Lords Sitting of 28 July 1898

Preamble
THE LORD CHANCELLORtook his seat on the Woolsack at a Quarter past Four of the Clock.
PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
THE LORD CHANCELLOR THE LORD CHANCELLOR acquainted the House that the Clerk of the Parliaments had laid upon the Table the Certificate from the Examiners that the Standing Orders applicable to the following Bill have been complied with—
ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDER (No. 12).
The same was ordered to lie on the Table.
WEY VALLEY WATER BILL.
Committee to meet To-morrow.
PAIGNTON IMPROVEMENT BILL.
Committee to meet To-morrow.
TYNEMOUTH CORPORATION WATER BILL. [H.L.]
Commons' Amendments considered, and agreed to.
DUBLIN PORT AND DOCKS BILL.
Commons' Amendments to Lords' Amendments considered, and agreed to.
WINDSOR DOCK, CARDIFF, BILL.
Report from the Select Committee, That it is not expedient to proceed further with the Bill; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
GREAT CENTRAL RAILWAY BILL.
Reported from the Select Committee with Amendments.
EASTON AND CHURCH HOPE RAIL- WAY (EXTENSION OF TIME) BILL.
Read the third time, and passed.
SHEFFIELD DISTRICT RAILWAY BILL.
Read the third time, with the Amendments; a further Amendment made; Bill passed; and returned to the Commons.
LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL.
Read the third time, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
DEVONPORT, PLYMOUTH AND STOKE TRAMWAYS BILL, NOW DEVONPORT AND DISTRICT TRAM- WAYS BILL.
Read the third time, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
MID-KENT WATER BILL.
Read the third time, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 13) BILL.
Reported from the Select Committee without Amendment, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House To-morrow.
PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 2) BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons agreed to.
TRAMWAYS ORDERS CONFIRMATION (No. 2) BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons agreed to.
WATER ORDERS CONFIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons agreed to.
BUCKIE (CLUNY) HARBOUR BILL. [H.L.]
Returned from the Commons agreed to, with Amendments.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.

  TRADE REPORTS, 1898.
  I.—Annual Series: Diplomatic and Consular Reports on Trade and Finance:
  No. 2161. Sweden (Gothenburg);
  No. 2162. Portugal (Lourenço Marquess);
  No. 2163. Turkey (Erzeroum);
  No. 2164. France (Algeria);
  No. 2165. Japan (Yokohama):
  II.—Miscellaneous Series: Reports on Subjects of General and Commercial Interest:
  No. 471.—Russia (Beetroot sugar industry in Russia since its first introduction in 1800).

  FACTORY AND WORKSHOP (FRENCH MATCH WORKS).
  Report of a visit of inspection to French match works at Aubervilliers, Pantin, and Marseilles, by Thomas Oliver, M.D., F.R.C.P., Physician to the Royal Infirmary, Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD.
  Supplement to the Twenty-seventh Annual Report; containing the report of the medical officer, for 1897–98.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (IRELAND).
  Annual Report for the year ended 31st March, 1898; with appendices.
  LAND LAW (IRELAND) ACT, 1887 (EVICTION NOTICES).
  Return of the number of eviction notices filed during the quarter ended 30th June, 1898.
  QUEEN'S COLLEGE, CORK.
  Report of the President, for the session 1897–98.
  RAILWAY RETURNS.
  Return as to the capital, traffic, receipts, and working expenditure, etc., of the railway companies of the United Kingdom, for the year 1897.

  LIGHT RAILWAYS ACT, 1896.
  I.—Orders made by the Light Railway Commissioners, and modified and confirmed by the Board of Trade, authorising the construction of light railways—

  (1) In the East Riding of the county of York, from Carnaby Station to North Frodingham;

  (2) In the counties of Dumbarton and Argyll, between Arrochar and Loch Fyne;

  (3) In the county of Sutherland, between Forsinard, Melvich, and Port Skerra:

  II.—Order made by the Light Railway Commissioners, and modified and confirmed by the Hoard of Trade, empowering the Gifford and Garvald Railway Company to construct and work their authorised railway as a light railway.
  Presented [by Command], and ordered to lie on the Table.

  INDIA (PROGRESS AND CONDITION).
  Statement exhibiting the moral and material progress and condition of India during the year 1896–97.
  NAVAL SAVINGS BANKS.
  Account of deposits in Naval Savings Banks and the payments thereof, and of interest thereon, of all investments under the Naval Savings Banks Act, 1866, and the application of the interest or dividends accruing in respect thereof and of the proceeds of any sale of any stocks, annuities, or securities during the financial year 1896–97.
  Report of Arklow Harbour Commissioner, and statement of accounts, for 1897.

  POLLING DISTRICTS (OLDHAM).
  Resolution of the council of the borough of Oldham, re-dividing the Parliamentary and municipal borough of Oldham into polling districts.
  Laid before the House (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.

  LONDON CORPORATION.
  Annual account of the Chamberlain of London: Delivered (pursuant to Act), and ordered to lie on the Table.
PETITION.
  INTOXICATING LIQUORS.
  Against the sale of, on Sundays; of inhabitants of New Brompton; read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
BILLS ADVANCED.
  LOCOMOTIVES ON HIGHWAYS BILL.
  Returned from the Commons with the Amendments agreed to.
  EVIDENCE IN CRIMINAL CASES BILL [H.L.]
  Returned from the Commons agreed to, with Amendments: The said Amendments to be printed [No. 183], and to be considered on Monday next, and Bill to be printed as amended. [No. 184.]
  ISLE OF MAN (CUSTOMS) BILL.
  To be read the second time To-morrow: (The Marquess of Salisbury).
  TELEGRAPH (MONEY) BILL.
  To be read the second time To-morrow: (The Marquess of Salisbury).
  METROPOLITAN COMMONS BILL.
  To be read the second time on Friday the 5th of August next: (The Lord Rathmore).

  METROPOLITAN COMMON SCHEME (EAST SHEEN) PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 1, line 16, after 'confirmed,' insert 'subject to certain modifications.'"—(The Lord Privy Seal.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 1, line 25, leave out 'and, and insert 'shall be modified so as to be in the terms,' and after 'hereto' insert 'as so modified.'"—(The Lord Privy Seal.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 2, lines 6 and 7, leave out 'as the same,' and insert 'which together with the freeboard of Richmond Park where it abuts upon the common.'"—(The Lord Privy Seal.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 2, line 9, after 'shall,' insert 'subject as hereinafter provided.'"—(The Lord Privy Seal.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 5, after line 36, insert—
  "14a. Where any part of the freeboard of Richmond Park abuts upon the common such part of the freeboard shall in addition to the common and subject as herein mentioned be subject to any by-laws made under this scheme. Provided that upon notice in writing to the Board of Agriculture given by the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Works and Public Buildings all provisions of this scheme shall cease to apply to such part of the said freeboard or to any part thereof specified in such notice. Save as aforesaid, nothing contained in this scheme shall take away, prejudice, or injuriously affect any estate, interest, right, privilege, or power invested in or exercisable by or on behalf of the Crown and under the management of the Commissioners of Works in or over the freeboard of Richmond Park, or any part of the common, except with the consent and approval in writing of the said Commissioners and of the Treasury respectively, or shall take away, prejudice, or injuriously affect any right, interest, privilege, or power now or from time to time enjoyed or exercisable by tenants of the said freeboard or other the grantees or assigns of the Crown."—(The Lord Privy Seal.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 13) BILL.
  Read the third time (according to order), with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDER (No. 10) BILL.
  Committee of the Whole House (which stands appointed for this day) put off to Tuesday next.
  CIRCUIT CLERKS OF JUSTICIARY (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Read the second time (according to order); and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Tuesday next.
  PARISH FIRE-ENGINES BILL.
  House in Committee (according to order): Bill reported without Amendment: Standing Committee negatived; and Bill to be read the third time on Tuesday next.
  MUSSEL FISHERIES (IRELAND) BILL.
  Read the third time (according to order), and passed.
  COMPANIES ACT (1867) AMENDMENT (No. 2) BILL.
  Read the third time (according to order), and passed.
  CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 2) BILL.
  Read the first time; to be printed; and to be read the second time To-morrow: (The Marquess of Salisbury). [No. 185.]
  PRISONS BILL.
  Read the first time; to be printed; and to be read the second time To-morrow: (The Lord Belper). [No. 186.]
  MERCHANT SHIPPING (MERCANTILE MARINE FUND) BILL.
  Read the first time; and to be printed [No. 187.]
PUBLIC BILL BUSINESS.

  BENEFICES (No. 2) BILL.
  Order of the Day for the Third Reading read; the Queen's Consent and the Consent of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales in right of his Duchy of Cornwall signified.
  EARL FORTESCUE: I have a very few remarks to make, but I am very desirous of stating why, though several of the provisions of the Bill claim my warm sympathy, such as the interdiction of the sale of next presentations—to prevent colourable evasions upon the abolition of the question of donatives—yet I cannot join at all in the confident anticipations of the successful or satisfactory working of the most important provision of the Bill. Before stating my reasons I must ask leave to say that the noble. Lord in charge of the Bill, quite unintentionally, I feel sure, misrepresented the Amendment I moved the other day and its object. A great portion of one of the recommendations of the Ecclesiastical Commission was comprised in my Amendment. It proposed to secure to the patrons, if they desired it, a hearing with lay assessors. The very last thing I contemplated was the substitution of diocesan courts for the new courts provided by the Bill with a lay judge. I am very hard of hearing, and that is my reason for so very tardily explaining what the abject of my Amendment was. It was to secure to the presentee or the
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  patron, if either of them desire it, a fair trial by the bishop with lay assessors. The Bill provides for no trial at all of that description. It does not mention any trial by the bishop, and, therefore, excepting for the presentee of the patron, there is no. provision for any trial. He may be a very innocent and most calumniated presentee, and yet he has to appeal against the refusal of the bishop to present. That appeal must be costly, and will involve some delay, even if he can afford it; but that is doubtful in the case of the clergy, who suffer so much by diminution of their incomes; and then, if he is unable to appeal, he must submit to that refusal with, all its terrible consequences, to his prospects and character. Clearly the main object of the Bill seems to be the exclusion from livings of undesirable and inefficient incumbents, with the very minimum expenditure of money by the bishop—an object very desirable in itself. Several men of long Parliamentary and official experience think that this has been arranged regardless of the importance of securing at least a fair preliminary trial by the bishops before the public trial, before he pronounces his refusal. Each refusal must practically be as public as the notice of the name of the presentee to the parish. As I said, there is only one single trial, and this is called the trial on appeal. I cited an authority the other day to show the great importance of appeals, the case of the vicar of Silvertown, who, after being unjustly condemned by the Consistory Court, was entirely exonerated on appeal to the Privy Council; and I have the authority of Dr. Tristram for saying, when the judgment of those distinguished judges had been reversed on appeal to the Privy Council, that Dr. Lushington, in spite of his long experience and great ability as a judge, had assured him that he always approached these cases with great anxiety. The Bill does not seem to me to provide any adequate protection against the serious consequences to a very possibly innocent person. The Ecclesiastical Commission, however, comprised no fewer than 12 eminent ecclesiastics, of whom eight were either actually prelates, or were about to

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  become prelates, not to speak of eminent lawyers, and they, with practical unanimity, showed their episcopal discretion by coming, to this conclusion which, put shortly, is this: that a bishop may not act alone in any such cases without a legal assessor, but a lawyer might, under certain circumstances, sit alone on these cases. I must say that nothing has happened since the unanimous view taken by these eminent ecclesiastics in 1883 to satisfy the lay members of the Church of England, at any rate, that it is any more desirable now that the bishop should have greater discretion under this Bill than when no fewer than eight actual or existing prelates unanimously agreed that it was undesirable that they should sit alone in hearing such cases. That recommendation was as follows—
  "If the clergyman does not submit or if the complainant refuses to consent to the bishop pronouncing sentence without trial, a complainant may set down the case for hearing before the diocesan court. The diocesan court shall consist of the bishop, with whom shall sit, as legal assessor, the chancellor of the diocese, or some other person learned in the law at the discretion of the bishop, unless tile bishop shall call upon the chancellor to heap the case alone, or sends the case direct to the court of the province if both parties give consent."
  I would also draw your Lordships' attention once again to the remarkable report of Lord Penzance on this matter. He uses very strong language. He says—
  "Speaking generally, where discretion begins, the proper administration of the law, as such, ends."
  He says that he does not consider that for the administration of strict law in this sense an ecclesiastic is, by his training and acquirements, well qualified. He says
  "that the bishop would not be careful to follow decided cases with which, perhaps, he would be little familiar, and that he would be apt to import into the enunciation of the law considerations of policy and the elasticity of discretion. The probable result would be a startling divergence of opinion in different dioceses, which, by rendering the law uncertain, would bring it into discredit and impair its efficiency."
  It is a matter of difficulty and of perplexity to those who have to obey the
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  law. No one individual proposes to himself too high a standard of duty as legally obligatory on the members of the clerical profession, and the danger is a tendency to encourage a policy of divergence and a spirit of adulation—and adulation is or should be disagreeable to the adulated and degrading to the adulator. I only hope that the unfavourable anticipations which I hold, which are quite sincere, may turn out to be unfounded, and I also hope that the most sanguine anticipations of the good results which will flow from this Bill may be verified, and that I shall prove to be mistaken in its consequences.
  THE EARL OF WEMYSS: My Lords, I have been unable to be in my place during the previous stages of this Bill, and I should like to say a few words before it passes beyond our ken and receives the Royal assent. My Lords, I can but take this view of the Bill, that it is founded on the maxim of a well-known and very powerful religious order of the Roman Catholic Church, that you may do evil that good may come. My Lords, I do not for a moment dispute the good intentions of those who are dealing with this matter. It is no doubt essential that there should not be abuses of patronage in the interests of the congregation, the parishioners, and the Church, but I hold it to be absolutely unnecessary that in legislation of this kind you should do evil and introduce evil principles. Now, is there one of your Lordships who is prepared to deny that there are evil principles in this Bill? My Lords, how does it deal with property? An advowson is as much a property as any property belonging to your Lordships. It is transferable, it is heritable, and it is assessed for public purposes; and those who hold this property say that this Bill will materially affect its value—its pecuniary value. And one writer says that it is practically a confiscatory Measure, and that no amount of cant or hypocrisy will make it other. Another gentleman whose letter I have here—what does he say about the Bill as it stands, and to which your Lordships are about to give a Third Reading? He says—
  "As the owner of an advowson, which is the sole property I have to leave to my children";

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  he then thanks me for a letter I wrote to the Times, and says—
  "I protest against this confiscatory Measure."
  This Bill does not deal in that way with property, and I imagine that it is unnecessary that it should do so, because you might have given compensation as you have done in other cases. I am happy to say that, although I come from the land of Rob Roy, we do not treat patronage in Scot land in the way your Lordships are about to treat it in this country, because when patronage was abolished compensation was given to those patrons who chose to take it. Very few did, but they had the chance. So far as regards the question of property, what is the reason that advowsons are treated in this way—differently from other property? I imagine that the flattering unction that those who are responsible for this Bill lay to their souls and the salve they lay to their consciences is this, that it is a peculiar property, that it is exceptional property, and that, therefore, because it is exceptional and peculiar, you are justified in applying to it exceptional legislation. Exceptional legislation! That is a term which is all too well known to your Lordships, especially to my friends who come from Ireland. Twenty-eight years ago we heard a good deal about exceptional legislation—you are only to do this because it is such an exceptional case. The principle was wrong in the Irish Land Bill; that we admitted; but still it was said, this is so exceptional a case you need have no fear. My Lords, from that hour to this Parliament has been up to the neck in exceptional legislation, and in dealing with contracts in every sort of way, and in interfering with everybody and everything, and all that, and always in consequence of the great breach, which was made in the sound principles of legislation by the Irish Land Bill, which I believe at that time was said to transfer £95,000,000 worth of property from one class of men to another, simply because one class of men shot their landlords. That, I believe, was the whole secret of the Land Bill legislation. If you apply this exceptional legislation to property of this kind, which a man
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  says is all he has to transmit to his children, and the value of which you are knocking down by this Bill, do you suppose for a moment that the evil principle will not tell some day, if things go on at the rate they are going, against Church property, and that it will not tell against the property of your Lordships, whether it be in England, Scotland, or Ireland, or even to those who shall then hold the property of Hatfield? It is as certain as it is certain that the sun will rise, and that is the result of indulging in this evil legislation, and saying, as an excuse, that it is exceptional. There is one other point, and that is the question of the man's civil rights. Can anything be more valuable or more carefully guarded than the rights of a free-born Englishman to civil rights which he has obtained through centuries of history—striking for liberty, and cutting off kings' heads, and things of that kind? What do you do by this Act? Can anyone deny that you take away from a man his civil rights—I care not who it be, the Anglican priest or any other priest, call him what you may—he has a right to appeal to the ordinary tribunals of the Crown. You take that from him, and what do you establish in its stead? A hybrid court with an archbishop at its head and a lay judge assessor at his side. But what is that but the substitution of an episcopal tribunal for the ordinary tribunals of the land? And I venture, my Lords, to say that that is a thoroughly retrograde step, and in this letter to which I have referred the writer ends by saying this—
  "I am surprised that no one in the House of Lords has been found to raise his voice against this confiscatory Measure, which is opposed to common honesty."
  Considering the very strong views that I entertain upon this matter, I felt that I should not be doing justice to those strong feelings if I did not trouble your Lordships with these few words.
  THE EARL OF SELBORNE: In reply to the noble Earl behind me it is quite true, and I greatly regret it, that I did misunderstand the exact object of his Amendment. I thought he proposed to substitute a fresh court for the court pro-

