Sitting of 4 March 1881

MINUTES.
PRIVATE BILL (by Order)—Second Reading—Thames River, deferred.
PUBLIC BILLS—Second Reading—Peace Preservation (Ireland) [98]—Third Night.
Second Reading—Referred to Select Committee—Presumption of Life (Scotland) [86]; Coroners (Ireland) [73].

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
  THAMES RIVER BILL. (By Order.)

    SECOND READING.
    Order for Second Reading read.
    SIR CHARLES FORSTER SIR CHARLES FORSTER moved that the second reading of the Bill be deferred until Tuesday, March. 15.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be read a second time upon Tuesday the 15th of March."—(Sir Charles Forster.)
    LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLbegged to move, as an Amendment to the Motion that the second reading of the Bill be postponed, that the Order for the Second Reading be read and discharged. The Bill was of enormous importance, and one of very great interest to the City of London and all up and down the River Thames. Taking in view the period of the Session at which they had now arrived, and the improbability of the Bill being able to be brought on at a time when it should be discussed at that length and with that care which its importance demanded, before it was passed into law, taking in view the extraordinary circumstances under which the Bill dealt with public questions, and even, as he understood set aside the Statute Law; viewing the nature of the Bill and its extraordinary character, and also the very curious manœuvre which was being adopted in reference to the measure by putting it down on the Paper conditionally from day to day so that it was impossible to know when the authors of the Bill proposed to proceed with it—under all these circumstances, he felt justified in moving that the Order for the Second Reading be read and discharged

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    in order that the Bill might be withdrawn and replaced by a Public Bill introduced on the responsibility of the Ministers, who would put their names on the back of it.
    MR. SPEAKER: If the noble Lord persists in moving that Amendment it will be my duty to put it from the Chair; but, at the same time, I think it right to point out to the noble Lord that the course he proposes to take without Notice is one which is very unusual.
    Amendment proposed, to leave out from the words "That the," to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "Order for the Second Reading of the Bill be read and discharged,"—(Lord Randolph Churchill,)—instead thereof.
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    SIR CHARLES FORSTERmight say that he knew nothing whatever about the Bill.
    MR. SPEAKER, interposing, said, the original Question was that the Bill be postponed until the 15th of March, since which an Amendment had been moved to leave out all the words after the words "That the" for the purpose of adding these words—"Order for the Second Reading of the Bill be read and discharged."
    SIR CHARLES FORSTERsaid, the Bill was one which involved very important principles, and he would suggest to the noble Lord that the course which he proposed was a very unusual one to take without Notice. He hoped the noble Lord would withdraw the Amendment, in order that those who were interested in the matter might have an opportunity of being present when the Bill came on regularly for discussion.
    SIR HENRY TYLERexpressed a hope that the noble Lord would not persevere with his Amendment. It was quite clear that it was a very unusual one to make. The Bill was one which largely and very closely affected the interests of his (Sir Henry Tyler's) constituents. He would not trouble the House, at the present stage, with any arguments in favour of the Bill; but he would simply state that an association at Harwich had an interest in something like 800 vessels in which a very large sum of money, amounting to more than £100,000, was
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    invested. These vessels plied upon the Thames, and they were subjected to great losses and inconveniences incidental to the system of compulsory pilotage. For that and for other reasons he should feel it his duty, at the proper time, to support the Bill. He believed there were many other hon. Members who were prepared to support it when it came in a proper way before the House, and he hoped the Amendment would either be withdrawn or negatived.
    MR. LITTONsaid, he did not propose to speak upon the merits of the Bill; but he thought the course adopted by the noble Lord was one that was wholly unworthy of him. It was a most unusual course to move an Amendment such as that which the noble Lord had proposed without Notice. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, who had charge of the Bill, and who had already expressed his desire to consult the convenience of the House in regard to the second reading of the Bill, was not aware of the course which the noble Lord contemplated taking, or no doubt he would have been in his place. He felt bound to say that it did look something like sharp practice for the noble Lord to adopt the course he had now taken. It was quite plain, from the state of the House, that hon. Members generally had not expected that any serious discussion would arise. It was generally understood that the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill would move to defer the consideration of it until after the urgency which had been declared by the House in regard to other measures had been disposed of; and the course now proposed by the noble Lord, in the absence of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, was certainly one which the House ought not to approve of, and which he thought, on reflection, the noble Lord would see ought not to be adopted. He trusted that the noble Lord would withdraw the Amendment. [Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: No, no; certainly not.] The noble Lord was, he felt certain, open to argument; and a sense of fair play would certainly lead him to re-consider the matter, and withdraw the Amendment.
    SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFthought the hon. and learned Gentleman who had just sat down (Mr. Litton) had

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    taken a good deal upon himself when he undertook to lecture hon. Gentlemen on that side of the House who had sat in Parliament for a much longer period than he had. The hon. and learned Member talked of sharp practice and of unusual events. Now, the Session had been full of unusual events, and perhaps none more unusual than that the President of the Board of Trade and the Secretary to the Board of Trade should have brought in this measure as a Private Bill, attempting, by doing so, to take an unfair advantage. The measure was one which, unquestionably, ought to have been brought in as a Public Bill on the authority of the Ministers of the Crown. He hoped that his noble Friend would persevere with his Amendment, and that he would succeed in throwing out the measure.
    MR. WALTERsaid, he had come down to the House early in the hope of hearing a discussion on the Bill, in regard to which the people of the Thames Valley were very much interested. But he had not been prepared to hear such an Amendment as that which had been moved by his noble Friend opposite. He entertained grave doubts as to the propriety of bringing in a Bill of this kind in this way, and he also doubted the wisdom of some of the clauses contained in the measure; but as yet he had not heard the question discussed, and until he had an opportunity of hearing it discussed, it was impossible that he could assent to the Amendment of his noble Friend, which would have the effect of getting rid of the measure by a sudden and unexpected blow. If he were to entertain all the objection it was possible to urge against the Bill, he could never consent to a Motion for disposing of it in this way. He hoped his noble Friend would not press the Amendment.
    SIR SYDNEY WATERLOWhoped that the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) would withdraw the Amendment. Although he (Sir Sydney Waterlow) had a Motion on the Paper in opposition to the Bill, he had not placed it there for the purpose of preventing a discussion upon the merits of the measure. The Bill raised very important questions affecting compulsory pilotage on the River Thames. There had already been two Bills before the House which proposed to abolish
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    compulsory pilotage—one in 1870 and one in 1871. The question was one of great importance; but he hoped to see it discussed upon the present Bill. No doubt, the Bill itself was a Private Bill, and dealt with important interests which ought to be dealt with by a public measure; but he did not see that any advantage would arise from adopting the course proposed by the noble Lord, and thus shutting out all discussion upon the merits of the Bill. He himself believed that the system of compulsory pilotage ought to be materially modified, if not abolished; but it ought to be done by a measure introduced, as a Public Bill, upon the responsibility of Her Majesty's Government. Nevertheless, although he opposed the present Bill, he could not support the Amendment of the noble Lord for discharging the Order for the second reading.
    SIR JOHN R. MOWBRAYhoped that his noble Friend would not press the Amendment. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, who had charge of the Bill, had postponed the second reading until that day with the view of naming a day when it could be taken. The right hon. Gentleman was absent now. The Secretary to the Board of Trade was also absent; and he thought his noble Friend, under these circumstances, ought not to press the Amendment.
    MR. E. W. HARCOURTthought that a very unusual course had been taken in bringing in the Bill as a Private Bill. He was not going now to enter into the merits of the Bill; but he hardly thought he would be acting rightly by those whom he represented on the Upper Thames if he did not avail himself of the opportunity of saying how extremely they disliked the bringing in a Bill of this sort as a Private Bill. There was another objection to the bringing in of it as a Private Bill—namely, that it entirely precluded those who were best informed upon the matter from forming part of the Committee on the Bill. All persons who lived in the Upper Thames Valley were interested in the measure. The Bill itself was of a most important and interesting description. It went far beyond the powers that were given in the Public Health Act of 1875; and, whatever course might be taken—whether the noble Lord pressed his Amendment to a

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    division or not—he felt that he should not be acting rightly, if, on the part of his constituents, he did not say how much they disliked the Bill.
    MR. LYON PLAYFAIR: Unfortunately, I was not present in the House when the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) made this Amendment; but I trust the noble Lord will not press it to a division, because I think that I shall be able to show the House that, whereas the House has frequently considered Bills of this character as Public Bills, they have, nevertheless, more frequently considered them as Private Bills. I hold in my hand a list of various Acts which have been passed with regard to the Thames navigation; and of these, I find that two of them have been introduced as Public Bills, whereas four of them have been introduced as Private Bills. I do not say one word in regard to the merits of the present measure, because that is not my duty; but I merely say that there is certainly rather more precedent for introducing Bills of this character as Private Bills than as Public Bills. I trust, at all events, that the Motion of the noble Lord will not be pressed. The President of the Board of Trade is not present in his place to explain why he has made this Bill a Private Bill; and, under these circumstances, I hope the noble Lord will not persist with his Amendment.
    BARON HENRY DE WORMSsaid, the argument that the President of the Board of Trade was not in his place was scarcely one which the House ought to consider. He was inclined to think that the right hon. Gentleman ought to have been in his place, knowing that a matter of this importance might possibly come before the House. As to the nature of the Bill, he (Baron De Worms) ventured to think that a more remarkable measure had scarcely ever been introduced into the House. It had been fostered by an unnatural alliance between the Thames Conservancy and Her Majesty's Government, and neither of them chose to accept the paternity. It appeared to him that the Bill, in certain respects, partook of the nature of a public measure. It had all the strength of a public measure; but, at the same time, it possessed all the disadvantages of a private measure, and he was bound to say, on behalf of the constituency he
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    represented, that every species of opposition he could offer to the Bill he should offer.
    MR. RITCHIEsaid, he did not rise for the purpose of entering into the merits of the Bill. He had intended, when the Bill came on, to move a Resolution on the subject; but he simply rose now to protest against the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the Chairman of Ways and Means, who, while professing to abstain from entering into the merits of the Bill, had said that there were more precedents one way than the other, an observation which was certainly directed towards the merits of the measure. Under these circumstances, he (Mr. Ritchie) thought he had a right to say, in order to prevent an improper impression from getting abroad, that he was prepared to meet the right hon. Gentleman on every one of his precedents, and to show that there was not one of them which bore upon the point. He flattered himself that when the right hon. Gentleman brought them forward he should be able to dispose of them in an entirely satisfactory manner. For his own part, he must say that he did not wish to see the Bill disposed of in the summary manner proposed by the noble Lord, because he looked forward with pleasure to the time when he should be able to show that the Government were altogether in the wrong in the course they had adopted. Therefore, as far as he was personally concerned, he had no desire to see the Bill thrown out at the present moment, being most desirous, he would repeat, of showing how completely wrong the Government were in every step they had taken in reference to the Bill. He would only say this in justification of the Amendment of his noble Friend—that the Bill had been postponed so frequently, and on one occasion after a particular day had been absolutely fixed for the consideration of the second reading, that hon. Members had been put to much inconvenience in regard to it. Many of them had been brought up from the country, from time to time, to oppose the Bill; and now, again, that evening, although the measure was on the Orders of the Day for a second reading, by an arrangement it was going to be again postponed. Therefore, although no doubt the Amendment of his noble Friend was not one that was usually made, yet it must be acknowledged that his

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    noble Friend had ample justification for proposing it.
    MR. EVELYN ASHLEYreally must say that he was astonished at the line of argument taken by his hon. Friend the Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Ritchie), and at the course he had taken. It was arranged the other day that the Bill should not be taken until a formal Notice was given, and if it had been intended to bring it on for discussion he (Mr. Ashley) would have been in his place. But after such an understanding had been arrived at, and after four days' Notice had been given that it would be on the Paper that day, simply to be deferred until another day—for his hon. Friend to take advantage of the temporary absence of those who were in charge of it——
    MR. RITCHIE: I rise to Order.
    MR. EVELYN ASHLEY: Under such circumstances, to move that the Order for the Second Reading should be discharged was, he thought, to take an unfair advantage.
    MR. RITCHIEwished to say a few words by way of explanation. If the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Board of Trade had been in his place, he would not have made the observations he had just made in reference to him (Mr. Ritchie). He had neither moved that the Order for the Second Reading be discharged, nor had he said one word in regard to it. What he had said was simply an answer to the remarks made by the right hon. Gentleman the Chairman of Ways and Means, and he had not the slightest intention of taking any part in the debate on the subject, nor was it at all upon any proposal of his that the question was now before the House.
    MR. ALDERMAN W. LAWRENCEwas strongly opposed to the Bill, and should use his utmost exertions in order to prevent it from being read a second time; but, at the same time, he could not join in the present Amendment of the noble Lord, because it was clearly understood that when the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade postponed the Bill until to-day, it was not intended that it should come on for discussion to-day. He entirely agreed with all that had been said in regard to bringing in the Bill as a Private Bill. It was undoubtedly a Public Bill, considering the large interests at stake, and
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    he was quite prepared to discuss it on that basis, and to oppose in the strongest manner, any proposal to retain it as a Private Bill. At the same time, he hoped the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock would withdraw the Amendment he had made.
    SIR JOHN LUBBOCKdid not think that his right hon. Friend the Chairman of Ways and Means was open to the accusation which had been brought against him by the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Ritchie). The right hon. Gentleman said he was not prepared to discuss the measure upon its merits; and, in point of fact, he only mentioned the question whether it was to be discussed as a Public or a Private Bill, which was an entirely different matter from discussing the measure on its merits.
    MR. HERMONwould be glad if the Secretary to the Board of Trade would inform the House whether the reason for deferring the Bill was that further negotiations were taking place outside the House in reference to the measure. He understood that the Board of Trade had made certain overtures to hon. Members in order to induce them to withdraw their opposition to the Bill. There ought to be a clear understanding as to the reason why the Government desired to postpone the second reading of the Bill, which had already been fixed twice for a particular day, but was now proposed to be postponed again. The House was entitled to ask the reasons for the postponement.
    MR. EVELYN ASHLEYsaid, the only reason why it had been put off on previous occasions was that it would have been necessary to take it early in the day, and that there were measures on the Paper in regard to which "urgency" had been declared. No negotiations were going on in regard to the Bill.
    SIR JOSEPH M'KENNAremarked, that what he felt puzzled about was this—that two hon. Members—the Member for Gravesend (Sir Sydney Waterlow) and the Member for London (Mr. Alderman W. Lawrence)—who were strongly opposed to the Bill, and one of whom had put down a Motion that it should be read a second time on that day six months, should now object to the Amendment moved by the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill), which, if carried, would have the effect they appeared to desire. He (Sir Joseph

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    M'Kenna) did not intend to vote for the Amendment of the noble Lord; but he did wish, while he had the opportunity, to call attention to the fact that the Motions which had been placed on the Paper for the rejection of the Bill were not intended bonâ fide to throw out the measure, but were simply in opposition to the proposal to proceed with the Bill as a Private Bill. Under these circumstances it would be taking an extreme course to vote for the discharge of the Order for the Second Reading; but he certainly did sympathize with those who, in defence of the public principles that were involved in the measure, argued that it ought to be dealt with as a Public Bill, and that it should be discussed at a time when its merits could be fully considered on the second reading. In the case of a Private Bill, that was not possible. No doubt, this was a season for making New Rules; but if hon. Gentlemen really desired not to defeat the Bill before the House, he did not see why they should have put down Motions for the rejection of the measure and then decline to support the Amendment of the noble Lord, which was intended to effect the same object.
    MR. FINIGANsaid, he took a very deep interest in the Bill, and he intended to read and consider it most carefully, because he considered that whoever had framed it had framed it in the interests of the public welfare. But, at the same time, he must say that the conduct of Her Majesty's Government was of that peculiar type which they had been practising lately to the detriment of the best interests of that House, and he quite agreed with the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock that the Order for the Second Reading of the Bill ought now to be read and discharged. The Government appeared to be in the habit of bringing in a Bill to-day and postponing it to-morrow, and thought they could play fast-and-loose with the House. He protested against such a policy, or rather, he protested against such an impolicy; and he would suggest that as there was nothing before the House to-night except a mere matter of Supply—as he expected the Irish debate would be finished tolerably early—the Government might proceed with this Bill forthwith and have it fully discussed. It ought to be discussed at once; and he did not hold with the plan adopted by Her Majesty's
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    Government for dealing with either public or private measures. Private Bills, were, in his opinion, introduced in a very unjust manner; and, therefore, he should support the Amendment of the noble Lord, and he hoped the House would, without further delay, go to a division.
    LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLsaid, that, perhaps, the House would allow him to state that, under the circumstances, he would not press the Amendment to a division. He thought, however, that the discussion which had taken place would be a useful lesson to the promoters of the Bill to exercise a little more care in future as to the mode in which they attempted to force such measures upon the House.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Main Question put, and agreed to.
    Second Reading deferred till Tuesday 15th March.

NOTICE OF QUESTIONS.

  SOUTH AFRICA—THE TRANSVAAL (MILITARY OPERATIONS)—THE MILITARY COMMAND.
  CAPTAIN O'SHEAgave Notice that, on Monday, he would ask the Secretary of State for War, Whether he has read the telegram in the "Standard" of the 4th instant, from the Correspondent of that newspaper in South Africa, whose great authority on the events and feeling in that country is universally acknowledged, which telegram contains the following passage:—
  "The arrival of General Wood has inspired the troops with great confidence. The Boers also avowedly fear his enterprise. They constantly inquire as to his whereabouts, and the reputation which he gained during the Zulu War, in which he had a corps of Boers fighting under him, evidently has a great effect on their minds;"
  and, whether under these circumstances Her Majesty's Government still intend to supersede Sir Evelyn Wood by any officer unlikely to inspire the troops with such confidence, the colonists with such respect, or the enemy with such fear?
  MR. CHILDERS: I can answer that Question at once, Sir. I have read the telegram in The Standard, and Her Majesty's Government do not propose to alter the arrangements which they have

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  made respecting the command in the Transvaal.
  MR. COURTAULD: On Monday next I will ask the right hon. Gentleman, Whether it has not been the constant custom to confer superior local rank on officers connected with commands in the Field; and, if so, whether Her Majesty's Government do not think this course might be adopted to the public advantage in the case of an officer of such proved ability as Sir Evelyn Wood?
  MR. CHILDERS: I may at once state, Sir, that Her Majesty's Government have this day conferred upon Sir Evelyn Wood the rank referred to by the hon. Member.
  MR. E. JOHNSONsaid, he would also give Notice that, on Monday, he would ask the Secretary of State for War, Whether, considering his high qualifications, the authorities will take steps to leave Sir Evelyn Wood an independent command, and in that way to utilize his untrammelled services in a country where he has already proved his high qualifications as a soldier and a negotiator?
  MR. CHILDERS: I must appeal to the House. I have answered this Question twice or thrice already, and must decline, Sir, to answer further Questions of this description. I do not believe the House of Commons really desires to interfere with those who are responsible for matters of this kind after they have clearly stated what they intend to do.
  Subsequently,
  LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLsaid, that, in order to prevent any misunderstanding and to provide against any inconvenient precedent being set up, he should like to ask, Whether the right hon. Gentleman, by the answer he had given, intended the House to understand that hon. Members were to be excluded from putting Questions and legitimately expecting an answer, or from raising a debate on an appointment which might be made by a Minister of the Crown?
  MR. CHILDERS: No, Sir, I did not mean to say that such Questions should not be put. What I meant to say was, that after I had given the clearest answers I could to three or four Questions on a subject which is expressly within the responsibility of the Secretary of State for War and the Com-
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  mander-in-Chief—I mean the selection of an officer under the Commander-in-Chief in Natal—I conceived it was not the wish of the House that these Questions should be continually repeated, although it is quite in the power of any hon. Member to challenge the conduct of the Government in the matter. From the manner in which my answers were received on previous occasions, I conceived that to be the general opinion of the House.

QUESTIONS.

  SOUTH AFRICA—THE TRANSVAAL (NEGOTIATIONS)—SPEECH OF MR. EVELYN ASHLEY.
  SIR WILFRID LAWSONasked the Secretary to the Board of Trade, Whether he is correctly reported, in the "Daily News" of to-day, to have stated at a public meeting at Cowes—
  "That, to protect her prestige, before England attempted to enter into negotiations with the Boers, they must be compelled to lay down their arms, as a warning to their neighbours that England could not be treated as a weak and impotent Power;"
  and, whether, if he so spoke, he spoke on behalf of Her Majesty's Government?
  MR. EVELYN ASHLEY: Sir, a new terror will be added to political life if a Member on his return from his constituents is to be cross-examined as to a telegraphic abstract of one sentence of his speech by the hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle. I beg to reply that in the words he has put on the Paper I recognize an approximation, but no more than an approximation, to what I said; and I can re-assure him by stating that the words were the words of the Member for the Isle of Wight alone, with no more knowledge of the inner councils of the Government than is possessed by the hon. Baronet himself. As he has drawn such public notice to what I said, perhaps the House will, in justice, allow me one word in explanation. Torn from the context the passage might appear as if I had gone out of my way to preach a crusade or raise a feeling against the Transvaal Boers. That is not so. The words were spoken in reply to a previous speaker, who had urged that we might at once, and unconditionally, retire from the

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  Transvaal, because the nations of Europe were too well acquainted with our courage and resources to misunderstand our motives. I felt bound, in consequence, to point out to the meeting that it was not so much a question of what the nations of Europe might know or think, but, unless we were going to retire altogether from South Africa, the question was what the effect might be on the peoples and tribes out there.

