Sitting of 7 July 1881

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—Second Reading—Referred to Select Committee—Poor Relief and Audit of Accounts (Scotland) [182].
Committee—Land Law (Ireland) [135]—R.P.
Considered as amended—Solicitors' Remuneration* [100].
Withdrawn—Poor Law Officers (Scotland) Superannuation* [113].

QUESTIONS.

  NAVY—THE ROYAL MARINES—THE ORDER OF THE BATH.
  MR. LEWISasked the Secretary to the Admiralty, If he would state for what pre-eminent services the officer lately selected for promotion to K.C.B. in the Royal Marines is distinguished; whether it is not the case that the officer so selected has never served out of England since he was comparatively a junior lieutenant; and, whether there are not officers of the Royal Marines who have distinguished themselves in the command of battalions abroad and of brigades before the enemy, and whose services have been mentioned in Despatches, followed by C.B. and brevet rank of Colonel; if so, were their claims for further distinction not lost sight of when an officer who never served abroad except in the subordinate rank of lieutenant, and years junior to them in the Order of the Bath, was selected for promotion to K.C.B.?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir George Langley, K.C.B., was selected for that distinction, for long, faithful, and able services on the Staff of the corps of Royal Marines, and in early life he was highly distinguished in action. With regard to the rest of the hon. Gentleman's Question, I cannot undertake the responsibility of commencing what seems to me an innovation—comparing the relative claims of officers who have and who have not been recommended to Her Majesty for the honour of knighthood.

  IRELAND—PRINTING THE "ANNALS OF ULSTER."
  MR. A. M. SULLIVANasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant
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  of Ireland, If he can state what progress has been made in printing the "Annals of Ulster," the publication of which was directed neatly three years ago?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER, in reply, said, that the work would be begun during the present month.

  PROTECTION OF PERSON AND PROPERTY (IRELAND) ACT, 1881—UNDERTAKINGS BY PRISONERS RELEASED.
  MR. HEALYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether there is any difference in the form submitted to Mr. Farrell, J.P., on his release from prison under the Coercion Act, to that which has been submitted to any other political prisoner; if he will say since when these forms have been in existence; whether all prisoners on their release have been obliged to sign them; whether they have been tendered to any prisoners who have refused to sign them; and, whether any form was submitted to, or signed by, Mr. James Daly, of Castlebar, on his release?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER, in reply, said, the forms in question had been in existence since the 7th of last month. Prisoners released before that date were not required to sign any undertaking. None of the prisoners to whom the undertaking had been tendered had refused to sign it. Mr. James Daly was discharged on the 8th of May, before the form was brought into use; but, on being discharged, in view of the critical state of his health, he voluntarily tendered an undertaking that his future good conduct would justify the clemency of the Government.

  PROTECTION OF PERSON AND PROPERTY (IRELAND) ACT, 1881—CASE OF MR. MARSHALL.
  MR. HEALYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether the prison doctors have made any report on the case of Mr. Marshall, a prisoner confined in Kilmainham, and said to be suffering from disease of the brain, causing the most intense pain?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER, in reply, said, the medical officer of Kilmainham had made a report with regard to the case of Mr. Marshall, from which it appeared that the complaint from which the prisoner suffered was a constant headache.

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  The medical officer was unable to detect any organic disease, and his general health had not suffered since his imprisonment. He had consulted with two other medical gentlemen, who were likewise unable to discover any organic disease.
  MR. HEALYasked if the right hon. Gentleman was aware that the general impression in the prison was that the man was mad?
  MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he had not heard of such an impression.

  HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE—THE COURT OF APPEAL.
  MR. GREGORYasked, Whether arrangements have been made for completing the Court of Appeal, and filling up the vacancy caused by the death of Lord Justice James?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES), in reply, said, he thought that this Question was answered by what had occurred in the House of Lords. A Bill had there been introduced for the purpose of filling up the vacancy, by making the Master of the Rolls sit in the Court of Appeal.

  THE JUDICATURE ACTS—REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE.
  MR. GREGORYasked Mr. Attorney General, Whether any Report or Recommendations have been agreed upon by the Committee appointed to consider the operation of the Judicature Acts, and the procedure under them; and, if not, when such Report or Recommendations may be expected?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES), in reply, said, that the Report and the Recommendations were made some seven or eight weeks ago. They had been circulated by the Lord Chancellor among the Judges, in order that the Committee of Judges might act on the Report. The Lord Chancellor thought it better to place it in the hands of the Judges before he laid it on the Table.

  SPAIN AND ENGLAND—GIBRALTAR— THE NEUTRAL GROUND AND MARITIME JURISDICTION.
  MR. O'SHEAasked the Under Secretary or State for Foreign Affairs, Whether there is any objection to state the names of the Commissioners, officers or
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  others, on both sides, engaged in deciding the limits of Gibraltar?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: It is not quite correct to describe these negotiations as relating to the limits of Gibraltar. They relate to the question of maritime jurisdiction. The negotiations are not sufficiently advanced for me to make any detailed statement on the subject.

  THE NEW FRENCH GENERAL TARIFF.
  MR. JACKSONasked the President of the Board of Trade, If he will lay upon the Table of the House a Copy of the Letter he has addressed to the Chambers of Commerce with reference to the English translation of the French Tariff, asked for by the noble Lord the Member for Liverpool; and, if he will give a list of the Chambers to which he has written?
  MR. CHAMBERLAIN, in reply, said, that if the hon. Member wished for this Return, and moved for a copy of the Circular, and also for copies of the replies that had been received, he should be very glad to give it, as an unopposed Return. He might say that the Circular had been addressed to 59 Chambers of Commerce, and the Board of Trade had received 20 replies—7 of the replies being in favour of having a translation, and 13, including the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, against it.

  LAW AND POLICE—THE MURDER ON THE BRIGHTON RAILWAY.
  MR. J. G. TALBOTasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he has made any inquiry into the conduct of the police with regard to the recent murder upon the London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway, with a view of ascertaining on what grounds they allowed the man Lefroy, who must have been intimately acquainted with the circumstances of the murder, to leave the place where he was staying, without their knowledge; and, whether he is in a position to communicate the results of such inquiry to the House?
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: It is a grave matter to pass judgment on the police. Although, of course, I have made inquiries into this matter, I should not consider myself justified at present in passing final sentence on the conduct

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  of the police in this matter. At the same time, it is right that I should state that, as regards the Metropolitan Police, they cannot be regarded as directly responsible in the affair. The knowledge of this matter did not come to the authorities of the Metropolitan Police until after the escape of Lefroy. The police constables who had to do with the matter before were Sergeants Potter and Holmes. Although it is true that they are borne on the books of the Metropolitan Police, they are, by an arrangement which has hitherto been made, placed at the disposal of Railway Companies, who pay these officers; and although it is true that they still remain nominally members of the Metropolitan Police, for the purpose of pension and otherwise, they are not acting under the direction of the authorities of the Metropolitan Police. I doubt whether it is a good practice at all that persons who have passed out of the immediate jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Police should continue to belong nominally to that Force while they are attached to bodies like Railway Companies. I doubt whether in such a case their connection with the Metropolitan Police ought not to be severed; for, otherwise, the Metropolitan Police become nominally responsible for the actions of persons who are not under their control.
  MR. J. G. TALBOTasked, whether, as this was a matter that affected the public confidence in the Police Force generally, he would communicate the results of the inquiry to the House?
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Certainly; it is my desire that the truth should be known as regards all concerned. It is necessary that the public should have confidence in the Police Force, both in London and elsewhere.

  ARMY—DEATHS BY SUNSTROKE AT ALDERSHOT—THE WINDSOR REVIEW.
  MR. H. R. BRANDasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether it is true that the troops at Aldershot were seven hours under arms during the greatest heat of the day on Monday 4th July, and that the result has been that four men have died from this exposure, and many more are in hospital invalided from the same cause; and, if this is the case, whether he will take steps to pre-
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  vent in the future the exercise of the troops in summer weather at such unseasonable hours; and, whether any provision has been made for the shelter of the Volunteers engaged in the review on Saturday, who will in some cases be under arms from twenty-four to thirty-six hours? He wished also to ask a Question of which he had not given Notice—namely, Whether a great many of the men were not paraded at 7.30 on Monday, and whether they had to march in some cases four miles before the operations began; also, whether there were any water-carts accompanying the regiments in this review?
  MR. MACFARLANEalso asked whether the Secretary of State was aware that the troops at Wellington Barracks were being drilled on Monday, the warmest day of the year, at 2 o'clock in the day, without having anything but a skull cap on?
  MR. CHILDERS: The Questions last put to me are Questions of which I have not had previous Notice, and I cannot undertake to answer them at present. With regard to the other Questions, I have to say, first, that as soon as I heard of the deaths at Aldershot on Monday last, I called for full information on the subject, and the following are the facts:—A field-day had been appointed for the 4th instant some days before, and the weather at Aldershot on Sunday and Monday being cloudy, with a strong breeze on the Fox Hills, the troops went out as usual in field-day order—that is to say, carrying nothing except their water bottles—at half-past 8, after breakfast. The manœuvres were over before 1 o'clock, and until then there were no casualties, and few men fell out. About that time, however, the heat greatly increased, and, unfortunately, the usual anxiety to get back to their lines led to the Regiments hurrying the pace, and this in the heavy dust and increased heat, probably caused a good many men to fall out. Of the 19 men who were sent into hospital, the greater part fell out then. Three died of sunstroke—one a very stout man of 45, who did not fall out, and two men of long service, aged 32 and 33, one of them found, On post-mortem examination, to be highly pre-disposed to illness of this kind. The third was a healthy man. There was a fourth death of a driver, an officer's servant, from heart disease; but

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  he was riding on a waggon all day, and had undergone no fatigue, nor did he complain till later in the day. It is remarkable that from the Brigade which went over the most ground and did the hardest work the smallest number of men—only 12—fell out, and none went into hospital. In reply to the next Question, I find that there is nothing in the Queen's Regulations limiting the hours for parades or exercises in this country; but it is well understood, and the practice is universally acted upon, that at times of exceptional heat all parades are to take place in the early morning, so that troops may be back in camp before the power of the sun becomes excessive. I do not think that, beyond this well-understood rule, attention to which has been especially called by a Circular issued on Tuesday, the discretion of commanding officers need be hampered. We are all greatly distressed by, and deeply lament the deaths of these men; but I think I have stated plainly the exceptional circumstances under which they occurred. With reference to my hon. Friend's last Question, it may interest the House to know what precautions have been taken as to the Volunteer Review by the Quartermaster General, who has been for some time past engaged in preparations for the comfort of the men taking part in the Review. With respect to the conveyance of the 52,000 men to Windsor, the Railway Companies have heartily co-operated with the military authorities, and all practical arrangements have been attended to. As to the supply of food during the day, this has always been arranged by the commanding officers of the respective regiments; but we endeavoured to help them by suggesting to some large firms accustomed to such business that they should establish booths for the sale of provisions on the ground, under arrangements with the Ranger of the Park. We found, however, that no well-known firm would undertake this; and it was then settled to revert to the ordinary plan, which seems most acceptable to the corps themselves; and I have authorized, as a special and exceptional arrangement, having regard to the unusual number of men assembled on the ground, the issue of a ration allowance of 1s. or 2s. a-head, according to the distance the men have come. Ample supplies of water and
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  large blocks of ice will be in the rear of each division and at the railways, and great attention has been paid to the medical arrangements, both on the ground and at the stations. Should the day be very hot, care will be taken to keep the men under the trees as much as possible. I must apologize to the House for giving so long an answer; but it is perhaps justified by the public interest in this matter.
  MR. H. R. BRANDsaid, he would be much obliged if the right hon. Gentleman could direct inquiries to be made how it was that the men were not able to take a rest after the Review, and before they returned?
  MR. CHILDERSsaid, he thought he could answer that Question now. Nothing was more disagreeable to the men than not to go back promptly to their dinner; and certainly the greater part of the casualities which occurred took place directly in consequence of that somewhat natural desire, after being out all the morning, to get their dinners as soon as possible.

  ARMY ORGANIZATION (THE AUXILIARY FORCES)—SERGEANT-MAJORS OF VOLUNTEERS.
  COLONEL KENNARDasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether Sergeant Majors of the Volunteers, appointed as such before the Royal Warrant of 1878, may be allowed to retain their rank and enjoy all the advantages accruing to them under that title, as regards pension?
  MR. CHILDERS: No, Sir. This question was fully and carefully considered by my Predecessor; and I am not prepared to alter the decision, which only gave to Volunteer corps an acting sergeant-major.

  ARMY ORGANIZATION SCHEME—RULE 77—COMPULSORY RETIREMENT.
  MAJOR O'BEIRNEasked the Secretary of State for War, If officers who entered the service above the age of twenty from the Militia, or as University candidates, and in whose favour a relaxation is made in the age of compulsory retirement, by Rule 77 of the New Army Reorganisation Scheme, will be allowed to benefit likewise by Rule 49, and consequently become available for regimental and staff employment up to the age of forty-five?
  MR. CHILDERS: Yes, Sir; those officers will be able to do what my hon. Friend suggests.

  COMMERCIAL TREATY WITH FRANCE (NEGOTIATIONS).
  SIR CHARLES FORSTERasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether deputations from trading communities can be received now that the proceedings of the French Commissioners have been suspended; and, if not, whether any facilities can be afforded for making representations as to the manner in which particular trades will be affected by the proposed Treaty?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: The sittings of the Royal Commission for the purpose of receiving deputations are for the present suspended; but the Commissioners will be very happy to receive any written representations which particular trades may have omitted to send in.

  AFRICA (WEST COAST)—THE WAR WITH ASHANTEE—PAYMENT OF FINE.
  MR. RICHARDasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether it is correct, as stated in the papers, that the 2,000 ounces of gold dust imposed as a fine on the King of Ashantee have arrived in this country; whether, as also alleged, the celebrated Gold Axe of Ashantee, an article held in great reverence by the King and people of that country as "an emblem of high sovereignty," and forming no part of the exacted indemnity, has, by the repeated importunities of a trading captain, Captain Barrow, been delivered up and brought to England as a present to the Queen; and, whether Captain Barrow was invested with any official authority to treat with the King of Ashantee for the surrender of this article?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE, in reply, said, that 1,200 ounces of gold dust had been received out of 2,000, and that bonds had been taken for the remainder in six months. Papers to be laid before Parliament would show the circumstances in which the King of Ashantee had decided to send the Gold Axe. The King stated that he surrendered it on the understanding that it would be sent to England to the Queen. Captain Barrow was not in the Merchant Service, but was a distinguished military
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  officer who had acted as Political Secretary, and had been sent on various missions in the interior.
  MR. HEALYasked whether the British Government claimed the right to exact tribute from every unhappy African King?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: No, Sir.
  MR. RICHARDasked whether Captain Barrow had any authority to treat with the King of Ashantee for the surrender of the Axe?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: Captain Barrow was authorized to treat with the King of Ashantee, but not to demand the surrender of the axe.

  POST OFFICE (IRELAND)—MAILTRAINS TO THE SOUTH AND WEST— STOPPAGE AT THURLES.
  MR. A. MOOREasked the Postmaster General, Whether he has received several applications from public bodies and private individuals begging him to permit the mail trains to be stopped at Thurles, and thus enable passengers and mails to be more conveniently and speedily transmitted to Clonmel and other districts by the new line of Railway recently opened; whether he is aware that the line was constructed on a guarantee on the rates of the County; and, whether, considering the interests of the ratepayers, and the convenience of the public, he can now accede to these applications?
  MR. FAWCETT, in reply, said, he had carefully considered the applications referred to in the Question, and found that no public advantage would ensue from complying with them. The disadvantage of stopping the trains would be that it would cause the trains to arrive somewhat later at Cork and Limerick. This would delay the letters, and would probably be inconvenient for the passengers. He was very sorry he could not accede to the request.

  FOREIGN JEWS IN RUSSIA—EXPULSION OF MR. L. LEWISOHN, A NATURALIZED BRITISH SUBJECT.
  BARON HENRY DE WORMSasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether the Report of the Law Officers of the Crown on the case of Mr. Lewisohn has been received; and, if so, whether the illegality of Mr. Lewisohn's expulsion is confirmed by that report or

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  not; and, whether Her Majesty's Government will alone, or acting in conjunction with those Powers whose Jewish subjects have been similarly ill-treated, address a protest to the Russian Government on the subject?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: We have received a preliminary Report from the Law Officers of the Crown, and communications on the subject are passing.

  NATIONAL EDUCATION (IRELAND)— SCHOOL CHILDREN.
  MR. W. J. CORBETasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If he has had his attention called to the Report of the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland, for the year 1880, just placed in the hands of Members; whether he has noticed the following statement with reference to the great increase in the daily average attendance of pupils:—
  "This unusually large increase of 33,503 in the average attendance is to a considerable extent due to the benevolent operations of the Committee organised by her Grace the Duchess of Marlborough, the Mansion House Committee, and the 'New York Herald' Committee, who, in the early part of the year, supplied clothing and rations of food to destitute children in the schools of the impoverished districts;"
  and, whether, looking to the impossibility of dealing permanently with this sad form of want in Ireland by means of private benevolence, he will advise the Government to take into consideration the necessity for making some arrangement by which a ration of food shall be given daily, at the public expense, to destitute children attending school in the impoverished districts?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER, in reply, said, that he had seen the extract quoted by the hon. Member, but feared that if he acted on the suggestion he should be introducing a most important change. To give daily rations of food at the public expense would virtually be to give outdoor relief, and the hon. Member would at once perceive the great danger of taking such a course.

  AGRICULTURAL DISTRESS (IRELAND) —REPORT OF THE DUKE OF RICH- MOND'S COMMISSION.
  MR. W. J. CORBETasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether his attention has been
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  called to a Report, issued to Members on the 5th July, drawn up by the Assistant Commissioners on Agriculture, and dated 1st January 1880; whether he has noticed the following statement in the Report with reference to the condition of the people in many parts of Ireland:—
  "A succession of bad harvests has prevented them from paying up their accounts regularly. In this way debts have accumulated until many of the small farmers have come to owe the shopkeepers and others four, five, six, and even ten times the amount of their annual rent;"
  whether he has noticed, amongst others, the following statements:—
  "It appears to us that no industrial system could flourish under such conditions as we have described. Our experience justifies us in saying that there are many thousands of small farmers in Ireland who are paying away as interest an amount equal to the rent to their land;"
  and again,
  "We have already visited hundreds of these farms, and found the occupants of them in so deplorable a condition that we feel unable to describe it in a way which would enable His Grace (the Lord Lieutenant) to realise it fully;"
  whether, looking to the fact that the revelations contained in the Report would, if supplied in time, have afforded valuable information to Members in considering the Irish Land Bill, he can inform the House why it was kept back so long; and, whether any further Report has been made by the Assistant Commissioners; and, if so, when can it be laid upon the Table of the House?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER, in reply, said, he thought the hon. Member had asked him this Question by mistake. It ought to have been asked of some Member of the Duke of Richmond's Commission. That Commission was not under the control of the Irish Government. He supposed the hon. Member was induced to ask him the Question because of the presence of the words "His Grace" in one of the extracts. The words "His Grace" referred to the Duke of Richmond, and not to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
  MR. DAWSON: The Report referred to was addressed to the Lord Lieutenant.
  MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he had the Report in his hand, and it began by stating—
  "In accordance with your instructions, we submit to the consideration of His Grace the President of the Royal Agricultural Commission, &c."

  ARMY DISCIPLINE AND REGULATION ACT.
  VISCOUNT EMLYNasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether he can now lay upon the Table of the House a Copy of the Rules made by him under the provisions of the Army Discipline and Regulation Act, for the punishment of serious offences committed by soldiers upon active service?
  MR. CHILDERS: No, Sir; but I hope to be able to do so before the end of the month. I have not received all the strictly confidential opinions for which I applied to officers of experience in command; but I expect these inquiries will be completed in a few days.

  TURKEY AND GREECE—THE FRONTIER QUESTION.
  MR. ARTHUR ARNOLDasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether the evacuation of the first section of the territory to be ceded to Greece by Turkey not later than July 5th 1881, under the stipulations of the annex to the Convention of May 24th 1881, has been duly carried out?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: A telegram was received yesterday from General Hamley stating that the Turks had retired from the Frontier, and that the Greeks had crossed and taken possession. All had been done in good order.

  PIERS AND HARBOURS (IRELAND— CO. CLARE.
  MR. O'SHEAasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Whether his attention has been called to the smallness of the sums of money granted from any of the sources recently available for such purposes, towards the improvement of the fishing harbours and creeks in Clare; whether representations have been made to him as to the extraordinary way in which the fishermen of that county have availed themselves of every chance that has been afforded them, and as to the alacrity with which they have paid rents and other debts, out of their earnings under the first revival of their industry; and, whether under these circumstances, Her Majesty's Government are disposed to afford any further facilities for the improvement of some of the fishing harbours and creeks on that dangerous coast?
  LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISH: Until I read my hon. Friend's Question, my attention had not been called to the smallness of the sums assigned to County Clare. I may say, however, that the apportionment of the recent Canadian and Parliamentary grants of £60,000 was made on the recommendation of a Special Committee, which carefully examined the proposals brought before it, and the Treasury have no reason for thinking that the claims of County Clare were not duly weighed. I have no special knowledge of the condition of the fishermen on that coast. Considering the terms on which the special grant of £45,000 was made last year, I cannot at present make any promise with respect to further free grants. Any application for a loan on sufficient security, however, will be carefully considered.

  TRADE AND COMMERCE—FOREIGN COMMERCIAL TREATIES.
  MR. JACKSONasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether, following the precedent of 1872, when M. Kindt was present as the representative of Belgium at the discussions in Paris between the British and French Commissioners to settle the Compensatory Duties, Her Majesty's Government will take steps to secure that a representative of England shall be present at the Conferences about to be held to discuss the terms of Commercial Treaties between France and Belgium, and between France and other countries?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE.I would beg leave to point out to the hon. Member that there is no precedent in the case of the negotiations in 1872 for what he proposes should be done now. When M. Kindt was present at the discussions between the British and French Commissioners in that year, a Treaty between this country and France had already been signed, and it was considered that the presence of a well-qualified and impartial Belgian official would facilitate an agreement as to the rates of the Compensatory Duties. In the present case, however, no Treaty has been signed; and I can hardly think it probable that the French Government would consent to the unusual, if not unprecedented, course which the hon. Member proposes.

  PROTECTION OF PERSON AND PROPERTY (IRELAND) ACT, 1881—MR. CUNNINGHAM, OF LOUGHREA, A PRISONER UNDER THE ACT.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNORasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether he is aware that Mr. Cunningham of Loughrea, who has been imprisoned under the Coercion Act, and now lies in Dundalk Gaol on the charge of meeting to murder presumably the man Dempsey, is a relative of the murdered man?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER, in reply, said, he was informed that Mr. Cunningham, who was now in Dundalk Gaol, was a second cousin of the man Dempsey. The warrant for his arrest stated that he was suspected of inciting to murder. He might remind the hon. Member that there hed been three bad murders lately in the Loughrea district.

  ARMY (AUXILIARY FORCES)—THE WINDSOR REVIEW.
  MR. SCHREIBER: I beg, before asking the Question which stands in my name, to request the permission of the House to read a short extract from the morning papers of Tuesday on which my Question is founded. The extract says—
  "Enclosures will be reserved to the left of Her Majesty for the members of the Royal Household, the Press, the Four-in-Hand Club, the Eton Boys—at least, those of them who are not present with their corps on the field—officers on foot and in uniform. On the right of Her Majesty places will be reserved for the Park officials, the children of the Royal Schools, the students of Cooper's Hill Indian Engineering College, and with these exceptions the remainder of the line of view will be free to all comers"—
  that is to say, to Mr. Speaker, to the Lord Chancellor, and to Members of both Houses of Parliament. In answer to previous Questions on the same subject, I have hitherto been told that Members of this and the other House of Parliament could not have reserved places at the Review, because no places were to be reserved. After what has appeared in the newspapers on the subject, I have now to ask the Secretary of State for War, Whether it could be arranged that Peers and Members of Parliament wishing to attend the Volunteer Review on Saturday should be admitted, on presentation of their cards, to the spaces which it now
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  appears will be reserved on the right hand and on the left of the position to be occupied by Her Majesty?
  MR. CHILDERS: My answer is that the whole of the arrangements rest not with me, but with the Ranger of the Park. I know nothing of, and have not even seen, the notice in the paper quoted by the hon. Member. I may add that I have no intention of making to the Ranger any representations on the subject.
  MR. SCHREIBERwished distinctly to understand whether the right hon. Gentleman, having seen the Question on the Paper for some days past, had not thought fit to communicate with His Royal Highness the Ranger of Windsor Park on a subject of so much interest to Members of both Houses of Parliament?
  MR. CHILDERS: I have already twice answered the Question, and have distinctly stated that I have no authority in the matter. I do not propose to address to the Ranger any communication on the subject.
  MR. LABOUCHEREasked what Minister was responsible to Parliament for the action of the Ranger?
  MR. CHILDERS: I myself most certainly am not. I believe the First Commissioner of Works is.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNORasked what was the name of this Ranger who had put this snub on the House of Commons?
  MR. CHILDERSsaid, that, in his opinion, the concluding words of the hon. Member were decidedly un-Parliamentary.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: Mr. Speaker, I rise to Order. I beg to ask you, Sir, whether a right hon. Gentleman has a right to usurp your function, and describe as un-Parliamentary an observation made by another Member of the House?
  MR. SPEAKERmade no reply to this Question.
  MR. CHILDERS: What I said was that, in my opinion, the use of the word "snub" is not Parliamentary.
  MR. O'KELLYrose amid loud cries of "Order!"
  MR. SPEAKER: The right hon. Gentleman was in possession of the House when the hon. Member rose.
  MR. CHILDERS: I want only to add that the Ranger of Windsor Park is Prince Christian.
  MR. SPEAKERsaid, that the right hon. Gentleman was entitled to say that

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  in his opinion the language of the hon. Member was un-Parliamentary.
  MR. MACDONALDasked whether the right hon. Gentleman would state what claim the Four-in-Hand Club had to a place at the Review?
  MR. CHILDERS: I told the House five times as distinctly as I could that I have no authority in the matter.
  MR. A. M. SULLIVAN: I do not wish to add to the numerous Questions which have been showered upon the right hon. Gentleman; but I should like to know whether the First Commissioner of Works is in the House? If he is present, I would put the question to him as to whether he can throw any light upon this Four-in-Hand question?
  MR. SHAW LEFEVRE: No, Sir; I am sorry to say that I cannot throw any light upon it. The Ranger of Windsor Park is not under my control.
  MR. CHILDERS: I have to apologize for having, by a slip of the tongue, misled the House by saying that the Ranger of Windsor Park was under the control of the First Commissioner of Works instead of the Commissioner of Woods and Forests, which is a Department subject to the supervision of the Treasury.
  MR. SCHREIBERsaid, that, under these circumstances, he begged to give Notice that he would ask his Question of the Prime Minister.