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  posed by the Government in clause 3, whereas his object was not to substitute a fresh court, but to introduce another court, to make two courts to have jurisdiction instead of one. If I had understood fully at that time what the noble Lord proposed, it would hare been equally my duty to say that it was quite impossible for the Government to accept that great addition to the machinery and consequently to the costs of the operation of this Measure. Nor can I allow that the Silvertown case is at all parallel to any case which may arise in this Act. In the case of the Clergy Discipline Act we were dealing with the case of clergy who have a freehold. This deals with clergy who are presented, and who have not yet got the freehold. I am afraid I must be content to differ from the noble Earl as to the proper machinery for dealing with this question and as to the likely effect of this Bill. I am sure that your Lordships greatly regret the reasons which have prevented the noble Earl who spoke last from being present during its previous stages. The noble Earl objects to the Bill because he says it proposes to do evil that good may come. With the greatest respect to the noble Earl I do not think that he has really read this Bill. In the first place, he holds it up to your Lordships' reprobation because it will decrease the value of advowsons—that it is an unwarrantable interference with the rights of property, and he holds up for your Lordships' admiration the procedure which took place in Scotland. In Scotland the whole right of private patronage was abolished and compensation certainly was given. But this Bill does not abolish the right of patronage at all, it abolishes the power to divide the right of patronage, and to sell the next presentation apart from, the whole thing—that is very different to abolishing the right of presentation altogether. As regards also the deprivation of the Anglican priest of his civil rights by the court set up by this Bill the noble Earl described that court as one with the archbishop at its head and the judge sitting by his side as lay assessor. A more inaccurate description of that court could not be well imagined. The judge and the archbishop are of equal authority, but so far as the
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  question of fact is concerned the judge is the sole authority, and the archbishop is to take the law and the facts as the judge finds them. If that is the position of an assessor, then his position as estimated in the eyes of the noble Earl must be different to that which it is in the conception of your Lordships. I am afraid that the noble Earl and the Government differ fundamentally as to the rights of property and the responsibilities of the trust, which together make up an advowson. Her Majesty's Government have considered all through, as I have said, that the property is incidental to the trust, and not the trust to the property. That is the view with which this Bill was framed, and I trust that it is with that view that your Lordships will assent to the Third Reading.
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That the Bill be read a third time."
  THE EARL OF SELBORNE: There are one or two Amendments, if your Lordships will consent to put them in now.

  CLAUSE 9.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 6, lines 16 and 17, leave out 'non-resident,' and insert 'not resident as therein mentioned.'"—(The Earl of Selborne)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.

  CLAUSE 10.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 7, line 6, after 'bishop,' insert 'in the manner and within the time to be prescribed.'"—(The Earl of Selborne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 7, line 6, after 'bishop,' insert 'in the prescribed manner.'"—(The Earl of Selborne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.

  CLAUSE 11.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 7, line 21, after 'court,' insert 'and otherwise for carrying the purposes of this Act into effect.'"—(The, Earl of Selborne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.

  CLAUSE 13.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 8, lines 20 and 21, leave out 'not referring to matters of doctrine and ritual,' and insert 'as to conduct.'"—(The Earl of Selborne.)
  THE EARL OF SELBORNE: I think I should give some short explanation as to the reason for this Amendment. The words matters of ritual and doctrine were meant really as a direction to questions of conduct, and it is thought that the words "as to conduct" deal with the matter more effectually and comprehensively. It has been pointed out that the insertion of the words as they are in the Bill, together with the words in the previous clause, might have the effect of it being argued that the questions of doctrine and ritual were altogether excluded from questions of negligence. In the matter of negligence this Act merely incorporated the existing law under the Clergy Discipline Act, and the question of negligence may involve questions which come within the meaning of the words doctrine and ritual. Supposing an incumbent neglected the Sunday services—that would come within the head of doctrine and ritual. It would be a matter of great regret if the law were altered in that respect, and the substitution of these words is thought to avoid that danger.
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That the Bill be passed."
  Agreed to.

  METROPOLITAN POLICE COURTS BILL.
  House in Committee (according to order): Bill reported without Amendment: Standing Committee negatived; and Bill to be read the third time To-morrow.
  HABITUAL INEBRIATES BILL.
  House went into Committee. The CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (The Earl of MORLEY) in the Chair.

  CLAUSE 1.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 1, line 24, leave out 'a,' and insert 'the.'"—(Lord Belper.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 1, line 26, leave out 'offered," and insert 'given.'"—(Lord Belper.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 1, lines 27 and 28, leave out 'clerk of the court and,' and insert 'proper officer of the court by which the offender is to be tried, and to.'"—(Lord Belper.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Bill passed through Committee, and reported to the House.
  House resumed.

  COLONIAL MARRIAGES (DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER) BILL. [H.L.]
  Read the third time (according to order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.

  RIVERS POLLUTION PREVENTION (BORDER COUNTY COUNCILS) (No. 2) BILL.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR SCOTLAND (Lord BALFOUR of BURLEIGH): There is a power of the Local Government Board by Provisional Order to make joint committees of county councils for the enforcement of the Rivers Pollution Act in England. There is a similar power in Scotland to the Secretary of State for Scotland, but it has been discovered that there is no power to make a joint committee where the river runs partly through England and partly through Scotland—that is the case with the Tweed—and the object of this Bill is to give power to appoint some joint committee in that case, as in other cases that I have mentioned. I beg to move that the Bill be read a second time.
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That the Bill be read a second time."
  Agreed to.
  Bill read the second time, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House To-morrow.

  PAUPER CHILDREN (IRELAND) BILL.
  House in Committee (according to order): Bill reported without Amendment; Standing Committee negatived; and Bill to be read the third time To-morrow.
  VEXATIOUS ACTIONS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  House in Committee (according to order): Bill reported without Amendment; Standing Committee negatived; and Bill to be read the third time on Tuesday next.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) BILL.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 2, line 30, leave out 'election of,' and insert 'choosing.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 2, line 34, after the word 'chairman,' insert 'subject as hereinafter provided.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND (Lord ASHBOURNE): I have an Amendment which I have put down to clause 93, and it is necessary that I should put in words in support of that Amendment in clause 3. I therefore propose—
  "Page 2, line 34, after the word 'chairman,' to insert the words, 'subject as hereinafter provided."
  That is the clause which, directs the chairman of a county council to be an ex-officio magistrate. When this matter was in Committee the noble Earl drew attention to the position that would be occupied by these ex-officio magistrates, and pointed out the desirability of placing them in the same position as the other magistrates in Ireland—that is, making them amenable to the control of the Lord Chancellor. I promised on the discussion that I would consider the matter before Report. I did not see my way to take the words which the noble Lord suggested, but I can see no reason why these magistrates should be in the position of all the county magistrates in Ireland, and there is no reason why the Lord Chancellor should not have the power, if there chances to be any misconduct, of dealing with them in their position as magistrates. I have dealt with that in the clause to which I have referred—namely, clause 93—and I have done it in this way—
  "Every such chairman who is by virtue of this Act a justice of the peace shall, notwithstanding anything in the other provisions of this Act, be subject to the same restrictions, disqualifications, and power of removal as any other justice of the peace."
  That is a prudent and sensible Amendment. I am aware that it is not in the English law at present, but I believe it has been looked upon, as an omission that it would be very desirable to cure. I have heard that it is so. I do not understand that there will be any more occasion with reference to these magistrates to use this power of the Lord Chancellor

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  than there is in the case of the other magistrates, but every officer must have some person over him. Her Majesty's lieutenants for counties may be removed on the determination of her will, and every other magistrate is subjected to the control—the necessary, prudent, cautious control of the Lord Chancellor. I do not want to go into the class of case where my own interference has been requested; they are not numerous, and they are managed with caution and with forbearance, and with every consideration for the feelings of the person named. Take one case for example. There may be some intemperance, and if a man in the position of a county magistrate, no matter what his social standing or rank, forgets himself so far as to give way to intemperance, and thus brings the administration of justice into disrepute—that is a case for the exercise of the Lord Chancellor's power, which is never used unnecessarily, and, as I have said, is always used with every consideration possible. I think this will commend itself to your Lordships' judgment. I believe it is desirable in all parts of the United Kingdom, and therefore I think it would be reasonable to introduce it into this Bill.
  THE EARL OF ERNE: The Amendment which the noble Lord has placed on the Paper goes very largely to meet the objections I have to the clause. There is one point which it does not cover, but the whole thing is surrounded by difficulties, and I am quite conscious of the fact that the position of the chairman of the county council is not the same as the chairman of the district council, which is very well safeguarded in this Bill. On the whole, I think it better to accept my noble Friend's Amendment, and I am quite content to leave the matter as he suggests, namely, at the discretion of the Lord Chancellor.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord HALSBURY): I heartily appreciate the Amendment, and I think it is a misfortune that it was not put into the English Act, or that some such provision as this should have been inserted therein. I had had my intention called once or twice to the omission of such a power, and I think it was only by inadvertence that it was omitted. As
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  your Lordships are aware, I suppose that the general observation would be that the next time he asked for election ha would not be elected if he had misconducted himself in the meantime. But during the period of his tenure of office he may be guilty of any misconduct whatsoever, and there would be no power of removing him. I daresay your Lordships will remember that something of the sort was discovered with reference to the misconduct of a coroner. He was elected by the freeholders of the county, and just in the same way as happens hare, there was no power to remove him, and so Parliament passed an Act of Parliament which gave the Lord Chancellor for the time being the same power to remove a coroner for misconduct as he possesses over any magistrate in the commission of the peace, and I think that power should be possessed over magistrates who hold office because they are chairmen of county and district councils. It has happened more than once—the particular case of intemperance to which the noble Lord referred has in fact happened—and I think that it is not calculated to increase the respect for the administration of justice when a person has been before a bench of magistrates one day, and has been fined, and on the following day he is sitting there passing judgment upon persons guilty of a similar offence. I therefore very heartily approve of the Amendment, and trust it will be followed by beneficial results.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed.

  CLAUSE 8.
  "Page 5, line 19, after 'road' insert the expense of.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)

  CLAUSE 9.
  "Page 7, lines 6 and 7, leave out 'and' in every place where it occurs, and insert 'or.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  "Page 8, line 4K, after 'such,' insert 'joint.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  "Page 8, line 6, after 'such,' insert 'joint.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)

  CLAUSE 10.
  "Page 10, line 10, leave out 'a,' and insert 'the.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  CLAUSE 14.
  "Page 12, line 32, leave out 'made,' and insert 'paid.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)

  CLAUSE 15.
  "Page 13, line 4, after 'every,' insert 'such.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendments agreed to.
  THE EARL OF MAYO: Clause 15 provides for the sum which the county council may raise to maintain its county infirmary. In the county of Cork there are two infirmaries—the South Cork Infirmary and the North Cork Infirmary—and both receive county patients. But the county council has no power to make any contribution to the funds of the North Cork Infirmary; it is unable to apportion the sum that it has power to raise between the two institutions which do its work. The Amendment which I have to move is this—
  "Page 14, line 22, after the word 'upon,' insert 'and in the case of the county of Cork the county council may contribute a portion of the sum mentioned in sub-section 1 of this section towards the maintenance of the North Cork Infirmary in the city of Cork upon such terms and conditions and subject to such restrictions as may be decided upon by the council of the county of Cork and of the county borough of Cork.'"
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND: As I understand the proposal of my noble Friend, it is this: it does not propose to enable the county of Cork to raise any further sum whatever than they are entitled to do at the present moment, and it only proposes to give them a power to apportion the sum which they are at present empowered to raise between the two infirmaries, which at present practically do the work of the county. Without this Amendment I gather that they will be bound only to contribute to one and will be unable to contribute to the other, even although it may be doing a substantial amount of the county work. I can see no objection to that Amendment.
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 14, after line 29, add as a new subsection—
  "An urban district council may, with the approval of the Local Government Board, annually contribute towards any infirmary or fever hospital in the county in which such urban district is situate, or in any county borough in such county, such sum as they think fit."—(Lord Ardilaun.)
  LORD ARDILAUN: I am anxious to know what the noble and learned Lord thinks of this sub-section.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND: My noble Friend has said nothing in explanation of this, but the acceptance of this new sub-section would make an immense change in the whole constitution of affairs. This would enable any urban district to contribute to any infirmary at all. That is a tremendously wide order, without any restriction whatever.
  LORD ARDILAUN: Situated in the county, and with the consent of the Local Government Board.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND: I am aware of that, but at present there is no power in the urban districts to make these contributions to neighbouring hospitals. This is intended to meet a case in the neighbourhood of Dublin. According to our present law it is competent for any urban district council to select their area for their charitable contributions, which is entirely different from enabling them to deal with the sum that is raised that is already ear-marked and registered. This Amendment would enable them to have an addition to their powers of taxation, and I do not see how we can sanction that. It would be a substantial addition to the taxing powers. There is power already given on the face of the Act, enabling these contributions to be given by them. My noble Friend's Amendment will enable them to select according to their discretion a new area with the approval of the Local Government Board, for their philanthropic and charitable contributions, which must be raised by taxation, and I do not see how that can be done.
  LORD ARDILAUN: In sub-section 10 the noble and learned Lord will find that—
  "any county councils may agree for the contribution by one council to the county infirmary or fever hospital of the other council, on such conditions as to the admission to the infirmary or hospital of patients from the county of the contributing council, and the representation of that council on the committee for managing the infirmary or hospital, as may be agreed upon."
  But, while county councils are allowed to do this, the urban council is excepted and cannot do it, and what the result would be is that the urban sanitary authority might be obliged to build hospitals themselves, while in an adjoining county or an adjoining township or adjoining street there are hospitals ready, which in the past the township has made use of and contributed to. The city of Dublin subscribes to hospitals within its own area, and by adopting my suggestion these townships would be saved a large amount of taxation.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I must remind the noble Lord that we are not in Committee.
  LORD ARDILAUN: I have not spoken before. May I explain, with the indulgence of your Lordships, because it is a matter of very considerable importance. The Board of Commissioners will be the urban authority, and we shall find very great difficulty if we are obliged to build hospitals, and the ratepayers will feel it too.
  THB LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND: Equally with the indulgence of your Lordships, I will explain that subsection 10, to which the noble Lord has referred, enables county councils to join together to contribute to the county infirmary or fever hospital. These recommendations have obvious and wise reasons. My noble Friend, by his new clause, would enable the urban district council by itself to select an independent hospital; that would require new taxation, and that is why I cannot accept it.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Leave out clause 19, and insert as a new clause—

  "(1) A county council may prosecute for any penalty under section six of the Ancient Monuments Protection Act, 1882.

  "(2) The provisions of section eleven of the said Act (defining ancient monuments to which this Act applies) and section one of the Ancient Monuments Protection (Ireland) Act, 1892, shall have effect as if they were herein re-enacted, with the substitution of 'county council' for 'Commissioner of Works'; but this enactment shall be in addition to and not in derogation of the existing provisions of the said section as respects the Commissioner of Works."—(Earl Dunraven.)

  EARL DUNRAVEN: I move to omit clause 19, and to insert the new clause which I have down on the Paper. It is obvious that we require some definition of what ancient monuments are. For instance, I had a letter from a Friend in Ireland, asking me whether, in the case of grand juries secretaries of 20 years' service should be considered as an ancient monument within the meaning of this Act, and therefore to be maintained at the public expense. I think that the clause I propose to insert will meet all the requirements of the case. I believe it meets with the approval of Her Majesty's Government, and I think it will ensure that an ancient monument of historical or archæological value will be preserved and safeguarded, and at the same time no frivolous interference on the part of those interested in remains of no historical value can take place.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND: I think it is a wise course suggested by my noble Friend, and I accept his Amendment.
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.

  CLAUSE 21.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 16, line 40, leave out 'time of election.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 17, line 23, leave out from the beginning of line to the end of the clause."—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.

