Sitting of 29 July 1881

Preamble
The House met at Two of the clock.

MINUTES.
SELECT COMMITTEE—Report—Stationery Office (Controller's Report) [No. 3561.
SUPPLY—considered in Committee—CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES—Class II.—SALARIES AND EXPENSES OF CIVIL DEPARTMENTS—Committee R.P. Resolutions [July 28] reported.
PUBLIC BILLS—Second Reading—Superannuation (Post Office and Works) * [228].
Committee—Petroleum (Hawking) [222] [House counted out].
Third Reading—Land Law (Ireland) [225], and passed.

PROTECTION OF PERSON AND PROPERTY (IRELAND) ACT, 1881—MESSRS. CROTTY AND MARSH, PRISONERS UNDER THE ACT.
MR. O'SHEAasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether Messrs. Crotty and Marsh are confined in Limerick Gaol on suspicion of having been concerned in an attack on a house near Tomgraney (Clare) on the 29th of May; and, if so, whether representations have reached him to the effect that Messrs. Crotty and Marsh assert that they can prove, by the evidence of policemen and others, that they were at a considerable distance from Tomgraney, on their way to Nenagh Fair with cattle, when the house in question was attacked?
MR. W. E. FORSTER MR. W. E. FORSTER, in reply, said, there seemed to be reasonable ground for the suspicion on which the arrests were made; the evidence that had been laid before him confirmed him in that view; and when the time came to reconsider the matter, if there were any further information the case should be inquired into.

POOR LAW (IRELAND)—IRREGULARITY IN KILRUSH WORKHOUSE, CO. CLARE.
MR. O'SHEAasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether his attention has been called to the fact that a pauper lunatic in Kilrush (Clare) Workhouse has been found to be pregnant; and, whether an

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inquiry has been made into the case by an inspector of the Local Government Board; and, if so, whether it is intended to publish the Inspector's Report?
MR. W. E. FORSTER MR. W. E. FORSTER, in reply, said, his attention had been called to the fact mentioned in the Question of the hon. Gentleman, and an inquiry had been held by an Inspector of the Local Government Board; but the poor woman was so imbecile that nothing could be made of her statements. The nurse in charge of the ward was considered to have failed in attention to her duties, and she had been discharged by the Local Government Board. He did. not think it necessary to publish the Report of the Inspector, the substance of which had been communicated to the local Guardians. He could not say whether reporters were excluded from the inquiry.

LAW AND POLICE—PRACTICE OF CARRYING FIREARMS.
SIR HENRY TYLERasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he will take into consideration the question of dealing by legislation with the cases of burglars and others carrying revolvers or other firearms and shooting innocent people, and of appropriately punishing such crimes whether attended or unattended by fatal results?
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Sir, I answered a Question similar to this earlier in the Session. I learn from the police that the practice of carrying firearms is not very frequent. At the same time, I think it would be very desirable to provide some severer punishment for offences committed by persons carrying them. In any amendment of the Criminal Law it would be well to introduce such a change.
SIR HENRY TYLERsaid, that the Secretary of State for the Home Department had not taken any notice of the last part of the Question, with regard to appropriately punishing such crimes, whether unattended or attended by fatal results.
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Sir, what I meant to say was that slight offences committed by men carrying firearms should meet with severer punishment than crimes committed by men who do not carry firearms.

LAW AND JUSTICE—SUMMARY JURISDICTION ACT, 1879—FINES AND COSTS.
MR. HORWOODasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether, in view of cases like that of the "lark's nest" recently before him, and other instances in which defendants are being sent to gaol for non-payment of fines, he will consider the propriety of calling the attention of justices of the peace to the power given to them by "The Summary Jurisdiction Act, 1879," to afford time for payment by instalments so as to avoid unnecessary imprisonment; and, whether he will cause an inquiry to be made into the scales of costs and fees in use at petty sessions throughout the Country, with a view to their revision and reduction, and thus prevent the disproportion of costs to the fine inflicted, which occurs in many cases?
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Sir, I doubt whether there will be any great advantage in calling the attention of justices to the provisions of the Summary Jurisdiction Act—they are perfectly well acquainted with them; but I agree very much in the regret that the wise provisions introduced into the Act by my Predecessor are not carried out so beneficially as they might be in many cases. In many cases, as everybody knows, where the fine is under 5s. there can be no costs, unless the justices specially certify them, and this they are too frequently in the habit of doing. I have pointed out to them that this is not what is intended by the Act; it was intended that only in exceptional circumstances should costs be given. The reply I receive is—"Oh, but we impose a small fine on account of the costs." In my opinion, that is not a judicious proceeding; it gives to the public an unfair impression of what has really happened. It appears that a person has been fined only 1s., when, in point of fact, he has had to pay 30s.; therefore, I much desire that the provisions of the Act with reference to costs were more fully carried out. The second part of the Question opens up a very difficult matter. I have very often much regretted that large bills of costs have attended these convictions, especially in the case of poor people; but it must be remembered that our present system is that these costs defray the expenses

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of the administration of justice to a great degree; and if you are to change the system, either the local authorities must undertake to pay the expenses which are now paid by fines, or the Exchequer must bear them, and both of these are serious propositions.
SIR R. ASSHETON CROSS: Sir, perhaps I may be allowed to say, as I had the honour of carrying the Bill of 1879, that I agree with every word of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's answer to the first part of the Question; what he has said is in entire accordance with the object with which the Act was passed.

ARMY—THE ORDNANCE COMMITTEE.
MR. LEAMYasked the Secretary of State for War, If he has any objection to state the number of guns examined by the Ordnance Committee since 1st January last; the branch of the public service for which those guns were intended; the names of the inventors; and if any of the guns consisted of more than one chamber, and, if so, how many?
MR. CHILDERS: Sir, the hon. Member is mistaken in supposing either that the Ordnance Committee commenced its duties in January last, or that it is its function to examine guns indiscriminately. Its work began, as I have already informed the House, in April, and the only duty of the Committee is to report to the Secretary of State on questions of ordnance and kindred subjects especially referred to them by him. The most important question so referred to them is that of the muzzle and breech-loading guns of the greatest calibres, from 43 tons to 100 tons weight; but this has not stood in the way of some less important references, and about 14 smaller guns have been brought by me to their notice. I see no reason to give the House further details now, when the Committee has been at work for so short a time; but I hope, in moving the next Army Estimates, to afford the House useful information on this subject.

PARLIAMENT—MR. BEADLAUGH—THREATENED MEETING IN TRAFALGAR SQUARE.
MR. WARTON MR. WARTON, who had given Notice of a Question which stood on the Paper in the following terms:—
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"To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the police are still unacquainted with the intention that Mr. Brad-laugh has circulated printed notices convening a mass meeting in Trafalgar Square, to he holden at eight o'clock p.m. on Tuesday next, for the purpose of protesting against his exclusion from this House?"
said, he wished to call attention to the fact that the Question had been altered by the officials of the House in such a way as to make it absolute nonsense. The Question was made to read whether the police were "still unacquainted with the intention that Mr. Bradlaugh had circulated in printed notices." He did not ask about that "intention." What he asked was whether the police were still ignorant of the fact that notices had been circulated?
SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Sir, I attribute the alteration of the Question to a misprint. I have seen the handbill referred to, and it does not appear to me to propose the holding of a meeting which is prohibited by the words of the statute. The words of the statute are directed to Petitions to the House of Commons, and they would also extend to any tumultuous assemblages with the object of interfering with the action of or intimidating the House of Commons. This meeting and these handbills profess no intention of petitioning or remonstrating with the House of Commons, or proceeding to the House of Commons. We have been furnished by the police with certain instructions which have professedly been given on this matter by the conveners of the meeting in relation to the conduct of the meeting. They express a desire that perfect order may be maintained, and distinctly state that no attempt is to be made to go from Trafalgar Square to the House of Commons. That being so, there is no ground on which I can have legal authority to interfere with the meeting. If I am asked whether Trafalgar Square is an appropriate or a favourable place for a public meeting, I may say, very positively, I do not. [Mr. E. N. FOWLER: Hear, hear!] The worthy Alderman opposite and the hon. and learned Member for Bridport (Mr. Warton) know that within the last few years frequent meetings have been held in Trafalgar Square—whether they attended them or not I cannot say. I have witnessed some of them, although they were not for objects with which I spe-

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cially sympathized. Unfortunately, there has grown up a habit of holding meetings there which I wish was terminated. I need hardly say that every precaution will be taken to prevent interruption to the traffic, and, above all, to restrain any disturbance or any interference with the access to the House of Commons.

ARMY ORGANIZATION—REGIMENTAL COLOURS.
SIR ALEXANDER GORDONasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether he has yet consulted the Military Authorities about the continued use of "Regimental Colours," as promised by him on the 12th August last; and, if he can give to the House his opinion on the subject?
MR. CHILDERS: Sir, in reply to my hon. and gallant Friend, I have to say that, in fulfilment of my promise given at the end of last Session, and renewed in February last, the Commander-in-Chief sent to all general officers and colonels commanding battalions in the United Kingdom a Circular inviting their opinion as to the expediency of retaining one or both of the regimental colours, and, should they be retained, as to the expediency of taking them with the regiment on active service. To this Circular 83 answers have been received, and after carefully weighing them the Duke of Cambridge has decided upon, and I have approved, a General Order, which will recite that in consequence of the altered formation of attack and the extended range of fire, regimental colours shall not in future be taken with the battalions on active service. When, however, a battalion goes abroad in the ordinary course of relief they will accompany the battalion, but be left with the depot which has to be formed on such occasions if the regiment goes on active service. Except in this respect no change will be made, both colours being retained as affording a record of the services of the regiment, and furnishing to the young soldier a history of its gallant deeds. At reviews and occasions of ceremony they will be usually taken with the battalion.
SIR ALEXANDER GORDONsaid, that in consequence of the answer of the right hon. Gentleman he would not proceed with the Resolution standing in his name with respect to this subject.

NAVY—THE DISASTERS TO THE SHETLAND FISHERMEN.
MR. GOURLEYasked the Secretary to the Admiralty, If any material assistance has been or is to be sent to the Shetland Islands by the Admiralty for the purpose of relieving the widows and orphans of the unprecedented number of fishermen who lost their lives in the gales of the 20th and 21st instant; and, whether the "Eagle" revenue cutter is a sailing or steam cruiser; and is the only vessel now cruising upon that station?
MR. LAINGasked whether he might be allowed to supplement the Question by asking whether the Government would consider the propriety of giving assistance in the form of money?
MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, the Admiralty has not sent any material assistance to the families of the fishermen who lost their lives in such a melancholy manner. It appears to be a proper case for a movement on the part of the general public, and I am glad to see that that is the opinion of some very influential gentlemen. The Eagle is a sailing cruiser of 118 tons. She was on the ground at the time of the sudden gale, and has been directed to cruise to the eastward and render assistance to disabled boats.

LAW AND JUSTICE (IRELAND)—THE MAGISTRACY—THE HIGH SHERIFF OF COUNTY LOUTH.
MR. HEALYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether his attention has been called to the report in the "Dundalk Democrat" of 16th July, of a police prosecution for assault in a drunken brawl in the town of Louth on July 17th, in which the magistrates considered the case met by a 5s. fine, whereupon the County Louth High Sheriff is reported to have said—
"He was high sheriff for the county and responsible for the peace of it. He was jealous of the character of the county, and did not wish it to be proclaimed, but he warned those present that if his servant or any other persons were again attacked, he would communicate with the Castle and have the county at once proclaimed. He did not say he made those observations on account of this case. The case just decided may or may not be the cause of these remarks, but he again warned the people for their own sake to be peaceable and not to oblige him to take steps and have the county proclaimed;"

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if the report is substantially correct, whether it is the fact that high sheriffs can have counties proclaimed in this way; if not, whether he can reassure the public that proclamations are not issued without due consideration and on proper representation; and, whether the Government will take any notice of the high sheriff's language?
MR. W. B. FORSTER MR. W. B. FORSTER, in reply, said, he had seen the newspaper referred to. The hon. Member had rightly quoted the statement reported in the paper; but he did not know whether it was a correct report, and had not thought it necessary to inquire. He could only say that he could hardly suppose the High Sheriff spoke of proclaiming the county, as he certainly must have known he had no power to do so.

PROTECTION OF PERSON AND PROPERTY (IRELAND) ACT, 1881—MESSRS. FLOOD, PRISONERS UNDER THE ACT.
MR. HEALYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether the offence for which the Messrs. Flood (since released) were arrested was on suspicion of houghing cattle; whether it is true that the County Grand Jury have since assessed damages on three townlands for the injury to the cattle; whether it is the fact that, although the Messrs. Flood live in Robertstown, the adjacent townland to those on which the damages were levied, the Grand Jury, whose members were aware that the Floods were imprisoned on suspicion of having committed the outrage, and with all the information and evidence before them, did not levy any portion of the compensation paid for the cattle on Robertstown, the townland where the Floods reside; and, if so, whether he can explain this, and say whether any other cattle have been houghed in the district except those for which the Grand Jury gave the compensation above-mentioned; and, in that case, to whom they belonged?
MR. W. E. FORSTER MR. W. E. FORSTER, in reply, said, the men named had been arrested on suspicion of maiming cattle, and had been since discharged. With respect to the action of the Grand Jury, he could not enter into a discussion on a matter over which he had no power, and with which he had no concern. No cattle had been maimed except those in re-
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spect of which compensation was assessed.
MR. HEALYsaid, the right hon. Gentleman had not answered his Question. It was whether the Grand Jury, knowing all the facts, did not levy the damages on the district in which the Floods resided, but in the adjoining townships?
MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he thought he had given an answer to the Question. It was true the Grand Jury had assessed the damages in the manner stated; but he could not say what the Grand Jury knew.

PROTECTION OF PERSON AND PROPERTY (IRELAND) ACT, 1881—RE. LIEF FOR FAMILIES OF PRISONERS UNDER THE ACT.
MAJOR NOLANasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenont of Ireland, If he will give directions that the families of persons arrested under the Peace Preservation Act should receive outdoor relief if in indigent circumstances, and if a majority of the guardians are in favour of such a course being pursued?
MR. W. E. FORSTER MR. W. E. FORSTER, in reply, said, the Local Government Board had issued an Order authorizing Boards of Guardians in Ireland to afford out-door relief to the families of the persons referred to.

COMMERCIAL TREATY WITH FRANCE (NEGOTIATIONS).
MR. MONKasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether any further communication has been received from the French Government as to the proposed new Commercial Treaty with France?
SIB CHARLES W. DILKE: Sir, a communication was received from the French Government on the subject last Saturday, and a further communication to-day. The latest Papers will be considered at a meeting of the Royal Commission to be held this afternoon; but we are not in a position to make any statement with regard to the present state of the negotiations.
VISCOUNT SANDONasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether Her Majesty's Government has made no communication to the commercial community of Great Britain re-

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specting the new French Tariff, and the negotiations for the French Treaty, beyond inviting by public advertisement the evidence before the Royal Commission of any parties interested in the trades affected by the French Tariff; and, whether he will give the altered Return which he has placed on the Paper, namely, a Return of the names of all places, under the heading of Counties in alphabetical order, from which communications have been addressed either to the Foreign Office, or the Royal Commissioners for the French Commercial Treaty, or the Board of Trade, on the subject of the new French Tariff, and of the proposals of France for a new Commercial Treaty; giving, under the heading of each place, in order of time, the names, and, as far as possible, the trades or occupations of the persons by whom such communications were addressed, as well as the Department to which they were sent; and stating in each case if such persons are representatives of any public body, Chamber of Commerce, or Trade Society; and a list of all the witnesses (with their trades, occupation, and addresses, so far as they are known,) who have been examined by Royal Commissioners for the French Commercial Treaty, and of the Witnesses, if any, who offered themselves for examination, but whose evidence was not taken?
SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: Sir, communications respecting the new French Tariff, forwarding documents connected with it, have been made from time to time to Chambers of Commerce and to Commercial Associations which have addressed the Foreign Office on the subject. On the 25th of March, when the discussion on the new Tariff in the French Parliament was approaching its conclusion, these Chambers and Associations were informed, confidentially, of the state of the case, and asked for their observations with respect to it. On the 31st of May a Circular was addressed to all the Chambers of Commerce, calling attention to the appointment of the Royal Commission, and stating that any further statements would be received, and that the Royal Commissioners would confer with any delegate who might be appointed. The Return in question will be given as far as possible; but, as any communications which have been made to the Board of Trade have been passed
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on by that Department to the Foreign Office or the Royal Commissioners, it would be better to limit it to communications addressed to the Foreign Office or Royal Commission.

SOUTH AFRICA—THE TRANSVAAL—MURDER OF CAPTAIN ELLIOTT AND MR. MALCOLM.
MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTasked the First Lord of the Treasury, What steps Her Majesty's Government intend to take in order to bring to justice the murderers of Captain Elliott and Mr. Malcolm, the persons accused of these crimes having just been acquitted against the weight of evidence; and to punish those who are responsible for the massacre of Colonel Anstruther's detachment at Brunker's Spruit?
SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, he did not know whether the right hon. Gentleman was aware of what was being done in the case of Dr. Barber; but it was desirable that the House should be made acquainted with what was intended in that case.
SIR CHARLES W. DILKE,in reply, said, he had been requested by his right hon. Friend to reply to these Questions. With respect to the inquiry of the right hon. Baronet, he had to request that Notice should be given of it. With regard to the Question of the hon. Member, it was placed on the Paper at a late hour last night, and he had not since had any opportunity of seeing Lord Kimberley, or of reading the Papers in the Colonial Office on the subject. He would, therefore, ask that any part of the Question of the hon. Member, not covered by his answer, might be renewed at another time. A brief telegram from Sir Hercules Robinson had been received, which stated that with regard to the inquiry into the murder of Captain Elliott, the Chief Justice and the Attorney General both stated that the jury was a respectable one. That was all that the telegram said with regard to the justice or injustice of the verdict. As to Mr. Malcolm's case, Sir Hercules Robinson telegraphed on the 27th instant—
"Persons accused of Malcolm's marder acquitted. The Chief Justice considers that the evidence was conflicting on many material points."
As regards the massacre of Colonel An-

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struther's detachment, he (Sir Charles W. Dilke) was not in a position to state whether any further steps were contemplated; but Her Majesty's Government had not received any information which indicated that the transactions were of such an exceptional nature as to bring them within the definition of acts contrary to civilized warfare.
SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHinquired whether, when full Reports were received by the Government in reference to the cases, they would be presented to the House? It was most desirable that hon. Members should know in what way the investigation had been conducted, and what was the opinion of the Government on the subject.
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he had no doubt that such Reports would be received; the first duty of the Government would then be to consider the Reports very carefully, because they related to matters which were grave in themselves. He did not know, however, that anything had happened which would justify the expression of any opinion; and he thought the right hon. Baronet would agree with him that it would be premature to give any pledge with respect to the production of the Papers until they had been received and considered.
SIR HENRY TYLERasked whether any information would be given as regards the massacre at Brunker's Spruit?
SIR CHARLES W. DILKEsaid, he would be glad to answer the Question if the hon. Member would give Notice of it; and he repeated that the Colonial Office had no information that the transactions referred to were of such an exceptional nature as to bring them within the definition of acts contrary to civilized warfare.
SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, he hoped that information in regard to the murder of those officers would be laid before Parliament before the end of the present Session; and, further, that the House would also be informed as to the steps which Government intended to take in reference to the matter.

AFGHANISTAN—DEFEAT OF THE AMEER'S FORCES.
SIR HENRY TYLER (for Mr. ONSLOW)asked the First Lord of the Treasury, At what distance from the scene where the recent engagement between the Amir of Afghanistan and
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Ayoob Khan has been fought is there any considerable force of Anglo-Indians, and under whose command?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: Sir, my right hon. Friend has asked me to answer this Question. I had, perhaps, better state all that it is at present possible to state with regard to the circumstances which have occurred in Afghanistan. The only official telegram which has been received, and which has not been communicated to the Press, or read to the House, is the following, received late last night:—
"From Viceroy, Simla, July 28.
"Two Sirdars have reached Chaman from scene of action, which lasted from 8 to 11a.m. They say the Cabuli regiments fought at first, but, after action, Khanabad regiment went over in a body to Ayoob. The other three dispersed and fled. They heard firing in Candahar direction last night and again this morning. General Ghalam Haidar went first to the city before starting for Cabul. They estimate the loss at 300 to 400 on both sides."
With reference to the distance from the seat of action of the force of Anglo-Indians, I may say that the headquarters force, under the command of General Hume, is at Quetta and in the neighbouring districts of Pishin and Sibi. That division amounts to a force of between 5,000 and 6,000 men; but, up to the present, I cannot say what is the exact distribution of the forces. The most advanced fort which has been occupied—I am not certain whether it is occupied at present or not, but I think it probably is—is Chaman, about 85 miles from Candahar; and Karez-i-Atta, where the recent action took place, is situated about 25 miles beyond Candahar. I have received a private telegram from the Viceroy stating that he had directed General Hume to concentrate all the troops at his command, if necessary, in the neighbourhood of Quetta, so as to be able to cope with any fresh disturbance that may arise there.
LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: I wish to ask the Prime Minister what meaning he wishes the House to draw from the expression he made use of last night—"A considerable Anglo-Indian force is in the neighbourhood of the action." [Mr. GLADSTONE dissented.] I do not know whether these are the Prime Minister's exact words. These were the words that fell from him, as reported in The Times of this morning, and

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I want to know the exact meaning to be put upon them?
MR. GLADSTONE: I cannot give any meaning to the words—I never used them. I certainly did not say that there was a large Anglo-Indian force in the neighbourhood where the action took place. What I said was "in the neighbourhood of that portion of Afghanistan—namely, Candahar." That is not where the action took place.
LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: I beg to ask the Prime Minister to state distinctly what impression is to be drawn from the expression used by him last night with regard to the presence of a large Anglo-Indian force in the neighbourhood?
MR. GLADSTONE: In my view, the question of the noble Lord has been answered by the telegram just read by the noble Lord.
COLONEL STANLEY: May I ask the noble Lord a question with reference to the answer he has given? He stated that the troops are close to Quetta. Are we to understand that in consequence of the directions given to General Hume to concentrate the forces under his command at Quetta, the troops are to be withdrawn from Pishin and Sibi?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: I cannot give any further information than I have received. A division, as I have stated, under General Hume's command, numbering between 5,000 and 6,000 men, is, no doubt, at present in occupation of various positions in the district. If General Hume considers it necessary to concentrate the whole force at Quetta, it would involve withdrawal from Pishin and Sibi.
MR. E. STANHOPE: Would the noble Lord make inquiry on the subject? Are Pishin and Sibi to be left entirely at the mercy of—
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will finish his question. At the mercy of whom?
MR. E. STANHOPE: What I intended to say was whether they were to be left to anarchy?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: The Viceroy appears to have considered that any excitement in the district which was likely to follow the report of the victory of Ayoob Khan would be best met by the concentration of the forces under General Hume's command. It is impossible for me to state at this moment
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what is the position in regard to Pishin. No doubt, General Hume will take the measures which he considers bestadapted for preserving the tranquillity of the district now occupied by British troops.
SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOT: I wish to ask the noble Lord whether any application had been made by the Ameer for the assistance of British troops?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: Not that I am aware of.
SIR HENRY TYLER: May I ask the noble Lord a Question, of which I gave Notice at the commencement of the Sitting, Whether he would be so good as to inform the House what steps, if any, Her Majesty's Government intend to take, and what attitude they propose to adopt, with reference to the circumstances of the defeat in Afghanistan—that is to say, what is the policy of Her Majesty's Government as to supporting Abdurrahman after his defeat?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: I have no further communication to make to the House. No doubt, if the Viceroy considers further steps necessary he will communicate to Her Majesty's Government; but until I have received further information from the Government of India it is not proposed to take any further steps.
LORD ELCHO: I should like, if my noble Friend will excuse me, to trouble him with one more question. It is with reference to a possible contingency, and the course the Government will take. Supposing Ayoob Khan gets possession of Candahar and the Khojak Pass, which, as everbody knows, is a most important pass, will the Government allow the pass to be occupied by Ayoob?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: I really think it would be unnecessary, and probably inconvenient, that I should answer the question.

INDIA—PENSIONS FOR EMINENT SERVICES—SIR FREDERICK ROBERTS.
SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFasked the Secretary of State for India, Whether, in the year 1869, an Act was passed to enable Lord Napier of Magdala to receive the full benefit of the salary of Member of Council for the Presidency of Bombay, or as holding any other office in India, notwithstanding his being in receipt of an annuity, and notwith-

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standing other Acts of Parliament; if he can state why a similiar indulgence was not extended to Sir Frederick Roberts in respect of the annuity granted to him for his services in Afghanistan; whether a sum of £25,000 was voted to Sir Garnet Wolseley for his services in Ashantee; whether the annuities conferred on Lords Keane, Gough, and Hardinge, and Sir H. Havelock, were charged on Imperial Revenues, though granted for Indian services; whether, in commemoration of the famous exploit of General Roberts, a bronze star is to be or has been given to those who took part in it; whether it has been held that we cannot clearly define as an Indian object the purpose of the Afghan War, and that in consequence a grant has been made from Imperial funds towards the expenses of that war; and, whether, taking into consideration the foregoing precedents, and also the admittedly composite character of the campaigns in which Sir F. Roberts took part, Her Majesty's Government will reconsider their decision as to the £12,500 awarded to Sir F. Roberts, and grant him either from Indian or Imperial funds a pecuniary reward more in consonance with such precedents?
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: It is true, Sir, as stated in the Question, that an Act was passed to enable Lord Napier of Magdala to receive the full benefit of his salary as a Member of Council, notwithstanding his being in receipt of an annuity. It is also true that £25,000 was voted to Sir Garnet Wolseley for his services in Ashantee. It is further the fact that Her Majesty's Government have held that the Afghan War cannot be considered to have been undertaken solely for Indian purposes, and that it was just, therefore, to make an Imperial contribution towards the expenses of the war. That Imperial contribution has been made in the shape of a grant of £5,000,000. It has never been proposed or suggested that any further contribution should be made, or any division of the detailed expenditure of the war should be made, between the Indian and Imperial Governments. There is, so far as I am aware, no more reason why the Imperial Government should undertake a share of the payment of the officers than why they should undertake to pay the commissariat or any other of the expenses in-
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volved. The hon. Member asks why a similar Bill was not introduced in the case of General Roberts as in the case of Lord Napier of Magdala. I may say, in reply, that it is perfectly certain that such a Bill could not have passed through this House without considerable opposition and delay. The circumstances would have been in that respect very different from those in which Lord Napier's Bill was passed; and I am not prepared to say, even if I could have been certain that the Bill would pass without any opposition, that I should have been prepared to introduce, or that the Council of India would have been prepared to support me in introducing, a Bill in conformity with that precedent. All I can say in answer to the general question is, that, looking to the precedents which have been published in the Return recently moved for by the hon. Gentleman, it appeared to the Government that the services of Sir Donald Stewart and Sir Frederick Roberts would be adequately met, in conformity with former precedents, by a grant of £1,000 a-year for life, and looking to the exceptional circumstances in which those two officers were placed by their being at the time in high office under the Indian Government, and thereby disqualified for an immediate pension, a grant of £12,500 in commutation of the annuity was an adequate and even a liberal one.
SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFbegged to point out that the noble Marquess had not replied to that portion of his Question relating to the annuities conferred on Lords Keane, Gough, and Hardinge, and Sir Henry Havelock.
THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: I believe it is a fact that the annuities referred to were charged on Imperial revenues. I have not made any inquiry into the circumstances in which these annuities were granted; but I do not see anything to induce me to modify the general reply I have just given.

