Sitting of 22 April 1875

MINUTES.
NEW MEMBER SWORN—Charles Stewart Parnell, esquire, for Meath County.
SELECT COMMITTEE—New Forest, nominated.
PUBLIC BILLS—Ordered—First Reading—Sheriff Courts (Scotland) (No. 2) [135]; Summary Prosecutions Appeals (Scotland) [136].
Second Reading—(£15,000,000) Consolidated Fund *; Elementary Education Provisional Order Confirmation (Brighton) * [129]; Falsification of Accounts* [121].
Committee—Peace Preservation (Ireland) [77], debate adjourned.
Third Reading—Pier and Harbour Orders Confirmation* [111], and passed.

IRELAND—TRINITY COLLEGE, DUBLIN.—QUESTION.
MR. ERRINGTONasked Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland, What progress, if any, is being made towards maturing and carrying out the long-promised scheme for accelerating retirement among the Senior Follows of Trinity College, Dublin; and, whether it is proposed to give any increase of power to the Academical Council in the government of the University?
THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PLUNKET): Sir, as to the first part of the Question, I am informed that various proposals have been made by the Provost, the Senior Fellows, and the Junior Fellows of Trinity College, with the view of creating a more rapid succession in the entire body, and otherwise promoting its usefulness; but as yet no plan has been finally adopted or agreed upon. The subject is still under anxious consideration, and I hope that before long some satisfactory solution may be found for the difficulty. As to the second part of the Question, it is not, so far as I am aware, intended, at present, at all events, to give any increase of powers to the Academical Council. No necessity has, I believe, been suggested for an alteration of the provision of the Queen's Letter, recently granted. The new constitution seems to work well, and the two bodies in which the government of the University and College is vested have co-operated harmoniously. My hon. Friend will understand that I have answered his Question as one of the Members of the

1443
University of Dublin. These matters have not been brought before me officially.

ANNUAL RATE OF MORTALITY—FRIENDLY SOCIETIES COMMISSION.

  QUESTION.
  MR. CHARLEYasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, If he would state what are the actual numbers of persons living in England on which the average annual rate of mortality mentioned in the column headed "under one year," in the Table at page 136 of the Fourth Report of the Friendly Societies Commission is founded; and are such numbers contained in any and which of the published Reports of the Registrar General; does the rate of mortality shown in such column include all deaths registered as one year of age; do the local Registrars register deaths during the second year of life as one year or as two years of age; has the same system been employed in estimating the rate of mortality in the various places named in such Table as for all England; and, have any special returns been made showing in what localities the death rates are under the average for all England?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Sir, the data for calculating the average annual rate of mortality at the different ages for England were supplied by the Registrar General, but the calculation was made by the Royal Commissioners. The average annual rate of mortality in England at the age "under one year" was obtained from the mean of the population enumerated at the Censuses of 1861 and 1871, and from the number of deaths registered in the 10 years 1861–70, at that age. The facts and calculation for England, which will appear in the forthcoming Supplement to the Registrar General's 35th Annual Report are as follows and it will be observed that the result does not differ materially from that in the Friendly Societies' Report:—Mean population, 1861–71, under one year of age, 640,306, deaths registered in the 10 years 1861–70 under the age of one year 1; 155,182; average annual rate of mortality in England, of children" under one year of age" to 100 living in the 10 years 1861–1870, 18–041. The rate of mortality in this statement does not include deaths registered as one year of age; they are
  1444
  the deaths in the first year of age. The local Registrars register deaths under one year of age as "under one year," and deaths aged one year and under two years are registered as "one and under two years." The same system has been employed by the Registrar General in calculating the mortality in the various places named in the Table as for all England. Special Returns showing the death-rate in England and in the various districts of England are published every 10 years; those relating to the 10 years 1861–70 will shortly be presented to Parliament.

PUBLIC HEALTH ACT, 1872—QUESTION.
MR. LYON PLAYFAIRasked the President of the Local Government Board, Whether, in continuation of the Reports (134) of the non-medical inspectors of the Board on their proceedings in bringing into operation the machinery of the Public Health Act of 1872, it is the intention of the Government to lay before Parliament Reports by the medical officer of the Board on the practical efficiency of the Act in promoting public health?
MR. SCLATER-BOOTH,: Sir, the Reports to which my right hon. Friend alludes were not laid on the Table by me, but were moved for last Session by the late President of the Local Government Board (Mr. Stansfeld) to whom they were addressed. They had reference mainly to arrangements for the first appointment of sanitary officers when the Public Health Act came into operation. I have not seen occasion to instruct the medical officer to report on the practical efficiency of the Act in promoting public health, and therefore I have no such Reports to produce as are suggested in the Question.

SPAIN—THE CIVIL WAR—QUESTION.
MR. BAILLIE COCHRANEasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether Her Majesty's Government has received any official information of the cruelties reported to be committed on prisoners of war by both parties in the war now raging in Spain; and, if so, whether Her Majesty's Government will follow the precedent of 1835, when Lord Eliot and Colonel Gurwood were sent out as Commissioners to the head quarters of both armies to remonstrate against the barbarities practised alike by

1445
the forces of the Government and the forces of Don Carlos, which led to the Eliot Convention, so conducive to the interests of humanity?
MR. BOURKE: Sir, Her Majesty's Minister at Madrid (Mr. Layard) has reported that certain cruelties have been committed by both parties in the war in Spain during the last two years. Those cruelties have been inflicted upon prisoners of war as well as upon other persons. With regard to the second Question, I would remind my hon. Friend that the circumstances of the year 1834 are not parallel with those of the present day. In 1834, when the Carlist War broke out, a proclamation was issued by the Government announcing formally that they would treat as rebels all those who took up arms in favour of Don Carlos, and consequently the officers of the Government shot nearly every armed Carlist who fell into their hands. The Carlist Chiefs immediately retaliated, and put to death the officers and soldiers of the Queen's Army who became their prisoners. In the spring of 1835, the Duke of Wellington was Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and made an effort to put a stop to those atrocities. He drew up a Convention himself, and entrusted it to Lord Eliot—the present Earl of St. Germans—and Colonel Gurwood, and they proceeded to Spain with that Convention. Owing to the ability and tact of Lord Eliot, that Convention was signed by both parties, and no doubt it had a humanizing effect upon the war. But at the present time no such proclamation or announcement as that of 1834 has been issued by the Government of Spain, and although I fear many acts of cruelty have been committed, yet those acts are few as compared with those of the first Carlist War. Her Majesty's Government, therefore, are not at present prepared to follow the precedent of 1835; but I can assure my hon. Friend that they will lose no opportunity of bringing their influence to bear upon the parties in the war in favour of peace and humanity, whenever they think that their interposition is calculated to have a beneficial effect.

SCOTLAND—SAINT GILES' CATHEDRAL EDINBURGH.—QUESTION.
MR. J. COWANasked the First Commissioner of Works, Why the sum of
1446
£500, paid for the erection of a Royal Pew in the Cathedral of St. Giles Edinburgh by the Committee appointed for the restoration thereof, and recommended by the Commissioner, has been omitted in the Miscellaneous Estimates; and, whether this omission will be supplied when any Supplementary Estimates are brought forward?
LORD HENRY LENNOX, in reply, said, that no one appreciated more than he did the magnificent restoration of the Cathedral through the liberality and the public spirit of the citizens of Edinburgh. Last year a sum of £500 was inserted in the Estimates for the erection of the Royal Pew, but it was not paid; and he regretted very much that, owing to unavoidable circumstances, he was unable to re-insert the sum in the Estimates now on the Table of the House. He was afraid he could not promise that, if any Supplementary Estimate were issued, that item would be found among them, unless the Office of Works should find that the item would be allowed.

CRIMINAL LAW—COCK FIGHTS AINTREE AND SUTTON COLDFIELD.

  QUESTIONS.
  MR. MACDONALDasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If his attention has been called to a report in "The Birmingham Morning News" of the date of Monday the 19th instant, headed Cock-fighting Extraordinary, and following which is the description of a cock-fight which took place or is stated to have taken place in the Grand Stand of the Aintree Racecourse, near Liverpool, on Wednesday the 14th instant (presumably), at which it is stated a considerable number of gentlemen were present; also to another account of a cock-fight said to have taken place at Sutton Coldfield (presumably) on Saturday the 17th instant; whether he has taken means or given instruction to find if the extraordinary allegation made in respect to the cock-fight said to have taken place on the Aintree Racecourse Grand Stand is true; whether he has followed a similar course in respect to the one alleged to have taken place at Sutton Cold field; and, whether he will direct that every effort be made to discover and bring to punishment all the promoters, aiders, and abettors of these exhibitions, if the accounts

  1447
  be true? Would the Home Secretary take means to obtain the real instead of the fictitious names of those who promoted these disgraceful exhibitions?
  MR. ASSHETON CROSS, in reply, said, his attention had been called to the accounts of the cock-fights in both places. He believed that the accounts in each case were substantially true, with this exception—that as regarded the one stated to have taken place at Sutton Coldfield it did not take place in Warwickshire, but over the border, in Staffordshire. [Mr. NEWDEGATE: Hear, hear!] He was happy to say that he had found it unnecessary to give any positive instructions in the matter, because the county authorities in both places had taken the most active steps to find out the offenders, and to a considerable extent they had succeeded. At Aintree the police interfered while the fighting was going on; they found about 100 persons assembled, and took names from many of them. Some of the names given were fictitious; but a telegram informed him that 13 of the offenders had been identified, and every precaution would be taken to insure convictions.
  MR. MACDONALDgave Notice that he would move an Address to Her Majesty, praying that the names of those persons convicted should be printed and laid on the Table of the House.

CIVIL SERVICE INQUIRY COMMISSION—THE REPORT.—QUESTION.
MR. DUNBARasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether the Government have yet arrived at any decision upon the recommendations contained in the First Report of the Civil Service Inquiry Commission; and, whether, if they are not prepared to cause the early adoption of the proposed scheme in the Civil Service as a whole, they will apply it, as a tentative measure, to some one or two of the larger Departments?
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER, in reply, said, the Government had been in possession of the Report of the Commission for some time. They recognized the extreme value of it; and he availed himself of this opportunity publicly to thank the right hon. Member for Edinburgh University (Mr. Lyon Playfair) and his Colleagues for the service they had rendered. The recommendations were of an important
1448
character, and the Government felt they ought to be carefully considered before any action was taken upon them, because they affected not only the public service as a whole, but largely the interests of a great body of persons. The feeling of the Government was that it would be desirable, before any decision was arrived at with respect to the application of the scheme, that the working of it should be tested by something in the nature of a tentative inquiry as to the mode in which it would accommodate itself to the wants of particular Departments. Special inquiries were now going on under the guidance of members of the Commission, assisted by officers of two Departments; he hoped inquiries would be conducted in another Department also, and that the results of those inquiries would be to enable them to judge more accurately what the actual working of the scheme would be. When the Reports of these inquiries had been received, the Government would be in a position to say what their proposals were.

CHINA—MURDER OF MR. MARGARY.

  QUESTION.
  MR. WAITasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether his attention has been called to a telegram in "The Times" newspaper of the 8th instant, to the effect that Mr. Wade, Her Majesty's Minister at Pekin, had made application to the Chinese Government for an investigation into the deplorable massacre at Manwine of Mr. Margary and his servants; whether such telegram was correct in its information; and, whether the Government has received from Mr. Wade himself the result of his appeal?
  MR. DISRAELI: The telegram in The Times newspaper quoted by my hon. Friend respecting the unfortunate events which ended in the death of Mr. Margary is of the 10th, and not of the 8th instant. On the 4th of this month we sent by telegraph instructions to Mr. Wade to call upon the Chinese Government to make strict investigation into the circumstances of the case. Mr. Wade has communicated by telegraph to us that he has made certain demands in consequence upon the Chinese Government. We have reason to believe that these demands have been acceded to;

  1449
  but, in the absence of details, it is better for the public interest that I should not at present enter any further into the nature of these communications.

FRIENDLY SOCIETIES BILL.

  QUESTION.
  MR. ASHBURYasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, If he intends to proceed with the Friendly Societies Bill on Thursday next; and, if not, whether it is likely to be taken before Whitsuntide?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER, in reply, said, he thought there was no chance of the Bill being proceeded with on Thursday next, as that day had been set apart for the discussion of the financial measures of the Government, and he took it for granted that the evening would be occupied with them. He was anxious to proceed with the Bill, and, if possible, to bring it on before Whitsuntide; but at present he was unable to fix a day when it would be taken.

RANGOON, WEST OF CHINA—REPORTS.

  QUESTION.
  MR. SERJEANT SIMONasked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether he has any objection to produce the following documents:—Copy of all Memorials, Resolutions, and Letters dated after the 17th day of February 1873 from Chambers of Commerce and Commercial and Shipping Associations to the Secretary of State for India or any other of Her Majesty's Ministers relating to the completion of the survey of the direct land route from Rangoon to Kiang-Hung, near the south-west frontier of China, and the several Replies thereto (in continuation of the Parliamentary Paper, "Rangoon, West of China," No. 258, of Session 1873)?
  LORD GEORGE HAMILTON, in reply, said, there was no objection to produce the Papers in question, but he thought the majority would be hardly worth printing; but if the hon. and learned Member would select any that were essential for his purpose, they should be laid before the House, together with other Papers on the subject.

INLAND REVENUE—THE GUN LICENCE—TEN SHILLING GUN LICENCES.

  QUESTION.
  CAPTAIN NOLANasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, How many ten shilling gun licences have been issued in England and Wales during the last year of which he has Returns; also how many ten shilling gun licences have been issued during the same period in Ireland?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER, in reply, said, that the number of gun licences issued in England and Wales in the year ending the 31st of March, 1874, was 116,586, and in Ireland it was 3,578. The accounts for the year ended the 31st of March, 1875, had not yet been made up.

MONASTIC AND CONVENTUAL INSTITUTIONS—LAWS OF FOREIGN STATES.

  QUESTION.
  MR. NEWDEGATEasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, When further Papers descriptive of the Laws, &c. of Foreign States relating to Monastic and Conventual Institutions, in completion of the Return presented on the 4th of March last, will be in the hands of the Members of this House; and, whether Her Majesty's Government would object to presenting any information relating to Laws passed, or alterations of Laws effected, on the subject of the Address since its adoption on the 27th of July 1874, and if not in their possession to procuring such information?
  MR. BOURKE: Sir, Her Majesty's Representatives at Munich, Stuttgardt, Dresden, Darmstadt, and Baden were instructed, on the 3rd of this month, to furnish, with as little delay as possible, the additional information required respecting Monastic Institutions. A Report on this subject has been received from Her Majesty's Representative at Dresden, and is now in the hands of the printer; but I am unable to say how soon Her Majesty's Representatives at the other places specified may be able to send the information required of them. As to recent legislation in Austria, there will be no objection to lay the few Papers we have upon the subject on the Table, and I will endeavour to obtain further information for my hon.

  1451
  Friend. One copy of the work by Dr. Rönne has been received from. Berlin, and has been presented to the Library of the House of Commons.