  CLAUSE 23.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 19, line 5, leave out from 'division' to 'except,' in line 7."—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 19, line 13, leave out 'shall have,' and insert 'may give in an electoral division.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 19, line 23, leave out from 'district' to the end of the clause."—(The Earl of Mayo.)
  THE EARL OF MAYO: I am sorry to bring this clause up again, but there is one point which requires elucidation, and I should like to ask my noble and learned Friend, with regard to the latter part of the section, whether any person who is in default with his rates can be qualified to be a councillor by 12 months' residence subsequent to such default, because if, by residence, he qualifies himself for election, whether he has paid his rates or not, then that embraces the wide class of evicted tenants, and people living in Land League huts.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND: There are two classes of people that are covered by my honourable Friend's Amendment. The qualifying sub-section is sub-section 4, and that says—
  "A person shall not be qualified to be elected or to be a councillor of the council of a county district unless he is a local govern-
  132
  ment elector for the district, or has, during the whole of the twelve months preceding the election, resided, and continues to reside, in the district."
  That is quite fair. It was thought wise in England, and we have followed the English precedent. The clause qualifies two sets of persons—the local government elector and the person who has resided 12 months in the district. That simply means that you are not to inquire into any qualification but the qualification of residence.
  THE EARL OF MAYO: If he is a defaulter in his rates.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND: That is a circumstance that affects his own mind, but it does not deal with the fact that he has lived there. It is a question for the electors. Will they elect a person who is a local government elector for the district, or will they elect one who is qualified by a residence of 12 months? I am informed that the reason for admitting the latter class was to enable ladies to be elected, and also to enable eldest sons to be elected. Of course, you can in England, as in Ireland, or in any place, suggest that you might elect foolish and improper representatives, but you must trust that the constituencies will occasionally be wise and that they will elect prudent and wise representatives.
  LORD INCHIQUIN: It seems to me that the occupant of a Land League hut might be elected, and I think that, from our experience of Ireland, there is a great possibility of this class of men being thrust upon us. A clause of this kind might work very differently in Ireland to what it does in England, and if we have anything like the experience in the future that we have had in the pest, I think it is not at all improbable that the case I have mentioned would come before the authorities. Is it desirable in legislation to allow such a case to happen? I do not say it would happen, but I think there is every possibility of its happening. It is very important to consider these matters. My noble and learned Friend seems to treat all the objections of the Irish landlords as of no importance, and seems inclined to refuse all their attempts at amending the Bill. In fact,

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  he says that he will have the Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND: Oh, no; I have never said any such thing.
  LORD INCHIQUIN: You put us on one side in all these things. I entirely agree that it is a very important matter indeed to allow eldest sons to be elected.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND: And ladies?
  LORD INCHIQUIN: Yes. So far as I am concerned, I should be very glad indeed to have my son, who happens to be my agent, on the council. But if you allow them to be on the councils you must also allow other things to happen, and the cases I have mentioned about Land League huts and labourers' cottages are cases of the greatest importance. Is it desirable to allow a man to be elected who is the occupant of a labourer's cottage? Is it desirable to give such a man an opportunity of occupying, taking a permanent part in matters of such importance as those which come before a board of guardians? Is that desirable or not? If it is not desirable, then I think the noble and learned Lord should say he does not consider it desirable, and should strike it out of the Bill.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (The Marquess of LANSDOWNE): We are perfectly ready to discuss this Amendment in a reasonable spirit, and I put it to the noble Earl who has moved it that this clause as it stands, as a whole, is a very fair and just clause. It may be very true that under the clause the occupant of a labourer's cottage built under the Labourers Act—which is, I suppose, what is meant by the noble Lord who last spoke—or even the occupant of a Land League hut may be qualified for election. I must say that I do not see at first sight why the occupant of a cottage built under the Labourers Act should be considered as disqualified if the electors choose to return him. As to the occupant of a Land League hut, I confess I should be very sorry to see representatives of that class elected, but I think we ought to set against that risk, which is not a very immediate one, the
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  distinct advantage of allowing a son, living in his father's house, or a lady, to be elected to these councils. I suggest to the House that the advantage of this outweighs the disadvantages of the other risk, which fills so large a place in the imagination of the noble Lord.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

  CLAUSE 24.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 19, line 37, leave out 'for a district electoral division may give,' and insert 'may give in a district electoral division.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.

  CLAUSE 25.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 20, line 11, leave out 'election of,' and insert 'choosing.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.

  CLAUSE 26.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 20, line 24, leave out 'division,' and insert 'district.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  Page 20, line 25, leave out 'divisions,' and insert 'districts.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 20, same line, before 'district,' in each case, insert 'county.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 20, line 28, leave out from 'of' to 'shall,' in line 30, and insert 'the commissioners of any town.'"—(Lord Ashbourne)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 20, after 'Act,' in line 22, insert 'subject as hereinafter mentioned.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 20, line 22, after 'be,' insert 'during the term of an.'"—(The Earl of Erne.)
  THE EARL OF ERNE: This Amendment is simply to bring this clause into line with section 3, in which an Amendment was proposed by my noble Friend.
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.

  CLAUSE 27.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 21, line 9, after 'the,' insert 'expense of the.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 21, after line 21, insert as a new sub-section—
  "Except with the consent of the Local Government Board the expenditure of any county council, district council, or board of guardians (as the case may be) shall not in any year after the passing of this Act exceed by more than, one-fourth the amount certified by the Local Government Board to have been the average expenditure in such county, district, or union (as the case may be) during
  136
  the three years next before the passing of this Act in respect of the following items:

  "(a) Expenditure on outdoor relief;

  "(b) Expenditure under the Labourers Acts, 1883 to 1896;

  "(c) Expenditure in respect of any of the excluded charges specified in the first subsection of section fifty-six of this Act;

  "(d) Expenditure on industrial schools or on the maintenance of children therein. Provided always that no expenditure shall exceed any limit fixed in any existing Act in respect of the same."—(Lord Inchiquin.)

  LORD INCHIQUIN: I wish to point out that there is one error in this Amendment. In sub-section 3 it should be "fifty-seven of this Act," and not "fifty-six"; and the words at the end—
  "provided always that no expenditure shall exceed any limit fixed in any existing Act in respect of the same,"
  apply to the whole of the subsections (a), (b), (c), and (d), and not to the '(d)' only, as appears to be the case from the way the clause is printed. This Amendment is practically identical with that moved by my noble Friend Lord Londonderry the other night. It is couched in different words, but in point of fact it would have the same effect. It raises the question of the 25 per cent. limit to other subjects than roads. Your Lordships understand that the clause in question limits the expenditure of the 25 per cent. to roads only. What we think is this: that the limit should be extended to cover the various points which are mentioned in my Amendment, and those points are these: expenditure on outdoor relief; expenditure under the Labourers Acts, 1883 to 1896; expenditure in respect of any of the excluded charges specified in the first sub-section of section 56 of this Act; and expenditure on industrial schools, or on the maintenance of children therein. These are subjects of such great importance, and involving such large expenditure, that we fail to see the force of, or agree with the argument of, the noble and learned Lord, that the 25 per cent. limit should not be extended to them. Now, the object of my Amendment is simply to extend that limit to these subjects which I have mentioned, and in asking your Lordships to agree to this I wish it clearly to be understood by the

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  House that there is nothing whatever to prevent any of these works being allowed to be carried out. No one is more ready to agree than I am that such works as waterworks, sanitary works, and all those other works, are of the utmost importance, and ought to be carried out. The question is, are you going to give carte blanche to a new body like the county council and the district council to spend all this money without some control? We think they ought to be controlled. It is not because we object to the expenditure of money, nor do we say that the money ought not to be spent in certain cases, but we think that the Local Government Board should have a word to say upon these matters. As your Lordships will probably recollect, I moved an Amendment the other day which the noble and learned Lord objected to, which was for keeping up the law of traverse, and one of the points of importance in that was in reference to railways, and other matters of that kind, which would come before the county council, and I pointed out that if that law of traverse were done away with, there would be no protection for the county council going into large expenditure with reference to the tramways and light railways. The noble and learned Lord said it was impossible to allow such a thing under the new system, but the same purpose of protecting the interests of the ratepayers will be served if this Amendment is adopted, because in all such cases where a large expenditure is required it will be necessary to have the sanction of the Local Government Board, and that is practically what I want. Now, I will give your Lordships a case in point. A few years ago, in our county, a large expenditure upon waterworks, if I remember aright, was proposed to be spent in the town of Ennis. It was a first-rate scheme, and I have nothing to say against it; but that scheme was one promoted by men whose sole object was to make money out of it. They promote these schemes in Ireland, and go round to the ratepayers, saying: "Look at the engineers that will be employed, and the labourers," and they get by that means the ratepayers to sanction schemes which are not sometimes desirable. That is really such an important point that I
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  cannot for the life of me see why the noble and learned Lord should propose a 25 per cent. limit on the road question, which is, of course, an important question, and object to having it on these other matters, which are of the very greatest importance. There is another point which I may mention, and I alluded to it the other day, and that was with reference to the building of workshops for our light railways. That is important and absolutely necessary. You must spend money in that direction. I leave it to your Lordships to consider what a very important thing it is that the Local Government Board should have the power of saying what the really necessary expenditure is, and not allow the county to be put to an enormous expense simply to put money into engineers' and surveyors' pockets. These engineers' plans might sound very well before the county council containing men, perhaps, who would like to give them a job, but they would in all probability recommend a larger expenditure of money than was absolutely necessary, simply in order to get a larger percentage; and I cannot see why the Local Government Board should not have a discretionary power. That would not stop any of these works, but it would mean that the Local Government Board could say how they are to be carried out. I think this is a matter of such great importance that I wanted my noble Friend to receive this Amendment, but he seems to be rather reluctant to do so. He also, as I understand, has come to some understanding with reference to his vote on this matter which might prejudice him. I mean to press this to a Division, because I consider the matter of such great importance that I propose to ask your Lordships to divide upon it.
  THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY: My noble Friend has alluded to myself, and therefore your Lordships will excuse me for trespassing upon you in discussing the provision of this very important Amendment. The other night I alluded at considerable length to what I thought might be the extraordinary expenditure that might take place under the coming district councils unless some limit was imposed. In pursuance of that idea, I put down what I considered the most important Amendment submitted to your

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  Lordships' House—namely, that the 25 per cent. should embrace all expenditure of all kinds at the hands of the district council, unless permission was given for extra expenditure by the Local Government Board. My noble Friend has said that I was unable to put that down in my own name. I had, together with some of my noble Friends, entered into a compact with my noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor for Ireland, that I anticipated that after the Committee stage had passed no Division would take place in this House on any other question. I was careful to say that I could only pledge myself on that matter, and that there were many noble Lords who knew far more about Ireland than I did who might not agree to be bound by that compact, and it was necessary that they should have a free hand upon that matter. That is the course that I have pursued; therefore, though I cordially endorse what has been said, I do not feel justified in supporting him by voting. I do agree most cordially with what he has said, that there should be this limit of expenditure, for the simple reason that abuse has taken place with respect to outdoor relief in Ireland which would not be for a moment tolerated, or would take place, in England. I know a number of cases showing the abuse that has been perpetrated by boards of guardians. Boards of guardians will be virtually district councils in the future, and if this abuse has taken place in the past, why should it take place in the future? I remember quoting cases more or less connected with the Secretary of State for War in which the evicted tenants were supported as candidates for outdoor relief. That, to my mind, is an absolute abuse of the power of boards of guardians, and a continuance of it would be an absolute abuse of the powers of district councils. I pointed out, I remember, that I was asking nothing in my Amendment—which I did not press to a Division—which was in any way an infringement of the principle of the Bill. The principle of the Bill referred this question to the discretion of the Local Government Board. If I had suggested that that limit should be referred to any other body—had I submitted that there should be any other safeguard besides that, I could understand the Government refus-
  140
  ing to accept it. This Amendment involves no infringement of the principle you have laid down. You do not think it a hardship that the district council should be limited with regard to the expenditure on roads; Why, therefore, should it be considered a hardship that their expenditure with regard to other matters should be limited, and when that limit would only be imposed if the Local Government Board considered it wise and necessary. I therefore, so far as I am concerned, most cordially support the Amendment of my noble Friend, and I only regret that I am not able to give him my vote.
  THE DUKE OF ABERCORN: I am in the same position. I am unable to vote for this Amendment, and I regret it much because I consider the Amendment a very good one, and one which, if added to the Bill, would help very much to protect the ratepayer from any extravagance in the various districts of Ireland, especially with regard to outdoor relief. I am really quite alarmed at the power given with regard to outdoor relief. It is more than possible that a very large impetus will be given to those who favour outdoor relief. I hope the Government will be willing to accept this Amendment, because, if carried, it will do a great deal of good.
  LORD CLONBROCK: Although I was not present when the communication with the noble and learned Lord took place, and did not know exactly the terms of the agreement until afterwards, yet as the noble Marquess did me the honour to consult me beforehand, I consider myself bound not to give a vote on this Amendment. I also agree with him in hoping that the Government will see their way to accept it. It was said on a previous occasion that there was a check already existing on these items of expenditure. I do not think there is any check on one of them, and that by no means the least important; that is, the industrial schools. There have been considerable complaints made in many quarters about the large sums spent in maintaining children in industrial schools. I do think that that expenditure has got quite high enough, and that a limit should be imposed on future councils not to go beyond what has been

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  done by the grand juries. I do not see, also, that there is any check on outdoor relief, and on other matters. We have this to consider. There is to be a great change, to be produced in the administration of the poor law—the introduction of union rating. I know it is the opinion of Her Majesty's Government that this will check outdoor relief; but, from my own experience, and from conversations I have had with ratepayers of different classes, I very much doubt that. I think their argument is derived from what has happened in the distressed portions of Ireland, where the rules as to outdoor relief have been relaxed, and where the extra outdoor relief then granted has of late been made a union charge. The experience has been that the outdoor relief did not attain the same proportions as it did on previous occasions. I do not think that an entirely safe guide. I do not believe the distress was as acute as it has been on previous occasions. I also urge this argument: in the case of sudden great accession of outdoor relief, I can quite understand that the board would refuse to grant it; but if it were to be increased by driblets—one case this day, and another a week after, and so on—I do not believe that the board of guardians would be so likely to object. At present I know, if any charge falls on the division, it is looked after and checked, whereas, if it falls on the union at large, nobody takes any interest in it. I thoroughly approve of the Amendment, although I am not able to give my vote upon it.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND: Two or three evenings ago, on the Committee stage practically, the Amendment and these topics were all discussed by my noble Friend Lord Londonderry with great force and clearness. I gave two reasons to the House, as well as I could, why in my opinion it was entirely inconsistent with the scope and purport of the Bill to be able to accede to the Motion. The object of the Bill is to extend to Ireland the substantial provisions which are contained in the English and Scotch Act. The popularly elected county council is to have the same power and control over the management of county affairs, aided by district councils in their different spheres of duty,
  142
  as the English and Scotch bodies. This Amendment would practically put the county council in every single one of its aspects under tutelage and control; and I have pointed out that I think the speeches that have been made by my noble Friends ignored the broad safeguards which do exist. The occupier is now made to pay all the rates. He is the man that will suffer the inconvenience of extravagance, if extravagance goes on, and if there is economy he is the man who will benefit by it. That is an immense change, and it is a great safeguard. £730,000, or some such figure, is the sum that is paid to accomplish the working out of that safeguard, and that is, of course, a good and substantial fact to be borne in mind in connection with this matter. The other safeguard that there is in that very clause is not found in the English Bill—a safeguard in reference to what might be a substantial danger—that is, the tendency to extravagance in making small roads in a district. That I admit is something that might involve extravagance, and that is abundantly safeguarded here. But the proposal which my noble Friends now pressed on your Lordships, would go infinitely beyond that altogether, and would treat all the new local bodies that are to be called into existence as if they were unworthy of being trusted at all. As I pointed out on the last occasion, this Bill leaves absolutely unchanged the poor law system. It does not transfer the administration of outdoor relief, or increase the power of granting outdoor relief. It leaves outdoor relief exactly where it found it, subject to all existing checks and controls—that it must not be given to able-bodied persons, or to a person in possession of an acre of land. It is subject to auditors' examination, and the whole administration of the poor law is left as it was found by the Bill—no new powers are given. The county council has no power in reference to it, and why it is germane to this discussion to seek to introduce checks and embarrassments on outdoor relief I am unable to see. There is already a check by Statute on extravagance. Under no circumstances can the rate for the Labourers Acts exceed 1s. These are matters that, I venture to think, should be taken into account. If the Bill is not to be framed on the broad

  143
  essentials that are to be found in the Local Government Bills of England and Scotland, that is another and a large question; but if the broad lines are to be taken, subject to the safeguards that I have mentioned, then, my Lords, I say that the Bill is reasonable and fair. Remember the safeguards that we have, remember what the honest and reason able position of a Bill like the present should be, and then I think your Lordships will see that it would be going entirely beyond the scope and object and purpose of the Bill to introduce this clause. It has been said that it makes no change in the principle of the Bill, but it makes a substantial change in the administration sought to be accomplished by the Bill. It is obvious from, the observations I made in Committee, and my observations now, that this is an Amendment that could receive no support from anyone in charge of a Bill, or interested in its welfare. I therefore trust that if there is a Division this Amendment will be defeated.
  VISCOUNT CLIFDEN: We have got to the old reason, the reason of symmetry. The noble and learned Lord has said that this Bill is on the same lines as the English and Scotch Act. That does not make it better in my eyes, and even if it were, which I do not believe, a good thing for England and Scotland, the countries cannot be compared. I should like to ask my noble Friend who moves this Amendment whether I am right in saying that there is a limit of expenditure on the roads to 25 per cent.? That is so. Then the purport of his Amendment, is that the limit of 25 per cent. should extend to the other matters mentioned in the Amendment. I cannot see why, if in one case it is allowed, it should not be in the others. My feeling is, from what I know of poor law boards, that the less power you give them of spending money the better. They are most extravagant, and those cases that the noble Marquess gave us of poor law boards being superseded by boards of guardians are illustrations of this, and I wish he had added what the effect of the board of guardians was on the expenditure. One of the cases quoted, the New Ross case, is in my own county. There the expenditure was very much smaller under the board of guar-
  144
  dians, although the work was very much more efficiently done. The noble and learned Lord said that nobody suffered or gained except the occupier. If the noble Lord knew something about Ireland he would know that the occupier, that is the man above the lowest occupier, was very much alarmed about this Bill, and hates this Bill. In fact, perhaps, the noble and learned Lord does not know that nobody wants this Bill except the lowest of the low, and a few political adventurers, and so on, and, of course, the Government want it. It is the lowest voter who will have command over the whole of this machinery, because he will elect the county council and the district council. He has far larger powers and opportunities than the other class of voters; and those who have something really to lose are in a state of great alarm about what will happen to them. I hope the noble Lord will proceed to a Division, and in that case I shall be unlike the noble Lords who say they support the Amendment and cannot vote for it, because I support the Amendment and shall also vote for it.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Contents 15; Not-Contents 36.