  ARMY—DECEASED SOLDIERS' EFFECTS.
  MR. P. A. TAYLORasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether it is the fact that Private William Brooks, of the 1st Dragoon Guards, died in Zululand nearly two years ago (September 1879); whether repeated applications have been made to the War Office on behalf of his mother for her son's effects and for some money he had saved and desired should be remitted to her, with no other result than replies that no information had been received; and, whether he will cause some better arrangements to be made, to the end that more rapid justice may be rendered to the friendless relations of deceased soldiers?
  MR. CHILDERS: The facts are as my hon. Friend states; but I am glad to say that the statement of Private Brooks' accounts was received at the War Office on the 5th instant, and the money will be paid to his relation forth-
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  with. The officer commanding the regiment has been communicated with, on the subject of the delay, which appears to have been excessive. The instructions on this subject are now perfectly plain.

  MERCANTILE MARINE—PILOTAGE AT SWANSEA.
  MR. PULESTONasked the President of the Board of Trade, Whether he will lay upon the Table of the House, the Correspondence relative to non-compulsory pilotage at Swansea; and, whether he can state what action he proposes to take in reference to this and other questions which have been raised affecting the pilot interest?
  MR. CHAMBERLAIN, in reply, said, the correspondence on this matter was not yet complete. As soon as it was complete there would be no objection to laying it on the Table. A letter had been addressed to the Trustees of Swansea Harbour asking some information, and until that information was received he was unable to say what action the Board of Trade would take in the matter.

  FRANCE AND TUNIS (ADMINISTRATION).
  MR. T. BRUCE (for the Earl of BECTIVE)asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether his attention has been called to a statement in the public press, that M. Roustan directs not only the Foreign Office, of Tunis, but also most of the Government Departments, and that claims by the municipality and other bodies against Europeans are made by M. Roustan; whether he is aware that in one of the aforesaid capacities M. Roustan has adjudged to a French subject a portion of ground adjoining the English Church, and secured in perpetuity to the British Colony by a deed signed by the Bey and the Bishop of Gibraltar, a counterpart of which has been deposited in the archives of the British Consulate at Tunis; and, if he will communicate with Her Majesty's Agent and the Rev. E. Frankel on the subject, with a view to the protection of the British rights involved?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: No confirmation of the newspaper report to which the noble Lord's Question calls attention has been received from Her

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  Majesty's Agent and Consul General in Tunis. With reference to the second portion of the noble Lord's Question, and the reply which I gave to him on Tuesday last, I may state that I have this day received from the Rev. E. Frankel the information, which he appears to have already given to the noble Lord, with regard to the ground adjoining the British Church, of which Mr. Frankel states that Mr. Reade was ordered by the President of the Municipality to take possession, and did so by having it fenced in and levelled for a lawn tennis court. If Mr. Reade considers that any injury has been done to British subjects or property, he will, no doubt, at once communicate with Her Majesty's Government on the subject.

  THE CIVIL SERVICE—CLERKS IN THE LOWER DIVISION.
  MR. OTWAYasked the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether Her Majesty's Government have considered the case of the clerks in the lower division, as stated in a Memorial from them which has been presented to the Treasury, and have taken any decision in the matter?
  LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISH: Yes, Sir; the Treasury has given a most careful consideration to the Memorial referred to in the Question, and their decision is stated in a Treasury Minute, which I shall be happy to lay on the Table of the House if my hon. Friend likes to move for it.

  THE WEST INDIES—THE ISLAND OF BARBADOES.
  MR. ERRINGTONasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether the Government will take advantage of the opportunity afforded by the appointment of a new Governor of the Windward Islands to insist on the much-needed reforms in the constitution and government of Barbadoes, especially the reforms recommended by Lord Carnarvon in 1877; and, whether he will lay upon the Table Copies of the Instructions which have been given to Mr. Robinson on these points, or take an opportunity of making a statement on the subject to the House?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE, in reply, said that a number of Constitutional changes had been effected in the Barbadoes since 1877. The Executive Council
  250
  had lately constituted an Executive Committee, which accomplished important works. The reforms proposed by Lord Carnarvon were for the most part ineffective, except that the officers of the Government were permitted to sit and speak in the Assembly without votes. Two such officers had been appointed for the last three years, and had introduced many Bills. Mr. Robinson had invited the Assembly to legislate upon various subjects, and hitherto the Assembly had shown itself quite ready to adopt his suggestions. No particular instructions had been sent to Mr. Robinson, as the Government had reason to believe that he was discharging his duties in a satisfactory manner.

  PEACE PRESERVATION ACT, 1881— PRISONERS IN NAAS GAOL.
  MR. LALORasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, During how many hours in the day, and in what amount of space, are the prisoners who are confined under the Peace Preservation Act in Naas Jail permitted to take exercise; and, if he would have any objection to permit such of the prisoners as the Governor of the jail might select to take exercise, under supervision, outside of the prison, on their pledging their word to hold no communication with their friends or other persons outside, and to return in obedience to rule?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER, in reply, said, that the first part of the Question related to matters of detail, which he could not explain till he received information from Dublin. In regard to the second Question, he must state that the Government could not give the information desired.

  MERCHANT SHIPPING ACT, 1875—IMPRISONMENT OF BRITISH SAILORS ABROAD.
  DR. CAMERONasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether it is not a fact that, under the Merchant Shipping Act, prisons used for the imprisonment of British sailors sentenced by naval courts abroad must be approved by the senior naval officer and certified in writing as proper for the purpose; whether, knowing that the gaols of Callao and Lima, always very bad, were in an exceptionally bad and

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  dangerous condition during the Chilian occupation in February last, and without the necessary certification of their fitness, Mr. St. John, the British Minister at Lima, ordered the imprisonment in them of seven British seamen sentenced by a naval court for insubordination on board the merchant ship "Fort George;" whether Mr. St. John persisted in his attempts to have the men imprisoned in the gaols of Callao and Lima in spite of repeated remonstrances; and, whether he will lay upon the Table any Correspondence relating to the subject?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: According to the 18th Paragraph of the Merchant Shipping Act of 1875, the senior Naval or Consular Officer present at the place where a Naval Court is held is to approve the prison in which men sentenced to imprisonment are to be confined. On the occasion referred to in the Question, no Consular Officer appears to have been at the Naval Court, and it is not known whether the Naval Officer approved the prison. Mr. Spenser St. John reports having found a portion of the Lima Prison in a proper condition; but it is not known why the sentenced men were not placed there. Further inquiries are being made into the question, and the Papers cannot, therefore, be laid before Parliament at present.
  DR. CAMERONasked whether Mr. St. John made inquiries as to the fitness of the prison before these men were detained?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: That is one of the points upon which further inquiry is to be made.

POST OFFICE (IRELAND)—THE TELEGRAPH SERVICE.

  POST OFFICE SAVINGS BANKS— FEMALE CLERKS.
  MR. A. M. SULLIVANasked the Postmaster General, If he is aware that the permanent officials of the Post Office have decided that (in Ireland), telegraphists who joined the Telegraph Service after the transfer to the State are not eligible for any vacancy occurring in the Accountant's Department (Ireland), and that telegraphists who were taken over by the State at the transfer are eligible; and, if bearing in mind his recent statement as to telegraphists
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  in general, he can state what is the nature of the distinction which appears to exist?
  MR. O'CONNOR POWERasked the Postmaster General, When the open competition for female clerkships in the Post Office Savings Bank will take place?
  MR. FAWCETT: Telegraphists who have been appointed subsequent to the transfer are not eligible for appointment to vacancies in the Accountant's Department (Ireland), because the standard of examination for that office is higher than that prescribed for telegraphists. The standard of examination had not been prescribed at the time of the transfer; and it was held that the transferred telegraphists were eligible for appointment to any office to which clerks at that time in the Service could be appointed under the Regulations then in force. The Department of the Accountant of the Post Office in Ireland was one of those offices. In reply to the Question of the hon. Member for Mayo, I may state that the scheme for the open competitive examinations for female clerkships in the Savings Bank Department of the Post Office will come into operation almost immediately. The preliminary examination will be held on the 12th of August, by which the candidates will be sifted. The second and final examination will be held on the 2nd of September. The preliminary examinations will be conducted in 15 of the largest towns in England, Scotland, and Ireland, and the final examinations in London, Edinburgh, and Dublin.

  INDIA—THE FOREST DEPARTMENT.
  MR. ROUNDasked the Secretary of State for India, If admissions to the Forest Department under the Government of India are by competition, or if there are any recent cases on record in which officers have been appointed either by the English or Indian authorities without undergoing any previous examination?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: Candidates in this country for nomination to junior appointments in the Forest Department in India are required to pass an examination, and from among those who attain the required standard a selection is made of such as are deemed best adapted to the service. No recent appointments have been made

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  by the authorities in this country without previous examination. Under the rules for the selection of candidates in India no previous examination is required if applicants can produce satisfactory certificates of their acquirements. Candidates selected in this country undergo a special training at the Forest School at Nancy before receiving their appointments; and those selected in India are required to pass two years' training in the forests attached to the Government Forest School, or to serve as probationers for the same length of time before their appointments are confirmed.

  PARLIAMENT—RULES AND ORDERS— ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS.
  MR. GORSTasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether arrangements could be made by which, when Questions are asked which required mere Department information, the answers there to might be printed with the Votes, and thus save the time which is taken up by the oral delivery of the reply of the Department in the House by the Minister in charge?
  MR. GLADSTONE: This important subject would necessarily require a good deal of consideration. I think it could not be adopted as a general rule.

  SOUTH AFRICA—THE TRANSVAAL AMSTERDAM LOAN.
  BARON HENRY DE WORMSasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether his attention has been called to the following advertisement which appears in the "Times":—
  "The Coupons of the Transvaal Amsterdam Loan will be paid under the usual conditions on the 1st July next, by Messrs. Insinger and Co. at their offices in Amsterdam. This payment falling due within the period during which the Commission charged with the settlement of affairs in the Transvaal is still sitting, Her Britannic Majesty's Government has supplied the necessary funds, but it hereby gives notice that by so doing it recognises no obligation to provide for any subsequent dividends, and in no way guarantees the payment of either principal or interest in the future;"
  and, whether it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to repudiate the obligations entered into and cancel the guarantees already given with respect to the principal and interest of the Transvaal Amsterdam Loan on the strength of and in faith of which numbers of British
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  subjects and others have invested their savings in that loan?
  MR. GLADSTONE: This is a matter on which I have communicated with the Colonial Office, and what I understand to be the case is this. At no period has the British Government admitted any liability, or given any guarantee with respect to this loan. In order to guard the credit of the Transvaal Government, the Colonial Office have given instructions for the payment of the interest falling due within the period during which the Commission charged with the settlement of affairs in the Transvaal is sitting. Arrangements are now being made by the Royal Commission which will involve negotiations for the resumption by the new Transvaal Government of all obligations. Although arrangements have been made from time to time, it has always been with the distinct understanding, that there would be no liability on the part of the British Government.

  WAYS AND MEANS—INLAND REVENUE —SUCCESSION DUTY (IRELAND).
  MR. NORTHCOTEasked the First Lord of the Treasury, If it is his intention to make any provision for the repayment to Irish landlords, the rental of whose estates may be diminished by the action of the Court proposed to be created by the Irish Land Bill, of a proportionate amount of the Succession Duty paid by them on succeeding to real estates in Ireland since 1870?
  MR. GLADSTONE, in reply, said, he was not prepared to return any amount of the Succession Duty paid by Irish landlords on succeeding to their estates. The duty was fixed on the most lenient conditions, and was not liable to be returned according to the subsequent depreciation or decrease of value in the property.

  CURRENCY—INTERNATIONAL MONETARY CONFERENCE AT PARIS—BIMETALLISM.
  MR. MAGNIACasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether any engagement has been made by the Government, or any authority conferred on the British representative at the Silver Conference in Paris, which goes beyond the use of silver as at present permitted by Law for purposes of currency; whether the Trea-

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  sury have made any communication to the Directors of the Bank of England requiring or requesting them to hold in silver any part of their reserve for the due payment of notes; and, if so, what; whether the Government have authorised or concurred in any engagement by the Secretary of State for India, by which the free action of the Government of India, in dealing with silver for currency purposes, would be restrained; whether he will state if there is any intention on the part of the Government to alter in any degree whatever the standard upon which our present system of currency depends; whether, having regard to the fact that speculation in silver, by which much temporary disarrangement would be imported into operations of trade, is likely to arise during the sitting of the Conference, he will instruct the British Commissioner to hasten the decision as much as possible, so as to put an end to the intermediate state of uncertainty; and, whether he can lay upon the Table any Papers bearing upon the question?
  MR. GLADSTONE: 1. No engagementh as been made by the Government, and no authority conferred on the British Representative at the Paris Conference, to alter the limits now imposed by law upon the use of silver as currency. 2. The Government were informed that an agreement might be possible between the silver-using Powers if, among other matters, the Bank of England would hold in the issue department part of its reserve in silver, and they communicated their information to the Bank, inviting the Bank Court to state its opinion upon such an exercise of the discretion entrusted to the Bank by the Act of 1844. The Court replied that it saw no reason why an assurance should not be conveyed to the Monetary Conference, if the Treasury thought it desirable, that the Bank, agreeably with the Act of 1844, will be always open to the purchase of silver, provided that the Mints of other countries return to such rules as would insure the conversion of gold into silver and silver into gold. The Treasury, noting the statement of the Bank that it saw no danger to the principle of the Act of 1844 in such an assurance, caused the Delegate of the United Kingdom at the Conference to be instructed to convey the assurance to the Conference. Mr. Fremantle informed the Conference accordingly at its
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  meeting of yesterday. 3. The Secretary of State for India will state whether he has authorized the Delegate of India to convey any assurance to the Conference. 4. There is no intention on the part of the Government to alter the present Currency Law. 5. The Government could not undertake to make representations to the Conference as to its course of proceeding. 6. If the hon. Member will move for Papers, I will have such of them as explain the action of the Government presented.
  THE MARQUESS Of HARTINGTON: The only engagement which the Representatives of the Government of India at the Monetary Conference have been authorized to make on behalf of that Government is that for a definite term of years it will undertake not to depart in any direction calculated to lower the value of silver from the existing practice of coining silver freely in the Indian Mints as legal tender throughout the Indian Dominions of Her Majesty. Such a declaration must, however, be conditional on the acceptance by a number of the principal States of an agreement binding them, in some manner or other, to open their Mints for a similar term to the coinage of silver as full legal tender in the proportion of 15½ of silver to 1 of gold, and the engagement on the part of India would be obligatory only so long as that agreement remained in force.
  In reply to an hon. MEMBER,
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, he thought there would be no objection on the part of the Government to the publication of the proceedings at the Conference. He believed that a record of the transactions was being made; but it would be some time before it was completed. He should, perhaps, therefore, move that it be given as an unopposed Return. As the document would be so voluminous, he did not think it desirable to print it; but he would be able to place seine copies of it in the Library of the House.

  SOUTH AFRICA—THE TRANSVAAL PAPERS—BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHasked the First Lord of the Treasury, When the further Papers relating to South Africa will be published, and whether they will include Mr. Forssman's letter and any other Memorials

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  addressed to Her Majesty's Government from the Transvaal; whether any communications have passed between Her Majesty's Government and the present Government of the Cape Colony with reference to the Basutos; and, if so, whether those communications will be included in the Papers?
  MR. GLADSTONE: The Papers relating to the Transvaal will be placed in the hands of hon. Members to-morrow. The Memorials referring to claims only will not be included, as they are only documents of first instance which must be referred to the re-assembled Commissioners before the Government will be in a condition to ask for a judgment upon them. Upon the subject of Basutoland, there are certain communications between the Government and the new Ministry at the Cape; but they are incomplete, and will not be comprised in the Papers to be distributed to-morrow. In case we should, as I hope we may, conclude the Committee on the Land Law (Ireland) Bill in the course of next week, towards the close or by the close, we shall be ready to appropriate the Monday in the following week, the first clear day at our command, to take the debate on the Transvaal.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: Am I right in inferring that we are to know nothing of the claims made for compensation until they are decided on?
  MR. GLADSTONE: I have not said as much as that; but we do not propose to present to the House any document of that kind at the present stage.

  PARLIAMENT—BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE—THE BEER BILL.
  COLONEL BARNEasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether the Government intend to absorb Wednesday July 20th with their business, when the Bill for better securing the purity of Beer is the first Order for Second Reading?
  MR. GLADSTONE, in reply, said, he did not know whether the hon. and gallant Member saw a felicitous connection between a measure for promoting the purity of beer and the absorption of Wednesday by Government Business. He should be glad if the Committee were concluded before Wednesday. As he had stated, it was their duty to go forward with the Committee from day to day; and until it was concluded he
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  was afraid the Bill referred to could not come on.

  THE NEW FRENCH GENERAL TARIFF.
  MR. MONKasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether, considering the great importance to the commercial community of obtaining the earliest information respecting the Tariff upon which the French Government propose to base a Commercial Treaty with this Country, Her Majesty's Government will cause the necessary information respecting that Tariff to be laid, without delay, before Parliament? The hon. Gentleman said he pressed this matter on the attention of the Government, because the Return of the new General Tariff which had been presented to Parliament was calculated to mislead the public and the country.
  MR. GLADSTONE: No doubt, the public would make a mistake if they were to assume that the new General Tariff has been laid before them, and that they have the final practical arrangements under which the commerce of the two countries is to be conducted. I hope it will not be so. We shall be glad when the communications between the Commissions now reach such a state as to enable us to give more practical information on the subject; but at present such projected Tariffs as have been produced to the Commission are considered as confidential at the request of the French Commissioners. We are, therefore, not at liberty to produce them.
  VISCOUNT SANDON: It may be convenient if I put a Question to the right hon. Gentleman which is germane to the answer just given. It is—(1.) Whether he can hold out any hope of being able to make public the "Tarif à discuter"—that is, the secret terms for the new Commercial Treaty offered by France to England, before the close of the Session, and before Her Majesty's Government finally commits the country to the acceptance or rejection of a Treaty; (2.) And whether, during the month which is to elapse before the Anglo-French Commission re-assembles for final decision, Her Majesty's Government will communicate confidentially to the leading officers of each of the principal Trades Unions (registered under Act of Parliament) concerned with the trades affected by the French Tariff, and, so far as it relates to their own

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  trades, the terms above mentioned—that is, the "Tarif à discuter," in the same manner as these terms have been confidentially communicated by the Foreign Office to Chambers of Commerce and to manufacturers, in order that Her Majesty's Government may have the advantage of becoming acquainted with the views and practical experience, not only of the master manufacturers, but also of the important and numerous bodies of handicraftsmen whose wages and means of living will be largely affected by the decision as to a Commercial Treaty with France?
  MR. GLADSTONE: I think it would be better to postpone the answer, because I am not able at present to give any positive engagement about producing the Tariff. On the other hand, I should be unwilling to abandon the hope of producing it, because we are most anxious to make it known as soon as we can do so without misleading the public or violating the consideration which we owe to those with whom we are in communication.

  TURKEY—SULTAN ABDUL AZIZ—CON- DEMNATION OF MIDHAT PASHA.
  MR. STAVELEY HILLasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether he had any information from Constantinople with regard to the fate of Midhat Pasha?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE; I can give no information upon this subject. The telegrams which have passed up to the present time do not show what are Lord Dufferin's views; but representations are being made.

  PARLIAMENT—PUBLIC BUSINESS.
  MR. DILLWYNwished to ask the Prime Minister whether, in case the Land Law (Ireland) Bill were concluded as soon as he expected, he intended to take Tuesday nights for Government Business after the Morning Sittings, or to leave the Evening Sittings to private Members?
  COLONEL BARNE: I should like to ask a similar Question with reference to Wednesdays, when the Land Law (Ireland) Bill is out of Committee.
  MR. GLADSTONE: I was under a mistake in the answer I gave before when I said I feared that on the day the hon. Member referred to we should
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  be in Committee. I was under the impression that he meant Wednesday in next week; I find now that he means Wednesday, the 20th. The authority the House has given us is simply an authority for precedence on behalf of the Land Law (Ireland) Bill on all the days when it is set down; but upon other days we fall back under the ordinary rules; and that will probably be the state of the case until we have disposed finally of the Land Bill. It must be two or three weeks, at any rate, before we have finally disposed of it. I therefore feel hardly prepared to say what, in reference to the state of Public Business, it may be our duty to do; but obviously some opportunities will be left to private Members.

  ARMY (AUXILIARY FORCES)—THE VOLUNTEER REVIEW AT WINDSOR.
  MR. SCHREIBERgave Notice that to-morrow he would ask the Prime Minister whether he would personally communicate with His Royal Highness the Ranger of Windsor Park, for the purpose of obtaining admission, for Members of both Houses of Parliament wishing to attend the Review, to the reserved space enclosed in the Park on either hand of the position occupied by Her Majesty on that occasion?
  MR. CHILDERS: The First Lord of the Treasury has asked me, with reference to the Notice just given, to read a letter I received two or three minutes ago after the Questions that were put to me. It is from Mr. Charles Gore, the First Commissioner of Woods and Forests. He says—
  "I have made further inquiry to-day, by telegram, as to the possibility, if required, of making an enclosure for Peers and Members of Parliament. The existing enclosures are in front of the line of carriages. Any further enclosures will necessarily reduce the space available for the general public."
  Enclosed in that letter is another—not from the Ranger himself, who at the moment the inquiry was made was away, but from a gentleman in the Office, whose name I cannot be quite stir of; but which, as well as I can make out, appears to be Simmons. He uses these words—
  "An enclosure could be formed of hurdles, either for the foot people or for carriages. There are no stands. Prince Christian thinks the enclosures would shut out the view of the general public."
  MR. ARTHUR ARNOLD: I beg to give Notice that on going into Committee of Supply I shall move—
  "That, in the opinion of this House, it is desirable that the charge of Windsor Park be transferred from the Commissioners of Woods, Forests, and Land Revenues to the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Works and Public Buildings."

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  LAND LAW (IRELAND) BILL.— [BILL 135.]
  (Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Forster, Mr. Bright, Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland.)

  COMMITTEE. [TWENTY-SECOND NIGHT.]
  [Progress 6th July.]
  Bill considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)

PART IV.

  PROVISIONS SUPPLEMENTAL TO PRECEDING PARTS.
  Miscellaneous.
  Clause 14 (Limited administration for purposes of sale).
  Amendment proposed,
  In page 11, line 14, after the word "may," insert "on such terms and conditions, if any, as they may think fit."—(Mr. Attorney General for Ireland.)
  Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
  MR. P. MARTINwished to remind Members of the Committee who were not there yesterday of the circumstances under which this Amendment was moved. The noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) had moved an Amendment which made it imperative upon the Court, in every case in which a limited Administrator was appointed, to require such Administrator to give security for the due performance of the duties imposed upon him by the Act. The Attorney General for Ireland, in contesting that Amendment, showed clearly and plainly how unnecessary it was, and pointed out that a limited Administrator would have very few duties to discharge. Under those circumstances he had thought that the noble Lord would not further oppose the clause; but, with the perseverance which distinguished the noble Lord, he pressed
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  the matter still further, and at length induced the Attorney General for Ireland to introduce an Amendment which he (Mr. Martin) must characterise as, at the best, unnecessary, but which, in his judgment, would be mischievous and injurious to the interests of the tenants, and likely to give rise to considerable litigation. Turning to the 42nd clause of the Bill, it would be found that the fullest powers were given to the Court in regard to the making of rules, and giving directions of every kind for carrying the Act into effect. In point of fact, the Court had as full powers as he could conceive to be necessary. In this 14th section, which dealt with the appointment of a limited Administrator for the purposes of the Act, Her Majesty's Attorney General for Ireland now introduced words which must be taken by the Court as an indication upon the part of the Legislature that security must be given. The words of the Amendment were—"On such terms and conditions, if any, as they may think fit." He thought it would not unfairly be contended that these words meant that in every case some security must be given, and that the terms and conditions on which that security was to be taken alone was left to the discretion of the Court. What reasons existed for calling on the limited Administrator to be appointed for the purposes of this clause, as a general rule, to give security? According to the general principles of law, when a limited Administrator was appointed in reference to large estates—for instance, under the Court of Probate, he was not required to give security. Now, in like manner, under this clause, the limited Administrator was the agent to transfer a tenant's estate; and though it was true he received the purchase money, yet the provisions of the Bill did not permit him to retain that money, but directed specially what he had to do—namely—
  "Such limited administrator may pay to the landlord, out of the purchase money, any sums due to the landlord in respect to his tenancy, and may pay the residue of the purchase money to a general administrator (if any) or into Court."
  The 1st section of the Bill directed that in case of sale—
  "Where a tenant sells his tenancy to any person other than the landlord, the landlord may at any time within the prescribed period

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  give notice both to the outgoing tenant and the purchaser of any sums which he may claim from the outgoing tenant for arrears of rent or other-wise,"
  and in such case the purchaser to whom notice was given paid the amount to the landlord, unless he received notice that the tenant disputed the landlord's claim, in which case he was bound to pay the amount disputed into Court. Thus the duty of paying money into Court was a nominal duty, imposed without any real significance. It was a statutory duty imposed on the purchaser to see that the amount of rent mentioned in the notice should be paid to the landlord. No doubt, Her Majesty's Attorney General for Ireland was anxious to protect the landlord; but he did not understand that the limited Administrator was to retain the money in his hands for any length of time before he distributed it. What were the express directions of the section? He was to pay the landlord any sums due to the landlord by the deceased tenant; and he was to pay the residue of the purchase money either to the general Administrator or into Court. He felt bound to protest against the costly system of procedure enforced by the Bill in respect of the unfortunate small tenants. They were not dealing in this instance with the case of a large tenant with large interests, but with the ease of some 400,000 small tenants in Ireland, whose entire interest in the farm would, in the gross, not exceed £100. Then, why should the Committee force upon these poor tenants unnecessary costs? First of all, there was the cost of serving the notice on the landlord; then of ascertaining the amount due to the landlord; then of the payment of the sum in dispute into Court; then there was to be the appointment of a limited Administrator, who was to give security. Was this security to be given upon a cumbrous form with a stamp, with two sureties brought in from a distance? and was all this additional cost to be imposed upon the tenant simply for the purpose of warding off the temporary opposition of the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock to the passing of this clause? They had further to provide for the additional cost of a general Administrator, and the costs of the proceedings necessary under the Act for giving security in the case of the appointment of a limited Administrator
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  would amount, at the very lowest, to £9, or a deduction of about 15 per cent on the proceeds of the sale which would find their way into the pocket of the tenant. Under these circumstances, he would most certainly enter his protest against the Amendment.
  LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLsaid, he could not understand why the hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny (Mr. P. Martin) should consider it necessary, upon so very small a point, to make so very long a speech. If the same course were pursued in regard to every Amendment they would never get through the Bill at all. He only wished to point out to the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland that if he thought the matter likely to lead to a prolonged discussion, or to occasion any serious difficulty, he (Lord Randolph Churchill) would not press the Amendment in its entirety, but would be content with part of it. When he proposed the Amendment yesterday, the hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Givan) said it was not necessary, because the Administrator had to pay the money into Court. But, under the clause as it stood, the Administrator had not to do anything of the kind. If the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland would insert the word "shall" instead of "may," in line 21, leaving out all the rest, in order that the clause might read—
  "Shall pay within the prescribed period the purchase money into Court, and the same shall be subject to such order as the Court shall make, having regard to the claims of the landlord to the purchase money,"
  that would be in accordance with sub-section 9 of Clause 1, which gave the same direction. This would be an order to the Court to proceed as the Court of Chancery would proceed. There would not be a limited Administrator holding the money; but the Act would require it to be paid into Court within a week or a month, as the case might be. The sum of money to be handed over might be large, and if the Government would accept this Amendment, and say that the limited Administrator should pay the money into Court, he would withdraw the previous proposal.
  MR. GIBSON, in expressing a hope that the Amendment would be withdrawn, said, the proposal now made by the noble Lord was well worthy of consideration and adoption. It was ren-