PRIVILEGE—STRANGERS—REPORTS OF DEBATES AND PROCEEDINGS.

  QUESTION.
  MR. SULLIVANasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether, in view of the present anomalous relations between this House and the public press as to reports of public proceedings of the House and of Committees, it is his intention to propose some reform which, while maintaining the due control of this House over publication of its proceedings, shall relieve the public press from the hazards at which it now discharges important and useful functions towards this House and towards the Country?
  MR. DISRAELI: Sir, it is not the intention of Her Majesty's Government to introduce at present any measure of the kind to which the hon. Gentleman refers.
  MR. SULLIVAN: Sir, I beg to give Notice that, in order to prevent breaches of Privilege and to determine the present anomalous relations between this House and the public Press, and to relieve the public Press from the hazards at which, it now discharges important and useful functions towards this House and towards the country, I will to-morrow, in case I perceive any strangers in the vicinity of the Chair, call attention thereto; and that I shall do the same on every evening during the Session when I may perceive Strangers in that locality.

PEACE PRESERVATION (IRELAND) BILL.
(Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland.)
PEACE PRESERVATION (IRELAND) BILL.

  [BILL 77.] COMMITTEE.
  Order for Committee read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."—(Sir Michael Hides-Beach.)
  MR. BIGGAR, in moving the Resolution of which he had given Notice, said, he considered the Government were acting very improperly in introducing a measure of this kind, which was alike uncalled-for and unnecessary—as he would be able to prove when he
  1452
  came to speak of the condition of Ire-laud—not merely as regarded the particular localities which were the objects of exceptional legislation, but of the state of the country generally. He had listened with profound attention to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland throughout the long speech which he made in support of the Bill, and he (Mr. Biggar) had to express some astonishment that the right hon. Gentleman had throughout his speech dealt entirely in generalities. He set out by assuming that a measure of this kind was necessary, but he carefully refrained from furnishing the House with the data on which he grounded that assumption. In one part of his speech the right hon. Gentleman admitted that the present state of Ireland was one of perfect peace and tranquillity, and that this measure was only intended as precautionary; which was an admission on his part that the Bill was not required at all. The only argument in favour of the Bill offered by the right hon. Gentleman in his long address was that magistrates of Westmeath had declared that its provisions were necessary for the security of the public peace; but as he (Mr. Biggar) would presently endeavour to show, that argument was of no great weight. In the first place, the magistrates from whom the memorial in favour of the renewal of coercion proceeded sat with closed doors; and, secondly, the memorial was not the memorial of the entire magisterial Bench of Westmeath, but that of a select number well known to be prejudiced against the people, and without sympathy with them in anything which concerned their interests. A memorial proceeding from such an assembly as that ought not to carry with it any weight whatsoever. He did not deny that those Westmeath magistrates were very worthy gentlemen; but not being able to ascertain facts for themselves, they relied on those supplied to them by spies and informers, which were altogether worthless. Such being the information on which the Westmeath magistrates based their representations to the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Government, he contended, were not justified in bringing forward this measure to take away the liberties of the whole people upon such representations. Another argument which he would urge against the Bill was that

  1453
  the last Assize showed there did not exist in Ireland any organized conspiracy to set the law at defiance. In Meath everything was tranquil: at the last Assizes there was not a single case for trial: in Fermanagh there was only one case; and generally throughout Ireland the result of the last Assizes was to show that the country enjoyed a perfect immunity from crime. Again, the Roman Catholic Bishops and clergy, who had a more intimate knowledge of the habits, the feelings, and of the every-day life of the Irish people than any other persons whatever, had decided against the Bill, which they considered not only unnecessay, but as calculated to foster and keep alive those very feelings of hostility to the Government which it was the intention of the measure to suppress and eradicate. Those gentlemen could supply the most accurate information to the Executive, as to the real condition of the country; but he regretted to say the authorities chose to rely more on the reports and representations made to the magistrates by the police, and which were obtained from the most worthless sources, from informers and from spies. The Roman Catholic clergy were the well-known opponents of secret societies, and discountenanced them with all their influence. They know of everything which took place in the country—he was not, of course, alluding to information obtained by them in the confessional—but from their personal acquaintance with the people who consulted them and acted upon their advice in all the relations of homo. If a young man was leading an improper course of life, his parents were sure to call clerical influence to their and; and thus those youths who might, perhaps, feel an inclination to join such societies as those to which he referred were deterred from so doing. Had the Government consulted those gentlemen, they would have found that there was no necessity for the renewal of the Coercion Acts, but that the rights and privileges of the Constitution might at once and with perfect safety, and with great advantage to the country, be restored to Ireland. He (Mr. Biggar) had communicated with several of the Roman Catholic Bishops of Ireland on the subject—the Bishop of Meath, the Bishop of Down and Connor, and the late Archbishop of Cashel—inquiring of them, whether Ribbonism existed, or existed
  1454
  to the extent that was alleged in Ireland, and they replied that, as far as they could judge, it did not; and they were unanimously of opinion that the common law, if justly and impartially administered, was all that was required for repressing crime, and that no necessity for exceptional legislation existed. Dr. M'Dermott, Bishop of Raphoe, wrote that not a trace of Ribbonism or Fenianism was to be found throughout his diocese, and he added—
  "I am decidedly of opinion that it is not desirable to renew the Coercion Acts, they seem to me to do very little good; and to pass them may do a great deal of harm."
  The Peace Preservation Act was originally brought in on account of outrages that had been committed, and which, perhaps, called for its introduction. But these outrages had entirely died out, and no new necessity for renewing its provisions had been shown. As for the Report of the Westmeath Commission, it was of no value. It declared there was a wide-spread conspiracy, fenced in by a most awful oath; yet although, if the representations of the witnesses were correct, thousands must have taken that oath, a single copy of it had never been produced. They were therefore asked to pass this Bill on the bare assertion of the Government that the Bill was desirable. In fact, Ireland was as peaceful a country as any in the world, and he said emphatically it was a great shame that the whole of the Irish people should be treated as a nation of criminals, tyrannized over and subjected to continual coercion. The propositions contained in the Bill were of a most frightful character, and the whole country seemed to be left entirely at the mercy of one man, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, who, on his part, might coerce the Irish people as he pleased. Powers, too, were given to the magistrates which were liable to continual abuse. [The hon. Member here read in a manner which made it impossible to follow the application, long extracts from the Report and Evidence of the "Westmeath Commission, from the Catholic newspapers of Ireland, and from statements and resolutions of various public bodies, and meetings. The general purport appeared to be to denounce the necessity for any exceptional legislation in regard to Ireland, to assert the general tranquillity and good order of the country

  1455
  and the absence of Ribbonism, and to protest against the invasion of the liberties of the people.] Resuming his speech, the hon. Member was understood to say, that he, in the next place, objected to the Bill by which it was proposed that this coercive system should be put in force. The Bill was framed with the object of renewing and modifying detached portions of three or four previous Acts. He thought that even a practised lawyer would be puzzled to understand it. If persons were to be punished for breaking the law, it was only fair they should know what the law was which they were not to break; but he was satisfied that it would be impossible for persons of ordinary intelligence to understand this Bill. Then its provisions were conceived in so vicious a principle that it was difficult to tell which of them was the worst. The plan of imposing on localities where outrages had been committed a special charge for extra police was most unfair, for it might well be that the inhabitants were wholly blameless. The manner in which the coercion was to be carried out was without a parallel in any free country. Peaceable people were not allowed to have arms to protect themselves, while evil-disposed persons would get arms in spite of the law by running a little risk. With regard to the provisions against sending threatening letters, such letters were often sent more by way of a joke than anything else; and it was unreasonable to say that on account of the writing of those letters the police were to be at liberty to search people's houses at all hours of the day or night. In many cases great annoyance had been caused to innocent persons by the exercise of that arbitrary power. A man who intended to commit an outrage was not likely to give his victim any notice; and where a letter of that kind was sent at all, the object of the writer often was only to give annoyance and not to injure the person to whom it was addressed. With respect to the Act against secret societies, it was quite inoperative, although under its provisions Freemasons and members of the Orange Society in Ireland were liable to be prosecuted. It was improper to retain a law of that kind which it was not intended to enforce impartially against all, but which put it into the power of the authorities to punish severely a few persons, while the
  1456
  great majority of those who infringed it wholly escaped. The clause against secret societies ought therefore to be struck out of the Bill, and he did not see on what ground the Government could defend it. No doubt, as a whole, they were not, as a body, a very brilliant set of men; but, nevertheless, they should remember that it was for their own political interest not only to consider the people of Ireland, but to satisfy the democracy of England. He did not wish to see the Government now in power replaced by Gentlemen on the front Opposition Bench, until the latter had given some reason for the change, which they had not done hitherto. But Her Majesty's Government were wasting a great deal of time about questions of Privilege and Irish Coercion Bills which would prove perfectly inoperative. He did not see why the Government should waste not only the time of the House, but their own time, which was of very material importance, in having matters of this sort debated, and in passing a measure which would be looked upon as a stigma upon England as well as a stigma upon Ireland. There were questions of far more importance to which they ought to turn their attention—questions arising out of the Master and Servant Act, the Friendly Societies Bill, the relations between landlord and tenant in England, and so on. But if this Bill passed to-morrow, the effect of it would be not one crime the more or one crime the less committed in Ireland, it would simply subject well-disposed persons to annoyance at the hands of the police. It was said in support of the Bill on the second reading that it would be carried by an enormous majority. And so it was, but that majority was composed for the most part of persons who had not heard a single argument for or against the Bill, and to vote for Bills of this kind without hearing what was to be said for or against them was most improper. There was no reason why coercion laws should be directed against secret societies in Ireland, so far as Roman Catholics were concerned, because the clergy of that Church being altogether opposed to secret societies of any kind, very few Roman Catholics were members of such societies. The system of coercive Acts in regard to Ireland which had been carried out for more than a century was a disgrace to the English Government. From the

  1457
  beginning of the reign of George III., Act after Act had been passed, and the restrictions imposed repeated and augmented, and even in the Acts of the present time some of the restrictions of the Acts passed in the old evil times were preserved. [The hon. Member, who was almost inaudible, was understood to recapitulate some of the arbitrary enactments of older statutes, and to point out that they were in substance or effect reenacted in the various Arms Acts and Peace Preservation Acts of the present reign]. It was one of the great blots of this Bill that it authorized, on the warrant either of the Lord Lieutenant or of the Chief Secretary, the imprisonment without trial or any means of redress, not only of offenders against the law, but even of those who might be supposed to have a personal acquaintance with them. While so imprisoned they were prohibited from holding any intercourse, whether orally or in writing, with their friends and relatives outside. So extraordinary a power as that ought not to be vested in any one man. But his power of coercion did not stop there. If a crime was committed in any district, even although the criminal had no connection with that district whatever, the Lord Lieutenant could quarter an additional police force on the people, and this peace tax had been a source of great injustice. He appealed to the Government not to disgrace themselves, and not degrade the Irish people by forcing upon them a measure of this kind. As evictions had in former times been a fertile source of disaffection and disorder, and they were not likely to occur so often now that the land laws had been altered, there was all the less reason on that score why Bills should be passed of the character now under consideration. In his opinion, Dr. Plunket suggested a more sensible course of proceeding in 1871 than was now recommended by the Government. He said that if the ordinary laws were strictly enforced, they would be quite sufficient to repress crime in Meath, Westmeath, and King's County, the amount of which he thought had been greatly exaggerated; and he added that an improvement of the condition of the labouring population would be a much more powerful instrument in the cause of order than all the coercion Bills that were ever passed. The hon.
  1458
  Member proceeded to argue that Ribbonism had its origin and its continuance in the desire of the people to deter the landlords from evictions and the capricious tyranny of the landlords, and for this purpose read numerous long extracts from documents and evidence; when—
  Notice taken that 40 Members were not present: House counted, and 40 Members being found present,
  MR. BIGGARcontinued. The Bill for giving a right to search for arms on a mere excuse, and often without even a pretence, the real purpose being to discover any papers that might give information about suspected persons. The hon. Member proceeded to read extracts from the evidence before the Westmeath Committee—as was understood;—but in a manner which rendered him totally unintelligible. At length—
  MR. SPEAKER, interrupting, reminded the hon. Gentleman that the Rules required that an hon. Member, when speaking, should address himself to the Chair. This Rule the hon. Gentleman was at present neglecting.
  MR. BIGGARsaid, that his non-observance of the Rule was partly because he found it difficult to make his voice heard after speaking for so long a time, and partly because his position in the House made it very inconvenient for him to read his extracts directly towards the Chair; he would, however, with permission, take a more favourable position. The hon. Member accordingly, who had been speaking from below the Gangway, removed to a bench nearer to the Speaker's Chair, taking with him a large mass of papers, from which he continued to read long extracts, with comments. At length the hon. Member said he was unwilling to detain the House at further length, and would conclude by stating his conviction that he had proved to every impartial mind that the Government had made out no case for the maintenance of this monstrous system of coercion, and that their proposal was perfectly unreasonable. The hon. Gentleman, who had been speaking nearly four hours, then moved his Amendment.
  SIR JOSEPH M'KENNA, in seconding the Amendment, said, that this was not simply a renewing Bill, but a Bill to renew certain portions of certain Bills,

