Sitting of 14 June 1878

MINUTES.
SUPPLY—considered in Committee—Resolutions [June 13] reported.
PUBLIC BILLS—Ordered—First Reading—Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) * [218]; Public Works Loans (Ireland) Act (1877) Amendment * [219].
First Reading—Metropolis Improvement Provisional Orders Confirmation (Bowman's Buildings, Marylebone, &c.) * [217].
Committee—Valuation of Property [94], debate adjourned.
Considered as amended—Third Reading—Local Government Provisional Orders (Belper Union, &c.) * [164]; Local Government Provisional Orders (Bournemouth, &c.) * [213]; Local Government Provisional Orders (Abergavenny Union, &c.) * [166], and passed.
Third Reading—Inclosure Provisional Order (Llanfair Waterdine) * [190]; Elementary Education Provisional Orders Confirmation (Birmingham, &c.) * [191]; Provisional Orders (Ireland) Confirmation (Dungarvan, &c.) * [193]; Local Government Provisional Order (Darenth Valley) * [206]; Local Government Provisional Orders (Dawlish, &c.) * [212]; General Police and Improvement (Scotland) Act, 1862, Amendment * [147], and passed.
The House met at Two of the clock.

QUESTIONS.

  UNITED STATES—TREATY OF WASHINGTON—THE TWENTY-SECOND ARTICLE—AWARD OF THE FISHERIES COMMISSIONERS.—QUESTION.
  MR. GOURLEYasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, If he will be good enough to inform the House of the nature of the communications received from the United States Government relative to the Award recently made by the Fisheries Commissioners under Article 22 of the Treaty of Washington; if the amount awarded is equivalent to the value of the inshore fisheries of the North American Colonies, or if the Award requires modification as indicated in the Report made to the Senate by the United States Committee on Foreign Relations on the 28th May last, and in which the value of the fisheries is alleged to be only 25,000 dollars per annum in place of the amount awarded; and, further (if not inconvenient to the public service), if he will cause all the Correspondence between the several contracting parties to be placed upon the Table of the House?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Sir, I believe that up to the present time no communication has been received from the United States Government relative to this Award. I am, however, having all the Papers examined, and, I believe, we shall be in a position shortly to present Papers on the subject.

POOR LAW—THE DOLGELLY GUARDIANS—CURE OF CHILDREN.

  QUESTION.
  MR. WHEELHOUSEasked the President of the Local Government Board, Whether the following alleged entry, said to have been made by Mr. Brown, the District Inspector under the Local Government Board, and read at the last meeting of the Dolgelly Guardians, be correct, namely:—
  "I must again request the special attention of the guardians to the notes made by me on both my last previous visits as to the care of the children and others being left to the 'imbeciles.' This is no fault of the master, as he has no other person to place in charge. At present the male nurse is an 'imbecile,' and Jane Richards, also an 'imbecile' of violent temper, and the mother of illegitimate children, is in charge of the children. I can only characterise such a condition of things as a disgrace to the union;"
  if such entry be correctly reported, whether the Local Government Board is actually powerless to put a stop to a state of things which has already lasted apparently for a considerable length of time; or, if the Local Government Board is not so actually powerless, whether it will immediately exercise any power it possesses for the purpose of causing such a condition of things to be remedied and removed?
  MR. SCLATER-BOOTH: Sir, I am not aware of the terms in which Mr. Brown expressed himself in the visitors' book of the Board of Guardians of the Union referred to; but a statement of his to the same effect as that now quoted was communicated to the Local Government Board so long ago as the 24th of May last. On the 1st of June following the Local Government Board addressed a communication to the Board of Guardians, informing them of the statement made by the inspector, and stating that the arrangements referred to by him were most objectionable, and must be immediately discontinued. The Board pointed out that if the Guardians could not place a trustworthy inmate in charge of the children, it was their duty to appoint a paid officer. Their reply has not yet been received, but the subject shall not be lost sight of.

  THE EASTERN QUESTION—THE AGREEMENT BETWEEN RUSSIA AND ENGLAND.—QUESTION.
  MR. W. H. JAMESwished to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer a Question, of
  1494
  which he had given him private Notice—namely, Whether the document published in "The Globe" of this afternoon, purporting to be the full text of the terms of an agreement between England and Russia relative to the Congress, is authentic?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Sir, my hon. Friend informed me of this Question only two minutes ago. When he did so, I had not seen The Globe; and, though he has placed a copy of it in my hands, I have not yet had time to examine the document to which he has referred. I can only say that the document has not, in any way, been communicated by Her Majesty's Government—of that I am quite certain; but, as to whether it is correct or not—authentic or not—that is a question which I cannot, without examination, profess to answer.

  CONTAGIOUS DISEASES (ANIMALS) BILL.—QUESTION.
  MR. J. COWENasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, If he proposes to proceed with the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Bill on Thursday next?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER,in reply, said, that he would not be able to take the second reading of the Bill in question until Thursday week.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  VALUATION OF PROPERTY BILL.
  (Mr. Sclater-Booth, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Salt.)

  [BILL 94.] COMMITTEE.
  Order for Committee read.
  MR. SCLATER-BOOTHsaid, that although the measure had been twice before Parliament, and although, after he had introduced it at considerable length, it had received the sanction of the House so far as the debate which followed enabled him to judge, it had not as yet made any further progress. Although that was the case, however, the Bill had passed through a crucical ordeal. It had been considered and examined by the various local authorities throughout the country, and Amendments and points for consideration in

  1495
  connection with it had been suggested by those bodies. They had freely communicated with him on the subject, and he had received not only innumerable letters on the question, but also a large number of deputations. The result was a Bill which, he believed, approached very nearly to that which the most competent and experienced authorities believed to be a practical and effective measure of improvement and reform. The first object of the Bill was to secure a uniform system of valuation, instead of having property valued by three different authorities, as at present; and the second intention of the measure was to insure uniformity in the charge for the county rate, a step which, in his opinion, would pave the way for other administrative reforms. The Bill now before the House had also this to be said in support of it—that a similar measure had been in operation in the Metropolis for 10 years, and, on the whole, had proved remarkably successful. The necessity for some such reform as it proposed could not be denied, especially in view of the fact that the subventions paid out of the Exchequer for local purposes were growing larger year by year. The Government itself had a peculiar interest in the question, inasmuch as it was the largest ratepayer in the Kingdom, being assessed at something like £600,000 a-year. This Bill was not a root-and branch measure, but only one of a lengthened series of steps in the direction of improvement in this branch of the Public Service. It might be that in the opinion of some the whole of the present system should have been swept away and a fresh scheme devised. If the present system had appeared to be incapable of amendment, some fresh scheme might no doubt have been devised, but no such case had been made out. The Bill introduced no alarming innovation which the House need fear to sanction. The means by which the Government hoped to attain the object in view were two-fold. In the first place, they required the assessment committees to take into their consideration the Returns which were furnished to the Inland Revenue officers as a basis for the income and property tax, in order to secure an average uniformity. The Government believed the operation of that plan would be to secure uniformity in the assessment of the gross estimated rental on which the
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  property tax was now to be charged. The Bill further provided, by a scale of deductions which would be found in the Schedule, a means by which uniformity would likewise be attained in regard to the rateable value column of the valuation list or rate book. They had the experience of a number of counties which had adopted the principle. In England no fewer than 17 counties absolutely relied on the property tax Returns to check and correct the totals arrived at by the overseers. On going into Committee he was met with four Amendments. He would say nothing now as to the Amendment of the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Parnell), which, if carried, would be fatal to the further progress of the Bill, because he was not yet aware on what arguments it was likely to be founded; and, moreover, after the support given to the measure of last year, he did not imagine that the Amendment would be pressed. Then there were the Amendments of his hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Clare Read), who repeated the Amendments placed, on the Paper last year in the name of the hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. J. Cowen), the effect of which was that the question of valuation should be postponed until after the County Board had been established. For his own part, he had always insisted on the importance of a Valuation Bill as the foundation of all other Local Government improvements. The other day, his hon. Friend assumed he would strike out the 25th clause, which had been designed to introduce the functions of a County Board. He had not, however, thought it right to expunge that clause, but he proposed an interim arrangement by the appointment, for the discharge of those duties, of a committee of magistrates. He should have been very willing to associate with that committee of magistrates the chairman or some other member of the various assessment committees; but he refrained from putting that proposal on the Paper, because he might be told that by so doing he would prejudge the future establishment of the County Board. He should, however, have had no such intention or wish. The Government believed that a great, although not a complete, approach towards uniformity would be achieved by the provisions as to county supervision as they now stood in the Bill. He felt satisfied

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  that the passing of the measure would advance the object his hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk had in view. He trusted the hon. Gentleman would be satisfied to assist in its further progress, and he thought the time would speedily arrive when the hon. Gentleman's views would admit of a more practical solution. He could say the same thing with regard to his right hon. Friend the Member for the City of London (Mr. J. G. Hubbard). His right hon. Friend desired an improvement in the assessment to the income tax; but to adopt the Motion of his right hon. Friend at present would oblige the Chancellor of the Exchequer to part with property tax on £20,000,000. With all respect to his right hon. Friend, he must say he thought it unfair that a measure which had for its object the uniform valuation of the country should be hampered with a proposal relating to the incidence of the income tax, with which, primâ facie, it had nothing to do. An hon. Gentleman who represented the Scotch system of valuation (Mr. Ramsay) had also a proposal on the Paper to discharge the Order for Committee at present, and refer the matter to a Select Committee. He need not say that the Government would not for a moment entertain such a proposal, and they had some reason to complain that the hon. Member pressed his own measure before the House, having regard to the circumstances under which that measure was read a second time. A Morning Sitting had been devoted to it, and interesting speeches were made upon it; but he (Mr. Sclater-Booth) had no opportunity of replying to them; while a subsequent opportunity was taken of bringing on the Bill between a quarter to 6 and 6 o'clock on a Wednesday afternoon. However desirable it might be to begin a system ab initio of county administration as it existed in Scotland, there were many fatal practical objections to the measure. When the hon. Member moved his Motion, he should have an opportunity of replying to it. The House was aware of the great and increasing difficulties which the Government had to encounter in passing through Parliament a measure of extreme detail which was not of such a character as to excite a strong feeling in the country. The experience of the last three years had shown how a measure of
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  this kind, which he really believed to be approved, in the main, by all the local authorities in the Kingdom—men who were the most conversant with the subject, the most interested in the matter, and who would have to put the law into operation—had been defeated; and he thought that his right hon. and hon. Friends who were here to-day would best consult the objects they had at heart, as well as the wishes of the country, by assisting the Government to go into Committee and shape a satisfactory measure. He merely wished to introduce by this Bill those amendments which were required in the law of rateable property, and to remove the absurdities which now prevailed of assessing the value of the same house and the same acre of land at three different figures for taxing purposes. It was with the hope that they should this day make some progress in passing the clauses of a Bill which was intended to remove such absurdities that he now begged to move that the Speaker do leave the Chair.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."—(Mr. Sclater-Booth.)
  MR. B. T. WILLIAMSsaid, he wished to make a few observations which had struck him on reading the clauses of the Bill. The assessment committees, as far as his experience went, were composed of the men best able to form a correct valuation of the property in their neighbourhood. On the assessment committees with which he was connected were landed proprietors, land agents, colliery proprietors, and colliery engineers. Assessment committees composed of such men were the most likely to arrive at a correct valuation of the property with which they were immediately acquainted. The error of the Bill consisted in this, that it did not give due weight to the conclusions which might be arrived at by the assessment committees. The Bill subjected the deliberate decision of the assessment committees to the most complex and multifarious mode of correction and appeal. Even the committee itself was to be compelled by the provisions of the Bill to state a case for the opinion of the High Court of Justice. In addition, there was an appeal to the petty ses-

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  sions, an appeal to the quarter sessions, and an appeal to the special petty sessions and quarter sessions, and the quarter sessions also had power to state a case for the High Court of Justice. Further, the decision of the assessment committee would be subject to supervision by the County Board, or it might be, as the right hon. Gentleman had intimated, by a committee of the quarter sessions. He could understand an appeal from the overseers of the parish to the petty sessions; but when they had the most competent men that could be appointed, what was the object of appealing from a body of special aptitude to the petty sessions? It was nothing more than an appeal from a superior to an inferior tribunal. The Bill further enabled a party before the assessment committee to make that committee state a special case for the decision of the High Court of Justice. There were great difficulties connected with a special case. What did it mean? He knew nothing that was attended with so much delay and expense to parties as stating their special case. When stated, it was entered in the Court List, and a year or 18 months might expire before it came on to be argued. It was not desirable, at this early stage, to complicate the proceedings by giving parties the opportunity of at once taking their argument and difficulties to Westminster Hall. The proper course would be to abolish entirely appeals to petty sessions and also abolish the power of the assessment committee to state a case for the High Court of Justice. In old times the appeal to the court of quarter sessions worked very well; but, the assessment committee once established, he did not think the few magistrates at quarter sessions who remained to hear appeals formed the best tribunal for overruling the decisions of the assessment committee, and he thought some new body ought to be established for that purpose. They had now a suggestion from the right hon. Gentleman of a committee of the court of quarter sessions to consider the valuation arrived at by the assessment committee. What could be the object of the right hon. Gentleman in appointing a committee of quarter sessions to act independently of quarter sessions, although forming part of the court? It was altogether a most in-
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  congruous and impracticable proposal. The right hon. Gentleman was in difficulty in dealing with this question because the County Government Bill, which was the basis of this Bill, had been taken away. Hopes had been held out of a County Government Bill, and there was a growing desire in the country to have some scheme to enable counties to select for the management of their business those who might appear competent; but he feared there was now little hope of a County Government Bill being passed this Session. He would therefore suggest that it would be much better to postpone the consideration of the present Bill until the whole subject could be dealt with in the shape of a comprehensive measure, of which this could only be considered a portion; and he should therefore support the Amendment of which Notice had been given by the hon. Member for South Norfolk.
  MR. CLARE READ,in rising to move the following Amendment:—
  "That no re-adjustment of the system of assessment will be complete or satisfactory to ratepayers until a representative County Board is established, with power of hearing appeals on questions of value, and for securing uniformity of assessment,"
  said, he so entirely agreed with what had fallen from the hon. and learned Member for Carmarthen (Mr. B. T. Williams), that he thought he might second the Amendment of which he had given Notice. He could not help thinking the conduct of the Government in regard to this Bill had been somewhat peculiar. It was ordered to be printed on the 28th of January, and it was not delivered to hon. Members till the 11th of May; consequently, his right hon. Friend had been 15 weeks in perfecting this Bill. Although read a second time, the Bill was really considered dead and buried till the other day, when intimation was given of the withdrawal of the County Government Bill. His right hon. Friend said this Bill had been before the country for years, but the fact was it had not been before the country at all. No meeting, and, as far as he was aware, not a single Chamber of Agriculture, had had the opportunity of considering it in its present form or discussing the Amendments which had been placed on the Paper. In pressing forward this measure, the Government

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  had departed from the principle of the Resolution passed last year in favour of the establishment of County Boards. It was obvious that legislation on the subject of county government should precede any settlement of the question of valuation; but, in spite of that, the Government persisted in putting the cart before the horse; and if this and other kindred Bills were passed, the ratepayers would have to wait a long time before obtaining that system of county government which they so greatly desired to see established. If the Government had sufficient time at their disposal, they had no right to abandon the County Government Bill. If they had not sufficient time to proceed with it, they ought not to fritter away their time in proceeding with a small measure like this, but to have proceeded with the Cattle Diseases Bill. They had been told that this Bill was the same as that brought forward some years ago. He thought it was the same principle as the Bill introduced by Mr. Hunt in 1868. It was no Government Bill at all. It was a Local Government Board special scheme. His right hon. Friend had renewed his argument in favour of the Bill by saying that Government subventions required a new arrangement of assessments. He could not understand that argument, because the Government subventions for the police and lunatics did not depend on assessment at all. He had wondered very much that hon. Gentlemen opposite did not oppose this Bill because of its centralizing tendencies. They objected to the Prisons Bill, under which the Government reduced the authority of the local magistrates to a nullity. They objected to that; but they had never said a word here, when the Government were introducing into every assessment committee in the Kingdom one of their own paid officials—the surveyor of taxes. He was not aware that there was any excuse for the State meddling in this matter. He always thought it was the duty of the locality to see that the rates were levied fairly, not to look after taxes. He always fancied that the matter of taxes was a duty between the individual taxpayer and the State; but now they were going to assist the State to levy the taxes, and the State was going to assist them in assessing the rates. That union might be productive of great good, but he very
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  much questioned it. The locality, like the wife, would be the weaker vessel, and the State, the stronger vessel, would very likely say to the locality—"What is yours is mine, and what is mine is my own." He contended that the scheme, as it was proposed, would inflict considerable hardship upon the owners of property. He knew it was said that taking rent as the basis was good for Scotland, but that it was not good for England? and some hon. Members had said that there were a great many cheap rents in England. He would like to know where they were to be found. Where was there most land unlet at the present moment in Scotland and England? Where did the greatest distress exist, and where was the profit made in the last 20 years? He held that the greatest profit was made by the Scotch farmer, rather than in England. When the Scotch farmer paid his rent, he paid the most of his outgoings at the same time. He had no tithes, and very few rates. But in England, where a man paid £1 an acre for arable land, he had 10 s. or 12 s. more to pay in tithes, &c. It was proposed that rent should be no longer the minimum; but if they had a surveyor of taxes, then the rent must be the minimum of assessment. If rent were adopted as the basis of rating, there would be few appeals, and there would not be any great necessity for the Amendment of which he had given Notice. Rent was a fact against which they could not appeal, although they might multiply appeals against opinions as to value. Let rent be accepted, and then if a man went before the assessment committee and said—"My rent is 30 s. an acre, but I do not think it ought to be assessed at more than 20 s," the committee would say—"As a fact you do pay 30 s., and that must be your assessment." It was stated in the debate on the second reading of the Scotch Valuation Bill, that there had been only 122 appeals since rent was made the basis of assessment; but in England appeals were being multiplied by hundreds and thousands. Take rent as the basis, and appeals would be simplified and reduced in number. According to the Bill, there would be first of all the assessment committee, then the petty sessions, then the quarter sessions, and then the Courts of Law; but that was a roundabout way