  SOUTH AFRICA—THE TRANSVAAL (MILITARY OPERATIONS)—TREATMENT OF NATURAL-BORN SUBJECTS OF HER MAJESTY AND OF NEUTRAL STATES.
  SIR HENRY FLETCHERasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether natural born subjects of Her Majesty the Queen, or of neutral powers, serving in arms against Her Majesty in the forces of the Transvaal Boers will be treated as belligerents like the Boors, and what instructions regarding the disposal of such persons when taken prisoners have been issued to the General and other officers in command in South Africa?
  MR. GLADSTONE, in reply, said, that certain instructions, as was known to the House, had been sent out directing the mode in which the Boers of the Transvaal were to be treated during the present hostilities. The Secretary of State for War had already stated that he had sent out instructions contained in the following telegram:—
  "That, though the occasion had not arisen for determining any question of belligerent rights, the Boers were to be treated according to the recognized rules of civilized warfare, including the exchange of prisoners."
  Those instructions were applicable to the Boers of the Transvaal exclusively. Their case was peculiar, and therefore justly excited a desire for information as to the course Her Majesty's Government had taken, or might take, in regard to them. As regarded other subjects of Her Majesty, or the subjects of neutral Powers, he did not see any reason why their case should not fall under the general rules which were applicable to other cases of hostility. At any rate, Her Majesty's Government, placing confidence in the discretion of the Commander, did not at present see the necessity of making any new rules on the subject.
  MR. DILLONasked, Whether the House was to understand, from the right hon. Gentleman's answer, that Dutchmen from Holland, or from States bordering on the Transvaal, were, if captured, to be treated as rebels and hanged, rather than dealt with as belligerents?
  MR. GLADSTONE: The same Question might be asked with regard to hostilities in any country whatever, and it would have to be dealt with according to its merits. It is not a case in which, I think, it would be wise for us to issue instructions, and I apprehend that it would be much more likely to do harm than good.

  STATE OF IRELAND—OUTRAGE AT CLONAKILTY, COUNTY CORK.
  MR. HEALYasked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, Whether an outrage took place on Sunday 13th February, on the farm of Mr. Donovan, at Clonakilty, county Cork; and, if it is true that one of the labourers recently imported into the neighbourhood by a landlord is in jail charged with having committed the outrage?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW): Yes, Sir; an outrage took place at the time and place mentioned in the Question; but it is not true that a labourer recently imported into the neighbourhood by a landlord is in gaol charged with having committed it. A labourer not imported, but born and habitually working in the neighbourhood, was arrested on suspicion of having been concerned in the outrage; but informations were refused against him, and he was discharged on the 17th of last month.

  LAW AND JUSTICE—COST OF LITIGATION.
  MR. BLENNERHASSETTasked Mr. Attorney General, Whether he is aware that during the trial of the case Fell and wife v. Apps, at Westminster on Monday last, Lord Coleridge, commenting on the fact that the costs of an administration suit referred to in the course of the proceedings amounted to a very large sum, instanced a case in his own experience where an estate of £1,300 was administered by the Court of Chancery and only £156 remained to be distributed, and added "I can

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  only say that a system that permits such a state of affairs is scandalous, yet so it is;" and, whether he will recommend this expression of opinion by the Lord Chief Justice to the attention of the Government?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES): I have no doubt whatever that the statement made by Lord Coleridge was correct, as the matter was within his own cognizance. It does not appear to me, however, that there is any necessity for formally recommending it to the notice of the Government. The Lord Chancellor, upon whom the responsibility of the matter rests, is most strenuously endeavouring to lessen the cost of litigation, and is taking practical measures to that effect.

  TREATY OF WASHINGTON, 1854— AMERICAN FISHERIES—THE FORTUNE BAY DISPUTE.
  SIR HENRY HOLLANDasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether any progress has been made towards the settlement of the Fortune Bay Fishery dispute; and, whether he can, consistently with the public interest, inform the House what is the present position of the case?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: In asking my hon. Friend to postpone his Question from last Tuesday to this day, I hoped, Sir, to be able to make known the position of the negotiations which were then proceeding; but, as these have not yet come to a conclusion, I can only promise that no delay shall take place in communicating their result to the House.

  ARMY—ARMY PAY DEPARTMENT.
  CAPTAIN AYLMERasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether it is intended to give to the senior officers of the Army Pay Department any compensation in consequence of their being superseded by their juniors through the operation of paragraph 8 of the Royal Warrant of December 25th, 1880?
  MR. CHILDERS: Sir, I will look into this matter; but, as at present advised, I do not consider that the senior officers of the Army Pay Department referred to in the hon. and gallant Member's Question have any claim whatever to compensation.

  SOUTH AFRICA—THE BASUTOS (NEGOTIATIONS).
  LORD ELCHOasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether, as the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies recently stated that Her Majesty's Government disapproved of the terms offered by the Governor and his Ministers at the Cape to the Basutos, which terms were then under negotiation, he will inform the House as to the definitive conditions which Her Majesty's Government propose that the Cape Government should offer to the rebels; and, whether any telegraphic Despatch upon this subject has been received from the Governor of the Cape since the 25th ult.; and, if so, whether he will communicate to the house the substance of such Despatch, and of any reply that may have been sent to it?
  MR. GLADSTONE, in reply, said, that the full details necessary to give an intelligent, or, at least, a clear answer had only that moment reached him; but he hoped that, substantially, he could give the required answer. Her Majesty's Government had no intention of informing the House, or of suggesting to the Government at the Cape the definitive conditions which they would propose should be offered to the Basuto rebels. The ground taken in reference to the Basutos and the Cape Government by Her Majesty's Government had been stated generally in the Queen's Speech; it was well known to both parties, and they had no intention of deviating therefrom. Then, his noble Friend very naturally inquired why it was Her Majesty's Government expressed no opinion on the terms offered. For that there was the greatest possible reason, which he would explain as well as he could. Her Majesty's Government had been made parties in the step immediately preceding—namely, the arrangement of the armistice. On the 2nd of February, Sir Hercules Robinson telegraphed the reply which, with the concurrence of the Ministers, he proposed to send to the Basuto deputation, praying him to intercede for them. On the 3rd, Lord Kimberley telegraphed his approval of that reply, with certain modifications, to bring it into accord with the position Her Majesty's Government had taken up. The modifications were accepted by the Cape Government, and an armistice

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  was agreed to, commencing on the 18th and ending on the 24th February. Therefore, to that proceeding Her Majesty's Government were complete parties. On the 23rd of February the Cape Government signified to Sir Hercules Robinson that they intended to offer, and Sir Hercules Robinson telegraphed that they had offered, to the rebels certain conditions of peace that were to be accepted or declined within 24 hours, and that unless accepted hostilities would immediately be resumed. Under these circumstances, Lord Kimberley felt that, having been a party to the step immediately preceding, it was absolutely incumbent on him to make known that he was not a party to the step taken by the Cape Ministry on their own responsibility, and without reference to the Home Government. It was quite obvious that, reserving the right to appeal to the Government at home for advice, it must be well understood how far Her Majesty's Government had been parties, and in what they had not. That was the reason that caused his noble Friend (Lord Kimberley) to have the answer given by the Under Secretary of State on Monday last. The eight conditions of peace had been sent to the Basutos on the 23rd of February, and they were made known to Sir Hercules Robinson and the Colonial Secretary; but not until the 28th were they declared to the House. With regard to the effect of the declaration then made, he understood a remonstrance had been sent by the Cape Government; but, until that arrived, it was not in his power to give further information. All he at present knew was that there was reason to believe that the armistice was prolonged; and if that was so, he could not but regard it as a happy circumstance, and possibly it was in consequence of the declaration of the Government.

  SOUTH AFRICA—THE TRANSVAAL (MILITARY OPERATIONS)—THE ROYAL MARINES.
  SIR EARDLEY WILMOTasked the Secretary to the Admiralty, Whether, in addition to the Naval Brigade now employed in Natal and the Transvaal, it is intended to make use of the services of any portion of the corps of Royal Marines?
  MR. TREVELVAN: Sir, there is no present prospect of the naval detachment now serving on shore in Africa being increased. The First Lord of the Admiralty has a high appreciation of the Royal Marines, and would always give them an opportunity of serving where their services were called for. But Sir George Colley and Sir Evelyn Wood asked for guns and rocket parties, and seamen only were accordingly sent.

  ARMY—THE ARMY RESERVE—VOLUNTEERS.
  CAPTAIN O'SHEAasked the Secretary of State for War, the number of men in sections B and C of the 1st Class Army Reserve who have volunteered to return to the colours on the terms of the Army Circular of the 12th of February 1881, and the proportion per cent. of those who have volunteered, to the strength of those sections on the 1st of February 1881?
  MR. CHILDERS: Sir, men from the Army Reserve are volunteering from day to day, and it would be quite useless at this moment, even if we had the particulars, to give the proportions from sections B and C to the aggregate strength of those sections. If my hon. and gallant Friend will speak to me on some day late in April, when volunteering has closed and all the Returns have come in, I may be able to give him the information he requires.

  BOUNTIES ON FOREIGN SHIPPING—THE UNITED STATES AND ITALY.
  VISCOUNT SANDONasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether he is now in a position to lay upon the Table of the House, a report from Sir Edward Thornton with respect to any measures which have been recently proposed in the Congress of the United States, with the view of providing bounties for American merchant shipping; whether he will obtain a report for the information of Parliament from Her Majesty's Ambassador at Rome, as to any similar proposals with respect to Italian shipping which have recently been made to the Legislature of Italy; and, whether he will lay upon the Table of the House, any communications upon this subject which have been addressed by the Secretary of State

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  for Foreign Affairs to Her Majesty's Representatives at Rome and Washington?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: Sir, the Report from Sir Edward Thornton has been to-day laid upon the Table, and Sir Augustus Paget has been requested to forward a similar Report on any proposals that may have been submitted to the Italian Legislature. There have been no other communications between Her Majesty's Government and Her Majesty's Representatives at the place in question.

  CENTRAL ASIA—MERV.
  MR. ARTHUR ARNOLDasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether there is any truth in the report that the Russians had advanced to Merv?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: Sir, we have not received any information on that subject.

  AFGHANISTAN—RETENTION OF CANDAHAR.
  SIR HENRY TYLERasked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether Her Majesty's Government have yet made, or have any immediate prospect of making, any arrangements for the permanent and peaceful settlement and government of Southern Afghanistan, which will justify the withdrawal of the British forces from Candahar during the present season?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: Sir, I have to point out to the hon. Member that a permanent and peaceful settlement and government of Southern Afghanistan is not an indispensable preliminary to the withdrawal of the British forces from Candahar. It is quite possible that the unhappy state of things resulting from the late war may postpone a permanent and peaceful settlement in Afghanistan for an almost indefinite period. In reply to the Question itself, I have to state that arrangements are in progress which Her Majesty's Government, fully recognizing the importance of leaving, if possible, a settled government in Southern Afghanistan, hope will conduce to that end. I do not think that it would be at present to the advantage of the Public Service to enter into details on the subject.
  SIR HENRY TYLERasked whether orders had already been given for the evacuation of Candahar?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: Certainly no such orders have been given from home, and I do not understand that any positive orders have as yet been given by the Government of India.

  PEACE PRESERVATION (IRELAND) BILL —DEPOSIT OF ARMS AND AMMUNITION.
  MR. GIBSONasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been directed to the South African Act for the better preservation of Peace (assented to 2nd August 1878), under the 14th section of which all arms and ammunition deposited within a given time shall be duly valued, and the amount fixed by the valuation paid to the owners so depositing; and, whether, with a view to encouraging the speedy and peaceful deposit of arms and ammunition under the Peace Preservation (Ireland) Bill now before Parliament, he will consider the expediency of introducing a Clause embodying, with due safeguards, the principle of payment contained in the South African Act?
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I do not think, Sir, that such an arrangement as the right hon. and learned Gentleman suggests could be conveniently introduced into the Bill, for there would be very great danger of people buying arms cheap in order to give them up to the Government dear. ["Oh, oh!"] I do not think that is at all an improbable arrangement in any country. But I think it is a very proper thing to consider what should be done with reference to the deposit of these arms and the manner of allowing persons to get rid of them on reasonable terms; but I think it will be better to leave that to the Lord Lieutenant to arrange by his Proclamation.

  PARLIAMENT—BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR: I beg to give Notice that on Monday next, at half-past 4 o'clock, I shall move that the state of Public Business is no longer urgent.
  MR. PARNELL: I wish to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, What will

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  be the course of Public Business on Monday?
  MR. GLADSTONE, in reply, said, that the Peace Preservation (Ireland) Bill would be proceeded with on Monday.
  MR. CALLANsaid, it would be a great satisfaction to the country if the right hon. Gentleman could hint to the Irish Members when it was probable that the Land Bill would be brought in.
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, in an answer to a similar Question a short time ago, I, no doubt, hinted to the effect that I would make a statement with regard to the general course of Public Business, and accompanied that with a hope that we might be able before long to discuss the Land Bill. I have been cherishing that hope for many weeks, almost from day to day; but it has been intercepted and postponed in consequence of proceedings for which I really think we are not responsible. Hon. Members may depend upon it that the Government are most anxious, and are sensible of the great public advantage which will attend the making known of its intentions with regard to the Irish Land Question. We will lose no time in bringing the measure before the House; but, in the present state of affairs, it would be idle for me to hold out any hope as to the time when we shall be able to do so, unless we can see our way to measures which are immediately and absolutely necessary.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  PEACE PRESERVATION (IRELAND) BILL.— [BILL 98.]
  (Secretary Sir William Harcourt, Mr. Gladstone, Mr. William Edward Forster.)
  PEACE PRESERVATION (IRELAND) BILL.— [BILL 98.]

    SECOND READING. [ADJOURNED DEBATE.]
    [THIRD NIGHT.]
    Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment proposed to Question [2nd March], "That the Bill be now read a second time."
    And which Amendment was, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."—(Mr. Justin M' Carthy.)
    Question again proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
    Debate resumed.
    MR. PARNELL: Sir, I take this opportunity of expressing my belief that the course which Her Majesty's Government has adopted in introducing and pressing to a conclusion coercive legislation for Ireland is one which will have lasting and permanent effects of a kind very different from that which they anticipate. I cannot imagine anything that the most ardent Nationalist could do to make the breach wider between England and Ireland, and to conduce eventually to the disruption of the Union between the two countries, worse than the course the Government has undertaken in forcing coercive legislation upon our country. And it is not alone the fact that you have introduced and persevered in this legislation, but it is the tone which has been adopted by every prominent Minister upon the Treasury Bench. The tone and the manner and the proceedings which we have witnessed in this House from day to day and from night to night make it very evident that you have done more to create and preserve a chasm between England and Ireland than the exertion of all the American Fenians from New York to San Francisco. I think it is an unlucky thing that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland should have had the carrying out of these measures of coercion. That right hon. Member is slow to move, and when he went to Ireland he went as a Radical; and, as Member for a prominent Radical constituency, it was supposed that he would have carried some of his Radical traditions with him; but there were not wanting among the permanent officials in the Chief Secretary's office at Dublin Castle men who openly boasted that, great Radical as he was, three months would not elapse before he became the veriest Tory of the whole lot. But whatever may be his faults—and I will not lay undue stress upon them—certainly the change we have seen in the hands into which the carrying out of this coercive legislation has now fallen has not been a very happy one. As little wanting in the way of conciliation as is the right hon. Gentleman, certainly the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department has not been an improvement upon him. We have seen, on three previous occasions, that the right hon. Gentleman is not very tolerant of Irish

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    Members; but he has certainly reserved for the carrying out of this Bill an exhibition of temper that the most resolute of its opponents never expected to have seen from him. With all the skill of a practised orator he has seized upon words which were spoken by my hon. Friend the Member for Tipperary (Mr. Dillon), and he has not been ashamed to twist those words, and to hold up my hon. Friend in this House as an assassin, and a person who wishes to incite to assassination. If you ever again have to carry a Coercion Bill for Ireland, I would at least recommend you to do it with some other instruments and some other Minister than the right hon. Gentleman. I would recommend you to apply to the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Bright), who throughout these proceedings has certainly not shown the same virulent animosity against Ireland that has distinguished one or two of the other Ministers. We heard a character given to Mr. John Devoy by the right hon. Gentleman. We were informed that that gentleman had sent a threatening cablegram to the right hon. Gentleman, threatening to stamp upon him. I was surprised when I heard of this intelligence, and I at once cabled from Paris to Mr. Devoy to know whether there was any truth in the statement, and I received back a message next day to say there was no truth in the information that he had sent any cablegram threatening the right hon. Gentleman, but had simply used the same words which the right hon. Gentleman had used in this House against the Fenian Society; and if the right hon. Gentleman is entitled to say in this House that he will stamp upon the Fenian Society like a nest of vipers, surely the Fenian Brotherhood are entitled to say in return that they will, if they can, stamp, not on the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, but upon his Government. But the right hon. Gentleman was not satisfied with perverting and misrepresenting the meaning of the cablegram which he received from Mr. Devoy, but he tried to fix an additional stigma on the character of that gentleman. He spoke of him as a convict. But this is not the first time for Irishmen who have sacrificed their all for what they believed to be the good of their country, and have cheerfully faced the horrible punishment of penal
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    servitude for their opinions, to be stigmatized in this House as convicts. But look at the contrast between the right hon. Gentleman and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. That right hon. Gentleman, in speaking of another convict, once a Member of this House, the late Mr. John Martin, my Predecessor in the Representation of Meath, did not speak of him as a convict, although Mr. John Martin had been committed and sentenced to transportation for the same crime of treason-felony as Mr. Devoy. That Gentleman, coming up to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, asked to shake hands with him, saying that although he (Mr. John Martin) knew he was the enemy of his country, the right hon. Gentleman had never said an insulting thing about Ireland. You cannot say that of the Secretary of State for the Home Department. You cannot change the nature of the man; but if he would have imitated the high character of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, he might perhaps have facilitated matters, instead of having avowedly gone out of his way to insult and traduce absent men, and thus might have prevented the widening of the chasm between England and Ireland, which must inevitably result from every occasion such as this. But not satisfied with misrepresenting Mr. John Devoy, he very ingeniously connects together two passages in a speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Tipperary, in which my hon. Friend advises the people going to meetings to march thither, and a subsequent passage in which he advises every man who has a rifle to keep it in his house, and then suggests from it that my hon. Friend advises the Irish people to go out at night firing into people's houses. [Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT assented.] The right hon. Gentleman nods his head. He did, then, misrepresent my hon. Friend. I know it is very hard for an Irish Member to put himself right in this House; but I do not believe that hon. Gentlemen, even in this House, will believe that my hon. Friend would do such a thing. Now, Sir, I pass from the Secretary of State for the Home Department with this word. He throws doubt upon the courage of the Irish people; but I leave him with the remark that it is not always those who go about flinging charges of cowardice at others who are

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    themselves the bravest. The Land League has been represented as akin to Fenianism. That I deny. I have the greatest respect for many Fenians. I have the greatest respect for men who announce themselves publicly to be Fenians—who believe in the separation of England from Ireland by physical force, and who do not look to Constitutional agitation. And although I do not believe that they are right, I say the Ministry of to-day are doing their best to prove that those men are right; they are doing their best to thrust men like myself, the hon. Member for Tipperary, and many others, outside the lines of the Constitution. We shall not oblige them. But though I have this respect for those men, I have never been able to see that a physical force policy was practicable or possible to adopt, either in Ireland or out of it, as regards the relations between the two countries; therefore, I have always avoided connection with it. There are organizations of the kind in America; but the bulk of our money has not come from them, simply because they have their own organizations to support. They may have sent us money, as individuals; but I deny that there is any connection, either open or secret, between the two organizations. We have been represented as advising the assassination of landlords; but I cannot help thinking that an unhappy passage in my hon. Friend the Member for Tipperary's speech has been seized on by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and has been twisted to suit his purpose. I regret exceedingly that my hon. Friend should so have committed himself by those words, as he undoubtedly did. Knowing, as I do, his natural disposition, and how his mind shrinks and revolts from any recourse to physical force, he could not contemplate injuring the smallest creature, much less one of his fellow-creatures, without the greatest repugnance. I can well understand how, in the heat of the moment, he was led into the announcement which he made yesterday, that if he were an evicted tenant he would fire on his evictors, and defend his homestead. But I believe that my hon. Friend meant that he would do it openly. I believe he meant that he would not shoot from behind a hedge, but that he would fire at his evictors face to face, and shoot
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    them if he could, and be shot in return if he could not. Although that is not a possible, a wise, or a judicious policy; although a recourse to such method should not be recommended; and although I myself could not, for a moment, tolerate such language, I should say there was nothing like cowardice in that. There was nothing mean or dishonourable in the announcement my hon. Friend made, nor did he invite anybody else to imitate his example. But if my hon. Friend had been Professor Blackie, if he had used the words which Professor Blackie used a short time ago in addressing a public meeting in Scotland, then, indeed, he would have incurred the imputation which the right hon. Gentleman endeavoured to attach to him. Professor Blackie, the other day, during a lecture delivered at the Literary Institute, Edinburgh, said that, at the time the Covenanters were reduced to desperation, Scotland was in the same state that Ireland is in now. There was no protection from the law, just as there is no protection from the law in Ireland; just as there is no protection from the law for the property of the Irish tenants, and nothing for the tenants themselves but starvation and death, which the Prime Minister last year said were threatened against 11,000 of the men, women, and children of Ireland. [Mr. GLADSTONE dissented.] If it was not a sentence of death by starvation, I do not see what else it was to be. Professor Blackie said—"We will declare war, partly open, and partly, it may be, by assassination." Then he referred to the case of shooting landlords in Ireland, and said he did not defend the war of Parnell, or those who shot landlords from behind a hedge; but he did say, in the same spirit as Sharp was pulled out of his carriage and murdered by the Covenanters, "Serve him right!" He firmly and completely sympathized with the murderers. It was the rude refuge of nature, and if the law was not the ministry of the God of Righteousness, but of the devil of lawlessness, he wanted to know why it should be called assassination because it took "a rude course to do what the law could not do." If my hon. Friend the Member for Tipperary went over to Ireland and said what Professor Blackie said, he would be laid by the heels by the Chief Secretary for Ireland under the recent Coercion Act, and