  1459
  and to repeal certain portions of other Bills. In many respects the measure reflected credit on the Government. In so far as it was a repealing Bill it was good; but in so far as it was an enacting Bill it was a structure of ingenious confusion. The delay which he and his Friends asked for was in order that the Bill might be submitted to the House in such a shape that it might know what the Bill proposed to do. He would not pretend that he did not himself know what the Bill proposed to do; but he denied that anyone could make it out from a perusal of its clauses. One thing it was intended to do was to re-enact for two years the special Coercive Statute, known as the Westmeath Act, which was passed in 1871, based on the evidence taken before a Select Committee, which was accepted as proving sufficiently the existence of a wide-spread organized Ribbon conspiracy, bound to secrecy by the obligation of a terrible oath, the text of which purported to be in evidence before the Committee. He did not believe in the existence of Ribbonism of that nature or in that sense at all; and if he had believed it before the Committee of 1871 sat he could not believe it since he read the evidence it had taken. The Report of the Committee was founded upon evidence which, so far as it was even credible, rested on the foundation of hearsay and rumour alone. He had landed property in Westmeath for the last 20 years, and he knew the county well; the very nature of his property in that county was such as to render him sensitive to the presence of such an organization if it existed, for he paid a fee farm rent for his lands which were occupied by tenants who paid him a rack rent—his statement in that House was therefore as likely to be correct in this matter as that of any of those gentlemen who deposed before the Committee. He (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) disbelieved in toto that Ribbonism, or any secret organized confederacy of the nature imputed, existed. The witnesses who were examined before the Committee gave their evidence very fairly, and he had no doubt with a sincere desire to state nothing but the truth; but the Committee took for facts all that the witnesses said even when they gave merely hearsay evidence. The Ribbon Oath was read, and had a great effect upon
  1460
  their minds; but he could say that he had never read a document so obviously and patently fictitious as that oath was. It had been suggested that it was drawn up by a policeman; but he inclined to believe that it was a stupid hoax—however that might be, he (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) would unhesitatingly say that he never read a document so obviously fictitious. It was an insult to Irishmen, or to anyone who understood the Irish character, to ask them to base legislation on a document which was the production of some one in a humorous or half-lunatic condition of mind. He would now read from the evidence taken before the Committee the text of the oath, which being once accepted as genuine might account for the whole discrepancy between his belief on the subject of Ribbonism and that of the Committee. The so-called oath purported to be set forth in a paper headed "Obligations of a Ribbonman," which he would read. It began—
  "The person is first asked by the Captain or Committee-man, Is it your wish with all your heart and mind to assume the heavenly act of Ribbonman or any other title you may got from the Board? The person answers 'Yes.' The Captain of the Committee then says—' Take the Book in your right hand and go down on your bare knees—you swear that you will never prosecute a Ribbonman or any other title he may get from the Ribbon Board before Judge or Jury or any man that can trust our system.'—The person then, if it is not his wish to receive the chief secrets, may rise and go away, but if he answers 'Yes,' the Captain orders him to bless himself and take the Book in his right hand, and he is then sworn as follows:—' By virtue of the oath I have taken, I will and and assist, with all my might and strength, when called upon, to massacre Protestants and cut away heretics, burn British Churches, abolish Protestant Kings and Princes, and all others except the Church of Rome and this system, and by virtue of the oath I have taken I will think it no sin to kill and massacre a Protestant whenever opportunity serves: and by virtue of the said oath, if I know any of the members of this system to be backward in executing any of the aforesaid orders, I will immediately make it known to the Captain or the Committee-man belonging to the Ribbon Board; and by virtue of the oath I always will attend at one moment's warning to execute any commands belonging to the system, and that I will never see a brother hurt or abused by any not up to this system without assisting him, or will I buy anything from a Protestant at any terms if I can get it from a brother; and I also feel bound to believe that there is no absolution to be had from the Pope of Rome or any other authority belonging to that Church, on any part of this solemn test, or any favour in this world or that which is to come for a breach of this test.' "

  1461
  Now, he would shortly observe upon that interesting paper that it was the most obviously fictitious and trumpery document of the kind he had ever read, and that its production as authentic stamped the whole theory of the existence of an organized agrarian conspiracy in Westmeath with the character of fiction; nevertheless, it certainly influenced the minds of the Committee from first to last; but, for his part, he would simply observe that until he believed—as not long since in a famous case they were asked to believe—that a Catholic gentleman would write an affectionate letter to his mother, concluding with a prayer "that the Blessed Maria might have mercy on her soul; "he would hold that the document which purported to set forth not only the Ribbon Oath, but the formulary of the Ribbon proceedings, to be either a hoax or a fraud. He would admit, however, that the Committee of 1871, although influenced by the alleged discovery of the oath, were not solely moved by it: the existence of a kind of secret society was proved, and it was quite true that some two years before the Committee sat the railway station master at Mullingar had been murdered. That crime was committed without provocation, or on the very slightest provocation, and would disgrace any country. He would, however, now deal with that fact. The Chairman of the railway, Mr. Cusack, was one of the witnesses examined before the Westmeath Committee: he (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) did not quarrel with Mr. Cusack's testimony in the least; but he charged on the company of which Mr. Cusack was the Chairman—or perhaps he should more correctly say on the Canal Company, the management of which had devolved on Mr. Cusack's company—that they (the Canal Company) had manufactured the Ribbon system which affected themselves, and had entered into very curious relations with it. Now he (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) would hazard no assertions on this matter, and wherever a fact required to be proved he would put it aside unless he could establish it on the evidence taken before the Select Committee. The hon. Member then explained to the House the origin of the Midland Great Western Railway Company about 30 years ago, and its amalgamation with the Royal Canal Company, which latter was incorporated so
  1462
  long ago as 1789. The Railway Company came to be also the owners and managers of the canal, and Mr. Cusack was the Chairman and head of both concerns. He would read Mr. Cusack's evidence taken before the Westmeath Committee, with a view to show that the secret society with which the amalgamated company had to do was one recognized for a long time by the Company, and was not an agrarian conspiracy but a species of trades union.
  "Question 1347.—Arc you aware whether outrages have taken place upon the canal with which you are connected?—No, I think since I have been, connected with the line there has "been no outrage upon the canal, although it runs parallel to the line.
  "Question 1348.—How do you account for that?—I account for it by their having a secret society among the men, and by their having been allowed for years to have all the appointments to themselves. As soon as a man dies or goes away the company are told who to put into his place. These people act as a sort of police, and protect the place."
  Now, he fully admitted there was evidence here of a secret organized society, recognized time out of mind by the Canal Company, long before Mr. Cusack's time. He (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) would say confidently that there was no reliable evidence of any kind to prove that any organized society, other than this, existed in 1871, and he did not believe there was any other. But perhaps hon. Members might say that after all was a veritable Ribbon Society. They should, however, hear what Mr. Cusack had to say on that head—
  "Question 1398.—With regard to the strange system of appointment which prevails upon the canal, have you reason to suppose that that is supported by the Ribbon conspiracy?—I do not say it is caused by the Ribbon conspiracy, because I think it existed for a long time before my time, but it certainly has the effect of keeping us all quiet upon the canal.
  "Question 1399.—You have no reason for connecting that with the Ribbon conspiracy?—No, I have not."
  Now, could anything be clearer than that this the only organized secret society was, in fact, a species of trades union amongst the servants of the Canal Company? And when one reflected that the Canal Company and the Railway Company were one and the same corporation, did not the murder of Mr. Anketell, the station master, resolve itself into an atrocious attempt on the part of the servants, or hangers on of the Company, to got the upper hand on the railway as

  1463
  well as on the canal? Why should that act, base and atrocious as it was, be mixed up with the notion of Agrarian Confederations and Ribbon Boards and Committees, and Ribbon Oaths and Captains of Ribbon-men? They certainly found an account in the evidence of a Mr. Crofton, who was examined before the Committee, of a certain so-called Captain Duffy; but he (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) ventured to believe that Duffy was a captain without a company, like the Australian highwayman who was in the habit of terrifying isolated settlers by pretending to head a gang. At any rate, there was no evidence that Duffy had a company, except the style of "Captain," which was nothing more than a nickname. The idea of an agrarian conspiracy would be dispelled by a careful examination of the evidence of some of the most intelligent of the witnesses. Mr. Julian, the Crown Solicitor for the King's County and Westmeath, was examined. He said, in answer to Question 2497—
  "Formerly, questions between landlord and tenant gave rise to agrarian outrage; but now if the Ribbon combinations waited for cases between landlord and tenant, they might, if I may use the term, give up business, as they are so very few in number the consequence is that almost all the recent cases can scarcely be called agrarian at all."
  Quite right, and honestly deposed by Mr. Julian. So here again the case was brought back to the class of offences growing out of the system that had existed on the canal—a kind of irregular trades union—which the murderers of Mr. Anketell no doubt wanted to have extended to the railway. He hoped the House would bear with him whilst he read some portions of Mr. Rochfort Boyd's evidence which dealt with the system of fines inflicted on districts in which crimes had been committed. In answer to Question 1531, Mr. Boyd said—
  "I look upon the area or the incidence of the taxation to be so faulty and so wrong as at the present moment to estrange the feelings and the loyalty of those who ought to be our best men—that is to say, the independent farmers of the country. It is within my knowledge now, for example, that at the present moment, from the taxes recently laid on certain districts for murder committed, and other outrages, there are some of the best conducted men in my county becoming fast reduced in circumstances, and if it goes on they will be utterly smashed, while those escape with impunity who are, in point of
  1464
  fact, the concoctors and the executors of the mischief which is perpetrated."
  Now what he (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) had to say in respect to all this was, that those who were law-abiding and loyal should not be punished on account of others who had committed grievous outrages—would such a principle be applied in England? He meant, would the principle of the Coercion Law? Take the case of Lincolnshire, for instance, and suppose that it could satisfactorily be brought home that bands of poachers, who generally had an understanding with each other of a more or less intimate kind, had been engaged in desperate outrages upon persons or attacks upon property—would it be said that such a state of circumstances would prove a justification for placing a whole county or large district under a set of severe regulations? He ventured to say that nothing of the kind would be tried or ought to be tried. Why, because some outrages were committed, should a whole community be branded as if they were affected by a spirit of outrage? He wished to state, in the presence of the Prime Minister, the subject matter of the Resolution was to complain of the structure of this Bill—he and his Friends objected to the codification by means of one Renewal Bill, obscure in its meaning, of measures conceived in the spirit of the Coercion Acts. They asked that the Bill should be so framed as to show on its face what restrictions of the liberty of the subject it was intended to enact.
  Amendment proposed,
  To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words" in the opinion of this House, it is inexpedient to proceed with the consideration of a Bill re-enacting and modifying detached portions of several statutes, until it is put into such a form as to show clearly and distinctly the provisions which are to form part of the continued and revised code,"—(Mr. Biggar,)
  —instead thereof.
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  MR. R. SMYTH: Whatever opinions, Sir, may be held on either side of the House as to the necessity and policy of the Bill now under consideration, I do not think that anyone can reasonably deny that it is the duty of Irish Members

  1465
  to make it the subject of serious challenge and debate. Whether the measure is right or wrong, it is, at all events, one of great importance to the people of Ireland, and of no less importance to the credit of Constitutional Government. This Bill avowedly puts in jeopardy or suspends the usual guarantees of the liberties of several millions of the people of the United Kingdom. Indeed, its only value consists in its doing that thing. Now, if such a measure were allowed to pass in silence through any one of its stages, it would hardly be creditable to the House itself, and still less to those Members who are specially intrusted with the duty of guarding the liberties and general welfare of Ireland. I therefore think, apart altogether from the merits of the particular Amendment which has been moved, that the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) was justified in raising a fresh discussion upon the Motion for going into Committee, and it need not excite surprise if, when we are in Committee, every clause and every line of every clause be subjected to the severest examination before it is declared to stand part of the Bill. What are we asked to do? Nothing, I am sorry to say, for which ample precedent may not be pleaded. I am sure that if, for the first time since the union between England and Ireland, a measure of this nature were introduced to the notice of Parliament, it would not only startle the people of England, but would awaken in them a sincere regret. English Members inside this House, and Englishmen and Scotchmen outside of it, are not our enemies. They want to be our friends if they only knew how; and I most truly believe that they have every desire to see Ireland happy and prosperous; for I cannot for a moment suppose that a powerful and generous nation like England—and which has a right to be generous because it is powerful, and because Ireland did not always fare so well at its hands as it has done in more recent days—should do otherwise than wish well to a country that is so intimately bound up with its own strength, honour, and fortunes. But hon. Members do not need to be reminded that good intentions pave the way in very opposite directions, and that it is the duty of legislators not only to intend to do the right thing, but to take every means of informing themselves what is the
  1466
  right thing to do. Now, an Englishman said to me not long since—"I confess Ireland is a great puzzle to me; I don't understand it at all." Of course, no English Member of Parliament would make such a confession; for if he did it would add greatly to the force of the arguments, and would give additional plausibility to the policy of the hon. and learned Member for Limerick (Mr. Butt.) And yet I do fear considerable misconceptions prevail about the causes of the discontent of Ireland. There may be hon. Gentlemen in this House who know little or nothing about the habits, the houses, and the real characteristic thoughts of the Irish people. They have not seen them on their farms or in their markets, and Ireland may possibly be to them a great and inexplicable mystery. I am confirmed in this opinion by calling to mind that no less a personage than the present First Lord of the Treasury once undertook to account for the discontent of Ireland on the supposition that the people had been driven mad by listening to the moaning of the Atlantic Ocean. That may have been only a droll remark; but I know it was made on rather a serious occasion, in connection with the proposal to disestablish the Irish Church, and if that be an idea that could be even comically entertained by the leading statesmen in this House what sort of theories may not be entertained by those who are not statesmen? If there must be Coercion Acts until the Atlantic Ocean is either dried up or silenced then our case is hopeless indeed, and the effective remedy for Irish discontent must be indefinitely postponed. On what assumption is this Bill based? The Government tell us that they cannot govern Ireland with out without it. Perhaps so. I dare say that is the case. But the whole fault may not he with Ireland, for the further question must be faced, and will be asked over and over again within these walls—at least, so long as there are Irishmen here to ask it—why cannot you govern Ireland without suspending the constitutional laws of the country? Of course, you must preserve peace at all hazards. You may be quite justified in confining the patient to his own room while you are administering restoratives; but what restoratives are you administering? I admit—and in doing so I am only making an admission that would be

  1467
  as frankly made by the most ardent I patriots of the House—that it is the duty of the Government to protect the lives and property alike of the highest and the meanest of Her Majesty's subjects in Ireland, for no Government could hold its place, or ought to hold its place, for one day that failed in this duty. But, at the same time, it would surely be more creditable to a Government if it could somehow preserve Irish life and Irish property by the same means that this is done in England and Scotland. I believe it can be done. There may be occasions when a short cut must be taken to secure tranquillity, and when the well doing inhabitants of the country may be reasonably asked to surrender some of their rights for a time, so that the ill-doing may be punished or put out of the way. The Government says that the condition of Ireland at this moment is a case in point, and in de fence of the particular measure proposed—a measure which we know is not as severe as some that have come before it—we are told that the meshes of this net are so constructed that good men will easily pass through, and only bad men will be captured. I am not so sure about that; for I have observed in net fishing that you very often enclose fish you do not want, and that you have a short supply of those you do want. I am not here speaking at random. The hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Lawson) some nights ago amused the House by a reference to the patriotic misfortunes of Irish Members of Parliament. No doubt a good many Irish Members have been in prison, because so many people get into prison in Ireland who ought not to be there at all; whereas in some of the countries that might be named people can go to and fro in the earth a long time and write an immense deal of libellous rubbish before they have the slightest chance of getting into prison. The fact is if Irish constituencies excluded all candidates for Parliamentary honours who have been in prison, the area of selection would be inconveniently narrowed. But, now, may I ask what sent these gentlemen to prison? Not always the common law of the country; but they were generally sent there for crimes which had been specially created by Act of. Parliament. They were caught by Bills such as that now before the House, The
  1468
  Habeas Corpus Suspension Act caught the hon. Member for the county of Limerick (Mr. O'Sullivan), and the Party Processions Act caught the hon. and learned Member for Belfast (Mr. Johnston); for the martyrs are not all on this side of the House; and as for the future it is not all unlikely that this Bill will bear a plentiful harvest in the next Parliament. Now, Sir, I am not to be understood as arguing against the right of the Government to seek and to obtain exceptional measures for repressing social violence; but what I complain of is that this is almost the only thing that is being done, and that the thorough remedial legislation which was so far advanced in the last Parliament is not being carried to completion in the present Parliament. I heard last Session an appeal from the benches opposite—an appeal made by an Irish Member from his place immediately behind the Treasury bench—I refer to the hon. Member for Donegal (Mr. Conolly)—to the Government to go on applying remedies of a permanent and substantial character to the condition of Ireland. We on this side do not set up for being special guardians of Irish interests. Conservative Members know perfectly well—and the speech of the hon. Member for Donegal last Session showed it—that finality has not been reached in the application of remedy and redress. There is no use in foisting Party comparisons into a debate such as that in which we are now engaged. I believe the present Government is as anxious as the late Government to promote the prosperity of Ireland on its good behaviour. But it was the avowed aim of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Gladstone) and his Administration so to govern Ireland that it might arrive at peace through the avenue of prosperity; and it would be a source of much regret if now, or at any future time, the order of idea should be reversed, and it should be laid down as a maxim of Government that it must be at peace at all events, and be left to take its chance for prosperity. A forced peace will never lead to a satisfactory social condition. Why, Sir, the Irish people have been far too much accustomed to believe themselves at war with this country. It may have been their own fault; but the plain and undeniable fact is that war measures have generated in them a kind of feeling