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  of getting justice, and would compel the majority of poor ratepayers to put up with any inequality. He would say that, if County Boards should come into existence, the only question to be entertained by a County Board should be one of value, and points of law should go direct to the High Court of Justice. Of course, a County Board would also enforce a uniform system of deductions. It was said that, if his Amendment were adopted, it would stop the Bill; but he did not think so at all. Though he was not in favour of it, he did not wish to stop it if there was a desire to pass it; and he should be quite content, for the present, with the suggested Amendments of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Rodwell) for a temporary County Valuation Board power, the chairmen or members of the different assessment committees. Too much power was still left to the surveyor of taxes, who must be a perpetual screw-jack, putting all up to a higher level, but never putting anyone down; and, possibly, doing injustice to many because some man chose to pay more for property than it was worth. There was, of course, ample opportunity for a cantankerous and litigious man to cause appeals to be made against every assessment in a county. There was no very urgent necessity for the Bill, which had been before the House for 10 or 12 years, and the assessment committees were doing their work fairly well, although the law left them too much discretion; but give them the principle of rent to go on, and then they would do their work better. It was boasted that the Government had abstained from harassing and annoying classes and individuals; but this Bill would harass every assessment committee in the Kingdom. The Bill would really settle nothing; it would only be a temporary measure if it ever came into force; and it would be impossible to work it with that zest which was essential to good administration. It must be unpopular, because everyone whose assessment was raised would immediately say it was done by the surveyor of taxes, who was acting for the Government. The chief effect of the Bill would be to extract possibly more rates, and certainly more taxes, from the owners and occupiers of real property, without giving the slightest addi-
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  tional advantage or satisfaction in the county districts. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving the Amendment of which he had given Notice.
  MR. J. R. YORKEseconded the Amendment.
  Amendment proposed,
  To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "no re-adjustment of the system of assessment will be complete or satisfactory to ratepayers until a representative County Board is established, with power of hearing appeals on questions of value, and for securing uniformity of assessment,"—(Mr. Clare Read,) —instead thereof.
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  MR. EVANSsaid, it had been his fate to sit on the hearing of many appeals, and never was any work so unsatisfactory to him. Whatever attention men of ordinary intelligence might give to the appeals, it was impossible to come to satisfactory conclusions. He had been sometimes inclined to say that as good a result might have been obtained by the tossing of a halfpenny; he therefore hoped there would be no increase in the number of appeals, unless a plan were devised of deciding them in a more satisfactory manner. He was much impressed with what had fallen from the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Clare Read), that the effect of this Bill would be to stave off legislation on the question of local government. The County Government Bill seemed to him to be a good one, and he should greatly regret if the passing of the Bill now before the House should have the effect of preventing a measure based on the principle of the County Government Bill becoming law. His own constituents had strong feelings in favour of such a measure, and were beginning to think the subject had been trifled with by successive Governments. He had no great objection to this Bill in itself, but he held that rental was the proper basis of value. There might have to be occasional exceptions, but rent would furnish the only satisfactory basis of value, for rent was a fact, while value was only an opinion.
  MR. PARNELLsaid, that under the circumstances he did not intend to move his Amendment, believing it would be more convenient to discuss that of the

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  hon. Member for South Norfolk. He expressed his surprise that the Government should have taken the second reading of the Bill the day before the adjournment for the Whitsuntide Holidays, when the House had no expectation that the Bill would be proceeded with until some progress had been made with the County Government Bill. To the hon. Member for South Norfolk they were much indebted for the attention he had given to county government, and the influence which had induced the Government to give shape to the question; and, with the hon. Gentleman, he agreed that the Bill would have the effect of staving off the question of the establishment of County Boards. As an Irish Member, he felt great interest in the establishment of county government in England. Such might seem an extraordinary statement; but, as a matter of fact, if England suffered from the inperfection of its county government, Ireland suffered ten times as much. Both sides of the House agreed in the necessity of improvement in England; how much more desirable, then, must it be in Ireland? A Bill on such a subject should be as simple and workable as possible; and it might be well to direct attention to the Irish system, not with a view of adopting a similar system—for that was vicious, based as it was on a complete centralization—but the question of appeal was in Ireland very much simpler than the proposition made by the Bill. In Ireland there was a valuation of the whole country made by a central board of valuers at Dublin, a Government body, which sent out valuers all over the country. Yet, with this central board of superintendence, he doubted very much if there were more uniformity than in England. The English system proceeded on different lines and by a different method—that of assessment by local authorities, with appeals; and the system of appeals proposed by the Bill he could not but regard as a most vicious one. First, there was the appeal from the surveyor to the assessment committee. Practically that was so, for the committee reviewed the lists furnished by the officer. From the committee there was an appeal to the petty sessions, and those petty sessions were composed partly of the same men sitting on the assessment committee. This was a mixed and muddled system, scarcely worthy of the
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  genius and ability of the President of the Local Government Board. After this appeal to the petty sessions there was an appeal to quarter sessions, and thence to the County Government Board. But the County Government Bill had dropped still-born, and instead there was substituted a committee of quarter sessions. That was how the matter would work, and the Bill might well be described as a County Government Bill in disguise. The right hon. Gentleman found himself unable to deal with county government, although he brought in a Bill with that object, together with two subsidiary measures—the Valuation and the Highways Bills. Then he dropped the first, making such alterations in the two latter ones as would enable them to take its place, and he (Mr. Parnell) feared they would have to wait many a long day for any alteration in the present county government from the present Government. If the hon. Member (Mr. Clare Read) went to a division, he should support him.
  SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOTthought that his right hon. Friend (Mr. Sclater-Booth) had suffered from not having a seat in the Cabinet. His Bills had been put very much on one side, and a measure which might have had a chance of passing—the County Government Bill—had been absolutely shelved. The present Bill, as he had stated the other night, was an important one, far more important, perhaps, than even his right hon. Friend himself had thought it. It touched everybody in the Kingdom, from the poorest ratepayer to the highest in the land, and it ought to attract the greatest attention from all who were interested in the assessment of this country. They were bound to see that every measure they passed on the subject was a just and even one. If the Amendment of the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Clare Read) was carried, the Bill, of course, would be lost. It would, as they perfectly well knew, be impossible for his right hon. Friend to frame any measure, to be passed this year, which would establish a real, permanent, and lasting County Board. Therefore, they had to consider what they were to do with regard to the Bill. The Contagious Diseases (Animals) Bill took the first place in the estimation of a large number of Members. But there was

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  another Bill which ought to have the precedence of the presentone, and which ought to be passed—namely, the Highways Bill; and if they dealt with this measure, he doubted whether they would be able to deal with the Highways Bill. Although he would not say that in every possible case rent should be their guiding star in respect to assessment, yet, as a general rule, the criterion of rent ought to be followed. Looking broadly at the question, it ought to be more definitely laid down that, except in peculiar circumstances, rent should be taken as the basis of assessment, and then they might hope to get rid of the hundreds and thousands of appeals of which the hon. Member for South Norfolk had spoken. What had fallen from the hon. and learned Member for Carmarthen (Mr. B. T. Williams) went a long way in the direction of the truth. The petty sessions, as a court of appeal, was not the best that could be devised, but it was inexpensive. The quarter sessions was not a bad court of appeal, because there they had men who would carefully go into the circumstances of each case. If, however, they could obtain such a County Board as would have the confidence of the ratepayers, and also of the owners of property, that might form a satisfactory court of appeal, and there would not be the same necessity for any further appellate tribunal for such matters. If a Bill of this kind were to be passed, it ought to be fair between class and class, between the ratepayers of one parish and the ratepayers of another, between one Union and another in a county, so that the different charges thrown over a county should not be 25 per cent less in one part than in another. He was sure that a really good County Board would take care that no injustice should be done between one Union and another Union. Looking at the whole case, and at the position in which his right hon. Friend had been placed, he ventured to hope that the Bill would be allowed to proceed; because, looking at the balance of one thing with another, he believed there was a great deal of good in this Bill. He hoped if the Bill became law, it would last for many years. There was nothing in it which would prevent a County Board being hereafter appointed, and he should vote for the Bill going into Committee.
  MR. RAMSAYsaid, that in addressing the House last year he had pointed out that the Bill was very cumbrous for the purpose for which it was intended, and not likely to secure that uniform valuation throughout Great Britain, which he thought should be secured by any measure the House might pass on this subject. The complicated nature of the arrangements contained in the Bill appeared to him an insuperable objection to it, if there were no other. But the right hon. Gentleman himself had pointed out that there was no great reason why the Bill should pass at all, because he had told them that in two-fifths of the counties of England perfection and uniformity of valuation were already secured.
  MR. SCLATER-BOOTH: I said that the county rates in 17 of the counties were satisfactory; but it does not at all follow that the Union rates are satisfactory in the same counties.
  MR. RAMSAYsaid, it was undoubted that inequality still existed in the different Unions, owing to the various modes of assessment, and there could be no marvel at that being the case under the Bill. As it stood, the overseers were enjoined, in the first place, to make up valuation lists without any definite rule being prescribed for the determination of value. These lists they were to send to the surveyor of taxes, who, after revising and signing them, sent them to the assessment committees. These committees had power to make such changes on these lists as they deemed fit. After finally approving of the lists, they were to refer them to the county authorities. The decisions of the assessment committee or the justices in petty or quarter sessions might be appealed against to the High Court of Justice. He did not disapprove of the appeal on points of law to this court; but why all this other machinery to attain what might very simply be attained by taking the real rent as the basis of valuation? On a previous occasion the right hon. Gentleman had told him that the Bill did provide for something like the real rent being taken. In the definition of the gross value which was given in the Bill, it was said it should mean the actual rent which the tenant might be reasonably expected to pay, taking one year with another; but not that the rent that the tenant actually paid should be taken. In his (Mr. Ramsay's) Bill,

  1509
  on the contrary, it was said, where lands and hereditaments were in good faith let for a yearly rent, without payment or consideration of any kind other than the rent, such rent should be taken and deemed to be the yearly rent and annual value of such land or hereditaments. If the right hon. Gentleman would agree to accept this definition, as an instruction to the overseers and assessment committee as contained in his (Mr. Ramsay's) Bill, it would be a very considerable improvement in the principle of the Government Bill. The great diversity produced by the action of the assessment committees of the various Unions was a cause of just complaint. It afforded no basis for Imperial valuation, as it was admitted that the valuation of the local authorities did not apply except in cases where the surveyor of taxes had approved of the valuation list. The right hon. Gentleman had shown the House that there was not much reason for his own Bill being pressed forward. If the right hon. Gentleman would agree to remit it to a Select Committee, he (Mr. Ramsay) would be glad hereafter to move to remit his Bill also, that such Committee might frame a measure consolidating the two, and thus produce a Bill, the provisions of which would operate uniformly throughout Great Britain. There might, then, be some chance of getting a satisfactory valuation list which might endure under the County Government Bill when it hereafter became law. But there was another objection he had to the provisions of the Bill, irrespective of the numerous steps it rendered necessary in framing a valuation list, and that was the duration of the list when once it had been framed. Why should the list endure for five years in England, and be annual in Scotland? He had formerly shown that a quinquennial list would not be satisfactory, and might be unjust. Instead, therefore, of only making up a supplementary list, the whole valuation list should be made up anew every year, as was done in Scotland. He could not see any good reason why the right hon. Gentleman should refuse to have this done. Although it was not incumbent upon the Inland Revenue Department in Scotland to accept the valuation roll, except in the case where the surveyor of taxes acted as assessor, he was aware of no case where that valuation roll was not
  1510
  accepted for the Imperial taxes, That being so, why adopt a cumbrous and complicated system in England, and so perpetuate the diversity of practice between it and Scotland—a diversity which was wholly useless to the community? The right hon. Gentleman had made a complaint of the action he (Mr. Ramsay) took in asking the House to read his Bill a second time. He was surprised to hear him do so after what had occurred with his own Bill. Anything more unreasonable than that complaint he never listened to in that House. He only took the second reading of his Bill some weeks after it had been discussed in the House, and it was months after that before the right hon. Gentleman submitted the Government Bill to the House. Considering the action of the right hon. Gentleman himself, such a complaint came with a very bad grace from him. His (Mr. Ramsay's) Bill would produce uniformity of valuation; that of the right hon. Gentleman would not. The assessments, whether local or Imperial, ought not to be based on the theories of any man, however skilful or competent, but on the basis of facts. He had never heard a complaint in Scotland of the system of assessment, which took the rent paid as the sole criterion of value. On the contrary, the system had given satisfaction to all concerned, and very little trouble to the local authorities or the Department of Inland Revenue. Considering the long delay there had been in bringing this Bill forward, he thought no harm, but much good would result from referring it, along with his own, to a Select Committee. They might then hope to have a uniform system of valuation established.
  MR. RODWELLthought it would be a matter for great regret if a Bill which was of such importance, and for which the public had so long anxiously waited, should be rejected. The hon. Member for South Norfolk had urged strong objections against the Bill, but they were surely not insuperable. Were the President of the Local Government Board only to meet those objections, so to speak, half-way, no very great difficulty need be experienced in passing the measure. He admitted that the word "appeal," as used in the Bill, was unfortunate. What was wanted in these cases was uniformity and regularity,

  1511
  The powers of dealing with cases that were given to the assessment committees were entirely different from those vested in a court of law, whose decisions were based upon the rules of evidence. The suggestion he would put forward was one to which effect might be given in the present Bill. A Board might be selected composed of members from each assessment committee, who would then be able to compare the different valuation lists when any difficulty, objection, or appeal arose, and deal with it precisely as the assessment committee did now. He did not see why a body should not be thus constituted somewhat analogous to the Scotch Commissioners of Supply, the decisions of which would give satisfaction. As the Bill could easily be made to contain a provision of that kind, he trusted it would be allowed to go into Committee.
  MR. KNATCHBULL-HUGESSENexpressed his surprise at the sudden prominence given to this Bill, compared with the little respect shown to the County Board Bill, which had been abandoned on the very threshold of Committee. He complained of the manner in which the Treasury Bench had treated the House in the management and conduct of the Bill. He had a right to express his surprise that so important a measure had been set down for Committee at so late a period as the 14th of June, after having been taken through its second reading when discussion of its principle had been impossible. The Government had had ample opportunity of dealing with the whole question relating to county administration, and of deciding which scheme they should take up first. After consideration, they deliberately came to the conclusion that the County Boards Bill should be the first to be considered. That measure passed its second reading, and nearly reached the stage of Committee. Having achieved that much, however, the Government suddenly changed its mind, and withdrew the County Boards Bill, and were now endeavouring, after its second reading had been taken unexpectedly, and in a thin House, to get the Valuation Bill into Committee. Such a course of procedure was not, in his opinion, the best means for expediting Public Business, and against it he desired to enter his protest. They had heard a good deal about obstruction;
  1512
  but there were others, besides private Members, who might obstruct Public Business by the course they pursued. The fact that Her Majesty's Government carried forward two or three Bills, and then unexpectedly proposed to proceed with another measure in their place, was an encouragement to hon. Members who had not had time to consider the Bill to cause practical obstruction, in order to have its principle discussed. The hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Clare Read) had asked the pertinent question whether the Cattle Diseases Bill ought not to be pushed forward rather than the County Boards Bill? and the answer he received was that the Valuation Bill would take precedence of either. But, surely, to carry two or three Bills up to a certain point, and then to drop them for a great length of time, and afterwards to carry on the last of them, was to obstruct Business; and it was certainly obstruction to bring forward, at this period of the Session, a Bill which must be discussed at great length before it could be possibly passed into law. He wanted to know what the real policy of the Government was with respect to these measures in relation to county administration? A County Board Bill had been brought forward which diminished, to some extent, the powers of the magistrates of counties. That Bill was suddenly thrown aside, and here was another Bill which increased these powers.
  MR. SCLATER-BOOTHsaid, the powers were not increased, but continued.
  MR. KNATCHBULL-HUGESSENsaid, that the powers were, if not actually increased, at least stereotyped and strengthened. It appeared to him that, in diminishing the powers of the magistracy, the Government found they had given offence to their quarter-sessions' friends throughout the country. The real truth was, that there had been no actual complaint of the way in which the affairs of the country had been administered by the magistrates; but there had been complaints against the existing system founded upon the principle that representation and taxation ought to go together. What did they really mean to do? He believed the Government had found themselves in this difficulty—that in proposing to deal with this principle of representation,