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  dered more necessary by the insertion of the words proposed by his right hon. and learned Friend, which, after all, were innocent words, leaving full discretion to the Court; and he could not yet understand why this should be opposed by his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. P. Martin).
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)said, he was accused of having accepted, in the spirit, the Amendment of the noble Lord, and then of having made it worse. He had thought the noble Lord was right in the suggestion he had made. It was quite true, as his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kilkenny (Mr. P. Martin) said, that the money was directed to be paid to the general Administrator or to the Court; but it was obvious that before payment to either one or the other could be made the limited Administrator must get the money. And if the limited Administrator got the money which belonged to the family of the deceased tenant, he did not see that any damage would be done if the Court had power to require proper and sufficient security to be given by the man who thus got possession of it. It ought, however, to be a simple obligation, and ought not to be costly. The clause provided for a case where the tenant of any holding within the jurisdiction of the Court died, and the Court was satisfied that the tenancy ought to be sold. There was a corresponding clause in the Land Act, which provided that the Court might appoint a proper person to act as limited Administrator, and when the limited Administrator paid the landlord his rent he might dispose of the residue either by paying it to the general Administrator, if there happened to be one, or into Court. A limited Administrator was to be appointed by the Court for the purpose of aiding the work of the Court; but, in the meantime, the family might proceed to have a regular administration taken out, and then the necessity for a limited Administrator would be at an end, and his only duty would be to hand over the money to the general Administrator, who would, no doubt, have given security for the property.
  COLONEL BARNEcertainly thought that the Administrator ought to give security; and he considered that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland had, to a
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  certain extent, broken faith with the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill). ["No!"] It certainly appeared to him (Colonel Barne) that the right hon. and learned Gentleman had. He was present at the discussion when the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock brought on his Amendment requiring the limited Administrator to give adequate security; and the Attorney General said that if the noble Lord would withdraw that Amendment he would bring in another in the same sense. [The ATTORNEY GENERAL for IRELAND (Mr. Law): In an enlarged sense.] There was not a word in the Amendment about security at all; and there was no reason, according to this Amendment, why the Administrator should be called upon to give security at all. He maintained that the Court ought to insist upon the limited Administrator giving security; and he should like to add, after the words "any person," these words—"other than a lawyer." This was a Bill that would give a great deal of work to the lawyers of Ireland, and they all know what dangerous work it was to have any communication with the lawyers. The Court would probably appoint some lawyer as Administrator, who would run up a long bill which would have to be paid either by the landlord or by the tenant, or by both. He did not know whether the Committee would support the Amendment he suggested—namely, the addition of the words "other than a lawyer;" but if he thought it would meet with support he would certainly move it. He wished to hear what the right hon. and learned Gentleman had to say with regard to leaving out from the Amendment any obligation to take security.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)said, he had inserted words which were larger than those suggested by the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock, and would provide better terms of security.
  Amendment agreed to.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)moved, in page 11, line 14, after the word "any," to insert the word "proper."
  Amendment agreed to
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)moved, in page

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  11, line 14, to leave out the words "Whom they think fit."
  Amendment agreed to.
  LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLmoved, in page 11, line 21, to leave out the word "may," and insert "shall." The object of this Amendment was to compel the Administrator to pay the money into Court within a prescribed period. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said he did not want to force the tenant to go into Court, but the whole thing was already under the jurisdiction of the Court; and, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman pointed out, it was possible that the Administrator might have to hold the residue for some time. He (Lord Randolph Churchill) did not believe there was any precedent for such an arrangement. In all money transactions under the Court of Chancery, the money was always lodged in Court, and the Court gave a guarantee to the parties interested. The Administrator might hold the money for some time, perhaps six or 12 months, until it was ordered by the Court to be given up; but it would be much better that the Administrator should be compelled to pay the money into Court within a prescribed period. He therefore proposed to insert the word "shall," instead of "may."
  Amendment proposed, in page 11, line 21, leave out "may," and insert "shall."—(Lord Randolph Churchill.)
  Question proposed, "That the word 'may' stand part of the Clause."
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)remarked, that if there was a general Administrator, giving security in the ordinary way to the Court, and who was competent to receive the custody of the estate of the deceased, he saw no reason why it should not be handed over. He quite admitted that there ought to be an obligation upon the man who received the money to pay it into Court or to the person entitled to it; and if the noble Lord would slightly modify the Amendment, so as to bring in the general Administrator, that would obviate his objection.
  LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLasked if the Attorney General for Ireland would take it in this way—that the limited Administrator should pay the money to the landlord within a prescribed
  268
  period, and should pay the residue to the general Administrator within a prescribed period? He took it that that would protect both the interests of the landlord and the tenant.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)said, the Court might impound the grant of administration, so that no one else would be able to do anything with it, just as the Court of Probate at the present often impounded letters of general administration.
  MR. LEAMYsaid, the 1st clause of the Bill gave power to sell, and he presumed that any sale would take place subject to the conditions prescribed in the 1st clause. [The ATTORNEY GENERAL for IRELAND (Mr. LAW): Yes.] The condition under the 1st clause was that the purchaser should pay the sum due, not to any Administrator, but into Court. How could they compel the purchaser to pay it to an Administrator and also to pay it into Court? Who was to pay the landlord, who might get nothing at all?
  COLONEL BARNEpointed out that if "shall" were not inserted the Administrator might or might not pay the money. It would be purely a permissive clause, by which, if the Administrator did not choose to pay the money, there would be no legal power to compel him to pay the landlord his share, or the other people their share. He considered that the Amendment was absolutely necessary.
  MR. MITCHELL HENRYsaid, he thought they were wasting a great deal of time about a very small matter of this kind. He thought they might safely trust, in legal matters, to the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland.
  LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLsaid, he was always inclined to defer to any legal opinion that might be expressed by the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland; but he declined to accept the rebuke of the hon. Member for the County of Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry), who, because hon. Members on that side of the House thought they had discovered a legal flaw in the Bill, charged them with disrespect to the Attorney General. He had seen the hon. Member frequently take up a much longer time with a speech of his own, and it would better become him in future if he would confine his attention

  269
  to making his own remarks as concise as he could without interfering with hon. Members on that side. For the present he (Lord Randolph Churchill) withdrew the Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause, as amended, agreed to.
  Clause 15 (Provision in case of title paramount).
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)said, he proposed to move, in line 25, after the word "holding," to omit the words "in respect of which," and insert "the estate of;" also to leave out the words from "being" to "otherwise;" and then, in line 27, after "tenancy," to insert "from year to year, whether subject or not subject to statutory conditions." The clause would then stand thus—
  "If in the case of any holding the estate of the immediate landlord for the time being is determined during the continuance of any tenancy from year to year, whether subject or not subject to statutory conditions, the next superior landlord for the time being shall, for the purposes of this Act, during the continuance of such tenancy, stand in the relation of immediate landlord to the tenant of the tenancy, and have the rights and be subject to the obligations of an immediate landlord."
  Amendment proposed, in page 11, line 25, after the word "holding," to insert the words "in respect of which."—(Mr. Attorney General for Ireland.)
  Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
  MR. GIBSONcould not say that, as far as he had followed them, he objected to the words of the first Amendment of his right hon. and learned Friend; but he must really protest strongly against the way in which Amendments were placed suddenly in manuscript before the Committee. His right hon. and learned Friend would remember that very early, in fact upon the first night of the debate upon the Bill, he (Mr. Gibson) had drawn particular attention to this clause, and had pointed out its obvious and grotesque effects which rendered it unreadable and unworkable. In this case, Amendments had been put down in regard to the clause by his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Preston (Sir John Holker). The Government knew all the points raised by those Amendments, yet, nevertheless,
  270
  they waited until they came to the clause, and now proposed to re-cast it by means of manuscript Amendments across the Table. He protested strongly against such a course. Something very like it occurred yesterday. An important modification was proposed, which called upon them to consider at once the bearing of important legal changes. It was most unusual to require the Committee to decide upon Amendments of this nature without an opportunity being afforded for considering their real effect. They were now asked to consider the withdrawal of certain proposals contained in the clause, and the substitution of what practically amounted to a new clause, introduced by his right hon. and learned Friend. The proper course to take was to postpone the consideration of the clause, which would not take up much time when they came to it at the end of the Bill. He had no desire to protract or delay the progress of the Bill; but he should like to have time to consider what the effect of the words proposed to be substituted would be. He had no desire to question in a captious spirit any of the Amendments submitted by his right hon. and learned Friend; but he certainly would like to understand what they meant.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)said, he would at once accept the suggestion of his right hon. and learned Friend and postpone the clause.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause postponed.
  Clause 16 (Provision as to certain small tenancies).
  MR. GIBSONsaid, that in the absence of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst) it was necessary that he should move the Amendment which his hon. and learned Friend had placed upon the Paper. It was a very short one on a very short clause, although it dealt with a very important principle. The clause consisted of two paragraphs, each dealing with an entirely distinct and independent topic. The Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Chatham dealt with the first paragraph, which was to the following effect:—
  "A tenancy for a year certain shall, for the purposes of this Act, be deemed to be a tenancy from year to year."

  271
  The Amendment of his hon. and learned Friend proposed to strike out this section altogether. He ventured to think that it would have been wiser not to have complicated the Bill with all the various considerations and difficulties that must arise by putting this clause in at all. Neither of the paragraphs dealt with a very wide class of tenants; but the principle involved in both of them was large, and might lead to substantial difficulties, especially in regard to this paragraph, which proposed to give the benefit of the statutory term and all the other equities of the Bill to a class even more narrow than tenancies from year to year—namely, to a man who went into possession for a year certain with the exact term indicated—namely, that it was only to last for a year. Was it not unreasonable, under such circumstances, to say that a man who was allowed to take possession of a farm for 12 months certain, the tenancy commencing perhaps last year, and from the very necessity of the case expiring this year—was it not unreasonable to say that in dealing with an existing tenancy for a year certain, they were to find at the middle of the year certain that, by the operation of this Bill, the year certain was turned into 15 years' certain, with the certainty of a renewal at the end of those 15 years? Was such a provision reasonable or necessary? Tenancies from year to year implied by the very term duration and continuance, and the history of this country showed that that was the principle taken. But, on the other hand, the Government now proposed, practically, to place on the same basis the tenant who might have been in the occupation of his farm for 100 years with the tenant whose tenancy implied not duration, but an absolute certainty of termination. Was that reasonable? He ventured to think, whatever they might do with regard to the poorer tenants, that they ought not, at all events, to break the contracts deliberately entered into for 12 months, which were now current, and say to the tenant that he was to be subject to ex post facto legislation now, which would deprive him of the status and conditions in which he entered upon the farm. He might give an instance. Suppose a man desired to go on the Continent, and he let the tenancy of his farm for a year certain, was it not unjust and unreason-
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  able to say to the landlord without warning, who had not before him the slightest idea that such a Bill as this was coming, that he must now accept the man he had taken for a year certain, as a tenant in perpetuity? It would be unjust to include in the Bill tenants in future for a year certain; but there could scarcely be two opinions as to the unfairness of thus dealing with the existing tenants for a year certain. It came to this—that such tenants whose terms were, according to arrangement and stipulation, to expire within a given time, would be able, when the time came, to apply to the Court for a statutory term. He ventured to hope that when his right hon. and learned Friend considered the matter he would see his way towards dealing with the question in a more reasonable manner.
  Amendment proposed, in page 11, line 32, leave out from "A" to "to year" in line 33, both inclusive—(Mr. Gibson.)
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
  MR. BIGGARsaid, the remarks of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin showed the desirability of leaving the clause as it stood. The word "certain" was a purely technical term. If he took a farm for one year certain he should imagine it meant that the tenancy would not be less than a year, and that it would be impossible to put an end to it in the course of six months. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had scarcely stated the case fairly when he said that the tenant who took a farm now would be converted into a present tenant, and would have the same privileges as another tenant who had been in the occupation of his farm for 50 years. [Mr. GIBSON: He would become a present tenant.] He (Mr. Biggar) did not see how that could be so after the passing of the Act; and he thought that the interpretation put upon the clause by the right hon. and learned Gentleman was altogether fallacious. It proved very clearly the difficulty of understanding the legal phraseology of an Act of Parliament when it was declared by a very high authority that the words of a clause meant something very different from the construc-

  273
  tion an ordinary layman would place upon them. Certainly, in any other place than an Act of Parliament they would mean something very different.
  MR. GIVANsaid, the 69th section of the Land Act provided that any tenant, after the passing of the Act, should be entitled to compensation if the landlord resumed the holding. He presumed that the two lines which constituted the first paragraph' of the clause were introduced in order to prevent the landlord from evading the Act by making an agreement to let the farm for a year certain. It would be easy to evade the Act by making the tenancy a tenacy for a year certain; and yet it was a curious fact that if a tenant executed an agreement making his tenancy less than a tenancy from year to year, he would not thereby be excluded from the benefit of the Act of 1870. As he understood the words now under consideration, their object was to prevent an evasion of the Act.
  MR. GIBSONwished to point out that Section 69 of the Act of 1870, referred to by the hon. Member, only related to tenancies created after the passing of that Act.
  MR. GIVANsaid, he thought there might be some force in the argument of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, if it were not for the 69th section of the Act of 1870, which turned all tenancies at will, and tenancies less than tenancies from year to year, into tenancies from year to year. It was hardly possible that there could now be any tenancies existing for a year certain; and, therefore, the observations of the right hon. and learned Gentleman had no application, and were wholly unnecessary. So far as the retrospective action of the clause was concerned, it was highly improbable that there were any tenancies existing at this moment to which it could apply; but the effect would be that, in regard to all future tenancies, the landlord would insist upon making them for a year certain.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)said, that under the Act of 1870 landlords had been able to make contracts with their tenants for a year certain, and then to keep such tenants under an indefinite series of contracts of the same nature. It had, therefore, been deemed advisable to insert the present clause, which would prevent
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  the continuance of this practice, adopted to defeat the Land Act. The question of what was the precise character of a tenancy for a year certain arose in a curious form a few years ago. The question raised was, whether a tenancy for a year certain was less than a tenancy from year to year? It was regarded as a very knotty point, and the Court to which it was submitted—the Court of Common Pleas—was divided in opinion upon it; but the majority held that it was not less than a tenancy from year to year. Eventually, the case went to the Court of Exchequer Chamber, and there five Judges against three again held that a tenancy for a year certain was not less than a tenancy from year to year. This decision drew attention to the operation of the Land Act, and it was found that tenancies for a year certain were thus withdrawn from the operation of the 69th clause of that Act, although tenancies for nine months or for two months, or three months, or any other definite portion of time, would fall within it. A tenancy of six or nine months was less than a tenancy from year to year, and, therefore, came under the purposes of the Act; but a tenancy for a year certain was not less than a year by tenancy, and, therefore, was not under the Act. That was a very anomalous state of things, and it was desirable to remedy it. In deference to what had been urged by his right hon. and learned Friend, he did not think it would be reasonable to extend the retrospective operation of the Bill to tenancies for a year certain, because there could be no existing tenancies for a year certain before the present year. Such tenancies would now be covered, and he thought the Committee might adopt the phraseology of the Act of 1870. He was not opposed, therefore, to the spirit of the Amendment of his right hon. and learned Friend; but he thought the object would be better effected by introducing, after "certain," in line 32, the words "created after the passing of this Act." Such an alteration would provide that tenancies for a year certain for the purposes of the Act would be tenancies from year to year, and by that means all difficulty would be obviated.
  MR. GIBSONsaid, he would frankly confess that he preferred his own Amendment; but he would, nevertheless, withdraw it in favour of the propo-

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  sition of his right hon. and learned Friend.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)moved, after the word "shall," in line 32, to insert the words "be created after the passing of this Act."
  Amendment agreed to.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR, who had an Amendment on the Paper to omit the second paragraph of the clause, said, the discussion which had just taken place rendered it unnecessary that he should press the Amendment.
  Question proposed, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
  MR. GIVANsaid, he had an Amendment to propose.
  THE CHAIRMAN: The words of the clause have now been gone through, and the hon. Member is too late.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Extent of Power to Contract out of Act.
  Clause 17 (Contracts inconsistent with Act, how far void).
  MR. GIVANsaid, the first Amendment stood in his name; but he would not move it.
  MR. PLUNKETsaid, he desired to amend the clause, which limited or rather stated the amount at which it might be possible for a poor tenant to contract himself out of the Act. His object was to make the words of the clause correspond with those of Clause 12 of the Act of 1870. As the clause stood at present it read, "A tenant of a holding or holdings." He desired to change those words into "a tenant whose holding or the aggregate of whose holdings."
  Amendment proposed, in page 11, line 39, leave out "of a," and insert "whose."—(Mr. Plunket.)
  Question proposed, "That the words 'of a' stand part of the Clause."
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)said, he would not object to the Amendment, as the words proposed to be substituted were those which appeared in the Act of 1870.
  Question put, and negatived.
  The word "whose" inserted.
  Amendment proposed, in page 11, line 39, after "or," insert "the aggregate of whose."—(Mr. Plunket.)
  Amendment agreed to.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)moved, in page 11, line 39, after the word "holdings," to insert the word "is."
  Amendment agreed to.
  SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLmoved, in page 11, line 41, to leave out the words "one hundred and." He said the Amendment which he had placed upon the Paper was one of considerable importance, and he confessed that he had some hesitation in moving it. At one time he had withdrawn it, and he had only restored it when he found that the Attorney General for Ireland said that there would still be the power to tenants of £50 and upwards to contract out of the right to compensation given by the Act of 1870. He thought it would be inconvenient to fix two limits—one as regarded compensation for disturbance, and the other to the provisions of this Act. The Act of 1870 had fixed the limit of £50, and the people of Ireland had now become used to that limit, many contracts having been entered into under it. It would be perhaps preferable, therefore, to retain that limit for the future, though he would not object to a compromise at £100. As regarded the provisions of the present Bill, any tenant above £50 and under £150 who contracted himself out of the provisions of the Act of 1870 remained subject to certain conditions, although he waived the right of compensation for disturbance. By this Bill a present tenant was placed in a very strong position, and was given a durable tenancy, which would render him very independent. It might be necessary to protect very small tenants; but as regarded tenants of £50 and upwards, aided by the provisions of this Bill, they would be pretty independent people, and quite as likely to coerce the landlord as the landlord was to coerce them. Therefore, this provision in regard to present tenants was really of very little importance; but, as regarded future tenants, they would hold under the provisions of the Act of 1870, somewhat amended by the provisions of this Bill; and it was very important to them to know under what limit they would be

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  able to contract themselves out of the Bill. As regarded the right of compensation for disturbance, it was regulated by the Act of 1870, which fixed the limit of contract at £50; but as he understood the position of future tenants under this Bill—although he would admit that he found a good many of his hon. Friends near him did not agree with him—if the landlords desired to evict them they would have no protection or security except under the compensation for disturbance clauses. He took it that the landlord, the day after the passing of the Bill, might give a future £100 tenant notice to quit, and such future tenant would be obliged to leave the farm, subject only to a claim to compensation for disturbance. It was quite true that if the landlord, instead of desiring to get rid of him, retained him, he would have protection under the Bill; but, without increasing his rent, it would be in the power of the landlord to turn him out the moment the Act passed. With regard to future tenants, he wished the greatest freedom of contract to prevail; but he wanted to know what would be the position of such tenants, or what security they would have if they contracted themselves out of the compensation for disturbance clauses? Therefore it seemed to him, as regarded future tenants, this clause would really afford no protection to them. He would like to see some arrangement under which there would be but one limit. As the Bill stood, and as he understood the matter, future tenants, if their landlord evicted them, would be entitled to compensation for improvements, and also to compensation for disturbance. He wished to draw the broadest distinction possible between present and future tenants, and he desired to see the position of the present tenant modified, so that, after being converted into copyholders, they might some day become proprietors. There was no reason why the English system should not be applied in the case of future tenancies, where the landlord had bought up the tenant right. He begged to move the Amendment standing in his name.
  Amendment proposed, in page 11, line 41, leave out the words "one hundred and."—(Sir George Campbell.)
  Question proposed, "That the words 'one hundred and' stand part of the Clause."
  MR. SYNANsaid, he was opposed, not only to the Amendment, but to the limit of £150 set down in the clause itself. As far as present tenants were concerned, he thought the provision perfectly nugatory, because, if the present tenant had power to go to the Court to revise his title, he was not bound to contract himself out of this Act. The limit, therefore, as far as the £150 was concerned, would only apply to future tenants. But this would result in great inconsistency. With respect to the present Bill, it required a £150 limit to contract, so far as the future tenant was concerned, out of the beneficial operation and provisions of the Bill. Of course, as far as the Bill was concerned, the future tenant could only apply the power of sale. But, taking the case of a tenant under the provision for compensation for disturbance in the Act of 1870, it would be found that a tenant at £50 could be contracted out of the benefit of' compensation for disturbance, even upon the enlarged scale in this Bill. Whatever, therefore, the compensation for disturbance might be under this Bill, a £50 tenant could be compelled to contract himself out of the benefit of that compensation. He could understand the Government proposing to apply the £150 limit to the Act of 1870, as well as to this Bill, so that no tenant would be obliged to contract himself out of compensation for disturbance upon the enlarged scale in this Bill who was not rated at £150; and unless the limit of £150 was applied both to this Bill and the Act of 1870 a great injustice would be done to the tenants of Ireland, who might seek for compensation for disturbance.
  MR. HEALYsaid, it would be a great inconsistency to place the limit of £150 in this Act, while the limit of £50 was left in the Act of 1870. He hoped that the Government would see their way to extend the limit contained in the Act of 1870.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, the Government looked upon the limit of £150 as being the fairest limit. The limit of £50 in the Act of 1870 they regarded as materially too low, considerable pressure having been brought to bear upon small tenants to cause them to contract themselves out of that Act. He was bound to confess, having regard to the working of the limit of the Act of 1870,

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  that the Government had been guilty of a mistake in the preparation of the words of the clause.
  MR. PLUNKETsubmitted that some ground should be stated for departing from the limit of £50 contained in the Act of 1870. As far as he could see there was no reason for extending that limit. He would like to know whether there was any evidence upon the subject in the Report of the Royal Commission.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, the Report of the Bessborough Commission did not enter into details in connection with this subject.
  MR. W. H. SMITHunderstood the Prime Minister to say that it was proposed to rescind the provision of the 12th clause of the Act of 1870, which enabled a tenant at £50 to contract himself out of that Act. He must say that the proposed change, together with the provisions introduced into this Bill in favour of the tenant, would make freedom of contract almost impossible. Unless freedom of contract was to be regarded as something that ought to be discouraged in every possible way; unless a man's independence was a thing that ought to be taken away from him, it did scorn that the old limitation was one which it was desirable to maintain. It appeared to him that the extension of the limit contained in the Act of 1870 was entirely unnecessary if there was ever to be freedom of contract in Ireland.
  MR. SHAWregarded the limit of £150, contained in the clause, as of great use. There was no doubt that the greatest pressure had been brought to bear upon tenants to get them to contract themselves out of the Act of 1870. It would be a decided advantage to take away from the landlord everything like an inducement to get tenants to contract themselves out of this Act.
  COLONEL BARNEunderstood the Prime Minister to quote the Bessborough Commission as an authority for the £150 limit. He should have thought that it was hardly worth the while of the right hon. Gentleman to quote this Report, after time way in which it had been handled by one of his late Colleagues.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he had been rather too cautious in his reference to the Bessborough Commission, which recommended nothing of this kind. The
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  Commissioners recommended that certain descriptions of holdings should be excluded from the operation of the Act; but they did not recommend the introduction of any provision whatever for enabling parties to contract themselves out of the Act.
  LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICEregretted that the Government had not taken a middle course between the Act of 1870 and the present proposal—that was to say, to admit a limit of £100. He did not, however, attach much importance to these contract clauses one way or the other. He believed that the Irish tenants were acute enough to calculate what advantages they could get under the Bill. They would see they were placed in a strong position, and would naturally ask themselves why they should contract themselves out of the Bill at all. The landlord had hardly anything left that he could offer to the tenant as a valuable consideration to induce him to contract himself out of the Bill. Assuming, as he did, that it was desirable that free contract tenures should exist, the only way in which these could be created was by leaving the larger tenants out of the Bill. He did not, however, wish to reopen that question, which had been discussed at length on the Amendment of the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Heneage); but he wished to point out that, unless he had misread the paragraph in the Report of the Bessborough Commission, the Prime Minister was possibly mistaken. He thought the plain English of the paragraph, although ho admitted it was not quite clear, was that grazing farms, and also farms which were above £50 rental, whether grazing farms or not, should be left to free contract.
  Question put.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 202; Noes 99: Majority 103—(Div. List, No. 293.)
  Amendment proposed,
  In page 12, line 2, after "Act," insert "or of the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act 1870."—(Mr. Attorney General for Ireland.)
  Amendment agreed to.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)reminded the Committee that the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Brand) had withdrawn an Amendment relating to cases in which