  1469
  that they are, to some extent, justified in eluding them. They must be taught that the law is, and should be, the strongest thing in the country; but we ought to take care that the law, as far as possible, should be such as commends itself to the national instinct and conscience. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenwich was exposed to much hostile remark for saying that Ireland ought to be governed by Irish ideas, and the sentiment was caricatured by representing the shooting of a landlord as an Irish idea. It is nothing of the kind. The Irish know very well that it is a dreadful crime to assassinate anybody, and they have resorted to this abnormal iniquity as a recoil from, and a revenge for, what they considered the violation of their ideas. They have peculiar ideas like all nations; and one of their ideas is that human happiness is wrapt up in the possession of a piece of land and in living upon that land from generation to generation. [Mr. WHALLEY: Oh, oh!] The hon. Member for Peterborough says "Oh, oh!" by which I understand the hon. Member to signify that he is shocked at such an idea; but the hon. Member's alarms have frequently before been excited on common-place occasions, and this is only another illustration of his extravagant sensitiveness. The great difficulty in governing Ireland from your standpoint consists in this fixed and ineradicable idea—the land is the life of the people; deprived of that they are helpless and hopeless. You talk to an Irish peasant-farmer about political economy; but he acknowledges no political economy which puts him out of his farm. You can print what you please in books, but you cannot print theories of Government upon the human heart. We may be very sorry that people, millions of people, should have become so perverted in all their conception of things that they actually consider their own lives and the lives of their children superior to the laws of supply and demand, and oven object to go to the backwoods of Canada, and to the prairies of Nebraska, in obedience to these laws. But, so it is, and what can you make of it? It would be out of place for me to say anything just now beyond this—that in repressing agrarian crime something ought to be done in the direction of a further amendment of the agrarian laws, not in any
  1470
  violent or revolutionary way, not invading the rights of property, but tending towards the utmost limits of indulgence; and if that is done you need not despair of making Ireland yet a strength and not a weakness to the empire. I will candidly say that, in my judgment, the social condition of Ireland is not at this moment such as would warrant the Government in dispensing with some special machinery for preserving the peace, and if the Amendment of the hon. Member for Cavan went in the face of that admission, I could not support it. But, as I understand the Amendment of the hon. Member, it only asks that the Bill shall be remodelled, so as to show us clearly what we are doing—that everything vital and substantial should be put down at full length in the text itself, and that the liberties of Ireland should not be stolen away by the skeleton key of a schedule. Coercion by a clause may be legitimate; but I do not like coercion by a mere marginal reference. I dare say the lawyers who draft these Bills know best what is good for themselves. They are not a lazy race of men. They rather like taking pains to find out from an Act of Parliament what nobody else can find out. But the hon. Member for Cavan wants in black and white what it is that is being enacted—no more and no less. Hon. Gentlemen opposite will be slow to attribute any Party object to the hon. Member for Cavan. For though he generally sits on this side of the House, where, unfortunately, there is more room, he is known to be on occasions a loyal supporter of Her Majesty's Government. The Amendment is not aimed at the principle of the Bill; but reasonably puts in a plea for a modification of procedure. Now, I know enough of the North of Ireland to be aware that so long as party processions are sanctioned by law—and I am not saying that it was a mistake to repeal the Party Processions Act—it would not be prudent, as the shocking occurrence in County Tyrone on last St. Patrick's Day too well proves, to permit an unlimited supply of fire-arms to those who take part in such processions, or to those who take umbrage at them and try to stop them. We have, for instance, a remarkable state of things in the City of Londonderry and its neighbourhood. In that city there has been for a long period

  1471
  of time a tolerably well-equipped army of young men, called "Apprentice Boys," deriving their name and their political lineage from the 13 young colonists who shut the gates of Derry against Antrim's Redshanks in 1688. These young men—and I have not one word or thought against them—being of undoubted courage, are in the habit of defending Derry twice a-year from the armies of King James the Second. They had for a great many years a park of artillery, consisting of some 12 or 15 pieces of ordnance, which they discharged from the walls of Derry, and sometimes, of necessity, discharged them over those portions of the city inhabited by classes of the population who very much disliked these celebrations and proceedings. Bad blood was the result, and party spirit ran so high that the Lord Lieutenant felt it necessary to proclaim the city and district around. These pieces of cannon were not licensed afterwards, and, consequently, they had to be removed to some place of secrecy, where they have been silent ever since. But counter demonstrations have been organized, and the Roman Catholics—for I regret to say these matters are regulated greatly by denominational interest, or supposed interests—say that if Derry is to be defended twice a-year when there is nobody attacking it they will, at all events, go through the form of taking it, and of marching round the walls; and round the walls they do march, not twice, but once a year. That is all well enough so long as the cannon is out of the way. But it is now freely said that if the Lord Lieutenant's proclamation is withdrawn, and the cannon brought back, the Roman Catholics intend to have cannon also. Even that might do if the two parties will agree to attack and defend Derry at different seasons of the year—the one on the 17th of March and the other on the 18th of December; but I have my doubts whether such an arrangement would stand, or whether it would not come to be considered too dull an affair for courageous Irishmen. The Protestants would think that Roman Catholic artillery on the walls of Derry would be unhistorical, and the Catholics would reply that they were going to make new history of their own, and the last condition of our city would be worse than the first. The Government cannot safely forego its power
  1472
  to meet emergencies of this kind, and this is only one instance of the evils which spring—at least so far as the North is concerned—not so much from agrarian hatred as from party spirit, religious and political. I think, however, that there might be some relaxation of the rules for licensing fire-arms, especially in the case of farmers who require them for killing noxious birds and animals on their farms. I hope both sides of the House can take a reasonable view of the position in which we stand. I am quite sure that an extreme view on either side, however it may be dictated by conviction, will not promote the true and permanent interests of the country. It has sometimes been said that there are occasions when a Member of Parliament may discreetly gain for himself a little cheap popularity; but I think no popularity is cheap which requires a man to pay down his convictions as the price of it; and I will add that I have no reason to believe that there is any Member here from Ireland who would not do all in his power to save his country first of all, and then protect his seat afterwards. I trust this Parliament, conscious of its power, will resolutely advance in the path of indulgent legislation. Whilst bating no job of its claims upon the obedience of the people, let us not for ever keep our eyes fixed on the weakness and sins of the people of Ireland. They have also good qualities which may be fostered into a loyalty that will stimulate them to fight the battles of the Queen by sea and land as they have done before. The country grudges no power to the Government which may be needful to keep down disaffection; but when the end has been accomplished there remains still something to be done; and I can imagine few recollections that could or that ought to be more grateful to Ministers of the Crown and Members of Parliament than the remembrance that they had been instrumental in drawing aside the last veil and letting the full light of a happy National life break in once for all upon the care and sorrow of Ireland.
  MR. O'CLERYgave his hearty support to the Amendment of the hon. Member for Cavan. The most dignified course of opposing the measure as a whole was leaving the onus of discussing its details to the Government, which, by the great majority of Conservatives and Liberals

  1473
  which, it had at its back that night, was determined to force on Ireland a measure so hostile.
  MR. WHALLEYadhered to the opinion he had formerly expressed, that it was grievous hypocrisy on the part of the Government to endeavour to meet the difficulty of Ireland by coercive measures like this one. Was it to go forth to the world that the jurisprudence of this country, with all the power at its back, was unable to cope with ordinary combination, riot, murder, or agrarian outrage, which might occur in any English county? The real difficulty to he contended with was not the peasant's love of a bit of land, nor the attack and the de fence of the walls of Derry, but a development of the world-wide conspiracy organized for the express purpose of assailing the free institutions of every Government that did not submit itself to domination. If there was one man in Europe who knew this, it was the Prime Minister; and it was outrageous that he, with the power he had, did not grapple with the real difficulty instead of coercing the people of Ireland. We knew it was the business and sacred duty of the Romish priesthood to organize the peasantry of Ireland and other parties there, not excepting the trades unions. They would not be true to the advice that had been given to them, and would not have as much common sense as he could pretend to himself, if they did not pursue that course, for Cardinal Manning had counselled them to subjugate and break the spirit of this country, and render the people subservient to the purpose they had in view. As the matter stood, however, he could not say he was going to support the Government by voting for this Bill. It was, in his opinion, an attempt to meet a difficulty known to history as a distinct organization which, under the pretence of religion, sought to keep the country in a state of turmoil and confusion. It was that with which they had to grapple, and it appeared to him that the honest and industrious people of Ireland ought not, under a mere pretence, be made to suffer by the provisions of such a Bill as the present.
  MR. O'CONORsaid, he need hardly assure the House that it was not his intention to reply to the hon. Member for Peterborough (Mr. Whalley) in his attack on the Roman Catholic
  1474
  clergy of Ireland. That hon. Member's opinions on the subject were well known, and it was unnecessary for him to occupy the time of the House by any answer. He confessed that if the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) had moved the Amendment of which he first gave Notice—that the Committee on the Bill be deferred for six months—he could not have supported him; because such a Motion should only be made when the speakers against a Bill had been refused a fair hearing, or when the opinion of the House had not been fairly tested. In the present case it must be admitted that every opportunity had been given to Irish Members to discuss the Bill on the second reading; but he (Mr. O'Conor) submitted that the Motion now before the House was of a different character from any which had previously been brought before it. If there was one thing more than another which was necessary in enacting these highly penal laws, it was that their provisions should be perfectly clear. It should be clearly shown to those who would come under the Act what really were their liabilities; and he ventured to say that it would take a large amount of study on the part of an ordinary Irishman—who did not trouble to closely consider all the Acts of Parliament passed on this subject of coercion—to know what he might do and what he might not do. It would be equally impossible for him to decide what control a policeman had, and how far his duties went. He was satisfied if Acts of Parliament were passed in this form they would have a state of things in Ireland which would give the Law Officers of the Crown the greatest possible trouble. He desired that the Bill now under consideration should be withdrawn, and that another measure should be introduced which should clearly lay down what powers really were to be given; and he was satisfied that if this were done it would not meet with the opposition which this Bill encountered. The hon. Member for Cavan had given Notice of another Motion which he had not pressed, and which was directed against the re-enactment of the Westmeath clauses of the Act of 1871. For his own part, he would rather support a proposal against re-enacting the Act of 1870; because, although it was in some respects less subversive of the liberties of

  1475
  the people yet it was, in practice, far more irritating to the well-disposed persons in the country. He had opposed the Act of 1870 whenever its provisions came before the House, and he held that that measure had failed to carry out the objects it had in view. In order to establish this, he had only to refer to the speeches which had been made at the time that Act was passed, and what had since happened. The Bill of 1870 was not introduced in consequence of a general state of crime throughout Ireland, but because of the existence of crime in certain districts. The Chief Secretary of the day (Mr. Chichester Fortescue) himself said the Government did not rest the Bill of 1870 upon the condition of the whole of Ireland; but, on the contrary, they rested it on the condition of certain parts of Ireland, where the state of crime could not be successfully grappled with under the law as it then stood. In 1871 the noble Lord who was then Chief Secretary, and who was now the Leader of the Opposition (the Marquess of Hartington), came down to the House and proposed the appointment of a Committee, and what greater proof could they have had that the Act of 1870 had been a failure than that a year after it was passed a Committee of Inquiry had to be elected, and another Act passed to supersede it? The passing of the Westmeath Bill was clear evidence that the Act of 1870 had failed to carry out the objects for which it was introduced. That Act had subjected the loyal people of the country against whom it had been put in force to a great deal of unnecessary irritation, and it had done a great deal of mischief to innocent persons. Among other things, compensation was given to injured persons, and the amount of that compensation was levied upon those who had nothing whatever to do with the matter, and were in no way responsible for the injury. It was said truly that this was a return to the Saxon system of frankpledge, but he asked if that was any reason why, in the present state of civilization, they ought to revert to it? He should much have preferred voting in favour of a Resolution which would have condemned the Act of 1870, although he was aware there was also a great deal to be said against the Act of 1871. He was not going to argue that a case might not arise which could
  1476
  justify an Act such as this. He would go further, and admit that if coercive legislation was to be introduced at all, he did not know of anything which would do less harm than the power of arrest; but before they put it in force it must be shown that there was a necessity for it, and not be satisfied with dealing in general statements. Well, then, had that necessity been shown to the House? for it was the duty of the Government to make out their case. They had rested their claim upon reports they had received from the magistrates, the Clerk of the Crown, the police, and others; but was this class of evidence satisfactory? He maintained that it was not, because there was no doubt that those who had reported in favour of the Acts would like them to be continued because it rendered their duties much lighter than they would otherwise be. It was always a most unfortunate thing, but it was, nevertheless, the fact, that when measures had been forced upon a country for some years people got accustomed to them, and did not like to part with them. He, however, did not believe the House would assent to such a proposition as this without having the strongest possible evidence before them. In 1871 the Acts were passed after a Report by a Select Committee, but now there was no Report, and no sufficient evidence as to their necessity, or why they should be further prolonged? He should, therefore, vote against all the provisions of the Bill.
  MR. JOHN GEORGE MACCARTHY, in opposing the Amendment, assured the House that life and property in Ireland were as dear to those who opposed the Bill as they were to those who had introduced it. To English and Scotch Members the Bill was a matter of political interest only—to Irish Members it was one of deep personal moment, and concerned their lives, their property, their families, and the future of their country. Irishmen were ready enough to admit that for sufficient reasons the Constitution might, in the interest of freedom itself, be usefully suspended; but they objected to the Government acting on mere suspicion and on secret evidence which was not laid before the House. He had declined to pledge his vote to his Colleagues or anyone else until he had had an opportunity of hearing from Her Majesty's