  1513
  they had offended those from whom they would necessarily take away some power. He trusted they would hear from Her Majesty's Government whether they meant to persevere with the County Boards Bill, or to adopt that kind of County Boards Bill which had been suggested by the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite, who, in fact, desired that, under the mask of the present Bill, a County Board Bill should be earned by means of a clause incorporated with it. But let him (Mr. Knatchbull-Hugessen) call attention to the contrast between the manner in which the late and the present Government dealt with these questions of county government. The late Government, whatever fault might be found with the measure they brought in, came forward with relief in one hand and reform in the other—that was to say, they proposed that the relief should be obtained by means of the reform. But the present Government had first given relief by subsidies from the public purse; and now, by giving an improved system of valuation and other things as improvements, they were practically and gradually taking away the levers by which county reform could be obtained, and striving to weaken the demand for that reform. He would not enter into the details of the Bill before the House, but this he would say—that his right hon. Friend had no reason to complain of the discussion which had occurred, and which he regarded as a valuable one. If the hon. Member for South Norfolk went to a division, he would receive support from that side of the House, not because they desired to delay the Bill, but because they did not like to see one Bill substituted for another. For his part, he did not believe in the permanence of any of these Bills, unless they had a good Governing Body established. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Sclater-Booth) would tell them whether Government were satisfied with the existing powers of the magistracy, and did not believe that a County Board was necessary, or whether they would be content to take that kind of County Board which his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Rodwell) proposed to engraft upon their Bill. It had been said to-day that actual rent, and not probable letting value, ought to be the basis of a rate. He had to enter his protest against that idea. Rent was an accident; it
  1514
  depended upon an arrangement between man and man, and was an excellent guide for the determination of a rate, but it ought not to be the basis. As to the formation of a County Board, no Board could be satisfactory until the wishes of the country were previously ascertained. If a representative board was wanted, no half-and-half Board would do, bringing the magistrates into quasi-antagonism with the elective element; but if the whole Board were elected, then there would be a fairly representative Board. This, however, was a point of far too great importance to be taken on the mere clauses of a Valuation Bill. The Government were trying to weaken the demand for representation in county affairs; but he warned his hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk that, in supporting the Government subsidies and the Government measures of improving the valuation, he would fail to obtain the representation in counties of which he was so strenuous an advocate. The country would have waited patiently till next year for the Valuation Bill, while had the Highways Bill taken its place and been passed, it would have redressed an admitted grievance. No opportunity had been given for considering the Amendments to this Bill, and looking to the time of the Session at which they had arrived, he thought the right hon. Gentleman would make a graceful concession by referring the Bill to a Select Committee. He certainly would give his vote against the Speaker leaving the Chair.
  MR. PELLcould not agree with the right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down as to the preferable policy of the late Government upon this question, and the relief from taxation which their measure held out. Under the course pursued by the present Government the ratepayer had obtained material relief, and there was still some promise of reform in administration. However he thought the conduct of the Government just now savoured of sharp practice, which he could hardly have thought his right hon. Friend would have resorted to. But the County Government Bill had received a second reading, and he supposed they must not cry over spilt milk. He hoped his right hon. Friend would tell them how the Bill had got into its present position. He understood

  1515
  the Chancellor of the Exchequer to state recently, in answer to a question, that, as regarded English measures, preference should be given to the County Government Bill; but, subsequent to that statement, it appeared that there were almost insuperable difficulties in the way of passing the County Government Bill, and that there was a better opportunity of passing the Cattle Bill; it was, therefore, put in the front, and the County Government Bill would be placed behind it. Well, that was a change in the arrangement of the feast, and the House was now asked to eat the side dishes before they had partaken of the joint. How had that come about? The Premier was on the other side of the water, and it was possible that the arrangement of Public Business depended on obedience to that law which regulated the survival of the fittest. He hoped his hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk would not divide upon his Motion; but if the hon. Member for Falkirk (Mr. Ramsay) should divide, he would go into the Lobby with him, as he thought his Bill was a very good one. He had supported his Bill when it was introduced, and it embodied a very important principle—namely, the adoption of rent as a measure of valuation. A great deal had been said which was complimentary to the action of the assessment committees. For his part, he could not express unqualified satisfaction as to the way in which the assessment committees had discharged their duties. He approved the introduction by the Government of the surveyor of taxes, armed, as he was, with considerable powers. He would be a very useful officer, provided there was something in the Bill to regulate and control him—namely, rent as a measure of valuation. Rent, after all, was the measure of valuation in the Metropolis; and, as far as his experience went in London, the Metropolitan Valuation Act had worked satisfactorily. When occasion had been given for appeals by the assessments being put up, as they were in some districts, it was discovered on inquiry that it was not the surveyor of taxes but members of the assessment committee who had done so. He believed, on the whole, that rent represented as nearly as possible the value of hereditaments. Of course, they could not legislate for exceptions. It was said the assessment of cottages would be raised above the rent,
  1516
  but the truth was that cottages let at a low rent generally implied that the labourer worked for very moderate wages. He received a portion of his earnings in money and another portion in the low rent of his house. Thus, a cottage let to an agricultural labourer who was in the employment of the owner at £4, when occupied by a plate-layer fetched a rent of £7. But even that disparity would be preferable to leaving the assessment committee conjecturally to decide gross value. There was one omission in the Bill which he hoped would be supplied, and that was a provision for the valuation of railway property, which he should like to see dealt with by means of some such proposal as that which was contained in the Scotch Act. It was also desirable to consider whether it was not possible to make the valuation conclusion with regard to franchise, and thereby relieve the revising barrister of a great deal of trouble in matters relating to value that came under his notice. He also hoped the clauses would be withdrawn which empowered courts of special sessions to hear appeals.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, he did not rise to enter into the question of the merits of the Bill. He merely desired to say a few words as to the position in which it had been placed. The Valuation Bill and the Highways Bill, though not identical in terms, were in principle the same. They had been introduced by the Government in previous Sessions, and had been, to a certain extent, not only discussed, but approved, by the House. At the commencement of the present Session they proposed to undertake a new group of Bills—one for the introduction of a new system of county government, and in connection with it a Highways Bill and a Valuation Bill, adapted to the altered circumstances which would arise if the County Government Bill were passed. They accordingly began by proceeding with the last-named measure; but, of course, they had always intended, and, indeed, considered it essential, that the three Bills should be carried on and passed together. They had shown by the precedence which they had in former years given to the Highways Bill and the Valuation Bill, what importance they attached to those measures in themselves, and they certainly never contemplated

  1517
  that the County Government Bill should override or do away with their passing into law. Well, the County Government Bill had up to a certain point been proceeded with, and had not the course of the discussion upon going into Committee upon it taken an unexpected turn, the Government would have carried out the programme with which they started. But, in consequence of that and the large share of the attention of the House which had been taken up by other Business, they found themselves thrown to a very late period of the Session in the progress which ought to have been made with the County Government Bill. That being the case, they had to consider what would be the proper and most convenient arrangement to make. Time failed them, and they could not but see that the measure involved a great matter for discussion, and questions of considerable importance and novelty which it would take some time to deal with. Then, there was the Cattle Bill, and other measures, pressing for consideration, and the question arose, how far it was possible to get through the whole of the work before them? After carefully considering the matter, he felt bound to say, and believed it was the opinion of those who took an interest in the County Government Bill, that the best way of proceeding, and the best chance for obtaining time for the discussion of the other Bills, especially the Cattle Bill, was to put off the further discussion of the County Government Bill—at all events, for the present; but he stated at the same time that, of course, the Highways and the Valuation Bills, which were part of the original scheme, would be proceeded with. The Government had endeavoured to go upon those lines. The Highways Bill was at once committed pro formâ and certain Amendments were introduced, and they had brought the Valuation Bill forward so as to get a discussion upon the Bill on going into Committee. If they were so fortunate as to advance that stage, they would be able to further proceed with it that Session. He also hoped that yet they would be able to proceed with the Highways Bill, and be also able to make such progress with this Bill as would allow them to proceed with them all, and the Cattle Bill. For himself, if the House supported the Government, he saw not the slightest difficulty in pro-
  1518
  ceding with them, and being able to discuss them in a satisfactory manner. He hoped, therefore, they would be allowed to get into Committee on the understanding that no clause would be pressed in which any complicated Amendments were proposed. There would be plenty of time for hon. Gentlemen to give Notice of any Amendments which they might wish to bring forward; but it was most desirable that time should not be lost in allowing the Speaker to leave the Chair, and that the House on future occasions should set itself to work to pass a measure which was generally recognized as being of great importance, and which he hoped they would be able to deal with satisfactorily, due allowance being made for the other Business which had to be disposed of.
  MR. J. COWENexpressed his concurrence with the view which was taken by the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Clare Read) with respect to the County Government Bill. There could be no doubt that the entire system of county management stood in need of reformation, and that speedily; but the Bill of the Government dealing with the subject had failed because of its feebleness. For practical purposes, the Bill might be considered dead this Session. Well, then, was it necessary to proceed with the Bill before the House? The right hon. Gentleman said that it was only a tentative measure—a consolidation measure—and that it would not prevent the carrying out of that county government organization which all wished to see established. The hon. Member for South Norfolk thought the Bill was intended for taking money out of the pockets of the people; but it was probably more for the purpose of seeing how much money was in them. Clearly, a Valuation Bill ought to follow a County Government Bill, as dealing with a part of the system of county organization which would be necessary. But then he thought it possible to pass this Bill without preventing that county re-arrangement which was so desisable. The hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Mr. Pell) had objected to the Bill on the ground that it contained no proper provision for the valuation of railways. Neither did it contain any proper provision for the valuation of mines. He objected to one point of the Bill for the way in which it dealt with the overseer—

  1519
  to his mind a most objectionable parish officer—who was partly elected by the ratepayers and partly appointed by the magistrates. The overseer had very important duties to perform. He prepared the list of voters, and his appointment in the North often gave rise to popular excitement and parochial disputes. These overseers came into existence in the dark days of Tudor rule; and if the right hon. Gentleman could see his way to get rid of these officials, he would do a great public service. He agreed also with what had been said by the hon. Member for South Leicestershire about surveyors of taxes, and he was surprised that greater objection was not made to them. They were very like those farmers of taxes, of which they had heard so much in the East of Europe. Their object was to get the largest possible amount of taxes out of the people; and the reason was that if they could increase the amount of taxes in their districts, they received preferment. It was an objectionable thing to import these men into the management of local affairs.
  MR. FLOYERsaid, he could not quite agree with the hon. Gentleman who had just spoken, that the overseer ought to disappear from the face of the country. He had great respect for old-established customs and officers who had served their country for a long time, and he was not disposed to accede to the modern view that no service was good unless it was paid for. If there were persons who thought it right to perform public duties without salary, he trusted there was a sufficiently strong opinion in the country to support them. But the hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. J. Cowen) was a little difficult to please, because he objected to the overseer being appointed by the local authorities. The hon. Gentleman had said that the overseer was first nominated by the ratepayers, and then appointed by the local magistrates. Evidently he was altogether a local officer. The hon. Gentleman objected equally to the surveyor of taxes, because he was appointed by the Government. But if they were to have officers, they must be appointed by somebody; and if they were not to be appointed by the local authorities or by the Government, by whom were they to be appointed? He only hoped that it was not by Parliament. With respect
  1520
  to the Amendment, the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Clare Read) suggested that, instead of appeals upon questions of value being brought before quarter sessions, they should be referred to the county authority, whatever it might be. The hon. and learned Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Rodwell) advocated the same view, on the ground that a County Government Board could deal so well with different matters of principle applied to valuation. But his right hon. Friend would give to the County Board, whenever it might be established, and to the temporary authority that would be appointed by the Bill, precisely the same power that would be given to that body. The hon. Member for South Norfolk wished that the county authority should supersede the quarter sessions altogether. It might be desirable to do so, and to get rid of the appeal to the court of quarter sessions; but if it were, let them see what they were about, and that the county government, when established, should be able to deal with matters of appeal. The hon. and learned Member for Cambridgeshire thought it desirable that the authority to which appeal should be made should be of the same character as the assessment committee, the body from which the appeal was made. But the advantage of the appeal being made to the court of quarter sessions was, that it was a different body and dealt with the question in a different manner. The question was, whether the mode of procedure before the court of quarter sessions was not better calculated to bring out the true value of the different properties than that of a body like the assessment committee? The advantage of quarter sessions consisted not so much in the persons who presided over them as it did in the means at their disposal for getting at the facts and realities of the case. They had the assistance of gentlemen learned in the law, who were accustomed to deal with evidence and to present facts in a clear manner to those with whom the decision rested. The proposed new tribunal would be unable, as a general rule, to have the assistance of gentlemen of the Legal Profession. These were some of the reasons which induced him to think that the House ought to hesitate before it adopted the proposition of his hon. Friend the Member

  1521
  for South Norfolk. One body possessed the means of coming to a good decision, while the other would have to act on its own unassisted knowledge. Therefore, he thought there were grounds for believing that the old tribunal, with its old mode of procedure, might possibly be the best. When his right hon. Friend introduced his first Bill on this subject, the surveyor of taxes occupied a much more powerful position than he did under the present measure. It was formerly proposed that his fiat should be absolute. He objected to this at the time, but he did not think that the power proposed to be given by the present Bill to the surveyor of taxes was in the same sense objectionable. He believed the advice which the surveyor would give to the assessment committee would be of very great value. It was essential to the good working of the assessment committees that they should be the supreme authority, and he understood that would be the effect of the provisions of the present Bill. It was idle to expect that men in the position of the great tenantry of this country, whose occupations were most important to themselves, would take the trouble of working the assessment committees unless they were constituted the controlling authority in such matters. He could not agree with those who looked upon rent as an absolute criterion of value. Of course, he admitted that rent was a most important element in the question; but the criterion was the reasonable amount for which the land would rightly be expected to let one year with another; and he thought that where the sum appeared too high or too low, it should be competent for the assessment committee to adjust the difference. If the hon. Member for South Norfolk took a division, he should be obliged to vote against him. He hoped, however, that the House would be allowed to go into Committee without further delay, and that the Bill would be passed into law during the present Session.
  MR. GOSCHENdesired to call attention to the speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and to the general position in which the House stood at that moment with regard to the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman had not attempted to deal with the arguments brought forward by the hon. and learned Member
  1522
  for Carmarthen (Mr. B. T. Williams), or with the main argument urged by the hon. Member for South Norfolk (Mr. Clare Read)—namely, the argument of substance as contrasted with the argument of time. The argument of substance was, that if they were going to create a new Body, either in the next or some future Session, with reference to county government, it was unwise now to pass a Bill imposing new duties upon a Body which would be so shortly superseded. It appeared to him that the hon. Member for South Norfolk had argued this question in a perfectly unanswerable manner; for he had shown conclusively that, with these new duties, such a Body would not carry energy or zest into their work, as they would feel they were made a mere stop-gap, and that their powers would soon be taken away from them by a new Act of Parliament. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had not alluded to that part of the argument at all. The right hon. Gentleman had defended himself simply on the question of time and the order of the Bills. Why had not the right hon. Gentleman paid the hon. Member the compliment of dealing with the substance of his argument, or noticed his suggestion to refer the Bill to a Select Committee? Was it that the right hon. Gentleman thought the hon. Member did not mean business, and that this Amendment was placed on the Paper to be afterwards withdrawn? The Amendment embodied a most important proposition; and he, for one, wished to know, whether the hon. Member stood by it to the letter? For his own part, he cordially agreed with both the substance and wording of the Amendment, and he believed that a large number of hon. Members on that side of the House, and a sprinkling of hon. Gentlemen on the other side, shared that opinion. As the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Clare Read) was a serious Member of the House, had he satisfied himself that the Government intended to assent to the Motion of the hon. Member (Mr. Ramsay) for referring the Bill to a Select Committee? He (Mr. Goschen) thought the Amendment ought to be pressed, especially as the Opposition had assisted the hon. Gentleman to carry his Motion as to County Boards. [Mr. CLARE READ: There was no division.] The hon. Member said there was no division; but he