BOARD OF WORKS (IRELAND).
MR. R. POWERasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, How it was that The Times Correspondent at Dublin had been able the day before yesterday to furnish that journal with the substance of the information contained in the 49th Report of

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the Irish Board of Works, which had only reached the hands of hon. Members this morning; whether he was aware of the means by which that person had obtained a copy of the Report in question; and, if not, what course he intended to take to prevent public documents of this character from being prematurely published?
MR. W. E. FORESTER MR. W. E. FORESTER, in reply, said, that this was the first that he had heard of the matter; he had not seen the statement in The Times referred to by the hon. Member, and, therefore, he could give no explanation of the matter. The hon. Member, however, must be aware that the Irish Board of Works was not under the control of the Irish Government. His right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General for Ireland informed him that a proof of the Report in question had been in the Library of the House of Commons for some time.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  LAND LAW (IRELAND) BILL.— [BILL 225.]
  (Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Forster, Mr. Bright, Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland.)
  LAND LAW (IRELAND) BILL.— [BILL 225.]

    THIRD READING.
    Order for Third Reading read.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."—(Mr. Gladstone.)
    MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, he rose to move, as an Amendment to the right hon. Gentleman's Motion, that the Bill be re-committed in the terms of the Notice which he had given with regard to Clause 35. It was hardly necessary that he should do more on that occasion than shortly state the grounds upon which he asked for the re-committal of the Bill. He took that course because he was desirous of inserting in the clause to which he referred a provision to the effect—
    "Provided always, That in case at any time after the expiration of a period of six years from the passing of this Act a Commission shall have been issued by Her Majesty under Her Royal Sign Manual to ascertain and report whether the business of the Land Commission makes it requisite or not requisite that, after the expiration of the said period of seven years from the passing of this Act, there should be, in addition to the Judicial Commissioner, one or
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    two other Commissioners; and, in case that Commission shall report that the business of the Land Commission makes it requisite that there should be, in addition to the Judicial Commissioner, one or two other Commissioners, and that such other Commissioner or Commissioners should be appointed for a period to be stated by such Commission, Her Majesty may, by Warrant under the Royal Sign Manual, from time to time appoint some fit person or fit persons to be such other Commissioner or Commissioners to hold office during the period stated in such Report. If such Commission report that the business of the Land Commission does not require that there should be any Commissioner in addition to the Judicial Commissioner, then upon the expiration of the said period of seven years after the passing of this Act, all the jurisdiction, powers, privileges, and authority by this Act conferred upon the Land Commission shall thereafter be exercisable and enjoyable by the Judicial Commissioner alone."
    On a former occasion the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister had courteously accepted the principle of that Proviso. Under the Bill, as it now stood, the Commission came to an end in seven years, and only the Judicial Commissioner retained office, whereas the powers conferred by the Bill would require to be administered by more than one Commissioner. Application, consequently, would have to be made to Parliament to wind up the Commission, or to transfer the powers to the one Commissioner left, or, again, to appoint other Commissioners at the end of seven years to carry out the duties under the Act. Such a state of things would lessen the weight that would be attached to the decisions of the Commission. He thought there could be no doubt, after the discussions in this House and the additions made to the Bill, that that Commission would not come to an end in seven years, and that important interests would remain to be performed by the Land Commission—duties which would probably require the attention—and the undivided attention—of more than one important officer. He ventured to think that in. matters of this kind legislation should not be enacted more often than was necessary. He thought that if legislation on this subject was not again rendered necessary at the expiration of seven years, the duties sought to be imposed on the Royal Commission would be discharged by that Commission with greater advantage to the public, with greater security, more perfect impartiality, and more satisfactory results, than if, at the end of that time, they had to resort to

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    Parliament to determine whether there was sufficient work for one or two Commissioners besides the one Judicial Commissioner, who would remain under the Act, or whether it should be performed by one Judicial Commissioner alone. His object in asking the House to accept this proposal was to secure stability, and also permanence, for the work sought to be accomplished; for it was highly desirable that there should be the utmost stability in all the machinery of the Commission, and that the decisions of the Court should be respected. It appeared to him that if the Court came to an end within seven years, there might be an agitation in the country and discussions arise in Parliament which it would be most desirable to avoid, and therefore it was that he now moved the re-committal of the Bill, so far as the 35th clause was concerned.
    Amendment proposed,
    To leave out from the words "Bill be" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "re-committed, with respect to Clause 35,"—(Mr. William Henry Smith,)
    —instead thereof.
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    MR. GLADSTONEsaid, that on a former day the Government, perhaps unconsciously influenced by a desire to reach the conclusion of the Bill, and on that account having satisfied themselves with a less minute examination of the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman than, perhaps, ought to have been made, expressed themselves favourable to a proposition of this kind; but on a closer examination of the matter they had arrived at the conclusion that there was a flaw or defect in the plan which would prevent them from giving their assent to it as it stood. The machinery of the Royal Commission would be put in operation under the clause, and the Commission might report in favour of the prolongation or renewal of the functions of one or more of the lay Commissioners. In that case, the arrangements would be made complete without any reference to Parliament; and he did not know of any reason why they should withhold their assent to such an arrangement, or why they did not make provision for it. But there was another
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    alternative open. It was that there would be no occasion for the re-appointment of either one or two lay Commissioners, and in that case the plan of the right hon. Gentleman provided that the business of the Land Commission should be handed over entirely to the Judicial Commissioner. There was involved in that proposal a principle of great importance, and one to which the Government would not ask Parliament to give its sanction—namely, that the final appeal in those cases should be confided to the single hands of the Judicial Commissioner. But it might be said—"Strike out that portion of the proposal and retain the rest." If, however, they were to do that, then the proposal became entirely incomplete, because it might happen that after having authorized the Government to put into operation the rather cumbrous machinery of a Royal Commission, it would still be necessary to make application to Parliament, in order to provide some assistance to this Commission in the exercise of its important jurisdiction. Well, certainly the Government could not agree to a proposal for additional machinery at a distant period, unless it were a complete and satisfactory proposal. As it stood it would be unsatisfactory on a very important point, and to strike out part of it would make it incomplete. Therefore, the Government were not prepared to adopt the proposal on either view. He agreed with the observation of the right hon. Gentleman that Parliament was, and probably would continue to be, amply charged with Business, and therefore that it was a good thing if they could dispose at once of something which might otherwise remain and occupy time, and give trouble upon a future occasion. He could not say that he embraced the whole of the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman on the subject, for he seemed to anticipate that it would become necessary, probably at the close of five or six years from this time, to adjust the powers of the Commission. That certainly would be a very formidable affair in Parliament, and would renew all the discussions on the matter. The Government did not take that view. On the contrary, having faith in the provisions of their Bill and in the good sense of the people, they thought that as a matter of business the question would be disposed of without a great amount of

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    trouble. On the grounds he had stated, the Government could not assent to the re-committal of the Bill.
    SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, the Prime Minister stated that, in the favourable language he employed a few nights ago, he was influenced unconsciously by the consideration of getting on with the Bill. He was afraid the Government had been unconsciously influenced by a good many considerations during the progress of the Bill in Committee. He did not know what the unconscious influence might be at the present moment; but he must say the objections raised to the right hon. Gentleman's proposal were not very formidable, and he should have thought that the Government might still have considered it possible to adopt the suggestion, and allow this question to be at least discussed. They would, he thought, act wisely to go into Committee, and see whether this clause would be adapted to the circumstances of the case. The Prime Minister admitted that it would be highly desirable at the expiration of seven years to renew the appointment of these Commissioners, and that the clause suggested would meet that difficulty; but the Government were now going to make it imperative on the Government of the day to bring in a Bill on the subject. The House, he thought, must be aware that when a Bill was brought in on such an interesting and important subject there was a tendency on the part of the House to enlarge the scope of the discussion. It seemed to him that the course proposed by his right hon. Friend was wiser than that contemplated by the Government.
    MR. SHAWsaid, he did not think it wise to occupy time now in an endeavour to save the time of the House seven years hence, because it was manifest that if the labours of the Land Commission were consummated, no Ministry in power seven years hence would have the slightest trouble in dealing with the question. He believed before three years were over they would have to legislate on this question of a Royal Commission. The business of settling rents would be complete, and the Commissioners would have nothing to do but to carry on the process of purchasing estates from landlords and re-selling them to tenants, and it would probably strike Parliament that it was unnecessary to keep up this
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    large machinery for doing what would become a very small matter. Why postpone for seven years what probably they should be bound to do in two or three years? This Commission might be amalgamated with, some other Commission before seven years were over. He hoped the third reading of the measure would be allowed to be proceeded with.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Main Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."
    LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL,who had given Notice of his intention to move the following Amendment:—
    "That the Land Law (Ireland) Bill as originally introduced and as amended in Committee, is the result of a revolutionary agitation, encourages the repudiation of contracts and liabilities, offends against individual liberty, is calculated to diminish the security of property, will not contribute to the peace or prosperity of Ireland, and tends to endanger the union, between that Country and Great Britain;"
    said, he was sorry the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith) had not taken the course which was usual when a Motion did not meet with any amount of support—namely, to withdraw it, because in that case he (Lord Randolph Churchill) could have moved his Amendment. He could congratulate the House on having at last escaped from the discussion of the intricate and complicated details of the Land Bill, and on being in a position to take a comprehensive view of the i measure before it went to "another] place." Having watched the progress of the Bill through Committee with as much care and attention as was in his power, and having offered no remarks on the second reading, he would now ask the attention of the House while he communicated to them some of the results of his observations, and made a few valedictory comments on the measure. They had been told in all the Radical newspapers, and as far as he could make out by every Radical orator, that this Bill was the greatest measure which was ever submitted to Parliament, and that its contents and its career were subjects of legitimate pride and delight to the Liberal Party, to the Liberal Government, and, beyond all, to the Prime Minister. He did not think he was exactly in a position to give complete assent to that. He might with confidence lay it down that before any mea-

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    sure could be said to be a subject of legitimate pride to those officially connected with it, it must fulfil one of three conditions—it must be the original design of its author, represent the ratification of a great principle for which its author had long and constantly contended, or, in default of these two conditions, it must be the sure and certain means of great benefit to those who would be affected by it. He would just glance at the Bill from those three points of view. Was this Bill the original design of the Government? Was there anything in it from beginning to end of which the Government could be said to be the inventors and patentees? The Government would be doing very great injustice to certain parties in the House, and be acting in an unworthy manner, if they made such a claim. They now knew, from the indiscreet revelations of the Duke of Argyll, that when the present Government succeeded to Office the idea of an Irish Land Bill had never entered their heads. Either the force of circumstances or their own evil destiny compelled them, or as they thought compelled them, to deal with the Irish Land Question. Searching about for a programme, which they were unable to draw up themselves, they lighted upon and adopted the programme of the Irish Land League, and they determined to enable the Irish Land League to fulfil its promises and to justify its existence to the Irish people by conferring on them the benefit of the "three F's." This much was certain, that if there had been no Land League there would have been no Land Bill; and if the Liberal Government had not adopted the programme of the Land League, the Land League would not have allowed the Government to pass any Bill into law at all. The Irish people knew perfectly well to whom they might ascribe that Bill. They knew that its author was not the Prime Minister, the Member for Mid Lothian, but was the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell). At every public meeting in Ireland resolutions were passed to that effect. At no meeting in Ireland worthy the name of a public meeting had any resolution been passed giving the Government the smallest credit for the Bill. He must, however, notice that one unfortunate individual whom the Chief Secretary for Ireland had let out
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    of prison did preside at a meeting in that country, and passed a vote of thanks to the Chief Secretary. That was the only public meeting held in Ireland at which the merits of the Government had been recognized. And when the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) told the Prime Minister the other day that the Irish people owed him no gratitude for this measure—[Mr. HEALY: I did not say anything of the kind.]—when the hon. Member said that, he spoke the mature and intelligent conviction of the Irish people. He (Lord Randolph Churchill) could not help thinking that when the Prime Minister witnessed the reception of his Bill in Ireland, and the comments which were there made upon it, he would be heard sadly to say, Hos ego versiculos feci, tulit altir honores. He did not wish to dishearten the Government, nor to infuse too much melancholy into their noble minds. There was one measure which, no doubt, they might console themselves with claiming as their own—he alluded to their Coercion Bill. But while the Prime Minister and his Colleagues could never hope to have their names coupled in Ireland with that Land Bill, they would be eternally identified with the suspension of liberty and Constitutional rights. When the Bill was first brought in by the Prime Minister it embodied, in a more or less imperfect form, the doctrine of the "three F's," which was the programme of the Land League and its sine quâ non. The Representatives of the Land League in the House on that occasion, and on the second reading, expressed great dissatisfaction with the Bill on three chief points. They denounced the Emigration Clause, they blamed the Bill because it contained no provision with respect to existing leases, and they also found fault with it because it did not make any arrangement with regard to arrears of rent. What had happened? The Emigration Clause had been struck out. ["No!"] The hon. Member was severely accurate. It had not been struck out, but it had been reduced to an absolute nullity—a perfect farce; and it was impossible that emigration could take place worthy the name of emigration under that clause. On the other two points the Prime Minister had more than met the Irish view. He did not expect him to admit it; that would spoil the game; but he had no

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    hesitation in saying that the Prime Minister had gone beyond their highest hopes, because, after that Bill became law, every lease in Ireland would be promptly reviewed by a Court of Justice in that country, and, if necessary, quashed. Further, all tenants in Ireland who at the present moment were enjoying fair and reasonable leases would, at the termination of those leases, though it might be 60 years hence, be placed in the same position as if they had never had a fair and reasonable lease at all. And with respect to arrears of rent, tenants up to a certain figure who had been wise enough to refuse to pay their rents were to have them liquidated by the taxpayers of Great Britain, and those who had been foolish enough to pay their rents were left to curse their stupidity and to vow that they would never be so caught again. He said, then, let him who deserved the laurel wear it. He felt it his duty to offer his congratulations to the hon. Member for the City of Cork on the magnificent results which he had achieved, although supported by only a small fraction of the House. He wished that the hon. Member would communicate to him the secret of his success, and he would further remind him of the views which the Prime Minister had sketched with respect to town property and absentee landlords. With that vista of splendid possibilities before him, he could congratulate the hon. Member for the City of Cork on the extended field of usefulness which remained for him as long as the Prime Minister continued in Office. All the merit which the Prime Minister and the Chief Secretary for Ireland could claim in the matter was that by their Disturbance Bill of last year, and the violent language which the latter had used against the House of Lords, they had given the signal which had invited the hon. Member for the City of Cork and Mr. Michael Davitt to commence their winter crusade. Could the Government, then, make out that that Bill affirmed or sanctioned the principles for which they had long contended? In the speeches which the Prime Minister delivered in 1870, he elaborately and painfully argued against and controverted every leading provision in the present Bill. To destroy the theory of the "three F's," to cut the ground from under the feet of its advo-
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    cates, was then the right hon. Gentleman's great object, which it must be admitted he attained as completely as any man ever attained any object in Parliament before. From the year 1870 to the year 1880 the Prime Minister and his leading Colleagues sustained the battle against the "three F's" and against the Bill of Mr. Butt, which embodied the "three F's; "and the noble Lord the Secretary of State for India and the Attorney General for Ireland rose to heights of Parliamentary eloquence and argument on that subject as high as it was possible for those two individuals to reach. They were invariably supported by the whole of their Colleagues, and by a united Liberal Party. Moreover, in all the great speeches made by the Prime Minister before the late Election, and which must be deemed to have exercised a controlling power over the issues of that Election, they found no shadow of a trace that the justice of the "three F's "had dawned on his mind. If that right hon. Gentleman and his Colleagues were to abandon the principles of Free Trade and raise the flag of Protection, they could not undergo a greater or more sudden and startling conversion than they had undergone in regard to the Land Question in Ireland. During the whole course of the recent protracted debate, neither the Prime Minister nor his Colleagues had attempted to disguise that conversion or to escape from the embarrassment of their former declarations. It was a melancholy fact, which must fill anyone who reflected on these matters with gloomy forbodings. Recollecting, as he did, the great political apostacies which had surprised and shocked even his contemporaries, he was tempted to ask in despair whether it was to be the inevitable lot of public men to be compelled at intervals, and at short intervals, to repudiate in a humiliating manner the creeds by which they had formerly sworn to abide. Would the Bill produce any benefit to Ireland commensurate in any way with the time and labour Parliament had devoted to it? No doubt, it was a wise maxim not to prophesy unless you knew, and he did not intend to depart from it. ["Oh!"] He hoped the hon. Member for Stockton (Mr. Dodds), would not interrupt him, although he knew it would be a great demand to make on that hon. Member.

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    The Bill was the result of agitation. That was not of itself against the Bill; but what an agitation it had been! It had been an agitation to transfer property by force from one class to another; to bring the landlords on their knees, by fair means or by foul, had long been the undisguised object of the Land League. The agitation had been furthered by speeches of a kind rarely made before, even in the history of Ireland, and that agitation had reduced the Government of Ireland to impotence, an impotence in which they were still grovelling. It had been accompanied by incidents of a kind permanently to disgrace our boasted civilization. It had been assisted, whether intentionally or not he would not say, by crimes of a frightful nature against men, women, dumb animals, and property. It had enabled terrorism, such as Ireland had been mercifully preserved from for generations, to stalk unhindered through the land. It had been acknowledged by more than one Irish speaker that it had reduced society in Ireland to chaos, that it had put an end to mutuul trust between individuals, and that it had stifled for a time the feelings of kindness, charity, and inter-dependence which ought to exist between man and man in a well-governed State. That was a terrible parent for a message of peace; and, looking at the matter in the most superficial way, he doubted whether anyone would place much confidence in the child of such a father. What, after all, was the principle established by this Bill? It was not the adjustment of rents, nor the perpetuity of tenure, but it was simply that agitation, be it audacious and unscrupulous enough, constant, and pertinacious, would suffice for the destruction of almost any of the institutions of this country. Parliament, acting on the advice of the Government, and following their lead, had invited the Irish tenant farmers to endeavour to set aside contracts which, for all we knew, were fair and reasonable. Parliament had consented to liquidate the liabilities of these men, some of whom we knew were perfectly able to discharge them, and who had merely taken advantage of the prevailing disorder to fly in the face of honesty. They had deprived the few for the benefit of the many of privileges and property which could be easily ap-
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    preciated, and they had, at the same time, denied the claim of the smaller to compensation. They were withdrawing and alienating from Ireland those who were devoted to our rule, and who, moreover, were the only channels through which a higher civilization, a more advanced prosperity, and a nobler morality could descend upon the masses of the Irish nation. A profound thinker, for whom the Prime Minister had great respect, Sir George C. Lewis, many years ago wrote a passage which confirmed this view. He said that in Ireland improvement and civilization must descend from above; they would not rise spontaneously from the inward workings of the community. And what were the objects of this Bill? They were two—one of a temporary, and the other of a permanent character. To buy out the Irish landlord was the great object of the Bill. They had been told on authority that the first part of the Bill, complicated as it was, was only a modus vivendi, to last until the desirable result of buying him out should be accomplished. The other day the Prime Minister said he hoped in six years' time to have bought out £10,000,000 worth of Irish landlords. [Mr. GLADSTONE: Nothing of the sort.] Notwithstanding that contradiction, he adhered to the statement; but he was of opinion that it was a very low and modest estimate to make. Unless the circumstances of Ireland were greatly altered, and if the Land League were permitted to control the destinies of Ireland, it would not be £10,000,000, but it would be £40,000,000 or £50,000,000 worth of landlords who would have to be bought out. Surely, no State ever before took upon itself such a curious task. Who were the Irish landlords? They had lately been designated as the English garrison. He quite admitted that the times were not ripe for English garrisons. The Irish landlords were those who, for many generations, in spite of the greatest trials, had manfully upheld the Union in the midst of a population for the most part hostile to it. For the State to spend its substance in buying out its friends in order to deliver over Ireland into the grasp of its enemies was surely an act of folly of which it might have been thought not even a Radical Government could have been capable. If we recognized the uses of a land-owning class in a country,

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    should we take steps to preserve them, or kill them by inches and cruelly drive them out? The Prime Minister admitted that in 1870 he made an enormous confiscation of the property of Irish landlords; but in 1881 he had gone further and deprived the Irish landlords of every right and every privilege appertaining to the ownership of land, except the right of collecting rent. Nothing else was left to the landlord if this Bill passed. And what security could be given that the liability would be discharged by Irish tenants? He assumed that the Commission would be independent of the Executive Government, and that it would be a Court of Justice. Suppose it found the great majority of rents were fair rents in the sense of the Bill, and imposed these rents for a term of years on the tenants, what guarantee could be offered that the decisions of the Court would be obeyed? If they were not obeyed, would they be enforced? What sign was there of returning peace and order in Ireland now that the Bill was all but law? Had not Crown counsel recently demanded the adjournment of Assizes and the postponement of trial on the ground that the trial was an abortive mockery? He unhesitatingly said that there was no precedence for such an Act in the whole history of the Irish Government. Did they dream that the addition of the Royal Assent to the sanction already given by Parliament to the measure would bestow upon it a Divine energy, which at present it did not possess? He further asked, had the landlords of Ireland any guarantee that the Legislature had now taken from them all that it meant to take, and that what remained to them of their property would not in another year or so be sacrificed? Would the Prime Minister be prepared to enter into a solemn pledge in the face of the House, and with the concurrence of the Parliament of England—a pledge of such a solemn nature that it must bind future Parliaments—that at any rate what was left to the Irish landlords should be absolutely secured to them and impregnably fortified? In such a state of things as now existed he did not see how any capital could be imported into Ireland, and in the absence of capital the resources of the country must languish and wither away. How could they have any guarantee that the
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    law of the land would be respected? Let them not talk about the majesty of the law, for since the present Government came into power the majesty of the law had been as defunct as were the mummies of Ramesis and Pharaoh. He feared very much the effect of the Bill on the quick-witted Irish people, and believed that it would be to the Union what the wooden horse was to the city of Troy. It contained within it all the elements of destruction to States. In it and by it, plunder, rapacity, dishorn sty, agitation, mob-law, all received the final and solemn sanction of Parliament. Originally designed by the Land League, their mortal foe, it had been joyfully captured by the Government and incorporated in the machinery of State. And they were told that if the door of the law was not wide enough to admit the measure, the bulwarks of the Constitution would be levelled and every obstacle swept away. Furthermore, if anything was required to make the analogy complete, all hon. Members who from time to time took part in those prolonged debates and proclaimed their suspicion of the monster had been seized, and enfolded, and strangled, like so many Laocoons, in the multitudinous folds of the Prime Minister's endless eloquence, and had been denounced with increasing vehemence in speech after speech, as men, since the days of the Laocoon, had never been denounced before. Well, this great Bill was not yet in the citadel. It had still a course to travel before it received the Royal Assent; and if in its course it happened to be wrecked, he doubted whether it would have many mourners in this country. But if in the following conflict, which he had no doubt the Prime Minister would immediately precipitate, any institutions succumbed, holding, as he sincerely did, the views of the measure which he held, he still said that institutions, however ancient and respected, which in the hour of trial were not capable of protecting the country from imminent peril were, perhaps, hardly institutions in which they ought to repose very great confidence. He greatly regretted that he was unable to submit his Amendment to the House. He believed the principle of that Amendment was recognized by the oracle of the Tory Party; but the political wisdom which was sup-

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    posed popularly to attach to the prefix of "right hon." decided that the Amendment was inopportune. Well, it was not his business to speculate upon what was opportune or inopportune. It was enough for him that the assertions made in the Amendment were incontrovertible. The Bill, it said, was the result of agitation—a revolutionary agitation. It was revolutionary, because it had been enthusiastically propounded that the Bill which it precipitated was the first rung in the ladder leading to the Olympus of Irish Independence. The Amendment further stated that the Bill encouraged the repudiation of contract and liabilities, offended against individual liberty, and was calculated to diminish the security of property. Whether it would conduce to the peace or prosperity of Ireland, or tend to endanger the Union between that country and Great Britain, he was quite content to leave to time to show. The Prime Minister, in introducing the Bill, said that it was inspired by the Divine light of justice. Well, the opposition to the Bill, of which he did not think the Prime Minister would make any complaint either as having been unfair or unduly obstinate, had been conducted by a brighter light than that of justice—namely, the light of freedom; that freedom which the Coercion Bills and the Land Bill of the Liberal Party had altogether blotted out of Irish life.
    MR. GEORGE BUSSELLsaid, there was a Latin proverb which urged that it was not for the eagle to catch flies. He trusted that, in the spirit of the proverb, the Head of Her Majesty's Government would not condescend to reply to the speech which had just been delivered by the noble Lord, but would leave to men of humbler position and of less ability than his own the task of making such criticisms upon it as they thought the occasion required. He confessed that, coming rather late into the House, he was, and he remained under the impression, that the noble Lord was about to move his Amendment. It appeared, however, that that was not so, and he could only say that the speech was strongly and strikingly appropriate to the Amendment. It was, in fact, a speech conceived with a view of bringing that Amendment before the House had not the wisdom which, as the noble Lord said, was supposed to attach to the
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    prefix "right hon." prevented him asking the judgment of the House upon it. They should, therefore, take the speech as a speech, and meet it as best they could; and he was pursuaded he was only expressing the general sense of the House on both sides and in all quarters—except, perhaps, in that exalted spot where the hon. and learned Member for Bridport (Mr. Warton) kept watch and ward over the Constitution—when he said that there was one common feeling to which he only gave very feeble expression—namely, one of very great regret that this great legislative performance of the Session should be allowed, at its close, to degenerate into a farce—he used the word advisedly; for, giving the noble Lord credit, as they all did, for abundant common sense, they could not think that in delivering that speech he was actuated by serious motives. It was out of all belief that his speech could commend itself to the moral feelings or the intellectual palate of the House. He doubted whether the speech commended itself to those hon. Gentlemen with whom the noble Lord habitually acted. Even the Members for Ireland with whom the noble Lord indulged in many passages of harmless coquetry—even they seemed tired of his humour. With regard to the effect which the noble Lord expected his speech to produce on the right hon. Gentleman who led the Opposition, it was quite superfluous to speculate; for they all knew that in the noble Lord's relations with the titular heads of his Party was reproduced, in a political form, the history of Eli and his sons. Injudicious indulgence in the days of early youth had produced in the noble Lord in later life an impatience of all control, and a determination to take the bit between the teeth, which might involve the right hon. Gentleman who stood politically in the parental relation to the noble Lord in consequences hardly less disastrous than those which devolved upon the venerable hero of the sacred story. He thought, therefore, that in thus figuring before the House of Commons at this stage of the Bill the noble Lord must have been gratifying merely his own taste for genteel comedy and light farce. Even his political enemies on this side of the House would abundantly allow that the noble Lord was a first-rate actor of third-rate parts. The noble Lord, however,

