clynes, John R. | Fitzgibbon, John |
| Agnew, Sir George William | Collins, G. P. (Greenock) | Flavin, Michael Joseph |
| Ainsworth, John Stirling | Collins, Stephen (Lambeth) | France, G. A. |
| Allen, Arthur Acland (Dumbartonshire) | Condon, Thomas Joseph | George, Rt. Hon. D. Lloyd |
| Allen, Rt. Hon. Charles P. (Stroud) | Cornwall, Sir Edwin A. | Gilhooly, James |
| Arnold, Sydney | Cotton, William Francis | Gill, A. H. |
| Asquith, Rt. Hon. Herbert Henry | Craig, Herbert J. (Tynemouth) | Ginned, L. |
| Atherley-Jones, Llewelyn A. | Crean, Eugene | Gladstone, W. G. C. |
| Baker, H. T. (Accrington) | Crooks, William | Glanville, H. J. |
| Baker, Joseph A. (Finsbury, E.) | Crumley, Patrick | Goddard, Sir Daniel Ford |
| Balfour, Sir Robert (Lanark) | Cullinan, J. | Goldstone, Frank |
| Baring, Sir Godfrey (Barnstaple) | Dalziel, Rt. Hon. Sir J. H. (Kirkcaldy) | Greenwood, Granville G. (Peterborough) |
| Barlow, Sir John Emmott (Somerset) | Davies, E. William (Eifion) | Grey, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward |
| Barnes, George N. | Davies, Timothy (Lincs., Louth) | Griffith, Ellis J. |
| Barran, Sir J. (Hawick Burghs) | Davies, Sir W. Howell (Bristol, S.) | Guest, Major Hon. C. H. C. (Pembroke) |
| Barton, W. | Davies, M, Vaughan- (Cardiganshire) | Guest, Hon. Frederick E (Dorset, E.) |
| Beale, Sir William Phipson | Dawes, J. A. | Guiney, P. |
| Beauchamp, Sir Edward | De Forest, Baron | Gulland, John W. |
| Beck, Arthur Cecil | Delany, William | Gwynn, Stephen Lucius (Galway) |
| Bentham, G. J. | Denman, Hon. Richard Douglas | Hackett, John |
| Bethell, Sir J. H. | Devlin, Joseph | Hall, Frederick (Normanton) |
| Black, Arthur W. | Dickinson, W. H. | Hancock, J. G. |
| Boland, John Pius | Dillon, John | Harcourt, Robert V. (Montrose) |
| Booth, Frederick Handel | Donelan, Captain A | Hardie, J. Keir |
| Bowerman, C. W. | Doris, W. | Harmsworth, Cecil (Luton, Beds) |
| Boyle, D. (Mayo N.) | Duffy, William J. | Harmsworth, R. L. (Caithness-shire) |
| Brace, William | Duncan, C. (Barrow-in-Furness) | Harvey, A. G. C. (Rochdale) |
| Brady, P. J. | Duncan, J. Hastings (Yorks, Otley) | Harvey, T. E. (Leeds, West) |
| Brocklehurst, W. B. | Edwards, Clement (Glamorgan, E.) | Harvey, W. E. (Derbyshire, N.E.) |
| Bryce, J. Annan | Edwards, Sir Francis (Radnor) | Haslam, James (Derbyshire) |
| Buckmaster, Stanley O. | Elverston, Sir Harold | Haslam, Lewis (Monmouth) |
| Burke, E. Haviland- | Esmonde, Dr. John (Tipperary, N.) | Havelock-Allan, Sir Henry |
| Burns, Rt. Hon. John | Esmonde, Sir Thomas (Wexford) | Hayden, John Patrick |
| Buxton, Rt. Hon. Sydney C. (Poplar) | Essex, Richard Walter | Hayward, Evan |
| Byles, Sir William Pollard | Esslemont, George Birnie | Hazleton, Richard |
| Carr-Gomm, H. W. | Falconer, J. | Healy, Maurice (Cork) |
| Cawley, Sir Frederick (Prestwich) | Farrell, James Patrick | Healy, Timothy Michael (Cork, N.E.) |
| Cawley, Harold T. (Heywood) | Fenwick, Rt. Hon. Charles | Helme, Sir Nerval Watson |
| Chancellor, H. G. | Ferens, Rt. Hon. Thomas Robinson | Henderson, Arthur (Durham) |
| Henderson, J. M. (Aberdeen, W.) | Money, L. G. Chiozza | Roch, Walter F. (Pembroke) |
| Henry, Sir Charles | Mooney, J. J. | Roche, Augustine (Louth) |
| Higham, John Sharp | Morrell, Philip | Roe, Sir Thomas |
| Hinds, John | Morison, Hector | Rowlands, James |