  1477
  Ministers what case they intended to make. He had had that opportunity, and he had listened to what the Government had to say. In their voice there had been a conciliatory tone which was more persuasive than eloquence itself; but this did not afford the House evidence that it was necessary to place in the hands of the Government the exceptional powers that had been demanded. That evidence either existed or it did not. If it did, why was it not laid before the House; and if it did not, how could it be said that the proposals of Her Majesty's Ministers could be reasonably maintained? So far as ordinary crime was concerned, Ireland, instead of being worse than any other part of Her Majesty's dominions, was much better. There was no evidence of conspiracy for special crime. It might be said that there was a suspicion of this; but was the Constitution to be suspended on suspicion? It was lately said by the Lord Chief Justice of England that no man—not even the humblest individual—should be convicted on suspicion. It might also be pleaded that the Government had private information; but were the liberties of the people to be whispered away? When Her Majesty's Ministers came into power, many of the Irish people had hailed their accession to office with some degree of pleasure, recognizing, as they did, the brilliant genius of the Prime Minister and the kindly spirit he had recently manifested towards them both in his speeches and his writings. They regretted, however, to find that the only boon Her Majesty's Government, after being a year in office, could present to them was a Coercion Bill. The feeling of the people of Ireland in reference to this House was that it was an alien Assembly. If the passing of the Bill depended upon Irish votes, it would not have the slightest chance of becoming law. The people of Ireland knew just as well as the Government that the majority of Irish Representatives were powerless to effect anything in that House except by leave of the British Members. They read, as hon. Members did, the comments made on that fact. They heard the observations made concerning a constitutionally elected majority of Irish Members. They heard this majority was so weak that they could not do anything to help
  1478
  them—that they had been described as pariahs in the House. He Trusted this state of things would not always exist; that the time would come when Her Majesty's Government would not be so strong that they could afford to overlook the wishes and interests of the Irish people. He asked those in whose hands the Government of Ireland rested to use their power generously and gently, and he respectfully cautioned them that if they did not do so they would create rankling feelings of discontent.
  MR. M'CARTHY DOWNINGsaid, that having been a Member of the Westmeath Committee, he felt bound to address the House upon this matter. He considered that the Irish Members had great reason to complain of the manner in which this Bill had been introduced to the House. Last Session, when it was proposed to re-enact the four measures of coercion in the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill, the then Attorney General for Ireland (Dr. Ball) informed them that the Government had been in office for such a brief period that they had not had time to consider how many of them they should abandon, and how many they might renew in distinct Bills. The Prime Minister had given them a similar assurance, doubting at the same time if it would be necessary to retain any of them; yet here was a measure in which they were all blended into one, and a measure which originally applied only to Westmeath was insidiously extended to the whole of Ireland. He was not a man who hesitated to express his convictions, and if he thought there was the least necessity for the renewal of any one of those Acts, he would openly avow it, even though he might lose his seat in consequence of doing so; but, speaking with an intimate knowledge of the greater portion of the country, he could say that peace now reigned in Ireland. The Government ought to have inquired whether there was any necessity for continuing the Coercion Acts. The Peace Preservation Act had worked successfully in putting an end to agrarian crime, and ought now to be discontinued. It had been directed against three classes of crime: against Fenianism, against sectarian conflicts, and against agrarian crime. Fenianism was now dead in Ireland. There was nothing now heard of it there. Sectarian conflicts were confined to some portions of

  1479
  the Province of Ulster, and he could not see why the peaceful inhabitants of the other three provinces should be punished because of the illegal proceedings of the Orangemen in the North. In the South they lived in peace with each other, and no such thing as a party procession was ever heard of either in Cork or Limerick. He could not, in any manner, explain the grounds upon which the Government asked Parliament to give them these repressive powers. Their demand certainly received no support from the present state of the country in reference to crime. In the year 1874, there were only 216 cases of agrarian crime; but in 1869 agrarian crimes, in the shape of murders, attempted murders, firing into houses, and serious acts of that kind, numbered 1,360, and there were no fewer than 460 threatening letters. Yet it was under circumstances like these that the Government now came forward and stated that they required exceptional powers for maintaining order in Ireland, and that it was necessary that the Coercion Act should be renewed. The County of Cork was free from crime, but it had been proclaimed since the passing of the Act. The restrictions which those Acts imposed were of the most oppressive kind, and if English Members only knew what they were and how they operated, they would not be so ready to vote them as they appeared to be. He knew a gentleman who, going out for a day's shooting, had directed his servant to meet him with his gun. The man had not to carry it 50 yards to meet his master; but he was met by the police, and, as he had not a licence, the gun was taken from him. The gentleman lost his day's shooting, and could only get back his gun by writing to the Lord Lieutenant. Hon. Members might see from that one circumstance how thoroughly absurd and vexatious were Acts of this kind, for which, as he maintained, no sort of case had been made out. There never was, indeed, a case of less merit, or one less deserving the consideration of the House than that which had been submitted to it by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland, and he should give his hearty support to the Amendment.
  MR. FAYobserved, that it must, no doubt, be pleasant to the occupants of the Ministerial benches to sit there and
  1480
  say nothing whilst Irish Member after Irish Member rose to oppose the Bill. They might, if they pleased, treat their remonstrances with contempt; but that procedure would not gain for them the better feeling of the Irish people. It seemed to him a very questionable matter whether they would pursue the same policy in dealing with an English instead of an Irish question. He should support the Amendment, but from an entirely different point of view from that taken by his hon. Colleague in moving it. The object of the Amendment was a very proper one—namely, that the Bill should be so modified as to be brought into an intelligible form. All this coercive legislation for Ireland was in direct violation of the principles of constitutional government, laid down by so great an authority as Blackstone, whose writings, one would have thought, Englishmen could not so easily have forgotten. He would appeal to the Government and the House to abandon this course of coercive legislation, and relieve the people of Ireland of the stigma of being treated as incapable of being governed excepting by force of arms.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS - BEACHsaid, he hoped the House would pardon him if on this occasion he did not enter at any great length into the principle of the Bill, or the reasons which had led the Government, while recommending a very considerable mitigation of the provisions of the existing law, to propose its continuance in certain particulars. He had listened to nearly the whole of this debate, and with special interest to the remarks which fell from the hon. Member for the county of Cork (Mr. Downing). He thought, however, that if that hon. Gentleman had been in his place when he addressed the House on previous occasions in reference to this measure, the hon. Member would have seen that the policy of Her Majesty's Government in this matter was one of gradual relaxation, not only in legislation but also in administration; and that he had fair reason to hope that, if the state of the county the hon. Member represented were as he had depicted it, it would before long find itself under precisely the same laws as any part of England. The hon. Member had referred to the promise made to the House last Session by the Prime Minister and the present Lord Chancellor of Ireland; but he was somewhat

  1481
  unfair in attributing to the Government that they had in any degree departed either from the letter or the spirit of that promise. As the House would recollect, this subject was discussed at considerable length when the Annual Continuance Bill was before the House last year. His right hon. Friend the Prime Minister then undertook that a separate Bill should be introduced this year dealing with the question, and that promise had been fully redeemed by the introduction of the present measure at an early period of the Session. The debate of that evening appeared to him to contrast somewhat unfavourably with that which took place on the second reading of the Bill. He did not complain that a debate on going into Committee had entered at great length not only into the principles of the Bill, but also into details which had far better be discussed in Committee; but he did think it was somewhat hard that their debate that evening should have been, he would not say enlivened, by a course of "readings" from Blackstone's Commentaries, from the evidence which was given before the Westmeath Committee of 1871, and from all the statutes that ever were passed on the subject of Peace Preservation in Ireland, interspersed with unusual and not very audible comments by the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar). He thought it was somewhat hard, while those on the Ministerial side of the House had given a quiet hearing to this unusual kind of debate, that they should be accused by the hon. Member who had last spoken of having treated the arguments adduced by those on his side with silent contempt, and of not having taken part in this discussion. Why, the fact was, that after speeches of four hours' duration there was no time for any one on the Ministerial side to discuss the question at all; and he must add that, in his opinion, any reply had been by no means needed, for although he had listened with attention to all that had been said that night, he had not heard one single fresh argument adduced into the debate which was not adduced and fairly met on the discussion upon the second reading of the Bill. The hon. Member for Cavan and the hon. Member for Youghal (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) adhered to the remarkable theory that Ribbonism did not exist, at a time when a Committee of the House—
  1482
  the Westmeath Committee of 1871—after hearing lengthy evidence, reported that Ribbonism was never so prevalent as then in Westmeath and adjoining districts. Every shade of English and Irish opinion was represented in that Committee. That Committee unanimously reported that Ribbonism had existed in that part of Ireland for years past; that it was then more prevalent than it had ever been; that it had led to murders, and a consequent system of terrorism of the gravest description; and that it interfered not only with agrarian subjects, but with almost every relation of ordinary life. If the evidence which led the Committee to that conclusion satisfied the hon. Member for Cavan and the hon. Member for Youghal that Ribbonism did not exist, it was hopeless for him (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) to adduce any argument which was likely to meet with their assent. In reply to the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. O'Conor), who had treated this subject with fairness and moderation, he might say, as he had said before, that the reason why the Government deemed it necessary to propose a continuance of this special Westmeath Act was that they believed that Ribbonism still existed, and was only restrained from breaking out by the existing law; that they were confirmed in this belief by the opinion of the magistrates of the county, who arrived at a unanimous decision on the subject at a very largely attended meeting; by the charges given by the Judges of Assize; and also by communications of a confidential nature, which could not, therefore, be stated to the House. It was improbable in the last degree that a conspiracy so deeply and widely ramified, and so ancient in its origin, should have been entirely extinguished by an Act which had lasted four years. The Government, therefore, felt it their duty, taking all these circumstances, and others to which he need not then allude, into consideration, to propose, for the limited period of two years, a continuance of this Act. He need hardly dwell upon the restrictions upon the possession of arms. The hon. Member for the county of Londonderry (Mr. E. Smyth) admitted most fairly that in the North of Ireland, with which, of course, he was best acquainted, the restrictive provisions with regard to the possession of arms were absolutely necessary. He (Sir

  1483
  Michael Hicks-Beach) ventured to say no one could charge the Government with having administered those restrictive provisions with any unfair bias towards any part of Ireland. The hon. Member for Londonderry seemed to advise the Government to substitute for this kind of legislation some sort of remedial measure. The hon. Member appeared to want a new Land Act. He (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) did not wish to discuss the advisability of such a measure; but he would remind the House that the existing Land Act of which the hon. Member spoke so highly was passed in 1870, and was followed in 1871 by such a crop of agrarian outrages that the Parliament of the day thought it necessary to pass the Westmeath Act to which he so strongly objected. That did not encourage the belief that, if the measure now before the House were dispensed with, a new Land Act would suffice to secure peace and good order in Ireland. It was not necessary to dwell at length upon the arguments which had been adduced on the other side of the House, many of them relating to points which might be fairly discussed in Committee, and others having been already met in the debate on the second reading of this Bill. The hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) had placed upon the Paper a Motion dealing not only with the merits of part of the measure, but also with the form in which the Bill had been presented to the House. Upon consideration, the hon. Member had thought it wise merely to bring forward that part of his Motion which dealt with the latter question; and he had listened carefully, but in vain, to the speech of the hon. Member for any de fence of his proposal. He had no wish to excuse the Government by casting any blame upon the draftsman, who was responsible merely for putting into shape the intentions of the Government. Those who presented the Bill to the House were alone properly responsible for the form in which it was presented, and in reference to the present measure he took upon himself all the responsibility. If it were a new measure, or one for consolidating the law, there would be some force in the objections which had been taken; but, as a matter of fact, the Bill was simply one to amend and continue portions of existing Acts. The Government, in
  1484
  adopting what he must admit to be the somewhat involved provisions of one clause of the Bill, had simply followed the example set by their Predecessors in a section of the Act of 1873—a course which was rendered absolutely incumbent upon them by the fact that the Bill was one for continuance only. If hon. Members would turn to those points in which it was proposed to mitigate the existing law, or to repeal those parts of it which it was not thought necessary to re-enact, they would find the Bill clear and simple enough. When the hon. Member for Londonderry spoke of a skeleton schedule to steal away the liberties of Ireland, he made use of exaggerated language which was rather to be expected from below the Gangway than from the place which the hon. Member occupied in the House. ["Oh, oh!"] Hon. Members might interrupt; but he thought he remembered having heard very similar expressions from the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Sullivan) in the debate on the second reading of the Bill. He would remind the hon. Member who had used the expressions he had just quoted that the schedule contained nothing that could steal away the liberties of Ireland, but simply consisted of the titles of the sections of the existing Coercion Acts which it was proposed by the Bill to repeal. The hon. and learned Member for Limerick (Mr. Butt) had Amendments upon the Paper which would again raise the question of drafting; but, as the Amendments were intended for Committee, he would not attempt to discuss them until that stage was reached. Upon the whole question before the House, he would say that no one had any desire to stop the free expression of Irish opinion upon a matter so important to Ireland. The course of the debate that evening and upon the second reading showed pretty fairly that when hon. Members from Ireland had anything to urge upon the attention of the House, the House was ready to listen to them, however much it disagreed from their opinions. There had been circumstances in the early portion of the debate that evening which made him express a hope that the readiness with which the House had listened to those expressions of opinion might not be taken unfair advantage of by hon. Members opposite. The

  1485
  House had listened, he was sure, with the greatest pleasure to the able and attractive speech with which the hon. and learned Member for Limerick concluded the debate on his side on the second reading, and he was confident that to similar speeches the House would always be ready to listen. Many Amendments appeared on the Paper to be discussed in Committee—some of them conflicting with the principle of the Bill, and therefore of a kind which the Government could not possibly adopt; perhaps to others they might be able to yield a ready assent; but he was convinced that all would be discussed fairly by the House, and that the arguments in their support would be treated with all the attention they deserved. Therefore, he asked hon. Members opposite whether they did not think they had already debated at sufficient length the general principle of the measure; and whether they would not do more real service to the country they represented, and more justice to the views which they held, by allowing the measure now before the House to be dealt with in the ordinary business-like manner, and, without further debate, arriving at a decision upon the Motion that the Speaker do leave the Chair?
  CAPTAIN NOLANdrew attention to the fact that the Proposer and Seconder of the Amendment had finished their speeches at a quarter past 10, two hours ago, and if hon. Gentlemen disputed that he should recommend them to take a glass of the beverage which the Prime Minister advised them to take a few nights ago. The English Members did not like to get up and propose a Coercion Bill for Ireland; but some Irish Members of the Government did. They knew that this was not a popular measure in every part of Ireland; but they could hardly be dragged in to support it with their speeches. He made an exception in favour of the hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Plunket) and his Colleagues; but the reason why they spoke was a very simple one. Their constituents were exclusive men, men who had got their degree of M.A., and they were a class representation—a class drawn from educated men; but the very fact that the Members for the University of Dublin were generally opposed to the wish of the population of Ireland was,
  1486
  he thought, the strongest argument that could be adduced against class representation of any sort or kind. The right hon. Baronet the Chief Secretary for Ireland had told them that no promises were broken, and that their Amendments would be fairly discussed in Committee. He (Captain Nolan) should like to know which of the promises to the Irish Members had been kept by the Government. He should like to know where was the Municipal Privilege Bill which they were promised last year should be passed. Several Irish Members on the other side of the House objected to that Bill, and although the House of Commons kept their promise, it was broken in the House of Lords, who rejected the measure. He totally denied that this Bill was a relaxation. He said it was the worst Bill ever introduced by any Government. He acknowledged that some of its provisions were a little advantage: but anything conceded in the shape of relaxation was more than made up by the extended duration of the Bill. The county constituencies received no benefit whatever under this Bill. The Chief Secretary had no right to bring in any measure which was to take away their liberties. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had told them that there were in England 116,586 10 s. gun licences, while in Ireland there were 3,578; but if the licences in Ireland were in proportion to the population, there ought to be in that country 25,000, so that there were upwards of 20,000 fewer guns in the possession of Irish farmers than there ought to be as compared with the number held in England. According to the statistics given by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, only one man in Ireland held a gun licence to six in England. This was a real grievance, and when the Irish Members went amongst their constituencies this sort of irritation was continually cropping up, and it would be a running sore throughout the whole country. "When a free American landed in Ireland a stranger, he found that he was subject to a deprivation which was generally connected with slavery. History had recorded that the great difference between free men and slaves was that one was supposed to have free possession of arms, and the other was studiously deprived of them. How could the Government ask the people to