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    locked up in prison. But my hon. Friend has not used any language of that kind; but the language he used has been deliberately twisted and perverted by the Secretary of State for the Home Department for the purpose of blinding and misleading hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway. We have been told that the state of society in Ireland is desperate, and that the Government must have this Bill to disarm the people. I tell you that you will not prevent a single murder by this Bill. You will scarcely deprive a single one of the mauvais sujets, and the village scoundrels, referred to by the Chief Secretary for Ireland in a former debate, of the power of shooting his landlord if he desires. You will not get at one of the Fenian guns, if there are any Fenian guns in Ireland. No; but you will get at the shot-guns of the farmers, who have bought a few of them. I may remark that the Government have not produced any statistics showing the number of such arms; but they were afraid, I suppose, that if they did so, the number was so small, that this House would scout their Bill. You will just take the arms from the farmers, who have bought old fowling-pieces for the purpose of shooting hares and rabbits under the Ground Game Bill. You will take from them the power of carrying out the law, which the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir William Harcourt) ostentatiously announced would be applied to both England and Scotland and Ireland. It will also enable every policeman, every magistrate in Ireland, to seize anybody, man, woman, or child, in the day-time or the night-time, on the high road or anywhere else, except in their own houses, where they can find them, and it will enable them to search their persons. There is a Liberal programme for you! We have heard that the Government quite believe in the Irish magistrates and the police, and they give them the power to search every man, woman, and child in Ireland if they please. But what are the facts with regard to the state of Ireland? So far from homicides or murders having increased, they are actually below the average. In 1880, the number of homicides and murders is actually below the average of the last 10 years. In 1845, there were 139 homicides and murders; in 1880, there were only 69. The average during the last 10 years, from 1870
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    to 1879, was 82, or 13 more than the number of homicides and murders for the last year. In 1845, there were 540 assaults; in 1880, only half that number. During last year the average was 287. The assaults with injury to life in 1880 were 245. The average during the last 10 years was 255—far above the number of last year. The offences of firing at the person in 1845 were 138; last year they were only 79. In the case of firing into dwellings—in 1845 there were 134, last year there were only 98, and so on. But there is a point which has been very much lost sight of during the debates on these questions. It is a point I had intended to bring before the House on the second reading of the Bill that has since become law; but, with the permission of the House, I shall venture to allude to it now. It is the proportion of evictions to crimes. The Prime Minister told us that crime dogged the steps of the land meetings, and he thought to create a great case against the Land League on that account. I tell the Prime Minister back, that crime dogs the footsteps of the evictors, and if you want to put a stop to crime, you must put a stop to eviction. You will not succeed by this Bill in protecting landlords who violate every feeling of justice and mercy. You will not prevent outraged tenants from shooting their landlords. The Bill will increase the number of murders and outrages in Ireland, and it will also increase, as unhappily we have already seen too evidently, the number of evictions. In the county of Antrim I find there were 13 evictions only, and only 15 crimes. In the County Cork, 222 evictions and 290 crimes, or rather more than one crime for every eviction. In Wicklow I find there were 33 evictions and 23 crimes. In Leitrim, 83 evictions and 102 crimes. I have got a list of all the Irish counties here, and shall be happy to place them at the disposal of any hon. Member who desires to see it. By these Returns I am able to show that in every case in every county in Ireland the crime is in direct proportion to the number of evictions. For instance, we have in Mayo 106 evictions and 343 crimes. We have in Tipperary 77 evictions and 106 crimes. Wherever the evictions are few, the crimes are few; and if it has been necessary to hold Land League meetings, it is because Land League meetings have been held where evictions

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    have been most numerous. Wherever we heard that the landlords were trampling upon the tenants, there we decided to hold our meetings; and the crimes would have taken place, whether we held our meetings or not. Now, a great deal has been said about Land League Courts, with a view to support the contention that the ordinary law of the land has been over-ridden. Sir, I regret exceedingly—as I regret many incidents in this Land League struggle—I regret exceedingly the institution of these Land League Courts. They were instituted in certain counties—Clare, for instance—which were very little under the control of the Central Executive of the Land League in Dublin; but immediately we heard that their proceedings were objectionable to the Government—and it is very right that they should be objectionable to the Government, as they were to us, because many of their proceedings were farcical in the extreme—but directly our attention was called to the holding of these Courts, we issued directions that they should cease. But upon what ground do you say the ordinary law of the land has been over-ridden? It is only the ordinary law of the land so far as it is used for the maintenance of injustice. But the law of the land as regards ordinary purposes is supported better in Ireland, according to the admission of the Chief Secretary for Ireland himself, than it is in England and Scotland. The number of convictions in the aggregate for general offences is greater than in England or Scotland; and it is only where a tenant is unjustly evicted from his holding, it is only where an agrarian offence is committed in consequence of this unjust eviction, that the public opinion which I once called the unwritten law of the land—a phrase that has been made so much use of—it is only where this occurs that the public opinion of the neighbourhood comes to the rescue—and, undoubtedly, it does defeat the administration of the law. I admit that; and I say it is right that public opinion, legitimately expressed, not by violence, or by agrarian crime, should be entitled to defeat the ordinary law of the land under those circumstances, and that the Government should not be allowed, under cover, to come to the rescue of the landlords, and, by force and intimidation, attempt to put
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    down the public opinion of the country. But would any man in his senses, except a Liberal Government driven to that course by the Party they have ousted from Office—would any man in his senses refuse to listen to such teaching? If there is injustice, it follows that the people will resist injustice. You cannot prevent them; and if you want to have your law obeyed, surely the proper way is to make that law just first. You have put the cart before the horse. You have entered upon a policy of repression and intimidation in order to secure obedience to law which the Prime Minister confessed last year compelled him to acknowledge that it inflicted injustice upon a suffering people. Instead of bringing forward your measures of conciliation, you have brought forward your measures of repression; and you may, perhaps, in the course of a few weeks, be up to your elbows in the blood of innocent persons in your attempt to uphold an infamous and unjust territorial system. Reference has been made to trades' unions, and we have been told that if the Land League was like the trades' unions, there would be no objection to the Land League; but, somehow or other, it appears that whenever political movements are started at first, they are always subject to the same kind of criticism which we have to meet now. They are always told that they are aiders and abettors of assassination. The Prime Minister made a bid to the trades' unions of England when he said they never supported assassination. We never said that they did; and we say also that the Land League never supported assassination. [Mr. GLADSTONE: Illegality.] Well, illegality. We do not say that trades' unions ever did support illegality; and we also say that the Land League never did support illegality. The only illegality that the Land League ever supported is in the advice given to tenants to break their yearly contracts. These contracts are not real contracts. Not one tenant in a hundred knows that he has entered into such a contract. They are a legal fiction, and they have been condemned by the Report of your own Royal Commission, which declared that freedom of contract does not exist in Ireland. But what has been said about trades' unions? Mr. William Overend, Mr. Thomas Irwin

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    Barstow, and Mr. George Chance, the Assistant Commissioners reporting to the Royal Commission some years ago, said in reference to trades' unions—
    "Rattening has always been done with the knowledge of the union, and very commonly by direction of the secretary. In Sheffield no less than 12 out of 60 trades' unions prompted or encouraged outrage. Ham-stringing animals, firing and injuring dwellings, injuries to machinery, &c., have frequently occurred. The complicity of the union, so far from being denied, has been admitted in public court, and £200 has been paid out of their funds to the perpetrators."
    That is not my statement—I do not believe it is true. I do not say it is true. I read it to you as the statement of Commissioners appointed for the purpose of inquiring into the matter. In the Report of the Royal Commissioners—and I have given you the names of the gentlemen who were their assistants—I presume they have made this statement after full and accurate inquiry, and on examination of witnesses on the spot, a thing that you have not done before you ventured upon blackening the character of the Irish National Land League. These are not statements hurriedly made in the course of debate without anything to support them but the ingenuity of right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench. They are carefully and deliberately made, and notwithstanding that the Prime Minister tells us, as he is undoubtedly right in telling us, that trades' unions had no recourse to illegality. I am also entitled to say on my side, wait for 10 years, and we shall find the Prime Minister doing the Land League justice, and stating in his place in the House that the Land League never had recourse to illegality. Where would be the Land Question was it not for the Irish National Land League? If the members of it were now to be hunted like vermin out of their own country, where would the Land Question be? I had the honour of sitting in his House during the last Parliament, and I watched from time to time the late hon. and learned Member for the City of Limerick (Mr. Butt) bringing forward his Land Bill with all the skill and genius which so eminently distinguished him. I also watched the majority of the right hon. Gentlemen who now sit on that (the Treasury) Bench, and who are now about to bring forward a Bill of the very same cha-
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    racter, go into the Lobbies against it. One right hon. Gentleman only of the whole line shakes his head—it is the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council (Mr. Mundella), and he certainly does form the exception—with one or two other very honourable exceptions. I wish to give him the full credit of the prescience and foresight which he exhibited on that occasion, which certainly should have entitled him to a higher post than the Office he holds. Now, Sir, what said Earl Granville about trades' unions, an English statesman who is alive and flourishing, and a Member of this present Liberal Government, who traduces the Land League? Lord Granville said, at the beginning of this Session—
    "Take the case of 'Swing.' Swing destroyed an enormous amount of agricultural property. …. The question of the rent of farms was also involved, and it took this country four years to put down 'Swing' completely. Then there is another case, that of the Rebecca riots, which began in 1839, in consequence of an alleged grievance, though perfectly legal—that of levying tolls at turnpike gates—and the disturbances were renewed still more remarkably at the beginning of 1843. What happened then? There was destruction of property and a perfect defiance of the law, and it was impossible to obtain necessary evidence. One toll-keeper was murdered; and the jury were so intimidated that, against all the facts of the case, they returned a verdict of acquittal."—[3 Hansard, cclvii. 30.]
    That was to say, the jury returned a verdict contrary to common sense; the very thing juries are accused of in Ireland at the present moment. The noble Lord went on to say—
    "This state of things, which extended itself to the questions of workhouses, justices' clerks' fees, tithes, and rent complained of as exorbitant, was put an end to after four years by a complete concession with regard to the original alleged grievance."—[Ibid.]
    What a prospect for the Government! The noble Lord continued—
    "Take another case—the outrages at Sheffield, which might have been described in stronger language than that used by Sir William Smith and Chief Justice Bush in 1832, or than that which has just been used by three Judges in reference to Ireland. You had then every sort of iniquity. You had explosions; you had compounds thrown into houses with the intention of destroying houses, property, and life, of destroying the property of the workmen as well as the employers."—[Ibid.]
    We have not got so far as this yet in Ireland. In spite of the dark insinua-

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    tions of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, at that time, according to the noble Earl—
    "You could not get evidence; you could not trust your jury. The most atrocious cases were acquitted; and in other instances, juries—I suppose they were manufacturers—insisted, contrary to the direction of the Judges, in bringing in verdicts of guilty, and free pardons had to be given. The result was that the perpetrators of these outrages escaped, and the law was altered in favour of trades' unions."—[Ibid.]
    Here is one Minister in the House of Lords attributing crime and outrage to trades' unionism, while another Minister in the House of Commons—the distinguished Minister at the head of Her Majesty's Government—says trades' unionism has never been guilty of any such acts. O'Connell's agitation, Sir, was condemned in the same way. He was called the instigator to assassination, and all the other beautiful epithets that have been showered on us. It happened, unfortunately, that he was an old man. He was an old man, and so the Government, by imprisonment, soon broke him down. But I am happy to say that the men who are engaged in the present movement are young; and after this 18 months' suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act is over, we shall be in as good a position as we were before to resume our work, and to press it to an issue—that is, as we see it at present. Of course, I do not know what your intentions are with respect to the Land Bill. So it has always been, Mr. Speaker, that a political action in every country in its inception is denounced, and accused of horrible crimes by the classes against whom that agitation is directed. That is so everywhere. But it is far more easy in the case of Ireland to create a false impression of a respectable movement than it would be with a respectable movement in your own country. When hon. Gentlemen remember how their own legal trades' unions have been traduced at a time when public opinion could see what was going on; when they reflect how much more easy it is to traduce and vilify an agitation in Ireland; how very much more difficult it is for the public opinion of the Irish people to assert itself; how very much more difficult it is for us to bring the truth home to your minds, in the face of gagging Rules, the imposition of the clôture, and the other Continental devices which have been introduced in this House,
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    you will think and pause a little before you take for granted everything that is told you with regard to the Irish National Land League and Irish agitators. But, at least, if you refuse to do so, I do not think that we—I do not think that the Irish people—will, in the long run, be the sufferers. If you think the Irish people will be the sufferers, you make a mistake; because it is important that you should maintain the link between the two countries. It is of importance to you to conciliate the feelings of the Irish people; it is of importance that your Government should not be known to history, and remembered in Ireland, as the Coercion Government; it is of importance that the Irish people should not bear your rule in mind as a rule of petty tyranny and police, a rule of magisterial oppression, as a rule of suspicion, and not of law. It is of importance, from your point of view, that this should be so. It is not from ours. The more you tyrannize—the more you trifle with the Irish people—the stronger will burn the spirit of nationality, the more they will free themselves from the yoke which renders such things possible. We may have our day—our short day—of persecution. I believe the public opinion of the people of England will, at some day or other, do justice to our motives, even if they do not approve of our course.
    MR. MITCHELL HENRYthought the speech of the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down (Mr. Parnell), on his return from Paris, or from where nobody exactly knew, showed that he was, in some degree, sensible of the ruin which he had brought upon his country. The hon. Member seemed to suppose that language was not to bear its ordinary meaning, but that when it had produced in the minds of those to whom it was addressed its legitimate results, if those results were inconvenient, the language itself was to be explained away in a non-natural sense, an idea insulting the common sense of all those who chose to think for themselves. The hon. Member had for many months past deluded the Irish people by leading them to believe that the English House of Commons had determined to enslave them, and to prevent any amelioration of their condition as regarded the Land Laws. He had now repudiated the notion which, on repeated occasions,

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    he inculcated on thousands of peasants, that they were to seek for relief from the laws which kept them in thraldom by physical force. ["Never, never!"] The hon. Gentleman had commenced at Liverpool by speaking of the 100,000 swords which were to flash in the face of the people of this country; while the hon, Member for Tipperary (Mr. Dillon), who was more candid and less careful, had repeatedly informed the Irish peasants that their duty was to march in military array and to purchase rifles and revolvers, to be used for purposes which he boldly pointed out last night. ["No, no!"] Could hon. Members, he would ask, justify the use of the language in which they taught the uneducated peasantry of Ireland, and reconcile themselves to repudiating in that House the natural meaning of their words? The hon. Member for the City of Cork, only the other day at Clara, told the Irish people that they were to commit one of the most hateful and spiteful acts that could enter into the mind of man, to lay the land which labour and the bounty of God had made fit for pasturage useless for the purpose for which nature and art had made it useful. What was the result of that teaching? When the hon. Member found that it would bring himself and others within the purview of the Criminal Law, he hastened to repudiate it. But the advice had been followed. There were two Questions upon the Paper that very day, but which had not been asked, with reference to peasants having taken the advice of the hon. Member, and ploughed up land to the extent of 40 ploughs. It was useless to expect that that advice, given openly to the peasants of Ireland, could be done away with by a letter in the newspapers, which many of them, probably, never saw. This should be a warning to the hon. Member, to think before he gave such hateful advice to men who, unfortunately, believed in his teaching. The hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) had talked of another and more successful Hartmann for Ireland than there had been in Russia; and one of the lieutenants of the Land League, Mr. Matthew Harris, had said that if the landlords were shot down like partridges or rabbits, he would not be one who would say "No." [Mr. PARNELL: He withdrew it afterwards.] Could the hon. Member himself withdraw his advice
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    about ploughing up the land? He (Mr. Mitchell Henry) would ask those hon. embers who traduced him, and others who felt that they had a conscience to restrain, to remember that they had maintained in that House, in the face of the revulsion of feeling which had been produced in the minds of hon. Members by the language of those opposite, that there were real grievances of the Irish people which ought to be redressed. He rose to inform the House that the operations of the Land League and the advice given by its Leaders met with almost universal condemnation in Ireland, from North to South, East to West.
    An hon. MEMBER: In Galway?
    MR. MITCHELL HENRY: Yes, in Galway.
    MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: Certainly not.
    MR. MITCHELL HENRY: Yes, by every man who wished to advance the cause of law and order, and who advised the tenants to trust to Constitutional agitation to obtain the redress of their grievances. The Irish Bishops had condemned the Land League. Only the other day one of the most respected Bishops in Ireland, the Bishop of Sligo, issued a pastoral in which he told all those connected with the Land League, who had given immoral advice to the people, that they had pursued a course which was fraught with danger to both body and soul. As the House was well aware, there were numbers of tenants who wished to pay their rents, and who were able to pay them, but who were not allowed to do so, simply in consequence of the advice of hon. Members opposite, who, having succeeded by their machinations and pestilent agitation in reducing the country to its present condition, had the face—some of them had the face—to come to the House and repudiate, if not the very words which they used, yet the natural meaning of their own expressions. Although Parliament was most unwilling to have recourse to coercive measures, why was it, he would ask, that instead of such measures the reform of the Land Laws was not at that moment under discussion? [Mr. CALLAN: Because the Bill is not ready.] He (Mr. Mitchell Henry) believed that when Parliament adjourned it was well understood that not only the Liberal Party, but many Tory Members, were desirous

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    that the Land Question should be settled on the basis of justice and equity. But the hon. Member for the City of Cork, and other hon. Members, had gone through Ireland with the deliberate purpose of preventing the too-confiding people from believing these promises. When the hon. Member for Tipperary (Mr. Dillon), who, if an amiable, was undoubtedly a very dangerous man, told the House that his advice to the Irish people was to make use of revolvers and firearms, and suggested the purchase of arms for the purpose of defying the law, they found another hon. Member (Mr. Parnell) coming there to-day and telling them that his hon. Friend's words, which were not uttered in the heat of debate, were not what they intended to be. The hon. Member for Tipperary himself, however, shook his head and refused to accept the explanation. [Mr. DILLON: I never did anything of the kind.] The hon. Member, he repeated, refused to accept the excuses made for him. In conclusion, he must be allowed to state that although the unfortunate peasants in Ireland had been deluded, they were a people not prone to do ill, and he appealed to the House not to relax its generous efforts in their behalf. He appealed also to the Prime Minister to make the earliest use of the renewed strength which they all rejoiced to believe had been given to him by stating the intentions of the Government. If those were equal to the intentions expressed by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster at Birmingham, they would prove a panacea for the woes of Ireland, and would do away with the necessity for all Coercion Acts. They would, as he believed, convert the peasants into the firm defenders of Constitutional Government, and would give to them a shield which would always preserve them from the machinations of evil men.
    MR. A. M. SULLIVANsaid, the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) had not, from his first sentence to his last, said one word on the merits or demerits of the Bill before the House. The lion. Member had, no doubt, reached the summit of his ambition in having, for the first time in his Parliamentary career, won the plaudits of the House generally, although not, unfortunately, those of his fellow-Representatives for Ireland. The hon. Member had taken
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    advantage of the Bill, and had made a speech not to the Speaker in the Chair, or to that House, but against the real Representatives of Ireland, because he had in his pocket the declared wish of his constituents that he should resign his seat. Since this question arose, there had been several public meetings held in the hon. Gentleman's constituency, and at each of them a resolution had been passed, calling upon him to retire. [Mr. MITCHELL HENRY: I have never received a single requisition.] The hon. Member, who had such a tender conscience, could not find it in his heart and conscience to respond to those invitations; but he had just delivered a discursive speech which had been received with plaudits by those who were wont to walk out of the House when the hon. Member rose to speak. The hon. Member had treated the House to a horrifying story of expressions made use of by one of the traversers at the Dublin trials, to the effect that he would see landlords shot like rabbits without interfering; but although he was cognizant of the surrounding circumstances, and knew the inferences the House would draw from his references, he deliberately suppressed the material part of it—that, namely, which showed the words to have been used in a perfectly innocent manner. What was the truth of the matter?
    MR. SPEAKERrequested the hon. Member to confine himself to the Question.
    MR. A. M. SULLIVANsubmitted that a certain statement having been used as an argument in support of the Bill, he was entitled to show that that statement was false. If the traverser alluded to had really expressed the sentiments ascribed to him, it would be a powerful argument in favour of the Bill; but he (Mr. Sullivan) would give the explanation. The man in question was Matthew Harris, one of the traversers in the recent State trials at Dublin, and, as was admitted by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Law), who had a finer sense of honour than the hon. Member for Galway possessed, the words were intended by him merely to refer to the fact that at the time of the dreadful misdeeds of the Ribbonmen, he had visited the haunts of those evil-doers to prevail upon them to alter their course.