| Hobhouse, Rt. Hon. Charles E. H. | Morton, Alpheus Cleophas | Rowntree, Arnold |
| Hodge, John | Muldoon, John | Samuel, Rt. Hon. H. L. (Cleveland) |
| Hogge, James Myles | Monro, R. | Samuel, J. (Stockton) |
| Holmes, Daniel Turner | Munro-Ferguson, Rt. Hon. R. C. | Scanlan, Thomas |
| Holt, Richard Durning | Nannetti, Joseph P. | Seely, Col. Rt. Hon. J. E. B. |
| Hope, John Deans (Haddington) | Needham, Christopher | Sheehy, David |
| Horne, C. Silvester (Ipswich) | Neilson, Francis | Sherwell, Arthur James |
| Howard, Hon. Geoffrey | Nicholson, Sir Charles N. (Doncaster) | Shortt, Edward |
| Hudson, Walter | Nolan, Joseph | Simon, Sir John Allsebrook |
| Hughes, Spencer Leigh | Norman, Sir Henry | Smith, Albert (Lancs., Clitheroe) |
| Illingworth, Percy H. | Norton, Captain Cecil W. | Smith, H. B. (Northampton) |
| Isaacs, Rt. Hon. Sir Rufus | Nugent, Sir Walter R. | Smyth, Thomas F. (Leitrim, S.) |
| John, Edward Thomas | Nuttall, Harry | Snowden, P. |
| Jones, Edgar (Merthyr Tydvil) | O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) | Stanley, Albert (Staffs, N. W.) |
| Jones, Haydn (Merioneth) | O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.) | Sutherland, J. E. |
| Jones, J. Towyn (Carmarthen, East) | O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool) | Sutton, John E. |
| Jones, Leif Stratten (Notts, Rushcliffe) | O'Doherty, Philip | Taylor, John W. (Durham) |
| Jones, W. S. Glyn- (T. H'mts, Stepney) | O'Donnell, Thomas | Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) |
| Jowett, F. W. | Ogden, Fred | Taylor, Thomas (Bolton) |
| Joyce, Michael | O'Grady, James | Tennant, Harold John |
| Keating, M. | O'Kelly, Edward P. (Wicklow, W.) | Thomas, James Henry |
| Kellaway, Frederick George | O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N.) | Thorne, G. R. (Wolverhampton) |
| Kennedy, Vincent Paul | O'Malley, William | Thorne, William (West Ham) |
| Kilbride, Denis | O'Neill, Dr. Charles (Armagh) | Toulmin, Sir George |
| King, J. | O'Shaughnessy, P. J. | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Lambert, Rt. Hon, G. (Devon, S. Molton) | O'Shee, James John | Ure, Rt. Hon. Alexander |
| Lambert, Richard (Wilts, Cricklade) | O'Sullivan, Timothy | Verney, Sir Harry |
| Lardner, James Carrige Rushe | Outhwaite, R. L. | Wadsworth, John |
| Lawson, Sir W. (Cumb'rid, Cockerm'th) | Palmer, Godfrey Mark | Walsh, Stephen (Lancs., Ince) |
| Leach, Charles | Parker, James (Halifax) | Walters, Sir John Tudor |
| Levy, Sir Maurice | Pearce, Robert (Staffs, Leek) | Walton, Sir Joseph |
| Lewis, John Herbert | Pearce, William (Limehouse) | Ward, John (Stoke-upon-Trent) |
| Laugh, Rt. Hon. Thomas | Pease, Rt. Hon. Joseph A. (Rotherham) | Ward, W. Dudley (Southampton) |
| Low, Sir F. (Norwich) | Philipps, Col. Ivor (Southampton) | Wardle, G. J. |
| Lundon, T. | Phillips, John (Longford, S.) | Waring, Waiter |
| Lyell, Charles Henry | Pirie, Duncan V. | Warner, Sir Thomas Courtenay |
| Lynch, A. A. | Pointer, Joseph | Wason, Rt. Hon. E. (Clackmannan) |
| Macdonald, J. R. (Leicester) | Pollard, Sir George H. | Wason, John Cathcart (Orkney) |
| McGhee, Richard | Ponsonby, Arthur A. W. H. | Watt, Henry A. |
| Macnamara, Rt. Hon. Dr. T. J. | Power, Patrick Joseph | Webb, H. |
| MacNeill, J. G. Swift (Donegal, South) | Price, C. E. (Edinburgh, Central) | White, J. Dundas (Glasgow, Tradeston) |