  CONTENTS.

  Rosse, E. [Teller]

  Mendip, L. (V. Clifden)

  Bangor, V.

  Monck, L. (V. Monck)

  Monckton, L. (V. Galway)

  Castlemaine, L.

  Crofton, L.

  Ponsonby, L. (E. Bessborough)

  Harlech, L.

  Inchiquin, L. [Teller]

  Rosmead, L.

  Macnaghten, L.

  Sherborne, L.

  Massy, L.

  Somerhill, L. (M. Clanricarde)

  NOT-CONTENTS.

  Halsbury E. (L. Chancellor)

  Morley, E.

  Onslow E.

  Cross, V. (L. Privy Seal)

  Selborne, E.

  Spencer, E.

  Stamford, E.

  Hertford, M.

  Stanhope, E.

  Lansdowne, M.

  Waldegrave, E. [Teller]

  Salisbury, M.

  Camperdown, E.

  Falkland, V.

  Denbigh, E.

  Dudley, E.

  Amphill, L.

  Hardwicke, E.

  Ashbourne, L.

  Kimberley, E.

  Bagot, L.

  145

  Balfour, L.

  Ker, L. (M. Lothian)

  Belper, L.

  Kintore, L. (E. Kintore)

  Churchill, L. [Teller]

  Clinton, L.

  Lawrence L.

  Fingall, L. (E. Fingall)

  Plunket, L.

  Harris, L.

  Saltoun, L.

  Hood of Avalon, L.

  Shute, L. (V. Barrington)

  Kenry, L. (E. Dunraven and Mount-Earl)

  Windsor, L.

  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 22, line 5, after 'by,' insert 'an order of.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 22, line 7, leave out 'provision,' and insert 'provisions.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 22, line 16, leave out 'revision in,' and insert 'alteration of financial relations in Part Four of.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.

  CLAUSE 36.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 24, line 12, leave out 'rural.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.

  CLAUSE 42.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 27, line 43, at end, add—
  "(4) If two or more urban districts determine, by resolution passed by a majority of three-fourths of each council, to amalgamate
  146
  and to combine their respective districts into one united district, the Local Government Board for Ireland shall make an order for such amalgamation and union on such conditions and subject to such provisions as the Board may deem just and the councils may approve.
  "Should the council of such united district determine, by resolution to be carried by a like majority at a meeting of which seven days' notice at the least shall have been given to each member thereof, to have their district formed into a county borough, the Local Government Board shall, if the rateable value of such united district be not less than one hundred thousand pounds, and its population according to the next preceding census be not less than twenty-five thousand, make an order constituting the said district a county borough, subject to the provisions of this Act as to the adjustment of debts, property, and liabilities.
  "Any urban district council may, with the consent of the Local Government Board, and with the consent of the council, by a three-fourths majority of the district proposed to be annexed, extend their boundaries by annexing any adjoining district not included within the jurisdiction of any urban district council, subject to such conditions as the Board with the approval of said council may deem just."—(Viscount de Vesci.)
  VISCOUNT DE VESCI: The Amendment enables two or more urban, district councils to combine by resolution. I take the opportunity of moving this Amendment in consequence of a Report of a Commission appointed as long ago as 1880, when the Duke of Marlborough was Lord Lieutenant, to inquire into municipal boundaries. A portion of it relates to the townships outside Dublin, and my object in moving this Amendment is to secure that the Report and recommendations of that Commission shall be carried into effect now, and that these townships shall be saved the expense of the promotion of a private Bill for that purpose. It is mainly on account of these townships around Dublin that I put this Amendment down, and I hope that the Government may be inclined to accept it.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND: This is a branch of one of the most serious and burning questions that can be suggested. I know myself that for generations there has been no more tremendous or more burning question than this of the townships and the city. This question was discussed several times in the House of Commons, but it wag laid down that this was a controversy that must stand over, and be fought out

  147
  on independent lines, and that it could not be grappled with in a paragraph of a Local Government Bill dealing with a general form of local government. It must be fought out between themselves. The city has its views, and the townships have their views. They are both rich and independent, and proud and courageous bodies, and whenever the fight takes place they must go for it resolutely, and with all the grandeur of a separate Bill for themselves.
  VISCOUNT DE VESCI: Look at the expense!
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND: They are rolling in money. It would be quite out of place to put this tremendous topic of the Dublin townships against the city, and the city against the townships, in a Bill like this. For these reasons I trust that the noble Lord will not press the Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

  CLAUSE 45.
  "Amendment proposed—
  "Page 28, line 18, after 'county,' insert 'at large.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.

  CLAUSE 47.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 30, line 2, after 'union,' insert 'urban.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 30, line 10, after the first 'union,' insert 'urban.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.

  CLAUSE 49.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 31, line 19, at end, insert '(iii.) In respect of urban charges; and.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 31, line 26, after 'union and,' insert 'urban or.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 35, transpose clause 55 from page 38 so as to come in after clause 51."—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.

  CLAUSE 52.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 36, at end of line 27, add 'Provided, however, that the occupier shall not be entitled to make any deduction from his rent in respect of buildings, except so far as same are liable to rent.'"—(Earl of Arran.)
  THE EARL OF ARRAN: I really think that I should not move this Amendment again, because everything is met with such courtesy that I really feel quite shy in doing so, but I am bound to say that the explanation given does not seem to me to be perfectly satisfactory. The system at present in operation is that the poor rate is divided in most cases between the occupier and the owner, each paying half, and no deduction was made between that portion of the poor rate that applies to the land, and that portion which applies to the buildings on it. Therefore, although in many counties the poor rate was applied to the buildings, and was flowed and given by the Sub-Commis-

  149
  sioners to the tenant, yet, all the same, the landlord paid the rates—that is to say, he was paying poor rates on property not his. Under this Bill, that portion of the poor rate which applies to the buildings does not count, and therefore the landlord will be paying half the poor rate upon buildings which belong to the tenant. It seems to me to be perfectly clear that we have been paying for many years poor rates which we should not have paid, that ought to have been differentiated long ago, and I think that now is the time that the change ought to be made, when other changes are being made. If it is found impossible to alter the law on the subject, then it seems to me that the old system should be continued, and that the whole poor rates, or rather the landlord's portion of them, should be made to refer both to land and buildings in connection, with the agricultural grant. There will be enormous trouble in attempting to differentiate between what affects the buildings and the land, and it seems to me to be much more simple to leave the law as it now stands.
  LORD FARNHAM: I rise to say that in my opinion, unless this addition is made to this clause, a very grievous wrong will be inflicted on the landlords. I have a copy of the pink Schedule, in which no less than £1,100 is the value placed upon the buildings which have been admitted to be the property of the tenant. The tenant has the full enjoyment of that, and surely it is but justice that the tenant should pay the poor rate, and I hope your Lordships will see your way to adopt the Amendment proposed by my noble Friend, that the tenant shall pay the poor rate upon the property which is actually in his possession.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND: My noble Friend Lord Arran and my noble Friend who has just spoken have presented the case in a way that enables your Lordships to understand it, but it appears to me that it is an effort to make, in a Local Government Bill, a change which will entirely vary the incidence of the poor law in relation to deductions, and to take the opportunity afforded by this Bill to go entirely outside the scope and object of the Bill by moving a variation
  150
  in the incidence of the rate of deduction, which, would be entirely outside the scope of the Bill. We are, in this Bill, only dealing with local government, and we have nothing to do with any variation of the poor law about deductions, or in what respect such deductions are to be made. My noble Friend said they did not want to make any change, but they do, and the change they want to make is this: at present the tenant has a right to deduct half the poor rate in respect of his entire holding, no matter how composed, and what my noble Friend seeks to accomplish is this: that in future the deduction is to be confined absolutely to the land, and that the tenant is to have no right of deduction in respect of the buildings. Now, that may be a question of right or wrong, and it may be a question to be argued and decided, but it is a big question of rights between landlord and tenant—rights in reference to the poor law, and rights of deduction. But we are dealing in this Act with local government, and we are dealing with a readjustment of rent, in consequence of a payment to the landlord out of the agricultural grant, and how can we take that opportunity to vary the incidence of the change, and regulate the rate of deduction with respect to the poor rate, to the benefit of the landlord and to the disadvantage to the tenant? To me it seems to be a matter of seeking to make a grave and serious change in the law which, whenever it is proposed to be made, must be considered upon its own merits.
  LORD VENTRY: It does seem to me that the case hardly stands exactly as the noble and learned Lord has put it. It appears to me that a certain change is being made by the Bill in the incidence of the poor rate, and it also makes certain abatements in the rents paid by the tenant as a matter of adjustment. Well, now, it does seem to me that we are not travelling very much further in modifying that adjustment, so far as not to give the tenant any deduction on the rent he has to pay to the extent of the rate on those buildings which have been declared by the Land Commission to be his property. I may also, add that it seems to me this Amendment need

  151
  not be extended to all tenancies, and Deed only apply to tenancies where the rents have been fixed by the Land Commission, and where a particular rent has been put, or has not been put, upon the buildings. In other cases, where the rents have been fixed out of court, by judicial agreement, or where there has been no judicial agreement, in those cases no such interference is necessary, because it is a matter of give and take between landlord and tenant, and it may be assumed that these matters have adjusted themselves, but in this particular case you have the fact that these buildings have, or have not, rent put upon them. Again, there is already a precedent under the poor law, the case of leases where a small rent—a small ground rent—is paid, and in that case half the poor rate is not allowed. The poor rate is calculated on the ground rent, and up to the half it is allowed. But in 99 cases out of every 100 the allowance would be very much less than half.
  THE EARL OF ARRAN: At the same time there would be no difficulty in making it all come under the agricultural grant.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE: If the Amendment were to be limited, as suggested, your Lordships would be still very ill-advised to accept it. I would ask the House to keep very distinctly before itself what the object of this Bill is. The object of this Bill is to relieve the landlords of that part of the poor rate which has hitherto fallen upon them in respect of agricultural land. In the case of agricultural land, the State finds in the new agricultural grant the equivalent of the rate which the tenant ceases to pay, and his rent is consequently reduced by a proportionate amount. But when you come to non-agricultural land, or to buildings, the State does not find any money at all, and the tenant, as the noble Lord knows, under the Bill, is liable for the whole of the poor rate. It is, then, clearly necessary to do something in order to replace the tenant in that position, or in the same relative position as that in which he stood before, and with that object the Bill proposes that the tenant's rent should be reduced by the amount of the poor rate which,
  152
  under the new arrangement, is thrown upon him. That, I venture to suggest, is a perfectly fair and intelligible arrangement. The noble Lord, Lord Arran, proposes that we should take advantage of this opportunity in order to radically alter the law with regard to the incidence of the poor rate. What he proposes is that, in the case, not of all buildings, but of a particular class of buildings, an entirely new liability, which does not now fall upon the tenant, should be thrown upon him for the first time. The noble Lord says, in effect, to the tenant, "These buildings are your property; you must pay the rates, and you must make no deduction from your rent." Now, that is an absolute innovation and an absolute novelty. Our object is to leave the parties where they are now in respect to any rates payable on non-agricultural holdings. With that object we seek to increase the tenant's rent by the amount of rate which the State provides, and we decrease his rent by the amount which is transferred from the landlord to the tenant. That seems to me to be a fair arrangement, and I think that the noble and learned Lord who has charge of the Bill ought not to take advantage of this opportunity in order to throw a brand-new liability on the tenant for a portion of the poor rate which he has not paid before.
  THE EARL OF MAYO: The section provides—
  "That sum may be raised by means of the poor rate, but as a separate item thereof, and any right to deduct any part of the said rate from rent shall continue as respects that item."
  It seems to me that that non-agricultural land goes with the buildings, and he has no right to deduct the rate.
  THE EARL OF ARRAN: I withdraw my Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 36, line 41, leave out sub-section (8)."—(Lord Inchiquin.)
  LORD INCHIQUIN: The noble and learned Lord said that he wished to save law expenses, and I am sure there is nobody who is more anxious to save

  153
  law expenses than I am. I think, however, that leaving these matters in the hands of the commissioner of valuation will be exceedingly unwise, because very important questions have to be decided in reference to these matters. It is far more desirable that the parties should be left to their usual remedy before the usual courts than that the commissioner of valuation should be allowed to settle these matters. It is a question that does affect lawyers, and men who understand these matters in law much more than I do, but from what I have been told the matter is not one of very great importance. I understand that the noble and learned Lord said the other day that he would consider this matter, and I would ask him now whether he will accept it or not?
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND: I think it would be deplorable to accept this Amendment. This subsection provides that if any dispute arises as to the amount to be deducted or paid by occupiers under existing tenancies it shall be settled by the commissioner of valuation. Well, there may be many disputes, some of them limited to a couple of shillings, and why these unfortunate people should be left to these magnificent tribunals, for which I have an infinite respect, to decide these petty points, which might from time to time arise, I cannot understand. It might be a millennium for lawyers, but it would be a catastrophe to those who have to pay them. I think, therefore, that the provision in the Bill is as wise and as good as could be suggested. There may be some wide difference of opinion as to the amount to be deducted, but it is wise, I think, to set up some tribunal to decide these small matters, and not leave these poor people to the arbitrament of the law.
  LORD INCHIQUIN: I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 37, line 14, after 'council,' insert 'including the town clerk of a county borough.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
  Agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 37, line 42, leave out 'the fair rent for a holding,' and insert 'a fair rent in a rural district.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 38, line 5, leave out from 'poor rate' to the end of the clause, and insert 'and where the Land Commission after the appointed day fix a fair rent for a holding, they shall record in the schedule specified in section one of the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1896, the standard amount as defined in the preceding section, both for poor rate and county cess, and the benefit in respect of the holding deemed to have been received by the landlord and tenant respectively out of the agricultural grant.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND: This Amendment is one which I accepted from the Earl of Arran, and it merely puts the clause into proper form, or drafting language.
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
  Agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 39, line 26, leave out 'light.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
  Agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 41, line 37, leave out 'two counties,' and insert 'more counties than one.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
  Agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 43, line 26, after 'loan,' insert 'raised.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 43, lines 27 and 28, leave out 'relating to the relief of the poor,' and insert 'above in this section mentioned.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
  Agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 44, line 36, after 'borough,' insert 'or urban district council.'"—(Viscount de Vesci.)
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 45, line 6, leave out 'took place,' and insert 'came into force.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 45, line 15, after 'are a,' insert 'within the meaning of the Dublin Port and Docks Board and Bridges Act, 1876.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 45, line 17, leave out 'appeal,' and insert 'revision of the apportionment."'—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
  Agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 46, line 28, leave out 'either by a separate rate or.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 46, line 29, after 'charge,' insert 'but a council, in lieu of raising the amount required to meet the same by means of the poor rate, may, if they think fit, raise it by levying a separate rate.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
  Agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 48, after clause 66, insert the following clause—
  "The duties payable by pawnbrokers under section sixty-six of the Dublin Police Magistrates Act, 1808, and the Act therein mentioned, in any part of the police district of Dublin metropolis, shall be payable to and be