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    He had incurred great peril by these visits. The expression he had made use of was that he regretted the wasted nights he had spent, and said he "would have interfered no more if he saw the landlords shot down like rabbits." By that he meant that it was useless for him to risk his life by such actions, and he would leave the criminals to be dealt with by the authorities, instead of constituting himself a special policeman. Yet the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) knowing this, had misrepresented the expressions of the traverser before that House in the endeavour to shed discredit upon the Irish Party. He had intended that the words he had spoken the other night should be the last against this misguided policy of the Government; but he could not allow misrepresentations of the kind they had listened to to go unchallenged. There were those in Ireland who loved law and order, but who were opposed to coercion, in spite of the hon. Gentleman's assertion to the contrary. For instance, he had received a letter from one of the most respected of the Catholic Prelates of Ireland thanking him and his Colleagues for having opposed the Coercion Act. He would remind the Government that there were abundant precedents for Arms Bills in Ireland; but he challenged the records in Dublin Castle to show any instance where agrarian crime had been hindered by the want of a weapon wherewith to commit it. By stripping Ireland of its arms, while training the youth of England to the use of arms, they were showing an inclination to hold Ireland as a conqueror. What better test could there be of the contentment of the people over whom England ruled than that they should be allowed the liberty which was claimed in the Bill of Rights? He knew that the Bill would be eluded, and that it was powerless to prevent harm. He said, on the faith of letters in his own possession, and from many years' experience, that the one section of Irishmen who would be gratified by this legislation were the irreconcilables and conspirators who had mocked at the Irish Members, and derided them for attempting to keep the people within the lines of Constitutional methods. They had warned the Irish Members that the Government would at last show them only the bared sword and the iron hand of power. It had been the dream
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    and the hope of the Irish Members that that Liberal Government would have pursued the right path in dealing with Ireland; but that hope was now dissipated. The Irish Members had now to face consequences far worse than anyone had ever predicted, for no one would have dared to prophecy that the ancient Forms of Parliament would have been broken and trampled under foot for the purpose of gagging the Irish Members who were struggling for the liberties of their country. Never since the days of De Montfort had a minority to struggle with an odds so terrible. He had also to complain that the coercion debate, in any case likely to inflame feeling in his country, had been made additionally hateful by the tone of right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench. Knowing that there were a few of his (Mr. Sullivan's) Colleagues who were of peculiar views and temper and feeling, they had angled for the intemperate expressions of his Friends, and had played for the passions of some impulsive young Irishmen on those Benches, in order that the expressions of some individual sitting there might be turned to the Ministerial account, and hurled at men whose pain at hearing such language was far more sincere than the simulated feeling of the Treasury Bench. They had succeeded in their purpose, and some of the Irish Members stood in a cruel position. They were denounced in the House by Ministers and in their own country by infuriated men who had been lashed into despair by English misgovernment. But there were men there who objected, and naturally, to being held up as the aiders and abettors of the hateful doctrines of the assassin and the midnight marauder. After the passage of that Bill, he did not see how he and his Friends could go to their countrymen and ask them to have faith any longer in the Government. There was a Land Bill coming; but they dared not discuss it. They only knew of it that it was promised. They could only allude to it incidentally; but the Prime Minister told them it would be introduced when there was an hour on which it could be done in the midst of the crowd of legislation. The night before there was an hour to spare; but it was not a question of urgency that was brought on, while in 10 sentences the Prime Minister could have told his

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    message which was to bring peace and succour to the Irish people. But no, the people must be first whipped, and Ireland had to take her punishment, and to wait as long as the Prime Minister pleased for his beneficent Land Bill. He was sure that the Bill before the House would put an engine of oppression in the hands of the landlords and the police, from which violence and bloodshed might reasonably be expected. He only trusted that the powers of search for arms would be very rarely used. Intercommunication with America and Ireland had had an influence on the peasants of Ireland which he begged them to remember; and he believed any attempt to use the powers of personal search and stoppage on the highway which the Bill gave would lead to scenes which the Government might use as a justification of the measure, but which every Irishman who loved his country would deplore, seeing that it wrecked all hope for the improvement and regeneration of his country. He admitted that the Government had some provocation. The outrages which did happen were all too many for him. He heartily deplored them; but he denied that they offered warrant of justification for stripping his countrymen of every protection of Constitutional liberty. He was sorry to see the Prime Minister should feel it necessary to be in his place after circumstances which none regretted more than himself and his combatant Colleagues, giving his countenance to a Bill which discredited his noble impulses, his generous professions, and which was out of accord and harmony with a life which was known to all as signalized by its love of liberty all over the world. He could only protest once more, and say with confidence that when the Prime Minister came to survey his life, with all its vicissitudes and crowning honours, amongst the passages he would most keenly regret would be the present chapter of his experience in regard to Ireland.
    SIR JOSEPH M'KENNAsaid, he would recall to the recollection of hon. Members the remark of the late Mr. Butt, that the Irish Members were doing good service to their country and to the Government in making known the amount of disaffection in Ireland, and now he Sir Joseph M'Kenna) would say that, notwithstanding the existence of a cer-
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    tain amount of disaffection, which, he supposed, could not be denied, the measures taken by the Government might well have been less stringent, and might have been accompanied by, at least, a sketch of the intended Land Bill. In his opinion, it was a monstrous error on the part of the Government to introduce Coercion Bills before having formulated and explained to that House and the country their views upon the Land Question. If the Government had done that, there would have been no need of anything more than some police regulations. He contended that the suspension of the liberties of the people for 18 months and the passing of that Bill for five years were indefensible. At the present time, however, arguments would be of no avail, and he would, therefore, content himself with voting against the Bill at every stage; not on account of any sympathy with the violent speakers of the Land League, but simply because it went too far in the direction of severity, and, in his opinion, was to be continued in force for too long a time. He should attempt to mitigate the operation of some of the clauses when they got into Committee.
    THE O'DONOGHUEsaid, it was easy for the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) to say that the Irish people were deluded; but it was absurd for the hon. Member to take upon himself to say that he was a better judge of what the interests of Ireland were than the Irish people themselves. The best answer that could be made to the arguments of the hon. Member was to be found in the fact that, at the present time, he could not offer himself in any part of Ireland for election with any chance of success. It was also news to learn from the hon. Gentleman that the Irish Hierarchy were opposed to the Land League. To the best of his (the O'Donoghue's) belief, almost without exception the Catholic Hierarchy were in favour of the objects of the Land League, as enumerated by the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell). The Secretary of State for the Home Department had, in his heavy way, and in laboured rhodomontade, given the country to understand that it was in danger of universal slaughter and general combustion; but that he was at his post, making heroic efforts to save it.
    Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,
    THE O'DONOGHUE, resuming, said, the aim of the right hon. Gentleman, no doubt, was, at any cost, and at any sacrifice of those principles which English statesmen used to hold dear, to poison the mind of the public with charges against the Irish Members. Parliamentary usage would not permit him to stigmatize the statements of the right hon. Gentleman as they deserved, and he could not go beyond saying that they were absolutely without foundation. Some of the Irish Members seemed to regret that the right hon. Gentleman had charge of the Bill; but the fact was one to rejoice over. He (the O'Donoghue) preferred the right hon. Gentleman to any other Minister in this matter. The right hon. Gentleman was the faithful exponent of the majority of the House, especially of the Whigs, in their views as to Ireland. He preferred the gross and palpable exaggeration of the right hon. Gentleman, his coarse clap-trap, his defiant way of waving his pockethand-kerchief, to the ambiguous phrases of the Prime Minister, the mixture of spite and maudlin sympathy of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, or the incoherent eloquence of the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Hartington). The noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) spoke of the valiant Home Secretary as trampling on the Irish Members. The Irish Members were not aware that they had been subjected to any feat of the kind. The truth was that when the Irish Members were flagging, the venomous attacks of the right hon. Gentleman roused them, and they returned to the charge with renewed vigour. But the right hon. Gentleman flattered the hon. Member for Tipperary (Mr. Dillon) at the expense of the hon. Member for the City of Cork. He could not see what was to be gained by indulgence in that transparent "gammon." No one could be so silly as to suppose that either of his hon. Friends was in the least influenced by the opinion entertained of him by the Secretary of State for the Home Department or any of his Colleagues. The Irish people looked on the performance of the right hon. Gentleman in this particular with the most complete ridicule. The right
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    hon. Gentleman had trailed his coat before the Conservative Opposition; but, seeing the feeling he aroused, he at once changed his tone to one of the most abject obsequiousness. The noble Lord the Member for Woodstock deprecated the conduct of the Secretary of State for the Home Department in triumphing over the Irish Members. He was not aware of the grounds the right hon. Gentleman had for exultation. The hon. Member for the City of Cork had done all that it was possible to do with his present following. They never thought they could thwart and defeat the schemes of the Government, and nothing had happened that they did not anticipate. He believed that the tyrannical course the Government had taken in pushing through the coercion measure would have the effect of bringing public opinion to bear upon the questions; and the Irish people would be willing to do and to dare more than they had ever done or dared before. Like all latter-day coercionists, the right hon. Gentleman based his case upon the Charges of the Judges. It was very well known—he (the O'Donoghue) predicted it long ago—that the Judges were preparing the way for coercion. With regard to those delivered some months ago at Assizes in the South and West of Ireland by Mr. Justice Fitzgerald and Mr. Baron Dowse, they clearly established the fact that some, at least, of the Irish Judges were in collusion with the Government to lay the necessary basis for the introduction of the Coercion and Arms Bills. But the Government, notwithstanding that judicial aid, had not been able to show any real or substantial foundation for their proposal and in part completed legislation. The operation of the Arms Bill, therefore, would prove purely vexatious. To justify the measure it should be shown that there was a large quantity of arms in Ireland; and also that there was a large importation going on; but the Government had not shown those things; and, on the other hand, it appeared that an insignificant number of outrages had been committed by means of firearms. It was impossible to connect threatening letters with the possession of arms, and it had been shown that in only three instances out of 1,500 had threatening letters been followed by a resort to firearms.

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    Of the Charges of the Judges, that of Mr. Justice Fitzgerald was the only one in which it was stated directly that there were large quantities of arms in the possession of the people. He (the O'Donoghue) thought the learned Judge was led into exaggeration from his excessive zeal to furnish the Government with a groundwork for their coercive policy. He was far from attributing to the learned Judge any wilful mis-statement; but he thought it likely that he was misled by documents set before him, and that his imagination supplied any deficiencies there were in the Returns. The learned Judge stated that every farmer's son, and every farmer's boy, in the Province of Munster, possessed either a rifle or a revolver. Speaking with an intimate knowledge of the county of Kerry, he (the O'Donoghue) ventured to say that those words did not apply to that county, and he believed their inapplicability to the other counties in Munster could be proved also. The House ought to see that this Bill would be perfectly useless. Those who had arms would conceal them where they would not be found by the emissaries of the Government. From the passing of the Arms Act of 1843, it appeared that there were many then, as now, who believed that arms might be held by the people without indicating any intention to rebel. The passing of the Act was opposed by Mr. Hume, who said that it was the privilege of freemen to carry arms, and that it was degrading to freemen to be deprived of them; by Mr. Shiel who said that Englishmen would not endure an Arms Act; and by Lord Brougham, who said that such an Act was repugnant and hostile to the principles of British liberty, and that he hoped the people would sweep away the Government by whom such a sacrilege on the Constitution was perpetrated. He was a member of the Land League, and he thoroughly approved of its policy; and if the Secretary of State for the Home Department attempted to tell him that, because he did belong to the Land League and agreed in its policy, he favoured assassination, he would be compelled to tell the right hon. Gentleman that he was deliberately stating what was false. The House should not lose sight of what was passing in Ireland. The landlords of Ireland were endeavouring to rob the Irish people by ex-
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    torting rack-rents. Her Majesty's Government brought out police and military, and they said to the farmer—"If you don't give the landlords what they want, we will shoot you." He did not hesitate to say that the Government had dealt in that way with an unarmed people, and were threatening them with murder. The Irish people had used their Constitutional rights in vain, because the House had trampled upon those rights; and if the Irish people had arms, and used them in defence of their homes, the man who charged them with murder for so doing would be held by the whole civilized world to have lied. The Irish people had been advised to resort to the means sanctioned by God, and those means only; and they had been advised to struggle on and trust in God and the justice of their cause for the overthrow of a tyranny which he had no hesitation in saying it would be impious to consider as destined long to endure.
    MR. BIGGARsaid, with reference to the speech of the hon. Member for Galway County (Mr. Mitchell Henry)—he could not call him his hon. Friend after to-night—he did not think the hon. Member was capable of acting in the manner he did. From former experience he thought the hon. Gentleman had some wish to support the cause of the Irish people; but after the exhibition they had that evening, he came to the conclusion that the hon. Member had made up his mind to retire from Irish politics, for undoubtedly he could never think of representing an Irish constituency again. He hoped, in future, the hon. Gentleman would abstain from attempting to speak on behalf of the people of Ireland, for their opinion was diametrically opposed to that of the hon. Member. He denied the hon. Member's first charge that the country had been ruined by the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell); and with regard to the second it was notorious that the intention of the Government was to enslave the Irish people, for they had been busily engaged in that operation for the last six weeks; in fact, they had been trying to do little else ever since the Session began. He must deny that the Land League had counselled physical violence; and as an illustration of the falsehood of that charge, he would say the meetings of the Land League had been always presided over by Roman

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    Catholic priests, who would not tolerate any such counsels if they were given. For his own part, notwithstanding the hon. Gentleman and the accusations which had been made, he could state with perfect truth that he had never uttered a single word at any of the many meetings which he had attended in Ireland recommending a resort to acts of violence. With reference to the speech of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, in reply to that of the hon. Member for Tipperary (Mr. Dillon), he (Mr. Biggar) had listened to that speech, and he understood the hon. Gentleman's meaning to be that though he advised the Irish people to procure rifles, he did not advise them to use them, for he would advise nothing which was beyond his own power to do. As to the allegations of the right hon. Gentleman that the Land League was allied with the Fenians, he was aware that the great proportion of the members of the Land League had no more to do with Fenianism than the right hon. Gentleman himself. Whether the Fenians had anything to do with the Land League or not he was not aware, for they gave him no information on the subject. The hon. Member for the County of Galway, in the course of his speech, referred to the opinion of the clergy, and urged that it was in opposition to the views of the Irish Party; but he could assure the House that the very large proportion of the Bishops and also the clergy in Ireland were in favour of the Land League. He had himself received a complimentary letter upon the subject from one of the Bishops, praising the efforts which had recently been made in connection with the Coercion Act which has just been passed. If the Bishops and clergy held such an opinion of those with whom they lived, any statement in contradiction of it was not entitled to any very great weight. An unfair construction had been placed upon the speech of his hon. Friend the Member for Tipperary, inasmuch as throughout he expressed himself in opposition to civil war. ["Oh, oh!"] His hon. Friend said distinctly he was sorry he was unable to recommend it, and surely that was a very different thing to telling the people to adopt it. The Secretary of State for the Home Department, in his speech, had attempted to produce prejudices against the Irish
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    people, but which would not bear the light of a clear and calm judgment. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of the liberty of England; but the fact was that the liberty of England was the worst in the whole civilized world. The people of England talked a great deal about it, but knew very little of it in reality. There was liberty of speech and freedom of action as long as people did not become troublesome; but as soon as their conduct was annoying, a Coercion Bill was brought in to imprison them. The mode of speech adopted by the right hon. Gentleman should not have been used by a Minister of the Crown, who should exercise somewhat of a judicial mind, without being influenced by the prejudices of persons outside. Instead of such a result, however, the House had been compelled to listen to cases of exaggeration and heated contentions. It had been said that the Bill was not levelled at the liberty of the Irish people; but unless that was so, he could not see what it was levelled at. It was wrong to interfere with the right of any farmer to shoot sparrows and rooks. He had never shot himself, and never expected to do so; if he attempted it, he was afraid he would shoot himself. The Irish farmers, therefore, had a right to object to the Bill; and, in fact, the measure would have the effect of annoying persons who were perfectly innocent of offences without touching persons who should be controlled by it. The hon. Member proceeded to quote from the Blue Book, at considerable length, the particulars of various outrages which had occurred in the county of Cavan.
    MR. SPEAKERsaid, the hon. Member was treating the subject in a most tedious manner. In fact, he was almost trifling with the House. The hon. Member must address himself to the Question before the House.
    MR. BIGGARsaid, he would do so. The charge in one case in the county of Cavan was that a shot was fired into a House, but it did not appear that any injury was done. Indeed, all the cases reported from the county of Cavan seemed to be of a very slight and trivial character.
    MR. O'SHAUGHNESSYsaid, there was little to add to the speech of the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell). He (Mr. O'Shaughnessy) supposed there must be some reason for the

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    course now taken, and that the Bill was not introduced because it was necessary for the preservation of the peace in Ireland, but merely because it was needed to conciliate the support of the Conservative Party, or because the promised Land Bill was not ready. He should be glad to see a Bill passed which would restrict the use of firearms all over the Three Kingdoms; but he objected to that penal legislation, applicable only to one portion of the United Kingdom. Although the Government had not formally abandoned their intention of bringing in the Bill, the language of the Chief Secretary for Ireland on the first Coercion Bill pointed to its postponement, at least for the present, to the Land Bill, and that showed that the Ministry had no well-defined belief in its necessity. It was no settled conviction long entertained that led the Secretary of State for the Home Department to adopt the strong language he used. It was plain that Ministers were too ready to inflict penal legislation on Ireland without regard to its actual necessity. What was most to be regretted, apart from the injustice of the Bill, was that it postponed remedial legislation. The country could not afford to wait much longer for Land Reform. Evictions were threatened in large numbers, trade was reduced to a standstill, and discontent was growing more general and deep-seated every day. But the people would be firm and patient. Their cause was so just, the sympathies of the bulk of English people and the Continental nations were so strong in their favour, that they must be near the prospect of some redress. Words had been spoken by the hon. Member for Tipperary (Mr. Dillon) which were not meant as a deliberate advice to the people of Ireland; but as the hon. Gentleman, through his honesty, enjoyed, in a very high degree, the confidence of the country, what he had said would be carefully weighed by them. He (Mr. O'Shaughnessy) was certain the hon. Member would never have used such words if he had not been irritated and exasperated by the harsh and injudicious language of the right hon. Gentleman. He was sure that if the hon. Member found himself in such a position as he supposed under the temptation to shed blood he would not yield to it. He trusted sincerely that when Irishmen road those words, they would remember
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    the good advice which the hon. Member had given to them on other occasions, when he was not exasperated by cruel language such as had been used against him. The hon. Member for Tipperary had often during the agitation protested against the shedding of human blood. He had been listened to with respect, and he (Mr. O'Shaughnessy) believed his advice had prevented much crime. He trusted Irishmen would continue to follow the advice the Member for Tipperary had given them at many public meetings, and abstain from all violence and bloodshed. It was perfectly useless to do more than to protest against such coercive legislation, and he only rose for the purpose of entering his protest against the Bill.
    MR. CALLANsaid, he did not regret the language used by the Secretary of State for the Home Department in introducing the Bill, because that master of quips and jibes had exposed the policy of the Government in all its naked deformity.
    Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,
    MR. CALLAN, resuming, said, he was sorry the right hon. Gentleman had seen fit to support the Bill in language of such acrimony and exasperation towards Ireland. They were told by the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) that the Bill had been brought about by the Irish Members. He (Mr. Callan) did not think the House attached much value to the remarks of the hon. Member, who, from Manchester to Woodstock and thence to Galway, had boxed the political compass, and deserted all in turn. It was not surprising that the hon. Member had now proved true to his character by deserting the Irish Members. As to the Secretary of State for the Home Department, he seemed to have the instinct of domination when Irish interests were at stake. He (Mr. Callan) could not conceive a Bill more in keeping with the saturnine character of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Chief Legal Adviser of the Government (Mr. Law); and he perfectly agreed with those speakers who had endeavoured to show that the Bill was far more stringent than the Peace Preservation Act of 1875. Under that Act a person who might be sum-

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    marily convicted was entitled to appeal. That power was not given under the Bill. He was not surprised that Conservative Members had supported the Bill, for it would serve as a sort of Game Preservation Act, and would save them keepers. Further than that, there was a clause to the effect that the person appointed to grant licences to have and to carry arms should be bound to grant a licence to any occupier of one or more agricultural holdings who produced a certificate from two justices of the peace. The inference to be drawn from the omission of that clause from the Bill was that the Government would not give power to the local magistrates to make such recommendation, and that everything was to be left to the stipendiary, non-resident Government magistrates. At that time the county in which he (Mr. Callan) resided was proclaimed, and, at the same period, he belonged to a Volunteer corps in England. He believed he was a member of the "Devil's Own."
    MR. SPEAKER: I am at a loss to see the connection of the hon. Member's observations with the Question before the House.
    MR. CALLANsaid, he had intended to show that he, at the time of which he was speaking, attended when about 100 of these applications were made. He found that they were heard privately in the magistrate's room, and not in open Court, and every application made by a Roman Catholic was refused. He (Mr. Callan) supposed that he should not be described even by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland as a "dissolute ruffian." He made an application himself, and he was asked "Who recommends you?" He replied that he required no recommendation, because he was allowed to carry arms in England as a Volunteer, and he held that it would have been a humiliation to have asked for one. He was endeavouring to show the injury which would be inflicted upon the well-to-do farmers in Ireland by the carrying of the Bill. It was a much more stringent Act than that of 1875, and he thought some good reason ought to be shown for departing from the precedent of that time. He should also have some assurance that crime prevailed to more than ordinary extent before an Act of such a character was passed. He hoped
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    that the Bill would be discussed in Committee at such length as to greatly improve it; and that course would have the advantage of giving the Prime Minister every opportunity to consider his Land Bill, the details of which were at present somewhat shadowy.
    Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 144; Noes 37: Majority 107.—(Div. List, No. 108.)
    Main Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 145; Noes 34: Majority 111.—(Div. List, No. 109.)
    Bill read a second time, and committed for Monday next.
    MR. B. T. WILLIAMSinformed the Speaker that he had by mistake got into the wrong Lobby on the last division.

PRESUMPTION OF LIFE (SCOTLAND) BILL.— [BILL 86.]
(Mr. Anderson, Mr. Baxter, Mr. Orr-Ewing, Mr. Preston Bruce, Mr. James Campbell.)
PRESUMPTION OF LIFE (SCOTLAND) BILL.— [BILL 86.]

  SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  MR. ANDERSON, in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, he would explain in a very few words what its object was. The Bill proposed to remove a defect by introducing into the law and practice of Scotland a presumption similar to that in force in England, that when a person had been absent and unheard of for a certain time he had ceased to exist. In Scotland, if an absentee disappeared, and no one knew anything about him, there was no limitation to the presumption of his being alive. In England, he understood, they had a more sensible rule of law. The law was, that if a man was absent from England, and was entirely unheard of for seven years, the presumption became one of death. There was no such law in Scotland; and, in consequence, a man being absent might be presumed to be alive for an indefinite period. Unless 100 years had elapsed from his birth, the Courts would still consider that he was alive. That was a very bad state of the Scotch law, and

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  though the Court of Session had power to consider cases of that sort, it was known the Court required evidence of probable death, and had no rule of law to guide them in cases of mere absence; and therefore people would not go to the Court at all. Consequently, there were hard cases where, after long absence of a person, the successors could not get possession of the property because they could not afford to go to the Court on so doubtful an issue, and provide the caution money that the Court, in cases of success, required. The grievance of the present state of the law was, therefore, one that should not be measured by the cases that came before the Courts, but by the cases that existed, and did not come to Court. His proposition was, that when a man was absent and was entirely unheard of for seven years the law should presume he was dead, in so far as giving to his successors the income and use of any property he might have left, or become entitled to since he left. At the end of another six years, making 13 years' absence in all, and still being entirely unheard of, he proposed that the successors should be enabled to get any movable property left; but if there was any heritable property he gave a further six years, making 19 in all, before that could be obtained, thus following the lines of English law as regards limitation of actions to six years for personal and 12 years for real estate. Those absorbed the chief propositions of the Bill. There was also a proposition relating to absent heirs of entail; but that was only an adjunct to the Bill, though a useful one. However, he did not wish to take up much time at present. As he had said, those were the main provisions of the Bill; and he thought they would commend themselves to Members of the House, especially to English Members, who had already so much more sensible a law. He would, having made that explanation, move the second reading of the Bill.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Anderson.)
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. M'LAREN)confessed he did not altogether agree with his hon. Friend (Mr. Anderson) with regard to his proposed mode of dealing with the subject. At
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  the same time, he would admit that the practice of the Courts of Scotland in dealing with the property of persons who had been absent from the country for some considerable time was not satisfactory, therefore he felt it would be ungracious on the part of a Member like himself, who had not sat long in the House, to oppose the second reading of a Bill introduced, under the circumstances attending the one under notice, by an hon. Member of so much greater experience than himself; and he thought probably, without any departure from the principle, such alterations might be made in Committee as might effect an improvement in the existing state of the law, and assimilate it in some respect to the practice in England. It appeared to him that the period of seven years was much too short a time to fix upon as creating a presumption that a person who had been absent for that time had ceased to exist. The rule of the law in England, which he believed was not an absolute rule, but merely a presumption capable of being overcome by other evidence, related to a very remote period of their history, when travelling was not so general as now, and when there were not so large a number of the population emigrating to Colonial and foreign countries, and there making their homes. Because a person had gone to a Colony and remained unheard of for seven years, that was not sufficient reason to presume he was dead. In assigning the limit, it was not sufficient, without regard to the circumstances attending his previous history, without regard to his age and strength, and the fact that it was not unusual for persons in the Colonies to break off communication for a long period from their friends, to determine that the man was dead, and that his estate should be divided amongst his next of kin; nor did he think that was a sufficient reason why next of kin should have the right to use the property. It would be a serious thing to distribute property, or hand over its usufruct, when the owner had been away for only seven years; but the presumption might arise after a disappearance of 20 years. He quite admitted, however, that the law in Scotland, in treating the case as a question of fact to be decided on its own merits, had often worked unsatisfactorily, and the receivers appointed by the Courts

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  had frequently kept in their hands the estates of persons who had gone abroad for a longer time than was necessary for protecting the interests of such persons. He should not oppose his views to those of the hon. Member in this matter, and would therefore support the second reading, in the hope that, either by a Committee of the Whole House or by a Select Committee, the Bill would be turned into a more perfect shape.
  SIR JOHN HAYthought the suggestion of the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate that the Bill should be referred to a Select Committee was a very sound one, and that such a course would be most advantageous. The hon. Member for Glasgow had introduced the Bill for the purpose of assimilating the law to that of England; and if it was referred to a Select Committee, the differences in the law might be properly considered, and, if possible, the law of the two countries assimilated. As that was the object of the hon. Member, and as the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate agreed with it, he (Sir John Hay) heartily supported the proposition that the Bill be referred to a Select Committee.
  MR. OSBORNE MORGANsaid, he thought the proposed course of referring the Bill to a Select Committee would be the best to take. There was no Statute Law on the subject in England, except the statute relating to bigamy; but it was true that in other cases the Courts, following the analogy of that statute, presumed when a person had not been heard of for seven years he was dead, but that, like every other presumption, it was liable to be rebutted by evidence. The law of England, as far as he knew, had worked exceedingly well, and he never heard any complaint on the subject; and it was, in his opinion, desirable that the law of Scotland should be assimilated, as far as possible, to the law of this country.
  DR. WEBSTERremarked that from experience it was found that no tribunal worked better than that of a Select Committee. Therefore, he entirely agreed with the proposal, and he believed the Profession in Scotland would all agree with it. He did not think, however, that the law in Scotland was so bad as the Mover of the Bill had stated.
  DR. COMMINSopposed the second reading, believing that instead of assimilating the Scotch law to that of England,
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  it would be an advantage if the English law followed that of Scotland. The Bill introduced a principle which was not followed by the law of England. The presumption after the lapse of seven years only existed in the case of a prosecution for bigamy. Administration of the effects of an absent person could only be obtained on satisfactory proof being given to the Court that such a person was presumably dead. There was no rule of law on the subject with regard to personal property. With regard to real property also there was no rule whatever. He thought that if the Bill were allowed to pass, some more scientific principle than existed already might probably be introduced into English law.
  SIR EDWARD COLEBROOKEassumed, from what the hon. and learned Lord Advocate had told the House, that there was a want of principle or a want of rule in the decisions of the Courts, and that therefore it was matter for consideration. If that were the case, the best course would be to refer it to a Select Committee. If it were desirable to assimilate the law of England and Scotland, he should suggest that the right hon. and learned Gentleman himself should bring forward a Motion to that effect. Under the circumstances, he concurred in the proposal to refer it to a Select Committee.
  MR. DAWSONinquired whether seven years' absence in England was really a presumption of death in all cases, or whether this presumption was only applicable in cases of bigamy?
  MR. HINDE PALMERsaid, that seven years' absence of husband or wife would exempt a person marrying again from the penalties attaching to second marriage; but, so far as related to the general law of England, the period of seven years had only been adopted by analogy to the law relating to bigamy. It was by no means a hard-and-fast line that seven years was a presumption of death. The Courts were simply in the habit of taking that period as a foundation of proceeding, and were always careful to ascertain whether or not the presumption could be fairly applied in each individual case. If the rule applied in every instance, without the relaxation applied by the Courts, it would probably be found that the law required amendment; and he was very

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  much inclined to think that, by some such Bill as that under consideration, they might make the law of England more specific and safe; and, under those circumstances, he was very glad that the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate did not object to the principles of the Bill, and wanted to make it as perfect as he could. He should therefore very gladly support the second reading of the Bill, concurring in the suggestion that it should go to a Select Committee. It proposed a very material amendment of the law, which might, to some extent, be adopted in England.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill read a second time, and committed to a Select Committee.

CORONERS (IRELAND) BILL.— [BILL 73.]
(Mr. Healy, Mr. Gray, Mr. Barry.)
CORONERS (IRELAND) BILL.— [BILL 73.]

  SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  MR. HEALY, in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, its object was to increase the payment to Irish Coroners for their services, and to increase their superannuation. It provided for the payment of Coroners in Ireland by salary, instead of, as was the case at the present time, by fees. That method of paying Coroners by salary had been in force in England since 1860. Irish Coroners, at the present time, received 30 s. for each inquest held by them up to a certain amount, the limit being £100 per annum. He knew of a case not long back in which a Coroner had to travel a long distance to attend an inquest, which lasted a month. The total amount he received for this was £2. That, he (Mr. Healy) considered to be quite inadequate remuneration. The Bill, therefore, proposed that the fees payable to Coroners should be added together in each case for the last five years; but at the rate of £2 10 s. per inquest, instead of £1 10 s., and the resulting sum paid as a salary. On an average, this would only amount to about £83 per annum to each Coroner. It was also proposed that a superannuation allowance should be given to every Coroner after 21 years' service, that he should be allowed to appoint a deputy, and that candidates for the office should be taken only from among magistrates, licentiates of medicine, barristers, and
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  solicitors. He moved the second reading of the Bill.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Healy.)
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW), said, he was sorry not to be able to accept the Bill. The Bill was a short one, and altogether inadequate. Any measure to deal with the subject satisfactorily must be much more comprehensive than the present Bill. His main objection was that the Bill was at best of a fragmentary character, and would interfere with the free action of the Ministry in framing their promised measure of re-organization of County Government in Ireland. A Bill for putting the law of Coroners on a new basis was brought in during the time of the late Government, and was fully considered by a Select Committee, who amended it so that it ultimately contained some 60 or 70 clauses. After all, the chief object of the present Bill was to obtain superannuation allowances; but he would remind hon. Members that superannuation did not exist in the English system. He did not think that 30 s. was an insufficient sum for attending an inquest. With respect to the other provisions, he considered that no sufficient guarantees of ability could be offered by freshly-admitted barristers, solicitors, or medical men; but, above all, the Government had to consider whether the office of Coroner should still be retained. He concluded by moving that the Bill be read a second time that day six months.
  Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."—(Mr. Attorney General for Ireland.)
  Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  MR. CALLANappealed to the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland to withdraw his opposition to the Bill, on the understanding that the Committee stage should not be taken for a month, during which time the Grand Juries of Ireland could express their opinions upon it. He objected to the supercilious and official tone adopted by the right hon. and learned Gentleman in opposing the

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  second reading, and complained of the narrow-minded lawyers who formed the Irish Executive objecting to the Bill, which had not been petitioned against by a single person in Ireland.
  DR. COMMINSsaid, there were many instances in England in which Coroners did their work by deputy, and, the necessity being admitted, the appointment and the pay ought to be a public matter, and not one of private arrangement. He urged that there was plenty of room for improvement in the office of Coroner in Ireland, and that it was better to pass a fragmentary measure than to wait for an indefinite time for a comprehensive reform.
  MR. SERJEANT SIMONsupported the Bill, and expressed his inability to understand the ground upon which it was opposed, inasmuch as it merely sought to assimilate the law of Ireland to that of England, by paying Coroners by salary instead of by fees, and to facilitate the appointment of Deputy-Coroners. It afforded English Members an opportunity of showing Irish Members their willingness to redress Irish grievances, and to pass a reform for Ireland which had already been effected in England. At a time when they were passing coercive legislation for Ireland, they ought, if they could, to meet the views of Irish Members on a question of this kind. He therefore trusted that English Members would not vote against this Bill, because it was introduced by an Irish Member—the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy)—but would follow into the Lobby the Irish Members, who were the best judges of what was needed in this matter.
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)said, he was glad to say it was an English and not an Irish Member—namely, the hon. and learned Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Serjeant Simon), who had endeavoured to introduce into the debate an element of bitterness which ought not to exist, and for which there was no foundation. It was rather too much for any Member, and especially an English Member, to suggest that a Bill could be rejected, not upon its merits, but because it was presented by the hon. Member for Wexford. He hoped it was the last time that such a suggestion would be made. The hon. and learned Member had undertaken to explain a Bill which he had failed to comprehend.
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  He (the Solicitor General for Ireland) would consider the measure solely upon its merits, and he would point out that it was not a Bill to reconcile the English and Irish practice. It did not attempt or pretend to do so. It was laid before the House, he apprehended, because it was thought it would be acceptable in Ireland; but he differed from it in principle. Under the law at present provision existed for holding inquests in the absence or illness of the Coroner; and, therefore, in no case, he might say, under the existing system, was an inquest left unheld in Ireland in which it ought to be held, and consequently the object which it was sought to accomplish was already effected without any increased charge upon the public. The Bill was, therefore, in his opinion, as unnecessary as unwise in its proposition as to a Deputy. It was not, in his opinion, wise to make the salary of a Coroner vary in proportion to the number of inquests held. The proper way to proceed was rather to regulate and fix it in accordance with the average duties which he might have to perform. He disapproved of the proposed qualifications, none of which sucured sufficient experience for the discharge of the duty devolving on a Coroner. There was, he might also point out, a strong objection to giving a superannuation allowance to an officer whose time was in no way wholly devoted to the service of the public. A Coroner was free to follow any profession or pursuit; it was only occasionally that he was called upon to act as Coroner; and he was not aware of any case in which such an allowance was made to a person discharging duties such as those to which the Bill related.
  MR. R. N. FOWLERhoped the Secretary of State for the Home Department would see his way to reforming the whole system with regard to the appointment of Coroners in England, for as it existed at present it was a scandal. He had lately had experience of this in an election for the county of Wiltshire. He thought the whole system was bad, and required alteration.
  MR. DAWSONsupported the Bill, on the ground that it would remove a great anomaly. The liberty of Coroners' Courts in Ireland was invaded by the police, who carried off witnesses and, otherwise interfered with the initiatory inquiry which ought to be held in all suspicious

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  cases. At the same time, he quite agreed that the whole system of Coroners' Courts, both in England and Ireland, required revision. He advocated the payment of liberal fixed salaries to Coroners utterly irrespective of the number of inquests they had to hold, or the distance they had to travel in order to fulfil the requirements of the office.
  COLONEL MAKINSthought that, as the Government had so great a difficulty in introducing Bills of their own, they might with advantage accept that Bill and draft some Amendments of their own upon it, such as the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland considered necessary.
  SIR PATRICK O'BRIENsupported the Bill. He recommended the Government to assent to the second reading, and then to refer the Bill to a Committee upstairs. He regretted that the Committee which was appointed some time ago to consider Coroners' duties were not authorized to pay some attention to the duties of Coroners in Ireland. He thought in rural districts dispensary doctors were best qualified to act as Coroners.
  MR. A. M. SULLIVANapproved of the suggestion of the hon. Baronet the Member for King's County (Sir Patrick O'Brien. No doubt the Bill was capable of improvement; and he would therefore appeal to the Government to allow the Bill to be read a second time and referred to a Select Committee. The question had been before the House for 12 years.
  MR. INDERWICKsupported the second reading of the Bill, as it, in his opinion, contained very reasonable clauses.
  MR. MITCHELL HENRYsubmitted that it would be well to refer the Bill to a Select Committee, impartially chosen, as, by the provisions in it as it stood, the franchise would be restricted and dispensary doctors might be appointed Coroners. He objected to that proposition, and also to the superannuation clauses out of the rates. The Bill, if passed as it was now, would be most unpopular in Ireland.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)said, that he had objected to the Bill because it dealt with such a small part of the subject; but he would withdraw his objection on the understanding that the Bill be referred to a Select Committee, and that
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  when the proper time came he should be permitted to move an Instruction to the Committee to inquire into the whole of the present law affecting coroners in Ireland.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Main Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill read a second time, and committed to a Select Committee.
  House adjourned at a quarter after Eleven o'clock till Monday next.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—First Reading—Court of Session (Scotland)* (42).
Third Reading—Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Orders (Clonakilty, &c.)* (31); Local Taxation Returns (Scotland)* (37), and passed.

CANDAHAR—RESOLUTION.
Order of the Day for resuming the adjourned debate on the Earl of Lytton's motion to resolve,
"That nothing in the information laid before this House justifies the announced policy of Her Majesty's Government in regard to Candahar,"
read; debate resumed accordingly.
VISCOUNT CRANBROOK: My Lords, the debate which took place yesterday on this important subject went very fully into all the matters which could be fairly brought into such a discussion. I am happy to think that, at all events in this House, no question has arisen as to the advantage of India to this country, and, on the other hand, of this country to India. Believing, as I do, that the latter is the most important relation, as regards that great Empire, which can possibly exist, and believing that, in the absence of the protection of England and the hold which it has upon that immense Empire, India would fall to pieces and relapse into a state of anarchy, confusion, and bloodshed which it would be terrible to contemplate, I think it is satisfactory that all your Lordships appear to agree in the view that we should do all in our power to maintain that Empire over India, and to confer, as far as we possibly can, the benefits of civilization and advancement. Some exception has been taken to the form of the Motion of my noble Friend upon which we are debating. The noble Earl below the Gangway (the Earl of Derby) seems to think that it does not fully raise the question. If the Government have anything else to produce, any evidence to show that Candahar is of so unimportant a consideration, let that evidence be produced. What we have before us is wholly insufficient to justify that belief, and having said that, we practically say that as far as the facts are before us
228
we think that the abandonment ought not to take place. The question has been put before your Lordships too plainly and simply in the speeches which have been addressed to you to leave any doubt in your Lordships' minds as to what the question before you is at this moment. The question is—taking all present circumstances into consideration—Is it justifiable on the part of the Government to give orders for the evacuation of Candahar? I might look upon it as a question of time, and say that at this time the abandonment of Candahar would be disastrous. I might, on the other hand, put it that the permanent abandonment of Candahar would be permanently disastrous. I may add that the noble Lord (Lord Chelmsford) who spoke last night, who served so long in India, did not in any sense intend to support an immediate abandonment, but that he is of opinion that we ought not to take up a permanent position at Candahar, where we are, and where unquestionably we are able to remain. Now, my Lords, the question between this country and Afghanistan is one which has occupied great attention for many years past, and there is no dispute between political Parties on one point, and that is the great danger which may arise from the relations between Afghanistan and a neighbouring civilized European Power which is gradually approaching it—Russia. Now, my Lords, a great deal has been said of the terms in which noble Lords on this side of the House, and those who advocate Conservative principles, have spoken of the advantage of having a strong, friendly, and independent Afghanistan. My Lords, I wish to ask those who speak in that way, when there has ever been a strong, friendly, and independent Afghanistan? At what period of history has this strong and friendly Government existed? I venture to assert that even in the time of Dost Mahomed, strong as he was—and there has never been a Chief so strong in former days or since—we could place no reliance upon his friendliness in the sense of support. There is no doubt that, having been in India and knowing much of our power, he was most desirous to remain on good terms with us, though at one period he seemed to threaten us with an attack. But even Dost Mahomed had great diffi-

229
culty in reducing the whole country into one united Kingdom; and since that period there has never been a thoroughly friendly and strong Government, except, perhaps, for a short time under Shore Ali. But it may be doubted whether at any time he was sincerely friendly to us. I think, then, my Lords, we may conclude from the evidence before us that in proportion to the strength of Afghanistan is likely to be its unfriendliness. As Shore Ali grew stronger he became more unfriendly, and we found when his capital was at length visited by us, that in the period during which at his instance we had abstained from going there great fortifications and enormous barracks had been constructed, and vast resources accumulated, guns and materials of war. Now, my Lords, I ask for what purpose were these fortifications made and all these munitions gathered together, and during so many years? Not for the purpose of control over Afghanistan, but as a defence in case of need against ourselves, or in preparation for taking part in the plunder of India. Now, my Lords, I should like to state to your Lordships—and in the remarks which I have to make I shall quote as little as possible the opinions of others—what was the opinion of the late Lord Lawrence himself with respect to this question of India and Afghanistan. He said—
"It appears to me, also, that it will always be found exceedingly difficult, for any extended period, to maintain a united and strong Government in Afghanistan. The genius of the Chiefs and people …. is evidence to this effect. A Chief may now and then arise, who may for a time unite the different provinces under one rule, but when he has passed away the tendency again will be to separation. With the single exception of the pressure of a common enemy, and even this circumstance will not always avail, there appear to be no ties to bind the Afghans together. The history of the country is a history of anarchy and civil war."—[Afghanistan, No. 1 (1878), p. 61.]
Then he asks whether any such Chief as Dost Mahomed is likely to come to the front. He did not think there was any such probability; and then in 1869, with respect to the announcement which he received of the wars which were taking place between Shore Ali and his brothers and relations, he took no action. He did not help one against another. He made no attempt to maintain a united Afghanistan. But when one or another rose to the surface in the several Provinces, Lord Lawrence
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immediately recognized him. That shows Lord Lawrence's opinion. I might quote Sir Richard Temple, who expressed the same sentiments long ago, that it would be impossible under all circumstances, or, indeed, in any circumstances, to create and maintain a united Afghanistan. But, my Lords, what is our position now? I want this House and the country to look at the position of Afghanistan in deciding upon this question. It is disintegrated. There is the Chief who has been placed or who has found himself on the Throne of Cabul. He came to the Throne of Cabal with the understanding that he was to have nothing to do with Candahar, and that he occupied Cabul upon those terms. I will further on in my remarks, if I may be allowed, deal with the relations between him and the English Government. He is at Cabul at present. With respect to Balkh, and the country beyond the mountains Wakhan and Badakshan, we hardly know what is taking place, except that the Ruler of Cabul is not in authority there. At Herat, as far as we know, Ayoob Khan is doubtfully, certainly not firmly, established. Candahar is in our hands, and we desire that, at least at present, it should remain so. We see, then, the complete disintegration of Afghanistan is existing, and there is no proposal on the part of the Government, so far as we are aware, to endeavour to make it united? Do they intend to bring together its disunited members? No, far from it; they say their intention is to abstain from all interference in the internal affairs of Afghanistan. Well, my Lords, that being so, let us look at the present condition of affairs. What obstacle is there on the part of any person to prevent you from still holding the place in which you are? There is certainly no just claim on anyone's part to Candahar—certainly not on the part of Abdurrahman, because he was expressly told it was not to be given him. Certainly not on the part of Ayoob Khan, because he was defeated in the attempt to reach it. Of other claims I do not know. I never heard of any being suggested. Now, my Lords, what has been the effect—and this, I think, is one of the most serious considerations to which your Lordships have to address yourselves—of the occupation under Sir Donald Stewart, of Candahar and the district around it assigned to his care?