| Macpherson, James Ian | Price, Sir Robert J. E. (Norfolk, E.) | White, Sir Luke (Yorks, E. R.) |
| MacVeagh, Jeremiah | Priestley, Sir W. E. B. (Bradford, E.) | White, Patrick (Meath, North) |
| M'Calium, Sir John M. | Primrose, Hon. Neill James | Whyte, A. F. |
| M'Kean, John | Pringle, William M. R. | Wiles, Thomas |
| McKenna, Rt. Hon. Reginald | Radford, G. H. | Wilkie, Alexander |
| M'Laren, Hon. H. D. (Leics.) | Rea, Rt. Hon. Russell (South Shields) | Williams, J. (Glamorgan) |
| M'Micking, Major Gilbert | Rea, Walter Russell (Scarborough) | Williams, Llewelyn (Carmarthen) |
| Manfield, Harry | Reddy, M. | Williams, P. (Middlesbrough) |
| Markham, Sir Arthur Basil | Redmond, John E. (Waterford) | Wilson, Rt. Hon. J. W. (Worcs., N.) |
| Marks, Sir George Croydon | Redmond, William (Clare) | Wilson, W T. (Westhoughton) |
| Marshall, Arthur Harold | Redmond, William Archer (Tyrone, E.) | Winfrey, Richard |
| Martin, J. | Rendall, Athelstan | Wood, Rt Hon. T. McKinnon (Glas.) |
| Mason, David (Coventry) | Richards, Thomas | Young, Samuel (Cavan, E.) |
| Masterman, Rt. Hon. C. F. G. | Richardson, Albion (Peckham) | Young, W. (Perthshire, E.) |
| Meagher, Michael | Richardson, Thomas (Whitehaven) | Yoxall, Sir James Henry |
| Meehan, Francis (Leitrim, N.) | Roberts, Charles H. (Lincoln) | |
| Menzies, Sir Walter | Roberts, Sir J. H. (Denbighs) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES.—Mr. |
| Millar, James Duncan | Robertson, Sir G. Scott (Bradford) | William Jones and Mr. Wedgwood Benn. |
| Molloy, M. | Robinson, Sidney | |
| NOES. | ||
| Agg-Gardner, James Tynte | Beresford, Lord C. | Cave, George |
| Aitken, Sir William Max | Bigland, Alfred | Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) |
| Amery, L. C. M. S. | Bird, A. | Cecil, Lord Hugh (Oxford Univ.) |
| Anstruther-Gray, Major William | Blair, Reginald | Cecil, Lord R. (Herts, Hitchin) |
| Ashley, Wilfrid W. | Boscawen, Sir Arthur S. T. Griffith- | Chaloner, Col. R. G. W. |
| Baird, J. L. | Boyle, William (Norfolk, Mid) | Chamberlain, Rt. Hon. J. A. (Worc'r.) |
| Baker, Sir R. L. (Dorset, N.) | Boyton, J. | Chambers, J. |
| Balcarres, Lord | Bridgeman, W. Clive | Chaplin, Rt. Hon. Henry |
| Baldwin, Stanley | Bull, Sir William James | Clay, Captain H. H. Spender |
| Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (City, Lond.) | Burdett-Coutts, W. | Clive, Captain Percy Archer |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Burn, Colonel C. R. | Cooper, Richard Ashmole |
| Barlow, Montague (Salford, South) | Butcher, J. G. | Courthope, George Loyd |
| Barnston, Harry | Carlile, Sir Edward Hildred | Craig, Charles Curtis (Antrim, S.) |
| Barrie, H. T. | Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edward H. | Craig, Ernest (Cheshire, Crewe) |
| Benn, Arthur Shirley (Plymouth) | Cassel, Felix | Craig, Captain James (Down, E.) |
| Bennett-Goldney, Francis | Cator, John | Craig, Norman (Kent, Thanet) |
| Bentinck, Lord H. Cavendish- | Cautley, H. S. | Denniss, E. R. B. |
| Dixon, C. H. | Houston, Robert Paterson | Rothschild, Lionel de |
| Doughty, Sir George | Hume-Williams, W. E. | Royds, Edmund |
| Duke, Henry Edward | Hunt, Rowland | Rutherford Watson (L'pool., W. Derby) |
| Faber, George Denison (Clapham) | Kerr-Smiley, Peter Kerr | Salter, Arthur Clavell |
| Faber, Capt. W. V. (Hants, W.) | Kerry, Earl of | Samuel, Sir Harry (Norwood) |
| Falle, B. G. | Kimber, Sir Henry | Scott, Leslie (Liverpool, Exchange) |