  1487
  rise en masse to fight for them when they had been deprived of arms, and would naturally plead that they were unacquainted with the use of them? Supposing the country had to pay a war contribution like Prance, the people who had been deprived of arms would naturally say—" Let the rich pay the whole contribution; why should we pay any share of it? "Again, might they not object, when they were deprived of acquiring facilities of defence, to pay even towards the armament of the nation. He admitted that the Government might annoy and irritate the Irish people with perfect safety, but the danger was this—that when they attacked the Irish people very hard, a certain percentage of those evils would aways fall upon the English people. It could hardly be argued that the possession of arms arose out of a passion for game. In every age and every country they had seen the passion for game pushing on the privileged classes. This Peace Preservation Bill, so far as it was backed up by the Irish magistrates, arose very largely from a wish for game, and it was good for the keepers to have one gun instead of five or six. In the last debate the strictures made by the Irish Members on crime in England were taken rather hardly. They did not say, however, that crime in England was greater than that pf the ordinary civilized nations of Europe, but that crime in England was less than that of Belgium, and that in Ireland it was less than in England. And although this was proved to be the case from statistics which could be regarded as trustworthy, it was proposed to re-enact a degrading law against the country in which crime was at a minimum.
  MR. O'LEARYmoved the adjournment of the debate.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Mr. O'Leary.)
  MR. DISRAELIsaid, he hoped that after the debate of this evening, and the manner in which the Bill had been discussed upon the second reading, hon. Gentlemen would think it consistent with their duty to go into Committee. He observed that it was the same hon. Gentleman who moved the adjournment of the debate to-night that had moved the adjournment on a former occasion. That showed that the experience the hon. Gentleman
  1488
  had obtained by his former Motion had had some effect in improving his Parliamentary management. He hoped he might be as successful in the appeal which he now made to the hon. Gentleman to re-consider his Motion as he had been before. If the House went into Committee, they would not proceed with the Bill to-night; but it would advance the course of business without having recourse to any of those extreme measures which he did not think desirable, but which the state of the Public Business might require. If the hon. Gentleman would withdraw his Motion, and allow them to go into Committee, they should be able on Monday at the usual and authentic hour to proceed with the Committee, fresh and eager; and their progress would perhaps be satisfactory to both sides. He had not himself listened to the whole of the debate; but that portion of it which he had heard had been sustained on one side at least with considerable interest. He was far from not admiring the mode in which Members from Ireland were conducting things. He did not share some of the objections which had been made even to the remarkable speech of the hon. Member who opened the debate. He had heard there was some originality about it. But the hon. Member for Cavan might, he thought, be content with what he had done to-night, for his speech was longer than the speech De Coronâ or Pro Milone, or any other of the great speeches that had come down to us. Hon. Gentlemen on the other side had had the whole evening for advocating their views, and though, as his right hon. Friend had stated, they might not have brought forward new arguments, they had had the immense advantage of repeating their views and increasing the impression which those views were calculated to make. He hoped, therefore, hon. Gentlemen would not insist on proceeding with the Motion for adjournment.
  MAJOR O'GORMANsaid, he should vote for the adjournment in order to give English Members an opportunity of speaking.
  MR. BIGGARsaid, he thought it desirable the debate should he adjourned, as a large number of Irish Members still wished to speak on the subject. He would never be put down by ridicule. The right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government some

  1489
  time ago told the House an absurd story about Prince Bismarck, and said it was not to that Prince he had referred in his Guildhall speech. ["Order!"]
  MR. SPEAKERreminded the hon. Member that the Question was that the debate be adjourned.
  MR. BIGGARobserved, that the right hon. Gentleman did not tell them who he did mean in that speech.
  MR. O'CONOR POWERjoined in the complaints that had been made by other Irish Members that Members opposite had maintained silence during the debate, and regarded that as another Irish grievance. He should support the Motion for the adjournment of the debate.
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsuggested that if the Members for Ireland objected to the debate being then concluded the House might be asked to sit somewhat later than usual in order to finish it. The speech of the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) was a very remarkable one. Had such a speech been delivered from the other side of the House, or even from behind the front Opposition bench, it would have been received in a very different manner. But as it was, that speech was listened to with the greatest patience and the greatest consideration. He thought, therefore, the Irish Members should make some concession on their part, and endeavour to finish the debate that evening.
  LORD ROBERT MONTAGUsaid, he had no objection to the debate being continued to a later hour on condition that some Member of the Cabinet should proceed to address the House. The grievance of the Irish Members was that the Government had refused to make out a case for the Coercion Bill.
  MR. SULLIVAN, referring to a remark which fell from the noble Marquess, assured the House that the hon. Member for Cavan had spoken as he did, not from any pro-arrangement with other Irish Members, but totally on his own responsibility, and without having given them any previous intimation that he intended to address the House at such length.
  MR. BUTTregretted the necessity for adjourning; but as several Irish Members had not yet been afforded an opportunity of explaining their objections to the measure, he should certainly support the Motion for adjournment. On
  1490
  the occasion of the introduction of the last Irish Coercion Bill there was a debate extending over 11 nights, and on the tenth evening the strongest speech against the measure was made by the present Prime Minister. That fact reminded him of one of the most interesting incidents in political history; for in the Life of Lord George Bentinck the author called attention to the Nemesis which befell Sir Robert Peel at the very time when the message came down that the Bill for the Repeal of the Corn Laws had passed the House of Lords.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes 63; Noes 245: Majority 182.
  Original Question again proposed.
  MAJOR O'GORMAN: Sir, I beg to move the adjournment of the House. The last time I spoke here I spoke in irony, but I do not do so now. I beg leave to acquaint the House, and to inform the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, that, if the liberties of my country are to be destined by a despotic and insolent majority, those liberties shall de hard.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Mr. O'Gorman.)
  MR. DISRAELI: After the tragic address of the hon. Gentleman, I really do not think that the House would be in a condition to pursue this debate properly, and therefore I assent to the adjournment of the debate if the hon. Gentleman will alter his Motion according to the Form of the House.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  Original Question again proposed.
  Debate adjourned till Monday next.

SHERIFF COURTS (SCOTLAND) (No. 2) BILL—SUMMARY PROSECUTIONS APPEALS (SCOTLAND) BILL.

  LEAVE. FIRST READING.
  THE LORD ADVOCATE, in moving for leave to bring in the two following Bills—a "Bill to alter and amend the Law relating to the administration of Justice in ordinary Civil Causes in the Sheriff Courts in Scotland," and a "Bill to alter and amend the Law relating to Appeals in Summary Prosecutions before

  1491
  inferior Judges in Scotland"—said: I have to ask the indulgence of the House while I make a brief statement of certain points which I consider it to be right that the public and the legal profession should have in mind when considering the provisions of these Bills. In 1868, when the present Prime Minister was in office, a Royal Commission was issued for the purpose of inquiring into the constitution and jurisdiction of the various Courts, civil and criminal, in Scotland. The Commissioners examined many witnesses during the next two years, and after having issued some interim Reports, they issued their final Report in July 1870. The result of their investigations and Reports was favourable to the procedure before the Court of Session. It had been made the subject of legislation in an Act passed in 1868 which I had the honour to introduce, and I believe that the opinion of the public and of the profession generally is that there is no immediate call for further legislation in regard to the procedure in the Court of Session; and I venture to say there is no Court in the United Kingdom in which there is less delay in obtaining a decision on the merits of a cause than in that Court. But the proceedings before the sheriff courts call for immediate improvement. The object of the first Bill is to effect such improvement in the direction of the recommendations of the Commissioners. I wish to explain why the Bill is limited to the proceedings in the ordinary civil court of the sheriff. I consider that to embrace in one Bill all the points connected with the sheriff court would make the Bill too large, and that there might be much difficulty in passing it through Parliament this Session. The Bill is, therefore, confined to the jurisdiction and procedure in the ordinary sheriff courts in Scotland, and does not deal with the small debt or other courts not coming within the ordinary civil jurisdiction of the sheriff. These will form the subject of legislation hereafter. The Law Courts Commissioners recommend that the sheriff should have power to appoint tutors and curators, factors loco tutoris and judicial factors, where the value of the estate, heritable and movable, is sworn not to exceed £1,000, and that the officers, when appointed, should be under the superintendence of the Accountant of Court. I have given much
  1492
  consideration to this recommendation, and am desirous, if possible, to give effect to it; but I have ascertained that there may be various practical difficulties which must be overcome before proposals giving effect to these recommendations can be laid before Parliament. I do not, therefore, intend to deal with these appointments in the present Bill; but another Bill will be required for the purpose of making some improvements with reference to proceedings before the Accountant of Court and also for extending his powers to judicial factors, and in that Bill, or it may be by Amendments in this Bill, I hope to give effect to the recommendation of the Commissioners to which I have just alluded. The Commissioners recommended that there should be an extension of the jurisdiction of the sheriff courts, by allowing them to judge in regard to titles and rights to heritable or real property—matters which are not at present within their powers. In most countries rights of real property have been reserved for the jurisdiction of the superior courts; but in the County Courts of England power has been given to the Judges in these courts, I believe, to entertain questions involving real property of the yearly value of £20, and I think the same power is vested in the Civil Bill Courts of Ireland. I propose that the sheriff courts in Scotland, should have power to entertain cases involving real property of the value of £1,000, being about double the value admitted in England and Ireland. The defender may remove the litigation at the outset to the Court of Session, subject to the provision that even if successful in his defence he shall not recover a larger amount of expenses than that to which he would have been entitled if the litigation had proceeded in the sheriff court. The procedure clauses of the Bill follow the provisions of the Court of Session Act of 1868, which have given satisfaction and expedition in that court, and it is hoped may put an end to the considerable delays which exists in most of the sheriff courts. The second Bill which I move for leave to introduce is one in accordance with the English—Jervis and other—Acts, which permit appeals from Justices of the Peace and stipendiary magistrates on points of law submitted in a case approved of by the magistrate in regard to the facts held to be proved

  1493
  by him, and it also allows a case to be prepared by a magistrate before whom a summary case has been brought, when he feels a difficulty in disposing of the case, or when there are conflicting decisions before other jurisdictions. This measure is also in accordance with the opinions of the Law Commissioners, and will be of advantage in cases where ordinary appeals at present are excluded, and will remove the unpleasant state of matters which exists when opposite opinions, as is sometimes the case, are given upon the construction of the same Act. When the law is laid down by the Supreme Court, in such cases there will be a rule for the guidance of sheriffs and magistrates, and the same decision will be expected to be followed by inferior Judges.
  MR. KINNAIRDasked when the Sheriff Courts Bill would be read a second time?
  THE LORD ADVOCATEsaid, on the 24th of May.
  Motion agreed to.
  Bill to alter and amend the Law relating to the administration of Justice in ordinary Civil Causes in the Sheriff Courts in Scotland, ordered to he brought in by The LORD ADVOCATE, Mr. Secretary CROSS, and Sir HENRY SELWINIBBETSON.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 135.]
  Bill to alter and amend the Law relating to Appeals in Summary Prosecutions before inferior Judges in Scotland, ordered to be brought in by The LORD ADVOCATE, Mr. Secretary CROSS, and Sir HENRY SELWINIRBETSON.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 136.]
  House adjourned at half after One o'clock.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—First Reading—Bankruptcy (Scotland) Law Amendment* (62).
Second Reading—County Courts * (57); Local Government Board's Provisional Orders Confirmation * (53); Public Health (Scotland) Provisional Order Confirmation* (54).
Committee—Agricultural Holdings (England) (39–63).
Royal Assent—Mutiny [38 Vict. c. 7]; Marine Mutiny [38 Vict. c. 8]; Building Societies Act (1874) Amendment [38 Vict. c. 9]; Local Government Board (Ireland) Provisional Orders Confirmation [38 Vict. c. ii.]

AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS (ENGLAND) BILL—(No. 39.)
(The Lord President.)
AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS (ENGLAND) BILL—(No. 39.)

  COMMITTEE.
  Order of the Day for the House to be put into Committee, read.
  THE DUKE OF RUTLANDsaid, that as he had no opportunity on a previous occasion he begged to be allowed to make a few observations upon the general scope and principles of the measure. He regarded the Bill as an honest attempt on the part of his noble Friend who had charge of it to settle a very difficult and important question. He concurred with the noble Earl who spoke on a former occasion (the Earl of Airlie) that his noble Friend was right in upholding the principle of freedom of contract as between landlord and tenant; but many of their friends out-of-doors thought that instead of being permissive the Bill ought to be compulsory. But that idea, he thought, was based on a mistake. It was a great mistake to imagine that the interests of the landlord were contradictory to those of the tenant. It was quite as much to the advantage of the landlord as it was to the tenant that the land should be cultivated in the best possible manner, and that the largest amount of capital should be invested in the land, and that the tenant should have security for the capital he invested. Again, there were those out-of-doors who looked with alarm at this Bill because they thought it likely to introduce "the thin edge of the wedge." He thought that was a baseless fear. The people of this country were sufficiently intelligent to know well that there ought to be freedom