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  tenancies under the Ulster Custom had been bought up by the landlord prior to the passing of this Act. The hon. Member having pointed out that it would be very hard upon the landlord, having such holdings in his hand, that they should be subject, when let, to the 1st section of the Bill, had withdrawn his Amendment on the understanding that a clause should be brought up to enable the parties to contract themselves out of that section. He therefore begged to move the Amendment now standing on the Paper in his name.
  Amendment proposed,
  In page 12, line 2, after "Act," leave out "but," and insert—"Where the tenancy in a holding subject to the Ulster tenant right custom or to any corresponding usage, has been purchased by the landlord from the tenant by voluntary purchase before the passing of this Act, then, if at the date of the passing of this Act the owner of any such holding is in actual occupation thereof, it shall be lawful, in the case of the first tenancy created in the holding after the passing of this Act, for the parties to the contract creating the same, by writing under their hands, to provide that such tenancy shall be exempt from the provisions of section one of this Act."—(Mr. Attorney General for Ireland.)
  Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
  LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLsaid, he accepted the Amendment as far as it went; but he was bound to say that it interfered with the Government definition of a tenancy. Because how could a landlord be prevented buying up the tenant right in a present tenancy, entering into occupation, and re-letting the farm subject to no tenant right? The Government contention had been that the tenant had the right of assignment in law fortified by the Act of 1870; that this right adhered to the tenancy and could not be got rid of. He (Lord Randolph Churchill) had never entirely admitted that; but if the proposed clause were added, that definition with regard to tenant right would be destroyed. He did not see how they could draw a distinction between the case where the landlord, before the passing of the Act, bought up the tenant right, occupied the holding, and re-let it, and therefore cleared the land of the tenant right, and the case where the landlord who, after the passing of this Act, bought up the tenant right, entered into occupation, and re-let the holding.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)said, that one object of the provision was to liberate land for the purpose of being let, which otherwise might remain in the hands of the owner.
  MR. BIGGARconsidered the Amendment mischievous in character, because, although the number of cases to which it would apply was small, it really had the effect of putting a certain number of persons outside the provisions of the Bill. He was quite unable to see why a tenant who took land from a landlord in occupation of it at the time of the passing this Bill should not, at the end of 5, 10, or 20 years, get compensation for disturbance. No doubt, the number of cases to which the Amendment would apply was extremely small; but he could not regard it as in logical sequence with other parts of the Bill.
  MR. CHARLES RUSSELLpointed out that the Amendment only applied to cases where the tenant contracted with the landlord that the tenancy should be excluded from the operation of the 1st section of the Act. It left the right to compensation for disturbance untouched.
  MR. BIGGARsaid, that made very little difference, because the right of compensation only arose when the tenant was turned out. The point was that the tenant could not sell. He did not assume that his interest would be very great; but there was no reason why he should be placed in a different position to other tenants, because the landlord happened to have bought up the tenant right. The sale might have been more or less compulsory, or not bonâ fide at all.
  LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLasked whether a tenant, in the circumstances defined in the Amendment, would have anything to sell when he went out?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)said, the Amendment was intended to meet the case where a landlord had bought the tenant right, and would not let the holding except on certain conditions. A tenant could not be prevented taking the farm on these conditions, and if he chose to contract that he was not to sell, of course he could not do so. He would, however, have the right to compensation for disturbance.
  MR. MITCHELL HENRYasked whether the Government would also except holdings reclaimed and occupied by the owner himself, which had never, in consequence, been subject to the Ulster tenant right?
  MR. A. J. BALFOURasked if the tenant might sell that security in his occupation which was given by the Act of 1870?
  MR. H. R. BRANDsaid, the hon. Member opposite was right in saying that the Amendment of the Attorney General for Ireland did not entirely meet the case which, on a former occasion, he had submitted to the Committee; but he had not understood at the time that the right hon. and learned Gentleman committed himself to the extent of assenting to all that he had asked. When he moved the Amendment in question, he (Mr. Brand) pointed out to the Committee that there were three eases in which it was desirable to limit the right of free sale. First, where land was unlet at the time of the passing of this Act; secondly, where the landlord had bought up the tenant right previously to the passing of this Act and had it in his occupation at the time of the passing of this Act; and, thirdly, where the landlord had exercised his right of pre-emption and bought up the tenant right. He understood the Amendment to meet the case where the landlord had bought up the tenant right previous to the passing of the Act; and he believed, also, that the Attorney General was about to deal with the demesne lands in another clause. It therefore appeared that the only case which remained open was that mentioned by the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill).
  LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLsaid, the Government adopted such Protean forms of definition that one did not know where to catch them. A few days ago they were speaking of the interest in a tenancy as the value of the holding; and when he ventured to submit that these were two separate things, he was told that no distinction was to be drawn between the Common Law right and the tenant right of Ulster. In the case to which he now drew the attention of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland, he understood that the land would be clear of any tenant right at all. But it appeared that
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  the tenant in that case still possessed a valuable interest—that was to say, the interest recognized in the 1st clause of the Bill destroyed under its old name of tenant right, but revived under the new name of "reasonable expectation of continuance."
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)said, the proposal was to enable the tenant to contract himself out of the 1st section of the Act; but, so far as his Common Law right was concerned, it was not touched by the Bill.
  MR. WARTONsaid, he thought the words "in actual occupation," a little too strong. The landlord might possibly have some person occupying the holding for him, but not as a tenant; and, therefore, he suggested that some words should be added to the Amendment of the Attorney General for Ireland to provide for such cases.
  Amendment proposed to the said proposed Amendment,
  To leave out the word. "actual" in line 4, and insert after "thereof" in line 5, "either by himself or any other person on his behalf."—(Mr. Warton.)
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)said, that the words suggested by the hon. and learned Member for Bridport were quite unnecessary, inasmuch as any person in occupation on behalf of the landlord would be in the position of servant.
  Amendment to the said proposed Amendment negatived.
  Amendment (Mr. Attorney General for Ireland) agreed to
  LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, in the absence of the right hon. Member for North Hants (Mr. Sclater-Booth), he begged to move the Amendment standing next on the Paper in the name of that right hon. Member. The object of the Amendment was to prevent the clause applying in such a way as to violate existing leases which might be proved to be contrary to the provisions of this Bill.
  Amendment proposed, in page 12, line 3, after "any," insert "future."—(Lord John Manners.)
  Question proposed, "That the word 'future' be there inserted,"
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)drew the attention of the noble Lord opposite to an Amendment on the Paper, which would provide for the case of existing leases perhaps a little more distinctly than the Amendment just moved by him.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Amendment proposed,
  In page 12, line 4, after "contract," insert "made after the passing of this Act."—(Mr. Attorney General for Ireland.)
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed,
  In page 12, line 5, after "Act," insert "or with any of the provisions of the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act, 1870."—(Mr. Attorney General for Ireland.)
  Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
  MR. GIBSONsaid, he had understood the last Amendment of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, inasmuch as it was upon the Paper; but as it appeared he was now moving an Amendment from manuscript, he reserved to himself full liberty of considering the matter on Report. The statement that he wished to assimilate the restriction in the Act of 1870 to the restriction in this Bill was made for the first time by the right hon. and learned Gentleman that evening.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Clause, as amended, agreed to.
  Limited Owner.
  Clause 18 (Powers of limited owners).
  MR. LITTONsaid, the object of the Amendment he was about to move was to provide a larger definition of the term "limited owner" than was given in the 26th clause of the Act of 1870. According to that Act, the term "limited owner" meant any person entitled under any existing or future settlement at law or in equity, for his own benefit and for the term of his own life, to the possession or receipt of the rents and profits of land, and so on. His object was to include persons who held estates for the benefit and for the life of others.
  Amendment proposed, in page 12, line 8, after "1870," insert "and this Act."—(Mr. Litton.)
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed, in page 12, line 9, leave out "foregoing."—(Mr. Litton.)
  Question proposed, "That the word 'foregoing' stand part of the Clause."
  MR. A. M. SULLIVANsaid, he had been requested to ask the Government to enable trustees for collegiate institutions and other corporate bodies in Ireland to sell to the tenant in occupation under this Act as trustees.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)said, he hoped the Amendment would be withdrawn. The word "foregoing" was applicable only to the clauses which had been passed; it had no application to the remaining clauses of the Bill.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Amendment proposed,
  In page 12, line 11, after "Corporate," leave out "Commissioners," and insert "Public Commissioners, trustees for Charity Commissioners, or trustees for collegiate or other public purposes."—(Mr. Litton.)
  Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)said, he believed the clause as it stood had been framed to meet some special cases. Perhaps the hon. and learned Gentleman would withdraw the Amendment, and if there was no objection to the insertion of the words they could be added on Report.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  MR. GIBSONsaid, he was about to move a technical Amendment to insure that the interest of those who claimed after the life of a limited owner should be protected.
  Amendment proposed, in page 12, line 12, after "not," insert "grant a judicial lease or."—(Mr. Gibson.)
  Amendment agreed to.
  MR. VILLIERS STUARTsaid, the object of the Amendment he was about to propose was the removal of all unnecessary obstacles in the way of creating fixed tenancies. The clause relating to fixed tenancies had been unanimously approved at meetings of tenant farmers in Ireland; but it appeared to him that the usefulness of the clause would be seriously curtailed by requiring the limited owner to obtain the sanction of the Court

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  for the creation of a fixed tenancy. No doubt, the object of the provision was to protect the interest of the remainder men; but, in his opinion, that would be equally well protected by the simple giving of notice and the payment of the money into Court.
  Amendment proposed, in page 12, line 13, leave out "the sanction of," and insert "notice to."—(Mr. Villiers Stuart.)
  Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)pointed out that for the purpose of the clause the giving of a notice would not be of the smallest value.
  Amendment negatived.
  Amendment proposed,
  In page 12, line 17, at the end of the clause, add "Provided always, That the court may make any order by the said Act authorised to be made by any other court thereby empowered, with respect to the laying-out, investment, accumulation, and payment, in accordance with the provisions of the said Act, of any such fines or principal moneys paid into the bank in manner by the said Acts prescribed, and for such purpose shall have and may exercise all and the like power, authority, and jurisdiction as such other court as aforesaid."—(Mr. Gibson.)
  Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)pointed out that the 40th section of the Act gave power to the Land Commission to refer any matter to the. Land Judges of the Chancery Division of the High Court.
  MR. GIBSONsaid, as the matter was connected with the administration of the Act he would not press the Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave,withdrawn.
  Clause, as amended, agreed to.

PART V.

  ACQUISITION OF LAND BY TENANTS, RECLAMATION OF LAND, AND EMIGRATION.
  Acquisition of Land by Tenants.
  Clause 19 (Advances to tenants by commission for purchase of holdings).
  THE CHAIRMANsaid, the Amendment in the name of the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Major Nolan) was beyond the purpose of the clause, and
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  could not be considered at that place. It was a proposition of a distinct kind, and should be brought up as a separate clause.
  MAJOR NOLANsaid, he did not wish the important question relating to the purchase of land for the benefit of labourers to be put off, and if it were possible he would prefer to move the Amendment at that place.
  THE CHAIRMANsaid, he had consulted the authorities of the House, who were of opinion that the Amendment of the hon. and gallant Member was clearly inconsistent with the clause, and could not be put.
  MR. LITTONmoved, in page 12, line 30, leave out from "purchase" to "three-fourths" in line 31, and insert—
  "The whole of said principal sum, or in case the Land Commission shall be satisfied that the tenant is unable to give sufficient security for the whole of the said principal sum, then to advance to the tenant any sum not less than four-fifths."
  If the Government would yield to the unanimous feeling that seemed to be entertained in favour of an advance of four-fifths, he would ask leave not to move the earlier part of the Amendment, and would simply move that the words "four-fifths" be substituted for the words "three-fourths" in lines 30 and 31. He begged to move that those words be inserted.
  MR. BIGGARsaid, he did not know that the hon. and learned Gentleman was quite justified in leaving out the first part of the Amendment and moving only the second, because it would be seen that there were on the Paper Amendments by several hon. Members, among others one by the hon. Member for Carrickfergus (Mr. Greer), who represented a population partly urban and partly rural; and one by the noble Lord the Member for County Down (Lord Arthur Hill), who had a very large rural constituency; while there were several Conservative Members from the North of Ireland who had given Notice of Amendments; and if the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Tyrone (Mr. Litton) were altered as suggested by him it would stand in the way of the rest. He thought the hon. and learned Gentleman would do better to put the Amendment as it originally stood, and thus give to other hon. Members the opportunity of dealing with the subject.
  MR. LITTONsaid, he thought there was some force in what was said by the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar), and therefore he asked leave to withdraw the Amendment he had just moved so that he might move it in its original form.
  THE CHAIRMANsaid, he would point out that no damage would be done by leaving it as it stood, because if the Committee decided on leaving out three-fourths, and any other Amendments were made, the words could be inserted before the Committee affirmed the words "three-fourths."
  MR. BIGGARsaid, he thought the original Amendment, of which Notice was given by the hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Givan), was one that took in most of the other Amendments.
  MR. LITTON: I will ask leave of the Committee to withdraw the Amendment as just submitted, and to move the Amendment as it originally stood in the name of the hon. Member (Mr. Givan).
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Amendment proposed,
  In page 12, line 30, to leave out from the word "purchase," to the word "three-fourths," in line 31, in order to insert the words "the whole of said principal sum, or in case the Land Commission shall be satisfied that the tenant is unable to give sufficient security for the whole of the said principal sum, then to advance to the tenant any sum not less than four-fifths,"—(Mr. Litton,)
  —instead thereof.
  Question proposed, "That the words any sum not exceeding three-fourths' stand part of the Clause."
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, upon this question I think it my duty to use great plainness of speech. When I look down the page of Amendments, near the head of which appears the one which has just been moved, the consensus and spirit of harmony which appear to prevail on this particular branch of the subject among Irish Members seems to me very touching, and really goes to my heart; but I may here say that Irish Members have not, upon this particular clause, that especial authority and weight which I feel to belong to them with regard to many provisions of the Bill; for the persons who are ultimately concerned—in whatever way we may proceed in regard to the provision of the funds for these purposes—the persons
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  who must either immediately find the money, if it is to be used directly, or who must undertake the responsibility of finding the money, must necessarily be the taxpayers of the Three Kingdoms. We have a duty to discharge to them which I, above all, in respect both to this Bill and to the Office which I have the honour to hold, am bound to bear carefully in mind. Therefore, I must say that I am not prepared to accede to either of these Amendments. Her Majesty's Government have considered very carefully and very largely this subject, and they feel that they are undertaking a very great responsibility—although they have undertaken it freely, willingly, and deliberately—but still a very serious responsibility, in recommending the House to give its sanction to the very large and liberal advances proposed by the Bill. Now, Sir, I would say to my hon. and learned Friend behind me, and to other Irish Members in this House, let them consider what it is that we propose to do—let them consider what it is to advance three-fourths of the sum necessary for the purchase of land. I need not say that this is a thing totally unknown in all private transactions. No vendor of an estate will ever, under any circumstances, consent to sell to a person who leaves three-fourths of the price chargeable on the estate. It is always a great deal less than that, and if he leaves half of it charged on the estate it is a very heavy burden upon the transaction, and it is also a burden not very commonly allowed to remain. But I beg them also to consider—and this is really, in my opinion, quite the true view of the whole matter—that in this case the State is not going to deal with one party only, but with two. It has to deal with the tenant, and it has also to deal with the landlord, and these two persons, it is concluded, will be equally interested in driving on the transaction. Well, I ask what will be the position of the landlord if he is inspired with only one-hundredth part of the alarm that has entered into the minds of hon. Gentlemen opposite with regard to the effect of this Bill—and I seriously believe that that alarm has been undergoing a gradual and considerable diminution during the progress of this Bill—but supposing he is inspired with any real alarm or anxiety, and is anxious to sell his estate, what will be his position?

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  His position will be this—he will be enabled at once to propose to his tenants that they should become purchasers, and he will be able to offer to them an irresistible attraction at very small risk and cost to himself. And it is essential, in order to appreciate this proposal, to remember that in these transactions there will be, not two principal parties, but three, the State being one principal party, as supplying in some shape or another the bulk of the money, while the other two, the landlord and the tenant, are also principals. The landlord who wishes to dispose of his estate will have only one sacrifice to make. He will have three-fourths of the purchase money assured to him at once from the public funds; and what is he called upon to do? He is only called upon to say to the tenants, I will leave the remaining fourth on mortgage on the property, posterior, of course, to the mortgage to the State. And what does his security consist of? It consists of this—first of all, in the belief that the acquirement of proprietorship will stimulate the industry of the tenants; next, in the fact that the amount he is allowing to remain as a mortgage on the property is a very limited amount—an amount that many a vendor of an estate is willing to allow to remain as a charge on it; because I suppose I shall be right in saying that while it is a very common thing to allow half to remain in the purchase of landed property, it is also a very common thing to allow one-fourth to remain as a charge on the estate. But the security of the landlord is not merely in the one-fourth of his own interest in the holding; it also consists in the value of the tenant right of the land which furnishes a part of the security upon it; and there is, again, this great feature in the transaction, that the landlord has the guarantee that it will be the duty or the necessity of the State to see that the tenant fulfils his part of the bargain by reducing from year to year, from the very inception of the transaction, that portion of the incumbrance which is due to the State; so that while the original advance made by the landlord is the small advance of 25 per cent to the tenant, he makes that advance on the undeniable security of the one-fourth part of his own interest, and of the whole of the tenant's interest in the holding, and does this with the full knowledge that the tenant
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  will have every year to improve his position by lightening that portion of the incumbrance which is due to the State. Now, I want to ask whether, under these circumstances, Her Majesty's Government have not done everything they can reasonably be expected to do in a spirit of the utmost liberality for the facilitation of these transactions, if there is to be any regard to public prudence in finance? I know that there are hon. Gentlemen who think that under the provisions of this Bill the position of the tenant will be such that he will probably be satisfied with the modified proprietary interest which he will have in the land, and that the desire to acquire the absolute fee-simple which now prevails among Irish tenants will gradually die away. I cannot tell how that may be; it may be so, and it may not; but, at any rate, it is not our intention to force the tenants in that direction. We have given them, we think, very great facilities indeed; and what I wish to impress on the minds of the Irish Members is that the facility is not only as great as it appears to be on the face of the Act, but that it is really very much greater than it at first sight appears to be on account of this essential fact, the interest of the landlord, who, by the very nature of the case, is supposed to be interested in promoting the transaction by the smallness of the risk and the greatness of the inducement which he, as landlord, has to supply the only thing wanted, on allowing either the entire 25 per cent, or such portion as may be necessary, to remain as an in-cumbrance on the holding. Under these circumstances, I feel myself bound to speak plainly and decisively. As we have determined to ask Parliament to undertake these liabilities, and as we laid down in the original announcement of this plan a very important proposition relating to it, we cannot accede to any deviation from that plan in the sense of acceding to the propositions for enlarging these percentages. The announcement to which I referred just now was this—that we did not intend to ask Parliament to impose any absolute limit at the present time as to the extent of those transactions that may take place under this Bill. We wish, rather, to let them be tested by their merits, as they will be tested in the actual operations of the law. We know that Parliament cannot part with its power and responsibilities;

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  but we do not wish to fetter its freedom of action or its responsibility by asking Parliament to say—"We will allow purchasing to be done to the extent of this or of that number of millions; we would rather allow the operation of the powers under the Bill to expand in accordance with what may be the real needs and necessities of the case." Under these circumstances, I cannot but express a sanguine hope that my hon. Friend and the Members for Ireland generally will feel that Her Majesty's Government cannot divest themselves of their duties to the taxpayers of the three countries. It so happens that this question has been brought on at a moment when the opposite Benches are not very largely attended; but that circumstance is, I believe, an accident. But I am quite certain that those who usually occupy the Benches opposite—and especially those who occupy the Front Bench—will feel that they, too, have considerable responsibility resting upon them in this matter, and will not allow us—I will frankly use the expression—even if we were so disposed, to tamper rashly or wildly with the interests of the taxpayers or the Exchequer. This is not merely a question of the interests of the taxpayers, for anything like a loose disposition to bring the State into a position of proprietorship without effectual provisions for rapidly relieving it of its responsibilities would, I am sure, be strongly resisted from many quarters of this House. On the night when it was my duty to state to the House the leading provisions of this Bill, the first suggestion that occurred to the very acute mind of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition—than whom there is, undoubtedly, no person in this House or out of it who more thoroughly comprehends the finances of this country—the very first suggestion that occurred to him was one of scruple and difficulty as to our being allowed to involve the Exchequer of this country in liabilities that would be impolitic and excessive. I have made these comments at this point very much for the sake of my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Litton). I have thought it best to state my views at once, and I am sure he will not interpret my frankness as implying any disrespect; but I deemed it best that at first we should enable him clearly and distinctly to understand the conclusions we have
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  come to in respect to our duty in this matter. We have felt it our duty to hold, as evenly as we can, the balance of equity and justice in the whole of our dealings with this Bill, not only as between the several classes it will affect in Ireland, but likewise as between the several portions of the United Kingdom, and the great mass of the people. I am convinced that were we to deviate from this principle, although there may be no great indications on the face of this Paper of reluctance to enter into this pecuniary responsibility at the present moment, if we were to show a spirit of recklessness in regard to our duty as guardians of the Public Treasury, opposition would spring up in many quarters of this House, including quarters in which the best disposition towards Ireland prevails, and we should, perhaps, involve the progress of this measure, which is just now more hopeful than it has ever been, in doubt and difficulty, and possibly even in danger.
  MR. CHARLES RUSSELLwould at once say that he could not support the Amendment, which contemplated a state of things by which the whole of the purchase money might be advanced to the tenant. Everyone who had heard the statement of the Prime Minister could not but be impressed by it; but what he (Mr. C. Russell) wished to say to the Committee was in the direction of showing—though he was afraid, after what had fallen from the Prime Minister, he could hardly hope for a satisfactory result—that it would be in the interest of the State itself that if possible the limit of advance should be enlarged to four-fifths. He desired to state the grounds on which he rested this argument. He was one of those who regarded this part of the Bill as embodying to the greatest extent the principle of finality, and it was this portion that he wished to see made as wide and efficient in its provisions as the Government could allow it to be made. He would state one or two facts in support of his position. He might refer to the experience obtained in reference to the purchase of the surplus land of the Irish Church, and he would point out to the Committee that he had taken means to inform himself as to how the matter stood. Those Church lands had been sold under what he might call circumstances of considerable disadvantage to the tenants, because the

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  primary object of the Church Commission was to obtain the largest price that could be got for the land, and the giving effect to the "Bright Clauses" of the Act of 1870 was merely a subsidiary object. More than this, he knew a good deal of the land that had been brought under that system, and, as a rule, it was poor land. Notwithstanding the high price paid by the tenants, and the fact that the land they purchased was not in the main of the best kind, and that they had just passed through three successive bad years, out of the annual instalment of £110,000 payable to the Church Commissioners, he believed only about £4,000 remained in arrear. He had been informed, on what he believed to be good authority, that the borrowing, in these cases, by the tenants of the remaining fourth of the purchase money, and its repayment, had been a source of greater difficulty and expense to the tenants than the repayment of the annual instalments of the rest of the money; because the repayments due to the Commissioners bore a comparatively small interest, while the rate they had to pay for the fourth they had borrowed elsewhere was such as to be a hindrance and burden upon them which they found highly injurious. He was informed, though this was a point that he did not wish the Committee to understand he had personally inquired closely into, that in some cases the amount of interest payable on this one-fourth was as much as 20, 30, 40, and even 50 per cent. Surely this was a state of things to be avoided if possible. He recognized most fully, as the Prime Minister had pointed out, that there would be great objection to putting the State in the position of a rent-gatherer, or a tax-gathering landlord, or whatever term they might choose to apply; but the State was already, by the provisions which had been passed, necessarily in that position, and the question was how that position could best be fulfilled without loss to the State. The advances made by the State were becoming year by year gradually less, while at the same time the security held by the State was becoming year by year gradually greater. If the Committee once realized the real condition of affairs, it would be seen that the class of people in Ireland who, if he might use the phrase, aspired to be their own landlords, would, when once they had agreed to purchase their
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  holdings and made but one instalment good, go to work with a sense of security, with a vigour, and with promptings and aspirations such as they had never known before, and would struggle to the very death before they would do anything that would imperil the loss of that which it had been the greatest aim and object of their lives to acquire. He was exceedingly unwilling to discuss this point any longer than was necessary to bring fairly and fully before Her Majesty's Government the views of those who regarded it in the same light as himself; but he did most strongly feel the force of what he had just stated, and unless the Prime Minister had made up his mind resolutely and determinedly on the matter, he would respectfully ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it would not be possible, though he did not urge them to accept the Amendment and advance the whole, to accept the modified proposal that the Commission should be empowered to advance four-fifths? It was proposed to intrust to to the Commissioners very large powers, and he thought it was not too much to permit them at their discretion to advance money to the extent of four-fifths of the purchase.
  MR. DAWSONsaid, from his knowledge of Ireland, North and South, he could inform the Committee that the hearts of the people were more set upon the Proprietary Clauses than upon any efforts, however well intended, to bolster up an untenable position in which they would find themselves in an uncommercial arrangement as between landlord and tenant. He hoped the Government would strain every effort and extend the well-intentioned proposals that appeared on the face of the Bill more prominently in the clauses they were now discussing than in any other part of the measure. These, be held, were really the clauses that would lead to finality, if finality was to be achieved. He considered that the arguments used by the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister went exactly to prove the case for the Amendment, althought they were not brought forward with that view. The right hon. Gentleman had laid great stress on the security the tenants would have to offer; but every security the tenant had to offer to the landlord would also be available for the Government, and as

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  much a source of security for the Government advance as it was to the landlord, or to those persons from whom the tenant might borrow in the money market in the ordinary way. By refusing to extend the advance the Government might be forcing the tenants into the hands of those who, as had been stated by the hon. and learned Gentleman who had just sat down (Mr. C. Russell), had been charging interest at the rate of 20, 30, 40, and even 50 per cent. Was not this a strong reason why the Governmenment should concede this point, and even a stronger reason why they should concede the other fourth? The right hon. Gentleman had said the provisions of the Bill, as it stood, were so good for the landlord that he would jump at the offer of three-fourths of the purchase money down; but he (Mr. Dawson) contended that the landlord would even more readily jump at the offer of four-fourths. The whole of the purchase money could be easily advanced by the State, and the landlord would be far more ready to sell his estate if he had all the money at once than if he only got three-fourths. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Dundalk (Mr. C. Russell) had said he should not like to see the Government a rent-gathering Government; but his (Mr. Dawson's) idea was that this would be the very way to settle the question, and that instead of throwing in the face of the Irish people the magnanimous British taxpayer, there need be no money taken from the British taxpayer at all if the Government would only do as the German Government did, pay the landlord in land bonds, redeemable in 50 years or 40 years, at 5 per cent, the purchaser paying back the purchase money in the meantime, and the landlords getting 4 per cent, while the other 1 per cent would form a sinking fund to wipe out the debt. This 5 per cent was not more than the tenantry would be willing to pay, and pay cheerfully, and they could very well earn it, under the circumstances, through the industry and thrift that a sense of the rights of proprietorship would inspire in them. If this were done, the landlords would be induced to sell, as he would then be receiving not three-fourths, but four-fourths, while the passage of the Bill would be facilitated in regard to the only portions that had any real solidity.
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  He had no faith in the appeals to the Courts and the statutory conditions and complicated machinery which only made confusion worse confounded; but he had great faith in the Proprietary Clauses, and did not think it was at all beyond the feeling and scope of the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister to deal with the matter as he (Mr. Dawson) had pointed out was done in Germany. If this were done, the question would be settled without calling on the taxpayers. If it could not be done, it would be useless to obstruct a great measure like this; but he hoped the Government would see their way to advancing the other fourth.
  SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLsaid, he had observed that some difficulty was likely to be created by the Amendments from all parts of the House, and he thought they ought to be exceedingly grateful to the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister for the firm manner in which he had put his foot down. If the right hon. Gentleman were capable of being charmed by any Irish Member it would be the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk (Mr. C. Russell); but he (Sir George Campbell) was afraid that on this subject the hon. and learned Gentleman must consider that his efforts in that direction had been thrown away. They had been told that heretofore, when the Irish Church land had been purchased, and three-fourths of the money advanced by the Commissioners, the remaining fourth had frequently been borrowed at a ruinous rate of interest by the Irish tenant; but the deduction he drew from this fact was different from that drawn by his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dundalk (Mr. C. Russell). In his opinion, if the Irish tenant could not pay one-fourth of the purchase money, and was obliged to borrow it from a usurer, he had better not attempt to purchase at all. In the case of the prudent and thrifty man, who had saved up enough money to pay for one-fourth, the advance of the remaining three-fourths by the Government was a very liberal proceeding; and where the tenant had not been prudent and thrifty, and had saved nothing, the worst thing the Government could do would be to advance him three-fourths of the money with the knowledge that the remainder would be obtained from the usurer. They had heard a good deal about some of the purchases made under the Act of