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The time was when these districts were uninhabitable by peaceable people. They were subjected to raids from the highlanders, who prevented them from following their industries and robbed them of the produce of their toil. But what is the case now? What is the position of these districts—and I include in them those besides Candahar which were assigned to us by the Treaty of Gundamuk—which you propose to abandon and to leave, with respect to the Government which is to hold them and the Chiefs who are to govern, to the process of natural selection, according to the noble Duke (the Duke of Argyll's) theory—to the process which was illustrated by Shore Ali when he murdered his brothers and relations? Such is the fate to which the noble Duke would consign the districts where you have been ruling in peace and prosperity. I will show your Lordships what the condition of those regions under English rule has been, and for that purpose will quote the words of Sir Robert Sandeman, who says—
"After leaving the broad and fertile plains of Sibi and Kutch Gundawa, which, thanks to our protecting power, are rapidly being brought under cultivation, the line enters the Marri Hills, which is a great grazing country, and has already developed a considerable cattle trade with Scinde and the Punjaub. Since our occupation of Quetta the Khan's revenue from that valley has almost doubled, and the condition of the Belooch and Brahni tribes, from their Chiefs downwards, has improved beyond belief. As evidence of this I can point to the Bolan Pass, which, once notorious for the robberies and murders daily perpetrated there is now almost as safe as an Indian highway. Those only who knew it a few years ago can now see a marvellous improvement in the prospects of our assigned territory which would escape the observation of the passing traveller. That the railway will, from the outset, succeed in paying its working expenses, I myself do not doubt, and that ultimately it will Conduce greatly to British interests by increasing and diverting the Central Asian trade to Kurrachee,' is, I believe, equally certain. Politically the advent of the railway at Sibi has already been of the highest value, and its promoters may rejoice at the peace and prosperity it has brought to a large tract of country."
Am I not justified, then, in saying that when you have taken up a position by such means, and induced the people to change their position and to assume one which requires your protection, there is a moral compulsion upon you to protect those whom you have thus brought under your influence and under your rule? The noble Marquess at the head of the India
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Office has himself recognized this, because in one of his recent despatches he admits the necessity of our protecting our friends. Yes, of protecting your friends, who have even fought for you. The Sirdars, the people, the tribes of whom he speaks, may have been your friends, so far as not offering opposition to you in the work of war goes; but you are bound also to protect the peaceable population who have grown up and are thriving under your fostering care. Beware, when you talk of not committing a breach of faith, that you do not commit a greater breach of faith in betraying the confidence that has been reposed in you and consigning to ruin those who have built up their prosperity on your assurances. I hold in my hand a letter written by a gentleman of judgment and intelligence, who was recently travelling through that country, in which he states that it was the fervent hope of all to whom he spoke that the Government would not give up the Kojak, and still more that they would not give up Pishin, and that to do so would be really wicked; that the most solemn assurances had been given to the people that they would not be surrendered to Cabul; that the Candahar party would show them no mercy; that under our rule the country was more contented and peaceful than it had been at any former time; that Khan, Chief, and people were alike satisfied, and that trade was already developing there to a wonderful extent. He adds—
"That the country can be held at little or no cost, and that it gives control over future contingencies in South Afghanistan and further."
My Lords, these are the words of one who was an eye-witness of what has happened under your care; and it is proposed now not only to give up Candahar, but Pishin and Sibi—in fact, all the territory that was assigned to you and which has attained to this condition under your protecting ægis. I was surprised to hear the noble Viscount (Viscount Enfield) say yesterday that a long deliberation had taken place on this question, and that everybody had been consulted who was entitled by knowledge or by authority to give information upon it. Now, the present Government came into Office in April, 1880; and I fearlessly assert that on the 8th of May following the conclusion was come to that Afghanistan was to be

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abandoned and our conquests were to be given up. And I could show from the despatch of the noble Marquess at the head of the India Office that I am stating what is correct. What the noble Marquess wrote to Lord Ripon was this—
"The desire of Her Majesty's Government is.… that Afghan territory should be evacuated whenever it appears possible to entertain the hope that the prospect of a stable Government has been secured. Your Excellency. … will report fully. … as to the manner in which this object may best be attained."—[Afghanistan (1881), No. 1, pp. 31–2.]
What object? The object of abandoning every inch of Afghan territory that we have, and including, therefore, Candahar, Yes; but do not say, then, that you did not come to that conclusion until November. The noble Viscount said that it was at the end of the year that this resolution was come to; but the despatch of the noble Marquess shows that it was come to within three weeks of the present Government's accession to Office. Is that a fair way of dealing with a great question on which you have admitted that the balance of military opinion—although I think you are mistaken in that—is at least equal? Political opinion is of the strongest character in favour of the retention of Candahar; yet in three weeks, three little weeks, all that had been done by the Army and by politicians was to be thrown away by the noble Marquess, who knew so much about Indian affairs in that brief space of time. We have been told of the breaking of promises which were given in bygone days. The Proclamation of Her Majesty in 1858 was addressed to the Princes of India; and I should like to know whether any noble Lord supposes that, if one of the Princes of India were to rebel against the British Government, and were to put his forces in the field and throw himself and his people into collision with the English Power, he would have a right to appeal to a Proclamation that was based, not on the warlike attacks of those Princes on the country, but on their peaceful submission to its rule? But Afghanistan is outside India, and the Proclamation was not addressed to its Ameer. The noble Lord who was lately Viceroy of India I think stated that Lord Ellenborough was against annexation when we withdrew from Afghanistan in 1842. How absurd it is to refer to a state of things so entirely different from
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that which now exists! Why, if Lord Ellenborough said then that he was against annexation generally, did he not subsequently oppose the annexation of the Punjaub and of Scinde, which took place after that period? When Lord Ellenborough could swallow those enormous morsels, he would not have been so disagreeably affected by the small gnat that we wish the Government to swallow now. We say that we have every justification. I know that noble Lords opposite, as the noble Viscount told us last night, think the Afghan War was unjustifiable, and that everything that was done under it was vicious in itself, in its principles, and in its inception. I have said before—although the late Viceroy (the Earl of Northbrook) has condemned me for it—that, supposing for a long period of time you found that this country of Afghanistan, which you had a Treaty with, and which was bound to be friendly with you, was betraying its trust and entering into relations with a foreign country which was supposed to be to a certain extent hostile to your interests, and which admits that at the time in question it was really hostile to them, what would those in power in India, had they been under the noble Earl's Viceroyalty, have done under such circumstances? Would they have taken no steps at all—and, if any, what? Would they have sent an Embassy? They say "No." What course would they have adopted in the case of such a recalcitrant Prince? We did what we could to induce Shore Ali to be at peace and in friendly relations with us. We sent up one who had been a personal friend of his own—Sir Neville Chamberlain. We hoped that our agent would have been welcomed by the Ameer as a friend as well as an Ambassador. We were disappointed. Sir Neville Chamberlain and his escort were turned back, some say without insult—I say with insult, and with a threat of violence, I call that a defiance of the power of England. Even then we gave the Ameer time to repent the course that he had adopted and to take one that was more consonant with our friendly relations. He refused. We did the least that we could in taking possession of points which did not affect his capital—Cabal—because we foresaw that if we marched to his capital that consequences

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might ensue which did ensue when we marched to Cabal. True, in a History of our own Times it is mentioned as a fact that on the first occasion we marched to Cabul. It appears to me to be one of the characteristics of modern history that it neglects its opportunities of being accurate. That history says that we went to Cabul in the first instance. We did not go there, and we did not go for this very reason, that we dreaded disintegrating Afghanistan unnecessarily. Shore Ali fled from his capital which he had prepared for resistance. He did not use the Army that he had consolidated with so much care; but he fled, and he died at a distant spot from his home. Then every effort was made to bring things to an accommodation, and his son, whom we found in power, we treated with, and endeavoured to come to terms, and we did come to terms, and it cannot be denied that we dealt with him with fairness and liberality. No doubt, we had certain districts assigned to us; but the revenues of those districts were assured to the Ameer, and everything was done to make our presence there as little an impediment to his rule as possible. We endeavoured in every way also to show that we were on friendly relations with him. I grieve that I should again have to refer to the terrible catastrophe which occurred at Cabul. I do it only for this purpose—to show how the disintegration of Afghanistan came about, and that contrary to our wishes. Yakoob Khan, I regret to say, from my acquaintance with what took place, could have saved the lives that were destroyed. In my opinion, speaking from the documents that relate to this question, I have no doubt that if he had acted early in the day the lives that were lost would have been saved. It is said that there was no treachery. I have my own opinion. But there was, at least, an imbecility and a want of duty to those whom he had invited to Cabul to be under his protection which made it impossible, after such an act as then took place, to allow him to remain on the Throne. Nay, he did not wish to remain on the Throne; he felt that what he had done caused a distance between him and the English that would make it impossible for him henceforward to be an acceptable Ruler to them, and he abdicated of his own will and departed from that country. It has been said that
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we have no justification for what then occurred, and that we seized Candahar as our own without fair cause. But, my Lords, it is admitted that great efforts were made on the part of many hostile tribes against us, and the noble Duke opposite, I think, went so far as to asert of the whole of Afghanistan. I differ from him there. But upon his argument, if the whole of Afghanistan was hostile to us, surely we had rights of conquest over parts of the country. I need not dwell much upon this subject, because the noble Earl (the Earl of Derby) said, and no one can deny, that we have the right, and in my judgment it is our duty to exercise it. Therefore, I will take it for granted that we have the right to hold the position which we have got in Afghanistan. We have tried nearness to the country—that is to say, by endeavouring to keep up a sort of intercourse through Native messengers—and a disastrous one it has been. We were told that we could not enter the Khyber Pass without at once bringing upon ourselves the Afridis and different tribes there; but what has been the case? We have a most remarkable freedom from anything of a predatory character in the Khyber Pass. There is no doubt there have been incidents, as there always will be incidents in such cases; but now the Government themselves are about to intrust the Afridis with the custody of peace. Why, then, if you can trust these fierce tribes, are you to assume that all the Afghan people are, and ever will be, unfavourable? The noble Earl, in one of his despatches, speaks of the tribes and Chiefs who have been friendly to us, and there are many tribes and Chiefs who have been friendly to us in the neighbourhood of Candahar. The great body of the inhabitants are a peaceable and trading people and only desirous of carrying on trade. These are the people whom you are going to drive away from that city by handing it over to the worst of the population instead of maintaining possession of it for the protection of the best. Nothing astonished me so much as the way in which opinion was cited by the noble Viscount (Viscount Enfield) and by the noble Earl (the Earl of Northbrook) on this subject. Candahar was mentioned alone as a subject upon which military opinions differed, and you might have supposed that Pishin

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had nothing to say to the question, and had never been brought into controversy. But many and many a one of the military opinions which were cited relied upon the possession of Pishin if we moved from Candahar. I should be sorry to occupy your Lordships' time by saying as much as I might do upon these differences of military authorities, to show how much their opinions in reference to giving up Candahar are qualified by what they would retain. Passages were cited from Sir Henry Rawlinson, which, I think, would be much qualified if other passages were read which clearly relate to this question. There can be no doubt or question that Sir Henry Rawlinson is in favour of the continued occupation of Candahar. So is Lord Napier of Magdala without qualification. So are Sir Edwin Johnson and Sir Frederick Haines. And when I speak of the noble Lord (Lord Chelmsford) who addressed us last night, I have said already that I understood his speech to be against a present abandonment and in favour of waiting, at least, till we see what may be done for the security of the country instead of abandoning it to anarchy. The noble Viscount quoted, as he did on a former occasion, a very able and distinguished man, Lieutenant Colonel Browne, as being against occupying Candahar. But on what terms? He was in favour of occupying Pishin with the view of being in the neighbourhood of Candahar; and Pishin, as well as Candahar, is going to be abandoned by the British Government. He was in favour of occupying the Peiwar is the Kuram Valley. I will not dwell upon the noble Viscount's reference to Syndhoor Mahomed, who naturally did not desire to admit us as friends to Candahar that we might keep it as enemies. I need not dwell upon the opinion of Sir Frederick Roberts. But when the noble Lord told us he quoted the last opinion of Sir Donald Stewart, it seems to me he has not read the papers very carefully, because Sir Donald Stewart, in a subsequent Minute, said he agrees heartily with the drift of Sir Frederick Robert's opinion; and it is clear, therefore, that two Generals who have been in command in the country, and know its requirements and its dangers, think it is our duty to keep Candahar at all cost. And it becomes a question what that cost is likely to be hereafter. My excellent
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friend, Sir Erskine Perry, must excuse me for saying I read with astonishment the introduction of my name into one of his papers. In a multitude of counsellors it is said there is safety; but in conversation with one clearly there is not, because if I am to be told I did not dissent because I said nothing, it seems that I am placed in a rather awkward position. But my opinion is comparatively of little importance. In a confidential paper of this kind, it would have been better if Sir Erskine Perry had stated merely his own opinion, and left me to state mine for myself. There has been a remarkable change in the opinions of those who have been connected with India. Sir Richard Temple wrote formerly, very much against what he now approves; but, having seen the change of circumstances, he has changed his opinion on the question. Sir John Strachey, who signed documents long ago in another sense, has now come to a different conclusion. Why I refer to these changes of opinion is because that which has made no impression whatever upon the noble Earl opposite has made a very great impression indeed upon men who have been, and are, intimately connected with India. I waited with some anxiety last night for one of the Cabinet Ministers to rise. I thought that it was a little hard that in a discussion which involved the question whether the Government was right or wrong in this matter, no Cabinet Minister should rise early in the debate to give us some clear statement with regard to the whole policy of the Government upon this point. When the noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Northbrook), who did at length rise, sat down, I thought that we had not gained much from the Cabinet, for he told us nothing in addition to what we all knew before. There was, however, something that was very conspicuous by its absence in his speech. The opinions of Sir Erskine Perry were quoted, gained, as he says, by long study; but what about the opinions of the present Government of India, who are on the spot and have means of information not accessible to us? The noble Marquess at the head of the Government of India was told, in May, 1880, to make a report to the Home Government as to the best mode of carrying out the wishes of the Government for the abandonment of Afghanistan, and he must have re-

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ported; but where is his Report? The Councillors of the Governor General of India are men of the highest eminence, and are engaged in actually administering the government of the country. Well, where are the opinions of the Councillors of the Indian Government on this matter? Is there, with the exception of the noble Earl's name sake (Major Baring), a single one Member of that Council who approves the policy of the Government with regard to this question? I know not what may be the opinion on the subject of Lord Ripon himself; but, judging from the different documents which have been laid before us, I have come to the conclusion that, at all events, not a single Member of the Indian Council except Major Baring is in favour of the Government policy. Major Baring has gone out recently as a Member of the Council of India, and before he went out he contributed a most able pamphlet to the literature on this subject, having been carefully supplied with Papers relating to the matter from the India Office itself, in order that he might do so. Having gone out to India since writing that pamphlet, he, of course, retains the opinion expressed on the subject; but that opinion has not been formed by him from knowledge acquired as one of the Council of India. I want to know, and the country will want to know, why it is that we have not before us the opinion of the present Governor General or any one of his Council? And it would be most important, not only to have the opinions, but the reasons, and any dissents, if there are any, which might be important in such a case as this. There could be no hesitation in telling us why and how they dissented. The noble Earl sat down without giving us any information as to the opinion of the Government of India, and we are left to the assumption that that evidence would not have told in favour of the policy of the Government of India, but that it must be considered in some sense adverse to it. And with regard to Major Baring, he is quite conscious of the difficulties that may arise from the approach of a great Power towards Afghanistan, and he proposed that we should endeavour to stay that approach by diplomacy. He says—"We must find some modus vivendi." What! is a great country like this, which ought to stand on its own strength and to rely
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upon its own right arm, to find some modus vivendi? And such a Councillor have we sent to the assistance of the Governor General of India! The noble Earl told us last night that he quite agreed that the Russian advance had recently become more serious. Ought we not to have taken that fact into account with regard to a change of policy which we may have been initiating since my noble Friend (the Earl of Lytton) wrote his Minute and since the time of the war? Would it not be a folly and a shame if, having watched the great events which have happened since that time, and even within the last few weeks, and the enormous progress which Russia has made, we should not re-consider our position? What did the noble Earl (the Earl of Northbrook) do? He wrote despatches saying that if Russia approached Merv it would then be time for us to send a British officer to Herat, if we could obtain the consent of the Ameer, and to take precautions by means of diplomacy against that advance. And now, what are you going to do? As that advance approaches you, so is your retreat; as are your means of knowledge of what is going on in Central Asia coming towards you, so is your retirement towards ignorance growing more and more. In the face of this great advancing tide, which must go on advancing from the necessities of the case, it is all very well to talk of stopping it by diplomacy and by negotiations with the Government of St. Petersburg. There is nothing to resist the pressure of the great and strong Power now going forward until it comes either to some natural obstacle or until it comes into the presence of an enemy whom it respects, and to whom it will defer and advance no further. You cannot stop the tide by talking to it—that is impossible. This advance is inevitable, and you must prepare for it. You now propose to prepare for it by withdrawing from the scene of action, and from your favourable position, and placing yourselves where you will be kept in ignorance of what is going forward, and where you will be unable to advance at your pleasure. I was struck the other day by a passage in a work which has recently been published, which I thought peculiarly apposite to the present circumstances, and which shows that the art of disturbing the minds of people

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without advancing troops in to the country is no new one. If you substitute England for Austria, and Afghanistan for Italy, the following words of Prince Metternich, in 1819, will not be inappropriate to our present position with regard to Russia:—
"As to Russia, though I do not permit myself to entertain any suspicion against the feelings and views of the Emperor Alexander, which I believe to be sincere and pure. I am yet very far from being easy as to the spirit and principles revealed by his Ministers and innumerable agents in Italy. It is unknown to me whether the latter are or are not provided with instructions from their Court in this respect. In either supposition it is clear that they are actively employed in a way quite contrary to the interests of Austria, and furnish their Court, if ever a war breaks out between Russia and Austria, with the means of preparing very perplexing complications for us on the side of Italy."
The present Government have said that they will allow of no foreign influence except our own being exercised in Afghanistan. I quite agree that is the right thing to do; but I want to know what preparations they have made to carry into action that idea? Diplomacy! I do not wish to go into the question of the good faith of other Governments; but I ask, has diplomacy on this point succeeded hitherto? You have tried it, because you apprehended danger from the Russian advance; and did you succeed in your object? I must say that the noble Earl (the Earl of Northbrook) surprised me last night when he seemed to think that there was nothing in the letters from General Kaufmann which my noble Friend (the Earl of Lytton) read. In referring to them the noble Earl became excited and even humorous. He quoted the well-known case of "Bardell v. Pickwick," and observed that the expression with regard to strengthening the chains of friendship and to confining the alliance between Russia and Afghanistan was like the reference to chops and tomato sauce in that case. Ah! the delicate attentions of General Kaufmann were very superior to those of Pickwick, and if Pickwick had addressed Mrs. Bardell in the insinuating terms of Kaufmann, and had suggested that the chain of friendship between them should be strengthened and their alliance should be consolidated and confirmed the lady would have had much stronger ground for her action for breach of promise.
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The humour would have been lost, and the verdict a certainty. General Kaufmann did not rush into his latest policy, but skilfully prepared for it year after year. The letters of 1870 and 1878 are links in one continuous chain. The noble Earl has said that the whole thing, was an Oriental romance. The noble Earl is unromantic, and appears to have read that Oriental romance with the eyes of a European, and to have failed to see through it. He clearly gave no indications to the noble Duke then at the India Office—I suppose, because he really did not comprehend what was going on, though I doubt if other Indian Officials were as blind. Then, as to the noble Duke, we find during his administration a portentous silence, and a darkness thick as night, which was only illumined once or twice by the flash of an unintelligible telegram. I do not know what the noble Earl may think; but I know what people of common sense will believe, and it is this—that Kaufmann appeared on the scene in 1870 with a view of opening up pleasant communications with the Ameer; then he gave glowing descriptions of the conquests and power of his master; and that at length he began to send confidential messengers, described—not by himself, perhaps, but by the Ameer—as Agents, and who were, in fact, Agents accredited by the Government in Tashkend, and well known as such by the Ameer, Shore Ali Khan, though they may have come from, or been natives of Bokhara, or any other place under Russian influence that may be named. This is shown by letters which passed; but there are others which have not been produced among those published, but to which reference is made. And all the while the increasing Russian influence in Afghanistan Was not only viewed without remonstrance, but with actual encouragement, by the noble Earl the late Viceroy of India, who seemed to regard the whole transaction, as he says, in the light of an Eastern romance, but did not himself seem to have foreseen the probable dênouement of the little romance now revealed to us. We have been told that this Correspondence is of comparatively little importance, and has little or nothing to do with the present state of affairs. I do not know how any person can separate in his own mind the Correspondence which has taken place from