  157
  collected by the council of the borough or county district where the place of business of the pawnbroker, in respect of which the duties are paid, is situate, and the amount so received by such council shall be applied in aid of their expenses in the execution of this Act, and the receiver mentioned in the said section shall cease to have any concern with the said duties."—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND: This new clause has been put down in redemption of the pledge which I gave the other night, and it is consequential upon what follows. My noble Friend used the reference which was contained in one of the schedules as to the payment of pawnbrokers' licences, and he was challenged by my noble Friend, who said that it was not in a proper place, that it was not intelligible as to its operation, and very difficult to apply. But his object is said to be met, and I think is met, by what I have proposed here, for it enables the duties that are payable by pawnbrokers practically to be distributed in aid of the expenses, and the benefit to be given to the various councils in the counties where the parties reside who pay them.
  Question put—
  "That this clause be read a second time."
  Agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That the clause be added to the Bill."
  Agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 52, line 1, leave out the first 'the,' and insert 'those.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 52, line 3, after 'Acts,' insert '1871 to 1894.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
  Agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 55, line 14, leave out 'general.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
  Agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 58, line 26, after 'surveyor,' insert 'or surveyors.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 59, line 39, leave out from 'council' to the end of line 42."—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
  Agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 61, after clause 85, insert as a new clause—
  "An officer holding a pensionable office, whether the superannuation allowance is payable out of the poor rate, or any town rate, or other local rate, shall not be disqualified for receiving such an allowance by reason only of his having acted, whether before or after the passing of this Act, as an officer of a school attendance committee under the Irish Education Act, 1892."—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: But there are limits to everything. The words "an officer holding a pensionable office" mean that it entitles the holder to superannuation, but it does not mean that the office carries with it a pension.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND: I do not quite comprehend the point which has been raised.
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: It is the officer, and not the office, who is entitled to the pension. It does not read.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND: I think it reads myself.
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN: There is no accounting for taste.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND: I do not say it is classical, but it reads.
  VISCOUNT CLIFDEN: It is very bad English.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND: We are accustomed to that.
  Question put—
  "That this clause be read a second time."
  Agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That the clause be added to the Bill."
  Agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 62, line 7, leave out from 'against' to 'any,' in line 8."—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
  Agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 63, line 12, leave out 'tramway.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
  Agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 63, line 21, leave out clause 91, and insert as a new clause."—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Section thirty-eight of the Tramways (Ireland) Act, 1860, shall have effect as if the words 'of not less than two-thirds' were omitted therefrom."—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put—
  "That the clause be read a second time."
  Agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That the clause be added to the Bill."
  Agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 64, line 1, after 'in,' insert 'tile council of,' and leave out 'council.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 65, lines 12 and 13, leave out 'ordinary day of retirement of the mayor,' and insert 'twenty-third day of February."—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 65, line 14, leave out 'section,' and insert 'sections three and.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 65, line 15, after '1876,' insert 'and the day next before the day of the said quarterly meeting shall be substituted for the thirtieth day of November, in section five of the said Act.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 65, line 16, after 'or,' insert 'other.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
  Agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 66, line 6, at end, insert as a new sub-section—
  "Every such chairman who is, by virtue of this Act, a justice of the peace shall, notwithstanding anything in the other provisions of this Act, be subject to the same restrictions, disqualifications, and power of removal as any other justice of the peace."—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
  Agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 66, line 11, after 'secretary,' insert 'or clerk.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 66, line 29, after 'made,' insert 'in like manner.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
  Agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 67, after line 11, insert as a new sub-section—
  "In an electoral division comprised in a parliamentary borough in which the freeholders vote for the parliamentary county, and not for the parliamentary borough, the names of the freeholders, that is to say, the persons entitled in respect of a freehold, leasehold, or copyhold qualification within the parliamentary borough, shall be entered in a separate list, and that list shall form part of the local government supplement in the said division; but nothing in this enactment shall alter the right of such freeholders to vote for the parliamentary county, or confer on them a right to vote for the parliamentary borough."—(The Marquess of Abercorn.)
  THE MARQUESS OF ABERCORN: The object of my Amendment is to prevent freeholders and leaseholders from being in boroughs disqualified from voting in the Parliamentary borough in which they lire. This new sub-section asks that they may be placed in a separate list, and that that list shall form part of the local government supplement in that division. It will not touch the Parliamentary franchise in any sense, but it merely gives them the power of using the privilege of voting which they have hitherto enjoyed.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND: I think some such sub-section is necessary to meet the position of things in Londonderry and Belfast, and if there was not an Amendment of this kind inserted I am not sure that the persons referred to would have any right at all to vote.
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 74, line 8, leave out 'town and township commissioners,' and insert 'commissioners of a town.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
  Agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 76, line 30, at end of line, insert as a separate paragraph—
  "The expression 'high constable or collector of a barony,' includes a collector for a district of a barony appointed under the County Cess (Ireland) Act, 1848."—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 76, line 36, leave out 'for,' and insert 'in respect of.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 77, line 22, after 'district,' insert 'division.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 78, line 15, at end of line, insert as a separate paragraph—
  "The expression 'Medical Charities Acts,' means the Acts so defined by the Dispensary Houses (Ireland) Act, 1879, and includes the last-mentioned Act."—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
  Agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 80, line 18, leave out 'one councillor,' and insert 'two councillors.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
  Agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 80, line 33, leave out 'and township.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 80, line 36, after 'district,' insert 'and of commissioners of each town.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
  Agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 81, line 2, leave out 'borough,' and insert 'of a city or town.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
  Agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 82, line 5, after 'Act,' insert 'and the rules made thereunder.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
  Agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 83, line 2, after 'then,' insert 'or any time thereafter during the period of three years immediately following the said last five days of March.'"—(Viscount de Vesci.)
  VISCOUNT DE VESCI: I propose to insert three years instead of five, and my object is to extend the time for county secretaries to any time during three years. I ought to mention that I propose to insert in my Amendment, after the word "thereafter," the words "with the consent of the county council." The object of this is to enable them to come to an agreement between the county council and the grand jury secretaries. The object of my Amendment is for the sake of due efficiency and economy in the management of the affairs of the county councils, and to secure a continuity of the business carried on by the grand juries now. As the matter stands now the county councils will be elected in March, 1899, and come into operation in July, 1899, and the county secretaries are required to come to a decision by March, 1900. As a matter of fact, there will not be a full year's sitting, and I think I can say that the accounts will not be presented for audit by the present county secretaries. We are bound to assume that there may be a great change in the governing bodies of these councils, and I should be very sorry indeed for the chairmen or the finance
  166
  committee of the councils which had to settle that business without the skilled assistance of the present secretaries to the grand juries. I think it is reasonable to suppose that almost every secretary of the grand juries in Ireland will probably take advantage of the proposals in the Bill, and the confusion ensuing can hardly be imagined. In order to enable these new county boards to have the advantage, the advice, and the assistance of these expert officers, I move the addition of these words.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND: It is a perfectly wise proposal to make a provision that the new bodies should have the assistance and knowledge and experience of the secretaries to the grand juries. That everyone is agreed upon. But it is not, I think, desirable that the secretaries to the grand juries should be allowed too long a time to remain in a state of indecision as to whether they will take on with the new authorities or not. The Bill says that they shall have until the end of March, 1900. That is practically a year after the Bill comes into operation. The first election is to be in March next year, and to give them until March, 1900, practically gives them 12 months to consider whether they will go and take those terms, and take on their new employment.
  VISCOUNT DE VESCI: But I do not think that the new councils will sit until late in the year.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND: I do not think that it would be reasonable, or that it would work well, to leave these officers in a state of indefinite uncertainty as to what they are doing to decide for such a long period as two or three years. Now, if my noble Friend would, instead of March, 1900, take September, 1900, that would leave a year and a half, and that would be another thing. I am told that the officers in question are not in favour of that period, and that they want either a long time, or else that the Bill stand as it is. Now, we do not see our way to make such a change as to leave them in this uncertain position for three years, and it is better for them to make up their

  167
  minds within a reasonable time whether they will be off with the old love and on with the new. If your Lordships do not think there would be any objection to extending it six months, that would be more acceptable.
  VISCOUNT DE VESCI: The new words I have suggested would enable them to come to an arrangement with the county council as to whether they can stay on. Under the circumstances, I will withdraw my Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 83, after line 22, add as a new subsection—
  "Where any existing secretary to a grand jury resigns or is removed from his office under the provisions of this Act, without the concurrence of the Local Government Board, and is entitled to any retiring allowance under this Act, he shall, if he so elects, in lieu of such allowance, be entitled to receive a gratuity from the county council. Such gratuity shall be according to the scale in Part I. of the Seventh Schedule to this Act, save that it may be granted to an amount not exceeding seven years' net emoluments."—(Viscount de Vesci.)
  VISCOUNT DE VESCI: I have been asked to move this because it is thought it would be more advantageous that they should have that option, and it would be economy on the part of the county council, because they would have to pay them on the lower scale.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND: I may say that it is not the view of those who have applied their mind to the question. I have no feeling either way, nor have I any special knowledge, but I am told that the position of these officers is this: that under the existing laws they have no right to pensions, and they are given them under this clause; and, more than that, there is a provision, I think, at the end of clause 115 in the last sub-section that saves any superannuation given from being made available to their creditors. Everything is done in a considerate way to safeguard their position, but I do not think it would be reasonable to go further, and permit such a course of giving gratuities as suggested in this Amendment.
  VISCOUNT DE VESCI: Then I will withdraw it.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 83, line 27, after 'remuneration, insert 'allowance or compensation.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  THE MARQUESS OF ABERCORN: Who are the medical officers excepted by this proposal?
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND: Your Lordships may remember that my noble Friend, including the noble Duke, took a very great interest in the Irish medical poor law officers, and he felt very nervous and apprehensive at words being introduced which indicated plainly that it was necessary for anyone, to get the benefit of the section, to be an officer who gave up the whole of his time. I am told that a legal opinion has been given by a very high official, and I quite approve of your Lordships' anxiety at seeing those words in the clause. It is to meet that case that this Amendment has been accepted.
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 84, line 12, after 'officer,' insert 'who can be employed under the scheme.""—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 85, line 5, after 'of,' insert 'or for the purposes of.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
  Agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 85, lines 30 and 31, leave out 'their existing officers as to,' and insert 'such existing officers respecting.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
  Agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 87, line 28, after 'and,' insert 'except as respects a medical officer to whom the Medical Officers' Superannuation Act (Ireland), 1869, applies.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
  Agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 88, line 12, leave out from 'under,' to 'in,' in line 14, and insert 'a scheme made in pursuance of this part of this Act.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That the clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
  Agreed to.

  SCHEDULE 1.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 91, line 7, leave out from beginning of line to the end of line 12."—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 91, line 15, after 'forty,' insert 'so far as unrepealed.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That the first schedule, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
  Agreed to.

  SCHEDULE 2.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 93, line 20, after 'Galway,' insert 'Kingstown.'"—(Viscount de Vesci.)
  VISCOUNT DE VESCI: I can only repeat what I have said before, and remind your Lordships of what a prosperous place Kingstown is. I will contrast it with other boroughs as to population and rateable value. Limerick has a population of 37,000, whilst Water-ford has 27,000, and Kingstown a population of 17,500. Now, the rateable value of Limerick is £69,000, that of Waterford £53,000, whilst the rateable value of Kingstown is £78,000. I think that proves very clearly that Kingstown is far more prosperous than either Limerick or Waterford. It is a rising town, and, as the noble and learned Lord knows quite well, Kingstown, is a town which is likely to improve. And, in the probable event of Blackrock and Dalkey being added, the population of Kingstown would rise to 31,000, and the valuation to £140,000. Therefore, I think it is a matter that might surely be conceded by the Government at this stage of the Bill.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND: I have the greatest possible respect for Kingstown, which is a most attractive place, and many of the attractions are associated with the name of the noble Lord himself. But the Government could never look in the face the members of the ancient communities they have been so ruthlessly put aside, if they listened to a proposal to include a town which, although it was now an

  171
  exceedingly pleasant place, was known as Dunleary at the beginning of the century. It must depend upon legislation introduced independently for itself, when other interests can be considered. The matter has been gone into thoroughly since the incident occurred in reference to Galway the other evening, and I believe there are very considerable difficulties in reference to all these suggested changes.
  VISCOUNT DE VESCI: I beg leave to withdraw my Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

  SCHEDULE 3.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 94, line 15, after 'pawnbrokers,' leave out 'except the duty of £100 per annum paid by pawnbrokers in the Dublin Metropolitan Police area, which shall be paid to the Cor-

  SCHEDULE 6.
  Amendment proposed—"Page 97, line 7, at end insert—

  3 & 4 Will. 4 c. 37

  …

  An Act to alter and amend the laws relating to the temporalities of the church in Ireland

  Section seventy-two.

  3 & 4 Will. 4 c. 78

  …

  The Grand Juries (Ireland) Act, 1833

  Section seventy - four, from "Provided always" to the end of the section.—(Lord Ashbourne.)

  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 98, line 11, leave out 'section fifty-eight.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  poration of the City of Dublin.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That the third schedule, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
  Agreed to.

  SCHEDULE 5.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 96, line 45, at end, insert as a fresh paragraph, 'the Tramways (Ireland) Acts, 1860 to 1896.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That the fifth schedule, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
  Agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 99, line 4, after 'to,' insert 'received to any.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 100, line 55, leave out 'section fifty-nine.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 101, line 34, at the end of the line insert—

  11 & 12 Vict. c. 69

  …

  The Malicious Injuries (Ireland) Act, 1848

  Section two, from "Provided always that" to the end of the section.

  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.

  16 & 17 Vict. c. 38

  …

  The Malicious Injuries (Ireland) Act, 1853

  Section one, from "Provided always that" to the end of the section.

  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 103, line 21, leave out 'thirty-one,' and insert 'thirty.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)

  39 & 40 Vict. c. 76

  …

  The Municipal Privilege Act, Ireland 1876

  Section four, from "the Council of the city of Kilkenny" to "County of the town of Drogheda."

  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 107, line 31, leave out from 'seventy-nine from,' in line 31, to 'and,' in line 33, and insert 'that no deduction on account of,' down to 'provided also.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 107, line 40, leave out from 'same property' to 'lessor,' in line 44, both inclusive, and insert 'from the rent paid by him.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 108, line 41, leave out from 'eleven' to the end of line 45."—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 101, line 38, at the end of the line insert—
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 105, line 42, at end insert—
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 109, line 36, after 'eleven,' insert the words 'not being more than sixty years and.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 112, lines 7 and 8, leave out 'and from upon oath' to 'administer.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 112, line 25, leave out 'section forty-five.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 112, line 37, after 'thirty-six,' insert 'and in section thirty-eight the words 'not less than two-thirds of.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 112, line 42, leave out from 'nineteen' to 'and,' in line 46."—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed—
  "Page 114, lines 9 to 11, leave out in section eight the words 'declared by such order to be.'"—(Lord Ashbourne.)
  Question put.
  Amendment agreed to.
  "Motion made, and Question put—
  "That the sixth schedule, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
  Agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That this Bill be reported, as amended, to the House."
  Agreed to.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND: If it suits the convenience of your Lordships, I propose to take the Third Reading of the Local Government (Ireland) Bill to-morrow.

  VAGRANCY ACT AMENDMENT BILL.
  (Committee Stage.)
  LORD BELPER: I move—
  "That the House now resolve itself into Committee upon the Vagrancy Act Amendment Bill."
  Question put.
  Agreed to.
  No Amendments being proposed,
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That this Bill, without Amendments, be reported to the House."
  Agreed to.