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  1870 being attended with success; but he had been a good deal struck by reading the Report of the Assistant Commissioners under the Richmond Commission, who said with regard to this question of purchase under the Irish Church Act, that in the county of Armagh, one of the best counties in Ireland, in almost all cases where the tenants had not the money to meet the payment of the fourth, but had to borrow it, the operation of the Act had been unsuccessful. He hoped that this would not be general under this Bill; but he confessed he was not very sanguine on the subject, although some hon. Members seemed to be. In his opinion, what was required was that the thing should be done gradually. They ought not to have Irish tenants rushing into the arms of the Land Commission and getting three-fourths from them and the fourth part of the money from usurers. He was heartly glad that the first part of the Bill had been passed in the interest of the Irish tenants; but what he hoped to see was, that having got the advantages conferred on them by that part of the measure they would not be in too great a hurry to purchase what they had not the money to pay for, but would gradually endeavour to acquire the means by which to pay part of the purchase.
  MR. MELDONsaid, he had bestowed a good deal of consideration on this subject, and he desired to offer a few remarks upon it. He was quite ready to admit that he could be no party to asking the Committee to affirm the proposition that the State should lend money except on good security. He pointed out that the security was not the subject-matter of the sale, but the subject-matter of the sale plus the landlord's interest; and the Prime Minister had said the landlord would be perfectly safe and secure. Therefore, he assumed that four-fifths of the purchase money would be perfectly safe, and he was not asking the Government to do anything that would cause a loss to the State; but the Prime Minister's argument was that the State was doing enough in advancing three-fourths, and the landlords should advance the additional sum required. It did not matter to the tenant where he got his money so long as he got it, and if experience showed that landlords would be prepared to advance the difference the tenant would not object to the
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  Government proposal; but the experience of the past showed that the last person from whom the tenant could expect any benefit or assistance for the purchase of his land was the landlord. That was likely to be the case in the future, and the tenant would in that case have no hope of becoming the owner of his land. Then it was said that it was not desirable that pauper tenants should be encouraged to purchase their land; but the proposal of the Government would bring about that result, because if every sixpence was extracted from a tenant who had to purchase his farm, he would be without capital to carry on his business, and so the proposal would pauperize him more than any other plan. He did not say the Government ought to advance the whole of the purchase money; but he believed the Government, having the security of the landlord and of the tenant, would be safe in advancing four-fifths. That would be in accordance with the recommendation of the Select Committee which sat three Sessions ago, and of which the First Commissioner of Works (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) was the Chairman. The recommendation was approved by Members of both sides of the House, and therefore the proposal was not a new one. He believed the security to the State would be perfectly good, and that it was fair to allow tenants to become their own landlords—not as paupers, but with capital to carry on their farms. The proposal, he maintained, was just and fair and reasonable, and he believed the Irish Members would be unanimous in wishing that the recommendation of the Committee of 1878, that four-fifths of the purchase money should be advanced by the State, should be given effect to.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: I do not very precisely see why the hon. and learned Gentleman stops at four-fifths. It seems to me that his argument would rather imply that the State had better lend the whole purchase money, and I could have understood an argument founded upon that principle. I remember an old story of Mr. Sydney Smith, when he was talking with an Irish priest many years ago, when there was a question whether the Irish priests should or should not be paid by the State. The priest said—"The priests would never receive it." And Sydney Smith said—"Do you mean to say that

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  if you had £300 a-year placed to your credit in a bank in a neighbouring town you would not consent to draw it?" The priest replied—"Oh! Mr. Smith, you have such a way of putting it." With regard to these advances to tenants it is such a way of putting it. It might be said to a tenant—"Would not you like to purchase your holding?" And he would say—"Yes; but I have not got the money." "Oh, but we will lend it—the State will advance it." And the man, at the request of the State, borrows the State's money—the State is very indulgent to men who are not only able to pay, but men who are not willing to pay—to make purchase on those very easy terms. I am one of those who are by no means sanguine as to the result of a wholesale purchase of land by the tenants. I believe entirely in what is called tenant proprietorship if it arises in this way. If a man by his own industry and by his own prudence has contrived to save a little money, and desires to invest that money in the purchase of land on which he lives, I have little doubt if he is able to get the money he requires on reasonable terms, it will be a good thing for him and for the country. The man then would bring his industry, his knowledge, and his moral qualities—power of self-denial, and all those qualities which the farmer has in countries where peasant proprietorship has grown up by natural causes—to bear on his holding. In that case it would be very beneficial. But where you tempt a man to come in and offer to purchase with very little trouble on his part, and everything is advanced by the State, I am not very sanguine on the subject. But I am quite ready to fall in with the proposals of the Government to give additional facilities beyond those at present given to the tenants to become the owners of their properties. I think at present the State advances two-thirds. It was proposed to increase it to three-fourths, and that is a considerable advance. I am not indisposed to agree to that proposal. I think more advantage is to be gained from somewhat relaxing the somewhat minute rules under which the advance is made. I look more to that than to the sum advanced. But while I am prepared to go as far as three-fourths, we ought to think a great many times before we go beyond that; and if we were prepared to go beyond,
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  we might just as well go the whole length and advance the whole. It is said a tenant may borrow the additional one-fourth. He might do so; and where he borrows at a high rate of interest it is probable the arrangement would turn out a bad one for him, and he would be a loser. I am afraid we cannot help that, and that would be the case with any man who borrowed recklessly; but the man would have saved a certain amount of money, and would be prepared to invest that with a certain proportion from the State in the purchase of his holding. I think you may fairly suppose that a considerable proportion of those who would make purchases would purchase with money which they have of their own, or may be able to borrow from their landlords or from members of their family on reasonable terms, or in some other way. But if they are prepared, after all the excellent arrangements made for them to go on with their holdings in this Bill, to make sacrifices in order to become owners of land and have not the wisdom to refuse to borrow money at 10, 15, or 20 per cent, I am afraid they are people with whom you will not do much good. I think, on the whole, the Government are making a very liberal proposal; but I am restrained by my financial conscience from going the length of three-fourths, and I shall be very sorry if the Government were induced to give more than that.
  MR. A. MOOREsaid, he thought if more Members had been present earlier during the discussion their unanimity on this subject would have been better seen. With regard to the cases under the Church Act to which the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk (Mr. C. Russell) had referred, the tenants in hose cases were only about 10 per cent in arrear; while those who purchased under the Land Act were a trifle over 6 per cent in arrear. Those who bought under the Church Act bought land which was not very productive, which had been highly-rented, and which was dearly bought in years of commercial depression; but, in spite of those difficulties, they managed to pay their debts with only 10 per cent in arrear. He thought there were very few landlords in Ireland or in England who could point to the same result during the last few years. They were giving the ten-

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  ants an additional interest in their holdings, and that would mean an additional security to the State. When the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Bright) introduced his clauses in the Act of 1870 it was thought that a social revolution would take place, and that a great number of tenants would avail themselves of those clauses; but during 10 years hardly £500,000 had really been spent in that way. That was, no doubt, owing in a great measure to the difficulties thrown in their way by the Treasury officials; and, through the prices being based on valuation, instead of getting two-thirds of the whole, they only got about one-half. If the Committee were anxious to increase the number of owners, and, at the same time, to guard them from excessive liabilities, why should they not fix the sum which they would spend annually? They might say how much they would advance in a year on good security, and then leave the Land Commission a wide discretion in the distribution of the money, not limiting every advance to two-thirds or three-fourths, but allowing them, in some cases, to advance a larger proportion.
  MR. GREERsaid, the Amendment appeared to cover an Amendment of his own in favour of advancing the entire sum. It would be optional with the Commission to advance the money or not, and they would not do so unless they were satisfied with the security. Therefore, the Government would be quite safe in advancing the whole amount. Still, he would be content with four-fifths; and he thought the Government might very well consider that it would be an immense advantage to many tenants to get the whole of the money in that way, and at a lower rate of interest than they otherwise could by borrowing from ordinary money-lenders.
  MR. MITCHELL HENRYconfessed that he felt rather ashamed to take part in this discussion, which he thought was not very creditable to the Irish Members. The difference between three-fourths and four-fifths was not very large, and those who advocated four-fifths as though the whole interest of the tenants was bound up in this question were supposed to be the friends of the tenant; but, by-and-bye, the tenants would understand what it all meant. The Government proposed to
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  advance £75 out of every £100; and yet, with a boon of this kind, such as had never been offered in the history of this country to any class of people engaged in agricultural or commercial pursuits, hon. Members were disputing whether the State should advance £5 more in every £100. That was the sole question. Hon. Gentlemen had argued in favour of the whole amount being advanced, and the discussion had been upon the question whether the Government should advance £5 more than the £75 they conceded. Why should they not argue whether the Government should advance five-sixths and give £83 out of every £100? And, of course, anybody who advocated five-sixths would be a greater friend to the tenant than the man who advocated £75 or £80. The Purchase Clauses determined that, as a general rule, a sum not exceeding £3,000 should be advanced by the State. This £5 took £150 out of that £3,000. He wanted to know whether, when a country composed of England, Scotland, and Ireland was to be burdened with this provision, a man to whom £3,000 was to be advanced could consider it a hardship if he was expected to find £150 himself? The thing did not bear arguing. The fact was, the Irish Members ought to be most grateful to the Government for proposing to advance three-fourths, and they ought not to disgrace themselves by looking a gift-horse in the mouth. It was perfectly true that what were called the "Bright Clauses" had not had as large an operation as the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. John Bright) and others wished; but under the present Bill the tenants would be placed in a totally different position. The Committee appointed to investigate the working of those clauses recommended four-fifths instead of three-fourths; but that was under a totally different law to that now proposed. His belief was that the Irish tenants would find it to their advantage to put the Purchase Clauses in this Bill very much in operation. They would be so protected by this Bill that they would prefer to keep £25 out of every £100 in their pockets for working the farm. Then what would this Bill do? Any particular tenant on an estate might agree with his landlord for the purchase of his particular tenancy. In the case of a holding, at £10 a-year, the State would advance three-fourths of

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  that a-year and fix the amount of purchase money on the basis of 22 years. What was to prevent a landlord from being willing to take this money on the bond of the tenant to pay the remainder? A landlord was not bound to find the tenant the money; but he would be content to rest the repayment of that which was not fully paid by the State on the future of the tenant, and he would have three times the security which the State would have. Under the circumstances, he could only conclude that the reason why, when this matter was being discussed, there was so empty a House and so many of the Irish Members were absent, and when the argument for an advance of four-fifths was urged with so much feeling, was because everybody felt that this was no light thing. It was not a true thing, it was not a creditable thing; and he would take part in any division as to the question whether £5 more per £100 was to be advanced to the Irish tenant.
  MR. BIGGARsaid, he thought one part of the hon. Member's (Mr. Mitchell Henry's) speech contradicted the other; for first he said a great boon was being given to the tenants, and then he said the tenants would make very little use of it. That simply showed that the argument was more or less not exceedingly logical; but he thought the position of the great bulk of the Irish Members was not so untenable as the hon. Member thought. The Government had proposed that facilities should be given for creating a peasant proprietary; but he was afraid that if more liberality was not shown the result would be rather inoperative. If, however, the clause was made more liberal, it would be a great advantage to the tenants and no disadvantage to the landlords, and no loss to the State. It was proposed by the Amendment that the Commissioners should have the power to advance up to the full amount which was paid to the landlord; but that did not represent the full value of the holding, because it took no note of the interest of the tenant over and above the interest of the landlord. And so far from its being proposed by the extreme advocates of this Amendment to lend the whole value of the holding, it was only proposed to advance four-fifths of the value. And while under this Bill it was proposed to lend three-fourths by the State, under the Act of
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  1870 only two-thirds were advanced; and he held that the State would have immeasurably better value for the three-fourths under this Bill than they had for the two-thirds under the Act of 1870, because the tenant had a saleable interest over and above what the landlord would get for his interest in the holding. Then as to the security the landlord would get if he gave credit for one-fourth, the Prime Minister seemed to forget that the landlord would be only a secondary mortgagee. But if the security was so good for the landlord, would it not be as good for the State, seeing that the State would be in the position of sole mortgagee, and could sell out the holding, while a secondary mortgagee had usually great difficulty in realizing his security? He therefore thought the Government would not be very far wrong in agreeing to the Amendment, leaving the Court to decide whether there was adequate security.
  MR. SHAWentirely agreed with the hon. Member (Mr. Biggar) that, in lending the whole amount, the Government would have perfect security in nine cases out of ten, for they would not only have the fee-simple on the property, but the security of the mortgage. But the people of Ireland were choosers in the matter, and the State seemed to have put down its foot, and he feared they could not get the two distinguished Financiers on the two sides to yield more. He did not think it was a matter of great importance, because he hoped the operation of the present Bill and the operations of the Act of 1870 would be very different. The Act of 1870 failed because the clauses were thrown almost entirely into the hands of the Board of Works, and that was the merest echo of what was called the Treasury in London. The Board laid down such restrictions and rules that any extensive operation was impossible; and what he complained of now was, not so much that only three-fourths were offered, but that there was no elasticity in this clause, and some discretionary power left to the Court to advance a larger amount than that named. He had, in many cases, aided tenants to purchase their holdings—not only the fee-simple, but also long leases—and he had known of cases where it would have been impossible for the tenant to advance one-fourth of the money without injury.

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  The object of the lender should be to leave the farmer with full power of manufacture; but in a case where the State was entering upon an operation which might extend over the whole of Ireland, it was, perhaps, too much to ask for more than three-fourths. He would, however, press the Government to give the Court some power of varying the amount. He did not expect there would be a rush all over Ireland into the system. He hoped the result would take the direction indicated by the Leader of the Opposition; for if people were tempted by any extravagant amount of money to enter into the system, that might do them more harm than good. He would rather stimulate them to exercise this privilege, and give the Court an optional power in cases where they saw honest, industrious men, who had created property on their farms anxious to purchase. He did not urge that the whole amount should be given; but he thought more than three-fourths might be given. That very day an Irish landlord had told him he was going to sell some outlying portions of his property, and that in every case the tenant provided half the amount, and for the remainder he had arranged to take the tenant's bond. That, he was sure, would be sufficient security for any landlord where a tenant was found to be industrious. He thought the people of Ireland ought to try to do something for themselves. There was a great deal of farmers' money lying in the banks. He did not wish to see that money going to the banks; for if the industry of the country could be stimulated, the farmer, although he might lose his capital for the moment, would get it back in a short time with ten-fold interest. Something might be done in this way by forming tenants' trust funds; and he should not be surprised if the Prime Minister were to give them £200,000 or £300,000 out of the Church Surplus Fund for that purpose. If they could create such a fund in every district in Ireland, tenants would be able to provide one-fourth of the purchase money. He hoped the hon. and learned Member would withdraw his Amendment, for he did not think any good could be done by going to a division upon it.
  SIR HERVEY BRUCEsaid, that from the landlord's point of view, he
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  should like to make the clause work more practically than it would in its present form; and he could not agree with the roseate hue the Prime Minister had given to the position of the landlords under this Bill. He should be only too glad to get rid of the property he had in Ireland when the Bill became law; and he should be glad to see greater facilities given to the landlord to do that, for he was certain no capitalist in Ireland or England would, at the present moment, invest money in land in Ireland. The only persons landlords would now have to look to to purchase their land would be their tenants, and he was anxious to see every facility given to the tenants to become peasant proprietors. He believed the tenants would be better off under this Bill if they were not all proprietors; but, as far as he was concerned, he was quite willing they should become so. He should, therefore, vote for the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Tyrone in preference to that of the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk (Mr. Charles Russell), because they need not stop at four-fifths. The Prime Minister had suggested that the landlords might allow 25 per cent of the purchase money to lie on the property. He agreed that if a landlord gave a mortgage on the property he might be able to obtain the interest for his advances as a mortgagee. But, as a landlord, how could he get his money? He would simply be a landlord with three-fourths of his property gone, and only one-fourth left for himself. He did not think the Prime Minister would like to be a landlord in Ireland looking for 25 per cent from the tenant after the Government had got their 75 per cent. The hon. Member for the County of Cork (Mr. Shaw) had alluded to bills. But were the Irish landlords to become bill-brokers for 25 per cent which would practically be rent? The hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir George Campbell) had suggested a gradual way of dealing with the tenants; but what would that be? The men who were able to buy their holdings were the most solvent tenants and the most necessary for the landlords; but the plan of the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy was that they should become owners, and the landlord should be left with all the small tenants. He hoped the Government, having strained many

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  points to do what they considered right for the tenants, would strain another point to enable the tenants to become proprietors of their own holdings.
  MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, that as Chairman of the Select Committee which recommended that four-fifths of the purchase money should be advanced to tenants, he was most anxious to disclaim any responsibility for that proposal. In the Report he presented, he proposed no more than three-fourths. For his part, he thought the advance of three-fourths of the money reasonable and sufficient. If a larger proportion than that were advanced they would be approaching very nearly the amount of the previous rent. By this Bill, they were not only increasing the proportion to be advanced from two-thirds to three-fourths, but they were also removing the former restrictions upon these transactions, and particularly the restriction in regard to mortgages. He was confident that the removal of the latter restriction would do more to facilitate these transactions in the future, even than the raising of the proportion of the purchase money to be advanced. If they departed from the proposal of three-fourths and went to four-fifths, they might as well advance the whole of the money. There were very strong arguments to be urged against that. It would, indeed, be possible to advance the whole of the purchase money by spreading the instalments over 43 years; but if a great number of such transactions were to take place there would arise in Ireland a universal agitation on the part of all the other tenants to be put in that favourable position. Such an enactment would inevitably give rise to an agitation for the expropriation of landlords. He was against the expropriation of landlords, and it would be most unwise to put a large number of tenants in Ireland in a position which would give other tenants a cause to complain. For these reasons, he agreed that it would be unwise to raise the proportion to be advanced by the State beyond three-fourths. He believed the Government had gone to the extreme limit of what was just and reasonable in the matter, and that the Committee should accept the proportion named in the clause.
  MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHYsaid, the argument of the right hon. Gentleman as to some tenants seeing their neighbours
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  better treated than themselves was not one which appealed to his judgment as against the Amendment. What the Irish Members wanted was to see tenants treated in such a way as to make their neighbours anxious to be equally well treated. As to the difficulty of the Court advancing a large proportion of the money in every case, there was nothing in the Bill to suggest that the Court should be compelled to advance four-fifths, or three-fourths, or even one-tenth. The clause only provided that they might advance a certain proportion when they were satisfied with the security; and he believed it would be better to allow the Court to go the whole length of the purchase money where they thought it well. His own impression was that a great many of those who would make applications under this Bill would seek to get as little as possible from the Court—to get just as much as would enable them to tide over a difficulty; but in other cases it would be an advantage to all the Court to advance even the whole amount. This part of the Bill had for him an especial attraction. He believed there would be found great practical difficulty in adjusting all the niceties of arrangements about ownership, joint-ownership, landlords' and tenants' share and interests, and all those intricate and delicate questions which must arise under the first portions of the Bill. He did not feel the same doubts about this part of the measure as about the earlier parts, and therefore he urged the Government to accept the Amendment—although he would rather see it pushed further still, leaving the Court a discretionary power to advance the whole amount. The hon. Member for Cork County (Mr. Shaw) said it was no use discussing this question because the Government had put its foot down; but he was not greatly alarmed by that announcement, for they had had some experience of that performance with this and other Governments. They had seen statesmen put their foot down quickly, and as quickly take it up; and, furthermore, a Government which put its foot down and kept it down would naturally not make very much progress with any measure it undertook. But he would credit the Government with being willing to take its foot up if, by so doing, the progress of this Bill would be pro-

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  moted. Therefore, he urged hon. Members to bring as much pressure as possible to bear on the Government to go as far as it could towards agreeing to allow a four-fifths' advance. There was no principle whatever involved in this question; for when once they granted any part of the purchase money they could not say there was any hard-and-fast line between three-fourths and four-fifths. It was all a matter of convenience for that peasant class whom they wanted to help to become proprietors; and he supported the Amendment because he thought it better than the proposal of the Government.
  MR. LITTONsaid, it appeared to him that, having regard to what seemed to be the feeling of the majority of hon. Members, it would not be wise to press the Amendment to a division or to occupy further time in discussing it. In this view he was influenced by the observations of the hon. Member for the County of Cork (Mr. Shaw), and also by the generous and considerate and handsome manner in which the Prime Minister had spoken of the Amendment. He was also influenced by the anxiety which prevailed to make progress with the Bill; and, therefore, he would ask permission to withdraw his Amendment.
  MR. DALYpointed out that if in the case of a £10 holding for 22 years, the State only advanced £165, leaving the tenant to find the remaining £55, the tenant would have to pay 8s. 4d. more per annum than if the larger sum proposed were advanced, and for the disadvantage of paying that extra amount, the tenant would have £5 more in his pocket for the purchase of seed. He held that, in the interest of the Government, it would be better to advance four-fifths, and that they would have better security than on three-fourths. In the case of a small tenant the £55 deficit, if only £165 were advanced, would have to be obtained from the "gombeen" man, and would be liable to such interest as to cost nearly as much as the interest on the £165 advanced by the Government. If they applied the Bill to the poor tenants, the more generously they did so the greater would be the security for the advances. The Jews had been expelled from Russia through being driven into the position into which the Government would drive the Irish tenants if they compelled
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  them to borrow on the principle of mortgages. Four-fifths was only 5 per cent advance on the sum proposed by the Government; and he trusted the Government, having made a proposal which he recognized as large and generous, would give to those who had so long been under English misrule and injustice this additional benefit.
  MR. ILLINGWORTHremarked that nothing was more wonderful than the unanimity which had been shown by Irish Members upon this question, and he would purchase at a great sacrifice such a marvellous unanimity on any great Irish question. If this were not a comprehensive Bill and did not contain extraordinary provisions in the interest of tenants who might not be able to buy their farms, an appeal might be made for a lavish advance. When there was, however, this alternative proposal by which, when the Bill was passed, tenants who were without spare capital would find themselves in a good position, he thought a substantial boon had been offered to them by the British House of Parliament. Those tenants might be advised to be content for the present to remain tenants, hoping in the future, by their own prudence and thrift, to become owners of their holdings. But how did the matter stand when the State interfered? Ought the State to run any risk in advancing the purchase money? He unhesitatingly said the State ought not to run the slightest risk. If the money was to be given, let it be a gift; but if it was to be a prudent financial operation, for which the State was to be liable and to assume the position of a lender, then he thought an advance of three-fourths was as much as the Government should be asked to give. The State was to advance the money at a low rate of interest, and that implied that there ought to be no risk to the State. With regard to the argument of the hon. Member for the County of Cork (Mr. Shaw) a landlord could discriminate as to the tenant, and it might be said that the landlord could exercise a wise discrimination. But how could the Commissioners possess such an intimate knowledge of the character of the men as to make it safe to give them the power proposed? Supposing there were many cases in which the tenant could not provide one-fourth, if he could raise one-eighth that would be a deposit which to many landlords

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  would be satisfactory, and would justify them in giving a tenant an opportunity of obtaining the remainder. He should be very sorry if the Government were pressed to go beyond their fair and reasonable offer.
  MR. FITZPATRICKsaid, he thought the fact of so much unanimity amongst the Irish Members ought to induce the Government to accept the Amendment at once. There was an old story that if one Irishman was going up a ladder there were generally two Irishmen trying to pull him down. In this case it was apparently the other way. All the Irishmen in the House were trying to help the tenant up the ladder, and therefore he thought the Government might accept the proposition. A good deal had been said about "gombeen" men, and that was all very fair; but there was another element which was equally dangerous, and that was the advancing of the excess quarter by the banks. At the present time the banks charged an enormous rate of interest; and although he agreed with the hon. Member for the County of Cork that as a financial arrangement that might be suitable to the banks, still the unfortunate tenant might get himself into hot water if he was not able to redeem at the right moment. He had reason to believe that in the year before last 22,000 processes were issued in Munster alone by the banks to recover rents; and he believed the distress in Ireland during the last two years was in many instances due more to the extreme action of the banks than to the action of the landlords. For that reason alone he thought the Government ought to be glad to keep the tenants as its debtors, and not to let them become the debtors of banks and "gombeen" men. He hoped the Government would give way a little on this point, and help the Committee to be unanimous for that night at any rate.
  MR. JOHN BRIGHT: The speech of the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Fitzpatrick) has afforded the Committee a good deal of amusement. He remarked upon the fact that the Irish Members were unanimous on this occasion. I think it is quite correct to say so, because it is quite evident that a rather more reasonable view is taken on this side of the House by the Irish Members than by some hon. Gentlemen on that side. But still that unanimity is of a kind which may be
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  always purchased by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and I do not say that with regard to Irishmen only—but there is a mode of pleasing people all round by sacrificing the public interest. Now, in this case, as I understand, a part of the Amendment proposed is almost universally given up. I think no sensible man, notwithstanding the speech of the hon. Member for Longford (Mr. Justin M'Carthy), would really wish that the Government should undertake to pay the whole sum, and bring all the tenants in Ireland instantaneously into the field to demand that they should be made proprietors. I suppose at present landed proprietors of Ireland are in despair, and that they will be as ignorant in the future as they have been ignorant in the past. The Irish proprietors, if we are to judge from the speeches we have heard to-night, would be as anxious to sell as the tenants would be anxious to buy if the Government would step in and pay the whole of the purchase money. I should be very sorry to see anything so sudden and so extravagant as that undertaking. I believe nothing could be more dangerous—nothing could set a worse example for the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer of this country—and I suspect it would be bad also for those whom hon. Gentlemen opposite serve. Let us look at the condition of things with regard to the price of land in Ireland now, and to the price of the produce of the soil. I do not know how far the hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. Blake) is correct; but, as most of us are aware, he has travelled extensively in Canada and the United States since last Session. He has written letters to the papers, published a pamphlet, and set forth a very formidable statement as to the probable reduction in the price of the product of the soil of Ireland in the next five or six years. My impression is that he has very much overstated the case. If there be anything like reason or truth in it, it may be that within the next five or six years, if you had 100,000 tenants made into proprietors at anything like the present prices for land, or sale, or rent, you may have a vast number of them coming back to the Government and saying—"You have led us into the expensive purchase of our farms at prices which were fixed looking to the past, and with little or no knowledge of the future;"