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    alas! played habitually to the pit and gallery; he meant to say that in his performances throughout this Session they had never detected an appeal to the higher political sense of the House. What they had seen had led to the belief that the noble Lord was, perhaps, after all, wise in his generation, and was preparing himself for an emergency which might come. He was possibly looking to a time—looming in the distance—when, with a re-distribution of seats, the very few sheep of Woodstock would be left without a shepherd. It was against such a dismal day of retribution that the noble Lord was preparing himself, and making friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness in some larger and more turbulent constituency; so that when his friends of Woodstock, in a Parliamentary sense, failed, he might be received, if not into everlasting, at all events, into more enduring habitations. The effort of the noble Lord against a Bill carried through with such unexampled talent and perseverance, which had received the overwhelming assent of immense majorities of the House, was ludicrous, and he had almost said impertinent. It gained neither in decency nor in acceptability when it emanated from the Leader of a Party which in its corporate capacity was appropriately sketched in one of those inspired sentences of the late Lord Beaconsfield, in one of his earlier novels, when he spoke of "a contemptible clique which dined together and called itself a political party."
    COLONEL DAWNAYsaid, he believed the interests of the tenants would be placed in a more precarious position than before by the action of this Bill. It was the thin end of a wedge which was intended to be driven into the heart of England and Scotland. He was in favour of reforming the Irish landlords if it could be proved that they injured Ireland; but in reference to this Bill he thought the landlords had as much justice on their side as the agitators. As to conciliating Ireland, he believed the measure would be a total failure. The loyal Irish needed no conciliation, while the disloyal would only be conciliated by the total separation of Ireland from England.
    MR. GLADSTONE(after a pause) said: I waited until you rose, Sir, to put the Question, in order that I might be
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    certain, negatively at least, that there was no intention on the part of the Leaders of the opposite Party to enter into this debate. There is nothing that will fall from me, so far as I am aware, that will give them occasion to change that intention. I take this opportunity of saying that, so far as regards themselves, the bulk of the Party who act with them, although, of course, it is matter of serious lamentation to us that a large body of Members of the House of Commons, and many distinguished Members, decline to recognize the necessity of the provisions that we have proposed, yet, as to the mode of their opposition, I am bound to say of them, and of the bulk of their followers, that I do not think we have any reason to complain. There are one or two more or less eccentric and outlying individuals for whose actions they cannot be responsible, and it is not necessary for me to enter into criticisms upon conduct altogether exceptional. I have another duty to perform, and that is to return my thanks to the supporters of this measure. I am thankful to reflect that when I speak of supporters I am able to include a limited though very important portion of the Party opposite. The Gentlemen representing Ireland as Conservative Members have, in most instances, felt it their duty to give a steady support to all the leading provisions of this Bill. I am informed that out of 103 Members representing Ireland in the division on the second reading of the Bill scarcely more than seven Members took part in the division against the Bill. In the division against the 1st clause, which in its permanent operation may be found to be the most important in the Bill, four Irish Members voted only against the clause, and two of these were Gentlemen who undoubtedly voted against it because they thought that it did not confer new liberty, but limited liberty already existing; so that of the 103 Members sent by Ireland to represent her interests in Parliament only two felt it to be their duty to vote against this most important and fundamental clause. On the 7th clause—the other great pillar, if I may so speak of the Bill, and the one which in the present exigency; has excited the greatest interest—not more than six Irish Members recorded their judgment against it. I think that every dispassionate man, re-

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    viewing the course of these discussions, whatever may be his own personal leanings and convictions, must feel that, if we be indeed a representative Assembly, this division of Irish opinion, which scarcely amounts to a division—which leaves us at liberty almost to declare it a moral unanimity of opinion—cannot, in view of the interests of the country, be considered less than a most significant and gratifying fact. Passing from that, I desire to return my respectful acknowledgments to those other than Irish Members on the opposite side of the House to whom we owe much of the steady, patient labour, and generous and encouraging support that have enabled us to bring this Bill to its third reading. I desire to make these acknowledgments, first of all, again to the numerous and well-instructed Representatives from Ireland who have so considerately made their own proposals, and so loyally and so generously helped ours; and secondly, to that mass of Members who, reckoned by the hundred, and well entitled by their knowledge and intelligence to enter into the discussions on this Bill, have yet refrained upon almost every occasion from entering into those discussions, lest unawares they should multiply the physical obstacles to its passing, and thereby prevent the attainment of the object in view. My hon. Friend (Mr. George Russell), who spoke with much ability from this side of the House, advised that I should not offer any reply to the speech of the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill). I had no intention of offering to that speech any detailed reply, nor of entering into any detailed discussion of the Amendment of which the noble Lord has given Notice. The terms of that Amendment, in fact, enable me to deal with it, from my point of view, in a very convenient and summary manner. It contains six propositions, some of them negative and some of them affirmative, and my humble method of dealing with those propositions is to take all the negative propositions and to convert them into affirmative propositions, and all the affirmative propositions and convert them into negative propositions. By this most expeditious process I find that the noble Lord's Amendment, so modified, becomes an adequate and. satisfactory exposition of my own views on this sub-
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    ject. The speech, however, of the noble Lord does not admit of being dealt with quite so briefly. That speech is a representative speech—it is eminently representative of the opinions and ideas of the noble Lord. It abounded in declamatory invective, of a large portion of which I had the honour and the distinction of being the subject. There are in creation small animals whose office it is to bite, and who are able to produce a sense of irritation on the part of the person bitten. There are also other small animals whose office it is to bite, but whose victim is left unconscious that he has been actually bitten. I must say that, so far as comparisons can be made, the effect of the speech of the noble Lord reminds me of the second rather than the first class of these small animals. Now, one counsel I venture to give to the noble Lord, and that is to keep himself to rhetoric, of which he is, at his time of life, no inconsiderable master; but, above all things, to eschew dealing with facts, for I listened carefully to everything in his speech that purported to be a statement of fact, and I believe I am literally accurate when I say that there was not one of them which would be sustained in their accuracy—from the first which alleged that the "three F's" were the plan and scheme of the Irish Land League, to those later ones, of which two there were concerning myself, the first of which I took exception to when it was uttered, and the second of which was that I had a few nights ago confessed that the Act of 1870 perpetrated an enormous act of confiscation; and, therefore, Sir, I beg humbly to decline being bound by any one of the statements of facts made in the speech of the noble Lord. I would again counsel the noble Lord to keep to rhetoric. If he does that I have no doubt he will do extremely well, for rhetoric and declamation are arts in which it is not difficult to excel, provided you relieve yourself from the fetters and hindrances which are imposed upon some men's speech by a slavish adherence on their part to accuracy of fact. I will not speak of the originality of this measure, nor will I speak of my own consistency, in regard to which I have said on former occasions what appeared to be necessary. I should be doing what would be inexcusable at this stage of the Bill were

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    I to waste the time of the House by making a long speech. There is, however, one point to which I should wish to bring the mind of the House for a moment, and I will do so in as few sentences as possible. It is alleged in the Amendment of the noble Lord that the measure has been the product of revolutionary agitation. I have never disguised from this House that it is, in my opinion, a most grave and serious matter to bring into a Court of Justice for alteration and re-consideration private contracts entered into by private individuals, and I am prepared fully to admit that the institution of a Court for such an object is an exceptional and an extreme proceeding. I, however, entirely deny that the other main provisions of this Bill are open to the same objection. With regard to the provisions for the extension of the tenant right and for the prevention of the too frequent augmentation of rent, there is nothing extreme or exceptional in the Bill. I presume, therefore, that it is to the institution of the Court for the purpose of fixing the rent that the noble Lord refers when he says that the provisions of the measure are the result of revolutionary agitation. But how was it that the necessity for the institution of such a Court was made evident? It was made evident, if anywhere, by the Report of the Richmond Commission, which was concurred in not only by the Liberal minority, but by the Conservative majority, who, in a special sense, represented the landed interest in Ireland, and who felt it to be their duty to recommend that there should be legislative interference to check the undue augmentation of rent. That recommendation is the foundation of the provision that we have introduced into this Bill. Does the noble Lord think, when the representatives of the landed interest found it necessary to go to such a length in the recommendations they made, that even if it had been our disposition to have stopped short of that recommendation, it would have been possible for us to do so? I am quite sure his intelligence will make him perceive that the very moment that recommendation went forth from such a source it became absolutely certain—which I do not think Gentlemen opposite will deny—that any measure which was to have a chance of dealing with the question of land in Ireland must contain, within
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    whatever limitations, provisions giving discretion to the Court with respect to contracts. That recommendation we have dealt with, I believe, in the spirit of moderation, and we have certainly attached limitations to the provisions in which we seek to give effect to it. In the recommendation itself there were no words which conveyed an idea that it was intended that the application of that principle should be other than universal and perpetual. The Bill, as it stands, however, provides that the application of that principle need not be universal or perpetual. No holding in Ireland will come within the jurisdiction of the Court except by the act of either the landlord or the tenant. We have provided that it need not be perpetual, because there are various contingencies contemplated by the Bill under which the tenants in Ireland now invested with power to go into Court may come to be divested of that power; and therefore it remains that Parliament, in its consideration of this most important recommendation, has not accepted it in a spirit of reckless vehemence, but rather, while leaving it in all the force which seems necessary to meet the emergency of the case, has made provision to keep within the limits of that necessity the action of a principle which we deem and admit to be exceptional. Then, again, there was the difficult subject of fair rent which we had to deal with. I think that it does some honour to the House of Commons—and, certainly, the compliment I feel bound to pay the House in this respect falls with full force upon hon. Members opposite—that it should have entered largely into a discussion of this subject, and should have been able finally to arrive at a conclusion in reference to it without having exhibited sharp and painful differences of opinion with reference to it. In using the term "fair rent," I believe that we have secured a rent that will really be fair to all parties. I believe that we have acted wisely in having disembarrassed ourselves of the difficulty of attempting to guide the Court in arriving at a conclusion as to what a fair rent should be, and in leaving the whole matter to the discretion of the Court. We have been able to take that course safely for two reasons. The first is this, that in Ireland the forming of an estimation of fair rent is already a matter known to the usage

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    of the country and its Courts. In Ulster and out of Ulster, since the Land Act there have been various forms of proceedings before the Courts, which have indirectly, but substantially and effectually, raised the question of fair rent. That being so, and it having been found practicable by the Courts to handle that difficult question without dissatisfaction or palpable injustice to either party, I believe we have done wisely to leave the matter in their hands; because any efforts of ours to guide them, imperfect as they must have been, would only have tended, in all likelihood, to induce confusion rather than to facilitate the working of the Bill. But there was another reason why it was well, as I think, that we should not attempt to define scrupulously a fair rent, and it was this—that, happily, in Ireland a fair rent in many cases—I do not now enter into the question whether in the majority of cases or not—but in many, in very many cases, a fair rent is a thing perfectly well known and understood by practical experience. There is no district in Ireland in which fair rents are not known, in which the thing meant by a fair rent is not practically and popularly understood. That being so, we have deemed it better rather to rely upon the traditions of the Court, and upon the knowledge current and recognized in the country, than to attempt difficult, not to say impossible, definitions. I am very glad, if I understand aright, so far as regards any large body of Members of this House, this Bill is to be passed un-contested into the other House of Parliament. It is quite needless for me—I think it would be very bad taste on my part—to attempt to pronounce on the Bill any eulogy whatever. On the other hand, I must be pardoned for saying that against such attacks as have been made upon it I feel it needs no defence.
    MR. GIBSON: It is not my intention, Sir, to enter into any long discussion or minute examination of the details of this measure or to review its history. Its scope and its character, its progress, and the various debates that have taken place upon it have been amply placed before the House and the country. The measure has been described by the Prime Minister himself on more than one occasion as one exceptional in its character, and it is absolutely impossible that it can be measured or judged of by any
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    ordinary standard whatever. I venture to think that never was submitted to this House or to any Parliament a measure of so absolutely novel and startling a character. My noble Friend the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill), in a speech somewhat unfairly commented upon—in a speech certainly of marked ability—stated from his own point of view what he conceived to be the circumstances of the introduction of the Bill. I say, without fear of contradiction, that in no civilized country, not in France, Germany, Belgium, or the United States of America, is there any Laud Law having any similitude to that which will be established by this Bill; and anyone who looks at the provisions of this Bill and the exposition that has been given of its principles must recognize its sweeping character, for it includes within its purview all tenants, good, bad, and indifferent, and deals out the same standard of justice to all landlords, improving or the reverse, all landlords, whether they have charged little or whether they have charged much. The right hon. Gentleman says that this Bill leaves this House carried by a moral unanimity—[Mr. GLADSTONE made an inaudible remark across the Table.] I have not the slightest desire in any particular to misrepresent anything that fell from the Prime Minister; but I think it not unreasonable, when notice is taken of the character of the divisions on the Bill, to say that, whether or not there will be a division upon the third reading, many Members thought proper to record a protest against principles in this Bill, and that they have done so on many occasions. Many Members, I have no doubt, voted for the Bill on the second reading, considering that in the present state of Ireland some legislation on the Land Question should take place. But I venture to think that not only on these Benches, but among the Members whom the right hon. Gentleman so ably leads, there are some who took part in the divisions on the second reading of the Bill and on clauses that were challenged who felt serious misgivings as to the principles involved. The present position of the Bill is not, in some particulars, exactly the same as when examined at the earlier stages; but I am bound to say, when we come to consider the changes, they can be regarded from many different points of

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    view. I readily admit that many things that were so indefensible that they could not be argued, and were not argued—that many things that were so unintelligible that they could not be construed—have fallen out of the Bill, and that, as a matter of machinery and administration, the Government found it necessary, to insure any working of the Bill at all, to consent to alterations. But many principles and points of a mischievous character still remain unaltered and un-amended in the Bill, and I regret to say that the catalogue of serious and mischievous points and principles was enlarged during the progress of the Bill, and notably last night. I am bound to say I think the Prime Minister himself had but a scant amount of sympathy for this most recent Amendment, because I remember that he left to the Chief Secretary for Ireland the difficulties of the task of explaining it and did not commit himself to it. The right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government has been the Minister who has had charge of the Bill. He has had the advantage in that overwhelming task, in addition to his own genius, his own enlightened energy, his own infinite resources, and that versatility which enables him in debate to run ''From grave to gay and from lively to severe," of having been encouraged by a strong and obedient majority ready to cheer and support him always—just as much when he is wrong as when he is right. The right hon. Gentleman, in his speech just delivered, has selected one or two points for which he appears specially desirous to obtain the approval of the House and the country. I will pass from his references to free sale without making any elaborate examination of it, but I will make one criticism upon it. Now, at the end of two months, it remains as undefined as it was on the introduction of the Bill what it is that the tenant is permitted to sell. No one who examines the Bill can arrive at the conclusion that a tenant may not be permitted under the operation of the Bill to sell a very substantial part of his landlord's property. In the very clause of free sale some changes which had taken place have been all against the landlord's interest. We were told throughout by the Prime Minister and his Colleagues that the Bill would give a right of preemption to the landlords. I am disposed
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    to think the Bill in its present shape leaves the right of pre-emption absolutely worthless. The way in which the Bill originally proposed that a fair rent should be measured dealt with details and particulars in such a way that it was speedily pointed out that it would enable the landlord's rent to be eaten into and possibly destroyed. The Government sought to meet these objections by leaving the whole question absolutely in the control of the Court. The Government have not, however, adhered to their second proposal in its integrity, and have assented to changes which are open to much criticism. An Amendment was introduced at the instance of the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk (Mr. Charles Russell), which re-introduced, not in the same form as originally appeared in the Bill, but in more general terms, the same possibly misleading principle, and directed the Court, in measuring the fair rent, to have regard to the tenant's interest, which might be inflamed by prices forced up by giving the pretium affectionis, or by "land-hunger," of which we have heard so much. If the Court are told, without qualification, that they are to have regard to the tenant's interest, it is competent for the Court, under those words, to arrive at every one of those vicious consequences which had been apprehended from the clause as it previously stood. The way in which the matter was sought to be dealt with by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition was entirely logical. My right hon. Friend took up, as the Prime Minister frankly admitted, quite a reasonable line. As late as the year 1878 a Bill was introduced by Mr. Butt—a master of this question—Mr. M'Carthy Downing, who was as well acquainted with it as any Member in this House, and the Member for the County of Cork (Mr. Shaw). That Bill, in its 44th clause, laid down this proposition, which I commend to the attention of the House—and remember that this was the proposition of the Irish tenants, repeated from year to year, and formulated by their most able advocates in Parliament, as to the mode of fixing rents—
    "In fixing the rent to be specified in the declaration of tenancy, the Chairman shall proceed in manner following—that is to say, the rent to be fixed shall be that which a solvent and responsible tenant could afford to pay, fairly and

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    without collusion, for the premises, after deducting from such rent the addition to the letting value of the premises by any improvements made by the tenant or his predecessors in title in respect of which the tenant on quitting his farm would be entitled to compensation under the provisions of the Land Act."
    Well, that proposal was presented for consideration to the House by an Amendment which stood on the Paper for weeks in the name of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition. The Government, however, thought it right in their wisdom to know more about the question than those who had studied it for years. And I invite the attention of the House to the fact that all that was asked was the adoption of that proposition, strengthened and developed by words taken from the Government themselves, and possibly by the addition of others which would have made it more definite. Nevertheless, the Government thought proper to leave the matter at large to the Court, with the addition of the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk, and, also adopting an Amendment which was brought forward a few days ago, they put into the Bill a reference to improvements, not as framed by Mr. Butt, nor as assented to by the hon. Member for the County of Cork, nor as formulated by the Leader of the Opposition, but in a crude and undigested state, which obviously required revision and alteration. This Fair Rent Clause made practically no distinction between good and bad landlords, with this one exception—that a feeble, petty effort was made by the Prime Minister, by taking note of English-managed estates, to save the Bill from the charge of making no discrimination. That little proviso never was of very much practical consequence. It was rendered almost worthless because of the Amendment which had been accepted from the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell). Then, the admission of the landlord to the Court was at first denied, but had afterwards to be conceded; but it was not conceded frankly and fully. The tenant can go into the Court and say, "Measure me a fair rent." But the landlord must formulate his proposition and demand an increase. Common justice required that both parties should be put on the same footing. Let each party be equally able to appeal to the Court for a fair rent; or if the landlord is required to formulate his
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    demand, the tenant also surely ought to be called upon to state clearly and definitely what he had to object to. The Prime Minister, a few days ago, in Committee, said—
    "They were endeavouring by an almost supreme effort to bring about a great and rapid change in the social condition of Ireland."
    I do not deny that the effort was a supreme one. It was so when the Bill was introduced, and it became more so during its progress. The measure was not brought in, I feel sure, without very anxious consideration. We know that the Government had been considering it for months, and that the Cabinet held meeting after meeting on the subject. As to leases, they deliberately arrived at the conclusion that they could not ask the House of Commons, no matter what might be their majority, to interfere with existing leases; and anyone who reads the original clause saving existing leases will see that a more intelligible series of propositions was never laid down. For no purpose or consideration were the Government to have tampered with the obligations which tenants had contracted by existing leases. That having been the position taken up by the Government in introducing the Bill, when did the change take place? As lately as June 29, after the second reading of the Bill, when the measure had been for weeks and months, I might almost say, in Committee, the Prime Minister, meeting an Amendment from the hon. Member for Wicklow (Mr. Corbet), said—
    "If the hon. Member proposes to say that every provision of these leases shall be brought into Court, that is a proposition to which we are not prepared to assent."—[3 Hansard, cclxii. 1600.]
    The very day after that, I believe, we had an absolute—I will not say change of front, because the Prime Minister has requested that that word may not be used—but a very rapid development of opinion took place, and my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General for Ireland, who has had some disagreeable things given him to do which must have tried his legal mind very much, had the task imposed on him of putting on the Paper Amendments with which we are all familiar. The first of those Amendments proposed in regard to every lease in Ireland, no matter when or for what time it was made, or what

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    was the rent, or what its conditions as to improvements, or as to the valuation of the farm, that the most important covenant for the landlord is to be broken and that the tenant may hold on for all time if he likes. Under what circumstances was that Amendment moved? My right hon. and learned Friend moved it in a House not of half its ordinary strength, and he occupied just two minutes in moving it. He read it out as if it were a mere verbal Amendment that required no explanation. The Amendment spoke for itself; but it was impossible to explain or defend it. The Prime Minister is almost always able to say he is adhering verbally to everything that he has said. I have much pleasure in reading his speeches, and I find that it is the hardest thing in the world to take one of his sentences which appears to convey to the House the clearest meaning in regard to which he is not able readily to say he was only referring to some particular thing mentioned in discussion, and, no matter what the language may have been, there is some little word that enables him to point out that he was not correctly understood. On the 29th of June the Prime Minister said that if the object of the hon. Member was to bring the covenants of existing leases under the cognizance of the Court, that would be enlarging the Bill to an extent to which the Government were not prepared to assent. Accordingly, the Prime Minister, severely accurate, to quote the expression of my noble Friend (Lord Randolph Churchill), does not submit the covenants of leases to the cognizance of the Court, but he saves the Court the trouble, and he himself in the Bill breaks the most important covenant in every lease. The next Amendment was one that conferred on the Court the power of breaking every lease made since 1870. The Irish Land Act of 1870, in clause after clause, indicated to the landlord and to the tenant that they were encouraged and invited to enter into contracts by lease; and to prevent all questions or doubt about the matter the Prime Minister, speaking on the second reading of the Land Bill of 1870, used these emphatic words—
    "The Bill will proceed on the principle… that from the moment the measure is passed every Irishman, small and great, must be absolutely responsible for every contract into which
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    he enters…. We ought to embody nothing in it that can encourage any man to tamper with good faith or to disparage or undervalue in any shape security and solidity of contract.''—[3 Mansard, cxcix. 380.]
    It would be impossible for any man to use clearer and stronger words. Is the conduct of the Government in reference to leases defensible? Can any man say it is in accordance with good faith? If solemn and serious contracts, entered into as leases have been, can be broken in the summary way these leases may be, can any contract that can be made or suggested for any purpose be regarded as safe? As to the "three F's," the Prime Minister has no objection to be responsible for fair rents and free sale; but he will let no man say fixity of tenure is involved in the Bill. Why?. Because in 1870, in speech after speech, he demonstrated that if it were granted in any shape it would bring with it the right of the landlord to compensation. Accordingly, having committed himself to the principle that no matter what happens to the Irish landlord, he shall get no compensation, we have fixity of tenure in this Bill, real, substantial, but denied and very slightly disguised. In the West of Ireland there are a vast number of small tenancies, many of them under £4. What is the position of the landlord there? Under the existing laws of Ireland, the landlord has to pay all taxes and local rates for such small tenancies; and under this Bill he will have to continue paying with great certainty as to the necessity of paying, but with great uncertainty as to whether he will receive the means to do so. If there was one thing in the Bill for the benefit of this poor population, it was the Emigration Clause, which was kept before the House for three nights, and which elicited from the Prime Minister a powerful and eloquent denunciation of the delay; but on the same night that he delivered it, and as a tribute to the delay, he cut the clause down to something so shadowy and frail that, except for the principle involved, it is not worth having. These poor tenants in the over-populated districts of the West, if you freed them this moment from all rent, could not save themselves from periodic famine without relief and substantial assistance. In the face of all these changes—fair rent, free sale, and fixity of tenure—with all the other

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    advantages in the Bill, why the Government deemed it necessary to give an increased scale of compensation for disturbance puzzles me; it is illogical, un-needed, and out of place. It will puzzle anyone to say why it was introduced except as a further anomaly in an. exceptional Bill. With all these stupendous and unprecedented changes, where is there about this Bill the element of durability, of certainty, of anything verging on a settlement? Everyone admits there is nothing final in politics; but when Parliament is asked to make a great change by a great measure they have a right to expect that great results will be accomplished, and that the measure will bear fruit for a considerable time. The Prime Minister himself, in the way he has dealt with many topics, has from time to time suggested the possibility of this being anything but a permanent settlement. Whenever it was intimated by the wily, quick-witted, sagacious Members from Ireland that a certain thing would lead to a discussion which would occupy a considerable time, there was a consultation of three wise-heads on the Treasury Bench, and shortly afterwards the wish of the Irish Members was sometimes conceded, with verbal changes, and sometimes postponed until a more convenient season. In this way have been left as legacies to the future the question of absenteeism and of town park lands. Instead of saying—"We are dealing with questions of sufficient magnitude by this Bill, and we will not pledge ourselves now as to how we will deal with other questions, or whether we will deal with them at all," as the Prime Minister was fairly entitled to do, he has said that the views of the Government were not matured, or that the matter may well come up for consideration at a future time. In one point the Prime Minister has almost taken care that this shall not be regarded as a final and durable measure. We are not responsible for the drafting of the Bill or for its shortcomings; the whole responsibility of its passage, its interference with principles, its results, rests absolutely upon the Government. We pointed out to the Government a great flaw in their new drafting which did not exist in the original drafting—that at the end of seven years this Bill would require a further Bill. But because the hon. Member
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    for Louth (Mr. Callan) said yesterday that if the Bill were re-committed to deal with this point proposals would be made for the re-committal of several clauses, the Prime Minister re-considered his position, and gave ingenious reasons for leaving the matter so that there must be a Bill dealing with this question at the end of seven years. The Government, having had an opportunity to make this Bill a final one, deliberately elect to leave it open so as to render legislation necessary at the end of seven years. Is this Bill a message of peace to Ireland? Has it been accepted as such? It will concede much that was asked for by the Land League, and more than the most sanguine member ever expected. At the meeting of the Land League last Monday, a meeting at which they acknowledged a munificent contribution of thousands from America, and of £2 or £3 from Ireland, the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) said—
    "The Land Bill might he the business of the Government, but it was not the business of the Land League as an organization to favour any proposal for alleviating the horrors arising from landlordism, thereby making it more tolerable and giving it a longer lease of life. They did not seek to change landlordism into some tolerable shape; they sought for its extermination."
    And that in the face of the stupendous efforts of the Prime Minister to pass this exceptional Bill. That is the way it is received by the Land Leaguers in Ireland. Lately a new proposition has been put forward, in the form of a construction of the Bill which I am happy to say is a false construction, and that is that when this Bill is passed no rents need be paid until they have been fixed and sanctioned by the Court. Bad as the Bill is, it leaves the old rent payable and the landlord in possession of his right to recover it until the gale day next following the fixing of a judicial rent. I admit that the wretched Amendment for the suspension of writs of fi facias, which was passed yesterday, may possibly mislead some people to a confused understanding of the matter. It was passed in a House of less than half its strength, without any Notice whatever, being brought up in manuscript by the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell). The Land League, I believe, have a proposition for the extermination of landlords; the Government are more moderate—they

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    seemed to favour an Amendment which would only have the effect of starving them. If the Amendment had been considered, it would have been seen that it had the practical effect of damning the Bill, for it announces to every tenant who owes money that if he goes into Court he can tie up the debt. Never before was such an invitation given to enter upon litigation. We all know that one of the great difficulties in the way of accepting this Bill, and one which may cause the most serious interference with its progress, is the serious danger of litigation; and, in the face of that fact, I decline to accept this Amendment as a serious proposal of statesmanship. I do not suggest motives, or say that the way it was accepted points to what may be expected to happen; but the Government may have remembered that an untimely birth is often followed by a premature death; and I pass by the Amendment, treating it as an unwholsome fungus in an unsound part of a not very sound Bill. There is one serious and substantial omission from the Bill. If, for high purposes of State, it was found necessary to apply this drastic measure to Irish landlords, to mutilate their property, and deprive them largely of their means of usefulness, at all events in common justice some provision might have been put in which would have guaranteed and insured the enjoyment of the small residue of property which remains to them. Instead of that, we have accepted Amendment after Amendment permitting a possible extension of the redemption period, interfering with the landlord's right of sale and with every possible right, short of getting rent; we have, on the other hand, Amendments proposed, not to give new privileges to the landlord, but to save him from some uncertainties and doubts, and we are met by distinct refusal; and the fact that the Opposition is conducted with forbearance is made a ground for denying measures of justice, which might have been conceded to Obstruction. I am bound to state that there is one thing I contemplate with satisfaction in this Bill. At all events, now that it is about to be passed, we have a right to expect and a right to insist that in Ireland we should have a firm and capable Executive. The nation will insist that the miserable scenes of last winter shall not be re-enacted, Never before in the
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    history of a country or of Parliament has any Government been given, and that without stint, so full a measure of ordinary and extraordinary powers. They have, in fact, been given every power, coercive and remedial, which they asked for or suggested. There can, therefore, be no justification for faltering action, no excuse for feeble words or palsied hands. The responsibility of the Government, always existing, now stands out in conspicuous relief, and the nation will see and judge how that responsibility is fulfilled. The responsibility of the Government must be fulfilled by a resolute maintenance of law and order and full protection of life and property in Ireland. The Government have got all they asked for, and they cannot complain if, during the Recess, their course of administration of affairs in Ireland is regarded, not by us alone, but by the whole nation, with constant vigilance and jealous watchfulness. I am no pessimist. I have hope for the future of Ireland; but my hopes do not depend upon or centre round this Land Law Bill. I have spoken of this Bill, I hope, in no unreasoning spirit. My opposition has been frank and open. I have made already my protest by word and by vote, and shall not vote again against the progress of the Bill. I am speaking now my last words with reference to it. But in parting from this Bill I cannot say that I regard its possible future without much solicitude and many misgivings. It is a measure which has been largely procured and directly influenced in its progress by unrighteous agitation, and which involves, in the case of Ireland, the sacrifice of principles which have tended to make England herself great.
    THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON): I cannot but regret, Sir, that a Member of the Opposition, occupying the high and distinguished position which my right hon. and learned Friend worthily enjoys, should have marred the generous tone he took during the Committee stage of the Bill by the course he has now adopted. ["Oh, oh!"] It may be owing to my inexperience in this House, or possibly to the fact that everything is fair in political warfare; but I think it strange that my right hon. and learned Friend, having a carefully prepared speech to deliver, seeing that the Speaker