  IRISH LAND ACTS.
  Motion made—
  "To move to resolve that the Report of the Fry Commission having condemned a large portion of the procedure heretofore adopted under the Irish Land Acts, it is desirable that immediate steps should be taken to give a fair trial to the reforms and alternative procedure recommended by that Commission."—(Marquess of Abercorn.)
  THE MARQUESS OF ABERCORN: My Lords, in bringing the Motion standing in my name, I must express regret for bringing this matter, at so late a period in the Session, before your Lordships' House, but the question is a very momentous one, and affects hundreds and thousands of people in Ireland—not only landlords, but tenants also, for the tenants are equally complaining with the other class at the inequality, expense, and injustice of the present proceedings of the Land Commission Courts. Now, my Lords, the Report of the Fry Commission was issued in February last, and since that time we have been waiting for some expression from the Government with regard to this Report, whether they would endeavour to carry out the suggestions and recommendations contained in it; but their utterances have been of small moment, and of no specific character, until the question was raised in the House of Commons on the 15th inst., by Colonel Saunderson. In his speech on that occasion the Chief Secretary for Ireland quoted passages to prove that the Fry Commission had acquitted the Land Commissioners of deliberate bias or unfairness in the fixing of rents, but we made no such charge against them in presenting our case before the Commission. He also referred to other passages in the Report in terms which convey the impression that he regarded them as a

  177
  finding by the Commission that rents had not, as a rule, been excessively reduced. We think, my Lords, that these passages bear no such construction. They really only convey that on this large question the Commission had not been able to arrive at any general conclusion. We are not surprised at this, for they admit that they only visited 10 farms in all Ireland, of which five were small holdings in the congested districts. None of these farms were selected by us as instances of our complaints; we do not know where most of them were, nor whether the landlords of them regarded the reductions which had been made as excessive, except in one case. These points, however, are, perhaps, details which could be more properly dealt with in a longer Debate than we anticipate on the present occasion. Our chief object now is to press upon the Government our view that, although there may be a few passages in the Report of the Corn-mission which may seem to some minds not entirely in our favour, we say, without hesitation, that, as a whole, the Report strongly and unanimously bears out the truth of our complaints, and makes recommendations calculated, in the opinion of the Commissioners, to put matters on a better footing. The Irish landlords accordingly urge that these recommendations should have a fair trial. They went to great expense in collecting evidence and employing counsel. They had always been calling for such an inquiry. If it had turned out that their complaints were unfounded, their position would have been very serious and humiliating. They took the risk of all this. They submitted their case to a mixed tribunal, presided over by a brilliant and impartial lawyer and publicist, whose opinions command universal respect. As regards previously expressed sympathies with either landlord or tenant, the Commission was fairly representative. The result of their most laborious inquiry has been a most remarkable document, signed by every one of them, which shows that, in addition to the flagrant wrong inflicted on the Irish landowner by depriving him of the control of his property, the administration of the Acts has been of the character complained of by the Irish landlords. The fact is that the charges made over
  178
  and over again, in this House and elsewhere, have been proved home. As I have said, we never alleged personal corruption against the Land Commission or its officials, and we did not make any such charge before the Commission. The answer that is now attempted to be made to us is this—
  "The Commissioners are proved to have been acting bonâ fide, and therefore you have nothing to complain of."
  This answer is founded on sentences in the Report, of which the following is one, and your Lordships will see it on page 26 of the Eeport—
  "But we are also convinced that the administration of justice has not been poisoned by any systematic endeavour on the part of the Commissioners, or of the Assistant Commissioners to benefit either side at the expense of the other."
  But this answer is clearly answered by the first part of the same sentence, which is as follows—
  "The settlement of fair rents has been effected in an unsatisfactory manner—with diversity of opinion and practice, sometimes with carelessness, and sometimes with that bias towards one side or the other which exists in many honest minds."
  The Commissioners admit that, in their opinion, the settlement has been effected in an unsatisfactory manner, and we have proved that these great changes involved ruinous loss on hundreds, and have been made on no principle whatever; that every sub-commission "was a law unto itself," and "has done what was right in its own eyes." The landowners also proved that the appeal to the Chief Commissioners was little better than a farce, inasmuch as the court to hear appeals from sub-commissioners was merely registering the valuation of other sub-commissioners—called court valuers—whose valuations were not liable to be tested in any way in the superior courts. As regards this question, we simply ask that the Land Commission should give a trial to the form of procedure which has been recommended by the Fry Commission. The subject is technical, but, fortunately, the Commission included two gentlemen whose professional opinions on such a question, are of the highest value, and

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  they say, inter alia, that, as tests of the correctness of the first valuation, the appeal valuers should proceed as follows—

  "(1) They should not be furnished with the pink schedule, but should be furnished with a map and description of the property; and

  "(2) They should not know the findings of the Court below."

  Now, we challenge the Land Commission to try this system, and we do so because we hear it said that if they did try it the discrepancies and differences in many cases between the two sets of valuations would be most extraordinary, and would totally discredit the whole procedure, by showing that it is, as we have always alleged, merely a farce. But if it is really a farce, we ask, are the Land Commission entitled to refuse to allow its true character to be exposed and proved, and are we to continue to suffer by their refusal? I need not, my Lords, recapitulate the other numerous abuses of which the Irish landlord has been the victim. The Report of the Commission sets them forth in an authoritative way that cannot be challenged. Public attention has at last been, called to the subject, and I am convinced that it is incumbent upon the Government to give effect to the Report at the earliest possible moment. No matter what devices are resorted to in order to minimise the effect of this Report, no reasonable man can form any other opinion than this, that Sir Edward Fry and his brother commissioners, after thoroughly mastering the subject, arrived at the conclusion that the administration of the Acts had been most unsatisfactory from beginning to end. But it may be asked: how are these recommendations to be carried into effect? We all quite recognise that it is impossible to go back on the land legislation of past years. The right of having rents fixed by an outside tribunal, the right of fixity of tenure, and the right of free sale are now secured to the tenant, and are unassailable; but what we demand is, that in securing such rights for the tenants, some regard should be had to the rights of the landlords also. For you must remember that it is at their expense you have conferred all these benefits on the tenants, without a shilling of compensation to the land-
  180
  lord. Effect can be given to these recommendations in nine cases out of 10 by the Land Commission framing rules, and without any fresh legislation on this subject. I am very glad to observe that the Land Commission have already, in their rules, adopted some of the suggestions of the Commission, and I hope that in the interests of justice they will adopt many more. But rules will not give effect to all the recommendations of the Royal Commission. I quite acknowledge the great trouble taken by the Chief Secretary in selecting sub-commissioners, but I think that they ought to be obliged to pass an examination in the subjects with which they have to deal, as recommended by the Royal Commission. I am convinced that if such a Commission existed in England, the examination for sub-commissioners to apply the Act would be a very crucial one in this country. Some of the recommendations can only be carried into effect by legislation. On that, for the present, I do not wish to speak. It is a delicate subject to touch on, as the Irish landowner has almost been legislated out of existence. The Royal Commissioners were unable to deal with the notorious 40th section of the Act of 1896. The great argument in the Court of Appeal was then pending. I feel certain, if they had known the result, the Commissioners would have suggested the repeal of that section. I think nearly everybody in this House understood the section in the sense put upon it by the dissentient judges.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND: No, no! I do not agree, and I am a lawyer.
  THE MARQUESS OF ABERCORN: Well, lawyers are not infallible. If my noble Friend the Lord Chancellor of Ireland had expounded it as he afterwards did in the Court of Appeal, the section would have been struck out of the Bill by this House without hesitation. I do not think it just that what was passed under a mistake should be allowed to remain on the Statute Book. I also consider the recommendations of the Fry Commission on the subject of purchase of great weight. Your legislation in Ireland has reduced the Irish Land Laws to such a state that purchase is the only

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  remedy. You owe it to those whose property the State has diminished or destroyed, that the State should go very far in providing remedies, or some remedy, at any rate. I have, my Lords, only spoken of the matters dealt with in the Report in a general way. I have not gone into specific particulars. Other speakers will probably deal with these points, but I venture to hope that what I have said has satisfied this House that such a report calls for the earliest possible attention. I understand that in his speech in the House of Commons the Chief Secretary for Ireland promised that the recommendations of the Commission would have his careful attention during the Recess. I have heard this with great satisfaction, and I willingly admit that the calls on the right honourable Gentleman's time during the present Session were such as to make it, perhaps, difficult for him to undertake additional work; but, my Lords, I am bound to remember, also, that the maladministration which the Report discloses is ruining thousands of Irish landowners, and I feel sure that this fact will appear to your Lordships to justify my urging that such action as the Government may be able to take should be taken without any unnecessary delay. But, my Lords, while urging this, I must also say that these reforms can never compensate the Irish landlords for the injuries inflicted on them by this legislation. I, therefore, earnestly trust that next Session will see a serious effort on the part of the Government to give us some of those measures of compensation or relief which have been so often promised to us, especially as regards tithe-rent charge, and other State charges in Ireland. These, I know, my Lords, are very difficult and intricate matters, but they are subjects very dear at heart to the Irish landowners, and if the Government during the Recess would undertake to legislate next Session on some of these points, I am sure that they would meet with the universal approval, not only of the landowning class in Ireland, but also of the tenant farmers as well.
  LORD FARNHAM: Bearing in mind, as I do, the short time that has taken place since I took my seat in your Lord-
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  ships' House, I rise with considerable diffidence to address you in this Debate, and I should not have done so were it not for my sense of the vital importance of this question, and also to the fact that we are quite alive to the fact that the opportunities which are given to land lords to vindicate their position, and express their feelings before the Government, are few and far between. I therefore crave your Lordships' indulgence while I endeavour to point out to you a few of the many causes for which we have every reason to express our dissatisfaction with the mode of the sub-commissioners, and the manner in which our criticisms from time to time have been borne out by the findings of the Fry Commission. My Lords, there is one thing, I think, that we may take as fairly established, and that is that the action of the Commissioners has pleased no one. The landlords are certainly not satisfied with them, and the tenants have no confidence in them. In the recent Debate in another place, I was struck by the unanimity with which Members representing the tenants' interest spoke with little confidence of the sub-commissioners, and the manner in which they performed their duties. It is true that they spoke of the sub-commissioners as being packed in favour of the landlords. It is true that they said that they were terrorised into not reducing the rents enough by fear of, what I do not exactly accept, their action being criticised in public. Well, it has been pronounced to be unsatisfactory by the Fry Commission, which was appointed to inquire into it. Now they say that the Commission is suspected by the landlords of reducing rents—of unfairly reducing rents—in favour of the tenants, and that it is suspected by the tenants of not reducing them enough, and that on all sides its action is not free from suspicion. They regret that this suspicion exists. It is our contention that a tribunal such as this should be raised far above the suggestion of any criticism, and it should be one in which all parties should have perfect confidence. It is a remarkable thing, and I think it shows in very strong characters the perseverance of the present Members of the Front Benches in both Houses of Parliament, that 12 years ago they prophesied

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  exactly what has come about as the result of the legislation of the year 1881. We were told then that the Sub-Commissioners would not be such as to command respect. We were told that they should be men of judicial training, and that, under that Bill, litigation would be incessant, universal, and lead to angry feelings. In fact, if we were to go through those speeches of the members of the then Opposition, we should find that their prophecies have been fulfilled to a very remarkable extent. We are told also, my Lords, by the head Commissioners themselves that the Commission is not as satisfactory as it should be. Even they admit that, in many points, it is capable of improvement. Commissioner FitzGerald, in his evidence, said—
  "I do not know what other qualifications we could have prescribed, except the qualification of being competent surveyors."
  But surely there are many qualifications in valuing land which should go hand-in-hand with a thorough knowledge of the value of land, besides that of being a competent surveyor. Mr. Commissioner FitzGerald goes on to say that he does not think such a staff would have been procurable. In another part of his evidence he states—
  "I quite acknowledge that if you could get men who, in addition to being good surveyors, were also good valuers, it would be best; but you cannot get a sufficient number of men so qualified."
  And, again—
  "I think it is desirable that everyone should be permanent, but in this case it is absolutely impracticable and impossible."
  Now, Commissioner O'Brien disagrees with this. He says, in the first place—
  "The duty of defining the qualifications of assistant commissioners is distinctly placed upon the Land Commission, but they have practically prescribed no qualification—practical acquaintance with the value of land is a very vague qualification."
  In another place he says—
  "If it did not suit the Treasury to appoint them for a long period, I think they should, at all events, be given a reasonable tenure of their office. I would recommend that they
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  should have a tenure of office of at least six or seven years."
  That is a very different treatment from the treatment which the Assistant Commissioners receive now. They are often paid by the year, and sometimes only by the day. He goes on to say—
  "I do not think there would be any difficulty whatever in obtaining a sufficient supply of competent men. I do not agree with the evidence of Mr. Commissioner FitzGerald at all. In my opinion, there are numbers of men who are practically acquainted with the value of land in Ireland, and who also have a competent knowledge of surveying."
  Our contention is that, in cases like this, where hundreds of millions of property have been transferred from the owners to the occupier, we have a right to assume that the tribunal shall be one of the most competent, with the highest qualifications which are procurable in the country. I should like to touch upon one point which I omitted in an earlier part of my remarks, and that is the point in which those who represent the feelings of the tenants have brought an accusation against the Sub-Commissioners which we, as landlords, would never have thought of bringing forward, and it is a very remarkable one. It is this: that the appointment of the Fry Commission and their investigations have had an appreciable effect upon the Sub-Commissioners, and have restrained them from reducing rents to the extent that they had previously done. That is a very grave accusation indeed. It was made in the House of Commons by Serjeant Hemphill. He is reported as saying that—
  "He believed that the Sub-Commissioners were honourable men, who tried to do their duty, but they could not help feeling that at any time they might be dismissed from their office. Since the Commission had reported, the reductions of rent had suddenly ceased, and he could not help connecting the two things."
  Before the Fry Commission Mr. Harrington said—
  "There is a strong impression among the tenantry of Ireland that the Sub-Commissioners can be influenced by the court procedure here, or by questions proved here, to alter their practice, and so alter it as to prevent them from discharging their duty—a duty which we call upon them to discharge impartially towards the tenants and landlords alike."

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  Sir E. Fry said—
  "Surely that is a very grave charge to make against the Sub-Commissioners; they are not to be frightened by the mere putting of questions to them while before this Commission. That is the gravest charge I have yet heard against them."
  If that is true, if that is the fact that, upon the first breath of public examination, upon the first glimmer of the searchlight of public investigation, the Sub-Commissioners have altered their procedure and have altered the rate at which they are reducing the rents, I say that that, and that alone, is sufficient to prove that they are an incompetent tribunal, and one in which we can have no confidence. When we are discussing the question of the probability of providing a sufficient number of competent men, I should like to point out to your Lordships one way in which, if it had been adopted from the beginning, so large a number of men would not have been required, and had those men been more competent they would have had less to do. The State, in its wisdom, decreed that the right of free contract was no longer to exist between occupiers and owners in Ireland. The State took upon itself the task of fixing fair rents between them, and, having done so, and accepted that great responsibility which then devolved upon the State, I maintain that the State should spare neither pains nor money in order to make the tribunal which they have appointed for the purpose as efficient as possible. But will it be believed that the State, having taken that great responsibility upon itself, having appointed a special tribunal for the express purpose of fixing fair rents, from that day to this no single individual can tell you what is meant by "fair rent"? It is a phrase which conveys no meaning, and you can find no meaning attaching to it, if you endeavour to inquire into it. Speaking on this subject in the Lower House, the Chief Secretary said—
  "No rent can be fixed that both landlord and tenant would agree upon as fair."
  That remark I thoroughly endorse. It would be indeed a new departure in the history of litigation if a tribunal could be established under which, after verdict
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  or judgment had been given, both parties would come away equally satisfied. That is not the point in this case. It is not the establishing of the rent which will satisfy all parties after it has been fixed, but it is the establishing of such principles of fixing that rent that, when the landlords and tenants come into court, they shall know on what general principles and under what rules they are going to be judged. In the pink schedule, a copy of which I have in my hand, we find minute particulars on the right-hand side giving the deductions to be made for buildings, fences, and other improvements made by the tenant, but on the left-hand side, where the gross rent from which those reductions are to be made is laid down, no particulars are given, excepting merely what the Sub-Commissioner's opinion is as to the value per acre of the land. It does not say how he arrives at that opinion. It does not say what is the gross productive area of the land, what proportion should be given to the landlord. It does not say what the actual definition of fair rent is; and what we claim, my Lords, is that, when we are presented with this carven image in the shape of a fair fixed rent, we shall know more particularly what the original block was from which that image was hewed—what were its dimensions, and how those dimensions were arrived at. We maintain that a clear and accurate definition of what is meant by a fair rent should have been laid down and publicly made known; and the process by which that rent was to be arrived at, and the factors that were to be taken into consideration in giving it, should have been embodied in a carefully drawn code of instructions for the guidance of the Sub-Commissioners and the information of the public. If that had been done, instead of sending out some 80 Sub-Commissioners coming from different parts of the country—from different professions, of different social standing, and mode of living—each individual one to work out as best he could some workable definition of a fair rent, and how it was to be arrived at, I venture to say the difficulty as to finding efficient Sub-Commissioners would not have arisen; a smaller number would have been able to do the work, because, if once for all we knew exactly upon