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  and the Government might be involved in the greatest possible anxiety if this state of things, predicted by the hon. Member, should be true. Therefore, I believe—and no one in this House will doubt my anxiety—that this clause should act, that this Bill throughout should act, and that this clause especially should act in the direction I have pointed out on so many occasions. But, with that feeling, I am the more anxious the purchase of farms should go on, not with extraordinary and perilous rapidity, but with steady growth and action springing from the experience we have from year to year that the purchase and sale of land and the creation of a proprietary class is found to be an increasing advantage to the country. Now, my hon. Friend the Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) pointed out what is on the surface of this question—that the difference between hon. Gentlemen from Ireland and the Government is a difference of merely £5 in the £100. The Government propose to give £75; Irish Members ask for £80. The sum is so small that, on either side, a person might be at liberty to say it is hardly worth differing about; that probably the £80 would be no loss to the Government. I do not say that it would be; but it must be admitted that £75 is a very large and liberal offer. It must not be forgotten that the proportion under the Act of 1870 was only two-thirds, and yet we have never heard, and I do not believe it to be true, that any sensible portion of the failure of that Act is to be traced to the fact that only two-thirds was to be paid; while under the Irish Church Commission the proportion advanced was three-fourths, as proposed in this Bill, and I have never heard it asserted by anyone intimately acquainted with the transactions under that Commission that it has not succeeded because the advance was only three-fourths. If that be so, I think Irish Members may comfort themselves with this knowledge which they derived from the experience of the past, that three-fourths is better than the sum offered under the Act of 1870, and equal to that which was offered under the Church Commission. It is equal to everything you have had under the experiments in this matter, and in no case can it be said to have failed. Therefore, I think the wise course to take would be to ac-
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  cept the proposition which the Government now make, and which the Head of the Government has, with such unanswerable arguments to-night, defended; and I know no man—the House knows no man—in the confines of the country who is to be more trusted on a great financial question than my right hon. Friend. After the discussion which has taken place, I presume, from what has been said, that hon. Gentlemen opposite will have a division, and that the Amendment will not be withdrawn. I wish it might be, and that not only Englishmen but Irishmen could be unanimous. I am most anxious for the success of these clauses, believing that they will be in the future—and not only in the immediate future, but in the distant future—as important as the other portions of the Bill. If I thought £80 would be better, or sensibly better, than £75, I would recommend it; but I believe £75 is a just and sufficient proposition and meets the requirements of the case, and is consistent with a regard for what is due to the Exchequer, and I therefore ask the Committee strongly to assent to the proposition as it stands.
  MR. GIVANsaid, he was exceedingly glad that the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Gladstone) had adopted the course of explicit argument in this matter, because there was no man in the world at the present time to whom all sensible Irishmen would submit so readily than to the right hon. Gentleman who, by the Act of 1870, had done more to ameliorate the condition of the people of Ireland than any living statesman. He was supported in that view by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Bright), to whom the people of Ireland also owed a debt of gratitude; but he must press on the Committee that there was a necessity for extending the amount to be advanced to the tenants. This difference of £5 was a matter of vital importance to the Irish tenant; and he contended that in the case, for instance, of a holding at £20 rent, with a fee-simple value of £400 and a tenant right of £300, the Government, advancing £300, would have an ample margin of security. In the case of the Irish Church Act the Commissioners knew now that they would have been better off if they had advanced the tenants the whole of the purchase money rather than a propor-

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  tion which sent them to the money-lenders for the balance. He believed the only system that would work would be a system of advancing either the whole amount, or such proportion of it as the Land Commissioners were convinced the tenant could give security for. In the Probate Court, where administration was granted, the Court took a bond of personal security to the extent of several thousands of pounds from two or three individuals, and the Land Commissioners might adopt a similar plan.
  MR. CHARLES RUSSELLsaid, he rose for the purpose of expressing the hope that hon. Members opposite would allow the Amendment to be withdrawn. He should not vote for it, and he wished to point out why he should not. He recognized the force of the arguments used by the Prime Minister against the advance of the whole sum, because he held that the Government proposal was a boon which ought to be held out to thrifty tenants who had given good guarantee by their conduct for the repayment of the money. He further objected to the Amendment because it did not leave any discretion to the Commission to advance up to four-fifths, but made it compulsory on them to advance a minimum of four-fifths. On these two grounds he should certainly not vote in favour of it. If the Amendment were not pressed he should certainly, without discussion, ask the Committee to take a division upon an Amendment which stood in his name later on, and which gave a discretion to the Commission as to the amount they might advance up to four-fifths.
  MR. PARNELL: If I saw any disposition on the part of the Government to agree to the proposal of four-fifths, I should say that there might be some reason for the suggestion of the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk (Mr. C. Russell), because we should be gaining something by the discussion we have had to-night. But so far as there is any principle involved in the question which might and ought to induce us to take a division, although we know we cannot carry our Amendment, it appears to me involved in the question of advancing the whole as compared with advancing only a small portion. I cannot see that there is much principle involved in the question of whether the State shall advance £75 or £80, and so far I quite
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  agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Bright). If, however, we could gain the concession of that additional advantage for the tenants, they would only have to pay £20 in the £100 instead of £25. In that case, as we should be gaining a substantial advantage, we might waive the right of taking a division on the question of principle. But I have seen no indication from the Government Bench of that concession, and, failing such an indication, I do not think we should be justified in allowing the Amendment to be withdrawn. Now, it appears to me that this question has been treated very much as if some pull was going to be made upon the British taxpayer and the British Exchequer. But that is really not so. All we ask is this—that having deprived us of the right, by the Act of Union of pledging our own credit, you will allow us to use your credit to this extent. If we had the right to pledge the credit of the counties in Ireland for this purpose, I am quite sure that we could borrow the money at very little over the rate at which the State seems disposed to lend this money, for which I think something like 3½ per cent is charged. I feel quite sure that any public body in Ireland authorized to borrow money for this purpose could borrow it at 3½ per cent per annum. So, it is not really a question of asking any money from the English whatever. We want no money from the taxpayer. We merely desire the right of pledging our own credit as regards our own land; and, as you refuse us that right, we think it only reasonable that you should pledge your own credit for us. Now, this matter might be effected in a great variety of ways. There is no reason why the landlords should receive cash for their property. Why not give them State paper? Offer them State paper bearing 3 per cent per annum interest, and let them make the best they can out of the transaction. The landlord selling his property would be perfectly willing to take State paper which would fetch par at the present rates of money on the London Stock Exchange. Therefore, no cash is actually required from the State. It is simply a question of the way in which the money is to be advanced, and the landlords have no right to ask that the State should give them cash if the State

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  offers them paper. Well, now, what I would the security be? You have the security in this case of the landlord's interest at a time when land is very much depreciated in the Irish market, and you have the tenant's interest. You have these two interests as security for the repayment of the money. It has been pointed out that every year that goes by will give the tenant an additional interest in his holding, and consequently will give the State a greater security for the punctual repayment of the loan. I fear very much, from the stand which the Government have made upon the question, that they intend to make the fixing of rent the main portion of their Bill, and that they do not propose to follow the lines indicated by the noble Lord the Secretary of State for India when he said that the Government only proposed the rent-fixing clause as a present expedient, and that they looked for the permanent settlement of the question to the creation of a greater number of owners of land in Ireland. It appears evident that the Prime Minister has a prejudice against allowing a large number of Irish tenants to become debtors to the State to any large extent. He may fear that hereafter some movement may be commenced for the purpose of repudiating their debts; but I would remind the Committee that there is a very great difference between repudiating a debt which has been entered into entirely of their own accord on the part of the tenants and repudiating unjust rents which they have been forced by the circumstances of the case to undertake to pay, whether they could or not, to the landlord. I quite agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster that it is not desirable, in view of foreign competition, that a very large amount of land in Ireland should be bought by the tenants at the present moment, and I do not think that the Irish tenants would have any disposition to plunge into such transactions with that hot haste which the right hon. Gentleman has assumed that they would exhibit in the event of their being able to obtain an advance of the whole of the purchase money from the State. I think the Irish tenants world be very cautious about undertaking to buy holdings at the present moment, even at no very high figure, or at any figure, which
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  they would be still liable to pay, no matter what the depreciation of produce might come to in consequence of foreign competition. But, after all, the Government are inviting tenants with the utmost confidence to enter into a 15 years' statutory term at a fixed rent; and it is, after all, only a question of degree, whether you shall enter into a 15 years' statutory term at a fixed rent, or whether you shall enter into the ownership which should be paid off by paying a fixed rent for a period of 35 years. In the one case the tenant would in all probability, at the end of the 35 years, have doubled the value of the holding by the improvements he would have been able to effect on it, owing to the security he would feel from his ownership; in the other case he would feel that he had a very uncertain future, and would leave the holding at the end of the term in no better condition than it was at the commencement. So that, from every point of view, I think the argument is overwhelmingly against the Government in refusing this very small concession to the Irish tenants and also to the Irish landlords. Now, how would it act in the case of estates in the hands of trustees? The Prime Minister invites the Irish Members to allow the remaining fourth of the £100 to stand out as a second charge. But in the case of lands in the hands of trustees they would not be permitted, if they held a first charge, to take a second charge; and it might be their duty either to insist upon the payment of the whole sum, or else to refuse their assent to any portion of it being allowed to stand out as a second charge. In fact, no trustee under the circumstances would be able to assent to the arrangement, because he would be violating his trust, and taking a responsibility on himself which no trustee could be called upon to take. Then, again, the landlord, if he sells his estate, may wish to go elsewhere. His remaining interest in it—namely, the collection of the interest and purchase money—would be very small, and it would be an exceedingly expensive matter to keep an agent and bailiffs on the spot for the purpose of collecting these annual payments. The State, on the other hand, would have their legal tax-gatherers and all the other machinery, so that they would have an inexpensive means of collecting the charge which would come

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  in their way to make the annual charge much more cheaply than in the way of the landlords. I fear that what the Government are really driving at is this—They do not like to trust the Irish people. They like to keep the Irish landlords as a buffer between themselves and the tenants. In no self-governing country would such a miserable concession as this have been refused. We have the example of Prussia, where the State advanced the whole of the money necessary for compensating the nobles. We have the example of Russia, a country very much poorer than England, where the State advanced the whole of the money to emancipate the serfs and to compensate the nobles. We have the example of Prince Edward's Island, one of our own Colonies, where the owners and landlords had been planted in times gone by by the English Legislature, and where the State advanced the whole of the money for the purpose of buying out these English landlords who had been planted in the Island when it was found that the conditions of their landlordship had become intolerable. It is only in the case of a country like England governing another country like Ireland that we see this want of confidence, and this refusal to allow the people to come into contact with the Government. It is one of the misfortunes of foreign rule—one we meet at every turn. The method of reconciling the respective interests of the landlord and tenant is a question still to be answered by the Prime Minister. It will pursue you to the end of this Bill; and if anything causes the failure of this Bill, it will be that want of trust of the Irish people which is so evident, and that desire to introduce a foreign and small class between the great bulk of the people of Ireland and the Government of England.
  MAJOR NOLANsaid, that the Committee upon the "Bright Clauses" of the Land Act on which he sat was almost unanimously of opinion that four-fifths of the price might be safely advanced. The arguments used that evening by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Bright) and by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Reading (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) would, perhaps, be unanswerable, if it were not that the best way to answer them would be by referring to the meetings of that Committee. The
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  right hon. Gentleman the Member for Reading had taught the Committee how safe it would be to trust the Irish. He had said that there was no chance of the tenant failing to pay, because there were no less than three different sources of rent. In the first place, there would have been some payments by the tenant on his improvements. Then there was the goodwill; and no one used to point out so strongly to the Committee as the right hon. Gentleman what the importance of that goodwill was, and what a great difference there was between land in occupation and land not in occupation in Ireland. Of course, the right hon. Gentleman was now representing the Government after having been so largely representing the Committee; but he did not think the right hon. Gentleman was nearly so strong in opposing Irish interests as he had been in advocating Irish interests; and he thought they still owed a balance of gratitude to the right hon. Gentleman. Now, he looked upon that question as one of the utmost importance, and for two reasons. The first was the consideration of the property element, as a man would naturally work harder on his own property than he would on anyone else's. The second was the political situation. That Land Bill would still leave 30 tenants to one landlord; and he thought anyone who knew anything about the question would say that those 30 tenants, supposing household suffrage was conceded, would always be striking against the landlord's interest. They were obliged to face that situation in Ireland. Of course, anything established by centuries of usage and property must be respected. But a great debt was owing by England to Ireland. For 100 years England had prevented the free sale of land. They had placed the property of the country in a few hands, and maybe they had placed the political power in the hands of the many, and consequently they had the many arrayed against the few. Whatever Land Bill they brought in, they would still have agitation between landlord and tenant. The only way to prevent that was by increasing the number of tenants. The present disproportion between landlords and tenants was too great; and he contended that the whole object of the Government ought to be to see how they could increase the number of small proprietors in Ireland.

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  Now, the difference between four-fifths and three-fourths would bring, at least, purchasers in the proportion of five to four, and perhaps much more. He believed that it was a well-known fact that if they sold an article for 1s. instead of 2s., they sold a double number of them. If they raised the advance, he believed the purchasers would be increased likewise in the proportion of three to two. He entirely repudiated, though on different grounds from the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), the idea that the Irish people would come to beg for English money. His reason was that every year about £3,000,000 of Irish money went into the English Exchequer, and were devoted to Imperial purposes that were almost totally disconnected with Ireland. The maximum sum that they could pledge would be nothing like what Ireland sent to England—would, in fact, be a very small proportion of it. He thought it might amount to £3,000,000, or only one year's amount of the surplus brought over from Ireland to England. In that state of circumstances, he denied that they were begging for English money.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, he fully agreed with one of the observations of the Prime Minister—that that was a question which affected the British taxpayer. He was willing to consider the merit of the British taxpayer and his Representative in that House by the attitude they took up upon that point. He had been very much amused by, he would not say the Pharisaical, self-complacency with which Englishmen, and especially Members of that House, had congratulated themselves and lifted their hands in admiration of their own generosity, because they were engaged in passing a Bill like that for the benefit of the Irish people. But in examining the causes and motives of that attitude, he was bound to come to the conclusion that if the Liberal side of the House was dealing generously with the Irish tenant on the question of the relation between landlord and tenant, they were dealing generously not with their own property or supposed rights, but with the property and supposed rights of other people. They were now dealing, not with the property of Irish landlords, which, of course, was dearer to English Liberal Members than their own property or lives, but they were dealing
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  with an amount of money which Irishmen, out of their own pockets, were willing to pay in their desire for justice. His hon. Friend the Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) had drawn a very effective contrast between the attitude of the English Government towards Ireland and the attitude of Native Governments towards their own country. His hon. Friend mentioned the case of the Russian Government, which to all Liberal Englishmen seemed simply barbarous, antique, and tyrannical. But he asked; he Government to imitate the generosity of Russia towards its subjects. He was reminded by some of his hon. Friends round him that it was unnecessary to recommend the example of the Russian Government to the present Ministry, because they had given to the Ignatieffs and other high authorities of Russia the sincere flattery of imitation in some of their worst coercive measures. As they had been such humble admirers and followers of the coercive side of Russian policy, might he also suggest to them that they should take the step of imitating the benevolent proceedings of the Czar? Now, one point which had been raised by the Prime Minister was his duty as the custodian and holder of the public purse. Well, he believed that there was nothing less secret than the deliberations of Cabinet Ministers; and he ventured to think that the attitude of the Prime Minister with regard to that question was more than a confirmation of the very common rumour that the right hon. Gentleman himself was the main obstacle to that portion of the Bill being conceived in anything like a generous spirit. He did not see the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in his place; but they all would remember that famous speech in which he declared that force was no remedy, a speech which he dared say the right hon. Gentleman did not too willingly remember at that moment. But, in the same speech, the right hon. Gentleman made the observation—
  "why should we quarrel about figures when the question is that of reconciling the Irish people and doing justice by them? Supposing it takes £5,000,000 or £10,000,000, or even £20,000,000, why should we hesitate about spending that money when we have not hesitated to spend £20,000,000 in an unjust and an unnecessary war with Afghanistan?"
  Where were the £20,000,000 now? They

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  had gone to some limbo of departed convictions such as "force is no remedy." He wished to point to the evidence given on this question by W. L. Bernard, whom, he thought, was one of the gentlemen employed in the Ecclesiastical Commissioners Office. This gentleman had said that he should be in favour of a discretion being given to the Board of Administration to allow the whole of the purchase money to be acquired on mortgage. This gentleman, who for 10 years had been engaged in this very matter of establishing a peasant proprietary, brought forward his high authority in support of the view that it was desirable in some cases to give the whole purchase money to the tenant. His hon. Friend (Mr. Parnell) had alluded to the case of Prince Edward's Island. Well, he (Mr. O'Connor) had examined one of the Acts—that of 1853—regarding the change of proprietors, and he had found that 20 per cent, or one-fifth only, was demanded; and accordingly, so far as precedents were concerned, even in the British Dominions themselves, they were in favour of a larger proportion of money being granted to the tenants. Finally, he would impress this on the Committee—that this clause, if properly amended, would be more effective in establishing just and harmonious relations between landlord and tenant than the vast complicated machinery of the previous part of the Bill. They had conceded power to the Commissioners to purchase the land and give it to the tenant. The Commissioners might purchase a piece of land, and give it to a tenant on one side of a ditch, and that holding would cease to be rented in a certain time by the payment of a certain amount of money. Did they think the tenant on the other side of the ditch would remain one minute longer than he could help it a tenant in place of a lord of the soil? The result of this Amendment would be that the landlord who wished to retain his territorial power and his friendly relations with the tenant would treat the tenant properly, because he would know that the moment he became anything like an oppressive landlord the tenant would have the right to go to the Court and force him out of his possession. The indirect effect of the clause would be to establish tenant right more effectually than any previous portion of the Bill. He quite agreed that this was a point
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  the Irish Members ought to fight with a certain amount of determination, and he was willing to go to as many divisions as necessary.
  MR. A. M. SULLIVANsaid, that, of course, the Committee were anxious to get through with the Business; but if there was any truth in the assertion made on the part of the Government—as there was—that this, the peasant proprietary portion of the measure, was the portion of it of the greatest magnitude, in their conception the main object up to which all the other lines of this measure were to lead, he appealed to the Committee to give a patient hearing to the Irish Members whilst they made not speeches, but a few brief observations on this point. What he had to say was this. They had heard the speech—a speech of marked ability, though characterized by his usual combativeness—of the hon. Member for Galway City (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) who acted upon their national motto by wherever he saw a head hitting it. In the argumentative part of the hon. Member's speech he agreed; but he did not share the hon. Member's view as to the motive which he seemed to think animated the Government in resisting the Irish Members in this matter. He had no doubt that the Government sincerely believed that they were extending to Ireland in these Purchase Clauses a generous boon, and he should presently show how far he agreed with the hon. Member in this matter; but it would have been a noble act on the part of Abraham Lincoln, and a splendid deed upon which his memory might have rested, if, instead of emancipating the American slaves at a stroke of the pen, he had granted emancipation to all who might be born 50 years after his time. It would have been a splendid deed in the days of Wilberforce if the same course had been adopted with regard to the slaves of the West Indies. It was, no doubt, a generous deed on the part of Her Majesty's Government to propose to assist the Irish peasants to purchase their holdings. It would have been even a generous deed to advance half the amount, it would have been more generous to advance two-thirds, and still more so to advance three-fourths; but what did they ask of Her Majesty's Government? They asked the Government to dare to be bold, and to be generous, and to be wise. The Go-

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  vernment of the day had acted upon the principle which was moving Her Majesty's Ministers when they emancipated the British slaves. The House of Commons of to-day conceived it to be wisdom to half or three-quarters to do a generous deed. They thought they had accomplished some great statesmanship by taking a piece out of a generous deed, just as at first did the Parliament in the time of Wilberforce. But they had to follow up the first attempt with a completing effort, and in the same way Her Majesty's Government now seemed disposed to make two bites at the cherry. Their measure of apprenticeship had been a mistake, and they simply asked the Government now to make a concession which would clearly and completely enable the peasants of Ireland to become proprietors of their holdings. There could be no doubt that the mass of the English Members who were listening to him now regarded this question in their own minds as a vote of public money to Ireland. If it were, he entirely sympathized with their resistance. If it was said that the Irish Members were asking for a vote of public money, his reply was that they wanted no gift, and that he, for one, disclaimed the idea of asking for it. If they were not able to give any commercial security for this money he, for one, said they would have no mere almonizing aid from the House of Commons for their country. If, however, there were a margin of commercial security sufficient to warrant Parliament and the Ministry in making the advance asked for, why did they hesitate? What did the records of the House say as regarded advances to Ireland; and what had Parliament lost? ["Hear, hear!"] He rejoiced than an hon. Member cheered that question. He knew what was in his mind, and the hon. Member would see that he (Mr. Sullivan) had it in his. Out of the public taxes millions had been voted to Ireland, which had had subsequently to be wiped out. [An hon. MEMBER: So there have been to England.] An hon. Friend reminded him that so there had been for England; but he would deal with the Irish case. Their Votes of millions of money to the propertied and landed classes of Ireland had been wiped out. Take the Fishery Commissioners, who had had to deal with the industrial classes of Ireland. Look at the Blue Book Reports of the re-payments made
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  to the Commissioners. Look, again, at the records of the Church Temporalities Commissioners, and he would ask how far had they met with repudiation from the tenant farmers of Ireland? Though they had wiped away millions advanced to the Irish landlords—and he was sure they had had a good case for the remission—they had never had to confront repudiation on the part of the masses of the people of Ireland. He did not wish to interfere with the argument of his hon. Friend; but he disassociated himself entirely from the charge that the Government mistrusted the people on this occasion. They merely had not the courage to go the full length that their convictions would carry them. They were afraid of the doctrinaires who sat behind them. There was nothing so popular in the House as to sneer at the unanimity of the Irish Members when they desired to have a pull at the public purse. It was one of those jokes which a Member even as dull as himself might always rely upon securing a laugh and a cheer from the House with, if attention were at all flagging from the subject under debate. But he put it beside him, and said that this was no application to their public purse. He had as strong views as even the Prime Minister himself as to the demoralization caused in Ireland by grants of public money, unless granted on sound principles. This question of the difference between three-fourths and four-fifths was no matter for the Government to stand upon, was no matter upon which to resist the Irish Members, Conservatives and Home Rulers alike. They ought to rejoice to see some sympathy between the Irish landlords that remained to them and the Irish tenants, and should be prepared to give way when they saw the Irish Members, irrespective of the quarter of the House in which they sat, combining, as at present, for one purpose.
  Question put.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 247; Noes 78: Majority 169.—(Div. List, No. 294.)
  MAJOR NOLANsaid, he wished to move an Amendment which was not on the Notice Paper, the object of which was to draw a distinction between residential tenants and grazing tenants. The Government, he thought, should give

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  more to the residential than to the grazing tenant.
  Amendment proposed,
  In page 12, line 31, after the word "three-fourths," insert the words "except in the case of a residential tenant, when they may advance four-fifths."—(Major Nolan.)
  Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
  LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLwished to know whether, after the vote they had just taken, this Amendment was in Order?
  THE CHAIRMAN: Really, so many Amendments have been handed to me in this way that I have not had time to consider whether they are in Order or not.
  LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLsaid, the Committee had just decided that the Commission might advance to the tenant for the purposes of the purchase "any sum not exceeding three-fourths of the said principal sum." Now, the hon. and gallant Member proposed that in certain cases the Commission might advance four-fifths. This could hardly be in Order, as the Committee had fixed a sum to apply to the whole range of purchases. ["No, no!"] Yes; it appeared so to him.
  MAJOR NOLANsaid, his was not an artificial exception. It was a clear and tangible exception, recognized in many Bills, and, in particular, recognized by the Prime Minister, who had brought in this measure, because he practically excepted all grazing farms. He was following up the principle of the Bill in this proposal, although his exception was much less in degree than that made in the measure.
  THE CHAIRMAN: If residential tenants are distinct from ordinary tenants the Amendment will be in Order.
  MR. GLADSTONE: As a matter of fact, out of every 100 tenants in Ireland 99 are residential. ["No!"] I think I am within the mark in saying that. There can be no doubt at all about the fact that the great mass of the tenants are residential. We have spent the whole evening in debating, as we thought, the case of the whole mass of the tenants—of 99 out of 100—and have come to a decision of three to one in favour of the proposal of the Government; and now the hon. and gallant
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  Member asks that we should re-discuss the question, as it affects 1 per cent, with a view to accepting the opinion of the minority. I need not say that the Government, having been reluctantly compelled to accept the Amendment made a short time ago in so becoming a manner, cannot accept the present proposal.
  MR. A. M. SULLIVANsaid, that no doubt the Government had opposed them on the last division; but he had absolute information to the effect that they had done so through a want of acquaintance with the official facts. Evidently the Government had not studied the document which had been received that morning. He would tell the Committee what he referred to. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Bright), who was incapable of—
  LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLsaid, he rose to Order. Had it been decided whether the Amendment could be moved or not?
  THE CHAIRMAN: As I stated, if residential tenants are an exception to ordinary tenants the Amendment can be moved.
  MR. A. M. SULLIVANsaid, he was saying that the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who was incapable of intentionally misleading the Committee, or anyone else, made a serious statement, a while ago, which greatly influenced the Committee, and which, unknown to the right hon. Gentleman, was totally devoid of foundation. He stated that the failure of the Church Temporalities advances could in no case be attributed to the advances being only three-fourths. The right hon. Member was not aware, when he made that statement, that there was issued this morning, or yesterday, a Report of Messrs. Baldwin and Robertson, in which it was said that in one district 11 out of 18 failures in the advances offered out of the Church Temporalities Fund were due to the terms on which the remaining one-fourth had to be borrowed.
  MR. GLADSTONE: I have the Report in question in my hand.
  MAJOR NOLANsaid, the distinction he proposed was not a flimsy one, and, in proof of this, it was sufficient to say that from Ballinasloe to Galway nine-tenths of the land they saw along the railway was in the hands of non-resi-