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    rose, and seeing, too, that the Prime Minister then rose, should not himself have first risen and allowed the Prime Minister to follow him in debate
    MR. GIBSON: I wish to explain. I did not see you, Sir, rise, and I was quite suprised to see the Prime Minister rise.
    THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON): Of course, I accept the explanation of my right hon. and learned Friend. But what has been the course adopted by the Opposition? They have criticized severely every part of the Bill, and now my right hon. and learned Friend has delivered a strong protest against it; but will they dare now to divide upon the third reading? I have crossed swords before now with the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill); but I think the course that he has the courage to take on the present occasion does him credit when compared with the course adopted by the Opposition. Why was it left to an outsider to raise this debate? Why have the Leaders of the Opposition disappeared from the House during the debate? I say it with great respect, but I am bound to say, after observing the course which has been taken by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite, that the Opposition has not the courage of its convictions, and the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock has. My right hon. and learned Friend has, in the absence of the Prime Minister, spoken of him in a way that, I think, might have been spared; and he has summed up his criticism by saying that under the Bill the landlord will be damnified, and the tenant assisted at the expense of the landlord. I deny both those propositions. My right hon. and learned Friend asks—What has the tenant to sell if he does not sell the landlord's property? Well, over and over again it has been explained that what the tenant has to sell is his interest in his holding—that is, his right of occupancy, and, outside that, the improvements he has effected, often by his money, and always by his labour. This is not his landlord's property. The tenant must give notice to his landlord of his intention to sell, and as the landlord can buy, in what respect is he damnified? Does he ask to get the tenant's interest in his holding for nothing? My right hon. and learned Friend says that the Court may actually
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    have to say what is a fair price to give. I was, I confess, under the impression that a Court was the proper tribunal to resort to if a man has a right to assert or a wrong to be redressed; and I submit that an impartial Court is the right tribunal to decide the questions which may arise between landlord and tenant in the event of their not being able to agree between themselves. The next point criticized by my right hon. and learned Friend was the fixing of this fair rent by the Court. Does my right hon. and learned Friend want the landlord to obtain an unfair rent? Where is the landlord who will assert that? The provision in question is the best that could be devised for Irish land lords themselves, among whom I have many personal friends. Only yesterday I spoke to one, who said that his rents had not been raised during the 40 years he was in possession of the estate, and that, notwithstanding, he felt he should assist them by making them gifts of timber, slates, and other things. In these good relations how stands his rent. It is paid even in these times. After all, in fixing a fair rent, the Court would simply moderate—to use a University term—between the parties. But, said my right hon. and learned Friend, at least the landlord should be paid the old rent till the new was fixed. The Bill provided that such should be the case, as the new rent was not to become payable until the gale day next after the fixing of it. What unfairness was there in that? And yet, to hear my right hon. and learned Friend, it would be thought that some scheme was carefully wrapped up in the Bill for inflicting injustice on the Irish landlords. As originally brought in, the Bill did nothing more than carry forward the principles of the Act of 1870, which gave protection to occupancy. I will not delay the progress of this measure by any lengthened observations; but will simply say that, in my view, no one who has any knowledge of Ireland can deny that there is an eager wistfulness for the passage of the Bill, and a feeling of great anxiety occasioned by the delay which has occurred in its progress. It will give a security of tenure, which is most strongly desired and needed in Ireland; and it is not the visionary or disastrous scheme which has been pictured from time to time by hon. Members who are opposed to it. I deny that

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    the measure will operate against the landlord; but the peasant as he drives his spade into the ground will feel that his arm is strengthened by knowing that wife and weans will be bettered by it. The right hon. and learned Gentleman has immensely exaggerated the effect of the clauses in regard to leases, which only give power to the Court to set them aside in case it is satisfied as to their injustice, and that they have been obtained under a threat of eviction. The hour has well nigh struck when the Bill will pass, and I believe it will be a great and generous message of peace to Ireland. But to bring that peace, language must be used very different from that used by my right hon. and learned Friend. Those are not the words which will win back alienated friends or heal the wounds which civil discord has left festering amongst us. It is my belief that this Bill will give safety to person, will add to the stability of property and the security of the Constitution in Ireland, will give a more manly tone to the nation's strength, and restore a healthy beat to the nation's heart.
    LORD ELCHOsaid, he joined in the hope that the measure would have the effect of bringing peace to Ireland, even although it sinned against all those principles that had heretofore guided legislation. He was, however, glad that the decencies of procedure had been so far maintained, that a measure of this importance was not passed through both the last stages—Committee and Third Reading—in one night; for, in his experience in Parliament, no Bill of such importance had thus been dealt with. The discussion had been a very useful one, and the House had listened to some very able speeches. He had said little in Committee, but had followed the Bill carefully, and had given his vote whenever he thought its injustice or harshness could be modified or remedied. He felt bound to say that after all the weeks of careful labour in Committee, he did not find that the Bill was any sounder in principle than when he denounced its principles in the debate on the second reading. So far from that being the case, the Bill still was a return to the legislation of the Plantagenets, and to the French Revolution law of "maximum." It destroyed individual liberty and freedom in men's dealings with each other, and confiscated property without com-
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    pensation. And this was the act of so-called Liberals. The Bill, now more than ever, made the landlord nothing more nor less than a plundered rent-charger. Fair rents were to be fixed, not by the ordinary transactions of ordinary business, but, for the first time in our modern history, by the State. The Court was put in the position of the landlord, and the privileges of property were taken away from the landlord and placed in Commission; while the Bill severed for ever—unless he was prepared to purchase it—the labourer of Ireland from the future occupation of the soil. It further established the principle of the State breaking leases, and using State money to pay arrears of rent—that was, to advance money from public funds for the benefit of those who had repudiated their rightful contracts; while those who, through all this trying agitation discharged their contracts, were left out in the cold, without any benefit at all. A Bill such as this was not worth the support of the House. Its character and origin might be summarized thus. It was a measure "begotten by lawlessness, conceived in fear, founded on injustice, its ends corruption." They could not deny the truth of this. They could not deny that if there had been no Land League, and no resistance to the law, they never would have heard of this Bill. Was any hon. or right hon. Gentleman prepared to say the contrary? He also averred that there had been ill-concealed fear on the part of the Government, which had led them to introduce this measure; and he based his assertion on the words of the Prime Minister himself. The Prime Minister looked astonished at that statement; but he had himself heard the right hon. Gentleman say, on the 19th of July, that this Bill differed materially from the Irish Land Act of 1870, inasmuch as every line and every clause of this Bill was of vital importance, because the maintenance of law, the security of life and property in Ireland would depend upon them. He therefore asserted that it was in consequence of the fear of lawlessness in Ireland that the Government had brought in this Bill, in the hope of thus protecting life and property, which they should have been able to have secured without legislation of this kind. He maintained that the Bill was founded in injustice, and, further, that

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    its ends were corruption, inasmuch as it was a bribe to the 600,000 tenants in Ireland to obey the law. But would the Bill have the effect of tranquillizing Ireland? He ventured to say, reasoning by the analogy of the past, that this system of concession, followed by coercion and further concession, had alone brought about the present state of things in Ireland; and what was there in this Bill which was calculated to render it more effective for its professed purpose than previous measures? He believed, on the contrary, that it would encourage greater agitation in the future; and, looking at the effect the Bill was producing in this country and in Scotland in disturbing men's minds, and in altering their views as to the rights of property, and the relationship between the different classes which had hitherto governed society, this Bill was fraught with great danger. He was not prepared to let it pass in silence, or without recording his vote against it. He intended to divide the House on the Question. A speech had been made a short time ago by a right hon. Gentleman on the Front Opposition Bench, in which he denounced the Bill, root and branch; and in the good old days such a speech would have been naturally followed by a division. Now, however, we lived in different, if not better days, and the Bill was to be allowed to pass a third reading unchallenged. He admitted that the Conservative Party was in a difficulty. They, or rather their principles, found themselves between the upper and the nether millstone. The upper millstone was the fact that two great Conservative Peers and three Conservative Members of Parliament had put their names to a Report—the Duke of Richmond's—which the Prime Minister had often told the House was the basis of legislation. In their rear, and even on their own Bench, they had right hon. and hon. Gentlemen whose action had also been appealed to by the Prime Minister, as it was in similar circumstances in 1870, in reference to the Disturbance Clause of that Act. He referred to the Representatives of Ulster, whom he would call, if he might do so without offence, the Esaus of Ulster; for what was their position as regards this question of tenant right? They or their fathers or grandfathers, for beneficial purposes
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    to themselves, had sold their birthright, and, to obtain payment of rents and arrears, established tenant right on their estates. He could not understand, for the life of him, how these hon. Members, having done that—either themselves or their ancestors—could bring their consciences to vote for this Bill, which imposed tenant right for ever on every estate in Ireland now free of it, they knowing that the tenant, and not the landlord, would have the benefit of the free sale of tenant right under this Act of Parliament. The Bill allowed tenants to sell their right in the market for the highest price; but the landlord was debarred from getting the highest price he could for his land. Thus, between the upper millstone of the Duke of Richmond's Commission and the nether millstone of the Ulster Representatives, the principles of the Conservatives were ground into impalpable powder. Now, as to the hon. Members below the Gangway on the other side, no doubt their motives were perfectly patriotic, but the fact remained that, in acting as they had acted, they had cast aside all their traditions and principles; and although they might think they were doing what was right and would be beneficial to the country, they were establishing the principle that justice must be measured, not by justice, but by votes; and as sure as they had done that, they would find, when they enfranchized the masses, that they had taught them a lesson they would not forget. In every line of this Bill they had hatched a legislative chicken, that would come home to roost in the homesteads of England and of Scotland, in the houses of the large towns, in their manufactories, in their mines, in their ships, in their scrip and stock. For do not let them imagine if the great Liberal Party thus sanctioned the principle of the spoliation of one class for the benefit of another, that when they had enfranchised, as they no doubt would do one day, an ignorant and unintelligent Briareus, he would be slow to learn the lesson they had taught him, or fail to apply it to all kinds of property alike. He had a good many Friends among what was called the old Whig school. He knew they hated this Bill as much as he did; but they had submitted to it. They were bound down by ties of Party. And these same men

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    who bowed down before the fetish of Party, when held up by their medicine man on the Treasury Bench, laughed at those who worshipped and believed in the Black Virgin of Loretto, and sneered at the untutored Natives of the South Sea Islands who worshipped stocks and stones. [Cries of" Question!"] He was speaking so much to the question that the il-Liberals did not like it. He would venture simply, as regarded his weak Whig Friends, to say that he believed that Party, properly conducted on sound and distinct principles, was the best and soundest form of government. But he would also say this, that he believed man was not made for Party, but that Party was made for man. Holding these views, he believed that this measure, whilst outraging all sound principles of government, would be more hurtful than beneficial to Ireland. This Bill would absolutely destroy the foundation on which our social system had hitherto rested. [Mr. HEALY: Thank God for that!] He accepted that expression in support of what he was saying. It was the truth, and he hoped it would be taken to heart by right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite. The Bill would destroy liberty of contract and the security of property, the only sound principle upon which nations could hope to prosper and progress. Holding these opinions strongly, he must record his vote against it. He did not care whether more than half-a-dozen hon. Members accompanied him into the Lobby. "The fewer men the greater share of honour." And if evil should come of this legislation, they would at least be able to say that they had taken advantage of all the Forms of Parliament to resist unprincipled and pernicious legislation.
    MR. SHAWsaid, that notwithstanding the strong eloquence poured out by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) against the Bill, it struck him forcibly, when listening to that speech, that after all there was an undercurrent of feeling that, on the whole, it was not such a bad Bill. But the noble Lord who had just sat down had the courage of his convictions, and had taken a very different course. He had attacked it root and branch. The noble Lord believed it to be a bad Bill, and, that being his be-
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    lief, he would not be justified in adopting any other course than that which he had mentioned. The noble Lord said that the lawlessness existing in Ireland was the result of the operations of the Land League; but did the noble Lord think that in any country, even in Ireland, a body of young men of no social position, and no wonderful powers of eloquence, could have got up such a state of things as existed in Ireland if there were no social wrongs in Ireland that gave them power? The social state of Ireland which had brought about this measure sprang from the effects of a series of bad harvests and the action of the landlords themselves. He had by his side the original first copy of the Bill of 1870, and on the margin of it were the notes he made when it was discussed, and they embodied precisely the principles that were involved in the Bill now before them. The noble Lord said the Government had adopted the programme of the Land League. Nothing could be more absurd or incorrect. Why, the Land League at their meetings ridiculed and made it a special point to attack the "three F's." The noble Lord said the Bill would not pacify Ireland. Well, it was very hard to prophecy about Ireland. He thought he might say he had a fair knowledge of the country; and his opinion, which was fortified by letters which he received every day from all parts of Ireland relating to this Bill, was that the Land League was not Ireland; that there was in Ireland an amount of common sense; that the Land League had an amount of common sense; and that when this Bill became law they would see it to be their duty to lay hold of the real principles of amelioration in the Bill, and try to apply them for the benefit and welfare of Ireland. He could not think so meanly of the men at the head of that League as to believe that they would be so lost to all patriotism and right principle as to keep up the agitation for the mere sake of agitation, independently of the good or evil to be effected. He firmly believed that in the Bill there were many things which would tend to cure the sores and evils of his country, and also many things which would improve the system of land tenure. It was true there were points in the Bill that he would like to see improved; but he believed

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    that in the circumstances, with all the surroundings and difficulties that Ministers had to contend with, no better or more complete Bill could possibly have been passed. He earnestly hoped and believed that it would do much in the direction of pacifying Ireland; and, so far as regarded himself, he could honestly say that nothing that one man could do would be left undone to bring its provisions fully and fairly before the minds of the Irish people. He expressed the feeling of every Member of the House when he said he was astonished by the ability with which the Prime Minister had conducted the Bill. The oldest Member in the House had never seen anything like it, and the youngest Member, as long as he lived, would never see anything like it—the earnestness, the wonderful power of language and. expression of "the old man eloquent." The masterly grasp of facts and details, and his enthusiasm in conducting his measure had never been excelled. The Irish people would be grateful for what the right hon. Gentleman had done. He believed that in the hearts of the Irish people there was a deep feeling of gratitude to the right hon. Gentleman, and a conviction that he had done his very best for the settlement of the Irish Question. During the right hon. Gentleman's absence from his Office he had opportunities of becoming acquainted with the opinions of Bishops, priests, and laymen in Ireland, and he found that there was no living statesman in whom the Irish people had such confidence as in the right hon. Gentleman, not because of his great ability, not because of his unexampled position in the world as a statesman, but because they believed he had earnest and honest principles. The Bill was about to pass to "another place." For himself, he was not concerned as to how the other House treated it. If they showed the wisdom that the aristocracy had always shown in looking at all the circumstances in the face and acting generously with the facts before them, they would send the Bill down to the House of Commons very little changed from the condition in which it was sent up. If, on the other hand, they sent it down so changed that the Government could not accept it, then the agitation in Ireland would broaden and deepen, and the settlement of the question would be as remote as ever. But they anticipated
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    different treatment of the measure by the other House.
    MR. WARTON(who spoke amid the marked impatience of the House for a division) was understood to say that the Prime Minister, whatever charges might be fairly brought against him in other respects, had been wonderfully consistent at least in what he had said in 1870 and what he had said this year with regard to Irish ideas. The right hon. Gentleman stated in 1870, as he stated now, that there was an old Irish notion that even when the contract between landlord and tenant had expired, what was called the right of occupancy still remained in the tenant. But while he admitted the consistency of the Prime Minister on that point, he regretted it, because it showed that the right hon. Gentleman's notion of statesmanship was to give way to Irish ideas. The connection between England and Ireland ought to exercise a civilizing influence on the latter country, and there was no surer mark of the civilization of a country than the observance of contract. In a barbarous country contract was not understood, and when a contract had there been entered into it was not felt that it should be religiously respected. By this Bill the Government were perpetuating ideas which ought to be discouraged, and were not raising Ireland to the high standard of civilization which was indicated by a regard for the sanctity of contract. He looked upon this measure as a relapse from a civilized state to a state of barbarism.
    VISCOUNT FOLKESTONEsaid, he did not know whether the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) intended to go to a division on the question of the third reading of the Bill or not—["Yes!"]—but if he did, he could not refrain from saying a few words as to the vote which he meant to give on that occasion. He had listened to the speech of the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock with great interest, because every word which had fallen from the noble Lord had found an echo in his heart. The noble Lord the Member for Woodstock had been taunted by the hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. George Russell) with being the exponent of comedy in that House; but the hon. Member for Aylesbury appeared to be the exponent of broad farce—

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    And it being ten minutes to Seven of the clock, the Debate stood adjourned till this day.
    The House suspended its Sitting at Seven of the clock.
    The House resumed its Sitting at Nine of the clock.

  LAND LAW (IRELAND) BILL.
  Debate resumed.
  VISCOUNT FOLKESTONE, on rising, was greeted with loud cries of "Oh, oh!" and "Question!" After comparative silence had been restored, he said, that as hon. Members had now finished exercising their lungs, he might, perhaps, be permitted to observe that he did not intend to pursue his remarks any further. He only rose to appeal to his noble Friend below the Gangway (Lord Elcho) not to proceed to a division. It would be impossible for the noble Lord to get adequate support, and if he challenged a division he could not expect it to have any effect on the future of the Bill.
  SIR PATRICK O'BRIENsaid, that, as the noble Lord (Viscount Folkestone) had brought them down to the House at 9 o'clock, he hoped he would give them the advantage of a division. At the same time, he was gratified to find that the idea of dividing upon this measure did not proceed from an Irish Member. The noble Lord had given them a pleasant history of the disintegration of the Conservative Party, and had incidentally alluded to a Commission of which he was not a Member. If the noble Lord had been a Member of it, he would have learnt something which would have prevented him from making his speech. As it was, the noble Lord, like the Bourbons, had learnt nothing and forgotten nothing. For his own part, he had since the year 1852 pursued an even and a continuous course in regard to that subject. ["Divide!"] The House was evidently impatient to go to a division, and he would, therefore, content himself by expressing his satisfaction that the principles which he and others who had been made the objects of unmitigated vituperation had consistently advocated by vote and voice were now triumphant.
  SIR HENRY TYLERsaid, it was true there were but few Members on those (the Opposition) Benches; but he should
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  be proud hereafter, when, perhaps, a measure of a more radical character would be introduced, to recollect that he was one of the few who joined in this final protest against a Bill which they so strongly disapproved.
  MR. MILBANKmaintained that the course taken by the noble Lord opposite the Member for Wiltshire (Viscount Folkestone) reflected the greatest discredit on the House. Instead of delivering a speech, the noble Lord made some excuse and sat down. The noble Lord had simply been put up to talk the Bill out at 7 o'clock. He saw the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) go up to the noble Lord the Member for Wiltshire—["Question!"]
  MR. SPEAKER: I must call upon the hon. Member to confine his remarks to the Bill before the House.
  MR. MILBANKwould not say a word about the Bill. He was happy to say that he had throughout recorded his vote in favour of the measure.
  MR. HEALYwished, before the Bill passed from that House, to make one thing clear. [Mr. O'CONNOR POWER: Divide!] He might inform the hon. Member for Mayo that he was in the habit of speaking there despite English Members, and certainly he was not to be cowed by Irish Members. He would not occupy the House more than two minutes, and what he had to say was in reference to the remarks of the hon. Member for Cork County (Mr. Shaw) on this Bill. The hon. Member seemed to have considerable faith in the measure, and he made certain prophecies with regard to its action in Ireland, and then went on to refer to what course the Land League would take on the measure. He (Mr. Healy) would venture to remind the hon. Member for Cork County, and those especially interested in this matter in Ireland, that the men who had brought this measure about—the men whose determination, whose resolution, and whose persistence had produced this measure—were not those who were now sitting on the Treasury Bench, but the men who were in penal servitude in Dartmoor and in the prison cells at Kilmainham. To those men they owed whatever was good in this Bill, and he begged to return them his most sincere thanks. It was to such men, and to their persistent efforts, that

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  they owed this measure. He gave no thanks to the Government. He had none to give to those Gentlemen who sat on the Treasury Bench. They in Ireland had been accustomed to see every measure that they desired refused them by that House until they were able, in despite of the House or in despite of its opinions, to wring a measure out of the Government of England. They had found the same with regard to this Land Law (Ireland) Bill. They had compelled the Prime Minister of England, who brought about the rejection of much more mild measures 10 years ago and six years ago, which might then have satisfied the people of Ireland—and he, in those days, got up and refused the principle of the measure—they had compelled the Prime Minister of England to swallow his declaration, and to pass in the measure which was now before the House practically the same principles which four or five years ago he had no language strong enough to condemn. [Mr. GLADSTONE: I never said a word upon them.] There was in existence a pamphlet by the noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire (Lord Elcho), giving extracts and quotations from speeches and writings of the Prime Minister, and it was to his speeches and votes he referred. However, be that as it might, all he had to say on the measure to-night was that they thanked, not the present Government, but they thanked the men whose persistency and resolution had driven the Government into bringing the measure before the House. They were told by the hon. Member for Cork County that that Bill would do a great deal of good in Ireland. Well, there were many sore hearts in Ireland that night, because there were now lying in the prison ceils of the Chief Secretary for Ireland 200 of the best and most honest men of the country; and he would say that while those men lay in prison there would be no peace in Ireland. He would say, furthermore, that until that policy of the Chief Secretary for Ireland was discontinued—until they were prepared to pluck from the memory of the Irish people "that rooted sorrow "—no peace or prosperity would return to Ireland, let them pass what measures they pleased.
  MR. MITCHELL HENRYsaid, he could not allow the Bill to leave the
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  House without challenging the declarations of the last speaker. He did not wish to say anything irritating; but he would say this, that he did not believe the Irish people endorsed the sentiments they had just heard expressed. He had opposed the policy of coercion as strongly as the hon. Member opposite—["No!"]—strongly as any hon. Member in that House; but he was convinced that had it not been for the policy pursued by certain persons, that Bill would have been the law of the land months and months ago, and the prisoners referred to by the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy)—some of whom he looked upon as the victims of bad advice, and some as the bad advisers—would never have been arrested. He believed the Irish people were deeply grateful to the Prime Minister for that Bill. They knew with what sorrow of heart he had violated those principles of liberty which he had maintained at all times, not only at home, but in foreign countries, where men were imprisoned for political offences. He had been driven to that course by the conduct of those who, had they been actuated by a true spirit of patriotism, leavened by a little common sense, would have spared their country the bitter herbs with which the dish of the Land Bill had been seasoned. MR. M'COAN said, that but for the remarks of the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) he would have been content to give a silent vote; but he should be sorry if it went forth that the words of the hon. Gentleman represented the opinion of the Irish Representatives on that side of the House, or the feelings of the Irish people, on the Bill now about to be read a third time. He at once confessed what he had always felt—that the measure was largely owing to the agitation which had been initiated and carried on by the Land League, and, so far, much of the credit for it was due to that organization. But, at the same time, neither his conscience nor his sense of fair play would permit him to ignore the fact that its magnificent comprehensiveness was mainly owing to the generosity and justice of Her Majesty's present Government. He acknowledged the concessions which the Prime Minister, step by step, had made; and he believed that the general sentiment of the Irish people would similarly recognize its claims on their grateful ac-

  181
  ceptance. He sympathized with the men imprisoned in Ireland; but he was not then called upon to express an opinion as to the wisdom or unwisdom of the action that led to their arrest. But he would express an earnest hope that Her Majesty's Government would be able, concurrently with the passing of this Bill, to make some large concession of mercy to these men. If this were done, his conviction was strong that, accompanied by such a measure of mercy, the Bill, when passed, would strike an effectual blow at the root of agitation in Ireland, as all just excuse for it would be removed. At the risk of some unpopularity among his Colleagues, he had voted for the second reading of the Bill; and, as his opinion of it was unchanged, he should vote for its final stage to-night.
  MR. J. COWENsaid, he was reluctant to interpose in that long drawn out discussion, to which it was difficult for imagination to contribute a new thought, or ingenuity to suggest a fresh proposal. But he pleaded, in extenuation of his intrusion at that stage of the Bill, the fact that he had been one of the Members of the Commission whose Report the Prime Minister had more than once declared was the basis of the measure—a Commission which had been inquiring into the causes and extent of agricultural depression, and how far these could be remedied by legislation. He might further say that at no stage of the Bill had he delayed its progress by a single remark or a solitary Amendment. He was told that the first duty of a patriot was silence, and in the wordy warfare of the last few weeks he had the negative merit of having held his tongue. The Prime Minister, in introducing the Bill, indulged the hope that it would close a painful chapter of Irish grievances, and transform a poor and disaffected into a prosperous and contented population. That wish had been re-echoed by nearly every succeeding speaker; but it was more a wish than an expectation. The problem dealt with by the Bill was the oldest, most complete, and far-reaching that came within the range of British politics. It embraced agricultural, political, legal, and economic changes, which would go far to re-model the basis of social life in Ireland. It had exercised the ingenuity of successive statesmen. Interest
  182
  and prejudice, passion and patriotism, rebellion and remedial measures had all, in their turn, been tried; but they had failed to find a cure for the chronic disorder. It had been the occasion of more inquiries and more legislative failures than any Parliamentary question of the time. During the last 40 years five Royal Commissions and 15 Select Committees had investigated the subject. In the same space of time there had been 13 Bills proposed by different Governments, and three times 13 by independent Members. Out of this long list of abortive projects only two had passed into law; and, of those two, one had been an entire and one a partial failure. It was too much to expect that in a field which was so thickly strewn with the wrecks of carefully-devised projects that this measure should be completely successful. It was not within the compass of human wisdom to devise a scheme of constructive statesmanship that would change the organic relations of classes without exciting some prejudices and disappointing many hopes. No settlement, however comprehensive, could at once undo the demoralizing and disintegrating effects of ages of injustice and misrule. The inherited tendencies of generations could not be cured off-hand. All they could anticipate from the Bill was that it would help forward the long deferred work of reconciliation and regeneration, and hasten the end of Ireland's long agony. Some had spoken of the Bill as original. He did not think it could be so described. The question had been dealt with so often—by such different persons, in such different interests, under such conflicting conditions—that strict originality of treatment was impossible. Every single proposal in the Bill had, in one form or other, been made before. But its chief merit consisted in the skill and the dexterity with which old suggestions had been woven into a concrete whole. The materials were not original; but the product evolved by these discussions might be so described. The Prime Minister had exhibited, in conducting it, the very highest faculties of statesmanship. He had been both philosophical and practical—comprehensive enough to grasp great principles, and close enough to apply them. By his patience under delay—inevitable, perhaps necessary, but still troublesome delay—his persever-