  1523
  ought to appreciate all the more that support in debate which enabled him to beat the Government without a division, and saved him from going into the Lobby against them. Whatever the hon. Member might say, he, at any rate, would require the support of that side of the House for his reform of county government; and it was hoped that the hon. Gentleman would not discourage them in giving that support by not standing to his guns when he was in the right. The passing of the Valuation Bill now would be detrimental to the object which the hon. Member had so much at heart with regard to county government. The position was this—the Valuation Bill had been prepared with reference to another Bill that had been withdrawn, and the House had to argue upon this Bill, without knowing whether the other one was to pass or not. The fact was, that the system had broken down. There were three Bills—the County Government, Highways, and Valuation Bills—which, taken together, made a complete whole; but the County Government Bill having been withdrawn, the corner stone of the edifice had been removed; and the House was asked to agree to an arrangement which was incomplete and unsatisfactory, because it was asked to pass the Valuation Bill without the concurrent establishment of County Government Boards.
  SIR GEORGE JENKINSON,in supporting the Amendment of the hon. Member for South Norfolk, said, the question to be considered was chiefly as to time, and not as to the merits of the measure. The withdrawal of the County Government Bill left this measure like the play of Hamlet with the part of Hamlet omitted. He hoped that the Government would be satisfied with this discussion, and that they would not proceed with the Bill until they could pass the whole group of Bills dealing with local government. With regard to the question of rent, he thought it should be taken as the basis, in order to check the surveyor.
  MR. RITCHIEthought the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of London (Mr. Goschen) were very unfair towards the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as the right hon. Gentleman had distinctly stated that he rose, not for the purpose of answering any arguments on the subject of the Bill,
  1524
  but merely to answer remarks which had been made as to the course adopted in taking this Bill before some others. He (Mr. Ritchie) regretted that the Bill had been brought forward somewhat suddenly, as he and other hon. Members had wished to put Amendments on the Paper, some of which were of considerable importance. He was sorry that the Bill contained no clause with respect to the rating of machinery, for that subject was, at the present moment, in a very unsatisfactory state. Without going into the question of fixed machinery, there was no doubt that machinery not attached to the freehold was subject to rating in some places and not in others; while, by a recent decision of the High Court of Justice, all machinery, even though it was not fixed, was liable to be rated. If a man were to lay out a part of his capital in the purchase of removable machinery, he could not be said to add to the permanent value of his premises; but, by the decision referred to, he was liable to be assessed, not on rent alone, but on the value of all his machinery. In his opinion, the permanent letting value of the building was the true basis of assessment, and the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board should have taken advantage of the Bill to insert some clause settling the existing difficulty in that way.
  MR. SCLATER-BOOTHsaid, that he could assure hon. Gentlemen who had been taken by surprise that he had no wish to prevent them from putting Amendments on the Paper, and that he did not propose in Committee that day to proceed beyond the 1st clause. His hon. Friend who had just sat down had animadverted on the system of rating machinery, and the hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. J. Cowen) had made a similar complaint with reference to coal mines. Both those cases were very interesting, but they did not properly belong to the subject dealt with by the Valuation Bill, which merely contained directions by which rateable property was to be assessed, and was not intended to make any change in the mode of rating. He would be very glad, however, to settle the question of the rating of machinery and of coal mines, and of schools also; but such matters would better find their place in a new rating Bill, which he should not be reluctant to in-

  1525
  troduce if it were possible. He was surprised that the hon. Member for Newcastle should have raised the old cry with regard to the surveyor of taxes, who was only the instrument by which the Property Tax Returns were made known to the assessment committee. The object of the Bill was to oblige all the assessment committees to have regard to that officer, which meant that they were to take account of the rents actually paid; for the rent actually paid was, in nine cases out of ten, the best criterion of value. He knew that in one part of the Kingdom assessment committees had gone almost entirely by the rent actually paid; and, in the case of a large estate worth from £40,000 to £50,000 a-year, the Return specified in the new Domesday Book was within a very few pounds of the actual receipts of the owner. The right hon. Gentleman who had spoken first had mentioned the appeals set up by the Bill. The assessment committee was not a final authority, and the appeal to petty sessions had been retained in the interests of the poorer ratepayers. The Government had not felt themselves justified in taking away the court of appeal which the poor man possessed, and to which he now resorted for a remedy against any undue assessment. His right hon. Friend could hardly have studied the clauses in the Bill, because it was never intended, nor was it provided that the County Board should act as a court of appeal against the assessment of value. The assessment committees were, for the most part, to be paramount in those matters. Every hon. Gentleman who had served as a commissioner of taxes knew how frequently a case was taken for the opinion of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue. There was a provision in the Bill to enable questions of importance, relating, for example, to railway and canal property, to be taken in a similar way to the High Court of Justice, assuming that the parties who were interested preferred doing that to going to the court of quarter sessions. He hoped that his hon. Friend the Member for South Norfolk would dismiss from his mind the idea that there was anything in the Bill which stood practically in the way of the setting up of a County Board. The County Board would be set up for a totally
  1526
  different object, and he had repeatedly stated that he had always regarded a Valuation Bill as the foundation of all those county reforms. If the County Government Bill were to pass without the Valuation Bill and the Highways Bill, the most important raison d' être of the County Government Bill would be entirely done away with. He denied that the officers of the Government had any interest in screwing up assessments, and he believed, so far from being multiplied by the Bill, appeals would be greatly diminished under it. As a matter of fact, appeals were rare now, and he hoped that they would be still more rare when those measures became law. The hon. and learned Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Rodwell) had given Notice that he would propose certain Admendments in the Bill. Those Amendments he would have pleasure in considering. He had always held the opinion that valuation, although important, was not a primary function of a County Board. The County Board had a great future before it, and a Valuation Bill was the foundation on which the machinery of county government should be built. He had been surprised at the charge of shap practice which had been brought against him in regard to the second reading of the Bill, and he contended that such an accusation was wholly groundless. The ratepayers would never have the same interest in the proceedings of the County Board as they had in those of the Poor Law Union, because the latter was intrusted with the expenditure of rates to a far greater extent than the former, and with the more detailed management of their local affairs. He would mention three counties as illustrations of that. In Nothumberland the county expenditure was £40,000 in round numbers, and the Union expenditure was £170,000 a-year; in Staffordshire the county expenditure was £102,000, and the Union expenditure £330,000 a-year; in the county which he had the honour to represent the county expenditure was £30,000, and the Union expenditure £316,000 a-year. That would account for his not having regarded valuation as one of the most prominent functions which a County Board would have to discharge. He would not detain the House further, but ask them to go into Committee.
  MR. CLARE READwas proceeding to make some observations in reply, when—
  MR. SPEAKERinformed the hon. Gentleman that he had no right of reply upon an Amendment.
  MR. CLARE READsaid, he would only remark that he was quite satisfied with the position which the question of County Boards occupied, having been unanimously passed last year; and as the Motion of the hon. and learned Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Rodwell) would give him all the opportunities he desired in Committee, he should beg, with the consent of the House, to withdraw his Amendment.
  MR. BIGGARthought good reasons had been given why the Bill should not be proceeded further with, at any rate this Session. In order to place before the House his own reasons for forming this opinion, he would move the adjournment of the debate. The Bill and the Amendments which it might be desirable to discuss could not now be properly considered.
  And it being ten minutes before Seven of the clock, the Debate stood adjourned till this day.
  The House suspended its Sitting at Seven of the clock.
  The House resumed its Sitting at Nine of the clock.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  SUPPLY.—COMMITTEE.
  Order for Committee read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

THE GALTEE ESTATE.

  MOTION FOR A SELECT COMMITTEE.
  MR. GRAY,in rising to move—
  "That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into and report upon the statements as to the treatment and condition of the tenants on the estate known as the 'Galtee Estate,' in the counties of Cork and Tipperary, which were made in the evidence given during the second trial of John Sarsfield Casey in the Court of Queen's Bench in Dublin,"
  1528
  said, the trial in question took place in November last, in the Court of Queen's Bench, Dublin, and was for a criminal information against Mr. Casey for an alleged criminal libel in connection with certain letters commenting upon Mr. Bridge's administration of the Galtee Estates as agent for Mr. Nathaniel Buckley. There were also certain important disclosures made in a preliminary application for an order to make absolute a conditional order for that criminal information. The Motion he brought before the House had nothing directly to do with the libel itself. He merely proposed that an investigation should be made into the circumstances disclosed incidentally at the trial. He might mention, however, that Mr. Casey was acquitted of the charge brought against him in the first counts of the indictment—namely, that he incited to, or attempted to justify, murder—and he trusted that that fact would be remembered in any discussion which might arise. Further, he might mention that on the counts charging Mr. Casey with alleging cruelty and oppressive raising of rents against Mr. Bridge, the jury failed to come to a verdict; but it was alleged that they were 11 to 1 for acquitting him. In asking the House to appoint a Committee of Inquiry, he thought he was bound to show—first, the importance of the subject itself; and, secondly, that no relief could be given to the aggrieved parties except by the method proposed. Both these points, he believed, he should be able to establish. The case—to deal with the first point—concerned the lives and well-being of some hundreds of individuals, and excited the greatest interest, not merely throughout Ireland, but in every portion of the world where the English language was spoken. Very large sums, moreover, were subscribed in order to secure for Mr. Casey a fair trial, because it was felt in Ireland that the case would be an exposure of the entire land system under which the Irish tenantry suffered. So much for the first point to which he had alluded. Passing to the second, he hoped to be able to show that no adequate remedy could be afforded to the unfortunate tenants concerned except by the machinery of a Select Committee of that House. To come now to the immediate question, he did not think he could better describe the estates

  1529
  than in the words of Judge Barry, in his judgment on the question of a provisional order for a criminal information against Casey. The learned Judge said—
  "The portion of this district more particularly referred to in this case is described in the affidavits as of the wildest and most barren character, some of the holdings situate at a vast elevation, the soil in its natural condition covered with heath and stone, and only rendered productive of miserable crops by the most unremitting toil, involving in some cases the carrying by the tenants and their families of manure upon their backs to places inaccessible to any other means of carriage. It is sworn that if there be any remission of this laborious cultivation, the soil immediately reverts to its primitive sterility. It appears on the affidavits that a number of the tenants were in very poor circumstances, living in wretched cabins and able to afford only the meanest food and clothing; that many of them were in debt for the necessaries of life; that they were as a body most industrious; and that it was only by unceasing toil on the farms, and the wages earned by themselves or members of their families from the neighbouring farmers, that they were able to subsist and pay the former rents of their holdings. This class of tenantry was suffered by the Kingston family to make the best living they could out of this sterile district, paying rents in some cases nominal, in all cases very small. Unless tilled by such a class, the land was absolutely worthless. But the evil day came. The old lords of the soil became embarrassed; possibly, if they were made of sterner and it may be wiser stuff, of the material that would make the widow pay £1 instead of 5s., they might still have held the estates. But they got into Chancery, and a receiver was appointed, who, watched, it would seem, by jealous creditors, managed the estate till 1852, when the lands were sold in the Landed Estates Court. On the eve of the sale expressions of kindly feeling passed between this receiver, a Mr. Massey, and the tenants."
  In reply to an address from the tenantry, Mr. Massey thus wrote—
  "Many a sleepless night have I had thinking on the sad scenes which the necessities of my position and the watchfulness of a most hostile party compelled me to enact. The performance of such a painful duty was, however, rendered less disagreeable by the patience, order, and excellent conduct of the tenantry—conduct which, for the twenty years I am engaged in the management of landed property, I have never seen equalled elsewhere, and which, under their privations, I consider to be almost miraculous. …. I have ever found Lord Kingston most anxious to assist the wishes of the needy. … It is to be supposed that the passing of the estates into new hands is not far distant when my connection with you will be severed. Yet I trust it will be for the benefit of the tenantry, and that the new owners will treat them with the forbearance and generosity to which they are so well entitled by their honesty and excellent conduct."
  1530
  The land sold by the Landed Estates Court was bought by the Irish Land Company, of whom, at that time, the late John Sadleir was the managing spirit. Mr. Bridge became agent to that Company in 1869; but, while the Company held the estates, no ill-feeling between him and the tenantry was manifested. A small increase of rent in certain cases was exacted, but that was generally owing to an outlay by the Company itself on the land. But he never recommended to the Company, or attempted himself, to enforce any general increase. Indeed, it would have been, unjust to do so; for it was to be borne in mind that, although land in general had increased in value within the last quarter of a century, the value of these mountain holdings had not increased. For one thing, wood had disappeared; in the next place, turf was more difficult to procure; and, thirdly, more manual labour was required than previously. The fact that these mountain holdings had not shared in the general prosperity of Ireland was shown by this—that on adjoining property, held by such landlords as Lord Lismore and Captain Massey, the increase put on re-valuation a little time ago was very small indeed. On the Galtee estates, on the contrary, the increase was enormous, of which, however, more anon. In 1873, Mr. Buckley, who was at one time a Member of that House, and who was a director of the Company, purchased this property from the Company—that was to say, from his co-directors and himself. What price he paid for it did not appear, as he had declined to give evidence at the trial; but it had been asserted, and never denied, that it was such as to afford him on the old rents an income of 8 per cent on his investment, whereas in England, as the House was aware, land rarely or never brought more than 3½ or 4 per cent. At the trial, the word "fraud" was used in connection with this purchase; but he believed Mr. Buckley acquired the land at its full value, and that it was only by the extraordinary means he adopted afterwards that its value was unduly enhanced. Mr. Bridge, as he had stated, became agent for the property in 1869; and, as he himself testified, he never gave a hint to the Company on the subject of raising rents.

  1531
  When Mr. Buckley became proprietor of the land, however, he ordered it to be re-valued. Mr. Bridge had been held by the public to be responsible for the natural consequences of that revaluation; but some injustice had been done him in that respect, inasmuch as it was clear from the evidence that he acted merely as the servant of Mr. Buckley. Interrogated by Mr. Butt—
  "You swear that Mr. Buckley, your employer, knew that the old improvements had teen made by the tenants and their predecessors?"
  Mr. Bridge replied—
  "I have no doubt whatever of it. And knowing that," continued Mr. Butt, "he ordered these old improvements to be re-valued?—Most certainly, and most justly,"
  was the reply. This estate presented a feature not very peculiar in Ireland, but seldom seen in England—namely, that not a single improvement of any kind whatever had been effected by the landlord, such improvements as were made being solely the work of the tenants. What was the testimony of Mr. Bridge himself?
  "Was not everything that was done on that mountain the work of tenants?—I suppose so. Don't you believe it?—I suppose so."
  Again, one of the tenants in examination said, amongst other things, this—
  "All the help we ever got from Mr. Bridge was to have me fined £4 for cutting a barth of heath on the mountain to put a coat of thatch on the roof."
  In a subsequent conversation with Mr. Bridge, reported in the public papers and not contracdited, the same witness said—
  "And by the same token," sir, says I, "there are two of the ould rafters split across, and I'd be thankful to you for couples to keep 'em from killing myself and the childer in the bed.—Why, then, I don't know how you have the face of asking for rafters—how innocent you are!" said Mr. Bridge. Said he, "How nice your neighbours would look, if I charged them for the timber and gave it for nothing to you; and, indeed," added the tenant, "it would be a rare story."
  Thomas Hyland, of Skeheenarinka, one of the tenants, swore an affidavit, in which he said—
  "I hold a farm nearly at the top of the mountain from Nathaniel Buckley, Esq., consisting of about 40 acres plantation measure, at the rent of £5 sterling. Mr. Bridge says I must pay £10 10 s. My farm when I got it was without a house or a home or a ditch, all covered with heath and not one foot of it tilled—all was wild and bleak as a mountain left to nature."
  1532
  Michael Regan similarly deposed that he held 47 acres of rocky mountain at Skeheenarinka, and that when he first remembered it it was only grassy heath.
  "Who reclaimed it?" he was asked. "My father and me," he replied, "and a brother of mine, with other helps we got. Did you get any help from the landlord?—No. What did you do with it to make it fit for use?—Dug it with spades and crowbars, and blasted the rocks, many of which were buried. How many years were you working before you got it reclaimed?—We did it by degrees—a little each year. What food have you?—Potatoes, stirabout, and bread—everything next to hand that I can get. What rent did you pay on the land before the rise?—£5 9s. 6d. That was a fair rent. It has been raised to £15 16 s. 6d. at one jump. Did you agree to pay that rent?—No, I could not pay it. If I left the farm, I have nowhere to go."
  That was the testimony of all those unfortunate tenants. If they left their farms, they had nowhere to go. Patrick Kearney, speaking of his holding, said—
  "When I remember it first it was a black mountainy land, the same as the top of the Galtees—nothing but stone, and heath, and bogs. My father and myself were many a year rooting at it and reclaiming it."
  James Phelan, of Glenacunnah, swore—
  "When he first got his farm it was barren mountain; there was not a house nor a ditch, nor nothing but mountain there; he had set about reclaiming it. Who helped you to reclaim it?—God Almighty and myself, and my poor old father, and he did not live long after. (Laughter). I have worked at it for 50 years."
  Denis Murphy was asked—
  "Did you get any assistance from the landlord?—No, no more than you did. Or from the company? Ah! nonsense; no more than we got from God and our own industry."
  Edmond Darney, of Coolegarranroe, swore—
  "That my old rent was £2 6s.; the new rent is £4 6s. I must live on Indian meal the greater part of the year, and must buy that on credit. I reclaimed the lands, and was reclaiming it every year. Three of my children had to go to hospital, and my wife died there. I must keep goats to give a supply of food to my children when sick; I get medical Poor Law relief."
  Terence Murphy, of Caghergall, swore—
  "That I am tenant of a small farm containing about 13½ acres on the estate of Nathaniel Buckley, Esq. The said farm is situate near the summit of the Galtee Mountain, and was reclaimed from the barren heath by my grandfather, my father, and myself. It is a very poor farm; only the worst kind of potatoes can be grown upon it. I have to rent a garden