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  dential tenants. The same, perhaps, could not be said of other parts of Ireland. For several years he had brought in a Bill especially and essentially founded on a distinction between residential and non-residential tenants, and, having brought in such a Bill, he was entitled to move such an Amendment as this.
  MR. O'DONNELLsaid, the Prime Minister had spoken deprecatingly of the Committee being asked to accept the opinion of the minority. Well, the Irish Members were in a minority in that House; but it so happened that a vast majority of the Irish Members voted in favour of the grant of four-fifths; and he was quite sure it was by a slip that the Prime Minister made the statement, because if he wished the Committee not to attend to the practically unanimous voice of a section of the Members for the reason that they were in a minority, there was an argument involved which could be used in regard to a great deal of the Bill. He hoped the Committee would do a little violence to its former conviction and vote in favour of the four-fifths' advance. They ought to try to encourage the residential class of Irish tenants; and he was sure that nothing would be more popular than the acceptance of this Amendment.
  MAJOR O'BEIRNEsaid, this was the clause to which the great majority of the Irish people looked for a solution of the Land Question of Ireland. It was of vital importance to the Irish tenants, and also to the landlords, that the question should be settled on a proper and wise basis. The best way to pacify the Irish people and to render England and Ireland really united was to confer perpetuity of tenure on the Irish tenants, giving them an interest in the peace and prosperity of the country. ["Divide!"] He was astonished that the Committee were not in a better humour, and he would remind them that they were a long way from the actual passing of Clause 19. He would suggest to the Committee that the best way to forward the interests of these people, which they all professed to have in view, was to listen to the opinions of Irish Members, on this clause especially. There were no Irish Representatives who would allow the measure to be proceeded with without making a protest
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  against the purchases to take place under the clause. The best guarantee of a man's loyalty was to give him a stake in his country.
  MR. LITTONsaid, he thought the Committee had discussed the main features of the clause sufficiently, and that it should be guided by the decision already arrived at.
  MR. BRODRICKsaid, he was sure it was the feeling of the Committee that the discussion should not be further prolonged; but some facts had been mentioned which seemed to him to be of a very striking description, and he should like to know whether they were borne out by statistics. He had glanced over Messrs. Baldwin and Robertson's Report, and it certainly did not appear to him that the advances in connection with the Church Temporalities Fund were due to the difficulty that had been experienced in borrowing the remaining one-fourth. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister would be able to give some satisfactory answer on this point.
  MR. GLADSTONE: I was astonished when I heard the statement of the hon. and learned Member for Meath (Mr. A. M. Sullivan), because I had been reading the statement of Professor Baldwin and his coadjutor, Mr. Robertson. He said that the terms on which the advances had been made by the Church Temporalities Commissioners had been the main cause of the failure of those advances.
  MR. A. M. SULLIVANsaid, the right hon. Gentleman had misunderstood him, and that nothing was further from his intention than to make such a statement as that. What he had said was that it was stated that in one district 11 out of 18 failures in the advances were due to the terms on which the remaining one-fourth had to be borrowed.
  MR. GLADSTONE: I must say that I have been totally unable to collect any such statement from the Paper before me; but, of course, it is very difficult to refer to a document like this for such facts at a moment's notice. The manner in which the money has been borrowed is only occasionally referred to.
  MR. MITCHELL HENRYsaid, that as he had sat on the Committee in question he was able to say what really was the evidence given. The evidence was to this effect—that the tenants were so

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  anxious to purchase that several of them who had very little means sold all they had—cows and everything—to make up the remainder of the purchase money; and the conclusion to be derived from that was not that the offer of three-fourths was not a sufficient inducement to those who ought to purchase, but that tenants who had not some backbone of their own should not be encouraged to purchase. Further than that, it was pointed out that one of the chief causes of the difficulties of these tenants was the large amount of legal costs which the tenants had to pay to the solicitors. ["Divide!"] He must request the Chairman to call to Order the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill), who was interrupting him. The noble Lord, if he wished, could address the Committee when he had finished. It must be recollected that in this Bill the legal costs had been reduced to a minimum. The legal work was to be done for almost nothing; therefore, one of the greatest obstacles in the way of small tenants purchasing their holdings would be done away with.
  THE CHAIRMAN: I must say that the discussion is getting very wide of the Amendment. The Question before the Committee has reference to residential holdings.
  MR. GIVANagreed with the Chairman that the discussion had got rather wide of the mark. He was convinced that the Government was making a gross mistake in not advancing something more, or making some concession to the Irish people in regard to this matter. What had shaken him in his belief more than anything else, however, had been the action of some hon. Members who voted with them in the last division. When he saw certain noble Lords and hon. Gentlemen coming through the door of the Lobby he could not help feeling Timeo Danäos. That, however, had not shaken his faith in this, that the only way to create a peasant proprietary in Ireland would be to advance them not three-fourths, but such sum as the Land Commission might declare to be necessary. Whilst he agreed that there had been certain valid objections to his own Amendment, he could not see that they applied to the Amendment of the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Galway (Major Nolan).
  Question put.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 66; Noes 248: Majority 182.—(Div. List, No. 295.)
  THE CHAIRMAN: The next Amendment which stands on the Paper cannot be put, for the sale is made by the landlord to the tenant for a principal sum, and the landlord can only sell his own interest in the property and cannot sell the tenant's interest in the holding. Under these circumstances, the Amendment is inconsistent with the clause, and cannot be put.
  MR. GREERmoved an Amendment, in page 12, line 36, to leave out the word "one-half," in order to insert the word "three-fourths." The sub-section would then run thus—
  "Where a sale of a holding is about to be made by a landlord to a tenant in consideration of the tenant paying a fine and engaging to pay to the landlord a fee-farm rent, the Land Commission may advance to the tenant for the purposes of such purchase, any sum not exceeding three-fourths of the fine payable to the landlord."
  He hoped the Government would accept that Amendment.
  Amendment proposed, in page 12, line 36, to leave out the word "one-half," in order to insert the word "three-fourths."—(Mr. Greer,)—instead thereof.
  Question proposed, "That the word one-half' stand part of the Clause."
  MR. GLADSTONE: I cannot agree to this Amendment. The point is whether we are justified in adopting any advances at all for such a purpose as this, when the fee-farm rent may form a very large proportion of the net product. These advances are most exceptional, and we only undertook them on consideration of the high policy of encouraging that which is to create a proprietary body. Although we have determined on proposing to make advances of this kind, I am sure the Committee would never agree to make the advance to them to the same extent as to those who can make a complete purchase. We have determined to make an advance of three-fourths for a complete purchase; but we cannot give so much to those who can only enter into a partnership transaction.
  MR. O'DONNELLsaid, the great object was to have as much security as

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  possible. Where an absolute proprietorship could not be obtained, the creation of a fee-farm ought to be very much encouraged by that House; but he could not but think they were rather committing a mistake in tying the hands of the Court beforehand. If the Court was to be a really responsible body, able to deal with the matter, it would be better to leave them to decide to what extent they would give a grant of public money. Judging from Mr. Baldwin's analysis of the cases in his Report, the most fertile cause of failure in the sales was due to the terms under which those sales had to be made. If the amount of assistance to be given to tenants who purchased fee-farms was to be too limited, those tenants would only be driven as other tenants had been driven to the village usurer—the "gombeen" man and the local solicitor—for advances to make up the amount. If it was a fair case for giving assistance, why not let the competent authorities on the spot decide to what extent the assistance should be given? If they thought only one-fourth should be advanced, let them advance only that sum. If they thought it should be one-half, let them give one-half. If they thought it should be three-fourths, why not allow them to recommend a grant of three-fourths? Holding this view, he was inclined to support the Amendment very strongly.
  LORD GEORGE HAMILTONsaid, he thought there was an obvious flaw in the second part of the clause. He quite admitted the force of the Prime Minister's argument; but, as the clause now stood, there was very little security for the repayment of that portion of the amount which was advanced by the State. In order to make the clause symmetrical, the right hon. Gentleman had taken the same proportion as in transactions of an entirely different character. Where a tenant bought his holding, three-fourths of the money might be advanced by the State, and that proposal was intelligible enough; but the next was that in certain cases, where the tenant might be paying a fine and getting the farm at a perpetual fee-farm rent, the State should pay one-half the fine, the understanding being that the fee-farm rent should not exceed 75 per cent of the rent that a solvent tenant would pay. But the tenant might hold a very highly-rented farm,
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  and the landlord might say—"If you like to buy you can; I will reduce it by 25 per cent." He (Lord George Hamilton) intended to propose an Amendment later on, which would provide that there should always be a considerable margin as security on which the State could advance a portion of the fine. If the Government would accept his Amendment, he thought they might also accept the Amendment of the hon. Member for Carrickfergus (Mr. Greer), substituting three-fourths for one-half, because the security would be better.
  MR. GLADSTONE: The transaction must be approved by the public authority, and that authority must in every case be responsible. I do not see that any cause has yet been shown why we should accept the Amendment. At all events, we could not agree to this form of it.
  SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLpointed out that where the fee-farm rent represented 75 per cent of the value of the property, there only remained one quarter of which the State would advance a sum which would make seven-eighths of the whole forestalled and leave the tenant to pay only one-eighth.
  MR. BIGGARsaid, he thought that in all these cases a very substantial option should be given to the Land Commissioners. It was only in very few and exceptional cases that the option would be reached.
  Question put.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 220; Noes 62: Majority 158.—(Div. List, No. 296.)
  MR. CHARLES RUSSELLsaid, he had altered the wording of his Amendment, though not the substance, and its object was one that should receive support from both sides of the House. It was addressed to the clause as it now stood, and contemplated the case of a tenant holding at a fee-farm rent, and having made arrangements with his landlord by which he occupied his holding at a fixed unchangeable rent. In that state of things the landlord was reduced to the position of a mere rentcharger—that was to say, he could not increase the rent, but was simply in the position of an owner of a head rent, which he could not increase or change. The object of his Amendment, then, was, where the rent was so fixed and

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  unchangeable, to enable the tenant to buy up his head rent at a fair price; and he put the value at the high price of £25 for each £1 rent; or—and this was the main object of the Amendment—where the tenant was not able to do this by buying up by a lump sum, to enable him to do it piecemeal. But, inasmuch as to do so piecemeal might be an inconvenience or an injustice to the landlord, if the sums paid were small, the clause would provide that where the landlord was not willing to accept this piecemeal payment, then the Land Commission might receive the money for the purpose of capitalizing a proportion of the rent until the rent was pro tanto extinguished, and the money paid over to the landlord by the Commission in reasonable amounts. The object, it would be seen, was to hold out an inducement to thrifty struggling tenants, and the best incentive to the exercise of care and energy, because if the Amendment were accepted, the tenant would be able to say at the beginning of the year—"If by extra exertion, extra efforts of frugality and self-denial, I am able to save £25, I shall reduce the rent by £1 a-year;" and once he felt this could be done he would begin to do it; and the Committee might rest assured that his efforts would never cease until he, by his payments, became discharged of the rent altogether. This offered a very proper inducement to the tenant to cultivate thrift and self-denial, while it would work no injury, certainly, and, he thought, no inconvenience even to the landlord. He read the Amendment in its slightly altered form. It would be obvious to the Government that it involved a slight loss of interest to the State; but that was so insignificant, and the object was so well-deserving of support, that he hoped the Amendment would be accepted.
  Amendment proposed,
  In page 12, line 37, after "landlord," to insert—"Provided always, That where a tenant is holding at a fee farm rent he may buy up such rent at the rate of twenty-five pounds for each one pound of rent, or at as much less a rate as may be agreed upon between the landlord and tenant; and if the landlord be unwilling to accept such purchase money by instalments, the tenant may pay such instalments to the Land Commission, and the Land Commission shall receive the same and indemnify the tenant from a proportionate part of such rent, and when such payments shall amount to such a sum as the land-
  338
  lord may in the opinion of the Land Commission be reasonably called upon to accept, the Land Commission shall pay the same to the landlord, and thereupon the said fee farm rent shall pro tanto be extinguished."—(Mr. Charles Russell.)
  Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, each of the Amendments might stand or fall quite apart from the other. In the first place, it was proposed that in the case of a fixed rent the tenant should have the absolute right to redeem that rent by buying out the landlord, certainly at a high rate, considering the average price at which land was sold in Ireland. Here the Committee was asked to adhere to a principle of considerable importance. It was a principle which was nowhere else inserted in the Bill, and he was not sure that it might not be made a precedent for other propositions which his hon. and learned Friend might not be responsible for. He (Mr. Gladstone) would like to consider the matter as a separate proposition, and he must frankly own that his present impression was not favourable to it. He doubted if it was desirable to introduce the principle of compulsory redemption, and it must be a strong reason to justify the Committee in adopting it. The second part of the Amendment was to the effect that where compulsory expropriation was effected the landlord should not be completely at the mercy of the tenant as to the mode of receiving instalments, and that was perfectly right as regarded the landlord; it would be hard upon him that he should be compelled to receive instalments; but then his hon. and learned Friend introduced a provision which it was to be feared would lead to the greatest complexity. It would require that the Land Commission should undertake the functions of a bank, and banking in the most minute detail, and that would be a great burden to impose upon a Commission not appointed for the purpose, and not acquainted with the management of a bank and the investment of small sums of cash. And the greatest objection was that there were all over the country institutions admirably suited for the purpose, the Post Office Savings Banks. The tenant whose savings were small had nothing to do but deposit them them down to 1s. at a time in the Post Office Bank. There he would receive such interest as the State

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  paid, and though that was little, it was as much as any such institution could pay, and when it reached a sum he could ask the landlord to take, he could take the money out of the bank. He was not quite certain, either, whether this was not a proposition that left it entirely with the Committee to authorize the Land Commission to become a bank, receive money, and pay interest. He had great doubt indeed whether it was within the Committee's power to adopt the clause. But, in any case, no purpose would be served oven if after a great deal of labour and care a new branch of business was developed when there was no benefit to accrue, seeing that there was no place in Ireland that had not a Post Office Bank within a distance of five miles, or at most 10 miles in the most remote districts.
  MR. ERRINGTONsaid, he regarded the Amendment as of much importance, and he was sorry to hear that the Prime Minister did not receive it favourably. A few nights before he proposed a similar Amendment to Clause 11, and he then understood the right hon. Gentleman to be in favour of the principle itself; but he (Mr. Errington) did not then wish to press the Amendment, because he understood that the power to carry it out was virtually contained in the Bill as it stood. He could only say that he had heard from many quarters in Ireland, and from persons of much experience on the subject, that there was hardly anything more important in regard to increasing the number of peasant proprietors than the opportunity afforded to tenants, at frequent periods, of placing their capital in the land in small sums. The hon. and learned Member for Dundalk proposed the most important machinery for carrying this out. He did not understand that the proposition was that the Commission should undertake all the detailed work of the Post Office Bank; but it merely would empower the Commission, if necessary, to make use of the Post Office Bank as a means of receiving the money of the tenant, so that, by a process of fining down of the rent, the purchase of the holding by the tenant might be facilitated. He hoped the Prime Minister would carefully consider the principle involved, and he could assure him that persons who had the greatest interest and the desire to see
  340
  tenants obtain a good, material, strong, and powerful interest in the land, saw that this was one of the most important means of carrying it out.
  MR. CHARLES RUSSELLsaid, he was afraid his proposal had not received so much encouragement as would justify him in going to a division, and he was not insensible to some of the practical difficulties which the Prime Minister had pointed out. But he did think it was worthy of consideration. He begged to withdraw his Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow, at Two of the clock.

  POOR RELIEF AND AUDIT OF ACCOUNTS (SCOTLAND) BILL.— [BILL 182.]
  (The Lord Advocate, Mr. Solicitor General for Scotland.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. M'LAREN)moved that the Bill be read a second time, with the view of submitting it to a Select Committee.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(The Lord Advocate.)
  MR. DICK-PEDDLEsaid, that he had no wish to oppose the Motion; but he must express his opinion that it was net right that a Bill of this importance should be brought on for second reading at 1 o'clock in the morning. He knew that the Lord Advocate was not to blame for the Bill being brought on at that time; but, at the same time, it was not satisfactory to the people of Scotland that a Bill of this kind, affecting seriously the administration of the Poor Law in that country, should pass the second reading at an hour when discussion was impossible. It was right, however, to say to his right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Advocate, who had charge of the Bill, that there were provisions in it which would receive strong objections if not amended. There were several provisions which would I give general satisfaction, especially those I which applied to Scotland the provisions of the Act of 1879, with regard to lunatic paupers, who were entitled to hold property through their connection with Friendly Societies, and which, to a cer-

  341
  tain extent, did away with the right to cede to Parochial Boards, in virtue of proprietorship. But in order that the Bill should receive the general approval of the people of Scotland, it would be necessary still further to do away with that privilege; and, for his part, he did not see why Parochial Boards should not be on the same footing as Municipal Bodies and School Boards, and be composed of persons entirely elected by the ratepayers. As he had already said, he would not oppose the second reading; but he thought it right that that stage should not be passed without an intimation on the part of some Scotch Member that considerable changes would have to be made in it.
  MR. HEALYsaid, he thought a Bill of this kind should not be read a second time without a word of discussion. He knew nothing about the measure; but in Ireland there were grievances as to poor relief and the way in which grants were made, and the only way of bringing them forward was on English and Scotch Bills.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, as his hon. Friend had been disregarded by the Treasury Bench, and treated with discourtesy which was not common in the House, he should move the adjournment of the debate.
  [The Motion, not being seconded, could not be put.]
  DR. CAMERONexplained that it was only proposed to read the Bill a second time in order to refer it to a Select Committee, by which it could be gone into.
  Motion agreed to.
  Bill read a second time, and committed to a Select Committee.
  And, on July 12, Committee nominated as follows:—Mr. ANDERSON, Mr. ANDREW GRANT, Mr. J. HAMILTON, Mr. M'LAGAN, Mr. HENDERSON, Mr. BOLTON, Mr. MATHESON, Mr. MELDON, Mr. HIBBERT, Mr. ORR EWING, Mr. COCHRANE-PATRICK, Mr. DALRYMPLE, Mr. JAMES CAMPBELL, Admiral Sir JOHN HAY, Mr. LODER, Colonel ALEXANDER, Mr. HEALY, Lord ELCHO, and the LORD ADVOCATE:—Five to be the quorum.
  And, on July 19, Sir EDWARD COLEBROOKE and Mr. ARTHUR BALFOUR added.
  House adjourned at One o'clock.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—First Reading—Erne Lough and River* (149).
Second Reading—Statute Law Revision and Civil Procedure* (140); Petroleum (Hawking)* (139).
Committee—Local Government Provisional Orders (Acton, &c.)* (121); Elementary Education Provisional Order Confirmation (London)* (68); Tramways Orders Confirmation (No. 1)* (125); Tramways Orders Confirmation (No. 3)* (135); Pier and Harbour Orders Confirmation* (122); Lunacy Districts (Scotland) (108–152).
Committee—Report—Court of Bankruptcy (Ireland) (Officers and Clerks)* (133).
Third Reading—Veterinary Surgeons* (127); Summary Jurisdiction (Process)* (124), and passed.

TURKEY AND GREECE—THE FRONTIER QUESTION.

  QUESTION.
  THE EARL OF AIRLIEinquired whether the Government Were in possession of any information as to the occupation of the new Greek Frontier by the Greeks?
  EARL GRANVILLE: My Lords, I am happy to be able to assure my noble

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  Friend that progress has been made in the negotiations respecting the Greek Frontier. The Convention has been signed by the Greek and Turkish Plenipotentiaries, and General Hamley reported yesterday that the Turks retired that day from Dimario on the left Turkish Frontier, and that the Greeks crossed the Frontier and took possession. All was done in good order.

  ARMY—DEATHS BY SUNSTROKE AT ALDERSHOT.—QUESTION.
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNasked the Under Secretary of State for War, If he could now give any information regarding the casualties which occurred among the troops at Aldershot on last Monday?
  THE EARL OF MORLEY: My Lords, I can now give to your Lordships more information as to what occurred on the field-day at Aldershot last Monday than when my noble Friend put his Question to me on Tuesday evening. As I told my noble Friend on that day immediately the report arrived at the War Office the Secretary of State for War at once called for a detailed account of the circumstances. The field-day was appointed for Monday four or five days previously. On Sunday and Monday, on the Fox Hills, where the field-day took place, it was somewhat hot, but a strong breeze was blowing. The troops went out as usual in field-day order—that is to say, they had nothing to carry except their water bottles. They started after breakfast at 8.30. The manœuvres were over before 1 o'clock, and until then there were no casualties and few men fell out. About that time, however, the heat greatly increased; and, unfortunately, the usual anxiety to get back to their lines led to the regiments hurrying the pace, and this, in the heavy dust and increased heat, probably caused a good many men to fall out. Of the 19 men who were sent into hospital the greater part fell out then. Unfortunately, four men have died. Three died of sunstroke—one was an old sergeant of Militia, aged 45, who did not fall out; he was somewhat stout, and liable to suffer from the heat. The second was a man of long service, aged 32, and, on post-mortem examination, he was found to be highly predisposed to illness of this kind; the third was a perfectly healthy man, of long service, aged 33. There
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  was a fourth death of a driver, from heart disease; but he was riding on a waggon all day, and had undergone no fatigue, nor did he complain till later in the day. It is remarkable that from the brigade which went over the most ground, and did the hardest work, the smallest number of men, only 12, fell out, and none went into hospital. At a time of exceptional heat all parades take place in the early morning, so that troops may be back in camp before the power of the sun becomes excessive. I do not think that beyond this well-understood rule, attention to which has been especially called by a Circular, issued on Tuesday, the discretion of commanding officers need be hampered. We are all greatly distressed by, and deeply lament, the deaths of these men; but I think I have plainly stated the exceptional circumstances under which they occurred.

  LUNACY DISTRICTS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  (The Earl of Dalhousie.)

  (No. 108.) COMMITTEE.
  House in Committee (according to order).
  THE DUKE OF RICHMOND AND GORDONsaid, that on behalf of his noble Friend (the Duke of Buccleuch) he begged to propose an Amendment in the Bill. He thought the Lord Advocate was not the proper authority for making the alteration in the lunacy districts. The Bill proposed that as the Prison Boards did not now exist, the power should be in the hands of the Lord Advocate, acting on the application of the General Board of Commissioners in Lunacy. He proposed to strike out "the Lord Advocate," and make the clause read—
  "The General Board of Commissioners in Lunacy in Scotland shall have power, on the application of the Commissioners of Supply, to alter or vary the districts or divide the counties, &c."
  He hoped the Government would have no objection to the Amendment, as it seemed a much better proposal for dealing with the question than that the Lord Advocate should have power of varying those districts upon the application of the Commissioners.
  THE EARL OF DALHOUSIEsaid, he had received no Notice of the Amendment, and he therefore asked the noble

  211
  Duke not to press it at present, but to bring it up on the Report.
  THE DUKE OF RICHMOND AND GORDONsaid, that in the circumstances he would acquiesce in the suggestion of the noble Earl.
  THE EARL OF DALHOUSIEmoved to substitute the Commissioners of Supply of any county for the General Board of Commissioners in Lunacy.
  Amendment agreed to.
  The Report of the Amendment to be received To-morrow; and Bill to be printed as amended. (No.152.)

  SUMMARY PROCEDURE (SCOTLAND) AMENDMENT BILL.—(No. 99.)
  (The Earl of Dalhousie.)

  REPORT OF AMENDMENTS.
  LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHasked the noble Earl (the Earl of Dalhousie), who had charge of the Bill, if he was now able to give an explanation to the question formerly put regarding the scale of costs which the Bill sought to enact in the Schedule, and which seemed inconsistent with the 4th clause of the Bill, laying it down that the maximum costs should not exceed £1?
  THE EARL OF DALHOUSIEsaid, the explanation was that where the costs, according to the scale laid down in the Schedule, exceeded the maximum, the defendant would not be liable for more than that amount, and the surplus would have to be paid by the prosecution.
  LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHsaid, the explanation did not in any way remove the objections he had to this enactment. It seemed a very extraordinary thing that a Bill was to be passed by this House limiting the amount which the defendant had to pay to £1, and mulcting the prosecutor, the injured party, in whatever extra amount of costs was incurred. While it was desirable to keep down costs when the amount of fine imposed was very trivial, yet why the defendant, who had been convicted, should be released at the expense of the prosecutor, was really an enactment which altogether passed his comprehension to understand. He hoped that before the House would consent to that they would have something in the nature of a justification of this curious enactment.
  LORD WATSONsaid, he hoped the Government would re-consider this suggestion. On referring to the precise terms of the Bill, which was one of a useful character, defining the limits of costs, which were sometimes excessive in these summary prosecutions in Scotland, he found that there was a table of fees, according to which agents were to be paid for conducting those cases. If there were two witnesses, by the smallest scale of expenses the prosecutor's charges out of pocket would amount to £1 12 s. 6d. The smallest possible expenses under this Bill would be about £l 5s., and yet it provided that in no instance whatever, when the penalty did not exceed £3, the prosecutor should be entitled to more than £1 of expenses. In short, the Bill enacted that while it was a fair and reasonable thing that the prosecutor should pay on a low scale of charges a sum of £1 10 s. 6d., he should only recover £l, or, in other words, he should pay one-half or one-third of the whole costs. A Bill of this sort was always attended with a certain degree of danger. It was a proper thing to cut down the expenses of the law agents who charged too much for certain species of work; but there was a danger of laying down a hard-and-fast rule as to maximum expenses that put it in the power of persons liable to penalties—who were not acting independently, but as members of associations, and who were, therefore, furnished with ample funds for their own defence, or in cases of land and river poaching, offences against the Factory Acts, and others—to harass the prosecutors by protracting the proceedings, leading a great deal of evidence, and so involving them in expenses to the amount of £5 or £6, even according to this scale, so that when the penalty was inflicted the prosecutor would find that he had four or five times as much to pay as the defendant. He suggested that the 4th clause should be re-framed in terms that would prevent such a possibility.
  THE EARL OF DALHOUSIEsaid, this was a legal Bill, to discuss which would require considerable legal knowledge on his part. As the noble and learned Lord gave no Notice of the Amendment, he asked him to be good enough to put it on the Paper.
  THE DUKE OF RICHMOND AND GORDONsaid, he could not agree that to discuss the proposition of his noble

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  and learned Friend required any legal knowledge. It was a practical matter on which their Lordships were perfectly able to give a judgment; and he believed the Lord Chancellor was well able to deal with it without the noble Earl consulting the Law Officers of the Crown.
  THE EARL OF DALHOUSIEsaid, he preferred to postpone the consideration of the Amendment.
  Report of Amendment (which stands appointed for this day) put off to Tuesday next.