  183
  ance in the face of difficulties—some of them unexpected, some of them unnecessary—and by his steady energy and ever ready resource throughout, he had revived the highest and happiest memories of Parliamentary Leadership. However men might differ with the principles of the Bill, however they might question the results it produced, it would be ungenerous and ungracious in the last degree not to acknowledge these powers ungrudgingly. But, while according to the Government the merit of having introduced the Bill, the credit of having initiated it belonged to another. That man was not a Member of the House, but was, unhappily, an inmate of a convict prison. The agitation—which originated in the West of Ireland two years ago, and which in a short time embraced in its ranks the whole of the peasantry of the country—had compelled the Government to submit the Bill, and would compel Parliament to pass it. ["Oh, oh!" and "No, no!"] Hon. Members might object as they liked, but that was the fact; and in politics the first condition of success was to recognize facts, however unpleasant they might be. The Legislature was the machine, the Ministers were the drivers and the engine-men, but the fuel was supplied, and the steam that moved it was generated, by the derided and denounced land agitators. ["Oh, oh!" and "No, no!"] The unwillingness of hon. Gentlemen to listen to these statements would not alter the facts. Agrarian reform in Ireland was not a portion of the programme of the Liberal Party when they took Office 16 months ago. It was added subsequently. During the prolonged and active agitation that preceded the General Election, the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Ministry published a list of questions that he deemed pressing. He censured the last Government for supine-ness, and the last Parliament for its indifference in not grappling with them. In these 22 questions there was a reference to the Irish suffrage and Irish University Education, but nothing about Irish land. ["No, no!"] Cries of "No, no!" did not interfere with facts, and it was a fact he was stating. Out of 800 addresses issued by Liberal candidates in England and Scotland, not an allusion was made to the subject.
  LORD ELCHOrose to Order. He wished to know whether, if the hon. Member was in Order in his remarks, the interruptions of hon. Members sitting immediately behind the Treasury Bench were not disorderly?
  MR. J. COWEN MR. J. COWEN, continuing, said, some of those Gentlemen in their addresses denounced Irish obstruction; others coquetted with Irish Home Rule; some of them promised that they would oppose Irish coercion, which promise they had not fulfilled. None of them spoke of Irish tenant right. They dilated on the insanity of the Turkish Convention, on the insincerity of the war in Afghanistan, on the immorality of the struggle in South Africa; but they said nothing of the "three F's." Indeed, he questioned if many of the constituents, or even the candidates, knew the meaning at the time of these cabalistic letters. Yet, notwithstanding this, the half of last Session and the whole of the present one had been occupied in discussing this Irish Question. He was not blaming the Government. They were simply acting according to precedent. It was the usual course under such circumstances. They legislated for Ireland under threats and from fear; and all Parties did it—both those opposite and those on that side of the House. Catholic Emancipation was granted as a result of the agitation by the Catholic Association. The Queen's Colleges and the endowment of Maynooth came as a means of buying off the Repeal agitation. The Church was disestablished, according to the declaration of the Prime Minister himself, in consequence of the determination and desperation of the Fenians. And the Land Bill, in like manner, was a consequence of the agitation that had moved Ireland during the last two years. The lesson he drew from these facts was that the general English public were ill informed of, and indifferent to, what was proceeding in Ireland; for, while they never referred to the question of land reform at the last Election, the same subject was the chief topic on every Irish hustings. The practice that both Parties in the State followed was, in his judgment, cowardly and politically immoral. They refused to deal with the question on its merits, or from a sense of justice or right; but they dealt with it when an agitation made the denial of

  185
  the demand dangerous to the public peace. If land reform in Ireland was necessary, it was necessary years ago. But the demand made by Mr. Butt and others was treated with indifference, and voted down by the very Party and the very men who were now applauding the passages of the Bill. They did not judge it upon its merits. They judged it from Party exigencies. The agitation had forced it to be a practical measure. For his part, he held that land legislalation in Ireland was necessary years since. What he complained of was the delay. But he could not see either the consistency or the wisdom of men supporting projects that they disapproved of, and whose efficacy they denied, merely from compulsion. If a measure was right and just, it ought to be conceded. If it was not right and just, it ought to be resisted, and the men who resisted should courageously face the consequences of their resistance. He did not wish to detain the House or to prolong his observations; but he thought, in justice to the much-denounced Members on the Opposition side, that their share in passing the measure ought fairly to be recognized. He cheerfully and cordially accorded to the Prime Minister and the Government all honour for what they had done; but he repeated that the initiative and the popular force requisite to carry the Bill into law had sprung from the agitation.
  MR. R. POWERsaid, that he should not have wished to interfere in the discussion which had arisen had it not been for some remarks made by the hon. Member for Wicklow (Mr. M'Coan). The hon. Member had appealed to the Government to show mercy to the men now imprisoned in Kilmainham Gaol. He fearlessly stated that not one of those men now in prison would come out to-morrow on the terms proposed by the hon. Member for Wicklow. If the Government doubted his word, they could easily afford them the opportunity, and he ventured to say that they had courage and manhood enough to refuse to march out of the prisons into which they had been cast by the Chief Secretary for Ireland. Those men had gone to prison believing that they had conducted themselves aright. ["Question!"] Hon. Members cried "Question!" because he was a little too close to the question. It was
  186
  a question of 200 men being incarcerated in the prisons of Ireland. They could not refer him to a single instance where a Liberal Government had on a previous occasion imprisoned 200 British subjects in Ireland; and the Government dare not bring them to trial in Ireland. The hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. J. Cowen) had stated truly enough that the Bill was the result of agitation. It was really the Land League and not the Government which passed the Land Bill of 1881. He would remind the House of the statement made by the Prime Minister at the explosion at Olerkenwell—an explosion which he (Mr. R. Power) condemned in the strongest terms, but which brought about the disestablishment of the Irish Church. Would the right hon. Gentleman venture to deny that? Those agitations taught the Irish people that they need no longer supplicate, but might demand as of right the redress of their grievances. For many years Irish Members had in that House asked for the redress of grievances. But until the most powerful organization that had ever been known in the world was formed, it was all in vain. In consequence of that agitation, the present Bill came into existence. Why had not the right hon. Gentleman supported the Land Bill which had been brought in by the late Mr. Butt—a Land Bill much milder than the one upon which the House was about to divide? Mr. Butt had no organization. He had eloquence and determination, but of what use were they? It was not until his hon. Friend the Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Par-nell) started the organization in Ireland, until he showed to the people the real strength which organization gave them, that the Liberal Government thought it would be a very wise thing to take up the Land Question in Ireland. The First Lord of the Treasury had often taunted the Irish Party for not supporting him in connection with many of the Amendments to the Bill. Well, he did not know that they owed much gratitude to the right hon. Gentleman. He had yet to learn that a people owed gratitude for justice, and this Bill was one of mere justice. If there were any faults in it, the right hon. Gentleman must be blamed for them. When certain Irish Members organized a deputation to wait upon the right hon. Gentleman for the

  187
  purpose of laying before him what they believed to be the opinions of the Irish people, how did the Government act? They sent word that no Irish Member sitting below the Gangway on the Opposition side of the House should go with the deputation.
  MR. GLADSTONE: Who did that?
  MR. R. POWERsaid, he would inform the right hon. Gentleman in one minute. Both the hon. Members for Louth asked to be admitted with the deputation, and were told that no Member sitting in the part of the House which he had already designated would be allowed to accompany the deputation.
  MR. GLADSTONE: By whom? Name, name!
  MR. R. POWERsaid, that two hon. Members would get up and give the names. They were told so by the Whips of the Liberal Party. ["Oh!" and "Name, name!"] He knew that he for one was most anxious to attend the meeting; but he was refused admittance. [Cries of "By whom?" and "Name, name!"] The Prime Minister asked him to name. They on that side of the House did not get much information from the Treasury Bench; but his hon. Friend the Member for Louth would be quite prepared to state their names. [Cries of" Name, name!"]
  MR. CALLAN: I shall presently be prepared to name them. ["Order!" and "Name!"]
  MR. GORST: I rise to Order. I wish to know, Sir, whether the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary is in Order in interrupting by persistent cries of "Name, name?"
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I rise to Order. [Loud cries of" Order!" and continued interruption.]
  MR. SPEAKER: The right hon. and learned Gentleman having risen to Order, is in possession of the House.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: The hon. and learned Member opposite has risen to Order. He has challenged what I have done, and I rise to Order to appeal to you, Sir, upon the Question which the hon. and learned Member has put. The hon. Member who was addressing the House stated that he and other people had gone personally to the Government—[Cries of"No!"] Allow me to appeal to the recollection of the House. The hon. Member, first of all, vouched—[Mr. GORST: Hear, hear!]—
  188
  I ask whether the hon. and learned Member for Chatham is in Order in interrupting me? The hon. Member who was addressing the House first of all vouched the Members for Louth, and being called upon to give the names said, "I myself." [Cries of"No!"] The hon. Member having thus vouched himself as having gone to the room with the deputation—[Cries of "No, no!"]
  MR. SPEAKER: The right hon. and learned Gentleman is in possession of the House, and he is entitled to proceed to the end of his address without interruption, so long as he speaks to the point of Order.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: If I have misunderstood the hon. Member who was addressing the House—if he says he made no such statement, I shall, of course, accept his denial; but at present all I can say is that it was my impression that he did make such a statement, and it was under that impression that I called upon him as having vouched that he went to the room.
  MR. R. POWERsaid, he was very sorry that the right hon. and learned Gentleman had misunderstood him. He bad not said that he went himself to the deputation room. He did not believe in accompanying deputations to Englishmen. The facts of the case were that he asked the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Callan) about the deputation, and that hon. Member told him that he was informed by a Gentleman who they could well suppose possessed the confidence of the Government—one of the Commissioners under the Bill—namely, Mr. Litton, that no Irish Gentleman sitting upon his side of the House could accompany the deputation. He then observed to the hon. Member for Louth that Mr. Litton, though a thick-and-thin supporter of the Government, was perhaps not entitled to say as much as he did say. To that the hon. Member for Louth replied that Lord Richard Grosvenor had informed Mr. Litton that no Irish Member sitting below the Gangway on the Opposition side of the House would be allowed to go with the deputation. He would now return to the question of the Land Bill. The noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) had made one or two observations which he could not refrain from noticing. The noble Lord appealed to the Government on behalf

  189
  of the landlord class, saying—"The landlords have always supported you in Ireland, and yet now at the eleventh hour you throw them over." Well, he agreed with the noble Lord in every word which he had spoken. The landlords had been the support of the Government and the House. They had supported them in connection with every miserable, petty, or tyrannical Act which had been passed in reference to Ireland, and they had carried out the laws passed by Englishmen in every particular, on the Bench and in other Offices. He was not sorry that the landlords seemed now to be inclined to refuse to act any longer as a buffer between the Government and the people of Ireland. He was not, however, so prejudiced as to say that the Bill now before the House contained nothing good. He admitted frankly that it was the best which the English Government could pass at the present time. But it had always been the misfortune of Ireland to suffer on account of the Party tactics of English politicians. If the Government were anxious to do justice to Ireland, as he believed the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government was, they could not carry with them the great phalanx behind them, consisting of the Independent Liberals. The worst point of all was that there was no real Radical Party in the House. The one thing capable of destroying the Radical Party in this country was the Birmingham caucus. [Cries of "Question!"] He knew very well that hon. Members below the Gangway opposite would cry "Question!" at that statement, for to them this was a very disagreeable subject to talk about. His opposition to the Land Bill originated in the views which he entertained with regard to the 26th clause. He had seen in that clause a fixed purpose to depopulate Ireland—["No, no!"]—and though hon. Members opposite cried "No!" they would find that the people of Ireland had viewed the clause in the same light. But his Colleagues had virtually killed that clause, and had forced the Government to reduce their original estimate of the expenditure under its provisions to the comparatively small sum of £200,000. He should not speak his honest convictions if he did not declare that this Bill could not be regarded as a final settlement.
  MR. CALLANsaid, he regretted that his name had been introduced, but he must detain the House a few minutes while he offered a personal explanation. The conversation that had been referred to took place six months ago, and it had been accurately reproduced by the hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. R. Power). He (Mr. Callan) came into this present Parliament belonging to the same Party that he had acted with for 12 years, and it was not until he heard from the reading of the Queen's Speech that coercion was to precede land reform, that he tore up the card securing his place on the Liberal side, and changed to the other side of the House.
  MR. SPEAKERreminded the hon. Member that he was travelling beyond the limits of personal explanation, and that the Question before the House had nothing to do with the tearing up of his card.
  MR. CALLANproceeded to say that he was in 1870 the secretary of a meeting of the Irish Members to consider the Land Bill of that year, and when he heard that the Land Question was again to be dealt with, he thought a similar meeting of Irish Members would be held. Upon learning, however, that arrangements had been made for a deputation, he said to Mr. Litton, who appeared to have the matter in charge, that he should like to accompany the deputation, and Mr. Litton told him that it was the express wish of the Prime Minister that no Members from the opposite side should go, that the right hon. Gentleman entertained a strong personal objection to any Member sitting in Opposition going with the deputation upon this matter. He (Mr. Callan) expressed doubt as to that, and Mr. Litton said they were so careful about those who were to go on the deputation, that a list had to be submitted to the chief Government Whip (Lord Richard Grosvenor). He was told by his Colleague that a similar intimation had been conveyed to him.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he rose to request the favour of being allowed to make a personal explanation, as his name had been introduced. He could promise it should not be one-twentieth part of the length of that of the hon. Member. So far as he was concerned—he could not say anything about Mr.

  191
  Litton - there was not the slightest shadow of foundation for any portion of the statement which had been made.
  LORD EICHAED GEOSVENOEsaid, he was sorry to be obliged to trouble the House for a few moments with what seemed to be required from him—namely, a personal explanation of his course in this matter. He could assure the House that this was the first time he had heard anything of the strongly expressed opinion and wish of the Prime Minister. He did not believe that he ever expressed such a wish on the part of the Prime Minister to Mr. Litton, and he very much regretted that the hon. and learned Member for Tyrone (Mr. Litton) was not then present. He could assure the House that this was the first he had heard of it; and he was perfectly certain that the House would believe him that he could not possibly have invented such a statement, as it would not have been the perfect truth.
  MR. E. COLLINSsaid, he was unwilling to intervene in this conversation; but he considered it only fair and just to those who were involved in this accusation to state the facts in reference to the deputation in question. He was a member of the deputation. It originated from a meeting, not of the Irish Members, but of the Liberal Party interested in the passing of a Land Bill for Ireland.
  MR. SPEAKER: After the personal explanations that have been made, I think I ought to point out to the House that the Question before it is the third reading of the Land Bill.
  MR. BLAKEsaid, he should be sorry if the closing words on this Bill on the part of Irish Members should appear to be those of ungraciousness towards the Prime Minister, to whom the Irish people owed so much for his efforts to benefit them by this measure. While he (Mr. Blake) believed that no man had the interest and welfare of Ireland more at heart than the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy), he thought that on the present occasion the hon. Member had shown more indiscretion than, he was sure, the hon. Member on reflection would wish to show. The hon. Member for Wexford was young, earnest, and impulsive, and the latter quality, as on the present occasion, sometimes led him into not making due allowance for the difficulties of the Government in not ac-
  192
  complishing all he deemed desirable in the interests of the country. He (Mr. Blake) spoke with perfect independence when he said that the Bill did not go as far as he could wish; and he agreed with the hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. E. Power) that it would not be considered a final settlement of the Irish Land Question, as it was not unlikely that after a trial some defects would have to be remedied, and therefore it would be premature to declare the Bill, good as it undoubtedly was, a finality. In its present form it would confer much benefit on the Irish people if properly carried out. But he believed that the Prime Minister had gone as far as he could, and, as an Irish Member, he offered the right hon. Gentleman his most sincere and grateful thanks.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes 220; Noes 14: Majority 206.

  AYES.

  Acland, Sir T. D.

  Chambers, Sir T.

  Agar-Robartes, hn. T. C.

  Childers, rt. hn. H. C. E.

  Agnew, W.

  Chitty, J. W.

  Ainsworth, D.

  Clarke, J. C.

  Allen, H. G.

  Cohen, A.

  Allen, W. S.

  Colebrooke, Sir T. E.

  Allman, R. L.

  Collings, J.

  Anderson, G.

  Collins, E.

  Archdale, W. H.

  Colman, J. J.

  Armitage, B.

  Colthurst, Col. D. la T.

  Armitstead, G.

  Corbet, W. J.

  Arnold, A.

  Corbett, J.

  Asher, A.

  Corry, J. P.

  Balfour, Sir G.

  Cotes, C. C.

  Balfour, J. B.

  Courtney, L. H.

  Barran, J.

  Cowan, J.

  Beaumont, W. B.

  Cowen, J.

  Blake, J. A.

  Cowper, hon. H. F.

  Blennerhassett, Sir R.

  Craig, W. Y.

  Blennerhassett, R. P.

  Creyke, R.

  Bolton, J. C.

  Cross, J. K.

  Brassey, Sir T.

  Cunliffe, Sir R. A.

  Bright, rt. hon. J.

  Daly, J.

  Brinton, J.

  Davey, H.

  Broadhurst, H.

  Davies, D.

  Bruce, rt. hon. Lord C.

  Dawson, C.

  Bryce, J.

  Dilke, Sir C. W.

  Butt, C. P.

  Dillwyn, L. L.

  Buxton, F. W.

  Dodson, rt. hn. J. G.

  Caine, W. S.

  Duckham, T.

  Callan, P.

  Earp, T.

  Cameron, C.

  Edwards, H.

  Campbell, Lord C.

  Errington, G.

  Campbell - Bannerman, H.

  Evans, T. W.

  Fairbairn, Sir A.

  Carbutt, E. H.

  Farquharson, Dr. R.

  Carington, hn. Colonel W. H. P.

  Fay, C. J.

  Ferguson, R.

  Causton, R. K.

  Findlater, W.

  Cavendish, Lord F. C.

  Fitzmaurice, Lord E.

  Chamberlain, rt. hn. J.

  Fitzwilliam, hn, H. W.

  193

  Forster, rt. hon. W. E.

  Molloy, B. C.

  Fort, R.

  Monk, C. J.

  Fowler, W.

  Moore, A.

  Fry, L.

  Morgan, rt. hon. G. O.

  Gabbett, D. F.

  Morley, A.

  Gill, H. J.

  Mundella, rt. hon. A. J.

  Givan, J.

  Noel, B.

  Gladstone, rt. hn. W. E.

  Nolan, Major J. P.

  Gladstone, H. J.

  O'Beirne, Major F.

  Gladstone, W. H.

  O'Brien, Sir P.

  Gordon, Sir A.

  O'Conor, D. M.

  Goschen, rt. hon. G. J.

  O'Donoghue, The

  Gourley, E. T.

  O'Gorman Mahon, Col. The

  Grant, A.

  Gurdon, R. T.

  O'Kelly, J.

  Hamilton, J. G. C.

  O'Shaughnessy, R.

  Harcourt, rt. hon. Sir W. G. V. V.

  Otway, A.

  Paget, T. T.

  Hardcastle, J. A.

  Palmer, C. M.

  Hartington, Marq. of

  Palmer, G.

  Hastings, G. W.

  Palmer, J. H.

  Hayter, Sir A. D.

  Parker, C. S.

  Henderson, F.

  Pease, A.

  Henry, M.

  Peddie, J. D.

  Herschell, Sir F.

  Playfair, rt. hon. L.

  Hollond, J. R.

  Powell, W. R. H.

  Holms, J.

  Power, J. O'C.

  Holms, W.

  Power, R.

  Hopwood, C. H.

  Price, Sir R. G.

  Howard, G. J.

  Pugh, L. P.

  Hughes, W. B.

  Ralli, P.

  Hutchinson, J. D.

  Ramsay, J.

  Illingworth, A.

  Reid, R. T.

  Inderwick, F. A.

  Richardson, T.

  James, C.

  Rogers, J. E. T.

  James, W. H.

  Russell, G. W. E.

  James, Sir H.

  Rylands, P.

  Jenkins, D. J.

  Samuelson, H.

  Johnson, E.

  Seely, C. (Nottingham)

  Johnson, W. M.

  Shaw, W.

  Kinnear, J.

  Slagg, J.

  Labouchere, H.

  Smithwick, J. F.

  Laing, S.

  Smyth, P. J.

  Law, rt. hon. H.

  Spencer, hon. C. R.

  Lawrence, W.

  Stanley, hon. E. L.

  Lawson Sir W.

  Stewart, J.

  Lea, T.

  Stuart, H. V.

  Lee, H.

  Sullivan A. M.

  Lefevre, rt. hn. G. J. S.

  Sullivan, T. D.

  Leigh, hon. G. H. C.

  Summers, W.

  Leighton, Sir B.

  Synan, E. J.

  Lever, J. O.

  Talbot, C. R. M.

  Lubbock, Sir J.

  Tennant, C.

  Macfarlane, D. H.

  Thomasson, J. P.

  Mackie, R. B.

  Tillett, J.H.

  Macliver, P. S.

  Trevelyan, G. O.

  Macnaghten, E.

  Vivian, A. P.

  M'Carthy, J.

  Walter, J.

  M'Clure, Sir T.

  Waugh, E.

  M'Coan, J. C.

  Webster, J.

  M'Kenna, Sir J. N.

  Wedderburn, Sir D.

  M'Lagan, P.

  Whitbread, S.

  M'Laren, C. B. B.

  Wiggin, H.

  M'Laren, J.

  Williams, S. C. E.

  M'Minnies, J. G.

  Williamson, S.

  Mappin, F. T.

  Willis, W.

  Marjoribanks, Sir D.

  Wilson, Sir M.

  Marriott, W. T.

  Wodehouse, E. R.

  Martin, R. B.

  Woodall, W.

  Marum, E. M.

  Mason, H.

  TELLERS.

  Meldon, C. H.

  Grosvenor, Lord R.

  Milbank, F. A.

  Kensington, Lord

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  NOES.

  Barttelot, Sir W. B.

  Scott, M. D.

  Bective, Earl of

  Tyler, Sir H. W.

  Dixon-Hartland, F. D.

  Warton, C. N.

  Folkestone, Viscount

  Whitley, E.

  Gorst, J. E.

  Holland, Sir H. T.

  TELLERS.

  Hubbard, rt. hn. J. G.

  Elcho, Lord

  Onslow, D.

  Hay, rt. hon. Admiral

  Ross, C. C.

  Sir J. C. D.

  Schreiber, C.

  Bill passed.

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

  IRISH FISHERIES.—RESOLUTION.
  MR. BLAKE,in rising to call attention to the depressed condition of the sea fisheries of Ireland; and to move—
  "That it is the opinion of this House that it is the duty of the Government to take measures to render the Irish Fisheries more available as a means of affording increased food and employment,"
  said, that he considered he rose under very adverse circumstances, as the House had been, until that moment, engaged with another very important matter. His object was to show that great benefits had been conferred on the fishermen by the aid already afforded by the Reproductive Fund, and which afforded a precedent for similar assistance being given to the eight maritime counties without loans. He might also mention that enormous benefits had been conferred on the coast population of the county of Cork by the benevolence of the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, who, with her characteristic generosity, had aided many fishermen between Baltimore and Cape Clear to follow their occupation. It was of the highest importance to develop such a fertile source of food as the sea fisheries of Ireland. At present they did not produce more than £700,000 a-year; but if they were properly developed they might produce £2,000,000 or £3,000,000, materially increase, and, at the same time, cheapen the food of the people, and serve as an admirable nursery both of the Royal Navy and of the Mercantile Marine. Every Fishery Company had failed because of the tempestuous character of the coast. It was only at certain periods when fishermen

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  could safely venture out to sea, and the only success gained had been in cases where fishing and farming were combined. As a means of developing this industry, he suggested that the coast population should be assisted with proper appliances for fishing, and that the necessary aid for that purpose might be given, not out of the Imperial Exchequer, but from the Church Surplus Fund. He believed the Government never had so favourable a chance of doing good at so little cost. It was their incumbent duty to do all in their power to develop the resources of Ireland. It was strange to see fully £2,000,000 worth of good food allowed to be un-availed of, which, besides other advantages, would have afforded vast employment in its capture, and helped to train a large amount of the coast population to various industrial pursuits connected with fisheries. Besides that, by putting the fishing industry in a proper position, they could be rendering themselves less dependent on foreign countries for food supplies. The Chief Secretary had been so occupied with the Land Bill that he could hardly be expected to have devoted much attention to the question of the fisheries; but now that the Land Bill was over, for the present, at least, he (Mr. Blake) hoped the right hon. Gentleman would inquire into the subject, with a view of doing something early next Session. He, therefore, with much confidence, begged to move the Resolution of which he had given Notice.
  MR. W. HOLMSsaid, he thought it would be well to encourage the development of the industrial resources of Ireland, and the fisheries among them. Apart from industrial considerations, it was a matter of the greatest importance that every encouragement should be given to rearing a hardy race of fishermen, who, after all, were the very best men for recruiting the Navy. As a Scotchman, he ventured to remark, in reference to Irish fisheries, that he thought Irishmen, with the power of fishing off their own coast, might develop to a greater extent than they had done their own fisheries. He lived for many years near a fishing village on the Ayrshire Coast, where, year after year, he observed a small fleet of fishing vessels laid up for the winter. He found that, for the most part, these vessels did not
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  fish on the Scotch Coast, but were accustomed, in the Spring of the year, to sail for the Irish Coast, where they reaped a rich harvest. He thought, therefore, that their Irish friends might do more themselves to develop their own fisheries; and he also thought the Government would spend money well that would in any degree develop that industry. He had great pleasure in seconding the Resolution.
  Amendment proposed,
  To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "it is the opinion of this House that it is the duty of the Government to take measures to render the Irish Fisheries more available as a means of affording increased food and employment,"—(Mr. Blake,)
  —instead thereof.
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  MR. W. E. FORSTER MR. W. E. FORSTER, said, that, notwithstanding the pressure of other Business, the question of the Irish fisheries had not been neglected during the year. A considerable sum had been spent on the erection of piers, chiefly in the Western Counties, where the people were very poor, and where there was a vast congestion of the people. Although he did not think a population, partly agricultural and partly fishers, could compete with those who devoted their whole energies to fishing, still that was no reason why they should not do what they could to develop the fisheries of a country whose coasts abounded with fish. Aided by a munificent donation from Canada, some £60,000, including £45,000 from the Exchequer, had been appropriated for the erection of 30 piers, mostly in the Western Counties. As to the reproductive loan to Irish fishermen, he wished the fact could be impressed on Parliament and the country that these loans had been granted to very poor people, yet they had been paid with the greatest possible regularity, only £900 being overdue out of £30,000.
  SIR JOSEPH M'KENNAsaid, he hoped that the attention of the Government would be given to the condition of the South, as well as the West Coast of Ireland. All efforts, however, to improve the fisheries of Ireland would be ineffective unless the Government turned its attention to the charges made by Irish railways for the carriage of