  1533
  nearly every year on the farms of strangers to grow sufficient food for myself and family; when I sow oats, I must reap it while it is green, as the ear never fills or ripens, and it is only fit for feeding cattle. It will grow a kind of hay; I have to take meadow on other lands to feed my cows."
  It was not alone the tenants that testified to the absence of any improvements by the landlord. Mr. D. J. Reardon, of Raffan, County Cork, a highly respectable and independent witness, being asked—"I suppose you did not see any landlord's improvements on the estate?" replied—
  "No, indeed, they have not a road to approach even to-day; nothing hut an impassable cut through the mountain."
  Mr. James Byrne, J. P., County Cork, also said—
  "We came by what I suppose we should call a road, but it was only the bed of the mountain torrent, and there were very large rocks down along it. I wonder how any animals could draw up an empty cart there, much less a load of any kind."
  These witnesses, who were experts, swore, that to reclaim these holdings in the ordinary way would have cost from £20 to £30 an acre, and then their letting value would be only 5s. or 6s. a-year. In fact, it was only by the ceaseless toil of the tenants carrying manure and even soil on their backs up the mountains that the lands were ever made productive, even to the degree they now were. He mentioned these facts, because it was difficult for English landlords to conceive an estate in such a condition as Mr. Buckley's was. Chief Justice May, who certainly could not be accused of bias towards the tenantry, took the liberty of suggesting to this English millionaire that he should avail himself of the machinery of the Board of Works for borrowing money on easy terms in order to make some improvements; but whether the suggestion had been acted on he was not in a position to say. Now, as to the actual condition of the tenancies at the time Mr. Buckley got possession of the estate. He would quote principally from the evidence given at the trial, and from the affidavits of the tenants, as he thought it better to put unquestionable testimony of this kind before the House, than attempt any paraphrase of it himself. The only other source from which he would quote was from letters written by a special
  1534
  correspondent who visited the estate shortly after the trial—saw and conversed with the tenants, and published the facts which were never questioned. Richard Condon, examined by Mr. O'Brien, Q. C.—
  "I am one of the tenants on Barnahown. Are the tenants very fat there?—(Gloomily) It is easy for them. Remember when my father took my farm there could not be worse to be found, all rocks of stones and heath. I remember when the Board of Works were carrying on the relief works during the famine times. I supplied them with over 500 loads, all taken off three-quarters of an acre. I reclaimed it by rooting out the heath and stones, and bringing manure from far away. My rent was increased from 14 s. to £1 18 s. I agreed to pay it, because I was in dread he would turn me out of it—that is the reason. I have not paid it out of my own money, but have to borrow it and pay interest on it."
  Mr. Daniel Joseph Reardon, of Raffan, County Cork, examined by Mr. Butt, Q. C.—
  "As to the general character of the land, say what it appeared to you to be?—A pure mountain, almost worthless in my estimation for any agricultural purposes, without expending an immense lot of money on it. Did you observe the character of the houses of the people?—I did; they were the most miserable holdings I ever saw. They were hardly fit to call them even hovels itself. I saw some built of mud, but whether built of mud or stone they were of the same bad character."
  Mr. Matthew O'Flaherty, Donaman Castle, County Limerick, swore—
  "I protest to God, I would not give 20 acres of my own land for the whole of Barnahoun."
  Mr. O'Flaherty was examined as to the farm of Laurence Carroll—
  "Now, as to Laurence Carroll?—I went into that house. He has five children. Himself and his son work for Mr. Bridge, and there was not a worse house in Skeheenarinka than that. Was that house fit for human habitation?—No. Was it fit for the habitation of a beast?—It was not. You would not put a beast in it. A cow would be just as well off outside."
  In fact, he said, the bailiff was the only well-fed man on the estate that he saw. Mr. James Byrne, J. P., County Cork, President of the Mallan Farmers' Club, said—
  "I went inside the house of a man named David Hennessy, whose old rent was £2 10 s., and the new one £4 5s. I saw his little dairy was in his wretched bedroom. What kind was the house altogether?—A tumble-down looking affair. In the house of John Carey, at Lyrafinne, we found a great many children. We

  1535
  were afraid to enter it lest it would tumble down on us, there were so many props under it, the wall hanging out, ready to burst out. The Lord Chief Justice: But it did not?—Witness: We did not delay there very long to give it time. (Laughter)."
  That witticism of the Lord Chief Justice created great laughter in Court. He (Mr. Gray) did not see cause for the laughter, nor did he think the House would, when he read them the description published by the correspondent he had mentioned of the present condition of that holding. Here it was, written a few days after the great joke of the Lord Chief Justice—
  "A little way off, within a sort of shelter-trench from the storm, formed of huge stone ramparts, built out of the plenteous rockeries on the farm, stood the cabin of John Carey, of Lyrefunn—stood, for it has already half tumbled about the ears of its inmates. Misery seems here to have reached its acme. The walls that remain have bulged threateningly out. Half the roof blew down one night in the storm, the day after Lord Chief Justice May had intimated that there did not seem to be much danger of it. Six children and the mother were cooped up in bed when they heard the rafters crack, and fled for their lives. In the dismantled part of the cabin the sorry little dresser and broken chair which formed the principal furniture of the demolished chamber stand still under the open heaven rotting in the rain. …. He went to Mr. Bridge on his return, and begged for five couples to restore the roof. The answer was that Mr. Bridge was not planting, not cutting timber, and that if he got it he should pay for it. Said Carey, 'I have eight in family, no money, and no crops, trying to feed the children.' The argument did not prevail. …. His rent for some twelve Irish acres was raised from £1 5s. 4d. to £2 2s. 'I agreed to pay it like the rest, of course, fearing to be thrown out. I will owe two years' rent in March next, and nothing to pay it.'"
  Mr. Byrne was asked—
  "Did you examine the holding of a man called Timothy Cullenan?—I did; his old rent was £5 13 s., his new rent £7. On that land I saw the most extraordinary specimen of reclamation I ever saw in my whole life, and the most expensive. A portion of a small field was literally covered with stones 1½ feet in depth. He had been six weeks in grubbing that field, himself and two labourers, and I could only see a rood reclaimed."
  He said you could take several hundred tons off each acre of Patrick Creagh's holding, and added—
  "I never saw such distress, and poverty, and squalor, in all my life as I saw on the estate. Generally, now, on that townland did you make any remark about the general appearance of the
  1536
  people living on it?—They seemed to be a very broken-hearted people. I heard nothing there but wails and lamentations."
  Hon. Members might wonder how it was possible for these wretched tenants to pay any rent at all. In truth, many of them could never pay rent if they were wholly dependent on their farms; but the evidence showed by what means they eked out the rent which was now doubled and trebled upon them. John Duggan was examined, and stated—
  "That his old rent was £2 11 s. 8d., and the new rent was £6 1s. 6d. Could not pay the old rent, only for a brother of his that was in a foreign country. Only for that they would not be there to-day. Always had to earn his hire outside the farm until within the last two years, when the brother helped him. Was 7½ years in service on a neighbouring farm, and gave the wages to his father and mother. Drew timber from Galtee Castle to Fermoy at 6s. a-ton. Indian meal stirabout and potatoes were the ordinary food of his family."
  James Hennessy, examined by Mr. O'Brien, said—
  "I live at Ballyladers, and I farm about 60 plantation acres. I am a guardian of the Mitchelstown union. On June, 1876, I went through some of the lands. The general condition of the tenantry appeared wretched, and the lands were bad. In the previous April I took a daughter in service from Denis Murphy. His condition was miserable, and so was hers too. She had not sufficient clothing to go anywhere. I had to advance him £1 in Mitchelstown soon after to buy meal."
  He (Mr. Gray) would not weary the House by further evidence as to the condition of these tenants, although he could produce it in abundance. What course did Mr. Buckley, or Mr. Bridge on his behalf, take? They found a valuator, a Mr. Walker, to value the lands—a gentleman totally unacquainted with the property, and who went there in the height of summer, when everything looked its best. He inspected the lands in the months of July, August, and September. Mr. Bridge himself admitted that it would have been madness to have brought Mr. Walker there in winter, as the lands would then have been little better than a bog. Mr. Walker was not instructed to take into consideration the improvements effected by the tenants and their forefathers. Mr. Bridge said he was instructed to value on the "live and let live" principle, and not to take into consideration modern improvements. Mr. Walker said he was not to estimate the improvements

  1537
  made within the previous five years; but it was acknowledged that all the improvements of over five years' standing were valued, and he (Mr. Gray) held that it was demonstrated at the trial that the holdings were valued just as they stood. Mr. Bridge had had experience before of "settling" estates. He swore that he had been employed by Sadleir years ago to settle the Goold estates, and was examined as to how he did it—
  "What did you do to put the Goold estate in order?—In the first place, sending the sheriff home about his business; and, in the second place, giving the tenants time to pay whatever arrears were due; and I treated them kindly, as I always do."
  That was how he settled the Goold estates, according to his own testimony; but it was not the way he "settled" the Galtee estate. He (Mr. Gray) would not trouble the House with the long list of 68 re-valuations he held in his hand, but would read a few specimens of the re-valuation on the "live and let live" principle:—Patrick Macnamara—old rent, £3 6s. 0d.; new rent, £17 10 s. 2d.; John M'Namara—old rent, £5 18 s. 0d.; new rent, £13 12 s. 0d.; James M'Guire—old rent, £3 6s. 8d.; new rent, £10 5s. 0d.; James M'Grath—old rent, £0 5s. 0d.; new rent, £3 0s. 0d.; Connor Lyons—old rent, 2s. 6d.; new rent, £1 0s. 0d. On one townland the increase was over 100 per cent, and the hardest and most pitiable portion of this most pitiable case was, that upon the poorest and most helpless class of tenants the increase was chiefly cast. Twenty-one tenants, whose old rent in the aggregate was £22 9s. 10 d., were made to pay £62 16 s. 6d., or an increase of 300 per cent. Taking all the tenancies set out in the alleged libels—68 or 69—the former rent of the whole was £341; the new rent, £742. The lands of Carregeen were £95—they were increased to £205. Some tenancies were increased 500 per cent, and one 1,200 per cent at a single valuation. That was done on what Mr. Bridge and Mr. Buckley called the "live and let live principle.'' Shortly afterwards, Mr. Bridge issued to the tenants a circular, informing them that the increase was to date from the 25th March following. Now, that was an illegal proceeding, the earliest date at which the increase could legally be made being the month of November following. The
  1538
  following was a specimen of that illegal notice:—
  "James Maguire, I beg to inform you that the rent of your farm on Carrigeen, now £3 8s., will be £10 5s. a-year from the 25th March next, of which you will be allowed half the county cess when paying the rent."
  And it was followed by this—
  "Estate of Nathaniel Buckley.—The tenants are hereby noticed that it will be necessary for them to signify to the agent, during the month of November, whether they will submit to Mr. Walker's valuation, and enter into new arrangements with their landlord, &c."
  Mr. Bridge was asked—
  "How many of those notices did you issue?—I suppose I posted a dozen or half-a-hundred of them. Will you swear that you did not send more of them?—Begad, it might be 200 for all I know."
  He (Mr. Gray) thought Mr. Bridge neither knew nor cared how many of them he issued. He would ask the House to listen to what Judge Barry, one of the most eminent Judges on the Bench, said with reference to these notices—
  "But what was the course adopted upon this estate in the Galtees? The purchase is made in 1873; a stranger unknown to the tenants, of whose integrity or skill they know nothing, is brought down in July; he completes his valuation in November; and in January, 1874, printed notices are sent to the tenants, informing them that their rent is to be so-and-so—specifying the amount fixed by Mr. Walker—from the 25th March then next. I have professionally and judicially come in contact with many cases of controversy between landlord and tenant; I have seen and heard the usual charges and counter-charges of harshness on the one hand and dishonesty and unreasonableness on the other, sometimes proved and sometimes disproved; but such a demand by agent or landlord as that made by these notices under such circumstances never fell within my observation. The demand was wholly unenforceable in law, and, so far as I can see on the facts before us, indefensible as a matter of dealing between man and man. In point of law, the landlord could no more enforce the advanced rent from the 25th March than he could enforce its payment retrospectively for the antecedent 10 years, the tenants were entitled by law to hold at the old rent until the end of the year, and the service of these notices must therefore be regarded as an attempt, and so far as I can see, an unjustifiable attempt, to exact, through the terror of apprehended eviction, that increase on the coming half-year which he could not obtain by any legal process. It does not appear whether many of the tenants yielded to this demand; but in October another notice is posted. I shall not comment upon the pregnant significance of the word 'submit' in this document; but every tenant who did not submit was, so far as I can gather, served with

  1539
  notice to quit. It appears that about 100 notices to quit were served."
  Well, what could these poor ignorant tenants do but submit? Most of them did submit. They were powerless, in fact. It might be argued that the fact of their submitting to the increase showed that they were content; the fact was far otherwise. What was the result of the submission of the tenants to the great increase of the rents? They had to pawn even portions of their clothes in order to meet the demands made upon them, and they subsisted on the commonest food—yellow meal porridge, and even turnips. Even at the risk of wearying the House, he must ask them to listen to the testimony as to the condition of the tenantry since they submitted. He knew it would be stated that all the tenants had now submitted, and that the whole matter was settled, and that inquiry would only disturb the happy relations now subsisting between a beneficent landlord and a happy and contented tenantry. But he (Mr. Gray) contended that the tenants submitted under compulsion, and that the law should protect them, as it protected other helpless persons driven to make unreasonable concessions under compulsion. Listen to the evidence of Dennis Murphy—
  "What rent is he asking from you?—£6 15 s., double £3 7s. 6d.. … When this rent was doubled upon me I knew the result, and I pawned my body coat, a frieze coat, my Lord, in order to be up to the rent, and there it went from that day until this from me, in the year 1874, and I never saw it since. (Laughter.) You have never been able since to get your coat out of pawn?—No, sir; because when the terms fixed by the pawn-office was passed it was sold. Was it to pay the increased rent that you pawned your coat?—It was just as I told you; I am on my oath. Since you agreed to pay that increased rent have you yourself had sufficient food?—Upon my oath, I had nothing but Indian meal stirabout, and I would be very glad to subsist upon Swedish turnips, but it was never decreed by Almighty God a human creature should subsist on it. After eating a bellyful of it I would not be able to go 10 perches through weakness. Were you going to America yourself at the time?—No, nor I won't to-day. I would sooner die where I am to-day. If I had the courage of a man, it would be better for me; but now, when I am worn down, let me sink or swim; I have no chance now, while God leaves me the life."
  Darby Naish, of Skeheenarinka, said—
  "I am 70 years of age. The old rent was 10 s. When the Walker (laughter) went out and he saw a little field, I whispered him to lower my rent. 'Oh,' said he, 'that's out of the question,
  1540
  but it will only be a few shillings;' that is what the Walker said. (Laughter.) I got my memorandum then, £1 15 s., at which I trembled. (Laughter.) My father made the field out of the mountains, and the Kingstons never asked a half-penny during generations. My father broke his heart reclaiming it, nothing but wild rocky stones. Sure I should agree with the £1 15 s. sooner than throw me out or put me into the poor-house. I have throe boys, and my wife, and myself. Besides working at the land, I am a poor carpenter, making chairs and stools. My father built the house. Yellow meal and stirabout is my ordinary food. I don't know how much I owe. My wife died in the workhouse a year after I had been there. I live at Coolaganaure. £2 6s. a-year was the old rent; £4 6s. is the now rent. O'Loghlen, the bailiff, came to me at different times, and I went to Mr. Bridge by his orders. I offered him the land for something that would enable me to keep up my family for a little while after I came out of hospital, and he offered me nothing. I paid the new rent, for I had nowhere to go unless back to the workhouse. I had to borrow the money from the neighbours and to sell the only little cow I had for less than £10 to pay it."
  The rent of James Lynch was raised from £1 17 s. 6d. to £3 7s., and he was asked—
  "Is it a fact that Mr. Bridge decreed you for the costs of the lease and amount?—He did, sir. (Laughter.)"
  He (Mr. Gray) saw no cause for laughter here, but the fact showed the condition of the tenantry. There was the testimony of the correspondent he had mentioned as to another of these tenants—
  "At the other side of the borheen lives one of the 'settled' tenants, the most wretched I had met yet. This is the woman, Johanna Fitzgerald, whose husband has gone to England as a labourer to earn bread for her four children. Mrs. Fitzgerald had not been seen at the chapel that morning, but her bare feet and coarse petticoat made a pretty eloquent apology. The children, who played about the door, had clean faces and clean rags, and the earthen floor was newly swept. A mess of Indian meal was in the pot for dinner. The family, of course, slept in one room; and a man and wife, who are lodged in consideration of help on the farm, stretched by night on the floor inside the doorway. Except a few blue plates, the dresser was only stocked with marmalade pots, whose contents were never emptied on the Galtees. Mrs. Fitzgerald said she had not heard from her husband these five weeks, and a shilling was all the money she had in the world. Her rent was raised from £2 10 s. 4d. to £4 4s. Her stock of potatoes was out this month past, 'except a handful of seed,' and from this to August yellow stirabout must be bought on credit. Her other tillage was half-an-acre of oats, which cost her £1 for seed, 7s. for labour, and 10 s. for a cwt. of superphosphate—which she had not paid for yet. The whole crop was sold to James Fitzgerald, a neighbour, for £2, straw and all. Two