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  what principles those fair rents were arrived at, we could form a very good estimate as to what the finding of the Sub-Commissioners would be, and in numberless cases which have gone into court a settlement would have been arrived at outside; and, more than that, if a smaller number of more competent men had been appointed in the capacity or Sub-Commissioners—men who would have commanded more confidence on ell sides—then a few findings in some districts would have been taken as precedents in others, and there would have been more settlements out of court in view of those findings. The Fry Commission itself, when it was examining into the method of fixing fair rents, absolutely came to a standstill, although they had for their own purposes defined a general idea what a fair rent was. They say, on page 20 of their Report—
  "The discussion into which we have been compelled to enter with regard to the practice in the ascertainment of fair rent has led us some way towards an explanation for ourselves of the meaning to be attributed to the two words 'fair rent.' We repeat that we have throughout felt that one of the most important questions on which we were required by your Majesty to express our opinion is, how far the present practice and methods of valuation carry into effect the intention of the Legislature in the fixing of fair rent; and, further, that it was impossible for us to answer that question without explaining to ourselves the meaning which we placed on the words. We should have hailed with the greatest satisfaction a judicial explanation of the words 'fair rent'; but in default of this we have done our best to understand them; and it is right that we should state the conclusion at which we have arrived."
  It was absolutely necessary to them, in order to inquire into the proceedings of the Sub-Commissioners, to satisfy themselves upon some definition as to what a fair rent was, and yet we have those Sub-Commissioners going over the country for 16 or 17 years settling rents, and during the whole of that time such a definition has never been laid down or given to them for their instruction or guidance. While a Commission of specially qualified experts were compelled to formulate for their own guidance as to what was meant by a gross fair rent in order to enable them to proceed with their investigation, the Sub-Commis-
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  sioners, not specially qualified, have for 16 years been light-heartedly transferring property to the amount or millions from owner to occupier without any such definition and without any rules for their general guidance. We can imagine, then, the dissatisfaction, the anxiety, and the uncertainty which the landlord feels when he goes into a Sub-Commissioner's court. The whole thing partakes of something of the nature or a gamble. The tenants' hopes have been raised so high as to the amount of extra deductions they will get, that they refuse to assent to any settlement offered by the landlord, and the landlord is debarred by the extravagant demands made by the tenants from settling out of court. The uncertainty as to what the finding of the Sub-Commissioner will be, the impossibility of forming any idea as to what the decision may be, has turned the whole thing into a gamble, so they trust to the turn of the cards and the humour of the situation. When the Sub-Commissioner has heard all the evidence, he leaves the town where he heard the case, and judgment is delivered in some town miles away. The landlord receives the information on the face of a halfpenny card, and all he knows is that, whereas heretofore he had been receiving a rent of £30, he is now to receive only £20. Naturally, he feels indignant, and, naturally, he appeals for a rehearing. And now we will pass to the head court and its procedure. The case comes before the head Commissioners, and a gentleman, who is called a court valuer, is appointed to go and view the farm. This is a rehearing of the case, and we expect to have an independent judgment upon the oases, but what do we find? We find that this court valuer, who is supposed to be independent, in settling the case, is provided with the pink schedule, which is filled up by the Sub-Commissioners in the court below. He goes with that in his hands; he examines the farm, and in many cases—almost every one—he merely says "ditto" to the Sub-Commissioners. Between the time of the first inspection of the Sub-Commissioners and the time that the pink schedule is in the hands of the landlord or his representative, the delay is so great that it is practically

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  of no use to him, and the Fry Commission Reports—
  "By the rules now in force a period of two months is given after the making of a fair rent order by a Sub-Commission for either party to demand a rehearing; and a right is also given to obtain a copy of the pink schedule on payment of a fee. It is evident that no wise litigant would determine whether or not to apply for a rehearing without seeing this schedule; and yet it appears that there are frequent delays in furnishing it to the litigants, and delays often of considerable length, sometimes so long as to preclude the possibility of considering its contents before a rehearing is asked for. This also appears to us to be a subject of just complaint, and in our opinion, the officers of the Land Commission should be required to send the copy within a specified number of days after receipt of the application for it."
  So that the document which is supposed to be given to the landlord to enable him to decide upon what grounds his case is settled, and whether it has been fairly decided or not, very often does not come into his hands until it is too late for him to be guided by it as to whether he should appeal or not. Now as to the method of rehearing. The first remark of the Fry Commission is, no witness, with, perhaps, a single expert, has spoken in defence of the existing system. That is the system by which this court valuer is sent out with the pink schedule in his hands to arrive at the valuation of the farm. They are pleased to call him an independent valuer, and he is furnished with two forms, A and B, which he is to fill in and observe; he is furnished with an alternative form of report; the one form, A, stating shortly an agreement in omnibus with the findings of the pink schedule, and the other form, B, which they were directed to use if they saw reason to differ substantially from the pink schedule. The court valuer has absolutely, on many occasions, simply copied the pink schedule. That is proved beyond a doubt from the Report—
  "The investigation of the court valuer, as hitherto carried on, cannot be considered an independent one. He generally considered himself bound by the decision of the Sub-Commission as to what improvements were to be allowed for; he admittedly accepted much on the strength of the pink schedule under appeal, and he was left at liberty to determine for himself what is a substantial difference from the previous findings."
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  We have a record of a case in which a very remarkable thing occurred, which has been already alluded to, in which, the tenant gave his evidence in terms of the Irish perch; and in converting the Irish perch into statute perches, instead of making the calculation at the ratio of lineal measure, it was made on the ratio of square measure, thereby very much increasing the number of perches which the tenant should be allowed for drains. That is a mistake which ought never to have occurred anywhere, and yet these figures, with these glaring mistakes in them, were copied figure by figure into the report of the court valuer; and I know of another case of an estate in Ireland where a Sub-Commissioner reported certain land as bog. The landlord drew the attention of the court valuer to that, and said, "Is it bog?" The court valuer replied, "No, that is corn land," and yet, when he made his report, it was identical to that of the pink schedule of the Sub-Commissioner. This court valuer's report is accepted as final by the Land Commission. Evidence which, if we appeal on matters of value, we are bound to produce, is not listened to, and we ask, what is the good of going on with evidence in the face of the court valuer's report? I would like to call attention to some of Mr. Commissioner O'Brien'a opinions as to the value of the court valuer's report. He says—
  "I think it is an essential thing to a just decision in these cases. One of the grave difficulties that I find on appeal is that everything is left as vague as possible. Of course, the court valuer will give as few reasons as he can."
  Again, he says about rehearings—
  "I think that the pace is such as to make the proper consideration of the cases that come before us impossible"—
  and he goes on to describe it as "racing through the hearings." Be it remembered that these court valuers, whose report is permitted to have, "in a very great number of cases, an almost decisive effect," are not sworn on appointment, are not sworn in court, whose very report is not on oath, are, in the Land Commission parlance, described as "independent," though the Royal Commission say—
  "These investigations as hitherto carried on cannot be considered as independent ones."

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  There is a very remarkable passage in Mr. O'Brien's evidence. He says, talking of the evidence given by the landlord and by the tenant—
  "I do not think the evidence on either side, if it came from a troop of archangels, would displace the evidence of the Report."
  So that when we come forward with our evidence, and we are confronted with the report of this being who occupies this high celestial place, I suggest he must be something higher than the archangels. I submit that we are not in the rehearing of our cases receiving that investigation to which we are entitled. We have been encouraged to hope that, when the Irish Local Government Bill has been disposed of, the Government will be inclined, "at some future date," to take into consideration the recommendations of the Fry Commission. I trust that future date is not far distant, as in the meantime there are men in Ireland who see nothing before them but ruin and exile. The reductions of the first 15 years have, whether just or unjust, condemned many to leave the home of their fathers and live among strangers. Further reductions in the immediate future will penetrate still further into the ranks of the Irish gentry; and we appeal to the Government to take steps to place the tribunal, at whose mercy we are, above the reach of suspicion, both as to its constitution and procedure. When a great Imperial question was trembling in the balance we refrained from agitating for the redress of grievances which we felt none the less acutely, and decided that, at any cost to ourselves, the issue should be placed before the people of Great Britain clear and unobscured by comparatively minor questions, at any rate, as far as we were concerned. In the fight for the maintenance of the Union we have suffered more than others; but we do not come here to-day to ask for any exceptional treatment on account of any services we may have rendered, but we do ask for the merest justice, and we appeal to that common sense and that spirit of fair play upon the possession of which every Englishman prides himself, and in which he rejoices as the foundation of our laws and the basis of our social life.
  LORD CLANRICARDE: There is one definition of the Land Court decision which I think has not yet been advertised—that it is one which a solvent middleman will not take from a subtenant. There is one note of warning cognate to this question, and which I am anxious to submit to your Lordships before this discussion closes. In forming an opinion upon the conduct and methods of the Land Commission, we have especially to be on our guard against one misleading superstition. I pointed it out because time after time it has been, put forward with undue levity by those who ought to know better; I mean the assumption that the depression on agriculture has fallen as heavily on Ireland as on England. We accept that unchallenged, but a glance will show that it is quite untenable; it begs the whole question. In 1846, the time of the famine in Ireland, rent absolutely disappeared. If the circumstances are similar they would disappear in England too; but rents slightly went up, because circumstances differed. This is the argument to which I have objected, because the circumstances differ in the two countries to such an extent as to preclude their being analogous, and the argument from analogy is entirely misleading, proverbially misleading. At present, the cases, however, have been reversed as compared to the cases in the past. At present the cultivation of farming in England has been lamentable beyond words, both on public and other grounds. In Ireland tenants have been adding to their savings bank deposits. In England tenancies have gone a-begging; in Ireland they have fetched large sums. There has been a dearth of candidates, for farms in England, while in Ireland candidates have even been boycotted to stop the glut, and so on. Circumstances, differ so widely that the wiser and candid will beware of the misleading argument by analogy, and will judge the cases by the facts and by the evidence. In order to support my contention with facts and with evidence, I ought perhaps, before I sit down, to call attention for a moment or two to such cases in point as bear out my contention, but, on the understanding that I have plenty of other cases, I will only invite attention to two alone. I point to them in particular

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  because they happen to be by chance: one, the first land case in 1881, on a large estate proverbially low let, of which I have knowledge; and the second, the latest land case in 1898, on the same estate; consequently, they help us to get an idea of the devastation—intentional or not—wrought by the Land Court from the beginning. In the earlier case the tenant began by being a subtenant; as such, he paid to the middleman half as much again as the middleman paid the landlord; that is to say, where the middleman paid £10, the subtenant paid him £15. At the death of the middleman the sub-tenant asked for the farm, and the landowner gave it at the old low rent, so that the sub-tenant got off somewhere about 35 per cent. of the rents he had continued to pay to the middleman as long as it was demanded, which is very strong evidence that the landlord was letting his farm at somewhere about 53 per cent. below its commercial value. But though the sub-tenant was willing to pay the middleman £15, he objected to pay the landlord even £10 for the same article. He went to the court, and the court cut down this rent very nearly 2s. in the £. Being the first case, it was watched as a test case, with the result that independent experts were forced to the conclusion that the 30 per cent. abatement more than adequately met the depression of 1881, and that the court was determined to cut down the rents regardless of the merits of the cases. The second case was of another kind. The tenant only took the farm about four years ago in the actual condition of the occupancy market, and pleaded that he had taken it long ago in good times, and that the subsequent depression had made the rent too high. The farm was a pasture farm—not in tillage—no house and no building. The tenant consequently could not plead that any additional rent he had paid would have been for building or for land improvements, but he so well knew the rent was low, that over and above the rent he did pay to the outgoing tenant, he paid between five and six years' purchase in addition. Having thus backed up his opinion that the rent was low, he told the Land Court it was too high, and the court cut it down 14 per cent. It is quite unnecessary to say that it is no
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  business of the court to know or ascertain such facts, but that in itself is not a sound position to take up. The point is that such facts are emphatic evidence that the rents are low, and that the machinery is defective. It reminds us of a clever machine invented by a well-known man of our time for cutting down timber; it did cut down timber stupendously, but it had one fatal defect, which landed those concerned in insolvency; it always cut down the wrong timber. That is what the Land Court is doing; it is always cutting down the wrong thing, and such results as that have put an end to all confidence in the safety of men's homes in Ireland, and the stability of ownership, which is at the foundation of all stability, and has thereby stopped the inflow of capital into Ireland. It is the worst thing that could have happened, and the evidence of the Fry Commission will still further confirm that alarm; so much so, that surely we are fairly entitled to hope and expect that it will at length awaken public attention to the necessity of attacking the mischief.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND: My Lords, it is necessary in any discussion on the Fry Commission and its Report to bear in mind that the scope of the inquiry was necessarily confined and narrow. The Commission was not appointed to make a general inquiry into all the allegations that have been made against the administration of the land laws by the Land Commission, nor to consider all the charges that have been framed against it on the part of either landlords or tenants. It was appointed for a narrow and specific object, which was clearly defined and confined to two topics, and the Fry Commission, in its Report—a balanced Report—by no means found that a great many of the charges that have been preferred on the part of the landlords and the tenants have been made out. It could be ascertained at once, on reference to the Report of the Fry Commission, that they felt the responsibility of dealing with the characters of men who were placed in the enormously difficult position of administering the Act of 1881. I agree with what has been said, that it would be nearly impossible to find any men who,

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  if put to administer such an Act, before whom, such a problem was set as to measure fair rents, would acquit themselves of the enormously difficult duty in a way that would give satisfaction to both parties, or either. The problem is one of infinite difficulty and complexity, and as far as their character is concerned I am bound to say this on behalf of the Commissioners, that they have come out of the inquiry with their honour and integrity and rectitude unassailed and entirely uncondemned. The Fry Commission pointed out that, as a whole—
  "The Assistant Commissioners and the court valuers have striven honestly, and to the best of their ability, to discharge the difficult duties cast upon them, and it is plain that their work is now done with more care and deliberation than in the early days of the Land Commission."
  Now, it is obvious that that is a finding of the very highest importance at the very threshhold of the question, and although it found that there was suspicion, I would like to know what kind of tribunal could ever be got to administer this Act of Parliament that there would not be suspicions about. Before they were appointed for a week there would be suspicions on all sides. But in reference to these suspicions the Commission is careful to point out how little they may be justified by the facts, and that many of the suspicions are doubtless entirely unfounded, and they mention that in first fixing the fair rents they were inclined to consider that the abatement then made was not, on the whole, excessive. These are important facts, and they also considered the argument made on the contrast between the prices given for tenant right and the prices for fair rents, and they did not take that in the way that was suggested by the landowners with such insistence and force of argument. They also discounted the argument advanced on the contrast between the fall of prices and the reductions of rent. It will be found, on reading the Commissioners' Report, that there are many things that each side would like to criticise before accepting it without qualification and without hesitation. The Report said—
  "We recognise that rents in Ireland have been greatly reduced; but it is notorious that
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  causes of a general character have operated to depress the rentals of all parts of the United Kingdom."
  And this Commission deemed it right, in dealing with this important question of the character and the integrity, and in the method in which these Sub-Commissioners performed their difficult duties, to state, with the greatest emphasis—
  "We thus feel ourselves unable to conclude that the machinery of the Land Statutes has been uniformly worked with injustice towards landlords."
  And later—
  "We are also convinced that the administration of justice has not been poisoned by any systematic endeavour on the part of the Commissioners or of the Assistant Commissioners to benefit either side at the expense of the other."
  It is only fair, on behalf of these gentlemen who have had serious and unpopular duties cast upon them, to mention these findings. Of course, that does not affect the general administration of the Act, and whether it is open to the criticisms which have been urged against it, and repeated against it with such force and vigour, I do not think is a question now for me to go into. It is a novel position to ma to be in, to have to explain everything connected with the Act of 1881. There was no more strenuous opponent of that Act, and no more resolute critic, when it was going through the House of Commons; but that Act, for weal or for woe, laid down that the fixing of a fair rent should be cast upon this tribunal. Admittedly, that was an immensely difficult task, and I question if any tribunal can be devised or suggested that will give satisfaction to both sides, and which will also quiet suspicion and allay uneasiness. It is said that they were wrong in not earlier defining, or attempting to define, fair rent. I am told that that will come before the courts, and possibly before me. The Act itself, however, when an opportunity was given to it of defining a Pair rent, shrank from the task and did not define it, so that some consideration should be given to those who are given the administration of the Act, which itself declined the difficulty of a definition. The Fry Commission Report spoke in

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  reference to land purchase as if it were delayed by reason of the Irish Land Act of 1896. I am not prepared to accept that statement. I believe that the Act of 1896 has facilitated and developed and encouraged land purchase, and the figures overwhelmingly demonstrate the truth of what I am saying. No figures were given to-night relating to this immense question. One of the great remedial circumstances connected with land administration in Ireland is the growth of land purchase, and if it can be shown that land purchase was retrograding, or not in favour, or paralysed, I assume that would be an immense fact, and one that would be looked into with the keenest anxiety, to find out what was the cause of such a disastrous state of affairs. Land purchase is growing every day, and is in thorough development. Applications for loans under the Land Purchase Act received in the year ending 31st March, 1897, numbered 2,783, and the total amount applied for wag £776,410; and in the year ending 31st March, 1898, the figure had increased to the substantial extent of 6,405 applications, with a total amount applied for of £1,824,652. It is hard to realise a more rapid and a more decisive growth, showing the vigour with which this system is now working in Ireland; and in the very last six months that we can deal with—that ending the 30th of June of the present year—the number of advances applied for was 4,130, whereas on the 30th June, 1897, the number of advances applied for was 2,993. So that it is obvious that this great operation of land purchase is now proceeding in Ireland with vigour and with effect; and I now part from the subject with one word in reference to the section in which my noble Friend the noble Duke prefers his opinion to mine. There are, doubtless, a great many other people in the same position, but I may be excused if I say that on a law question I prefer my opinion to that of the noble Duke. What do I find? One would think, by what my noble Friend said of the 40th section of the Act of 1896—that which enabled a vigorous dealing with estates under receivers, and which had been in the Land Court for a long time—that it was a clear failure, and had caused
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  evil and catastrophe and disaster. But that is not so. As long as the tribunals differed on the construction and extent of their powers, of course, there was a deadlock, but when the decision of the Court of Appeal, which my noble Friend does not accept, as representative of the highest reasoning, was given, the deadlock ceased, and the section is now in fair and reasonable operation. I am not going to wade through figures, but I may say that 204 holdings on 14 estates have been actually purchased, and that nearly £50,000 has been advanced. Requests have been lodged in the Land Commission on as many as 81 estates. The section is working, and there is no reason for supposing it will not continue to work, and I believe it will work with effect and with success. Now, it is true, as was pointed out by the noble Duke, that these recommendations, made by the Fry Commission have to be looked at with discernment. Some of them can be worked out by rules if approved of. Of course, the Report has to be examined critically. You do not at once adopt every single syllable of a Report like that. A Commission makes its Report, refers to its evidence, and then its Report is to be considered, examined, and judged with great respect, and with every consideration given to it. As I have pointed out, some of these recommendations can be carried out by rules framed by the Commissioners themselves, some can be carried out after negotiation with the Treasury, some can be carried out only by the aid of legislation. Now, the Government have no control over the Rules of the Land Commission. The Land Commission is an independent body which makes its own rules of its own motion, subject only to the condition of laying them before the Houses of Parliament. But it is right to say this: that the Land Commission, although one volume of evidence was only circulated, a considerable time after the Commission sat, and another volume is not yet before the public, containing the papers and memoranda that were relied upon by them, have not been idle in the matter. Their work is now immense, because they have to deal with the great increase of figures, and the second term applications—an enormous number of cases, to be counted