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  fish, which, in some cases, were almost prohibitive. Remarks had been made about the superior success of Scotch and English fishermen on the English Coast as compared with the Irish. But it ought to be remembered that the former had better markets at command; and if Companies were formed it would be better that they should have, if not their headquarters, certainly some depots, at English or Welsh seaports, so as to avoid the heavy charges of transport on the Irish railways.
  COLONEL COLTHURSTsaid, he wished to call attention to the Reproductive Loan Fund, which he thought ought to be extended. As far as Gal-way was concerned, the most successful fishing was by the fishermen themselves. He only knew of one successful Company, and that was an Irish Company, which had succeeded where a Cornish Company had failed. The loans made by the Baroness Burdett-Coutts to individual fishermen had been of the greatest advantage, and had greatly stimulated the industry of the fishermen. His noble Friend the Secretary to the Treasury two years ago expressed himself as incredulous as to the repayment of loans to small fishermen. But in the event it was shown that payments were most regular. There was also a great deficiency of harbours and piers. Unfortunately, the choice of the places for piers was not fairly made, but depended upon the amount of pressure which influential localities brought to bear upon head-quarters.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, that at present only eight maritime counties got assistance from the fund; and his hon. Friend justly complained that the other nine counties should be left out in the cold. The right hon. Gentleman was in perfect agreement with his hon. Friend as to the importance of the industry and the necessity for developing it. The right hon. Gentleman also admitted that the mode of developing that industry by loans had been found most successful, as was shown in the case of the reproductive loan, the loan of the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, and the Canadian Fund. It was, therefore, the duty of the right hon. Gentleman, as Chief Minister for Ireland, to see that the loans, which he admitted to be deficient, should be increased. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would knock at the door of the
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  Treasury until he extracted something from the noble Lord (Lord Frederick Cavendish). He would request the right hon. Gentleman to devote the most serious attention to this subject during the Recess, and to come before Parliament with a practical scheme next year.
  MR. VILLIERS STUARTsaid, he hoped that the Government would not turn a deaf ear to the appeal of his hon. Colleague (Mr. Blake). He could bear witness to the truth of his statement, both as to the productiveness of the Irish fisheries, and to the sad fact that, from want of proper boats and nets, the coast population had the mortification of looking idly on while well-appointed boats from Cornwall, the Isle of Man, and even from France, reaped golden harvests in which they could not share. It would be said, why did they not show the same enterprize, energy, and industry as their rivals? He (Mr. Villiers Stuart) could assure them that the Irish fishermen were not wanting in energy and daring; but they were in the position of workmen who had lost their tools. Their boats had again and again been destroyed for want of proper shelter, and they were too poor to replace them; while their Cornish, Manx, and French rivals had long ago been provided with harbours on their Coasts. He was convinced that public money could not be laid out to greater advantage than in loans to these poor fellows, to enable them to procure boats and nets. Those were their stock-in-trade; and surely it was a legitimate proceeding to enable workmen who lost their tools to replace them, instead of leaving them to swell the ranks of pauperism, and increase the poor rates. If they had proper boats and nets, they would often take in a single season fish enough to repay the entire loan; and not only that, but the population for miles inland would be benefited by a wholesome supply of valuable food. The granting of this relief was the more important at the present crisis, when serious consequences were likely to arise from want of employment, both on the coast and further inland. He must mention that at Ardmore, where valuable fisheries existed, a pier might be built at a very moderate cost, which would enable the fishermen to benefit by the vast shoals of sprats, mackerel, and

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  other fish, which annually visited their coast. He could say the same of Dungarvan Bay. In both these cases most favourable Reports had been made to the Government by the Inspector sent down for that purpose. He had had the honour of taking part in a deputation to the Treasury last Session, and he had understood the noble Lord (Lord Frederick Cavendish) to say on that occasion that the £5,000 annually granted would not be suspended in consequence of the Canadian loan. [Lord FREDERICK CAVENDISH dissented.] Well, he had a strong impression that the noble Lord had said so. It was unfair to relieve the West of Ireland at the cost of other distressed districts, which were equally in need of assistance.
  LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISHsaid, he wished to remove a misapprehension which seemed to be shared by hon. Members. When a special grant was made last year, it was on condition that the ordinary annual grant should be suspended for a time. In the present year a certain sum had been taken for the completion of works begun before. Next year, and in subsequent years, the matter might be open for consideration.
  SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLremarked, that it was rather trying to Scotch and English Members to see so much time devoted to Irish questions. The whole of the early Sitting had been taken up by an Irish subject, and now another Irish question was before the House.
  MR. O'DONNELLsaid, he thought the Irish fishermen could not expect much from the economy of the Financial Secretary. He was sorry this question had excited the indignation of an excellent Scotch Representative; but he must remind the hon. Gentleman that it was a question connected with the well-being of a much larger population than the poor fishing population. The Irish Members quite agreed that they could manage these matters without the patronizing assistance of the hon. Gentleman. Indeed, he was of opinion that Irish Members were much more competent to deal with Scotch affairs than Scotch Members were to meddle with Irish affairs. In his opinion, the only way in which the fishery problem in Ireland could be solved was by a series of comprehensive measures, including the opening up of cheap railways and what
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  were called measures for the direct encouragement of the fisheries.
  Amendment, by leave, Withdrawn.
  Main Question, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," put, and agreed to.

  SUPPLY—CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES.
  SUPPLY—considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)

  SUPPLY—CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES.

    CLASS II.—SALARIES AND EXPENSES OF CIVIL DEPARTMENTS.
    (1.) Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That a sum, not exceeding £17,619, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1882, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Charity Commission for England and Wales."
    MR. BRYCEsaid, that although the subject he desired to call the attention of the Committee to was one of very great importance, involving nothing less than the middle class education of the country, he hoped, considering the lateness of the hour and the necessity of making progress in Supply, to dispose of it very shortly. He did not propose to move the reduction of the Vote, particularly as he expected to obtain a satisfactory answer from the Government to the questions which he proposed to put. Nor did he propose to enter into any general question with regard to the policy of uniting the Charity and the Endowed Schools Commissions. He was quite aware that that policy had been questioned in many quarters, and that the Government had incurred great responsibility in changing the organization of the Endowed Schools Commission. A Commission to inquire into the working of the Endowed Schools Commission sat for some years from the year 1865, and presented Reports in 1866 and 1868. He had had the honour of being one of the Commissioners, and he was, therefore, able to explain what the result of the inquiry was. It went a long way towards showing that the education of what might be called the middle classes of the country—namely, that which was above the elementary education, but below that given in the higher class schools and Colleges, was eminently unsatisfactory. In many cases the endowments for educational purposes had been

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    entirely neglected, and the education given was most defective. The consequence of the disclosures made by the Commission was the appointment of the Endowed Schools Commission in 1869. That Commission worked on until the year 1874, when there was a change of Ministry, and it was superseded in that year by the Commission which, at the present moment, continued to carry on the work. The Act of 1874, although it continued the Commission which was specially charged with the work of reorganizing the Endowed Schools, united the Commission with the Charity Commission, and placed it under the control of the Chief Commissioner of that Commission. Since then the work had been carried on under the auspices of the Charity Commission. Nearly 11 years had now elapsed since the Endowed Schools Act of 1869 began to take effect, and during that time the progress of the re-organization had been very much slower than was anticipated by those who framed the Act of 1869, or by those who made the alteration in the Act of 1874, under which the work was now carried on. It was expected in 1869 that the whole work of preparing new schemes would be completed in five or six years; but since 1869 the schemes which had been framed for the Endowed Schools of the country dealt with less than one-half of the total number of Endowed Schools. It was true that the value of the endowments was slightly in excess of one-half of the total amount; but the number of schools remaining to be dealt with was greater than the number which had been dealt with in the 11 years which had elapsed since 1869. Therefore, at the same rate of progress it was clear that 11 years more must elapse before the work of re-organizing the Endowed Schools could be completed, and before that time some of the schools which had already been dealt with by schemes would require to be dealt with afresh, so as to amend and remove defects that were not foreseen when the schemes were originally framed. It had become quite obvious that something more must be done to improve the secondary education of the country; and he thought he was entitled to ask the Vice President of the Council (Mr. Mundella) the causes which had made the progress in the work of re-organizing the Endowed Schools so exceedingly slow.
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    The matter was one of the highest importance, because it could not be forgotten that the education of the country, as far as it did not depend on the small number of public schools which existed, mainly depended upon these Endowed Schools. It was they which should set the standard of education for the middle class schools of the country, which should give a better tone to the people, and in all respects act as models for the schools at which the children of the middle classes received their education. But that could not be done without introducing change into the generally obsolete regulations under which these schools were managed, or without the framing of such schemes as the Endowed Schools Commissioners has been directed to frame. He did not propose to enter into details upon the question as one of the educational policy of the country, or to inquire to what extent it was that the Endowed Schools were defective. It was well known that there were great deficiencies in the present working of the system; and he asked from his right hon. Friend the Vice President of the Council an explanation of the cause to which he attributed this slow progress and the measures he proposed to take in order to remedy this great evil. The Act under which the Endowed Schools Commission was now working would expire next year; and it would consequently be necessary, during next Session of Parliament, to bring in a measure which should renew the Commission, and endeavour, if possible, to set it going anew with greater locomotive power. The present time was, therefore, opportune for calling attention to the defects of the system which now existed, and for endeavouring to obtain some pledge from the Education Office that something would be done to remedy those defects, and bringing the whole matter before the country with the view of passing a satisfactory measure of reform during the ensuing Session. He would not anticipate what the Vice President of the Council would have to say to the position of the staff; but he would point out that one result of the policy adopted in 1874 had been to throw the Endowed Schools Commission into the hands, and place it under the control, of the Charity Commission. It was well known that the Endowed Schools Commission, between 1869 and 1874,

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    went on faster than was conformable with the policy of the Party which came into power in 1874. It was the evident wish and desire of the Conservative Party to put a drag on the wheels of the Commission. The Commission at that time consisted of three able and eminently qualified men. At the head of it was the late Lord Lyttelton, of whom he spoke with the greatest respect as a Nobleman, thoroughly competent to deal with the work of educating the country, and who had greatly identified himself with it. The next Commissioner was Mr. Roby, who was also a man of great ability, and equally devoted to the cause of education; and the last was the Rev. Canon Robinson, who, fortunately, still continued on the Commission. In 1874 those three gentlemen were replaced by a new Commission, consisting of two only, one of whom was Canon Robinson, while the other had had no previous experience, who did the work as well as could be expected, but in whose hands the work of the Commission advanced much more slowly. This gentleman had since quitted office. He (Mr. Byrce) did not make any accusation against him; but he cited the substitution of this Commissioner for Lord Lyttelton and Mr. Roby as a reason why the work of the Commission must have gone on much less quickly and efficiently, and he cited it in the hope that some step would now be taken to remedy the mistake then made by adding to the number of Commissioners directly connected with the Endowed Schools. The amalgamation of the Endowed Schools Commission with the Charity Commission had the effect of making the question of the Endowed Schools one of secondary consideration. It was thought at the time that the Charity Commissioners would be able to devote some of the spare time and labour at their disposal to the work of the Endowed Schools Commission; but he believed he was right in saying that they had found it impossible to do so. The work of the Charity Commission itself was constantly accumulating. It was very important work, and it was becoming more important owing to the increase of the number of charitable foundations which were always growing; and, owing to that fact, the progress of the schemes under the Endowed Schools Act had been slower than might otherwise have been the case, because the
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    schools, when re-organized, were constantly coming to the Charity Commission asking to have orders made, and the Charity Commission was occupied in meeting their needs. The consequence was that the three Charity Commissioners, who had done their work with a considerable amount of public spirit, found that they had no time to spare for the work of the Endowed Schools, and the Endowed Schools' work had been intrusted entirely to the two Endowed Schools Commissioners, who were far too few in number to grapple with the large mass of work they were required to perform. There was a further evil in the limited powers which the Endowed Schools Commission enjoyed. In place of inspecting the schools—he did not mean executing an individual inspection, because that could be properly done by Examiners—but he meant that where a scheme had been framed it might be found, after it had been at work for some years, that it was not working satisfactorily, either owing to some defect in the scheme itself, or some want of heartiness on the part of the trustees in carrying out the scheme—in place of exercising a supervising inspection over the schools, the Endowed Schools Commissioners found themselves unable to ascertain how the work was going on, and could make no provision for remedying the defects of any scheme unless they were prepared to go the length of drafting a new scheme. It was very desirable that powers should be given to them to send down the Assistant Commissioners, who were highly competent men, to examine into the working of the schools, for which schemes had already been framed, to report on that working, and that the Endowed Schools Commissioners should then be authorized to make such alterations in the existing schemes as they thought necessary without going through the long and complex process of framing an entirely new scheme. Further, there were many places which were entirely wanting in Endowed Schools. The most ancient towns in the country generally had endowed grammar school foundations; but there were a number of towns of enormous growth, and some of them even old towns, which were destitute of these schools, and very much wanted them, because it was found that private enter-prize did not come forward with suffi-

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    cient promptitude to supply the wants which these endowments covered. They were, consequently, left to the mercy of private adventure schools; and he believed that every hon. Member who was acquainted with such schools would say that there were very few of them indeed which were fit to give a proper education to the children of the middle classes. The masters, as a rule, had neither the experience nor the skill which enabled them to do the work which might fairly be required from them. The remedy would seem to be to employ the Endowed Schools Commission to apply other charitable funds not heretofore devoted to education to educational purposes. An attempt was made to do that under the 30th section of the Endowed Schools Act of 1869. Under that section, the Endowed Schools Commission, in the case of various specified charitable foundations, were to apply the money which was being spent to charitable purposes in connection with education, provided they received an application for that purpose from the Governing Body of the charitable foundation. He need hardly say that it was only in comparatively few cases that the power was acted upon, because, as a rule, the trustees of these charitable foundations were very far from being enlightened men, and were not aware that, to a great extent, the purposes to which these charities were applied were really pernicious. Take the most obvious case of all—the case of dole gifts. An enormous sum of money was distributed annually all over the country in the shape of doles—tens of thousands a-year. Indeed, he should not be surprised to find that a sum amounting to £100,000 or £120,000 a-year was spent in doles—small gifts of bread, coals, clothes, blankets given away, often to people standing at the church door, and, generally speaking, given away by the trustees on their own unaided responsibility. No one who had studied the subject, and paid any attention to the condition of his fellow-townsmen, would fail to know that gifts of this kind were an unmixed evil. Personally, he did not know of one case out of 10 in which they did any good; and, in the great majority of cases, they did serious harm. But, unfortunately, the trustees of these funds were so much under the belief that they had no right to devote them
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    to purposes other than those originally prescribed by the founder, that even in cases where they confessed that the charitable funds as now applied were doing harm, they could not be induced, in their corporate capacity, to make an application to the Endowed Schools Commission to devote the fund to educational purposes. The consequence was that the money, worse than if it remained absolutely idle, was positively doing harm. Many years, however, must elapse before public opinion would be sufficiently enlightened to induce the trustees to make an application to the Endowed Schools Commission, on their own motion. In that state of things, it would appear to be necessary to enlarge the powers of the Endowed Schools Commission, under Section 30 of the Act of 1869, and give them the initiative in the matter. Power should be given to them, where they were satisfied, on competent evidence, that a charitable foundation of this kind was doing mischief, to apply it to educational purposes. He was far from saying that this power should be given without control. He was fully aware that a good deal of jealousy was felt in the country as to the action of the Charity Commissioners. He had heard it constantly said that this was a proposal to hand over the charities of the country to two or three gentlemen sitting in Whitehall; but he believed that two or three gentlemen sitting in Whitehall were much more likely to do good with them than the large number of irresponsible trustees who existed throughout the country, and who had never considered the matter from the large point of view of those who had gained their experience through the working of the Charity Commission. The state of feeling was undoubtedly such that it would become necessary, in the event of handing over extended powers to a Board in London, to surround their action with numerous safeguards. Nobody would contend that the power given to the Charity Commission or the Endowed Schools Commission should be an absolute power, and it must be accompanied with a power of reference or appeal in the event of discontent being excited. Moreover, it might be generally felt that it would not be proper to take funds which were originally given to the poor and apply them entirely for the benefit of

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    the middle class. In a case where an endowment originally given to the poor was applied to the purposes of secondary education, it would be proper to require that a number of free places—places accessible to the poor—equivalent to the advantages taken, should be reserved. The ultimate advantage would be that while they gave benefit to the poor they would also give benefit to the town generally, by establishing a higher class education than private adventure schools were now able to give. The last point he wished to mention had reference to the education of girls. The Endowed Schools Act of 1869 directed the Endowed Schools Commission to make provision for extending the education of girls. The Commissioners in their Reports stated that they had been able to do much less than they expected, and much less than the House expected, when this power was originally given. The cases in which they had been able to establish girls' schools had been comparatively few; and of the total amount of money applied to educational purposes that applied to the education of girls as compared with boys had been a lamentably small percentage. It was hardly necessary to point out to the Committee that the education of girls was rendering, in reality, quite as great a service to the community as the education of boys. When they taught those who were to become their next generation of mothers, they were doing the best thing they could for the education of the coming generation itself. It was, he thought, very much to be regretted that a far more adequate provision had not been made for the education of girls. He believed that the Commission had been met in some cases by a little opposition in the efforts they had been desirous of using in this direction; and, therefore, he thought there should be a stronger direction from Parliament than any that had hitherto been given for making proper and adequate provision for the education of girls. Those were the evils of which he complained, and which he hoped the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council would, next Session, see occasion to remedy. He had already pointed out what appeared to be the chief remedies required—namely, the strengthening of the staff of the Commission, the enlargement of their powers, the propriety of
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    giving them the initiative in cases where it was desirable to apply charitable endowments to educational purposes, and a more specific direction on the subject of the education of girls. Before sitting down he wished to ask the Committee to consider seriously the great importance of the question, and to express in some way their feeling that next year it ought to be dealt with by the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council in a bold and sweeping measure. Instead of keeping on the Commission for a few years longer, dealing with the Endowed Schools in a manner which could only be temporary, it was desirable that it should be rendered permanent and strength given to it. It must not be forgotten that great educational institutions like Dulwich College and Christ's Hospital were still asking for new schemes, although many years had not elapsed since the schemes upon which they were at present worked were framed. They were two magnificent institutions, with ample revenues, and yet they could not be properly worked, because the Commissioners had not had time to deal with them. In that state of facts, considering the great importance of the Educational Question, and how dependent it was upon the action of the Endowed Schools, considering that England was far behind every other civilized nation in Europe in regard to intermediate and secondary education, considering that some reform, although far from adequate, had been introduced into our system of University education, it was not right that the Endowed Schools should be left longer untouched; and it was not too much to say that the question was one of the most important that could engage the attention of Parliament and of the Government.
    MR. MUNDELLA: At this late hour of the night, and considering also the late period of the Session and the necessity of making progress with Supply, I will not detain the Committee long in answer to the able and interesting speech of my hon. Friend. I have no fault to find with the statement he has made. I am sorry to say that I agree with its general accuracy. There is, no doubt, a general feeling of anxiety and dissatisfaction at the slow progress made with regard to Endowed Schools in England. But I do not think it is necessary to lay any blame at the door of the Commis-

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    sioners for this. The real fault rests with the Act of 1874. I think that the passing of that Act was a great misfortune for the education of this country. It had the effect of reducing the number of Commissioners devoted to the work of the Endowed Schools from three to two; it merged the two Commissions—the Charity Commission and the Endowed Schools Commission, into one; and it made it necessary that every scheme should be considered at a meeting of the Board when the Chief Commissioner was present. The result was, that you increased the difficulty of dealing with the question, and you practically brought down the work to the narrowest possible limits. Now, the work of the Charity Commission itself is a very largely increasing work. For the last 20 years it has been going on augmenting at a rate that makes it quite sufficient for the Commission to deal with without undertaking the work of the Endowed Schools in addition. The two previous Chief Charity Commissioners—Mr. Peter Erle and Sir James Hill—found the work more than they could well get through; and I understand that it was the anxiety displayed by Sir James Hill to accomplish, with one Commissioner, the work of two, that aided very materially in bringing about his death. He found the labour was far more than he ought to undertake. To show the increased nature of the work of the Charity Commission, perhaps the Committee will allow me to point out that in 1861, 207 orders were made by the Commissioners. In 1862 the number had increased to 280, and it has been going on augmenting ever since until last year, 1880, it reached 444 schemes. That represents the charitable work alone; but let me point out what the amount of stock transferred has been. It began with £6,360 in 1854, and it now amounts to £11,443,000, of which £1,500,000 has been invested, so that, in round numbers, a sum of £10,000,000 has been transferred. Every transfer has to be brought before the Board, and, of course, a large amount of additional work is necessarily devolved upon them. The Commissioners themselves, in their last Report, speak of the increase of the work. My hon. Friend has urged the importance of strengthening the staff of the Commission; and we have pointed out in our
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    24th Report the amount of labour which the effective regulation of the public interest in the Parochial Charities of the City of London would require. My hon. Friend himself brought in a Bill this Session which most Members will regret he was unable to pass dealing with the Parochial Charities of London. If it had passed, it would have done much to increase the work of the Charity Commission. The result of placing on the Commission the double work of the Charity Commission and the Endowed Schools Commission has really been to block the progress of the two Commissions, and to hinder effective dealing both with the Charity Commission work and the work of the Endowed Schools Commission. I will point out to the Committee how the Endowed Schools Commission stands now. Since the year 1869, the amount regulated by new schemes in a period of now nearly 12 years has been £294,000 per annum, and there remains still to be dealt with of educational schemes more than £340,000 per annum, in addition to a number of other endowments which are only partly educational. It is, therefore, not unreasonable to say that it will take a quarter of a century, at the present rate of progress, to deal with the educational endowments of England alone. In the present state of middle class education, I would ask the Committee if that is at all a satisfactory state of things? As my hon. Friend has stated, we were told in 1869 that in the course of six or seven years we should have dealt with the whole of the educational endowments of the country. We have now reached the year 1881; and at the rate of progress we are now making it is still contemplated that it will take a quarter of a century before the work is completed. The matter is too serious to be passed over lightly, and some effectual means must be devised for dealing with it. I believe it is the fact that many of the schemes already passed now urgently stand in need of revision; and, owing to the want of inspection and examination, many have not been put in operation. Indeed, there seems to be no sort of control over those which the Commission have passed. The Commissioners ask, in their last Report, that there should be examination and inspection; and I must say that the way in which that Report was denounced in "another place" was most extraordinary. It was one of

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    the most astonishing things I ever heard of in the course of my life. All that was asked for was what was reasonable to carry into full effect the schemes framed by the Commission; and it was one of the most extraordinary statements ever made that the Commissioners desired to constitute themselves into a roving Commission, in order to deal with all the charities all over the country. All the Commissioners asked in their Report was that they should have the means of examining the working of the schemes after they have framed them, in order to see whether they are put fairly into operation. They further proposed that they should have power to inspect the schools once in three years, in order to see that they were doing their work satisfactorily. Every hon. Member will recognize how important the inspection of the schools is as an educational matter. I think that there should be a periodical Report as to the working of the schools, showing what their condition is, and how they compare with one another. I know myself of various schools in regard to which schemes have been framed by the Commission; but, because there has been no inspection and no examination within the last 10 or 11 years, some of these schemes, which started very well, and began to do noble work, are now falling into disuse and decay. All I can say now is that the whole question must be dealt with in the coming year. The only desire of Her Majesty's Government is to promote the true interests of the education of the country. We only desire that what is given through the means of these charitable endowments shall be useful to the poor as well as advantageous to the children of the middle classes. I trust that during the Recess, seeing that we are bound to consider the subject, and that the Commission must be renewed, or a new Commission appointed in the coming year—I trust that we shall be able to devise some measure that will, while consulting the interests of the schools themselves, afford adequate means for their examination, and utilize the vast endowments of the country in the promotion of the higher education of the people, and in opening up the means of education to poor and clever children.
    MR. W. H. JAMESsaid, he heartily and cordially agreed in much that had fallen from his hon. Friend the Member
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    for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Bryce); but, at the same time, he regarded with some reluctance the proposal to give larger powers to the present Charity Commission. The statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council as to the intention of the Government to deal with the question next Session was entirely satisfactory; but he was anxious to point out to the right hon. Gentleman the desirability, when the subject was taken up by the Government next year, of not going too far in the direction of centralization. They must all remember the vigilance of the opposition that was brought to bear on the Endowed Schools Commission which was dispossessed in 1874; and, at the same time, it must be borne in mind that in a great number of these local questions there were a great many local prejudices to consult which required a certain amount of local knowledge, and with respect to which a board in London would find itself incompetent to deal. He wished to point out to his right hon. Friend that when the Government took up the question, they ought, as far as possible, to give to the local authorities in various parts of the country powers analogous, or to some extent analogous, in dealing with Charities and Endowed Schools, to those possessed at the present time by the Charity Commission. By that means, he thought they would be able to get rid of a great deal of the local prejudice and intense local irritation which reduced to a wreck the great measure passed in 1869. If the hour of the night had not been so advanced he would have wished to say a few words from his own personal knowledge in regard to the great Endowed Institution in London, in respect of which he was a Governor—Christ's Hospital. But at that late hour he would not interfere with the course of Public Business further than to say, without desiring in the least to impute motives to the Governors of Christ's Hospital, that nothing could be more unsatisfactory than its present condition in regard to the relations between the Governing Body and the Charity Commission. He hoped his right hon. Friend would bear these remarks in mind when he came to deal with the question next year.
    MR. DONALDSON-HUDSONsaid, he rose for the purpose of thanking the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President

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    of the Council for the promise he had held out to the House and the country that some system of inspection would be carried out in future in regard to the middle class schools. Having been Chairman of the Governing Body of a small Endowed School in the country, he could bear his testimony to the fact that one of the greatest difficulties the Governors had to contend with was the difficulty of getting their schools properly examined and inspected from time to time. One of the schools with which he was connected, although it had only a small income, educated 100 children. There was another point that was also of importance, and that was the selection of teachers. He and his colleagues, as Governors of an Endowed School, had not had the assistance of the Education Department in the training, selection, and nomination of teachers. They were very much at the mercy of any persons who proposed to go to them for the somewhat low fees they were able to pay. He therefore hoped, through the operation of some measure for the registration of teachers, or in some other way, it might be practicable to provide means for affording the Governors who had the management of these schools an opportunity of knowing where to apply to for thoroughly competent teachers. As far as his own experience went, these were the two great difficulties in the management of Endowed Schools—namely, the selection of teachers and the securing of an efficient inspection.
    MR. BRYCEsaid, that after the satisfactory statement of his right hon. Friend the Vice President of the Council, he would only venture to express a hope that the right hon. Gentleman would not only bring in a satisfactory measure next year for dealing with the Endowed Schools Commission, but that he would also be able to deal with the Charitable Trusts Bill.
    MR. J. G. TALBOTthought that one or two inaccurate statements had been made on the other side of the House. The hon. Gentleman who introduced the subject (Mr. Bryce) made a very able speech, to which he had listened with great interest; but the hon. Member did not seem to recollect the whole history of this important transaction. The hon. Gentleman spoke of the slow progress which had undoubtedly been made, and which he (Mr. Talbot) would be one of
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    the last to deny. He was very sorry that the progress had not been greater; but he thought it ought not to be forgotten that the slow progress did not entirely date from the year 1874. The first legislation upon the subject took place in 1869, and it was then expected that the work would be completed in four or five years. But, notwithstanding all the energy of the gentlemen who constituted the Endowed Schools Commission—of whose energy, ability, and integrity there could be no doubt—when the year 1874 arrived the work had not been half done. Indeed, it was not much more than one-quarter done. Therefore, while not wishing to extenuate the slow progress which had been made altogether, he did not think it was fair to put the whole of the blame upon the progress which had been made since 1874.
    MR. BRYCEsaid, he had no intention of imputing blame to the present Board for their action in the matter. All he wished to say was, that the progress had been even slower since 1874 than it had been before.
    MR. J. G. TALBOTsaid, the explanation of the hon. Member set the matter right; but without such explanation anyone hearing his speech, or the statement of the right hon. Gentleman, would have fallen into the error of supposing that the Commission, which had been in charge of the Endowed Schools since 1874, were solely to blame for the slow progress which had been made. He now wished to ask the attention of the Committee to a point raised by the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to imply that when the Conservative Government came into Office in 1874 they had a desire to retard the work of the Commission. Now, he did not know what the motives of the Conservative Government might have been when they entered upon Office; but he did not believe that anybody wished to retard the progress of the work of the Commission. All he knew was, that some Members of the House wished to put that progress on a slightly different basis in regard to control. That might have been wise or it might not; but the desire was not alone confined to the Conservative side of the House. It was a point that gave rise to serious deliberation. The late Government wished that