  1541
  geese and some hens made the total of her live stock. It was pitiful to see the open-mouthed surprise with which a woman, supposed to be the mistress of some 20 acres, gloated over the couple of pieces of small silver given to the children, the eagerness with which she pounced upon them, and the extravagant thanks with which she repaid them."
  And, with a quaint pathos which he thought might touch the heart of any man, her neighbour, Darby Mahoney, added—
  "Sure, we would not mind if they let us alone; but we have no sort of spirit to root a stone or put on a bit of thatch owing to this man always promising to turn us out."
  This was the condition of the Widow Roche, another "settled" tenant—
  "The family sleep in two straw beds in a suffocating little apartment, some 7 feet by 10, and the rain pours through the thatch within a few inches of the head of the bed in which a withered little old man, Mrs. Roche's father-in-law, lay for three months this year with swellings and pains in the bones. How a sanitary officer could permit a man ill of rheumatism to linger in such a den I cannot imagine. Yet Mrs. Roche states that her husband lay sick here for a year and a-half, and died of dropsy and rheumatic pains. Dr. Fenton, indeed, who visited him on a dispensary red ticket, advised him not to stay in a wet house but to go to the workhouse, where he would have nourishment. He did for a time go into Clogheen workhouse hospital, where he was told that if he had come six mouths earlier he would have been cured. He returned, however, to the cabin to die. So said Mrs. Roche, and she informed me that her rent had been raised from 18 s. to £2 4s., and that her husband had accepted the terms from the commencement. 'Sure only the mercy of God I don't know where 'tis to come from.'"
  "We never will be able to pay it nor to pay what's due," said Mrs. Murphy. "We had 6lb. of pork yesterday for our Christmas dinner among 12. 'Twas the poorest Christmas day we ever had, striving to pay everybody his dues, and sure it's equal if we're there at all next Christmas."
  "We would not keep it at all," said Mrs. Shaughnessy, "only about two years ago a boy of ours went out to New Zealand on the cheap emigration, with only 21 s. in his pocket when he landed, and he was not landed two months when he sent us home £9, and he always told us never to give up the old place while there was a roof over it."
  This was what Phelan, another "settled" tenant, said—
  "We must sell the little cow for meal, and after eating her out we must sell the other one. After that we have only to trust to Providence. Sure only for the confidence the people have in our honesty they would not trust us with a cow nor a sheep."
  "And, having seen the little cows," adds the correspondent," which were more warmly housed in the outhouse than their Christian masters
  1542
  next door, I am disposed to think they will not long stave off the trust in Providence.
  "Upon another night," says the correspondent, "I had an opportunity of seeing several other tenants whose holdings are seated amidst the stony heaths behind Phelan's. One of the houses struck me particularly by its neatness. It was that of Timothy Drislane; it was newly whitewashed for the holidays, scrupulously clean within, furnished with several handy, though cheap, little appliances that I had seen nowhere else, the children fairly dressed for peasant children, and the woman of the house clad with something like comfort. Drislane's rent was raised from £2 to £3 7s. 6d., and he accepted the increase from the beginning. Here, surely, was a case where the increase had brought no misery! But the explanation soon came. 'Ever since he paid it,' said this exceedingly quiet and respectable housewife, 'we have been falling deeper and deeper into debt every year. His means would not pay quarter of his debts this moment. We would not be able to live at all upon this unfortunate place only he goes out and earns himself here and there as a handyman, as you may see by his little jobs about the house.' And another tenant related how Phelan and himself would start at 1 o'clock in the night for Clogheen and sleep in a hayrick, to get a day's employment at harvest work, and would tramp it home the same night with a half-crown each in their pockets."
  "We halted," says the correspondent," at the farmhouse of James Lynch—dingy and scantily thatched as usual—and held conference with his busy and active-minded wife. There was evergreen stuck over the dresser—the only Christmas emblem I have yet met upon the estate. A penny print of Father Tom Burke had an honoured place on the wall; the rain came down quite near his reverence's head. Now, Lynch's rent was raised from £1 18 s. 6d. to £3 7s. 3d., and he has taken a 31 years' lease at the increased rent. 'What in the world ever possessed him to do such a thing?' cried his wife, who was very poorly dressed. 'And there he is now,' she added bitterly, 'with his 31 years' lease, and he owes him a year's rent already with the hanging gale—that will be two years' rent in March. We were finding ourselves getting into debt with the old rent, and only God is good I don't know in the world how we are going to manage. You know, yourself, doctor,' turning to my very reverend companion, 'I had often to put the children in off the road for fear they would be seen.'"
  Patrick Creagh is another of those who took a 31 years' lease—
  "'What was a man to do when every person was settling, and no way out of it but the poor-house?'—his rent having been raised from £2 19 s. to £3 7s. 6d. He paid two guineas for the expense of the lease, and has three acres and a-half arable acres, which himself and his father have broken with crowbars, drained, manured, and fenced. The result is that he is already a year's rent in arrear, beside the hanging gale. £35 would not pay his debts, and 'if he was thinking till the day of his death' he could not tell where the money was to come from. Richard Condon had the same dismal tale, It was he

  1543
  who swore in the Court of Queen's Bench that in the famine times he sold to the Board of Works 500 loads of stones, taken off three-quarters of an acre of his reclamation."
  He would not test the patience of the House further than by reading the following from a letter from the respected parish priest of the district, the Very Rev. Dr. Delaney, D. D., which he (Mr. Gray) had received the previous day:—
  "The tenants are here with me every day asking for food. I am here only three years, and during that time I have had such tales of misery and suffering, and seen such poverty as I thought existed only in the famine years. They were poor when your correspondent was here; they are poorer now. They were in debt then; they are hopelessly in debt now. It is true they have settled. They had no alternative but the workhouse; but those who have settled this year are convinced they never can pay the rent they have promised. Many of those who have accepted are already two years in arrear. Their troubles are only commencing. They will he evicted for non-payment of the rents which they cannot pay."
  These were the people of whom Mr. Bridge's counsel said—
  "They were, he believed, as well off as their neighbours, and as for eating beef or mutton they would not like it, and he did not believe they would eat it if they had it to eat; they preferred the food of their fathers."
  But how if they had no food at all? Let the House contrast these facts with the following description given by the correspondent to whom he had alluded, for whose accuracy he repeated he could vouch, and whose statements had not been questioned of a neighbouring estate. It was attempted to be set up at the trial that this was a case of a Catholic tenantry at enmity with a Protestant landlord; but how far this was from the fact, let the following prove:—
  "Mr. Buckley's property is confined to Barnahown East. Barnahown West, which is a continuation of the same mountainous ridge, naturally of the same obstinate barrenness, but nursed into a higher state of cultivation, forms part of the estate of the Rev. M. A Collis, D. D., Queenstown—a vigorous hater of Papacy, I am told, but none the less passionately praised as a landlord by his Papist tenantry. I had a curiosity to know whether they managed these things better in Barnahown West, and took good care that in learning I should not be at the mercy of any over-officious underling itching for favour with his lord. I had an opportunity of questioning three of the most independent tenants on the Collis property, and their statements tally too exactly to leave any shadow of suspicion of their truth. Here, then, is the substance of the statement of James Fitzgibbon—a man of very solid intelligence, who wore the nearest approach
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  to a silk hat and a broadcloth cape which I have seen in these latitudes:—'If we till an acre of barren mountain,' he said, 'the Rev. Dr. Collis will either give the lime or whatever it may cost to the amount of 50 or 60 barrels per statute acre, and if the land is in want of drainage, he will make full compensation to the tenant for the cost of that also. The tenant has only to give in the tickets for the lime or the cost of the drainage or of fencing, and it will be allowed out of his half year's rent. Whenever timber is wanting to repair a house Dr. Collis gives it for nothing, and if ever a tenant is short in the rent through bad times I never knew it to make a difference. The estate has never been revalued for the last 17 years, since it passed into Dr. Collis's hands in the Landed Estates Court, and kinder or better landlord there never was.' The praises of the Rev. Dr. Collis and of his agent, Mr. Thomas Perrott, of Uplands, Fermoy, were chorussed even more warmly by my two other informants, Patrick Drislane and Jeremiah Kenealy. When the tenants on Barnahown West were, by accident or design, amerced with the police tax which fell upon the rest of the townland after the first attempt on Mr. Bridge's life, Dr. Collis exerted himself warmly and with success to secure the exemption of his tenantry. It is almost superfluous to add that he is repaid with gratitude and reverence by a punctual and improving tenantry."
  All honour was due to the Rev. Dr. Collis. If they had many landlords like him, they would have less of the Irish Land Question. He (Mr. Gray) had now placed the House in possession of the facts of this case. He had not given his own description of them, but had quoted evidence which was open to all. Such being the state of the tenants on the Galtee estate, the question was, whether he was right in bringing their case before Parliament? It might be said, in defence of Mr. Buckley, that it was a gross exaggeration to say that the rents had been raised 200, 500, 700, or 1,200 per cent, and that the average increase was not more than 20 or 25 per cent, which was moderate, seeing that there had been no re-valuation for many years; but this was a mere evasion. The complaint was not of the average increase, or of increases on the low-lying farms, which might bear a fair increase, but of those enormous increases on the mountain farms, which were simply ruinous. He hoped any hon. Member who wished to follow him would deal with the cases of those mountain tenants, and not go into mere generalities or averages, which were only misleading. The tenants themselves acknowledged that on some of the farms in the plains an

  1545
  increase might fairly be made. He (Mr. Gray) did not say that some increase on certain portions of the estate was not justifiable. The whole of his remarks were applicable to the mountain property, which was uninhabitable save from the ceaseless toil of these wretched tenants. And, with regard to Mr. Buckley's conduct, it was intolerable, insufferable, and calculated to bring them to absolute ruin. It might be said that they might go for protection to the Land Act; but the great flaw in that Act was, that it afforded protection to those who least required it, and no adequate protection to those who most required it. The sliding scale of compensation afforded no protection to the tenant who paid a few shillings a-year. The payment of seven years' rent to him, only meant keeping the recipient for a few weeks out of the workhouse. In the same way, the compensation for the reclamation of waste lands was a nullity, because there was a clause in the Act which provided that the time the land was held at a low rent was to be taken into account. But it was stated on the trial of Casey, by experienced farmers, that they would not take these lands at all. It might be asked why these tenants agreed to pay these increased rents, which only beggared and ruined them? But their case at that trial was likened to that of a shipwrecked crew on a rock, to whom a steam-tug came and demanded £2,000 for taking them off. They entered into an agreement to pay the money; but when that bargain was questioned in a Court of Equity, it was held to be an immoral contract which the law would not uphold. In like manner, these contracts by an English millionaire with these starving Irish cottiers was an immoral contract. But the law afforded them no remedy, and they came, therefore, and asked the House for help. He was not there to justify the outrages which had been committed against Mr. Bridge, but he firmly believed that the great body of the tenants had no part or hand in them. He did not ask that their case should be decided on an ex parte statement, but only that an inquiry should be made; and he was confident that if the facts were as he had stated, Englishmen, who extended their aid and sympathy to suffering Turks and
  1546
  Bulgarians, would not withhold it from their fellow-subjects in Ireland. The hon. Member concluded by moving the Resolution of which he had given Notice.
  Amendment proposed,
  To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into and report upon the statements as to the treatment and condition of the tenants on the estate known as the 'Galtee Estate,' in the counties of Cork and Tipperary, which were made in the evidence given during the second trial of John Sarsfield Casey in the Court of Queen's Bench in Dublin,"—(Mr. Gray,)
  —instead thereof.
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  MR. A. MOOREsaid, he wished to be allowed to make some observations on the case. He lived within some eight or ten miles of the scene of these troubles, had walked portions of the land, and had judged of the matter for himself. He did not rise to defend or palliate the awful crime of murder. He believed the men who fired at Mr. Bridge, and still more those who fired into a whole carful of people, killing the poor driver and wounding a policeman, were capable of any enormity. Still, the outrage could not justify Mr. Buckley's conduct; and the fact remained, that this district, which was peaceful and orderly before the time of Mr. Buckley's purchase, was now entirely demoralized from end to end. The landlord could not visit his property unless escorted by an armed force. The agent had a barrack at his door, and the police patrolled the country day and night—and this was the case amongst a people whose good conduct and peaceful disposition were recognized on all hands. He was of opinion that the lot of any ordinary labourer in the more favoured low lands was preferable to that of some of the small farmers, for their poverty could not be exceeded, whilst their industry was amazing. He entered one house a few weeks previously. He was told the mother had been reduced to a state of utter prostration by feeding on turnips. The children wore clothes sent them from Cork by a charitable lady. The land was five acres in extent, and they told him the rent had been raised

  1547
  from 18 s. to £3 2s. 6d. In another house he found people living on Indian meal, and the bed—such a bed he never saw—some hay, with some tattered strips of what once had been bedclothes. The rent, he said, had been raised from £2 to £3 5s. He would not weary the House with further details, of which he had plenty at his disposal; and he would only say what he had said before, in and out of the House, that he believed this man to be an oppressor; that it was the duty of the House to stay his hand, or at least inquire into his actions. He believed it was not the agent, but the landlord, that should be held responsible. Some change was necessary in the Land Laws. He would wish to see arbitrary and capricious evictions restrained by law; and he hoped to see undue additions of rent made impossible by arbitrations, and the consequent abolition of notices to quit as an engine merely for raising rent. He thought some means ought to be established of arranging rent without necessarily determining the tenancy; and, finally, he should wish to see sufficient protection for the improvements of the tenant. English landlords were too apt to forget that in Ireland, as a rule, all building, fencing, and other improvements, were effected by the tenant at his own expense. This was the crucial point of difference between the land system of the two countries. These were some of the changes he wished to see, and some change, he was convinced, was necessary. Ho believed, moreover, that the longer the change was delayed the worse it would be for the landlords. Men like Buckley brought odium on an entire class, and prevented good landlords from getting a legitimate rise of rent. But there was another result which followed from oppression; it demoralized the people. First, they sympathized with crime; then, perhaps, they aided in shielding its perpetrators; and, finally, if not criminals themselves, they looked upon crime at least with indifference. This indifference, painful as it was to contemplate, was widespread, he feared, in the present instance. In conclusion, he hoped that the House would, by a very distinct Vote, mark its disapproval of the conduct of a man who, with an ample income from other sources, was attempting to grind an honest, industrious, and hardy race,
  1548
  trafficking in their honest sweat—he might almost say their heart's blood—and that he would be told that he might not trample on his Irish tenants any more than on Lancashire operatives.
  MR. BARINGsaid, as far as any Englishman could understand an Irish question, he believed that he understood this; and, long before any speeches had been made in the House on the subject, he had felt that a case was in existence demanding such an examination as no body but a Committee of the House could give it. Therefore, he would only say, that if the hon. Member for Tipperary (Mr. Gray) pressed his Motion to a division, he should certainly vote with him. But he thought it would be very wise of the Government not to oppose the appointment of this Committee. If they had read, as he had for some years past, the evidence produced in courts, in newspapers, and in pamphlets without contradiction, as to what was going on in this particular district, they must feel that this was one of those real Irish grievances which an English Parliament ought not to refuse to inquire into.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. GIBSON)said, he had no intention or desire to discuss the details of the management of this property which had been brought under the notice of the House, or to consider the relationships of the particular tenants on the property to the landlord; nor was it his intention to discuss whether Mr. Buckley gave too much or too little for the property, or go at all into the question of the purchase money. He should like the House to consider what was exactly the motive and character of the inquiry into which they were gravely asked to enter through the agency of a Committee of the House. The House was asked by it to constitute a court of inquiry and appeal in the case of differences which had arisen between a landlord and his tenants. Let them consider the inconveniences which must ensue if their interposition was invited—as it might be if they acceded to the Motion—in every case where such differences arose. It was perfectly clear that this would tend materially to prolong and render more acrimonious controversies of this kind; nor, for his own part, could he see on what principle that House could base an inquiry into mat-