  1423
  of contract between landlord and tenant, and that consequently landlords and tenants should not be compelled to come in under this Bill. The noble Duke opposite (the Duke of Somerset) was, he thought, rather hard upon the farmers of England. He said, when the Corn Laws were repealed they showed no great desire to increase the food of the people, but now they were extremely anxious for a Tenant Eight Bill to pass, in order to add to the quantity of food. Now, he (the Duke of Rut-land) believed the farmers of England were quite as patriotic as any other class of men, and were just as capable of taking large, enlightened, and patriotic views of any question that came before them; and he would remind the noble Duke, when he told them that 600,000 acres had been laid down in permanent pasture, that the main argument used by those who supported the Corn Laws was that that very thing would happen, and that they might, in case of war, be dependent on the Power they were at war with, for their food. A perfect Bill was what no one had a right to expect, for everyone was aware that no possible Bill could be introduced that would be perfectly satisfactory to both sides; but this Bill he thought was as good a one as could be had. There were two points, however, in the measure respecting which he entertained objections. First, he thought that the drainage of land should be put in the second class of improvements instead of in the first class. Next, he thought that the year's notice proposed by the Bill was objectionable. He did not see of what advantage it could be to the tenant, while it might be a great disadvantage to the landlord. In many cases it would amount to practically two years' notice. He was sorry to say that one of his own tenants had become insolvent. He could not give that tenant notice till next Lady Day, so that he would not be obliged to quit till Lady Day, 1877. In the meantime, the tenant might exhaust the land so as to get all he could out of it. He might be told that as landlord he could claim compensation if the tenant acted in that way. But how was he to recover payment and compensation from an insolvent tenant? Excepting these points he thought the Bill satisfactory.
  House in Committee accordingly.
  Clauses 1 to 4 agreed to.
  Preliminary.
  Tenants Compensations for Improvements.
  Clause 5 (Tenants' title to compensation.)
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYinquired whether its provisions were to be retrospective?
  THE DUKE OF RICHMONDreplied that decidedly the intention of the Government was that they were to be prospective only; and the 16th clause provided that neither landlord nor tenant should be entitled to compensation unless three months before the determination of the tenancy he gave notice to the other of his intention to claim compensation. This showed that it did not apply to anything done before the passing of this Act.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYsaid, that the provision requiring such a notice was not in the original draft of the Bill.
  THE EARL OF PORTSMOUTHpointed out that it often happened that in the matter of drainage the landlord cut the drains and the tenant built them, and in other ways the tenant was assisted by the landlord by materials and by money in the case of temporary buildings. There ought therefore to be some words inserted to meet such cases.
  THE DUKE OF SOMERSETsubmitted that the words "adding to the letting value thereof" were objectionable, and he would move that they be struck out. It might be that an improvement was a valuable one, though from circumstances with which the tenant had nothing to do, the letting value of the farm was not improved in the sense of a higher rent being obtained for it. He moved, as an Amendment, the omission of those words.
  THE DUKE OF RICHMONDsaid, he would be willing to consider the suggestion of the noble Earl when they came to consider the 6th clause. He was sorry he could not agree to the Amendment of the noble Duke. The principle that the improvements for which compensation was to be paid should add to the letting value of the holding was that from which the Government started in the framing of the Bill. First of all, by the clause now under consideration, where the tenant executed an improvement which added to the letting value, he should be entitled on the termination of his tenancy to compensation for the improvement—in other words, the tenant

  1425
  received compensation for an unexhausted improvement. This was the keystone of the Bill. Then came Clause 6, which defined by classes the improvements for which compensation was to be allowed; and that was followed by a clause defining what the amount of the tenant's compensation was to be. If the tenant laid out money on the land which would result in making the farm one which would let for a better rent—when his improvements added to the letting value of the land—he would be entitled to compensation if his tenancy was not sufficiently long to enable him to recoup himself for his outlay in the improvements. On the other hand, if the improvement did not add to the letting value, the tenant could not be compensated under this Bill. He hoped their Lordships would keep Clause 5 as it stood.
  THE EARL OF MORLEYthought the noble Duke had overlooked this consideration—that though the improvement might be a valuable one per se, yet other causes might operate to decrease the letting value of the farm, and in this case the tenant would not be entitled to compensation. He thought that a certain ambiguity would present itself in respect of the third class of improvements, which were the application to land of purchased artificial or other manure, and consumption by cattle or sheep or pigs of corn, cake, or other feeding stuff. He did not see how these added to the letting value of the farm. If any unexhausted good was left from such sources the succeeding tenant, not the landlord, would have the benefit.
  THE DUKE OF RICHMONDapprehended that such an improvement as his noble Friend had suggested in the opening portion of his remarks would come within the Bill. As to the third class of improvements, there was an inconvenience in discussing a clause which was not before their Lordships, and the classes of improvements were provided for in Clause 6; but in reply to his noble Friend he was willing to introduce a proviso to the effect that all improvements of the third class should be deemed to be unexhausted if no crop of corn or potatoes had been taken off the land after the manure had been applied. As everyone knew, there would then be nothing left.
  VISCOUNT HALIFAXobserved, that what would come within the third class
  1426
  was rather an improvement to keep the farm precisely as it was—to prevent it from deteriorating—than one which would add to the letting value of the land. Artificial manures did not add to the letting value of a farm. He thought, therefore, that Clause 5 ought to be restricted to the first and second classes of improvements.
  LORD CARLINGFORDthought the Government were quite right in adhering to the words which the noble Duke (the Duke of Somerset) proposed to strike out. Even though the land would not let at a higher rent, the particular improvement might have increased the value of the land on which it had been effected. Whether it did or did not was a matter which could be ascertained without reference to the rent at which the farm, as a whole, could be let.
  THE EARL OF AIRLIEthought the Government were quite right in maintaining that anything which contributed to the preservation of the land contributed to its letting value.
  THE EARL OF DERBYsaid, the question was not whether the improvement had increased the rent, but whether, if it had not been effected, the letting value of the land would have been as great.
  LORD HAMPTONhoped his noble Friend (the Duke of Richmond) would re-consider this matter, because he thought that the words which the noble Duke (the Duke of Somerset) proposed to strike out would lead to litigation.
  THE MARQUESS of BATHwas of opinion that those words were of vital importance, and he therefore opposed their omission.
  THE DUKE OF RICHMONDsaid, that some of the objections urged against the words of the clause now under consideration might be ground for modifying Clause 7, which defined the amount of compensation; and when the latter clause came on for discussion he would propose an Amendment in its terms to meet those objections; but Clause 5 was the keystone of the structure of the Bill, and he could neither assent to the Amendment nor promise to re-consider the matter.
  THE DUKE OF SOMERSETsaid, that the words to which the noble Duke (the Duke of Richmond) attached so much importance were scarcely just to the tenant. The Bill required the consent

  1427
  of the landlord to the execution of any improvement for which compensation was to be claimed. Supposing the tenant spent £1,000 on drainage which turned out to be a failure and did not add to the letting value of the land, ought the whole loss to fall on the tenant, though the expenditure was one to which the landlord had given his consent?
  THE DUKE OF RICHMONDthought that in the case just suggested the matter was one of covenant between landlord and tenant. If the latter entered into a bad speculation, was he to turn round and ask the landlord to pay for it?
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY, while approving the determination of the Government to adhere to the words which the noble Duke (the Duke of Somerset) proposed to expunge, thought at the same time that the difficulty just suggested by that noble Duke was one which was well worthy of consideration. In the county of Norfolk a body of gentlemen, among whom were Lord Leicester and Mr. Clare Read, drew up a document in which it was stated that—
  "No case has been made out for compensation for any outlay which is not suitable to the holding and calculated to increase the letting value unless it be made with the written consent of the landlord."
  This last qualification was an important one. Within his own personal experience as a landlord there had occurred a case which illustrated the point. A tenant of his undertook some drainage with his consent, and, after having consulted and obtained the advice of the best authorities, the work turned out a failure. It would have been rather hard on the tenant to have had to bear the loss, seeing that it had been executed under such circumstances. That case was not sufficiently provided for under the Bill.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYreminded their Lordships of the power to charge compensations on the estate which this Bill would confer on limited owners. He thought such compensation ought to be charged on the land, not on the landlord. This must be considered when they came to the question of paying for such improvements as that just referred to by his noble Friend.
  THE DUKE OF SOMERSETsaid, he would not press his Amendment.
  Amendment (by leave of the Committee) withdrawn.
  THE EARL OF AIRLIEsaid, that in consequence of the Amendment which the noble Duke (the Duke of Richmond) had promised to propose on Clause 7, he would not propose the Amendment on Clause 5 of which he had given Notice.
  THE EARL OF AIRLIEmoved an Amendment that the compensation should be limited to the amount laid out by the tenant.
  THE DUKE OF RICHMONDsaid, he would accept his noble Friend's suggestion; but the proper place for the insertion of the words of the Amendment would be in the 7th clause.
  THE DUKE OF ARGYLLsaid, that before the clause was agreed to he wished to make a few remarks. The plan of the Bill appeared to be this—it set out in this clause a general principle with respect to compensation for improvements, which, when they passed that clause, their Lordships would affirm. The Bill then went on to limit the application of that principle of compensation in various ways. It was most important, therefore, that their Lordships should look carefully to the wording of Clause 5, this clause being, as it were, the standard raised by the Government, and under which the provisions of the Bill were to be carried out. In considering the question of tenant-right there were several matters which ought to be borne in mind. First, the improvements should be real and such as to add to the value of the land; secondly, they should not be made in pursuance of any agreement with the landlord; thirdly, they should not be, directly or indirectly, for valuable consideration received; and, fourthly, that the tenant had not already been recouped his outlay, either by length of occupation or by cheapness of rent. These were four limitations upon the right and equity of compensation for improvements which so far were fully admitted, and which were fully admitted even in the case of the Irish Land Act. But this clause alluded to one only of these limitations—and that was that the improvement should be really effectual and really add to the letting value of the land. He asked whether it was wise to put into the Bill a sweeping assertion of right which went far beyond the obvious and admitted equities of the

  1429
  case? The Government Bill had the character of a general proposition, and then they were obliged afterwards to insert limitations which appeared inconsistent with the proposition. He ventured to suggest that if not now, at least on the Report, their Lordships would endeavour to import into this clause words which should cover the limitations to which he referred. He had not put down an Amendment because long experience had convinced him of the difficulty an independent Member found in effecting consistent improvements in a Bill introduced by another. They had imported the words into the Bill of "adding to the letting value." That, in the first place, meant adding to the profit of the tenant. Let them look at the clause in this light. "When a tenant executes on his holding improvements adding to his own profit he shall be compensated." And this was what the Government asked the House to affirm. No precaution had been taken with regard to cases where the tenants were allowed to sit in their holdings at prices far below the market value of their farms, and where they had long since been recouped for the improvements they carried out. He might illustrate that by a case within his experience. Some years ago a friend of his purchased a property in a picturesque but rather sleepy English county. He paid a high price for the estate, and he found that most of the tenants were sitting at rents much below the market value. He informed them that he had the best means of knowing that they enjoyed a large percentage for their money—that whereas his return was about 2 per cent. from information he received, their return was from 20 to 25 per cent. and that, under these circumstances, he asked them to advance the rents. Most of them said—"You think our rents are low; we think, on the contrary, we are sitting at the average rent of our neighbourhood, and we cannot advance our rents." The landlord said he was sorry, but he must put the farms to competition and test what other farmers would give. The result was that a considerable number of the tenants were themselves the highest bidders for their farms. What did the House think turned out to be the preference rent at which the tenants had been sitting and in respect of which they might well have executed the most
  1430
  costly improvements? They had been sitting at a preference rent of between 50 and 70 per cent. This might be an extreme case, but he was certain that in many parts of England where tenants were sitting at a very low preference rent, out of those preference rents they were well compensated for any improvements they made. Now under this Bill these tenants might make large claims for improvements, for nothing was said in the Bill on the point. It was announced that although this Bill referred only to England, it was to be followed by another Bill applicable to Scotland. One of the limitations admitted by the advocates of tenant-right was this—that improvements which were to be compensated for should not be improvements done in virtue of a contract or in fulfilment of any other understanding. He ventured to affirm this—that all improvements made by tenants holding under leases were improvements made in virtue of a contract; and it was preposterous that a man should make a clear and distinct bargain with another, taking a farm for a particular rent, and then, not satisfied with the profit which that rent would give him in the exercise of his legitimate occupation, that he should demand at the end of the lease additional compensation. He laid down the principle generally that this clause was not a clause which in principle ought to be extended to leases at all unless the improvements done were of an extraordinary nature. Each party ought to be kept to his own bargain. The clause affirmed a principle of compensation for improvements in terms dangerously, inequitably, wide and sweeping, and he suggested they should introduce into it words to the effect that they recognized this right on the part of the tenant only where he had not been otherwise remunerated for the improvements.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, that the greater part of the speech of the noble Duke (the Duke of Argyll) had been a criticism on the wording of this particular clause—a criticism which might have been rendered unnecessary by the proposal of seven additional words. Every person who admitted the idea of compensation for improvements was agreed that such compensation ought to be guarded and qualified by various conditions—such as lowness of rent, length of occupation, and the question

  1431
  as to whether compensation had been already given in some other way for the improvements. He and those around him were perfectly agreed upon the propriety of these conditions; but he demurred to the course suggested by the noble Duke—for his criticism amounted to this—" At the beginning of the Bill, when you first enact that there shall be compensation, before you put a full stop at the end of the fifth section, you ought to enumerate in it every one of your qualifications and conditions, for if you leave one of them out the clause will hereafter be cited as a proof that you have admitted the principle of compensation without any qualification whatever." He put it to their Lordships whether this was not the effect of three-fourths of the noble Duke's speech. For his own part, he believed that one of the main causes of obscurity in Acts of Parliament was the attempting to express in one long sentence, running perhaps to a page or a page and a-half, a large number of qualifications. You must take an Act of Parliament by steps and go from clause to clause, and no one had a right to take one of a fasciculus of clauses and to maintain that it expressed Parliamentary approval of a general principle, unmodified and uncontrolled by anything that came after. Still, if the noble Duke wished to make the clause more guarded and more clear, it would only be necessary to introduce after "entitled" the words "subject to the provisions of this Act." Every modification and qualification would be thereby introduced into the section. He could not agree with the noble Duke in the other matter he referred to. The noble Duke said it was utterly repugnant to the idea of a lease that there should be engrafted in it any such provisions for compensation as were contained in this Bill. If it were meant that it was repugnant to the leases now in existence, he quite agreed with the noble Duke, because the Bill carefully guarded against affecting in any way any lease now in operation. But it would not be repugnant to the idea of a lease which might be made hereafter if the two parties to it agreed that these were proper provisions to insert, and that they would accept the offer contained in the Act of Parliament. If the parties did not like the provisions, they need not introduce them into the contract.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYconcurred to a great extent in what had been said by the noble and learned Lord in regard to leases. The object of this and kindred enactments was to offer to the tenant an inducement to keep up his good farming to the last moment of his occupation; and of course this object applied as much to leases as to yearly agreements. It was because Nature did not permit a tenant—especially in the case of high farming—to reap the whole benefit of his outlay before the termination of his tenancy that it became desirable to provide machinery by which to give him compensation. He thought a lease ought to be combined with a Bill of this kind, for under the present system, without the slightest dishonesty or unfairness, a tenant who farmed very high would, in the last three or four years of his tenancy, let his farm down from the high pitch of cultivation to which he had previously brought it.
  LORD CARLINGFORDthought that nearly all the conditions and safeguards which the noble Duke (the Duke of Argyll) desired to see introduced into this clause were covered by and included in the general power of making agreements which the Bill was intended to confer. Perhaps an exception should be made of the question the noble Duke raised as to general lowness of rent distinct from low rent in consideration of improvements to be made by the tenant. For that he only knew one remedy, and that a simple one—when a landlord believed his rents to be unreasonably low he ought to raise them.
  Clause, as amended, agreed, to.
  Clause 6 (Description and three classes of improvements).
  LORD HENNIKERmoved an Amendment that the classes of improvements should be four, instead of three, as proposed in the clause, and for that purpose proposed a re-arrangement of the classes, and, also, a small addition thereto. The object of his Amendment was to make a juster arrangement than that contained in the clause in respect of the number of years during which an improvement should be deemed to be unexhausted. The Bill should lay down, at all events, a model agreement, and the classes, as they stood, allowed more than could be adopted in some cases; draining, for instance, should not be

  1433
  allowed for for more than 12 years, as a rule, and so on. The alteration was not very great, but he believed it would be of use. The first class would provide, under his Amendment, for compensation over 20 years, the second over 12 years, the third over seven years, and the fourth over one year only—namely, for the last year of the tenancy. It was very important that corn produced on the farm, or rather producible on the farm, and so producible in the neighbourhood, should not be allowed for in the fourth class.
  Amendment moved, in page 2, line 11, leave out (" three") and insert (" four "); line 13, after ("Act") omit to end of clause and insert:—

  First Class.