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    the progress of the Commission should be greater, but without undue friction with the prejudices—or call them what they liked—of the persons who had charge of institutions. He did not see the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant in his place; but he was Chairman of the Committee which sat in 1869 upon the subject, and he would agree that this was one of the points the Committee wore most anxious to consider. He (Mr. J. G. Talbot) did not think it would have a brightening effect upon the country generally if it was now to be understood that on reconsidering the question of the Endowed Schools Commission they were going to re-open the difficult question of non-educational endowments. It was, no doubt, true, as the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council said, that many of these charities had been greatly abused, and that the system of doles had been, on the whole, unwisely administered. But, on the other hand, he thought it would be a very startling thing if it were to go forth from that Committee—and he had risen to enter his humble protest against the acceptance of the suggestion—that there was any intention of diverting the funds which had been designedly left for the benefit of the poorest classes of the community to objects that were, after all, for the education of the middle classes only. It might be wise to do something in that direction; but the proposition of the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets was simply this—that the Charity Commission, or the Endowed Schools Commission, whichever body was to act in future, should have the power of initiating, in regard to these doles, whether the managers of them wished to deprive them of their present character or not, a scheme which should have the effect of making them educational endowments. By that means, funds which had been left for the benefit of the very humblest portion of the community, although it might be in a mistaken and misguided manner, would be taken away from those it was intended to benefit, and applied to the education of the middle classes. That, he thought, would be a very dangerous course to take, to say the least of it. There was only one more remark he would venture to make on the matter, and it was this—the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council
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    spoke of the question as one which, must engage the attention of Parliament next Session. It was obvious that as the Act must expire next year something must be done in that direction; and, that being so, he would earnestly press on the Government that it would be unwise to make an alteration in this important question, either by constituting a new Commission, or arming the existing Commission with increased powers, without full and deliberate consideration. The constitution of the original Commission was made the subject of a careful inquiry by a Committee of that House; and it would be wise, if it was intended materially to alter the conditions under which the Commission was to work, to institute a fresh inquiry next year, cither by moans of a Royal Commission or of a Committee of that House. With regard to the question of amalgamation, it was said that harm had been done by uniting the Endowed Schools Commission with the Charity Commission. It might have been so; and the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council had given them some important statistics as to the increased work which had fallen upon the Commission. That was a matter which probably ought to be determined before they renewed the connection between the charitable work and the educational work; but it was only fair to the late Conservative Government to say that, although they were often charged with extravagance and lavish expenditure, this was an attempt to amalgamate two Commissions, and if it had not proved successful, at any rate it was an attempt in the direction of economy. Personally, he should certainly not stand there as an obstructive of any well-considered change; but he hoped it would not go forth to the country without challenge that any fundamental alteration should be made without due and careful consideration.
    MR. THOROLD ROGERSwished to say a word in answer to the remarks which had fallen from the hon. Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. J. G. Talbot). As far as he knew, there had never been a case in which any charitable endowment had been deviated in the direction of education without coupling the educational scheme with machinery which enabled boys to rise from the national schools to the gram-

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    mar schools. He knew of one case, in Bristol, in which the change took precisely that form, and the endowment was made the means of promoting boys from the national schools into the Bristol Grammar School. The same sort of thing had happened in the City of Oxford. Some doles had been left for purposes that were entirely obsolete, and they were taken away and given to the grammar school; but provision was made by means of which boys from the lowest stratum of society in Oxford were enabled to enter the grammar school. As a matter of fact, every hon. Member knew that all the Endowed Schools of the country had been originally intended for the poor.
    MR. BRYCEsaid, the hon. Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. J. G. Talbot) had fallen into an error. He (Mr. Bryce) had not intended to imply that any of the funds now given to the poor should be taken away from them and given to the middle class. To the best of his belief he had stated distinctly that, in taking the initiative, the Commission should be restricted by ample safeguards, and that equivalent advantages should be secured to the poor.
    MR. FINIGANasked whether anything had been done since last year with regard to Jackson's Trust Fund?
    MR. MUNDELLAsaid, he was unable to answer the question of the hon. Member at the moment; but if he would make an application inquiries should be made.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    (2.) £13,798, to complete the sum for the Civil Service Commission.
    MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORinquired as to the amount of fees paid by candidates at the Army examinations?
    MR. W. H. JAMESsaid, that nothing could be more unsatisfactory, or even scandalous, than the present system of conducting military examinations. He believed that on the last occasion of the examination in connection with the Woolwich Military Academy there was in the morning a concert and in the evening a recital in the Hall where the examinations were conducted, which could not but interfere very much with the proceedings. He had always been in favour of the system of competitive examination; but it seemed to him very
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    difficult to attain to a proper standard in the examinations if such a state of things were allowed to continue.
    MR. CHILDERSsaid, he had strongly pressed upon the authorities that they should take steps for obtaining better accommodation for the purpose of these examinations; and he trusted that his representations would this year lead to a more satisfactory arrangement. The Commissioners of Works had sought for a room more adapted for the examinations; but, up to the present, unfortunately, they had not been able to meet with one in which a sufficiently large number of persons could be provided for. The Government were, however, fully alive to the position of affairs.
    MR. THOROLD ROGERSasked why the fees for the Civil Service of India examinations were paid into the India Exchequer?
    MR. CHILDERSsaid, that the question was about to be taken up by the Government.
    LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISHsaid, he would make inquiries, before the Vote was reported, on the question of the amount of fees payable by candidates at the Army examinations.
    Vote agreed to.
    (3.) £9,466, to complete the sum for the Copyhold, Inclosure, and Tithe Commission.
    (4) £4,425, to complete the sum for the Inclosure and Drainage Acts, Imprest Expenses.
    MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, that this Vote was one of several instances of the public money being advanced and not repaid. There was a note relating to this charge which said that the whole of this Vote was a temporary advance, which was to be repaid to the Exchequer when the works of inclosure and drainage were completed. But the fact with regard to this Vote was that, although a considerable sum was annually repaid, it did not amount to the whole sum advanced; and, therefore, the amount of the arrears increased rapidly. The matter had already been before the Public Accounts Committee, who had urged a reduction of the arrears, but, up to the present time, without success. In the year 1878 the noble Lord the Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Frede-

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    rick Cavendish), and in 1880 the hon. Baronet the Member for Midhurst (Sir Henry Holland), as Chairmen of the Public Accounts Committee, had both inquired into the subject; and in reply to the inquiry as to whether any arrangement had been made for providing the Comptroller and Auditor General with particulars to enable him to report to Parliament the progress made with regard to these loans, an answer was sent by an official to the effect that he regretted to say that he could not report that any arrangement had been made. The Committee would be aware that the Comptroller and Auditor General was an officer specially appointed by the House to investigate questions of this nature; and yet it was found that the very materials necessary for his investigations were withheld from him. As he had pointed out, the Public Accounts Committee had expressed regret at the delay that had taken place, and pointed out that the question was one which ought to be settled as soon as possible. The subject had been before the Committee again in the present year, and it was stated at last that the Commissioners had furnished some accounts of a fragmentary character, and that a satisfactory examination of accounts was hoped for in the future. He regarded this as scarcely a satisfactory state of affairs. As a matter of fact, this Vote was not merely a temporary advance, because it was perfectly certain that a great deal of the money could not and would not be recovered. Although it was certain that there would be a loss, it was uncertain what the amount of loss would be; and he questioned whether the noble Lord, on the part of the Government, could tell the Committee the amount of money which had been advanced, the amount which had been repaid, the amount which was still outstanding, or the amount which would have to be wiped off as an irrecoverable arrear, and charged against the country. He regarded this case as a fair illustration of the statement that the system of advancing money to be recovered, if possible, from parties who were not in a position to repay it was an unsound one."
    LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISHpointed out that more than £8,000 had teen repaid last year, and that the net loss was about £800.
    Vote agreed to.
    (5.) £27,233, to complete the sum for the Exchequer and Audit Department.
    MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, that, notwithstanding the importance of the duties of the Comptroller and Auditor General, that officer, unfortunately, did not receive from the Public Departments, whose Accounts he had to examine, that assistance which it was desirable he should have. There was probably no Department of the Public Service whose Accounts would be more improved by a careful overhauling than the War Office; and yet the audit which the Comptroller and Auditor General was able to give of the Accounts of that Department was little more than an appropriation audit. Even the first Army Vote had never yet been examined in detail, but only partially, by the Comptroller and Auditor General; but the Committee would see the immense advantage of having a careful and detailed examination of that expenditure by an independent body. He would merely point to one item, the Stock Purse Fund of the Guards. For 25 years that House had voted something like £6,000 annually for the Hospital and Recruiting Service of the Brigade of Guards in perfect ignorance that the money was not used for the purposes for which it was intended, but that it found its way into the pockets of the officers of the Brigade, and that the hospital and recruiting expenses were paid for out of other moneys. Under that system the officers of the Guards had divided amongst themselves since the Crimean War a sum of money which, in the aggregate, amounted to £150,000. But directly the Comptroller and Auditor General got a hold upon the Army Votes that system had entirely disappeared, the War Office authorities having found it necessary to admit that the money had not altogether been applied to the purposes for which it was voted. There were, it appeared, certain allowances to the officers carefully veiled in the Returns furnished, and which were for a long time kept from the knowledge of the public, but which appeared in the Army Estimates as now drawn up. He mentioned this case as an illustration of the immense advantage in the way of preventing jobbery which resulted from an independent investigation by such an officer as the Comptroller and Auditor General. But,

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    apart from that, there was a system of audit in the War Office which had this great weakness about it, that every Departmental Auditor was obliged to pass charges which he himself might know to be wrong—that was to say, where the money, as in the case he had referred to, did not go for the purpose intended. The charge was covered by the authority of the Secretary of State, and he was a subordinate of the Secretary of State. The audit of the War Office was a perfect farce, there being no independent audit at all; and those who knew the details of the Service knew that the Audit Department should be handed over in its entirety to the Comptroller and Auditor General, and placed in a position of independence so far as the War Office was concerned. He would not go into other matters in regard to the work of the Comptroller and Auditor General; but it struck him (Mr. A. O'Connor) that there were a great many accounts which it would be well to have audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General. He did not know whether the Metropolitan Police Accounts could properly be submitted to him for the purpose. He did not think they were audited by that official; but, at any rate, there were a good many accounts that escaped him which ought not to do so. There was an item on the Paper which struck him as being very singular—namely, £25 for the purveyor of luncheons. He could not, for the life of him, imagine why a man who entered into a contract to supply refreshments should be allowed a money grant, seeing that he made fair charges, had gas and coals for nothing, and lived rent free. He (Mr. A. O'Connor) thought it would be a very reasonable thing to reduce the Vote by £25.
    LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISHsaid, he would not follow the hon. Member into many of his statements concerning the audits, as this was not a favourable opportunity for the discussion. He was glad to be able to say that the best audit was now being applied to the Department mentioned. As to the sum of £25, an injustice would be done if it were not granted.
    Vote agreed to.
    (6.) £3,086, to complete the sum for Friendly Societies Registry.
    Resolutions to be reported.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That a sum, not exceeding £330,173, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1882, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Local Government Board, including various Grants in Aid of Local Taxation."
    MR. R. N. FOWLERsaid, this was a grant in aid of local taxation; and as there were several Amendments and a great deal of discussion would take place, and as it was already a quarter to 1, he would move to report Progress.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. R. N. Fowler.)
    LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISHsaid, that, under ordinary circumstances, it would be advisable to report Progress at that time of the night; but they had now arrived at the end of July and the beginning of August, and had only passed a few Votes in Supply. He thought, therefore, they should go on a little longer.
    SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLsaid, an hon. Member opposite had an important Scotch question to raise on that Vote—a question in which the people of Scotland took great interest. It was undesirable that it should be debated at that time of night; therefore, he trusted the Government would agree to the Motion.
    MR. R. N. FOWLERsaid, he presumed they would have all Monday night for the Estimates, and the noble Lord would then be able to get a good deal of money. Under those circumstances, and seeing, as had just been stated, that an important question was to be raised on the Vote, it was not unreasonable to ask that Progress should be reported. There were 17 Orders of the Day; and, as one or two of them involved important questions, the House should be allowed some little time to go through them.
    LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISHsaid, that nearly all the Orders of the Day were blocked. He would not propose to take the Vote upon which, as it was said, an important question was to be raised; but he would appeal to his hon. Friend to allow them to take what Votes were not opposed.
    MR. J. G. TALBOTsaid, that, looking at the period of the Session, it was

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    not unreasonable on the part of the Government to ask the Committee to go on a little later.
    MR. RYLANDSsaid, that, having regard to the fact that they had now nearly reached the period at which it was usual to end the Session, and at which shooting commenced, hon. Members ought to assist the Government to make progress with Supply, even at some personal sacrifice. He would, therefore, ask the hon. Member for the City of London (Mr. R. N. Fowler) to withdraw his Motion. It would be possible to dispose, at any rate, of a few Votes to-night.
    MR. O'DONNELLwould undertake to say that that was the first time in his Parliamentary career that the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) had suggested that they should hurry over their Business in order that they might go to shoot. He (Mr. O'Donnell) was at a loss to suppose what had produced so marked a change in the hon. Member. There had been references made to the lateness of the hour at which the important question with which that discussion commenced—namely, that on the Endowed Schools system—was taken, and on that point he could say that a great many Members who had observations to make had refrained from making them because it was too late. They were now asked, at a still later hour, to go on with the discussion of the Estimates and vote public money. He did not think, from the hour and the time they had been sitting, that the Committee were in a position to discriminate between the Business which was so unimportant that it might be safely hurried over and the Business that was so important to deserve attention and full discussion. The real Business was the voting of Supply; and unless hon. Members had a fair opportunity of scrutinizing the channels into which the money was to go, even by the present most virtuous of Ministries there might be reckless and ill-considered expenditure.
    MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR: YOU, Mr. Playfair, have put this Vote from the Chair, and I wish to ask you whether it is possible to withdraw it in order to take unopposed Votes? I would remind you, Sir, that on a previous occasion you ruled that a Vote, having been put, could not be withdrawn.
    THE CHAIRMAN: A Vote cannot be postponed by a Motion; but if the Government desire to withdraw a Vote they can do so.
    MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, that some hon. Members seemed to think that there were only two things to be done at this period of the year—either to sit here, or shoot partridges. So far as he was concerned, he should shoot nothing; but he did not want to sit in the House of Commons beyond the month of August. If they did not take Supply up to a later hour than this they would assuredly have to sit into September. The next Vote was for the Lunacy Commission of England, and he did not suppose that any hon. Member from Ireland or anywhere else intended seriously to oppose that Vote being granted; therefore, he would ask the hon. Member to withdraw his Motion, and allow the Business to be proceeded with.
    MR. O'DONNELL: Does the hon. Member for Northampton suggest a certain connection between the Vote he speaks of and the hon. Members who desire to carry on Business beyond a certain hour?
    MR. LABOUCHERE: Yes.
    MR. A. MOOREsaid, that if Progress were now reported they would get through a large number of Votes on Monday, as there would be no delay, such as there was now, over the unopposed Votes.
    MR. RAMSAYappealed to the Committee to allow unopposed Business to be taken for a short time.
    MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, it appeared to him that hon. Members opposite who were interested in Votes not yet reached were exceedingly anxious that they should get over these intermediate Votes as soon as possible, and then report Progress, so that, at the next Sitting, the proposals they wished to discuss should come on without delay, and they should have an opportunity of making their elaborately prepared speeches at a time at which they would be reported. These hon. Members had regard only to their own personal convenience. The Committee, however, were concerned in the administration of the public funds. There was no Vote here that was not a contentious Vote. Hon. Members seemed to think that the English Lunacy Vote was not one in which Irish Members could take any interest;

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    but to show them that this was not the fact, he had here four pages of notes from the Reports of the Lunacy Commissioners, and four columns of notes from various reports from the medical authorities concerning the treatment of lunatics in this country out from The Lancet. He thought it was not at all difficult to show that, in many respects, the Lunacy Commissioners of England had not done all that they might have done in their office. He, therefore, objected entirely to the statement that the Lunacy Vote for England was a non-contentious Vote. He would defy any hon. Member to mention a single Vote in Class II. which was a non-contentious Vote.
    MR. BIGGARsaid, he had had considerable experience of similar wrangles as to reporting Progress, and he had noticed this—that the Government were always in the wrong, and only wasted a good deal of time and expended a good deal of heat unnecessarily, and without doing good to anyone. It was looked on as an established rule that no public money should be voted after half-past 12 o'clock at night, and he did not see why that rule should be set aside now. It would be a saving of time for the Government to give way, for the unopposed Votes would be got through as rapidly as possible on Monday, whereas now they would lead to continued wrangling. They had already wasted more time than it would take on Monday to go through them. The Government would have in the end to give way. They seemed to think that time was valuable at 1 o'clock in the morning; but they evidently did not attach much value to the early part of the day, otherwise they would not, at 4 o'clock, come down and read long speeches in reply to questions. He would not name any individual Minister; but they all knew that this sort of thing was done. And now, when hon. Members wanted to go to bed, the Government made a great point about getting rid of non-contentious Votes. Her Majesty's Ministers evidently wanted to get Business disposed of and Bills passed at an hour when they could not be carefully examined into or fully criticized, and when hon. Member's speeches could not be reported in the papers. This sort of thing might be very pleasantly carried on, no doubt, if there was no opposition in the House.
    Question put.
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 16; Noes 73: Majority 57.—(Div. List, No. 344.)
    Original Question again proposed.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That a sum, not exceeding £8,195, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1882, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Commissioners in Lunacy in England."
    COLONEL ALEXANDERsaid, he and several other Members had been sitting on a Committee from 12 o'clock to 4, and almost incessantly since then they had been in the House. They wanted now to go to bed, and he thought it perfectly absurd that a Vote of public money should be taken at 1 o'clock in the morning. He should take every opportunity of protesting against the practice. The Government would have plenty of time for these Votes during the whole of next week. They had no Bills to pass, or if they had they ought not to have any; and not a single Bill ought to be read a second time after the 1st of August. He begged to move that the Chairman leave the Chair.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do now leave the Chair."—(Colonel Alexander.)
    LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISHsaid, that as the minority of the Committee had not shown the feeling displayed by the majority he would not oppose the Motion.
    Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
    Resolutions to be reported upon Monday next.
    Committee also report Progress; to sit again upon Monday next.

  PETROLEUM (HAWKING) BILL.— [Lords.]
  (Mr. Courtney.)
  PETROLEUM (HAWKING) BILL.— [Lords.]

    [BILL 222.] COMMITTEE.
    Order for Committee read.
    Bill considered in Committee.
    (In the Committee.)
    Clause 1 (Power to hawk petroleum) agreed to.
    Clause 2 (Regulations for hawking petroleum).
    MR. DILLWYNsaid, the words "proper care shall be taken to prevent

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    any petroleum escaping," which he proposed to omit, were too vague, and he did not think any convictions would ever be effected under them. Where any person allowed petroleum to escape into a sewer, the fact itself was sufficient evidence of a want of care which ought to be subject to penalty, otherwise people would allow escapes, and then declare that they had taken all proper care, and the magistrate would have to decide the point. The escape ought to carry the penalty with it; and he urged that the clause ought to be made stringent, for the presence of explosive substances in sewers was a very serious thing, and they could not tell what mischief they might cause. He proposed, therefore, to get rid of the vagueness of the clause, and to make it definite by making the accident itself proof of carelessness.
    Amendment proposed,
    In page 2, line 1, leave out "proper care shall be taken to prevent any petroleum escaping,'' and insert" in the case of any person having the care or charge of petroleum allowing it to escape."—(Mr. Dillwyn.)
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
    MR. COURTNEYsaid, he could not assent to the Amendment, and observed that there was a much more serious objection to the Amendment than the vagueness to which the hon. Member objected. It was not safe, it was unreasonable, and it was not just. What the Bill proposed to strike at was the absence of proper care on the part of any person licensed to hawk petroleum. The hon. Member was not content with that provision, but wished to add actual escape as subject to penalty. It was not safe to make escape a subject of penalty before the act of carelessness was made penal; neither was it just, because, although the person might have taken the most absolute care possible, yet, through some defect which he could not have foreseen, there might be an escape. As to the clause being vague, it was simply a matter for the magistrates to decide upon the evidence adduced; and he thought the magistrates were perfectly competent to deal with the matter.
    MR. HOPWOODthought the clause vague as it stood; but he recognized the difficulty of inserting the Amendment in the clause, drawn, as the Bill was, in a
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    peculiar form. He agreed that there should be something in the Bill to more carefully provide against carelessness; but he did not think the hon. Member had thoroughly solved that difficulty, and, therefore, he thought it would be better to abide by the language of the clause.
    MR. DILLWYNsaid, he was willing to withdraw his Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    MR. DILLWYNsaid, he had another Amendment, in line 3, after the word "sewer," to add "shall on conviction thereof be liable to the penalty hereinafter imposed;" but it amounted to very much the same thing as the Amendment just disposed of, and he would not, therefore, move it. It appeared to him, however, that the clause, as it stood, was very vague and indefinite, and that the third Amendment which appeared in his name upon the Paper would remove some of that indefinite-ness. The words in the clause were "due precaution," and he certainly did not know what they meant; and he would propose the substitution of words that were much more definite. He begged to move the Amendment which stood in his name.
    Amendment proposed,
    In page 2, line 8, leave out from "all," to "hawking," inclusive, and insert "any person having the care or charge of petroleum, who shall do any act which may tend to cause any accident by fire or explosion, and which is not reasonably necessary for the purpose of such hawking, or who shall allow any unauthorized person to have access to the vessels containing the petroleum, shall on conviction thereof be liable to the penalty hereinafter imposed.—(Mr. Dillwyn.)
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
    MR. COURTNEYsaid, he was afraid the same objection really applied to this Amendment as to the former one. In the first place, the proposal of his hon. Friend amounted to the transformation of a most important clause of the Bill. There were three things provided for by the clause, the third of which was that due precaution should be exercised; and, although it might be a somewhat vague expression, it appeared to him that the necessities of the case required that some latitude should be given to the magis-

    229
    trates in dealing with the cases likely to be brought before them. He could not see how there would be any miscarriage of justice under the clause; and, on the other hand, these words were wanted in order to cover cases where it was made clear to the magistrates that due precaution had not been taken. He hoped his hon. Friend would not press the Amendment.
    MR. DILLWYNsaid, he would not press it if his hon. Friend declined to accept it; but he could not help feeling that the words, as they stood in the clause, were vague and indefinite.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    MR. THOMASSONmoved, in line 15, to leave out "no article or substance of an explosive or." He proposed afterwards to add the word "highly" before "inflammable," which would make the clause more stringent.
    Amendment proposed, in page 2, line 15, leave out "no article or substance of an explosive or."—(Mr. Thomasson.)
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
    MR. COURTNEYsaid, he objected to the Amendment, because its adoption would make the clause absolutely unreadable. It would not run together at all, nor would it be possible to make sense of it. It would read in this fashion—"inflammable character other than petroleum nor any of them."
    MR. THOMASSONsaid, he intended, if the Amendment were adopted, to put in the word "highly" before "inflammable."
    MR. COURTNEYsaid, that on comparing the clause and the proposal as it stood on the Paper, he was utterly at a loss to comprehend what it was his hon. Friend desired to do.
    THE CHAIRMAN: Of course, the hon. Member for Bolton (Mr. Thomas-son) does not propose to insert words in the clause that are incapable of being considered with it. The Amendment, as it at present stands on the Paper, will render the clause unreadable, and, therefore, cannot be put.
    MR. THOMASSONremarked, that if the words proposed to be struck out were omitted, he should then propose to insert the word "highly," which
    230
    would make the clause correspond with Section 4.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    MR. THOMASSONmoved, in line 15, after "or," to insert "highly." He explained that his reason for proposing the Amendment was that the word "highly" appeared in the other sections of the Bill.
    Amendment proposed, in page 2, line 15, after "or," insert "highly."—(Mr. Thomasson.)
    Question proposed, "That the word 'highly' be there inserted."
    MR. COURTNEYsaid, his hon. Friend was probably not aware that the word "highly" had a technical meaning in connection with petroleum. Petroleum was variously described as "petroleum" and as "highly inflammable petroleum;" and it was proposed in the clause that neither the high nor the low test should be taken.
    MR. THOMASSONsaid, he would not press the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    MR. THOMASSONmoved, in line 22, to leave out the words "and the carriage conveying the same." He thought it was an exceedingly harsh provision that the hawker, on conviction, should forfeit the carriage conveying the petroleum, because without retaining the carriage the man might have no means of earning an honest livelihood. He looked upon the provision as far too stringent; and he would, therefore, move the omission of the words.
    Amendment proposed, in page 2, line 22, leave out "and the carriage conveying the same."—(Mr. Thomasson.)
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
    MR. COURTNEYsaid, it was necessary that the words "and the carriage conveying the same" should be retained; and he thought the hon. Member and the Committee would see the force of retaining them. It was only liable to be forfeited, and the question whether it should be forfeited or not was left to the discretion of the magistrate. He was afraid that with regard to some persons the only efficient way of making them observe the law was to

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    enact that the carriage conveying the petroleum should be liable to be forfeited. It was, however, not compulsory, but only a liability to forfeiture.
    Amendment negatived.
    MR. HOPWOODmoved, in line 23, to insert the words "by order of a Court of Summary Jurisdiction" after the word "forfeited." He explained that his object was to show by what Court the forfeiture should be made. The words as they stood were, "shall be liable to be forfeited;" and, in addition, the licensee by whose servants the petroleum was hawked were liable on summary conviction to a penalty. Forfeiture did not necessarily follow on all cases of summary conviction, and it required an order on the part of a Court of Summary Jurisdiction. It was therefore necessary to insert these words. At present there was nothing to say who was the authority to direct the forfeiture. It might be forfeited in the sense of being recovered in a Civil Court; but he apprehended that that was not what the Government meant. He presumed they meant that the Court before whom the question was brought, and who would have the power of inflicting a penalty of fine or imprisonment, would also have the power of ordering forfeiture. It would, however, be necessary to say "by a Court of Summary Jurisdiction."
    Amendment proposed, in page 2, line 23, after the word "forfeited," insert "by order of a Court of Summary Jurisdiction."—(Mr. Hopwood.)
    Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
    MR. COURTNEYwished to point out that the Bill was to be taken in connection with the Petroleum Hawkers Acts of 1871 and 1879; and the hon. and learned Member for Stockport (Mr. Hopwood) would find that the provision he proposed to insert now was fully provided for. The present measure was simply an amplification of those Acts and supplemental to them, and the same Court already provided would exercise the jurisdiction.
    MR. HOPWOODsaid, that if his hon. Friend who undertook the responsibility of the Bill was satisfied that was the case it would not be necessary to press the Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    MR. THOMASSONmoved, in line 25, to leave out "twenty," and insert "five." The Act of 1871 applied to shopkeepers and storekeepers, many of whom would have wool on their backs, and could, upon conviction for an infringement of the law, afford to pay a heavy penalty; but the present Bill applied to small hawkers, to most of whom a penalty of £20 would be a crushing penalty. He therefore proposed to reduce it to £5.
    Amendment proposed, in page 2, line 25, leave out "twenty," and insert "five."—(Mr. Thomasson.)
    Question proposed, "That the word 'twenty' stand part of the Clause."
    MR. COURTNEYsaid, that here again the penalty prescribed was the maximum penalty, and he did not think it would be likely to be inflicted except in cases where gross negligence was proved and it became absolutely necessary that a heavy penalty should be imposed. It must be borne in mind that the business they were about to license by an Act of the Legislature was of an extremely perilous character; and the highest penalty should be inflicted where it could be shown that there had been gross carelessness. The magistrates might, under the Summary Jurisdiction Act, decline to impose any penalty at all and might dismiss the case.
    Amendment negatived.
    MR. THOMASSONsaid, he would not move the next Amendment which stood in his name, and which was to omit, in lines 27 and 28, the words "or other person."
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
    MR. HOPWOODwished to know how his hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for the Home Department read the clause—"Where such servant of the licensee or other person?" Did it mean some servant of the licensee, and then some servant of some other person?
    MR. COURTNEY: No; certainly not.
    MR. HOPWOODasked why it should not be read in that way? It might certainly mean the servant of some other person.
    MR. COURTNEYremarked, that if his hon. and learned Friend would read the