  1549
  ters of perfectly private dispute, which fell within the executive power of the Courts of Law. That consideration seemed to him conclusive against the Motion, even if this case was a new one, and if it had never been before the Courts of Law. But the truth was, that the dispute between Mr. Buckley and his tenants had taken place some time ago. They had been more than once the subject of proceedings in the Courts of Law, in which all the facts connected with them had been as fully ascertained as they could be by an inquiry before a Committee of that House. There was really little for a Committee to ascertain; nor, even if the disputes in question were still open, did he see what that House could do. If any wrong admitting of redress had been committed, it was to the Courts of Law, not to that House, that an appeal should be made. On principle, therefore, he objected to the Motion before the House. The short facts of this case were these. An English gentleman, named Buckley, whom he had never seen, but who, he believed, had formerly sat on the opposite side of the House, had purchased the Galtee estate, it was said, as a mercantile matter, with the view of making a profit out of it in the ordinary way of business. The property had been in the occupation of the same tenants for a considerable number of years, and the rent had not been raised for some 70 or 80 years. Mr. Buckley had employed a Mr. Bridge as his agent, and it was impossible not to admire the courage and the fortitude of that gentleman in the circumstances in which he had been placed. Mr. Bridge, acting under the instructions of his employer, had raised the rents through the instrumentality of a valuer; and, no doubt, a substantial increase had been made in them. Of the 500 tenants upon the estate, only some 40 or 50 had refused to come to terms with their landlord, and the whole dispute was in train for settlement, when, unfortunately, the tenants were told by those who knew more about their business than they themselves did, that they were being very badly dealt with, and were very hardly used, and the result was that an agitation was got up, and the process of settlement was put a stop to. Upon this followed the two grave attempts to assassinate Mr. Bridge, and the subsequent trial in the Court of Queen's
  1550
  Bench in Dublin. Matters were not now in the position in which they were a year and a half-year ago. No doubt, at that time, there was a considerable ill-feeling between Mr. Buckley and a portion of his tenants; but tranquillity now prevailed on the estate and in the neighbourhood, and it would be most inexpedient for the House to re-open the former disputes, and to rip open wounds which were in process of healing. If ever there was a time for inquiry, that time was now passed, seeing that no disputes any longer existed, but the rent had been in all cases settled by agreement between the parties. He had said, and he would adhere to the resolution, that he would not enter into the management of Mr. Buckley's estate, into the merits of the disputes between him and his tenants, or into the grievances which any of them might individually have to complain of. The hon. Member for Tipperary had drawn a graphic picture of the sufferings and hardships; but it was only fair to Mr. Buckley to say that much might be urged on the other side. He had before him a statement, from which it appeared that in many, at any rate, of these cases of alleged hardship the old rent was very low, so low, in fact, that there could hardly be a doubt that it might fairly be raised; and that, after the rent had been thus raised, the tenants were able to sell their tenant-right for larger sums, not to strangers, but to the other tenants on the estate. He would take three such cases. There was, for instance, the case of Richard Walsh, who occupied a farm of 27 acres at the old rent of 25 s. a-year, and on whom a rise was put to the extent of £5 2s. Now, that did not strike him as being a very exaggerated rise; but, whether it was or not, Walsh succeeded in selling his farm to another tenant for £130. It was suggested that a man could not live on those farms; but, as a matter of fact, the purchase money for the farm of which he was speaking was supplied by another tenant farmer on the same property, who got it, he supposed, by his labour. Then there was another case of a farm of 82 acres, the whole rent of which—£5 12 s. 6d.—had been raised to £6 12 s. 8d., and which was sold for £250. The last case which he would mention was that of a man named O'Shaughnessy, the interest in

  1551
  whose farm of 55 acres, subjected to £7 4s. a-year rental, raised to £11 19 s., was sold for £160. These facts, he thought, showed that the figures which had been quoted by the hon. Member for Tipperary did not present a true picture of the present condition of the Galtee estate. The tenants who appeared to give evidence before the Court of Queen's Bench in Dublin appeared to be thoroughly shrewd and intelligent, and he was told that they were comfortably clad, and that their evidence went strongly to show that the majority of them were not reduced to that state of abject penury which had been suggested; but that they were able, by their own good conduct, to raise a considerable amount of stock, and when their daughters were married, or their sons went out into the world, to give them a little portion to assist them. But he would not enter into further detail on the subject. He ventured to say that no case had been made out for the application of such exceptional machinery as that proposed by the hon. Member for Tipperary to inquire into the estate of a private individual. Nothing could be gained by such an inquiry, and he therefore asked the House to reject the Motion, on the ground that it was inexpedient to interfere in the private disputes between landlords and tenants in Ireland, more especially when those disputes, after being ventilated in the Courts of Law, had now happily ceased to exist, in consequence of their having been terminated by an amicable arrangement between the parties.
  MR. SULLIVANcongratulated the House upon the manner in which the subject had been introduced and discussed. The men who attempted to commit such atrocious crimes as that attempted against Mr. Bridge were the deadliest foes to justice, and those miscreants did all that their blind ignorance could do to prejudice a case which he thought must carry conviction to every impartial mind. The trial which had been held in Dublin only furnished a primâ facie case for such an inquiry as that which was now asked for. He considered his hon. Friend the Member for Tipperary was perfectly justified in bringing this case to the attention of Parliament—the highest tribunal in the country—which could not only inquire into the causes of
  1552
  those atrocious outrages, but could also take measures to prevent their recurrence in the future. The Attorney General for Ireland had said that it would be a strange and in convenient thing if every Irish gentleman were exposed to a Parliamentary inquiry into the manner in which his estate was managed. But that was an argument which Parliament had repeatedly pushed aside. A notable precedent of the kind was furnished by an inquiry which Parliament, in 1858, granted—an inquiry into the condition of the tenants of Gweedore, in Donegal, and the outrages thence arising—an inquiry which involved, in the most direct manner, an investigation as to the manner in which the estates in that district were managed. It was well known that there were on the estate which formed the groundwork of the Motion tenants whose rents might without injustice be raised; but it was equally clear to anyone acquainted with the facts that there were on the property many tenants who had actually made the land which they cultivated by carrying soil from the low-lying lands to the mountain farms on which they lived. If there were false charges made against the landlord, an inquiry would bring the fact to light. If, on the other hand, the people were ground to the dust by oppression, the House was bound to act as the protector of the people. An impartial inquiry directed by the House of Commons would, he believed, do more to tranquillize the neighbourhood than would the presence of a battalion of soldiers, or any Coercion Act that might be passed. But how could the House expect to obtain the confidence of the Irish people if they declined to listen to grievances such as this, or to protect the people against oppression as bad as any which had been suffered by the Bulgarians?
  MR. MACARTNEYadmitted that it was impossible to read the evidence which had been produced before the Courts in Dublin without a feeling of pity and sorrow for the tenantry upon the Galtee estates, which had been purchased by a Lancashire gentleman as a purely commercial speculation. For his own part, he believed that a great deal of the agrarian crime which had recently taken place in Ireland was occasioned by the transfer of landed property in Ireland from the old proprietors to purchasers

  1553
  in the Landed Estates Court consequent upon the famine of 1846 and 1847. The old landlords might have been guilty of improvidence and extravagance; but they had never been guilty of harshness to their tenantry. There was no doubt the rise in the rents was sudden and enormous, and the tenantry were taken by surprise, no consideration being shown for the length of time they had occupied their farms; consequently, much discontent had been occasioned. The present Motion pointed, he thought, to a proceeding which would not attain the object the hon. Member for Tipperary had in view; and what he would suggest to the hon. Member was, that he should move that the evidence taken at the trial should be printed and laid upon the Table of the House. He should be sorry to regard the purchaser of the estate in question as a model specimen of an Irish landlord. In the first place, he was not an Irishman; and, in the next, he believed he had not long been a landed proprietor, or acquainted with the management of a landed estate, and perhaps he was surprised at the little return he got from his investment. On the other hand, he could not regard the tenants who were guilty of the outrage to which allusion had been made as being fair specimens of Irish tenants. He hoped the hon. Member for Tipperary would act upon the suggestion he had thrown out.
  MR. O'CONNOR POWERwished to know whether the Government intended to object to this inquiry; and, if so, on what grounds? The House had a right to ask what the Government intended to do in regard to the proposal put forward by the hon. Member for Tyrone (Mr. Macartney). No one could deny that great injustice had been done to a portion of the Irish community, and that had resulted in the perpetration of certain outrages against other persons. He did not quite approve of the Motion. Considering the greatness of the case in hand, the Motion was too narrow. He thought his hon. Friend should say—"Here are facts brought to light by protracted inquiry in Dublin, which proved that Irish tenants are not sufficiently protected by law," and urge them to provide a remedy. The Galtee landlord was by no means a specimen of the average landlord in Ireland. If they had had the opportunity of going into
  1554
  the whole question, they might show that in almost every instance—certainly in the Southern and Western Provinces—where oppression had occurred, it was mainly attributable to the ambiguity of the law—the law itself being an agent of oppression. He hoped the Government would answer the question of the hon. Member for Tyrone (Mr. Macartney), and that his hon. Friend the Member for Tipperary (Mr. Gray) would defend his Motion against the objections brought against it by the Attorney General for Ireland, or accept—if he were permitted the alternative—the proposal put forward and sustained by the hon. Member for the County Tyrone.
  MR. GREGORYsaid, he was not about to contradict the statements of the hon. Member for Tipperary. He accepted them as true. He had heard them with attention, and they had made a deep impression on his mind; but the question was, what was the object of the inquiry? It appeared that the tenantry were struggling with adversity at the time Mr. Buckley took possession. The land was in a miserable condition, and the crops that were raised would not pay the cost of cultivation. It certainly appeared to be a harsh proceeding on the part of Mr. Buckley to raise the rents so suddenly as he had done; but, while he (Mr. Gregory) admitted the industry and energy of the tenantry, and sympathized with their misfortunes, he thought it would have been better for them if they had given up their tenements and become day-labourers, rather than hold on to those patches of soil which would never remunerate the labour expended upon them. No doubt the expenditure of capital might have improved their dwellings and drained their land; but they could not expect money to be laid out without the prospect of a remunerative return, and in this case there was no prospect of such return. Mr. Buckley was wrong in attempting to extort increased rents; and, before requiring them to be paid, ought to have incurred some outlay. But, admitting this, what was to be the object of inquiry, unless some alteration of the law was to follow upon the Report of the Committee? The law ought not to be altered because of what had happened in an individual and exceptional case, and he doubted whether by change in the law they could prevent cases of hardship

  1555
  and oppression. Such alteration would involve an extension of the Land Act, and it would become a question where they were to stop. Where oppression was determined upon it could be carried out under any law, and certainly Parliament ought not to legislate upon individual cases. The Motion would have had all the success which the Mover of it would have anticipated in securing the condemnation of Mr. Buckley, for not a word had been said in his defence. He appeared to have been an exceptional landlord, and what had been said of him in that House could not but have its influence in deterring others from acting in a similar manner. The discussion would have effected all that could be desired.
  MR. O'CLERYclaimed for these poor tenants that protection, without which, such was their position, as shown by the hon. Member for Tipperary, in a short time they must be utterly ruined. It had been often said that in Ireland "Land is life;" and, undoubtedly, this was so in the case of these poor tenants on this mountain side. What alternative had they? The workhouse only; and, as had been heard, in many of these miserable homes sickness had entered; and, eviction hanging over their heads, before applications for admission to the workhouse were entertained, death would step in. It had been suggested that the subject might be brought before Parliament in the form of a Return; but it was well known that the fate of Returns and Blue Books was to be, after a delay of months, circulation silently among hon. Members, and then forgotten. What effect had the scores of Blue Books on the lives of the people in 1847–8?
  MR. MITCHELL HENRYsaid, it was quite certain the inquiry would not be granted. ["No, no!"] He heartily hoped it might. But, if not, the result would be a declaration to the Irish people that, under no circumstances, would the House of Commons institute an inquiry into the treatment of tenants on any particular estate in Ireland. He confessed he could not see, if an inquiry of the kind could ever be granted, how, in this instance, it could be refused. The Attorney General for Ireland, in his amiable speech, which passed dexterously over the doubtful points, praised the tenants for the frugality which enabled them to portion their daughters out of
  1556
  their scanty savings. But how were those savings effected? Simply, that during their life-time, and the lives of their fathers, they had never known the ordinary comforts and decencies of civilized life. There were thousands of poor people in Ireland who did not taste butcher's meat more than two or three times in a year, but who lived in a chronic state of starvation. A landlord had no right to raise rents so as to get an exorbitant interest for his money; and Mr. Buckley, by his conduct as a landowner, had reduced his tenantry to the condition of the fellaheen of Egypt—the most miserable peasantry in the world—who toiled for earnings which were instantly swallowed up in the payment of taxes. Such wrongs ought not to pass without notice in the House of Commons, especially when they were endured by the Christian population of our own country. It was unfortunate that the Government, in the interests of order and truth, would not grant an inquiry. In his opinion, an inquiry ought to be held for the information of the whole country, not only into the circumstances of the case before the House, but also into the case of Lord Leitrim's tenantry, lest the people, having all faith in the justice of their rulers, should allow the fever of Communism to infect this country as it had infected Germany. These were disagreeable truths; but these cases had no parallel in England, where the poorest labourer was better off than his fellow in Ireland. The possession of land was a luxury, and carried with it many responsibilities; and, while eviction and the increase of rents were lightly talked of, cases of hardship and misery occurred to which other countries were absolute strangers. He hoped that even at the last moment the Government would withdraw their opposition, and allow a Committee of Inquiry to be appointed.
  MR. MUNDELLAtrusted that the Chief Secretary for Ireland would consent to some inquiry into that matter, even if the inquiry did not take the precise form in which it had been moved for. It had been admitted that the tenants on the Galtee estate had suffered great hardship, and if that case really illustrated, as was alleged, any defects in the Irish Land Act, surely they ought to know what the facts of the case really were? The appointment