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what is going on; but I would wish to take your Lordships a little further. I think the noble Earl (the Earl of Northbrook) was correct last night when he pointed out that my noble Friend (the Marquess of Salisbury) was slightly in error in his statement of the date at which General Stolieteff was sent to negotiate with the Ameer. I am myself of opinion, after examination of the evidence, that General Stolieteff started to Cabul on the day after the Berlin Conference met, and not on the day following that on which the Treaty, which was the result of the Conference, was signed. I do not wish, however, to enter upon an inquiry as to this point, or to examine as to the curious and hardly creditable productions of the General in the course of the Correspondence which took place, either as to their character or to the places from which they were written. But I wish to point out to your Lordships that Colonel Grodekoff was sent to Afghanistan in the latter end of 1878, and that the course taken by General Kaufmann in 1879 was precisely similar, as shown by his Correspondence in that year with Yakoob Khan, the new Ameer, and Musa Khan, his heir, to that which had been pursued nine years before—namely, to push Russian influence and interest in Afghanistan. I maintain that all the events which occurred in and between those years were links in a long chain of circumstances, and were not, as the noble Earl strove to prove, simply isolated incidents in the course of events. I do not say that in a time of profound peace there will be efforts made to disturb the relations between friendly Powers; but there may be a process of sapping and mining going on in order to prepare a people sought to be influenced for the time when a quarrel is expected to take place, and so to increase the difficulties that would stand in the way of one of the contending Powers. We are told that to remain at Candahar would involve us in perpetual entanglements and difficulties, in the course of which Candahar would, instead of proving useful to us, be, in fact, quite the reverse. What entanglements have the present Government entered into with certain of the Native tribes in the Kurram Valley, that, in any event, they shall retain their independence! Guarantees of a similar kind were given to the Afridis and others
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in the Khyber; and it is on the face of the Papers now before Parliament that the following pledge on the part of the Government was delivered to Abdurrahman by Mr. Lepel Griffin, through the intervention of Sir Donald Stewart:—
"Since the British Government admit no right of interference by foreign Powers in Afghanistan, and since both Russia and Persia are pledged to abstain from all interference with Afghanistan affairs, it is plain that your Highness can have no political relations with any foreign Power except the English, and if any such foreign Power should attempt to interfere in Afghanistan, and if such interference should lead to unprovoked aggression on the Cabul Ruler, then the British Government will be prepared to aid him, if necessary, to repel it, provided that he follows the advice of the British Government in regard to his external relations."—[Afghanistan (1881), No. 1, p. 47.]
That seems to me to mean that, in the event of an invasion of Afghanistan, Her Majesty's Government are prepared to assist Abdurrahman in "repelling" invasion—and I beg the special attention of your Lordships to the word "repelling," for I wish particularly to know whether Her Majesty's Government are placing themselves in a fit position to fulfil the engagement contained in the pledge which I have read. Do they mean to go to the assistance of Abdurrahman in repelling the invasion of Russia or any other possible invader? The noble Viscount (Viscount Enfield) gave a strange notion of the kind of assistance we should afford. He said that an invader would be occupied a long time in completing the conquest of Afghanistan; and in the meantime we could collect our forces, strengthen our communications, and prepare to defend India. Not very promising for a friendly Afghanistan. Now, what have we got if we retain Candahar? The facts are very simple. In the first place, we are now in the country, the people of which have been very submissive. By means of the railway we can procure easy access from our Dominions, in the event of our completing it, to Candahar; and, in the third place, we have, by way of Kurrachee, easy means of communication by sea for the conveyance of either troops or merchandise; and, above all, we have the means of continuing good government in that country. A large portion of the population is not Afghan, and would welcome our stay. I

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quite admit there are plenty who would reject our power; but they would ultimately retire to places where they could carry on their predatory habits rather than attack us. You have instances, in the case of some of the Native tribes, of their turning from cattle-stealing to cattle-grazing, and supplying our commissariat with stores. I do not believe in the notion of untameable races, nor do I think we should abstain from endeavouring to tame them. What have you done with the Bheels? You have made them some of the best soldiers in the Indian Army, or efficient police. And what does Russia do? Those tribes of Turcomans, which are spoken of in such terms of horror as man-stealers and robbers, she turns into the best soldiers; and, if the occasion arises, these Turcoman horsemen will be found in the very front of the Armies of Russia. Can you suppose that by retiring from Afghanistan you will have made the Afghans friends, as the noble Earl says in one of his despatches, or that they will become useful allies to you? Lord Lawrence, in a Minute which he wrote in 1869, used these words—
"I feel no shadow of doubt that if a formidable invasion of India from the West were imminent the Afghans en masse, from the Ameer of the day to the domestic slave of the household, would readily join it."
And they would do this, of course, for the sake of plundering India. I would rather trust to watchfulness on the spot, than to that which led to the ignorance of the meaning and intentions of Russia which was displayed by the noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Northbrook) during the time that he was Viceroy of the Queen in India. There is one circumstance which, above all, seems to me to appeal to the honour of your Lordships' House, and which may well claim to weigh with your Lordships in dealing with this matter. It is on record that Sir Donald Stewart called together an assembly of the Mollahs and Sirdars in and around Candahar, and assured them that in no circumstances would they become subject to Cabul, treating them, in fact, as a people who were to be relieved from Afghan domination, and in a later period assuring not only the Sirdars, but the people, that they might rely upon Her Majesty's Government making no change in their policy. We have heard, my Lords, of the way in which the Go-
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vernment have kept their promises with the Turis and the Afridis. Well, the keeping of one promise does not absolve us if we break another; and I say that Sir Donald Stewart has pledged not only himself, but the Government of his country, to see that Candahar is not abandoned to a Cabul Ruler, nor to the principle of natural selection, through bloody and unnatural strife, of which the noble Duke (the Duke of Argyll) has spoken. It would be unjust, it would be grossly unjust, so to abandon it. The mere apprehension that we are about to retire has occasioned alarm; and I believe that when these Papers are read—as they will be in Afghanistan and in Quetta—it will greatly weaken our influence in Quetta and in all those districts. I do not, my Lords, undervalue the position we would occupy at Quetta; but it is said that we could at any time we require to do so advance from Quetta on Candahar. Will the Khojak Pass, I ask, my Lords, be left open to enable us so to advance? Suppose the Pass to be held by trained Afghan troops led by Russian officers and using arms of precision. Would our advance in such circumstances be so easy as noble Lords opposite seem to believe? I fear it would not, and that our troops might be exposed to disasters such as have, unhappily, been recently witnessed. I say, then, that you are bound not only in honour, but also in point of interest, not to abandon the position which you have achieved by your sword, and which you are able to hold by the sword. I have no doubt that you would be able to hold Candahar hereafter with a smaller n umber of troops than you contemplate. I believe that the result of communication between an intelligent and just people and the people of Candahar would be that you would gain and maintain a beneficial influence over them; and with respect to recruiting, you would find in the neighbourhood the fittest fields from which to draw your troops, and although you might not be able to use them on that spot, you could exchange them and send them to other places where their services might be required. These people are brave, in their way they are chivalrous, they have been predatory, because they are poor; but if you put them in a position to exercise their industry and to acquire wealth, if you enable them to live in prosperity and peace—it may be by

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degrees, it may be little by little, but still gradually they will rise in the scale of manhood, and you will show them that your object is not aggrandizement, not merely security, but that you are anxious to secure the benefit and advantage of your fellow-creatures. My Lords, I come now to a point upon which it is right that I should say a word—namely, the question of cost. I quite admit that I am not very well qualified to judge that question; but I will refer to the opinions of others who are. Much was said with respect to it by the noble Earl (the Earl of Northbrook) last night. Quite forgetting the admonition of his noble Chief, the noble Earl grew quite warm, and abused us for want of prevision, and for mistakes as to the cost of the war in India. I quite admit, my Lords, that a great mistake was made. It was not discovered by the highest authorities in India. It was not discovered by the authorities at the India Office. There was no suggestion that the reports which came home were not accurate. There were many reasons to make us believe that they were fully accurate; and I deeply regret that one who has done so much distinguished service to his country as Sir John Strachey should have been subjected to so much obloquy for the undoubted error he committed. But he made it in good faith, and in consequence of what he believed to be sufficient information. He was mistaken. But, my Lords, when the time comes for Sir John Strachey's financial history to be written, I venture to say it will be proved that he has greatly benefited India by the modes of taxation which he introduced—by his removal of the Customs line, which caused so much hardship and grievance, and by his modification of the Salt Tax, thereby increasing the Revenue and relieving the many who suffered from it. I am sure that those who appreciate the services of Sir John Strachey will say that he sacrificed his health and gave the best of his intellect in the public interest, and that he has been a successful administrator on the whole, although in this instance he would be the first to admit that he should have looked deeper into what was placed before him, and should have examined more closely the figures with which he was furnished—and that is the extent of his offence.
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But what is this cost to be? Sir Henry Norman puts it at £1,500,000 in round numbers; but in that he includes the force at Quetta, and all that is necessary to keep Candahar and the line. That, I think, is not a fair mode of dealing with the question, because the troops are already at Quetta, and it is not proposed to give Quetta up. I cannot help here observing that Sir Henry Norman is in favour of the abandonment of Quetta, that he urges our retirement from Afghanistan on the high grounds of morality; and yet, with a strange inconsistency, proposes to hand over Sibi to the Khan of Khelat, a territory our title to which, he argues, we have no claim. I find, however, that Sir Richard Temple, who has held the Office of Finance Minister in India, stated the other day that the cost of occupying Candahar would not be anything like the sum at which it is estimated by the Government. I find, too, that in a pamphlet, written by General Sir Henry Green, which was put into my hand last night, he estimates the cost at £345,000. Sir Henry Green gives the figures, and they can be criticized by any Member of the Government. We are told that there would be great cost incurred for buildings. No doubt, that would be the case if you were pledged to retire to Pishin; but I believe that there are many buildings in Candahar which are suitable for barracks, and could be so used by the soldiers. I saw the other day a letter from a well-informed correspondent, in which he spoke of the preference of the troops for Candahar, with its advantages of bazaars, &c.; and I cannot understand how recruiting for isolated districts would be more popular. But I need not enter into that. The question is Candahar, and I say that there are means there for housing large numbers of troops without it being necessary to incur any great expense. My Lords, I have to apologize for detaining your Lordships; but I feel that this is a question not of Party politics. I deprecate nothing so much as that there should be lines drawn, with respect to Indian politics, by Party limits in your Lordships' House. We have all, I trust, of all Parties learned wisdom from what has taken place. Our Mission may have been a failure; but circumstances have arisen which could not have been foreseen by human vision. Are we now

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to give up that which we consider necessary for the defence of our interests? We came to the conclusion that a good way to maintain the interests of India—I will not say the best way—was to retain the position we had achieved. As I have said, we are there, the place is healthy—it may be made strong. We believe—I know there are differences of opinion on the subject—that we should strengthen our influence, both in India, and Afghanistan, by our retention of that place. We believe that we should benefit the people of Candahar by our sway, that we should introduce trade and commerce—I do not say how much; there are those who are connected with commerce who believe it would be considerable. Mr. Andrews, the Chairman of the Scinde Railway, believes that we should introduce large commerce if the railway were completed and joined to his line. I will not put forward my prevision, lest on a future occasion the noble Earl should show it to be defective. But, at the same time, these are advantages, my Lords, to which, to a certain extent, we have a right to look forward. I believe we should strengthen the hands of Abdurrahman at Cabul; and he never wished, never expressed a wish, at all events, for Candahar. I have spoken of the improvements that have taken place in agriculture, and that I think is one of the most important improvements, because from it our chief commissariat could be supplied. It is a land rich in fruits, and in all kinds of grain, and by improving the valleys they might supply almost all the necessaries for an army; thus getting rid of a chief source of expense—transport. But, besides this, there would be the effect of the railway which is, and has been, a material civilizer, and the best means ever used for bringing countries together. By its means could be acquired a road from Afghanistan to the sea. If that were secured, you would find that many people would settle at Candahar under our protection, and that with that railway and its means of transport, would grow up a condition of prosperity and peace which even Candahar, which is celebrated in the old annals of Asia, has never before seen. It was not without reason that Candahar has always been an object of controversy. Do not, my Lords, believe that it has been selected at haphazard, but
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rather as a place from which great advantages would arise to its possessors. Then, also, we might "harden," as I may call it, the Frontier of Afghanistan against Russia. We might show that there was somebody there who meant to maintain the independence of the Frontier, and that Russia might come to a certain extent and no further. It would be an assertion, not in words only, that we did not mean to allow any foreign influence in Afghanistan, because we placed our own there. My Lords, with these reasons I might stop, and say that Candahar was a fit object for us to retain. But I have something to say with reference to the speech of the noble Earl who concluded late last night. I want to know—I think this House before it votes, and the country has a right to know—to whom and for what purpose are you going to surrender Candahar? Who is to have it? The noble Marquess said it was to be abandoned when a regular Government was established there. Well, my Lords, a Cabinet Minister has spoken, and he has not even hinted into whose hands it is about to fall. We are to abandon it, and Candahar is to be the prize of some successful conqueror, wading through blood and cruelties, which, if they ensue, will be on the heads of those who could have prevented it, and have not done so. I believe that by holding this position we deter advances which are dangerous; we prevent the intrusion of agents who will sap the opinions of the Afghan people, and who may make them ready, on some future occasion, to join in a crusade against us. It is with a view to make India peaceable and secure on the North-West Frontier, as she is secure on all others, that I support this Motion; and when she has that security she may devote herself to the interests of peace and the improvement of her finances, and, as I believe, in union with England, those blessings will be hers which will be the highest reward to the country which governs her.
THE DUKE OF ARGYLL: My Lords, I wish, in the first place, to express substantial agreement with an observation which fell from the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Salisbury) last night in respect to the duty and function of this House. I should be sorry to see the day when Members of this House as individuals, or the House as a body, would

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be reluctant to express any opinion on public affairs on the mere ground that it would not be likely to be coincident with the opinion of the other House of Parliament, or with the existing opinion of the public out-of-doors. I think it is the function and the duty of this House and every Member of it to do that which the noble Marquess said—namely, to influence for the better, as he thinks it, the opinion of this country upon great questions of public concern. I have through the favour and indulgence of this House, for which I can never be sufficiently grateful, taken opportunities to express opinions which I knew to be unpopular in this House at the time, and with respect to which I had doubts whether they were popular out-of-doors. And if this is the right of individual Members, it is still more the right of the House as a public body. I, therefore, do not object to the Motion of the noble Earl on that account, nor on account of its mere form, though it is eminently ambiguous; and if noble Lords opposite succeeded to power to-morrow they might withdraw from Candahar, though having voted to-night for the Motion. But I accept the Motion as one of Censure on the present Government for not annexing and absorbing into the Dominions of the Queen the larger and richer part of the Kingdom of Afghanistan. The first observation that occurs to me is that the Members of Her Majesty's Opposition are endeavouring to censure us for not adopting a policy which they themselves had not adopted when they left Office, 11 months ago. Up to the last moment of their official existence they declared their intention not to absorb any part of Afghanistan; and, therefore, they are now asking the House of Lords to commit itself to an abstract proposition with respect to a policy to which they refused to be a party when in Office, and which, after voting for this Motion, they might repudiate the next day. This is a Motion—I cannot doubt it after the speech we have just heard—condemning the Government for not annexing, not only the Southern and richer part of Afghanistan, but the whole of it. It is impossible, after listening to the speech of the noble Viscount, not to see that every one of his arguments goes directly to the absorption of the whole of Afghanistan, and making our English
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Empire conterminous with the future Empire of Russia in the East. I wish that the people of this country should understand that this is the Motion before the House. The Conservative Party, as a Party, desire to pledge the House, as far as they can, to a policy which would commit the country to the final absorption and annexation of the whole of the Kingdom of Afghanistan. ["No!"] I shall proceed to establish the legitimacy of the inference which I draw; but I wish for a short time to raise the question above any mere dispute between two Parties. I agree with the noble Viscount that now, for the first time for many years, the foreign policy of the Indian Government has been brought into Party debate. For the last 30 or 40 years there has been no division of opinion between the two Parties as to the foreign policy of the Indian Government. Now, the real question the House and the public have a right to ask is, What is the best Frontier for India in the circumstances in which we are placed with regard to the probable advance of Russia? I should be glad if we could approach that question without reference to the debates of the last few years. But I do not think that possible, for the speech of the late Viceroy was devoted, for an hour and a-half to defending his own policy with regard to Afghanistan. But I should be glad if we could disabuse our minds of all preconceived notions on this matter. I do not know that we on this side are subject to any special prejudice with regard to it, except that in Opposition we denounced the war as inexpedient and unjust. But it does not follow that we should not accept the results of a war of which we disapproved. But there are strong feelings in favour of the Motion. In the first place, there is a feeling that we should retain what we possess. Beyond that, there is the instinct of dominion—the most powerful feeling which can affect a powerful State. It is a feeling which exists, not only in States, but in individuals. Many Members of this House know the expression used in Scotland, which is "earth-hunger," as regards individuals—the desire to add field to field, and house to house, a strong feeling among many of us, and among nations it is also strong. I can conceive no better remedy for it in an individual than that he should be an Irish

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proprietor, or in a nation than that she should possess Afghanistan. Then you have the glorious instincts of the great soldier profession. No soldier likes to retreat. The mere word "retreat" raises a prejudice against the consideration of this question. If we wish to free our minds from all prejudice we must look at the question of the military Frontier of India in the light of past events and of the progress of opinion in this country. The noble Marquess last night got rid very conveniently of all the history of opinion on this subject by saying—"It is no use going back to the past because the circumstances of the case are now absolutely different." But that is only partially true. I concur with the noble Marquess in this, that the great danger to India lies in the parallel advance of Russia in the direction of Persia, and in her influence over that State. The noble Marquess went the length of saying that at no time was the influence of Russia more paramount at Teheran than at the present moment. But with regard to this matter the circumstances of the case have hardly changed since the first Afghan War. The influence of Russia over Persia is the danger which has been foreseen and made the subject of debate in Indian councils for the last 40 years, and there is not a single argument in the remarks of the noble Marquess in connection with this subject which has not been used over and over again by the able and experienced men who have, during the last 40 years, considered this question in India and at home. Now, I wish to direct the attention of the House to the history of opinion on this matter. The question of the danger to India from Russian aggression through her influence with Persia, and through a possible junction with Persia, was raised in India in 1856 and 1857 by a very distinguished man—namely, General Sir John Jacob, who was the prophet and apostle of the forward school of Indian Frontier policy. I will read the advice which he gave Lord Canning as to the course which should be followed in the event of Russia making an alliance with Persia and threatening our Afghan Frontiers. His receipt was that we should occupy Quetta with a considerable force. I need not remind your Lordships that the question of the occupation of Quetta stands upon an absolutely different footing from the
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question of the occupation of any part of Afghanistan. The people are friendly to us, and their Ruler is friendly to us, and we have by Treaty a right to occupy Quetta under certain conditions in certain circumstances. Well, these are the words of General Jacob—
"If we really intend to be fair and just to all men and to conduct our proceedings towards other States according to the principles which guide the intercourse of honest men in private life, the true interests of Afghanistan must be one with our own. … If all distrust of us be removed from the Afghan mind, an invasion of India will be impossible. The country has now justly decided that the former war was in itself a great crime and a great error, and in carrying it out the principles of justice, honesty, and common sense were ignored and offended against. … To attempt to compete with Orientals in cunning is to insure failure. We command Asiatics by high moral power alone."
I commend these observations of the apostle of the forward school to the attention of the noble Marquess, whose cynical remarks upon the power of moral character and upon moral conduct rang in the ears of your Lordships last night. It was then the opinion of General Jacob that the best Frontier for India was the existing Frontier, if we cultivated friendly relations with the Afghans and treated them with perfect justice and candour, and if we maintained a powerful garrison at Quetta. I will not mention the opinion of Lord Lawrence, whom I knew intimately for 20 years, and whose judicial mind and massive intellect made the deepest impression upon me. His opinions are so well known and so discounted by the smaller men in high places who have been yelping at his heels, that I will not quote them in this debate. I will refer to men who are not included in the Lawrence school, and, first, to Lord Canning, who had before him the opinion of General Jacob. Although at the time Persia and Russia were advancing upon Herat, or, more correctly, the Persian forces, at the supposed instigation of Russia, were advancing upon Herat, Lord Canning did not hesitate to say—
"I will go the length of stating that in no circumstances can it consist with sound policy that the British army should cross the boundary of Afghanistan. I will not discuss whether it would be wise to send British forces beyond our Western Frontier in anticipation of an advance of enemy against our territory. The occurrence certainly cannot come upon us without a long note of preparation."