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    next line, he would see why it would not be read in that way.
    MR. HOPWOODsaid, the words following were, "shall be liable to the same penalty as if he were the licensee." But the words "other person" might still be the antecedent. But if the Government were content with the clause as it stood he would not object.
    MR. WARTONsaid, he did not think they ought to dispute the grammar of any Bill they were going on with at that hour of the night—half past 1. The phraseology of the clause was certainly most extraordinary. [Cries of "Question!"] If an hon. Member was not to be allowed to make a small observation of that kind, he really did not know what they might not be reduced to. He sincerely hoped the Committee would not consent to pass this 2nd clause. He looked upon the whole of the clause as highly dangerous, and he would tell the Committee why. The hon. Member in charge of the Bill told them the measure was brought in to supplement the Acts of 1871 and 1879. It was, therefore, desirable that he (Mr. Warton) should call attention to the very dangerous character of this clause in comparison with the Act of 1871. It would scarcely be believed that in the Act of 1871, by the 7th section, careful provision was made in regard to the nature and capacity of the vessels in which petroleum was to be kept. They were required to be glass, earthenware, or metal. There was no such provision in the present Bill; and the same section—namely, the 7th section of the Act of 1871—contained a provision which was altogether inconsistent with that which appeared in the present clause, and rendered it impossible to read the two measures together. Under the Act of 1871, no person was allowed to keep petroleum without a special licence in larger quantities than a pint in each vessel; and no person was allowed to keep more, in the whole, than three gallons. And yet it was proposed by the present Bill to send out these 5s. hawkers in the street with as much as 10 gallons. One Act required three gallons to be kept quietly under lock and key in a house properly guarded, and the other allowed 10 gallons to be hawked through the streets; and, by the 2nd sub-section of this clause, it was provided that the petroleum might be contained in an inclosed ves-
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    sel, so that there was nothing to show that the whole 10 gallons might not be contained in one vessel. Thus, while by the Act of 1871 an aggregate amount of three gallons was to be kept in seven or eight different vessels containing not more than a pint each, by this Bill a hawker was to be allowed to keep as much as 10 gallons in a single vessel. Indeed, there was nothing in this ridiculous clause to prevent a man from sending out a servant into the streets with a 10-gallon vessel full of petroleum. Surely that was nice legislation—a 10-gallon vessel full of petroleum sent into the streets, liable to all the accidents that might arise from smoking and carelessness. He was anxious to hear what reason the hon. Member for Liskeard (Mr. Courtney) could assign for the alteration in the provisions of the two measures. He thought the words "ten gallons," coupled with the fact that the entire quantity might be hawked about in one vessel, was quite enough to induce the Committee to reject the clause. The hon. Member for Bolton (Mr. Thomasson) had displayed a great anxiety to mitigate the penalty from £20 to £5; but he could not have read the Act of 1871, which laid it down definitely that the penalty should be £20. Altogether, this clause, which was a very long one, was most carelessly drawn; and if it were passed there would be nothing to prevent a mere hawker of petroleum from going about the streets with a carriage having on the top of it a big vessel containing 10 gallons of this highly dangerous material.
    MR. COURTNEYsaid, the reference made by the hon. and learned Member to the Act of 1871 surprised him very much; and he felt very much inclined to distrust the accuracy of the hon. and learned Member's information. The Act of 1871 dealt with the quantity of petroleum which a vendor was to keep; but did the hon. and learned Gentleman mean to persuade the Committee that the vendor was not allowed to have in his possession a greater quantity than three gallons?
    MR. WARTONremarked, that if the hon. Member would refer to Section 7 of the Act of 1871, he would find that in order to exempt the vendor of petroleum from the penalties of the Act he must not keep a larger quantity than three gallons, and that it must be con-

    235
    tained in vessels holding not more than a pint each.
    MR. COURTNEYsaid, that, to his mind, the Act did not bear the reading placed upon it by the hon. and learned Member for Bridport. It was perfectly well known that vendors of petroleum could keep a larger quantity than the hon. and learned Member referred to; and although at the moment he was unable to explain the point raised, he was quite satisfied as to the state of the law. If the hon. and learned Member would allow the question to stand over, the matter should be inquired into. It was thought that if a less quantity than 10 gallons was prescribed in the Bill the occupation of hawkers would be unnecessarily interfered with. Since the commencement of his remarks his hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General had explained that the quantity named in the Act referred to by the hon. and learned Member represented the extent to which petroleum was permitted to be kept without a licence. Where a licence was granted no such restriction applied.
    MR. WARTONsaid, that was not his point. He had contrasted the quantity allowed by the 7th section of the Act of 1871, in pint vessels, with the 10 gallons which, under the present Bill, might be kept in one vessel, for the purpose of showing that insufficient precautions with regard to safety were now taken as compared with those introduced into the Act of 1871, and which at the time were considered necessary with regard to petroleum for sale or private use.
    Question put.
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 30; Noes 4: Majority 26.—(Div. List, No. 345.)
    And it appearing in the Division that 40 Members were not present in the Committee,
    Mr. Speaker resumed the Chair:—House counted, and 40 Members not being present,
    House adjourned at a quarter before Two o'clock till Monday next.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—First Reading—Leases for Schools (Ireland) * (188); Land Law (Ireland) * (187).
Second Reading—Public Loans (Ireland) Remission* (176).
Committee—Metropolitan Open Spaces Act (1877) Amendment* (164).
Committee—Report—Universities of Oxford and Cambridge (Statutes)* (178); Turnpike Acts Continuance* (170); Patriotic Fund* (183); Customs (Officers) * (168).
Third Reading—Universities (Scotland) Registration of Parliamentary Voters, &c. * (173); British Honduras (Court of Appeal) * (167); Pedlars (Certificates) * (163); Metallic Mines (Gunpowder) * (169); Seed Supply and other Acts (Ireland) Amendment* (177), and passed.

MINISTERS STIPENDS, &c. (SCOTLAND).

  ADDRESS FOR A RETURN.
  THE EARL OF MINTOin rising to call attention to the position and prospects of the question of reform of the Law of Teinds in Scotland; also to move for a
  "Return for each county in Scotland of the name of every parish in which an augmentation was made of ministers stipend and of allowances for communion elements respectively during the period that has elapsed since the 20th March 1876; also the name of each parish in which there are unexhausted teinds, and the amount applicable to the augmentation of ministers stipends, &c. in each such parish (in continuation of former Return, No. 242, 1876,")
  said, my Lords, I am always reluctant to occupy even a few minutes of your Lordships' time in this House; but the aban-
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  donment by Her Majesty's Government of a somewhat important Bill, under the pressure of strange influences, ought not, I think, to be passed over quite without notice. I shall not enter upon the general subject of Teind Law, and beg only to mention that Teind Law constitutes a part, and a very ugly part too, of the Land Laws of Scotland, and that in every transaction relating to the buying or selling of land careful investigations require to be made, sometimes with very uncertain results, relative to the state of the teinds on the property concerned, and in the parish in which it is situated. I must also mention that teinds, in the present signification of the words, is something very different from tithes, as formerly understood. In point of fact, there are no tithes in Scotland now, as they were commuted into a rent-charge about 250 years ago. The teinds of Scotland may now be concisely and correctly described as being that portion of the gross rental of Scotland which is appropriated to the payment of the stipends of parish ministers, or is liable at a future time to be so appropriated. In the early part of this Session Her Majesty's Ministers introduced a Bill called the Teinds (Scotland) Bill, which was read a second time some weeks later without opposition. The Bill sought to place on a clear and intelligible basis the liabilities of landed property in respect of teinds. It sought to place the relations of proprietors on the one hand and parish ministers on the other—namely, the payers and receivers of stipends—upon an easy and amicable footing. It sought to put an end to the expenses and litigation which the present law promotes, and almost necessitates. It sought to effect these objects by the drawing up of an inventory for the information of all concerned, as an authoritative exposition of the state of teinds in every parish of Scotland. The Bill was absolutely and carefully unpolitical in its character, and was totally unconnected with the question of Establishment or Disestablishment. Perhaps the best exposition of the purport and character of the measure is contained in the pointed note prefixed to the Teinds (Scotland) Bill, which I shall, therefore, read to the House—
  "The Bill has been prepared at the request of a number of landed proprietors representing the counties of Scotland. Its object is

  105
  to complete the valuation of the tithes of Scotland, and to make up a roll of tithes in each parish under judicial authority. The want of such a roll has been the cause of a great amount of litigation and uncertainty as to the extent of the liabilities of proprietors of estates to the Church. The Bill does not provide for commutation of tithes, nor does it increase or lessen the liability of owners, or shift the incidence of the burden of the tithes in any way. It is purely executive, and aims only at ascertaining the rights and liabilities of parties interested, according to the existing law, in a more summary and inexpensive manner than is possible under the existing statutory procedure."
  Now, I venture to assert that the only two classes of men who are directly interested in the simplification of the Teind Laws were virtually agreed in supporting the principle of this Bill. But it has always been said in Scotland that there is one powerful class—the Legal Profession—who are interested in maintaining the present system in consequence of the harvest of litigation that it engenders. But, in point of fact, the most zealous and most efficient Teind Law reformers are members of the Legal Profession of all grades—Judges, Sheriffs, agents, solicitors, are all of one mind in condemnation of the existing law. They feel it as a reproach to Scottish law that so barbarous a state of things, and so ruinous to their clients, should be suffered to continue. But if all these classes—heritors, ministers, and lawyers—unite in condemning the present Law of Teinds, to what influence is the obstruction due which has proved fatal to the Bill of the Lord Advocate? The answer is clear and simple. The influence which has been so efficacious was a purely sectarian one. The word has been passed from high sectarian authority that, in the interests of the question of Disestablishment, all legislation for the reform of the Teind Laws must be opposed at all hazards. The worse the condition of these laws, the greater will be the unpopularity of Church institutions, and the greater will be the popularity of an agitation for Disestablishment. Expensive litigation, and plenty of it, between heritors and ministers, and between heritors inter se, seems to be the aim and prayer of the enemies of the Church. The spirit which animates the opponents of all reform in the Law of Teinds may be seen in the following resolutions of the United Presbyterian Synod, agreed to on the 1lth July. They resolve—
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  "… That the working of the system of the Established Church, which is invariably wrong in principle, and its exactions in the matters of church and manse rates, augmentations of stipends and otherwise, have not been more offensive or injurious for a generation than they are at present; and that disestablishment, and nothing short of it, as the only legislative redress to the non-established churches and great body of citizens, and the sole remedy of the religious scandal, ought not to be delayed without urgent cause.… That they have learned of the withdrawal of this objectionable measure (the Teinds Bill) on the 4th July. That they have since heard with astonishment of a proposal of the Lord Advocate to re-introduce the Bill on an early day. That they resolve, in the event of an attempt to resuscitate the Bill, to take such steps as they see cause for its prevention, and for raising the whole question of disestablishment in connection with it."
  I think it is desirable that these things should be known and appreciated as regards the past; but I, for my part, would have passed them over in silence had it not been my belief that the same influences which have prevailed this Session against the cause of reform will operate with even greater force in future, as the time of a General Election approaches. I conclude by moving for the Returns of which I have given Notice.
  THE EARL OF DALHOUSIE: My Lords, every part of the noble Earl's statement, so far as my knowledge goes, is perfectly and entirely accurate. The Bill introduced into the other House of Parliament dealing with the subject of teinds is a useful measure, and well calculated to effect the object in view. In the discussion in the other House of Parliament, so far as I am aware, no successful attack was made on the principle of the measure. It was desired extremely by the landlords and clergy of Scotland, and it was opposed by those who are very zealous for the immediate or approximate Disestablishment of the Church of Scotland. The Bill was dropped in the other House in consequence of pressure of Business, and owing to the opposition it received from a certain section of the Liberal Party. There is no chance of that measure being introduced this Session, and I am not able to make any promise with regard to next Session. The matter is receiving the consideration of the Government; but they were unable to state when the matter could be dealt with. There is no objection to give the Return moved for.
  Motion agreed to.
  Address for—
  "Return for each county in Scotland of the name of every parish in which an augmentation was made of ministers stipend and of allowances for communion elements respectively during the period that has elapsed since the 20th March 1876; also the name of each parish in which there are unexhausted teinds, and the amount applicable to the augmentation of ministers stipend, &c. in each such parish (in continuation of former Return, No. 242, 1876."—(The Earl of Minto.)

PALACE OF WESTMINSTER—PUBLIC IMPROVEMENTS NEAR ST. MARGARET'S CHURCH.

  QUESTION. OBSERVATIONS.
  LORD LAMINGTON LORD LAMINGTON, in rising to ask, Whether, before coming to any determination as to the comtemplated improvements near Saint Margaret's, Her Majesty's Government will consider how far it is desirable to carry out the recommendations of the Committee on Public Buildings of 1878? said, he had put this Question on the Paper, because he had seen in the public journals a statement that Her Majesty's Government intended to give the not very large sum of£l,000 towards the improvement of the ground near St. Margaret's Church, Westminster. The Metropolitan Board of Works, it was stated, would give another £1,000, and the Government intended to appeal to the public to subscribe the other £2,000 that would be required. He would not ask their Lordships to express an opinion as to whether this was a very dignified mode of proceeding to raise £4,000 for effecting improvements near the Houses of Parliament. At all events, the circumstance of the Government giving £1,000 indicated that they took an interest in the improvement of the ground in the vicinity of the Houses of Parliament. When he brought this question forward last year Her Majesty's Government said they were involved in so many wars that there was no money available for any improvement of the Metropolis. But now it was stated that owing to the policy of the Government there was profound peace in Afghanistan and South Africa; and, therefore, he took the present opportunity of asking the Government whether they meant to do anything in the way of giving effect to the recommendations of the Committee of 1878. In the opinion of that Committee, it would be economical to borrow £1,500,000. However, he would leave
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  that part of the Report alone, and would only ask whether Her Majesty's Government intended to take down the houses at the end of Parliament Street? The approach to the Houses of Parliament was now a disgrace to the country. Moreover, to leave it in its present state would lead to increased expenditure, as the Government would eventually have to pay more for the leases of the houses. The Government could very well afford to spend £200,000 in buying up the buildings, and they had better do it at once, because, in consequence of the policy which the Government had adopted, they might possibly be engaged in a new Transvaal War by this time next year. The improvement of a great Metropolis was a question worthy of the consideration of statesmen. The French, after paying some milliards of francs to the Germans, voted, in one year, £1,000,000 sterling for the improvement of Paris, and in Spain, the Government had lately expended £2,000,000 in the improvement of the capital. He trusted Her Majesty's Government would be able to hold out a hope that effect would soon be given to the recommendations of the Committee of 1878.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYsaid, that he never knew a time, since he had anything to do with public life, when this question was not under the consideration of statesmen. It was under the consideration of the Government of which he was formerly a Member; it was, doubtless, under the consideration of the late Government; and it was under the consideration of the present Government. Therefore, as far as the consideration of statesmen was concerned, his noble Friend had no reason to complain. He understood his noble Friend to argue that, as they were now in a state of profound peace, and were, consequently, relieved from a large war expenditure, this would be the proper time to spend some £2,000,000 on pub-lie buildings. He could assure his noble Friend that to embark in the scheme which had been recommended would be to ask for an expenditure that could not be counted by hundreds of thousands. The whole matter had always been one of very great difficulty. Individually, he did not like any more than his noble Friend to see the block of houses in Parliament Street; but, on

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  the other hand, there were a variety of matters to be determined before they were pulled down. The most important part of the whole subject was the convenience of the public offices. He was afraid lest his noble Friend should be dissatisfied with the only answer he was able to give him. That answer was that the subject was really under the earnest consideration of the Government, which would in a very short time, owing to the pressure from the War Office and the Admiralty for further accommodation, have to decide what scheme should be adopted for the extension of those Offices; and that, of course, would involve deciding whether to act on the recommendations of the Committee of 1878.

WATER SUPPLY (METROPOLIS).

  QUESTION. OBSERVATIONS.
  THE BISHOP OF LONDON THE BISHOP OF LONDON, in rising to present a Petition from the National Health Society; and to ask, Whether any measures have been taken, or are in preparation, by Her Majesty's Government for improving the water supply of the Metropolis? said, that this question was one that very much affected the welfare of the Metropolis, and the Petition which he had presented expressed dissatisfaction at the continued delay in reference to legislation upon this subject. The injuries to health arose, in a great degree, from the intermittent supply of water over a great part of the Metropolis, by which water was wasted, spoiled by storage in dirty cisterns, and the basement of houses soaked and made unhealthy; and the Petitioners expressly drew attention to the excess of fires and consequent loss of life being a proved excess of two-thirds beyond the insurable rate in towns where there was a constant supply of water. He sympathized very much with the Petitioners, inasmuch as, from his experience as a London clergyman, he believed that an insufficient supply of water, such as existed in many parts of London, was injurious to the cleanliness, and, consequently, to the temperance, the morals, and, in the last resort, the religion of the population. The working classes living in the West of London were particularly ill-supplied. In the East of London a continuous supply of water was much more common than it was at the West End.
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  Their Lordships were probably not aware of what the habitations of the labouring classes were, especially in the Western part of London. In Westminster, Soho, and partially St. Pancras, labouring men and their families inhabited, for the most part, single rooms in houses of considerable size, that were built at the end of the 17th or the beginning of the 18th century, and were originally occupied by gentlemen; and the rent was about 5s. for each room. He had visited whole streets of such houses, going from house to house, and his experience was that water was only supplied to them for an hour or half an hour daily, and collected in a water butt in the basement, from which a large portion of it escaped, rendering the underground portion of the buildings damp and unhealthy. The families living in the different flats were obliged to carry all their water upstairs, and when a woman with a family and a baby had to go into the basement and fetch up every drop of water that was required, they might be sure that she would do with as little as possible. It was distressing to see how a family coming up from the country gradually deteriorated in their habits of cleanliness. Then, it was hardly necessary to say, a dirty room was but a poor counterbalance to the temptations of the public-house, and the water in a cistern which might not have been cleaned out for years was not a very inviting draught. All these facts were well known. Committee after Committee and Commission after Commission had sat on the subject; and it was agreed on all hands that the first step towards an improvement in the quality and in the distribution of water in the Metropolis was to consolidate the various agencies of supply. It was only some supreme power that could effect the necessary improvements by obtaining water from better sources, and supplying it in sufficient quantities. By giving a continuous supply, a great waste of water would be got rid of, and this should lead to a great reduction in the cost of supply. There would be a great saving also from the better means of extinguishing fires. No doubt, when negotiations were entered into with the Water Companies, the scheme prepared by the late Mr. Smith showed that a very large sum of money would be required for the purchase of the existing

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  works, and the Vestries became alarmed; the subject was reconsidered, and then it was decided against. Though, however, the cost would be very great, it should be borne in mind that the longer the scheme was deferred the greater would be the cost of carrying it out. In the last 10 years the population had increased by 560,000 in the districts affected by the Metropolitan water supply. The erection of houses was still enormously increasing. In Hammersmith and Fulham, for instance, it was computed that two houses were completed every day, and South of the Thames four were completed every day. According to the Registrar General, the chief increase in the population occurred in the outer circle of the town, the increase in that circumference having amounted to 50 per cent, while in the inner circle it had only been 10 per cent. This increase of the population, of course, necessitated an additional supply of water day by day, with additional machinery, mains, pipes, cisterns, &c. Now, the new works undertaken by the Water Companies were being erected upon exactly the same principles as those prevailing long ago, so that the defects of the old systems were being continued upon a vast scale. When, therefore, the matter should be taken in hand by the Government, not only would the cost have largely increased, but all the work lately done by the Companies would have to be undertaken de novo. All these circumstances pointed to the necessity of avoiding further delay. It was admitted that the valuable property of the Water Companies must be bought at a fair price. To ascertain what price should be given recourse might be had to arbitration. This initial step, he might add, could be taken without the intervention of an Act of Parliament. If the Government could assure the House that steps had been taken, or were about to be taken, to improve the water supply of the Metropolis, the announcement would be received with very great thankfulness and satisfaction by the large population of London, who were suffering through the present arrangements of our water supply in health, comfort, and morality.
  THE EARL OF DALHOUSIEsaid, he could assure the right rev. Prelate that the Government fully recognized the enormous importance of this question. It had been the intention of the Go-
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  vernment to introduce into Parliament this Session a Bill dealing with the question on the basis of the recommendations of the Select Committee of the House of Commons, which sat last year; but the state of Public Business had made it impossible for the Government to do so. Their Lordships would understand that in dealing with a matter of this kind, in which large pecuniary interests were involved, it would scarcely be prudent to proceed unless with some reasonable prospect of a successful and final issue. The Government hoped and expected to deal with the matter next year.
  EARL FORTESCUEsaid, he agreed with the right rev. Prelate that delay was most undesirable, and was of opinion that some of the recommendations of the Committee who had investigated the subject were of a nature to cause delay, should the Government determine to act upon them. He would urge the Government to proceed with this matter, as a large number of houses were constantly being erected, the population growing rapidly; and the costs resulting from the separate and independent action of the Water Companies in constructing mains and reservoirs would be much larger than if the works were done by one body under a uniform system. He thought that the Local Government Board, who could command the services of thoroughly competent engineers, might advantageously take the initiative, and begin at once to prepare for legislation. He could confirm what had been said as to the unsatisfactory water-butt and cistern arrangements in very many houses which were let out in tenements, and there could be no doubt whatever that it was most desirable that there should be a constant supply of water. By various Acts of Parliament the Companies, if required, were bound to furnish a constant supply; but, owing to the want of unanimity and co-operation among householders, the cases were very rare where a constant supply was obtained. The question was one of the highest importance, both as regarded sanitary matters, fire, and intemperance, which was largely increased by the want of pure water.
  THE EARL OF REDESDALE (CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES)said, he desired to point out that if any nuisance existed in consequence of a short supply of water,

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  the sanitary authorities of the district could take cognizance of it. In many cases the owners of houses did not take proper care that the occupiers obtained a supply of water. The Companies were bound to supply water, and if they did not the sanitary authorities should interfere and compel them to do so. The condition of the cisterns was also a matter for the sanitary authorities, and did not concern the Water Companies, who were frequently blamed indiscriminately for things for which they were not responsible.

TURKEY—MIDHAT PASHA—FULFILMENT OF SENTENCE.

  QUESTION. OBSERVATIONS.
  LORD STRATHEDEN AND CAMPBELL LORD STRATHEDEN AND CAMPBELL, in rising to ask the Government, Whether their influence at Constantinople is being exercised to arrest proceedings in the case of Midhat Pasha? said, he hoped that in the absence—which he regretted—of the noble Earl the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, some Member of the Government would be able to give an answer to his Question. No doubt all the Members of the Government knew what answer to give, because the Prime Minister really decided these matters, and his Colleagues must be in possession of his views. The fate of Midhat Pasha was a question in which the people of this country took great interest. There was no doubt that he had not had a fair trial, and obstacles were put in the way of his defending himself. There was little doubt that Abdul Aziz had put an end to his own life; and he thought that the public law of Europe, about which so much had been said of late years, should be put in motion on his behalf. It might be said that public law would be an obstacle to exercising influence to arrest proceedings in the case; but if that were so, public law had been set at nought by every Ambassador whom the Queen had employed at Constantinople recently.
  LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYsaid, he regretted the course which the noble Lord had taken, as damaging to his consistency, since he usually respected the Law of Nations; but now he asked the Government to do something which was quite contrary to it. He was not only asking them to obtain a commutation of the sentence passed on Midhat
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  Pasha, but to arrest proceedings. A month ago the noble Lord intimated that the Foreign Secretary had not the control of the Foreign Office, but that the Prime Minister had; and the Prime Minister had stated in "another place" that this was a case in which the Government had not the right to interfere. The noble Lord should have been satisfied with that answer. When Midhat Pasha was Grand Vizier he was responsible for what was going on at Constantinople; and after the time that Sultan Abdul Aziz Khan's death took place he did not institute any inquiry into any of the circumstances that had surrounded it. No doubt, it was unfortunate that in the recent trial the Ottoman Government had adopted European forms; and it would have been better if the Turkish Government had followed their own forms of trial in this case. However, he had no doubt that substantial justice had been done to Midhat Pasha. The present Question was, moreover, unnecessary, because the sentence had already been commuted, and Midhat Pasha was going into a healthy climate where there need be no fear on account of his health. Midhat Pasha was a good administrator in Bulgaria, but he had been too much praised for what he had done; and, on the whole, he was an ignorant rather than a learned man. However, in Midhat Pasha's present situation, he would rather not make further observations upon his administration of affairs. There was no ground for any alarm in regard to the country to which he was banished.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYsaid, he was sorry that his noble Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs was not present to answer the Question of the noble Lord. As to the actual form of the Question, he agreed with his noble Friend opposite (Lord Stanley of Alderley) that it would be an extraordinary interference on the part of one Government to exercise its influence upon another in order to arrest proceedings which the latter had thought it necessary to take in regard to an accusation against a subject of that Government. But probably his noble Friend desired to know what course had been taken by Her Majesty's Government in the whole matter; and what he had to say was that in a question of so much delicacy, involving the internal government of the Porte, and touching

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  the Sultan himself, Her Majesty's Government had not thought that it would be desirable to exercise any direct advice or interference; but feeling, as they did, an interest in this matter, they had been able, through Lord Dufferin, in a perfectly private and unofficial manner, to express their wish that it might be the pleasure of the Sultan to deal with this matter in a merciful spirit. He was not in a position to state that it had been officially notified that the sentence passed upon the incriminated Pashas had been commuted; but he had good reason to believe that the statement in the newspapers alluded to, that the sentence had been commuted to banishment to Arabia, was true.

  LAND LAW (IRELAND) BILL.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYintimated that the Land Law (Ireland) Bill was expected from the other House in a few minutes.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: If I may ask a question about a Bill which is not yet before the House, I should like to know whether the Bill will be printed and circulated to-morrow. It would be a great convenience.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYsaid, he was not certain, but he thought it might be circulated to-morrow evening.
  House adjourned during pleasure.
  House resumed at Eleven o'clock.
  The Lord THURLOW—Chosen Speaker in the absence of the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Commissioner.

  LAND LAW (IRELAND) BILL.
  Brought from the Commons; read la; to be printed; and to be read 2a on Monday next: (The Lord Privy Seal). (No. 187.)

  LEASES FOR SCHOOLS (IRELAND) BILL [H.L.]
  A Bill to facilitate leases of land for the erection thereon of schools and buildings for the promotion of public education in Ireland—Was presented by The Lord O'HAGAN; read 1a. (No. 188.)
  House adjourned at Eleven o'clock, to Monday next, Eleven o'clock.