  1557
  of a Parliamentary Commission to investigate the infraction of the Truck Acts had done a great deal of good; and if a similar inquiry were now instituted into these transactions, he believed it would tend to encourage the people of Ireland to confide in the justice of Parliament. He thought it would be well if the people of Ireland could understand that it was better to appeal to Parliament than to shoot at a landlord from behind a hedge.
  MR. HERBERTsaid, he regretted this discussion, as he was going that evening to bring in a Bill which would materially affect the question before the House. They had heard that these unfortunate tenants had been ground down by a gentleman who had bought property in Ireland. His own opinion was that there ought to be some kind of arbitration adopted before a man could settle or raise the rents of his tenants in the way which had been described. No tenant in Ireland objected to pay a fair rent. There were, however, men who went to Ireland to buy estates, with the view of making some 10 per cent of their money. This was a case which ought to be investigated by a Committee of the House.
  MR. J. LOWTHERsaid, he had hoped that it would not have been necessary for him to have addressed the House on this subject, especially after the very convincing observations of the Attorney General for Ireland; but he thought it right to make one or two remarks in reply to statements which had been made by hon. Members opposite. The Motion certainly asked for an inquiry of a very novel character, it being one not into the general administration of the law, but into the affairs of one particular estate named by the hon. Member. A very gloomy picture had been drawn of the condition of the tenantry on that estate; but that picture, however accurate it might be, was not sufficient ground for appointing a Parliamentary Committee. The name of the gentleman, the owner of that estate, had been very freely mentioned in the course of this debate; and he confessed he felt in a somewhat peculiar position in being called upon, as the Representative of a Conservative Government, to defend a gentleman who never, on any single occasion, had voted in the same Lobby with him. He, however,
  1558
  merely asked for justice towards a gentleman with whom he had neither personal nor political relations; but he confessed that the state of the benches opposite—upon which the hon. Gentleman in question used to sit—as they appeared at the present moment, was a matter which caused him some surprise. The hon. Member for Tipperary had spoken of the condition of the tenantry, but all he could say was that, from the description he had given of them, he did not think that they would be desirable tenants, as they were evidently without the means to cultivate the land so as to make it produce the greatest amount of food. Turning, however, to the present Motion, he must remind the House that Mr. Buckley had had the advantage of the services of Mr. Bridge, whose ability, courage, and integrity, no one could doubt, and no just fault could be found with his management of the estate. In justice to Mr. Buckley, it should be remembered that he was a gentleman who had had no experience in the management of land; and even if all that had been said could be fully established, they ought to judge leniently of one who was suddenly placed in a position for which he had had no previous training. He hoped that the advocates of what was called Free Trade in land, and who urged the granting of facilities for the indiscriminate transfer of land from one person to another, would make a note of this case which showed that considerable prejudices existed against persons who were pitchforked into a position for which they were usually not particularly well qualified, and in which they laboured under serious disadvantages as compared with those who had been practically associated with the management of landed property throughout life. There was no analogy whatever between the general inquiry undertaken by the Truck Commission to which the hon. Member for Sheffield (Mr. Mundella) had referred, and that now proposed with reference to one estate. He should like to ask the House where all this was to end? If they began inquiring into the management of one estate, why should not they also inquire into the management of the others? Allusion had been made to the case of a Peer, whose decease was matter of recent general lamentation. Should there be inquiry there?
  MR. MITCHELL HENRYsaid, he had been speaking of an estate which had been the scene of a great crime.
  MR. J. LOWTHERsaid, then if every estate that had been talked about were to be the subject of an inquiry by that House, every workshop and mine would be equally a fair subject for Parliamentary inquiry; and under such a system his right hon. Friend the First Commissioner of Works would have to make fresh arrangements for Committee rooms, and they would probably have to increase the number of Members of the House. He really would ask the House to pause before it plunged into inquiries like this now proposed, which would lead them into depths of which they could not estimate the extent. The right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland had put one point very concisely. Into what were they to inquire? Into matters now pending, into a controversy at present unsettled; or were they to re-open old disputes, and bring back discord where it was universally admitted that there now was peace? Hon. Members might find fault with the status quo, and think that matters were not as they would like them to be; but it could not be denied that a settlement had been arrived at on the Galtee estate, and that the tenants had acquiesced in the arrangement made. The hon. Member for Tyrone (Mr. Macartney) suggested that the facts should be laid before the House in a tangible form, by laying certain documents already in existence on the Table, as Parliamentary Papers. He would be very glad to communicate with the hon. Member as to the nature of such Papers, and to place all the facts in that way fully before hon. Members, if it was found practicable to do so. He trusted the House would not consent to this Motion.
  MR. KNATCHBULL-HUGESSENsaid, he had heard with some regret the tone which the right hon. Gentleman had taken in regard to this matter. He thought, of all persons, Mr. Buckley was the one most entitled to complain of it. Either he had used his position to oppress his tenants, as had been asserted in that House, and still more broadly asserted in the public Press, or he was a much maligned man. If he were in the place of his friend, Mr. Buckley, he should above all thing courts an inquiry into
  1560
  his conduct, in the full confidence that if the result would show that he had been unjustly accused of facts of which he was incapable. He was very well acquainted with Mr. Buckley; and when his right hon. Friend spoke about a defence of Mr. Buckley coming strangely from the Government Benches, because Mr. Buckley, when in that House, had sat upon the Opposition side, he would tell him that in such a case as this he could recognize no Party whatever; and that, on whichever side of the House he sat when a man's conduct was impugned, all he had to look at was whether the accusation was founded upon sufficiently broad and just grounds to justify an inquiry. He had seen and spoken to Mr. Buckley more than once on this matter. He had seen a list of those tenants who had had their rents raised, and he had found that not only had persons come forward to take the land at advanced rents, but they had been willing to pay a considerable sum to the out-going tenants for the good-will. That led him to suppose that if the inquiry were granted, Mr. Buckley and his agents would be able to show that they had been, if not fully, at any rate to a certain extent, justified in the course they had taken. In any event, if there were such facts, they ought to be known before Mr. Buckley was condemned in the manner in which he had been condemned. What would be the result of refusing the inquiry? Two hon. Gentlemen had spoken from the other side, and had announced their intention of voting against this inquiry; but neither of them said a word for Mr. Buckley. The hon. Member for Tyrone (Mr. Macartney) said, no consideration whatever had been shown to these tenants, and the hon. Member for East Sussex (Mr. Gregory) said that the result of the debate had been entirely to condemn the conduct of Mr. Buckley. What he asked was, how, after such statements as those, the House could refuse an inquiry which might show Mr. Buckley to be blameless in the matter? With regard to the suggestion that certain Blue Books should be laid on the Table, nothing would be easier than to have that evidence referred to the Committee appointed, which would give it something to deal with, but merely to lay it on the Table of the House would be useless. His right

  1561
  hon. Friend asked where these inquiries into the management of estates, if they once began, were to end? Well, it would be a different thing if these were general complaints; but there was a Land Act with which the Government were not satisfied, and in which they believed there were faults. [Mr. J. LOWTHER: I never said so.] He was in the memory of the House, and his right hon. Friend certainly indulged, on a former occasion, in expressions concerning the Land Act which must have led the House to think he did not Consider it satisfactory; and he emphatically declared that the present Government were not responsible for it. In the interests, then, of his right hon. Friend, he supported this inquiry, in order that it might be seen whether the faults which he supposed to exist in the Land Act were really there. There was, in the present case, a specific charge that in consequence of the Land Act, certain evils had taken place; but instead of having a specific inquiry which would show whether the charges made were correct, the right hon. Gentleman said—"Oh, no, let us have a general, or none at all;" so that he would rather they should lose themselves in generalities than deal with a specific charge. With regard to this complaint, he cherished a hope that Mr. Buckley might not turn out to be the sinner he was represented; but, certainly, when charges like these were brought, nothing was more likely to make the public believe him to be guilty than to shuffle off an inquiry in this manner. In the interests of justice, then, he regretted that the Government should refuse an inquiry, and had not accepted the Select Committee in the way in which it ought to have been accepted. He thought the subject should be fairly and thoroughly inquired into, and that nothing but good would come of it.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes 74; Noes 50: Majority 24.—(Div. List, No. 172.)

MURDER OF MR. OGLE.

  OBSERVATIONS.
  MR. H. SAMUELSON, in rising to call attention to the circumstances connected with the murder of Mr. Ogle,
  1562
  The Times correspondent in Thessaly, said, he felt that an apology was due from him to the House for attempting, at so late an hour, to trespass upon its attention; but his Notice had been on the Paper ever since the 9th of May last, and he had not had an opportunity of bringing it forward. He did not, at that late hour, intend to go into the circumstances connected with the murder of Mr. Ogle. An inquiry had been instituted into the circumstances under which that murder was committed, and a Report had been made in reference to it; but that Report had not been published. Had it been made public, it might not have been necessary for him to call attention to this very painful matter. Its publication, had, however, been constantly put off; and, indeed, he saw no greater prospect now for its production than there existed when the House separated for the Whitsuntide Recess. He wished distinctly to state that he was not impelled to take this matter up by any Party considerations, but by the strong conviction which he entertained that justice had not been done. Mr. Ogle was an acquaintance of his own, a gentleman for whom he had the highest respect, and he should be very sorry to think that his relatives would longer be left in ignorance as to the circumstances under which he had met his untimely fate. If proper steps had been taken to ascertain the entire truth of the matter, he could not but think that it would have been brought to light. He was not aware that the hon. Baronet the Member for West Kent (Sir Charles Mills) took an interest in the question, or he certainly should not have moved in the matter without first consulting him. What he (Mr. Samuelson) complained of now was the delay which had taken place in the presentation of the Papers which had been promised. It seemed to him that the murder of an Englishman was, after all, a matter of some importance, and his object was to impress upon the Government the necessity of giving the relatives of Mr. Ogle the information which they so greatly desired to receive. He could not believe that the delay which had occurred on the part of the Government had been intentional; but he did say that it was most cruel to the relatives of the murdered man. Aspersions had been made upon the character of the

  1563
  late Mr. Ogle. He had been accused of rashness and a want of discretion; and it had also been said that he fell fighting against the Turks with arms in his hands. All these statements he should be prepared at the proper time to disprove. He could now inform the House that Mr. Ogle's revolver was left at home, and that, at the time of his murder, he was entirely unarmed, his only weapon of defence being a walking stick which he carried. He would only further say that he believed that no man was ever actuated by purer motives, or a greater desire to be impartial, in his investigations than Mr. Ogle. That gentleman was murdered on the 30th of March near Macrinitza. On the 9th of May he asked the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Bourke)—"What was the present condition of Consul-General Fawcett's investigation into the murder of Mr. Ogle?" He was informed that an inquiry had taken place, and that it had concluded on the 6th of May, and the Under Secretary of State added—"The report will be considered by Her Majesty's Government." That was in answer to an inquiry of his as to whether it would be laid on the Table of the House? The hon. Gentleman did not then promise that it would be laid upon the Table, though he did not know why he should have refrained from making that promise. But, on the 16th of May, he asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the Report had been received, and, if so, whether it would be laid on the Table as soon as possible? The right hon. Gentleman, he must say, with great courtesy, informed him that the Report had not arrived, but that when it did arrive it should, as soon as possible, be laid on the Table of the House. On the 30th of May he wrote to the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and again asked him whether the Report had been received, and, if so, when it would be produced? He must here recall for a moment to hon. Gentlemen's minds the fact that all this time the bereaved relatives of Mr. Ogle were suffering under the grief which they must naturally feel at his murder, and disappointed in the desire which they must naturally experience to know how it took place, and whether he in was any way in fault or not. That was his excuse for so constantly pressing for the publica-
  1564
  tion of the Papers. He could conceive no reason for witholding them. Nor did he believe that the Government had any reason or wish to withhold them. He was answered on the 30th of May by the Under Secretary of State to the effect that the Report had been received, and that there would be no delay in its publication. On the 3rd of June he again asked the hon. Gentleman in the House, when the Papers would be in the possession of hon. Members, and whether he could promise that they should have them before the House separated for the Whitsuntide Recess? The reply was, if possible; if not, they should certainly have them during the Recess. On the 12th of June, after the Recess, he asked the hon. Gentleman privately, whether the Papers were soon to be presented to the House, and whether he could explain the delay? The hon. Gentleman gave him an answer which, he must say, was not satisfactory to him, and he stated so at the time. He was sorry the hon. Gentleman was not now in his place. He said that he had done his very best, that the delay was owing to the fact that the printer had taken a holiday; and, after some hesitation, he added something about a map having to be prepared. Now, the map was a very small matter. One had already appeared in The Graphic, and he did not suppose that the map which would be printed and sent round with the Papers would be one bit better than that which had been given in that paper; and he did not think it was right that an hon. Gentleman in the position of the Under Secretary of State should have put off with such excuses even an humble Member of the House, when he was actuated by a sense of duty in the inquiries which he made. The Report had been in the hands of the Government since the 30th of May—at least a fortnight—and he should like to know what had been the finding of the Commission of Inquiry over which Consul General Fawcett presided? He should like to know whether the Turkish authorities were proved to be free from complicity in the guilt of Mr. Ogle's murder, or found guilty of complicity? He desired himself to make no assertion. He wished to know whether the Government were satisfied that the inquiry had been searching, and that the best possible evidence procurable had been obtained? If not,

  1565
  he should like to know whether it was the intention of the Government to institute a fresh inquiry? If so, he might not have to trouble the House further on this painful question; if not, and the evidence was not satisfactory, he should certainly feel it to be his duty to call the attention of the House to the case at greater length. The matter could not be allowed to rest where it was. A British subject had been murdered and decapitated under circumstances of the very greatest suspicion. The murder was at present shrouded in mystery. The Government had the Report in their hands, and they should be able to lift up the veil of mystery by which the crime was surrounded. If proper evidence were not given before the Commission, such evidence was at least procurable, and could be produced if the witnesses were properly protected. He should like to ask, also, if Iskender Pasha, the Turkish Commander-in-Chief, was on the Commission? He knew, as a fact, that witnesses were afraid to come forward and give evidence before him. There was much presumptive evidence that the authorities were responsible for the murder. He did not say that evidence was true; but he had in his own possession a mass of evidence all tending in one direction—namely, that a most cruel and inhuman murder had been committed. He had every reason to believe in the integrity of the witnesses; but from his knowledge of the district and the surrounding country, he knew how utterly impossible it was to suppose that they should come forward and give evidence unless they were directly assured that England would protect them while giving their evidence, and that afterwards they would be removed to a place of safety. The motives for the murder would not be far to seek. It would not be difficult to prophecy the fate of an Englishman, of whom it might be said in the language of The Times, that he had—
  "Tracked murder, and rapine, and brutal lust home to the Chief of the Police of Thessaly, and denounced publicly the official miscreant."
  Who was that Chief of the Police of Thessaly? No other than Amoosh Aga, a noted brigand, of whom he should be able to say more at another time. This, as he had said, was no party question. The murder of an Englishman who was endeavouring to discharge his duty at a
  1566
  distance from his own country could not possibly be a matter of Party feeling. What he desired to ascertain was the true circumstances of the case. He wanted those assertions made by the people of Volo both to him and to others, to be confirmed or authoritatively contradicted. He wanted justice to be done upon the murderers, and the instigators of the crime, if any could be found; and he wanted to free from the aspersions cast upon it, by persons interested in hushing up the inquiry, the memory of Mr. Ogle, who was universally respected for his humanity, and his brave, generous, and self-denying qualities. He was a man possessed of abilities of no mean order, he was industrious, and there was a career of usefulness open to him. He thought the murder of such a man should not pass without an expression of regret from Her Majesty's Government, and the guilty persons being brought to justice. He asserted that these people could be discovered with the greatest ease, if only a proper inquiry was instituted, conducted by Englishmen, and from which Turks were excluded. If the Government wished foreign and half-barbarian countries to believe that there was still the same ægis of protection as of yore cast over Englishmen by the country on the Possessions of which they boasted the sun never set, then they ought to be in a position to say that this inquiry had actually succeeded, and that they could lay their hand upon the guilty persons; or that such an inquiry would be instituted as would bring about that desirable result.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, he was exceedingly sorry that his hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State was not in his place at that moment. He could assure the House and the hon. Member that this was a matter with regard to which there had been, and could be, no want of interest on the part of Her Majesty's Government. He had promised, as the hon. Member had truly reminded the House, that as soon as the Papers were sent home they should, without any further delay, be laid on the Table. They had now been brought to this country, and were in the hands of the printer. The House was perfectly well aware that when Papers had been sent to be printed they were out of the control, and, to a great extent,

  1567
  beyond the influence of the Government, though he believed that his hon. Friend the Under Secretary had done what he could to accelerate their printing. It had, however, certainly so happened, unfortunately, that they had not been delivered in such time as it was hoped they would have been. He thought it would be inexpedient that he should attempt to give anything like an imperfect account of those Papers at that moment; but if the hon. Gentleman would put a Question on the subject on Monday, he would undertake that some answer should be given that might be deemed satisfactory. He only wished to assure the hon. Member and the House that the Government regarded this matter as one of serious importance, and that there was not the slightest intention on their part either to dally with it, or to conceal from the House the information which they possessed in reference to it.
  Main Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  Committee deferred till Monday next.

PARLIAMENT—PUBLIC BUSINESS.
  OBSERVATIONS.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERstated that it would be necessary to take the second reading of the Epping Forest Bill as the first Order on Monday, in order to send it to a Committee upstairs. The Valuation Bill would be placed high up on the list of Orders—probably the second Order, not for the purpose of proceeding with it, but with the view of concluding the discussion commenced at the Morning Siting, and getting the Bill into Committee.

  LANDLORD AND TENANT (IRELAND) BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. HERBERT, Bill to provide for the equitable settlement of Rent in certain cases of difference between Landlords and Tenants in Ireland, and to make better provision as to Notices to Quit; and for other purposes, ordered to be brought in by Mr. HERBERT, Mr. KING-HARMAN, and Mr. DEASE.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill218.]

  PUBLIC WORKS LOANS (IRELAND) ACT (1877) AMENDMENT BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. JAMES LOWTHER, Bill to amend "The Public Works Loans (Ireland) Act, 1877," so far as relates to Lunatic Asylums, ordered to be brought in by Mr. JAMES LOWTHER and Sir HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill219.]
  House adjourned at One o'clock till Monday next.