  Erection or enlargement of buildings.

  Planting of orchards.

  Making of gardens.

  Reclamation of waste land.

  Making or improving of roads or bridges.

  Warping of land.

  Making or improving of watercourses, ponds, wells, or reservoirs.

  Construction of works for the supply of water for the purposes of a farm or farmhouse.

  SECOND CLASS.

  The drainage of land.

  Making and planting of ozier beds.

  Making and protecting of new fences.

  Planting of hops.

  Laying down of permanent pastures.

  THIRD CLASS.

  Boning of pasture land with undissolved bones.

  Clay burning.

  Chalking of land.

  Claying of land.

  Liming of land.

  Marling of land.

  FOURTH CLASS.

  Application to land of purchased, artificial or other manure used for any green crop consumed on the farm.

  Consumption on the farm of any cake and purchased corn of any description not producible on the farm, or other feeding stuffs of mammal value.

  THE DUKE OF RICHMONDsaid, he regretted that he differed from his noble Friend, who had paid great attention to this matter. In the first place, he preferred three classes to four, because the fewer the classes were the simpler would be the operation of the Bill. In the next
  1434
  place, the difference between the classes proposed by the Amendment of his noble Friend and the arrangement of classes in the clause was infinitesimally small. He opposed the proposition of the noble Lord mainly on the ground that it was unnecessary. Improvements coming under Class 1, as defined in the Bill, would include all the improvements set forth in the noble Lord's Classes 1 and 2, and as the period of exhaustion under the first class would extend over 20 years, it would be perfectly possible for landlords and tenants, by mutual agreements, to make any new limit within the maximum of 20 years which they might think desirable.
  THE DUKE OF CLEVELANDmade a few remarks, which were not heard.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYwas glad the noble Duke proposed to retain the classification as proposed in the Bill. No doubt there were difficulties, but the lesser evil would be to leave the arrangement of the Government alone.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYthought it would be hard to prevent landlords and tenants adopting varying time limits in accordance with the different conditions existing in different parts of the country. All that could reasonably be done was to lay down a rule which was likely to be applicable to as many cases as possible.
  On Question? resolved in the negative.
  THE DUKE OF RUTLANDmoved an Amendment, to strike out the words "Drainage of land" from the list of First Class improvements, and insert them in the Second Class.
  The Marquess of BATH and The Earl of AIRLIE opposed the Amendment.
  THE DUKE OF CLEVELANDalso opposed the Amendment. He recollected that in former times it was calculated that drainage improvements exhausted themselves in 10 years.
  LORD WAVENEYthought drainage of a superior nature should, come under the first class, while the inferior kind should come under the second class of improvements.
  THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNEsaid, the difficulty might vanish if the House were clearly to understand that the periods mentioned in Clause 8 were only maximum periods, and not to be allowed in every instance.
  THE DUKE OF RICHMONDstated that the periods mentioned were intended to be maximum; but that if the language of the clause was not explicit enough he would insert words to make it so. He thought it would be best to leave the question of drainage improvements where it was.
  Amendment (by leave of the Committee) withdrawn.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY, referring to the next item in Class 1, "Erection or enlargement of buildings," said, that 20 years was not sufficient to allow for exhaustion in improvements of this description. He should suggest the period of 30 years.
  LORD CARLINGFORDthought it would be wiser to leave out buildings altogether, rather than restrict the period to 20 years.
  THE DUKE OF CLEVELANDtook the same view, remarking that the erection or enlargement of buildings was generally done by the landlord.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, that the proposal of the noble Earl (the Earl of Kimberley) was only material in the case of limited owners, because if the owner of property was an absolute owner he could make what agreement he liked with his tenant. Now, this Bill recognized only the person in possession of the estate as the representative of all the interests in it, so far as what might be called "ordinary management" was concerned, and he thought excellent reasons could be shown for the adoption of that principle. The proposal of the noble Earl would defeat the whole object of the Bill, which was meant to be a practical working measure, and he therefore hoped their Lordships would not commit themselves to it. It might, perhaps, be necessary to introduce some safeguards in the case of trustees. It was considered, when the Bill was about to be introduced, whether it should not go further, and whether larger powers, in respect of agricultural leases and special agreements, should not be given to limited owners, and it was the intention of the Government at some convenient time to propose a measure which should deal with and probably extend those powers. It might be desirable to take into account whether the limited owner, with proper checks, might not be empowered to make such agreements
  1436
  as that to which the noble Earl referred, and under such agreement to charge the inheritance; but he trusted their Lordships would not enter upon this larger and very difficult subject in dealing with a measure of a limited purpose.
  EARL FORTESCUEsaid, it seemed to him that the passing of the 3rd clause had estopped the House from going into that question.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYsaid, unless the effect of the Bill, so far as it related to the limited owner, would be injurious, he saw no reason for alarm as to what might happen to the remainder-man. He did not concur in the theory that this legislation was needed for what was called increasing the food of the people, but that was the ground on which the Bill was based by the Government, and nothing was, in his opinion, more essential to good farming than that permanent sound buildings should be provided. Now the very person who would not put up such buildings was the limited owner. It seemed to him, therefore, that if buildings of a permanent nature were erected and added to the letting value of the land, the tenant should be allowed sufficient to recoup him for his outlay, and the charge should be placed upon the estate.
  THE MARQUESS OF BATHthought the limited owner possessed all the powers which were requisite, and, if not, he might apply to the Court of Chancery to obtain them.
  After a few words from the Earl of DERBY, the words "erection or enlargement of buildings" were agreed to and ordered to stand part of the First Class.
  Other items of improvements of the First Class agreed to.
  Improvements of the Second and Third Classes agreed to, with Amendments.
  Clause, as amended, agreed to.
  Clause 7 (Amount of tenants' compensation) amended, and agreed to.
  Clause 8 (Time in which improvements exhausted).
  Clause 9 (Consent of landlord for first class).
  On the Motion of the Duke of RICHMOND the following new clause was inserted to follow Clause 9—
  (Notice to landlord for second and third class).
  "The tenant shall not be entitled to compensation in respect of an improvement of the second or of the third class, unless not more than 14 days before executing it he has given to the landlord notice in writing of his intention to do so."
  Clause 10 (Restrictions on outlay on third class).
  Clause 11 (Deductions for compensation for rent, taxes, &c.)
  Clause 12 (Set off for benefit of tenant) agreed to.
  Landlords' Compensation for Waste.
  Clause 13 (Landlords' title to compensation for waste) struck out.
  Clause 14 (Description of Waste).
  Clause 15 (Amount of Landlords compensation) agreed to.
  Procedure.
  Clause 16 (Notice of intended claim).
  THE MARQUESS OF BATHobjected to the form of the clause as unsatisfactory, and suggested that the words "three months," defining the period of notice to be given by either party to the other of them, should be omitted.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORexplained that the object of the three months' notice was to put the parties on their guard by letting them know before the expiration of the tenancy that a claim was to be made for compensation. It was only on the termination of the tenancy that the tenant could go to the landlord and make his claim. If the landlord disputed the claim, then came the provision under the 18th clause by which referees were to be appointed. If both parties concurred there might be a single referee; if they did not concur, each might appoint a referee; and if a referee died or failed to act after seven days' notice, and the party failed to appoint another, the County Court Judge was to appoint a competent and impartial person as referee. Then there were provisions for the appointment of an umpire and as to the time within which the referees and the umpire were to make their awards. Those various stages would altogether occupy about 11 weeks; so that the landlord would have sufficient time given him for examining into the matter.
  Clause 17 Compensation agreed or settled by reference) agreed to.
  Clause 18 (Appointment of referee or referees and umpire).
  THE MARQUESS OF BATHmoved an Amendment extending the period for the referee to take action from 7 to 14 days.
  After a few words from Earl GRANVILLE and the LORD CHANCELLOR, in opposition to the Amendment,
  Amendment negatived.
  THE MARQUESS OF BATHthen moved an Amendment substituting the Inclo-sure Commissioners for the County Court Judge to appoint a new referee on failure of one of the parties to do so.
  Amendment negatived.
  Clauses 19 to 24, inclusive, agreed to.
  Clause 25 (Award to find time of improvement).
  THE DUKE OF RICHMONDproposed to leave out the clause, and insert the following new clause:—
  (Award to give particulars.)
  "The award shall not award a sum generally for compensation, but shall, as far as reasonably may be, specify—
  "The particulars of the several improvements, acts, and things in respect whereof compensation is awarded;
  "The time at which each thereof was executed, committed, or permitted;
  "The mode and extent in and to which each thereof adds to or diminishes the letting value of the holding; and
  "The sum awarded in respect of each thereof."
  Motion agreed to; original clause struck out, and new clause inserted.
  Clauses 26 to 29 relating to costs, payment, and removal, inclusive, agreed to.
  Clause 30 (Appeal to County Court).
  THE MARQUESS OF HUNTLYproposed to omit the clause.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYthought that an appeal ought to be allowed, and that, as a rule, the County Court would be the best tribunal to appeal to. In some cases, however, where very large sums of money were at stake, there ought to be the right of appeal to a more important Court.
  THE MARQUESS OF BATHthought that the decision of a Judge of Assize would be more satisfactory than that of a County Court Judge, who would not have the assistance of able counsel. He

  1439
  would suggest to leave out the words "appeal against it to the Judge of the County Court," and insert "remove the same by due process into any of Her Majesty's Courts at Westminster."
  THE LORD CHANCELLORpointed out that, although in Common Law actions the jurisdiction of the County Court Judges was limited to a comparatively small sum, yet in cases of equitable jurisdiction it had been extended to £500; while in Bankruptcy proceedings, as well as in all cases where the parties to a suit consented, they might exercise an absolutely unlimited judgment. To what better tribunal could appeals under this Bill be referred? His noble Friend proposed a Judge of Assize; but it should be borne in mind that in most of these cases a very considerable body of evidence would have to be disposed of, and that numerous documents and intricate accounts would have to be examined. How could a Judge of Assize, with the Circuits adjusted as at present and whose time was limited, be able to hear all these cases in addition to the work he had already to get through? These cases would necessarily involve processes of account and examination of vouchers—no Judge of Assize could undertake to grapple with them, and in the result they would be referred to some other tribunal. Besides, if appeals were to be tried before a Judge of Assize they must be tried by a jury, and he could conceive nothing more dangerous than to submit differences arising between landlords and tenants virtually to the decision of tenants residing in the neighbourhood. A County Court Judge would have ample leisure to examine not only the witnesses, but also the papers and accounts, and come to a decision on his personal responsibility, instead of casting the responsibility on a jury.
  EARL GRANVILLEsaid, if it was the opinion of the Committee that there should be an appeal, he did not see why an award under £50 should not be a subject of appeal as well as an award of a larger amount.
  LORD DENMANsaid, that, having made every order of reference in the Court of Queen's Bench for 12 years, in which the referee was sole judge, and which were very seldom questioned, he hoped that the decision of an umpire in all cases might be final, awards up to
  1440
  £50 being recoverable in County Courts, and beyond that sum in the Superior Courts; and he trusted that the County Court Judges, who were already very much overworked, would not be saddled with these appeals.
  THE DUKE OF RICHMONDsaid, that if the Committee would affirm the principle of the clause, he would endeavour to amend it upon Report so as to make it more acceptable.
  Amendment (by leave of the Committee) withdrawn.
  Clause agreed to.
  Clauses 31 (Recovery of compensation); and 32 (Costs, remuneration, &c, in the County Courts), agreed to, with Amendments.
  Charge of Tenant's Compensation.
  Clause 33 (Power for landlord paying compensation to obtain charge), agreed to.
  Ecclesiastical and Charity Lands.
  Clause 34 (Landlord, archbishop, or bishop, incumbent of benefice, trustees for charities, &c.) agreed to.
  Notice to Quit.
  Clause 35 (Time of Notice to quit).
  THE DUKE OF RUTLANDsaid, that this clause, which provided that where a half-year's notice expiring with a year of tenancy was by law necessary for determination of a tenancy—not created by lease—from year to year, a year's notice should by virtue of the Act be necessary and sufficient for the same.
  THE DUKE OF RICHMONDtrusted the Committee would pass the clause in its present form.
  EARL GRANVILLEthought it inconsistent with the proposal made by the Prime Minister of a two years' notice.
  THE DUKE OF RICHMONDreplied, that the suggestion made by his right hon. Friend was not on all-fours with the present case. His right hon. Friend, no doubt, suggested that one of the modes of settling the tenant-right question would be a two-years' notice; and that was under other circumstances quite capable of being supported. But a two-years' notice with a yearly tenant was clearly inapplicable.
  LORD HATHERTONsaid, that as the theory of giving notice was changed he would suggest adding to the clause the

  1441
  following words:—"Nevertheless, if a tenant sublets any part of his farm the usual notice of six months shall be sufficient."
  THE DUKE OF RICHMONDsaid, he could not accept the suggestion.
  VISCOUNT HALIFAXpointed out that one advantage of retaining the six months' notice to quit would be that an outgoing tenant would have no time to "play tricks with his farm" if he were so disposed.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYheld that the object of the Bill ought to be the encouragement of the good, "improving" tenant, and therefore he did not think a year's notice too long.
  Clause agreed to.
  Cottages: Gardens: Planting.
  Clause 36 (Resumption of possession for cottages, &c.) agreed to.
  General Application of Act.
  Clause 37 (No restriction on contract) agreed to.
  Clause 38 (Application of Act as regards current tenancies).
  On Motion of the Duke of RICHMOND, clause struck out, and the following new clause substituted:—
  "This Act subject to any contract in writing between the landlord and tenant, shall apply to all contracts of tenancy taking effect after the commencement of this Act.
  "For the purposes of this section, a contract of tenancy from year to year, current at the commencement of this Act, shall be deemed to take effect from and after the end of the first year of tenancy begun and completed after the commencement of this Act. Except as in this section provided, this Act shall not apply to any contract of tenancy current at the commencement of this Act."
  Clause agreed to, and inserted in the Bill.
  Clause 39 (Exception of non-agricultural holdings); Clause 40 (Exception where compensation under custom); Clause 41 (General saving of rights); agreed to.
  The Report of the Amendments to be received on Friday the 30 th instant; and Bill to be printed as amended. (No. 63).
  House adjourned at half-past Eleven o'clock, till To-morrow half-past Ten o'clock.