| Fell, Arthur | Kinloch-Cooke, Sir Clement | Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone) |
| Fetherstonhaugh, Godfrey | Knight, Capt. E. A. | Spear, Sir John Ward |
| Finlay, Rt. Hon. Sir Robert | Lane-Fox, G. R. | Stanier, Beville |
| Fisher, Rt. Hon. W. Hayes | Larmor, Sir J. | Stanley, Hon. Arthur (Ormskirk) |
| Fleming, Valentine | Law, Rt. Hon. A. Bonar (Bootle) | Stanley, Hon. G. F. (Preston) |
| Fletcher, John Samuel | Lawson, Hon. H. (T H'mts, Mile End) | Starkey, John R. |
| Foster, Philip Staveley | Locker-Lampson, O. (Ramsey) | Staveley-Hill, Henry |
| Gardner, Ernest | Long, Rt. Hon. Walter | Steel-Maitland, A. D. |
| Gibbs, G. A. | Lonsdale, Sir John Brownlee | Stewart, Gershom |
| Goldman, C. S. | Lowe, Sir F. W. (Birm., Edgbaston) | Strauss, Arthur (Paddington, N.) |
| Goldsmith, Frank | Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. A. (Hanover Sq.) | Sykes, Alan John (Ches., Knutsford) |
| Gordon, John (Londonderry, South)- | Lyttciton, Hon. J. C. (Droitwich) | Sykes, Mark (Hull, Central) |
| Gordon, Hon. John Edward (Brighton) | MacCaw, Wm. J. MacGeagh | Talbot, Lord E. |
| Goulding, Edward Alfred | Mackinder, H. J. | Terrell, George (Wilts., N. W.) |
| Grant, J. A. | Macmaster, Donald | Terrell, H. (Gloucester) |
| Gretton, John | M'Neill, Ronald (Kent, St. Augustine's) | Thompson, Robert (Belfast, North) |
| Guinness, Hon. Rupert (Essex, S. E.) | Meysey-Thompson, E. C. | Thomson, W. Mitchell- (Down, N.) |
| Guinness, Hon. W. E. (Bury S. Edmunds) | Middlemore, John Throgmorton | Thynne, Lord Alexander |
| Gwynne, R. S. (Sussex, Eastbourne) | Mildmay, Francis Bingham | Tobin, Alfred Aspinall |
| Hall, D. B. (Isle of Wight) | Mills, Hon. Charles Thomas | Touche, George Alexander |
| Hall, Fred (Dulwich) | Moore, William | Tryon, Captain George Clement |
| Hambro, Angus Valdemar | Mount, William Arthur | Tullibardine, Marquess of |
| Hamersley, A. St. George | Neville, Reginald J. N. | Valentia, Viscount |
| Hamilton, Lord C. J. (Kensington, S.) | Newdegate, F. A. | Wheler, Granville C. H. |
| Hamilton, Marquess of (Londonderry) | Newton, Harry Kottingham | White, Major G. D. (Lancs., Southport) |
| Hardy, Rt. Hon. Laurence | Nicholson, William G. (Petersfield) | Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset, W.) |
| Harris, Henry Percy | O'Neill, Hon. A. E. B. (Antrim, Mid) | Willoughby, Major Hon. Claud |
| Harrison-Broadley, H. B. | Orde-Powlett, Hon. W. G. A. | Wills, Sir Gilbert |
| Helmsley, Viscount | Parker, Sir Gilbert (Gravesend) | Wilson, A. Stanley (Yorks, E. R.) |
| Henderson, Major H. (Berks, Abingdon) | Parkes, Ebenezer | Winterton, Earl of |
| Herbert, Hon. A. (Somerset, S.) | Peel, Captain R. F. (Woodbridge) | Wolmer, Viscount |
| Hewins, William Albert Samuel | Peto, Basil Edward | Wood, John (Stalybridge) |
| Hickman, Col. T. E. | Pole-Carew, Sir R. | Yate, Col. C. E. |
| Hill, Sir Clement L. | Pollock, Ernest Murray | Yerburgh, Robert A. |
| Hills, J. W. | Protyman, E. G. | Younger, Sir George |
| Hill-Wood, Samuel | Quilter, Sir William Eley C. | |
| Hoare, S. J. G. | Randles, Sir John S. | |
| Hohler, G. Fitzroy | Rawlinson, John Frederick Peel | TELLERS FOR THE NOES.—Sir |
| Hope, James Fitzalan (Sheffield) | Rees, Sir J. D. | J. F. Flannery and Mr. Haddock. |
| Hope, Major J. A. (Midlothian) | Roberts, S. (Sheffield, Ecclesall) |