  ENDOWED INSTITUTIONS (SCOTLAND) ACT, 1873—THE PROVISIONAL ORDERS.—OBSERVATIONS.
  THE DUKE OF RICHMOND AND GORDON, in rising to ask Her Majesty's Government, When the five Provisional Orders relating to Endowed Institutions in Scotland, including the new Order for Burnett's Literary Fund, that were presented on the 21st of June, will be circulated: And to move for a Return showing why no Provisional Orders have been issued in the following ten cases in which the Commissioners under the Endowed Institutions (Scotland) Act of 1878 have reported to the Secretary of State: Spier's Trust, Beith; Boys' and Girls' Hospital, Aberdeen; Donaldson's Charity, Stonehaven; Graham Free School, Glasgow; Kellae's Trust, Haddington; Scott or Campbell Trust, Selkirk; Wilson's School, Fauldhouse; Wilson's School, Harthell; Wilson's School, Stane; and Wilson's School, Whitburn? said, he considered this was a Notice of a very important character. He had framed it in rather wide language, and he was not at all prepared to say that he would ask for a Return showing why no Provisional Orders had been issued in the cases named in his Motion; but what he really wanted to know was, what had become of those Orders? With regard to the first part of the Motion, he would like to ask the Government why the Provisional Orders relating to the Endowed Institutions in Scotland, including the new Order of Burnett's Literary Fund, presented on the 21st June, were not circulated? Their Lordships would recollect that in the early part of this Session he called attention to the scheme of Burnett's Literary Fund, and took occasion to speak somewhat strongly of the conduct of
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  the Home Secretary in relation to this scheme; and he thought he was justified in coming to the conclusion that a strong case existed in his favour and against that Department of Her Majesty's Government. Not one word was said in its favour, and the Motion he made disapproving of the scheme of the Home Department was carried without a division. Now, these schemes related to most important subjects, and Parliament was so very careful and jealous with all that sort of property dealt with under the provisions of the Endowed Institutions (Scotland) Act passed in 1878, that all the persons interested in that Act should have every opportunity of being heard upon the subject. A clause was inserted in that Act which provided that the scheme, after being approved by the Secretary of State, should lie on the Table of both Houses of Parliament for 40 days, and if no action was taken anent the scheme during that period, that it should become law. That being the case, it appeared to him that it was the duty of the Secretary of State to see that the provisions of the Act were carried out strictly and to the letter. Now, what had happened in each of the five Provisional Orders to which he had called attention? The Order lists were presented to the House on the 21st June, and it was now the 7th July—that was 17 days—and up to that moment those schemes had not been delivered for their Lordships' consideration. He was told that they had been presented only yesterday in the other House of Parliament; and, therefore, practically by the conduct of the Secretary of State for the Home Department in this case, the parties who were interested in those schemes had been deprived of 16 days out of 40 in which they might make objections and consider what course they should take. He was quite ready to admit that in these days of rapid communication between this country and the North of Scotland such a loss of time was not so important as it would once have been. But it would be admitted that some considerable time ought to be granted to persons living in the extreme North of the Empire to consult together how the schemes affected their own interests, and whether any action, and if so what action, should be taken about it. He had a great interest in Burnett's Literary

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  Fund, and he should have been very glad before now to have had the opportunity of communicating with those who were also interested, as to whether this scheme would be agreeable to them or the contrary. He was by no means saying—he had no means of knowing—that the Burnett Scheme might not have been altered in a manner satisfactory to the Governing Body; but what he did say was, that by the action of the Secretary of State for the Home Department they were deprived of 16 days out of 40 which they had to consider the situation. Now, it seemed to him there must be some most extraordinary influence—he hardly knew how to describe it—at work in the Home Office with regard to the printing and presenting of Papers to Parliament. He had a knowledge of one of the most important Papers, probably, that their Lordships could have before them—the Report of the Irish Assistant Commissioners. That Report was presented to the Secretary of State for the Home Department, through whom it must necessarily come for presentation to Her Majesty, on the 18th January. Of course, when the Commissioners had sent it to the Home Department their duty with regard to it ceased. Their Lordships would be astonished to hear that, notwithstanding the Secretary of State received the Report from the Irish Assistant Commissioners, in a matter of the very highest importance, on the 18th January, it was only printed and circulated on the 6th of July; therefore, there must be something very irregular in the manner in which the Home Office dealt with this question. With regard to the other schemes, though he did not press for a Return regarding them, he was deeply interested to know what had happened to those schemes. The Reports, according to the Commission, had been presented to the Home Secretary. He should like to know where those schemes were. What had become of them? Had the Commissioners been communicated with by the Secretary of State for the Home Department with regard to the action he had taken, or was taking, with reference to these subjects? The first scheme mentioned in his Motion was partly dealt with by the late Government. He had suggested to Sir R. Assheton Cross, then Home Secretary, certain objections he entertained to that scheme, one of
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  Which was the large outlay—£16,000—proposed to be made for buildings, and the other that a member of the School Board should be a member of the Governing Body. The latter proposition was stated to be ultra vires, and that question still remained unsettled when the late Government left Office. But why had not the Orders presented on the 21st June been circulated? He noticed some of them were circulated yesterday, so that his Motion had done some good. It had induced the Home Secretary to see that these schemes were circulated. He was told one of them was in their Lordships' House, and that the others would be circulated probably in the course of to-morrow; but he pointed out that great injustice had been done to those parties in having the time in which they could petition against the scheme curtailed in the manner he had described. He would be glad to know what had come of the other schemes which he had enumerated; and whether any, and if so what, communication had taken place between the Home Secretary and the Endowed Institution Commissioners in Scotland, if the Secretary of State was not going to agree with the recommendation of the body?
  THE EARL OF DALHOUSIE, in reply, said, the noble Duke had really answered the first part of the Question himself when he stated, quite correctly, that one of these Provisional Orders had been circulated that day, and that others would be circulated in a day or two. In the case of the other schemes to which he referred, there had been some difference of opinion—in some cases very considerable difference—between the Scotch Education Department and the Educational Endowment Commissioners. There had not been time to adjust the issue in each of these cases, and the Secretary of State had therefore thought it advisable that they should be postponed, in order to be considered by the new Committee to be appointed by the Bill now before the House of Commons. In the case of two of those schemes there had been strong opposition on the part of certain local bodies.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURYsaid, the noble Earl did not appear to have understood the drift of the Question of his noble Friend. The objection was, not as to the time the Secretary of State might

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  have spent over a scheme, but that 16 out of the 40 days given by Government as a security and guarantee against bad administration on the part of the Commissioners had been taken away. The Government must provide some remedy against the recurrence of such delay if the terms of the Act were to be honestly carried out.
  LORD BALFOUR OF BURLEIGHwished to say a few words on the matter of the Endowed Schools Commission which had had to do with those schemes. The Chairman of that Commission was detained in Scotland by his judicial duties; and he had requested him, in consequence of this matter being brought forward, to state the facts of a few of the cases mentioned in the Motion. He need hardly say that no Member of the Commission would have thought it consistent with his duty to bring such a matter before the House, because, although they were always glad when the Reports which they had to give in were agreed to and acted upon, still it was a public duty they had been discharging, and it was in no degree a personal question whether any of the recommendations they made were given effect to or not. But there was one point in connection with the way in which these recommendations had been dealt with he should like to bring under their Lordships' notice. They, as a Commission, had never in any single instance received any intimation as to whether their recommendations were to be given effect to or not; and, therefore, they had been wholly unable to give any information to parties promoting those schemes, whether or not those schemes would obtain the sanction of the Government and be laid on the Table of the House. In a matter of this importance, he submitted that the Commission appointed to inquire into these schemes and to make recommendations was not quite fairly treated when they were never informed, either by the Home Office or any other Government Department, whether their recommendations were to be given effect to or not. In the case of Burnett's Trust, for example, their Lordships would remember how a scheme not only not the same as the scheme which the Commission gave their sanction to, but utterly inconsistent with it on many important points, was laid on the Table without one whisper of infor-
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  mation that the Commission had dealt with the matter at all, and not a hint was given that an alternative scheme much more in consonance with the Founder's will had been transmitted by the Commission to the Home Office. With reference to the case of Donaldson's Endowment, Stonehaven, of which the annual revenue was £85, it was his opinion that if a Commission could not be trusted to deal with such small sums, it was very little use indeed appointing the Commission. In this case there was no opposition, and no new remit was made to the Commission; although a whole year had passed since the Commission had reported, yet the order was refused. Now, certainly, in such a case, the Governing Body had not been very fairly used. In the case of the Kellae Trust, Haddington, the net annual revenue of which was £37 6s., their recommendation was to vest the fund in the School Board, for the purpose of founding bursaries for children in Haddington, to be competed for by open competition, to be held within the leading school of the town, the sole surviving trustee, who agreed in the proposal, to be associated with the School Board in the discharge of the trust during his life. That recommendation was made on the 6th of August, 1880; no further communication of any kind had been made to the Commission, and yet this Order had been refused. Now, he had seen it stated in the public prints that effect had been given to certain opposition on the part of the Provost and Magistrates of Haddington, who disapproved because no special provision was made for clothing; but he could hardly believe such a thing possible, and he should be very glad to hear from the Government that that had not been the ground of their refusing this Order. He felt it his duty to himself and his Colleagues on the Commission to press, in accordance with what the noble Duke had said, for a full explanation of the principles which had governed the Home Office in refusing their consent to those schemes.
  EARL SPENCERsaid, that, as the noble Duke (the Duke of Richmond and Gordon) had observed, the Education Department had no responsibility for the action finally taken in regard to those schemes. That Department, however, was consulted, as the noble Duke well knew, on the schemes when they were

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  submitted to the Home Office. As to the point which the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Salisbury) had pressed on his noble Friend who represented the Home Office, he had to say that Her Majesty's Government regretted exceedingly that the Papers were not circulated immediately after they were presented. They were not presented, as the noble Duke seemed to think, in "dummy," but were presented entire; and he confessed that it was a matter of regret that they had not been circulated sooner. His noble Friend would inquire into the reasons for the delay; for he admitted that it was highly inconvenient that after those Papers had been laid on the Table they should not have been immediately circulated. With respect to the scheme generally, he would point out that out of the 10 to which the noble Duke had called attention, one of them was dealt with completely under the late Government. The noble Duke said he was not aware what the answer was as to the scheme having been ultra vires. No doubt, he was quite right in that. But that scheme was entirely disposed of by the late Government. Of the remaining schemes, as his noble Friend had said, some of them had not been proceeded with because there was a strong local opposition. As to the others, the Education Department held that there were various objections, in some cases of greater, in others of less importance, to them. Those objections were sent to the Home Office, and in one case the scheme was remitted again to the Commission. But when the Home Secretary found that there was a considerable difference between the Education Department and the Commissioners, and that there was not time for the proper consideration of the subject, he thought that the much more prudent course would be not to deal with it this year. It was not fair to say that there were 10 schemes, because in regard to the case of Wilson's Schools there was a desire evinced on the part of some of those concerned to amalgamate those small funds; and as there was no power under the Act which regulated those matters to make that amalgamation, it was thought desirable to defer the consideration of those subjects to another time. He was glad that the noble Duke had stated that he would not press his Motion as it stood on the Paper, because he (Earl Spencer) believed it would be un-
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  paralleled that the reasons why schemes had not been passed should be presented to Parliament.

THE SUGAR INDUSTRIES—PETITION FROM ISLAND OF BARBADOES.

  OBSERVATIONS.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY, in rising to present a Petition from merchants, planters, and others connected with the Island of Barbadoes, said: My Lords, I have taken the unusual course of giving Notice of an intention to present this Petition in order that I might preface that step with a few observations, not only because the Petition is from a distant Colony, and is, therefore, deserving consideration and attention at your Lordships' hands, but also because it expresses the feelings of a portion of Her Majesty's subjects who, like many others at the present moment, are complaining that their interests are adversely affected, and that their industry is being destroyed, by the fiscal action of foreign Powers. The growth of this feeling in the country must be familiar to your Lordships, and it is not necessary that I should dilate upon it. A very remarkable change of feeling has taken place in many centres of industry, and complaints or proposals are being made which, 10 years ago, would have been held impossible. But I will not propose to enter upon that portion of the commercial discontent of the present day which deals with the question of adverse fiscal duties, and which claims retaliatory duties as a protection. It is not necessary that I should discuss that subject; it is one of exceeding difficulty, and I should be sorry to say anything that might be interpreted to be at variance with those principles of commercial policy which this country has deliberately adopted. But the particular case which the planters and merchants of Barbadoes wish to bring before your Lordships, and before the English public, does not deal with the particular class of proposals which are commonly known under the name of Reciprocity. The fiscal measures of foreign Governments give advantages to their own subjects in two ways. They impose duties of protection which exclude our goods from their markets. In that case they give a bounty to their own traders at the expense of their own consumers. The

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  case I have to bring before you does not belong to that class. It is the case of foreign Governments, by direct bounties drawn from the resources of the taxpayer, cheapening products of their own manufacturers and driving the manufactures of other countries, and espepecially of this Empire, out of the market. Now, the particular country whose legislation in this respect has given cause for the complaint of the West Indian planters is Austria, and the way in which the sugar industry is adversely affected is this. In Austria a tax is raised on the native beet-root sugar, which is largely exported, and a drawback is then given to the exporter; but the drawback is so calculated that it gives a large bounty to the exporter, giving him back a great deal more than he had paid to his own Government, and so enriching him that he is able to go to other markets with sugar at a much cheaper price than those producers who have not received similar advantages can afford to sell at. The result is that the Austrian raw sugar has been supported by the taxes of the Austrian subjects, and has been able to compete more and more with the sugar grown by our own planters, who have not such an advantage to support them. So keen, apparently, has the Austrian Government been in this policy that they actually at one time paid back in drawbacks more than the whole of the duty they received from beet-root. The results have been very severe on the West Indian planters. The consumption of sugar in this country has, as your Lordships know, grown enormously during the last 10 years, owing to the increase in wealth and population and the abolition of our duty; but, notwithstanding that fact, the import from the West Indian planters has been almost absolutely stationary, while the advantage of the State subsidy on the part of Austria is shown by the fact that within the last few years the export of beet-root sugar has increased from 600,000 tons to more than 1,500,000 tons. The sugar bounty question has engaged the consideration of successive Governments; and, after much negotiation with foreign Powers, it was thought by the late Government that the best course would be to allow the matter to be referred to a Committee of the House of Commons. It was so referred, and that Committee
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  collected evidence and considered the matter with great care, and made, last Session, a very exhaustive and able Report on the subject. The Prayer of the Petition, and the considerations which I shall urge on the Government, do not go beyond the proposals of the Committee. I only ask that due attention should be given to these proposals, and that they should not be entirely neglected. The Committee said, and said in very distinct language, that very serious damage is being done by the policy of foreign Governments to which I have referred. It appears from the Report that much of the sugar industry of the West Indies has been destroyed, and that 50 sugar-growing estates have been abandoned; while, in 1879, 36 such estates were advertised for sale without purchasers being found for them. All the witnesses on this branch of the subject agree in looking for the general abandonment "of sugar cultivation" if the present state of things continues. If this is the consequence of the action of any foreign Government over whom we have any influence, the matter is one for the grave consideration of Her Majesty's Government, and ought to be dealt with before it is magnified into a very great grievance. It is impossible to mention such a state of things without bearing in mind a similar grievance which exists with reference to sugar refining. It is exactly the same complaint, applied to another branch of the same trade. The French Government gives a drawback to the sugar refiners who export the produce of their industry. That drawback is calculated too high, and the result is that a very considerable bounty is given out of the French taxes to those who export it, and the French refiner is able to sell at a price which utterly undersells and destroys the profits of the English manufacturer. The consequences have been, in the same way, most lamentable. Five or six years ago there was a very flourishing sugar-refining industry in this country. The competition of the French refiner, supported by the bounty out of the French taxes, has driven the English refiner out of the English market, and all the establishments which existed five or six years ago have now been closed, and the trade is absolutely destroyed. Now, do not tell me we are bound, by the principles of Free Trade,

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  to look on coldly and calmly and see this destruction of British industries accomplished, because if you lay down that principle broadly and strongly, and say that nothing shall induce you to interfere when a foreign Government is destroying British industry, you may be quite sure that these undertakings which have been hitherto so successful will be imitated in other industries, and industry after industry will be destroyed by the co-operation of the foreign Governments with the foreign manufacturer, against which the British manufacturer is absolutely powerless. The foreign Government, practically speaking, is illimitably rich. It enters into partnership with its own manufacturers. It invests its property in the promotion of their industry, and the British industry, undefended as it is, must necessarily go down. If it really is the case that considerable benefit to the consumer results from this policy, that will, no doubt, be a very material consolation, and grounds for hesitating very much before pronouncing an adverse opinion; but the benefit to the consumer is, in reality, transient. It is always open to the foreign Government to enter into partnership with its own manufacturers to destroy British industry altogether and make British capital unproductive, and then, when that is done, there is no necessity that the bounty should be continued. Capital will not be invested in industries of this kind unless there is some prospect of stability of conditions, and if industry is always liable to be destroyed by a sudden incursion of a foreign Government using the taxes of its own subjects for the purpose of destroying that industry, the British capitalist will not risk his capital by sinking it in the machinery and buildings necessary for carrying on the trade. I cannot pass on without remarking that the French Government have made a further step along this path already. There is already a bounty given upon ships, sailing and steaming, and it is given in proportion to the amount of tonnage they actually carry. I do not know what effect these new measures will have on the British industry of shipbuilding; but it is looked on with considerable alarm, and I mention it as an indication of the policy which is guiding foreign Governments, and as a danger against which our own
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  manufacturers and Government have to contend. It is well known that one of the great difficulties—as was pointed out in a memorable speech delivered by the Earl of Beaconsfield some years ago—is the network of Favoured Nation Clauses which now exist, and which would hinder us from taking any isolated action. The reason why I wish to press this subject on the Government at the present moment is because the Committee, at the close of their Report, make some important proposals. They recommend Her Majesty's Government to institute careful inquiry into the matter, and, in the event of its being found impossible to arrive at an International agreement for the suppression of bounties, they were prepared to recommend the adoption of such a course had it been practicable under our existing Treaties; and they were of opinion that on the renewal of those Treaties the opportunity should be taken of making such alterations as would leave Her Majesty's Government at liberty to deal with the question. With reference to the negotiations which are now going on with France, I think Her Majesty's Government are bound to see that some arrangements are made—if they do make a Treaty—for redressing this great injury under which a once flourishing British industry and a considerable number of workmen are now suffering. But they may go further. If they agree with the French Government in this matter of the sugar refiners I have very little doubt that Austria will be disposed to come to terms. The matter is one for negotiation, and, if advocated by England and France combined, there will be a greater chance of success than if urged by England alone. I earnestly trust Her Majesty's Government will not simply neglect the matter and pass by on the other side. There is a cry arising for remedies which may perplex the ablest statesman to discover and apply. I know that a great authority, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster—the same authority who, 30 years ago, was so fond of telling us that all nations were likely at once to adopt Free Trade—now tells us that a demand for measures of a reciprocal or retaliatory character is a sign of lunacy. I have no wish that any action should be adopted inconsistent with sound Free Trade; but I

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  should hesitate to apply the name of lunatics to those not of my own opinion, because I fear we should be in the awkward position of finding there are more people lunatics in the world than sane—an observation which always exposes to some doubt the sanity of the person who makes it. I do not think that by calling people lunatics Her Majesty's Government will stop this cry or apply any real remedy to the evils which exist. If they neglect it, if they do not take some pains to remove such grievances as these, I fear they will find themselves confronted, before long, with a political problem with which they will have some difficulty in dealing.
  Petition for countervailing duties upon foreign sugar imported under bounty into the United Kingdom; of Planters, Merchants, &c. of Barbadoes—Presented (The Marquess of SALISBURY).
  Petition read.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: My Lords, the noble Marquess gave a Notice which I will venture to read:—"To present a Petition from merchants, planters, and others connected with the Island of Barbadoes." Well, I wondered what might possibly be the subject which the noble Marquess intended to bring before us, because there are a good many different questions connected with Barbadoes. I then obtained the information that the subject had some connection with the sugar bounties. It seemed to me that upon a matter of such importance as one connected with Free Trade and Reciprocity, Notice should have been given that that was the subject which was about to be brought forward. I do not complain of the course taken by the noble Marquess so far as I am concerned; but, no Notice having been given, your Lordships were not prepared for the speech which the noble Marquess made. The noble Marquess said he would not go into the question of Reciprocity, or say anything which would be inconsistent with the principles of that commercial policy which has been adopted by this country; but the greater part of his speech, I thought, was intended to encourage those who wish to see those principles departed from. He attacked my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, one of the principal English advocates of Free Trade principles,
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  and insinuated that the time would come when it would be wise to embark on a course of Reciprocity and Retaliation. I wish the noble Marquess had stated more fully what policy he was in favour of, because if he were in favour of Reciprocity and Retaliation, he might have indicated how that policy was to be pursued, and whether he would be prepared to introduce the system. I, for my part, think it is a great error to blame persons who happen to differ from me and others on the subject of Free Trade, because it is undoubtedly true that a very large number of educated men are still in favour of the policy of Protection; and we ourselves, not a very long time ago, thought it was a sound system. But if we are to discuss this question, let us discuss it face to face, and not on such a Notice as the noble Marquess has given. I have not lost faith in Free Trade, and I believe it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to form a practicable Tariff on this subject which can be submitted with any confidence to any body of men, and by which the Reciprocity system can again be introduced. The difficulties of the West India planters are of old standing. They are connected, as is well known, with the system of industry in that region and with many other causes. I sympathize with them, but I confess, as a consumer in this country, I am not altogether in favour of a movement which seems to be directed to taxing the consumers of sugar in this country, and especially to encourage the production of West India sugar. The noble Marquess has not given your Lordship any figures, but I understand him to say that there is a considerable decrease in the production of sugar in the West Indies.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, what I said was that the importation of sugar had, during the last few years, practically stood still; and whereas the importation of beet-root sugar was formerly 600,000 tons, it was now 1,500,000 tons.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: The impression made on my mind during the speech of the noble Marquess was that there had been a great decrease in the production of sugar. However, the Petition presented to the House is from the planters of Barbadoes, and I will venture to ask the noble Marquess whether, in the face of the figures which I will read

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  to the House, he will venture to say that the production has decreased? From a Return of the production of sugar in the West Indies, it appears that the average production of the West Indian Colonies for the five years ending 1869 was 166,000 tons, for the five years ending 1874 it was 181,000 tons, and for the four years between 1874 and 1878, 200,000 tons. There had, no doubt, at the same time, been a large increase in the production of beet-root sugar. For the three years between 1870 and 1873, which was the time when bounties began to affect the production of sugar, the average crop of cane sugar was 246,000 tons; between 1876 and 1879 it had fallen to 242,000 tons; while the corresponding figures for beet-root were 966,000 tons, and 1,607,000 tons. In Barbadoes, during the first term, the production of cane sugar was 91,544 tons; and during the latter three years, when bounties were said to have destroyed the production, it had risen to 132,000 tons. It is, then, rather remarkable that a Petition should be presented from Barbadoes asserting that the industry of the Island is seriously affected. It is quite true that the production of beet-root sugar has increased much beyond that of the sugar cane; but in Barbadoes, British Guiana, and Trinidad, although the sugar cane industry has not advanced so much as beet-root, it has progressed, and there is no symptom that it will decay. But there is another important consideration. When the financial position of these Islands is talked of, their condition as a whole ought to be regarded, and not merely with reference to one production. There has been a large increase in the production of cocoa in many of the West Indian Colonies, and, as I am informed, the production of cocoa, which is more profitable than that of sugar, is increasing to a remarkable extent in some of the Islands. It is the more important for the reason that the increased cocoa production has taken place mainly in those Colonies in which the sugar production has declined. The question of refined sugar, which is a very difficult and complicated one, is being inquired into with very great care, and, as far as the inquiry has gone, it has not been found that the number of persons employed has very largely decreased. The most important part of the speech of
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  the noble Marquess was that in which he threw out general and vague hints that it might be desirable to embark in a system of retaliation. Does this indicate that the Party of which the noble Marquess is the Leader are about to demand a reverse of the Free Trade policy of this country in order to return to Protection? I hope that when the noble Marquess makes up his mind on this subject he will give us fair notice of the fact, in order that we may have a full, fair, and free discussion of the subject.
  THE EARL OF CARNARVONsaid, he did not see that the speech of the noble Marquess was open to the suggestion just made, or he would have formulated his Notice in different terms. It was scarcely possible to consider such a question as that raised by the Petition presented to the House without referring to the general topic of Free Trade, which just now so largely engrossed public attention. The case of the West Indian Colonies was an extremely hard one, and all the harder because the resources of those Colonies were naturally very great, and they could supply a very large portion of the demands which this country could make upon them if it were not for the somewhat unfair action of the Government of a foreign country. The French bounty system was one which inflicted undeserved hardship upon the trade of this country, a considerable branch of which it threatened to destroy. A very curious picture was presented by the present state of things. On the one hand we had large Kingdoms forming themselves into great commercial unions, self-supporting and independent of others, as was being done by France, Germany, and the United States. On the other hand we had the English Empire, scattered over the whole of the world, the different parts containing different products which each other part desired, but the parts kept separated from each other by different and sometimes by adverse Tariffs. More than this, we had almost the whole of Europe at this moment entering into a combination to get as much as they could for themsleves, and as much as they could of what we had. France, in particular, had entered into a partnership with her own manufacturers to impose such a duty as must obviously have the effect of ruining the industries of this country in her market. There were, no doubt,

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  several conclusions which might be drawn from that state of things which were quite apart from the question before the House. The first result was that the country was now touching a new phase and form of this question, and we had arrived at a new point of departure in the negotiations for the French Treaty to which his noble Friend had alluded. It was perfectly clear, as his noble Friend had said, that the consumer in England was not likely to gain anything from these bounties, and for this obvious reason, that until the necessity for the continuance of these bounties ceased, the foreigner would get a hold of the English market, and make his own terms. The English trade thus destroyed by him was one which demanded a vast amount of capital, and, though it might be destroyed in a few years, could not be re-established in a short time. He ventured, therefore, to hope that the Government would consider very carefully the conclusion which had been arrived at not long ago in the other House of Parliament, which was to the effect that unless we were to obtain a Treaty, not merely equivalent, but superior to that of 1860, it would be better to have no Treaty at all. He, for one, heartily agreed in that opinion. He had always had grave doubts as to the whole policy of Commercial Treaties, and in those doubts he expected many noble Lords opposite would concur. Certainly, unless a better Treaty were obtained than that of 1860, he thought it would be better that we should be perfectly unfettered.
  EARL GRANVILLE: My Lords, I do not rise to continue this discussion, which, as my noble Friend the Secretary of State for the Colonies has said, has been brought upon the House very much in the nature of a surprise. I entirely join in the protest of my noble Friend, and I think that if the noble Marquess intended to raise this most important question, he ought to have given us some indication of what he meant to do. I looked at the Notice Paper, as it is my duty, and when I read the Notice of the noble Marquess, I thought he was going to bring before your Lordships some local grievance with which my noble Friend near me would be able to deal. But I had not the most distant idea, nor do I think that anyone could have conceived that
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  the noble Marquess was to a great degree about to raise the standard of Protection, under colour of the more plausible names of Retaliation and Reciprocity. That policy would have a great effect, a most mischievous effect, upon this country. My Lords, there is nothing that I could desire more than that this subject should be brought before your Lordships and worked out completely. But I do protest against two noble Lords settling between themselves to have this discussion without the Notice which it was proper to give. Could anyone imagine that if your Lordships had known generally that this subject would be brought before you, there would have been so few noble Lords present? Why, we should have assembled in large numbers on such a question as this. The only thing I have some satisfaction in hearing is the statement of the noble Lord opposite (the Earl of Carnarvon) that he would prefer no Commercial Treaty at all to one which would put our commercial relations in a worse position than that in which they are now placed. No doubt, Treaties of Commerce are an exception—it would be better to have no Treaties of Commerce. But the existing Treaty was made in peculiar circumstances, and was intended to give the two countries an opportunity of seeing what could be done with a greater relaxation of trade. If this subject is to be treated in such a manner that our commercial relations will be put in a worse position than they are now in, I think it would be infinitely better to have no Treaty at all.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I only wish to say that I deny in the most categorical manner that I raised the standard of Protection, Retaliation, or Reciprocity. What I did was to urge the noble Earl at this juncture of the negotiations with France, to exercise his diplomatic ability for the purpose of protecting British industry and Colonial property, which are just now suffering from a deep grievance at the hands of Foreign Powers.
  Petition ordered to lie on the Table.
  House adjourned at a quarter past Seven
  o'clock, till To-morrow, a quarter before Five o'clock.