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  by the thousand, before the Assistant Commissioners, and also before the Land Commissioners themselves. Notwithstanding that the Land Commission has applied itself with the greatest vigour and energy to the consideration of all the recommendations of the Fry Commission, with an honest and earnest desire to do what they could in adopting such recommendations as commended themselves at the time, I know that when the Long Vacation comes they intend to apply themselves further, and to consider it with the most anxious and eager desire to work out any reforms that they think reasonable and right. I will tell you what they have done. A new form of valuers' report has been drained, accompanied by an instruction designed to secure greater care and accuracy in the matter of instruction, valuation, and report. It has also been decided to transmit to the Assistant Commissioners a report of important questions decided by the Land Commissioners of the Court of Appeal. I attach great importance to that. Up to this time the Assistant Commissioners were left to the accident of whether they heard any conversation, or saw in the newspapers, as to what was decided in the superior tribunals. But now it is determined that a report of all the important decisions will be sent to the Assistant Commissioners for their guidance. An alternative procedure dependent on the consent of the parties has been promulgated as well. It is a matter requiring a great deal of care. I must remind your Lordships of this circumstance. When the Land Act of 1896 was in the House of Commons there was contained in it a carefully-framed and most elaborate alternative provision. It was worked out with the most extreme care and minuteness, with an earnest and honest desire to facilitate decisions being arrived at without cost, delay, or litigation. I do not believe it received anything like support upon either side, and the result was, it had to be cut out; and now, that having been the attitude; of the Government in this matter, the Fry Commission report, practically, that the Government were right in their endeavour to deal with this in the Act of 1896, and they have recommended an alternative procedure, which, I am told by those who
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  have gone into the matter with closeness, would require legislation to carry it into effect, and would be ultra vires if it was sought to be applied without legislation. But the Land Commissioners themselves applied their own power of framing rules to formulating an alternative procedure, dependent upon the consent of the parties for its adoption, and that has now been promulgated, and I look to it with a reasonable hope, at all events, that it may accomplish a simplification and a cheapening of this process of ascertaining a fair rent. There is another thing that they have done. The suggestion as to the inspection of drains is a very important matter—it commended itself to everyone, and that has been incorporated in the instruction to valuers. A copy of the pink Schedule will be sent to the applicants within a limited and satisfactory number of days after the application. The practice of communicating the valuer's report to the parties will also be resumed. Speaking, myself, as a man without any particularly close knowledge of the working out of the details of the administration of the Act, it seems to me to be only fair to communicate the valuers' reports to both parties. I think it is most wise and most prudent. It gives to each party an opportunity of knowing where they are, and what they have to meet, and if they think it well and proper to see one another, and say, "We may as well drop litigation; we are here together, and may agree with a little adjustment of the figures on either side"; then that will be a great work achieved. I am sure that there is honest work done. Considering the difficulties of their position, and the time at their disposal, they have been tremendously hard-worked men ever since this Report came out, and I trust and hope that during the Long Vacation they will apply themselves steadily to this question, with a view to seeing whether they cannot adopt and incorporate any further improvements in the machine that is handed them to work. My Lords, criticisms have been made, and not unnaturally made, upon the tenure of office of the Assistant Commissioners, bat again I protest that I am in a novel position in having to defend the machinery and the work of the Act of

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  1881. I am not an advocate of the Act, because I was an opponent of it; but I say that the machinery of the Act exists, whether for weal or for woe, and it has to be worked out by the Assistant Commissioners, and it would be a lavish waste of public money to make these gentlemen, no matter how respected or trustworthy, permanent officers of State, with a right to substantial and large salaries, carrying with these salaries a right to pensions. The necessity for their employment varies enormously from time to time sometimes eight will do, and sometimes 30, 40 80 and more are required. I agree with this, and every possible effort should be made to ensure that none but men of character and repute, and impartiality and proved knowledge, should be selected for this difficult and responsible office. I know that enormous pains are taken, at present upon this subject in order to try and get men that are to be relied upon to stand fairly and impartially between man and man in the settlement of this difficult problem of ensuring a fair rent between landlord and tenant—an enormously difficult and complicated question. Every effort is now being made, and I know that consideration has been recently given to this, whether further tests cannot be found and applied to the ascertainment of fitness of applicants for this difficult task. The question of tenure is, for the reasons I have said, extremely difficult, but a great many of the Assistant Commissioners and a substantial number of the local Commissioners are permanent officers of the State. It is under consideration whether something may not be done for the others. It is necessary to avoid waste. That is a matter for the Treasury, an important body, which has to be approached and consulted and satisfied. I venture to say this, that your Lordships may be satisfied that the important topics that are involved in the Report of the Fry Commission are being looked into fairly and impartially, with an earnest desire to do what is fair and right and reasonable between man and man, and to adopt such measures as commend themselves to our judgment, so as to secure justice to all parties in this extremely difficult matter.
  LORD CLONBROCK: At this late period of the evening I shall not attempt to bring forward, as I had intended, any details connected with the Pry Commission, or extracts from the evidence. In fact, it would be hardly necessary for me to do so after the exceedingly able speech of the noble Lord behind me, whom I am sure your Lordships heard with great pleasure for the first time. But I should like to say a word or two on the reference made by my noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor of Ireland to the portions of the Report of that Commission which deal with the administration of the law by the Land Commission. It is a great hardihood for me to attempt to answer my noble and learned Friend, but I am not convinced, as he seems to be, that the Land Commission has emerged from the ordeal of the Fry Commission with such flying colours. In the first place, the Fry Commission adopt a statement of Mr. Morley's Committee Mr. Morley's Committee reported that—
  "there is neither a common understanding of the law nor anything approaching to uniformity in practice; our experience convinces us that what was true in 1894 is true now."
  If the Land Commissioners are satisfied with that and some other passages to which I will presently refer, all I can say is that they are very easily pleased, and must have previously formed a very modest estimate of the way in which they discharge their duties. My noble and learned Friend quoted the following passage—
  "We are also convinced that the administration of justice has not been poisoned by any systematic endeavour on the part of the Commissioners, or of the Assistant Commissioners, to benefit either side at the expense of the other."
  But he omitted to quote the sentence immediately preceding—
  "We are convinced, as we have already shown, that the settlement of fair rents has been effected in an unsatisfactory manner—with diversity of opinion and practice, sometimes with carelessness, and sometimes with the bias towards one side or the other which exists in many honest minds."
  I do not think that very high praise either. Again, they say—
  "We feel ourselves unable to conclude that the machinery of the Land Statutes has been uniformly worked with injustice towards landlords."

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  I do not suppose anybody ever said it had been uniformly worked with, injustice. I imagine there never was a tribunal that did not occasionally deviate into justice. But it is not high praise to say that they have not been uniformly unjust. Again, the Report says, with reference to the occupation interest—
  "For the reasons already given, we find it impossible to form any certain judgment as to the extent to which this allowance has been made; but so far as it has ultimately acted in lowering the amount fixed for fair rent it has obviously worked an injustice towards the landlords."
  I should have thought myself, on reading that Report, that it confirmed the greater part of the complaints that have been made for many years against the action of the Land Commission. It does appear to me that in many points at least it confirms what we have previously said. As to the remark of the Chief Secretary the other day deprecating further legislation, the noble and learned Lord agreed with that, and I am disposed thoroughly to agree with that too, for I am pretty sure that if any legislation were to be introduced to remedy the defects which we believe to exist in the administration, something would be thrown in on the other side as a makeweight, some new exceptions would be discovered—"sporadic exceptions," to use the words of the First Lord of the Treasury two years ago—which it would be found necessary to bring under the Land Act, for the sake of symmetry, and to ensure that the line of confiscation should be drawn with perfect accuracy and precision. I speak feelingly on this subject, my Lords, for I am suffering from one of these sporadic gentlemen myself at the present moment. There is a grass farm, of mine of just under £100 a year on which there is not a house or a building of any kind. There can be no question of improvement, and there has never been any tenant right on it. He is going to sell his interest, which he is able to do under the Act of 1896, and that means that about five years' purchase may be carved out of the fee-simple value of the farm and transferred to him. That is for the purpose of symmetry—and there is no real symmetry in the matter. That gentleman and his class have nothing in common with agricultural tenants excepting that they pay
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  rent at more or less uncertain intervals. One of the great grievances which have been dwelt upon is the qualification of the Assistant Commissioners and valuers. I am convinced that the noble and learned Lord and the Chief Secretary spare no pains to get competent men; but I believe that under the present system the task is an impossible one. In the absence of all rules and directions and of definitions, even a definition of that the fixing of which is the main part of their duty—namely, fair rent and of "true value," it is impossible that these men can discharge their duties in any but a most irregular and haphazard manner. I have, consequently, for a considerable time refused to recommend anybody to the Government for these appointments. No man is qualified to perform an impossible task. But what we now want the Government to consider is the position of the landlords under this present system. By legislation we have had about 25 per cent. of our property taken away. That is admitted by all. We know that my noble and learned Friend strongly disapproves of the Land Act; and the speeches made by the noble Marquess at the head of the Government have dealt more severely with it than anything I can say. Is the remainder of our property to be whittled away by a system the condemnation of which is affirmed by the Report of that most competent Commission? My noble and learned Friend tells us that a great many of these recommendations must be carried out by the Land Commission, that they are a judicial body, and that the Government have no power to force them to do anything. In that case our position is a very deplorable one. But we claim the protection of Her Majesty's Government. We say we have been, and are being, most grievously injured. If any of Her Majesty's subjects were injured by the action of any foreign State, the noble Marquess at the head of the Government would not be slow to demand redress. He would deem, and the country would agree with him, that the defence and protection of their interests was a point in which the national honour was concerned. But, my Lords, the national honour may be as much involved in dealing with Her Majesty's subjects at home

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  as it is in vindicating their interests abroad, and we are fully justified in calling upon Her Majesty's Government to exercise the same discrimination, the same sense of justice, and the same energy in regard to our claims as they would insist upon in the case of any foreign State.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR: I think that your Lordships would not be grateful to me if I were to follow the example of one or two of the speakers and attempt to review at length either the Report of the Fry Commission, or the evidence taken by the Commissioners; nor will I quote the Report for the purpose of endeavouring to decide whether it amounts or not to a condemnation of the manner in which effect has been given to the Act by the Assistant Commissioners. We all know that when we get Blue Books we select passages which fit in best with our own particular theory. I notice that the noble Lord who spoke just before my noble and learned Friend selected one or two passages which apparently told against the Land Commissioners. My noble and learned Friend quoted other passages which seemed, I thought, to show that upon the whole the sincerity and good faith of the Commissioners, as a body, had come out unscathed from this inquiry. So far as the Report is condemnatory, it condemns, not the good faith of the men, but the methods which they have followed, and which, no doubt, have in some respects been faulty and imperfect. As to the opinion of Her Majesty's Government, we certainly regard the Report of the Commission as an extremely valuable document, and one which throws a good deal of useful light upon this question. Then the noble Duke and other Lords ask us why it is that, having had the Report before us for some time, we have taken no action upon it. My only object in now rising is to suggest to your Lordships that there has been no remissness on our part, and that everything that could be done to give effect to the recommendation of the Commissioners has been done, so far as opportunity permitted. The noble Lord who spoke last said, and I think your Lordships agree with him, that further legislation was not, upon the whole, desirable.
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  If, then, we are to exclude further legislation, what is there that is left? The large bulk of the recommendations of the Commission involve, not legislation, but alteration in the rules by the Commissioners themselves. Now, what is our position with regard to those rules? We are not able to dictate to the Land Commission what rules it shall issue, or by what procedure it shall be guided; that is a matter for the Land Commission itself. Is there any reason whatever for supposing that the Land Commission is reluctant in this matter? I think that the speech of the noble and learned Lord should have been sufficient to satisfy your Lordships upon that point. He was able to show to the House that in the very short time which has passed since the Report was issued the Land Commission have of their own motion taken action in respect of a number of points which, as anyone must know who has listened to the Debates in this House, are points which Irish landowners have always regarded as being points of the very utmost importance to them; and I may venture to mention one point which I think the noble and learned Lord did not refer to. I noticed the other day that the Land Commission had postponed the hearing of a case upon the ground that the tenant had deliberately allowed his farm to deteriorate. If that decision denotes a new departure in the work of the Land Commission, I think that is a new departure of very great moment, and one which your Lordships may well receive with satisfaction. That is what the Land Commission have already done in the short time which they have had to consider the Report of the Commission, and they give us to understand that that is only a beginning, and that in the Vacation, when they are no longer face to face with the great stress of work which has lately confronted them, they are prepared to go further, and consider at their leisure the remaining recommendations embodied in the Report. My Lords, amongst the matters which they will no doubt take into consideration is the question of the tenure of the Assistant Commissioners, a most important point. Here, again, we are given to understand that the mind of the Land Commission is open, and that it is in their contemplation to take steps to test more thoroughly

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  than heretofore the fitness of these gentlemen for the appointments which they hold, and also to take steps for the purpose of giving them greater security of tenure than that which some of them now enjoy. Of course, I do not think anybody would reasonably suggest that the whole of these Assistant Commissioners, who vary in number, I believe, from eight to 80, should all be made permanent officers of the State with a right to pensions; but, without going that great length, it should, I think, be possible to contrive some means of securing that in future some care should be taken in the selection and appointment of these important officers. I do not think, therefore, that your Lordships have any reason for being dissatisfied with what has been already achieved in the direction of giving effect to the Report, and I cannot help hoping that we are nearer at this moment than we have yet been to a material and substantial improvement in the practice and procedure of these tribunals. I would add one word. I do not think all the Royal Commissions in the world, however able, or all the Governments, however well disposed, are likely to evolve out of the land system now in force in Ireland a system which shall be in all respects satisfactory to all parties, and calculated in all respects to inspire them with confidence. You may elaborate your pink schedules, you may improve your valuers' reports, you may declare what is to be added to the fair rents, and what is to be taken away from the fair rent; but the initial figure is always one which depends, not upon scientific principles, not upon commercial competition, but upon the idiosyncrasies of the particular individuals who are called upon to adjudicate upon these matters. For these reasons I have always believed that the only really satisfactory solution for which we should look, in regard to the Irish land question, is the solution of purchase; and I do not think that any part of my noble and learned Friend's
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  speech was more satisfactory than that in which he called the attention of the House to the renewed activity which has lately manifested itself with regard to purchase, and which shows that, under the legislation of 1896, purchase is, at all events, progressing with much greater rapidity than it has progressed for some time past. I apologise to the House for saying these few words, and I trust that the noble Lords will not think that the result of this Debate has been one of which they in any way complain.
  THE EARL OF ARRAN: I have no intention of detaining your Lordships for more than two minutes upon this subject, but I should like to draw attention to a passage in the speech which Mr. Gerald Balfour made in reference to this matter, and which I have quoted before. I think that is a very important and serious statement, because it resolves itself into this: that no matter what protection may be put into the Local Government Bill for the minority, it will be in the power of the Sub-Commissioners to do away with it altogether, and to throw the rates, by reduction of rent, practically again upon the landlord; and I think it cannot be denied that, when a tribunal which has such enormous powers given it as this has, great care should be taken that it should be of the most trustworthy nature that it is possible for the entire wisdom of perfect government to procure. I do not want to go further into the matter, but I am sure that your Lordships who have read that Report will see that the Fry Commission thinks that there are many reforms that are absolutely necessary, and I trust that no unnecessary delay will occur in introducing them. Only one word more, and that merely an appeal ad misericordiam. While this is going on, while these opinions are being taken, there are men and women reduced from affluence to a pittance, and from a pittance to poverty, and from poverty to charity, to prevent them from

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  going into the workhouse. If any improvement can be made in the administration of an Act which has occasioned so much misery, I do think that the responsibility is one that I should not like to share with Her Majesty's Government.
  Motion, by leave of the House, withdrawn.
  House adjourned at 9.15.