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Those words were the keynote of the policy pursued for the last 30 years. It has been grievously and grossly misrepresented in the speeches of noble Lords opposite, who only mention the policy called the Lawrence policy for the purpose of caricaturing it. Then I will take Sir John Peter Grant, one of the leading Councillors of the Government of Lord Dalhousie, who successfully held his own in debate against the powerful intellect and determined character of that Viceroy. He declared his emphatic agreement with Lord Canning, and he said that, even at that dangerous moment, he would not move a man across the existing Frontier. My Lords, some years passed, and the same great questions of Indian policy were raised in connection with another series of events. Noble Lords opposite talk as if the advance of Russia has been especially great during the last few years. That is a pure historical delusion. The great advances of Russia in Central Asia took place between 1864 and 1869. The steps of her progress were then indeed gigantic, and she advanced to the Valley of the Oxus. Thus has she established her Empire march by march. In these circumstances, the question was again raised by Sir Henry Lawrence in a celebrated Memorandum. That brings us to 1867–8. Now, my Lords, the discussion which that Memorandum raised was taken part in by some of the most eminent men who have ever served the State in either a civil or military capacity, and, among others, by the late Lord Sandhurst. My noble Friend who spoke last night upon that subject spoke in a manner to which justice was done, and no more than justice, by the noble Viscount who spoke last. But I wish to say a word about my own impression as to the qualifications of the late Lord Sandhurst. He was not a more soldier—but eminently a statesman. I shall never forget the interest which the late Lord Clarendon attached—and which we all who were in the Cabinet of Lord Aberdeen attached—to the despatches received from General Mansfield, who was at that time Consul General at Warsaw. Of all the despatches, diplomatic or military, which in recent times have been written, there were none to be compared in importance and value to those which we received from General Mansfield at Warsaw. He obtained for us
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valuable information, and the information thus obtained relating to the affairs of the whole of Central Europe was an important element in the consideration of that Administration. When General Mansfield went to India, he was one of the leading Members of Lord Lawrence's Council. But he was by no means under the personal influence of Lord Lawrence. He was independent in his opinions. General Mansfield informed us with regard to the question of our military Frontier—a question which arose in consequence of the advance of Russia—that it was very questionable whether it was worth while to advance beyond the Frontier, even if the Russians were at Cabul or Candahar. That was a strong opinion, and one to which I do not wish to commit myself. I only quote it as the opinion of a great soldier and statesman. So confident was Lord Sandhurst in the strength of our military Frontier. I will refer to another name which will be familiar to many Members of this House—the name of a man who certainly was not under the influence of Lord Lawrence, but who was, I believe, on many occasions opposed to Lord Lawrence. I refer to Sir Henry Durant. What does he say in 1867, looking to the progress of Russia at that time? He said that our Frontier on the Indus was unmistakably strong, and that we could seize Afghanistan at any time, if it were thought advisable or necessary. That was the opinion of a distinguished man and great soldier. My Lords, the noble Earl opposite asked me last night why no opinion of Lord Mayo had been recorded. I do not know whether there are any public despatches dealing with the question of Central Asia. There may have been some, but they were entirely subordinate to other questions. But I have a private letter from Lord Mayo bearing on this question, from winch I will quote to the House. That letter may be seen by any noble Lord who desires it, as, indeed, may any letters from which I quote, because I never quote private correspondence without being willing to show the whole of it. On the 4th of April, just after the Umballa Conference, Lord Mayo wrote—
"Sanguine politicians at home will be disappointed that what is termed the Central Asian question did not prominently appear at Umballa. I am sure you will agree with me that it was a great blessing that it did not. I certainly determined not to broach it, because I am of

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opinion that it is most desirable to show the Ameer that we have no apprehensions of danger from Russia through Cabul."
My Lords, I commend this opinion of Lord Mayo to the careful consideration of noble Lords opposite. They have political confidence in Lord Mayo; he was one of their Party; and he, in the letter I have referred to, expresses his emphatic condemnation of the nervousness and timidity which have of late been so much manifested in reference to Russian intrigues against India. I cannot conceive anything better calculated to promote the interests of Russia than the language which we have heard from noble Lords opposite in this matter. "Look how the House of Lords is frightened at our approach." That is the language which Russia would adopt to the Native States and Princes of India. I will now give another authority, and that is no less a person than the noble Marquess opposite (the Marquess of Salisbury). The noble Marquess, in one of his luminous moments, used remarkable language; and it is still more remarkable that that language was used in the Instructions givers to the noble Earl opposite on his departure for India. The noble Marquess, in those Instructions, said—
"Sentiments of irritation and alarm at the advancing power of Russia find frequent expression through the English Press, in language which, if taken by Shore Ali for a revelation of the mind of the English Government must have been long accumulating in his mind impressions unfavourable to its confidence in British power."—[Afghanistan, No. 1, (1878). p. 157.]
And the noble Marquess refers to the British Parliament as the only authority which was to guide him. Still, my Lords, if that was the impression produced in India by the Press, what effect must be produced by the language of the noble Marquess himself, who has been Secretary of State for India, Foreign Secretary, and a Plenipotentiary at Constantinople? If the highest authority in this country preaches in the House of Lords that this advance of the Russians makes him tremble in his shoes for the safety of our Indian Empire—preaches the language of fear—what will be the effect? Well, now, my Lords, I will quote another authority. Noble Lords opposite would laugh at opinions coming from this side of the House. They generally caricature, and then laugh at them. But they will not laugh
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at this. What I am going to read deals with the question whether it is desirable to enter upon communications with the Russian Government in order to obviate inconvenience that might be apprehended from the progress of that Power in Central Asia. The words are—
"Upon this point Her Majesty's Government see no reason for any uneasiness or jealousy. The conquests which Russia has made, and which she is apparently still making, appear to be the natural result of circumstances in which she finds herself placed."
I observe that there is an acknowledgment then that the advance of Russia was still going on. Then follows a statement that there was no need of suspicion or alarm on the part of the Government. Those are the words of Sir Stafford Northcote, and it was contained in the first Paper put into my hands when I went to the India Office to ask for Papers. So much for the authorities from 1867 to 1869. I now turn to the progress of opinion on this matter during the Administration of the noble Earl opposite. I do not know whether the noble Earl recollects the allusions he made last night to the drummers and trumpeters of the Liberal Party. But a few days ago there appeared in The Times, in large type such as befitted the occasion, a communication from the noble Earl, together with a letter from Professor Vambery. Now, my Lords, I think some of you will remember that on one occasion the noble Earl at the head of the late Government expressed extreme contempt at professors in general. I cannot myself say that I entertain any such feelings. But I must say that I should not go for advice on such a question to a Magyar, who is the embodiment of Magyar antipathies against Slavs. I do not know that the opinion of Professor Vambery was much wanted in this country. I certainly am not inclined to allow the Magyars to satisfy their hatred of the Slays at the expense of Indian taxpayers and of the English public. But this wonderful letter certainly acts as the "Drummer and Trumpeter" of the character of the noble Earl. I need not quote the wonderful Minute now for the first time published, and which I confess I never saw in the Blue Book. The noble Earl complained very much of the publication of this Minute; but I cannot conceive on what grounds. The Minutes of previous Vice-

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roys have been published, everything contributed by anyone in authority has been published to the world; and I know not why one who looks on himself as the Saviour of India should not enlighten us on this question. I think that is a most legitimate course of proceeding. The noble Viscount to-night remarked on the gloomy silence which he said I maintained on the subject of Central Asia while I was five years at the India Office. Well, there is nothing in my whole public life on which I more congratulate myself than on my silence on that matter. If I had been induced to pen such documents as these I am not sure that I should consider I had contributed much to the wisdom of the country or to the guidance of Parliament. This mass of records seems to me to be one long record of prophecies which have been falsified, of fears that are childish and ridiculous, and of a policy which no prudent Government would recommend. In them the noble Earl distinctly contemplates a division of Afghanistan between Russia and England. But that is not all. The noble Earl said that whatever the Russian views might be, there could be little doubt that she would consent to our occupation of Cabul and Southern Afghanistan, if thereby she could secure the Oxus Provinces—that if the arrangement was to be an amicable one Russia must be offered some such terms as that, because it was evident she would not accept an arrangement so inimical to her own interests as would be formed by final and absolute exclusion from the Northern Provinces of Afghanistan. Here we have the noble Earl, the Saviour of India against Russia, deliberately contemplating the giving over to Russia of the Provinces of Afghanistan which border on the Oxus, and which lie between the Oxus and the Hindoo Kush. I will only say this—that although I may have left on record no words on this subject, there was nothing which I and my Colleagues at the India Office were more anxious about than that Russia should not interfere in any part of Afghanistan south of the Oxus, that the whole of Afghanistan to the Oxus should belong to the Ameer. Yet here we have this contemplated bargain between the noble Earl and Russia, under which the Hindu Kush was to be our boundary, and the whole of Afghanistan beyond that point was to be delivered
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over to Russia. There is another recommendation in this wonderful Minute, which I may refer to as exhibiting the great wisdom of the noble Earl in regard to our policy towards Afghanistan. The noble Earl said that where it was necessary to establish themselves they would do so by the location of British Agencies. That is to say, he recommends that we should have a great number of men placed very much in the position of the late Sir Louis Cavagnari, where they are almost certain to be murdered. Before I proceed to make some observations on the further development of the noble Earl's policy, I want to say a few words about this wonderful Cabul Correspondence; and I must say that in his account of it there was much that was wholly imaginative. Those communications began in 1870, and the very first of them so alarmed the Ameer that he consulted Lord Mayo. The noble Earl took great care to conceal that fact. He attacked my noble Friend behind me (the Earl of Northbrook) for having been ignorant and blind to this Correspondence. He took care to omit the fact that the first reference was to Lord Mayo, and that the first assurance given to the Ameer in respect to it came from Lord Mayo. Lord Mayo said that it was a mere letter of civility, and he actually suggested the draft of the reply. That is the history of all the subsequent communications up to a certain date. The only Governor General who suggested a doubt as to one letter was my noble Friend (the Earl of Northbrook); but hardly any notice of it was taken, I believe, by the Government at the time. There was an important change which took place in that Correspondence from a certain date; and when the noble Viscount (Viscount Cranbrook) spoke of the inaccuracy of modern history he gave a singular illustration of it himself. He omitted all reference to the conduct of the late Government towards the late Shore Ali. I am not going into what we are told is res judicata. But why did the noble Earl re-open it yesterday? If he had a right to re-open it I suppose I have a right to do so too; but I will only say that your Lordships will observe that in this Correspondence there was a total and absolute change of tone on the part of the Ameer for the first time in April or in August, 1878, and that was at the time when for more

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than a year the noble Earl opposite had declared that he had taken steps which would throw the Ameer into the arms of Russia. I admit that when the noble Earl went as Viceroy to India the Ameer was sullen; but that makes no real difference to the argument on this matter, the gist of which the noble Earl did not seem to comprehend. When you are dealing with a man whose grievances are purely imaginary, it can hardly be a right mode of proceeding to give him other causes of grievance which are not imaginary, but very real and solid. And my complaint against the noble Earl is that from the moment when he arrived in India he pursued towards the Ameer a policy summed up in the words of they noble Marquess opposite (the Marquess of Salisbury)—a policy of "ostensible pretexts," a policy which was not straightforward, which professed to give him what he asked, and yet did not give it, which violated engagements by insisting that he should receive European Residents in his country, and which finally took the form of such steps as, by the noble Earl's own confession, would throw the Ameer, and which he knew would throw him, into the arms of Russia. The noble Earl said it was a mere inference of mine that it would throw the Ameer into the arms of Russia. Nothing of the kind. It was the distinct statement of the noble Earl himself. He said that the Peshawur Conference being broken up, that would naturally throw him into the arms of Russia. The noble Earl made a statement to the Vakeel at Simla with reference to our strength. He pointed out that the position of England was so strong that before Russia could move a single regiment to the Ameer's support we could overwhelm him; and he supported that statement by giving in detail the relative disposition of the Forces of Russia and England. I should very much like him to produce that document. That conversation took place with the Vakeel in October, 1876. If the noble Earl would produce that document he would produce a most useful argument in this case, and one which would tend to mitigate the fears of noble Lords opposite as to the weakness of England and the strength of Russia. In May, 1877, the noble Earl said he was confident in the paramount strength of our position. That, my Lords, is our whole case. Then
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came the invasion of Afghanistan. So rapid was our success in the war, that three weeks the contest was practically over, and in three months the whole of the Western part of Afghanistan, close up to Cabal, was in the hands of the British Army. A confident opinion was expressed by the late Government that the scientific Frontier obtained by the Treaty of Gandamak made our Indian Empire perfectly secure. I need not trouble the House with quotations; but Member after Member of the late Government pointed out that whatever might happen at Cabul we were now secure. Then came the murder of Sir Louis Cavagnari and the advance to Cabul. What was the plan of the Indian Government then? Both Cabul and Candahar were to be put under Native Rulers, with British armies to support them. That was the third plan of the noble Earl. It lasted a very short time. So late as January, 1880, the noble Earl declared that it was the unanimous opinion of his Military Councillors that we should not materially extend our military Frontiers, or extend the range of our responsibilities in Afghanistan. And yet it was in connection with that plan that it was proposed to put Native Princes both at Candahar and at Cabul supported by British armies. The moment Abdurrahman appeared the noble Earl offered to him the Throne of Afghanistan. Subsequently, the noble Earl retracted that offer, and said Abdurrahman was to occupy only the throne of Cabul. The noble Earl yesterday had the courage to say that the present Government came into Office with a vast advantage with regard to the scientific Frontier. Sir Frederick Roberts last year gave to the Ameer as distinct an intimation as could be given by a public man that it was not our intention to remain in any part of Afghanistan. On looking at the next page of the noble Earl's volume, I find that he set up the Wali of Candahar. He was a mere puppet in your hands; and it is a remarkable fact that Shore Ali Khan, in accepting the Waliship, distinctly said he accepted it on the part of the British Government, and that he was a Representative of the British Government. What was the result of that policy of the noble Earl? Why, the Wali took part against us. I cannot help observing upon the extraordinary

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circumstance that anyone so distinguished as Sir Henry Rawlinson and others should recommend a separation between the civil and the military administration of Afghanistan. Afghanistan is not a country in which there is an organized administration separate from the military administration of the country. It is idle to talk of Afghanistan as a country in which there are policemen and postmen, and County Court Judges and higher Judges, and all the paraphernalia of civil administration. It is a country in which every man is a soldier. It is a military government; and it is impossible that you can occupy this country and not administer both its civil and its military affairs. Therefore, the argument that you are to set up puppets as a policy, which was the policy of the late Government up to the time when they left Office, is vain, because that is a policy which must break down. I believe I have shown, by the history of the matter, that really the late Government had no policy whatever. It was a mere policy of drift. From month to month, even from week to week, they knew not what their policy would be. Any invasion of Afghanistan, any attempt to appropriate any part of it, would end in a complete destruction of the Kingdom, and necessitate an English administration of the whole of that country. Your policy has completely broken down in all cases. The policy of leaving the Ameer in the arms of Russia, the policy of dividing his Kingdom into separate Provinces, supported by a British Army, has completely broken down; and there remains nothing now but the policy of a return, as far as possible, to the old policy of the last 40 years, or to the complete annexation and absorption of Afghanistan as a part of the Queen's Dominions. A great authority of the forward school, Colonel Malleson, is favourable not only to the annexation of Candahar, but of the whole country to the Oxus. That is the inevitable result of the policy of noble Lords opposite; and it is not quite fair of them to recommend the House to come to this vote without giving their distinct opinion whether we can stop at Candahar, because one-half their arguments makes it quite certain that they look to further progress. The noble Earl looks to the Hindu Kush as a natural Frontier, and
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is willing that Russia should occupy a position on the other side of the Hindu Kush. I protest against that. I say now, as I said in 1869, that the Oxus should be the boundary of Russia—I mean the boundary of Russian influence; and I should look with extreme jealousy and suspicion—so much more anti-Russian am I than the noble Earl—on any arrangement which would put Russia on the Southern side of the Oxus. We have before us the unquestionable alternative that we must either go back or go forward. Our present position at Candahar is one that cannot be maintained. Her Majesty's Government have determined that the wisest course for us—the course that is perfectly consistent with our own opinions and with our own honour—is to retire altogether from Afghanistan, and to reverse the policy which was most unfortunately begun by the noble Earl opposite. The noble Viscount (Viscount Cranbrook) spoke of the feelings of the people of Candahar with regard to this matter as being altogether in our favour. Much as I respect the opinion of the noble Viscount, I respect still more, on this subject, the opinions of the civilians and officers in charge of our Army in Afghanistan. Sir Donald Stewart has, I am told, changed his opinion with regard to the political aspect of this question. But whether he has changed his opinion or not, he is a witness to facts; and he says that, although the people of this Province precend to be tired of their present Rulers, yet, he adds—
"So far as I am in a position to judge, they detest us cordially; and I am under the impression that our immunity from anything like organized opposition is largely due to the fact that our dealings with the people are taken as an indication that our occupation is a temporary one only."—[Afghanistan (1881), No. 2, p. 28.]
I shall not trouble the House longer, further than to say that, in returning to the policy which was departed from for the first time by the noble Earl opposite, we believe that we are doing our best both for England and for India. That policy is not one that is founded upon any confidence in Russian promises. The noble Marquess (the Marquess of Salisbury) sneered last night at what he termed our confidence in Russian pledges. I have as little confidence in the promises or in the assurances of the Russian Government as

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the Afghan people would have a right to have in the assurances and promises of the late Viceroy of India. Intimations of intentions have been given by Russia, and have been departed from over and over again; and intimations of intentions have been given by the noble Earl opposite, and they also have been departed from over and over again, some of them in circumstances which I think very nearly touch the honour of the British Crown. Therefore it is that I say that our policy is not one of confidence in Russia; and for this very good reason—that agreements made with Russia are made with reference to times of peace, and therefore they are of no use at all in time of war. How is it possible to found a Frontier policy upon agreements of that kind? When war arises these agreements go to the winds; and therefore I have been astonished at the effect which the so-called "Secret Correspondence" appears to have had on some people out-of-doors. I cannot believe that this Correspondence can have had any effect upon the minds of Members of this House who attend to the dates. That Correspondence reveals the astonishing fact that when we go and prepare for war with Russia, Russia will go and prepare for war with us. That Correspondence contains no hint of aggression against us on the part of Russia until long after the noble Earl opposite had been preparing arms against Russia. I have said that our policy is not one of confidence in Russia; and I will add that it is not founded upon an implicit confidence in Afghanistan. I believe that we might have made the Afghans our friends by a steady persistence in the policy of Lord Mayo, and in that of my noble Friend behind me. I believe that, if they were not actually friendly to ourselves, they were, at least, equally hostile to Russia. We have ample proof of that fact, and, indeed, the noble Earl opposite himself has admitted that the Afghans did not sympathize with the pro-Russian tendencies of Shore Ali. I entertain the strong conviction that, if we can induce the Afghan people to believe that we have no desire to annex their country, but to deal honourably and fairly by them, and that we intend to keep to the terms of our announcement that we warred against their
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Sovereign, and not against themselves, we may rely on their continued hostility to Russia to aid us in resisting any advances of that Power in their territory. That is all we wish them to do. They might well enable us to resist Russia in their country; but any auxiliary force of Afghans otherwise employed would be useless against an organized European force. I say, to use the language of the noble Earl himself, that our policy is founded upon a confidence in the paramount strength of our own position. Let me say one word as to what our policy is to be. Our policy is not to be a policy of mere weakness, of knees which are trembling under the weight of empire, but it is a policy founded on the belief that our Empire in India has reached its natural limits, within which we have enormous work to do, which can only be interrupted, and not forwarded, by the enormous expense and the enormous trouble which the occupation of Candahar and Afghanistan would entail. And, finally, let me say that it is a policy which has been suggested by some scruples of conscience. I know that the noble Marquess opposite said last night that to permit conscience to affect our actions in this matter was absurd.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I object to that statement altogether. It goes far beyond what I said.
THE DUKE OF ARGYLL: In making that statement I intended nothing personal to the noble Marquess. I understood him to say that the doctrines of morality had very little to do with our communications with the Afghans.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: What I did say was that I thought that the impression that would be made upon the Afghan people by our superior morality was nothing to the impression that would be produced upon them by a belief in our superior strength.
THE DUKE OF ARGYLL: I regret that I cannot agree with the noble Marquess. I concur in the opinion expressed by General Jacob, that although our Empire in India was founded by the sword it has been preserved by a strict fidelity to all our obligations; and that, if we were once to begin to disregard our engagements in that part of the world we should be doing grievous injury to our Indian Empire. I think that we should abide by the engagements

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that we have made over and over again not to annex Afghanistan. This is not the case of a weak State lying between two powerful ones, and being in danger of being made a fortress for one or the other of them. No part of Afghanistan has ever yet been invaded by Russia, and I do not see that there is the most distant prospect of it ever being invaded by that Power. Therefore, in my opinion, it would be a violation of public morality and of public engagements if we were to attempt to seize Afghanistan from its brave and independent inhabitants. In conclusion, I may say that our policy is founded upon these considerations—confidence, paramount confidence in the strength of our own military position, if we husband our resources, and if we try to make the Afghan people a friendly people, and if we repent of the unjust course which we have taken against their rights.
LORD LAWRENCEsaid, that our prophecies with regard to military matters in Afghanistan had been falsified by the results, and the costs of wars in that country had always proved greatly in excess of the Estimates. His own view was that if this country had spent a tithe of the money wasted in the Afghan War in improving the roads and other means of communication within the existing Frontier, that Frontier could have been made absolutely impregnable. From what he knew of the views held by his late father—views based upon his considerable experience of India and Indian affairs—he believed that had his father lived he would have approved the policy adopted by Her Majesty's Government.
LORD DENMANsaid, that the question was, whether Her Majesty's Government were, in the information before this House, justified in their announced policy as to Candahar? He reminded their Lordships that Candahar had been an ancient Kingdom, sometimes in possession of the Great Moguls, sometimes of Persia; but Her Majesty's Government seemed to ignore Persia; and though they had no Shah Abbas, yet the present Shah was acquainted with the discipline of our troops, and his ancestors had often possessed Herat as well as Candahar. Candahar was very difficult to take, and very easy to retain. Shah Johan besieged it three times unsuccessfully. "Beati possidentes" was the motto of a great man—Prince Bismarck
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—and troops at Candahar would make fewer troops necessary in more Southern parts of India. Our English Embassies—1616, under James I. to Jehanghire—had considered Persia, and gone to it from India; and Sir John Malcolm had gone there in behalf of India. The map of Hindostan—under the Great Mogul, 1616—included Cabul as well as Candahah. Sir Henry Durant had only said if our Frontier were strong we could prevail; but Lord Napier had pointed out a stronger boundary. The noble Duke (the Duke of Argyll) had, in 1869, sent a telegram from the Empress of India to Shere Ali; he could not, therefore, object to Her Majesty having all the Dominions of the Great Mogul; and it was stated by the noble Duke that the noble Earl the First Lord of the Admiralty had also sent a premature telegram from the Empress of Hindostan to Shere Ali, who knew its former boundaries; and the noble Duke had described that Potentate as sulky—a term which must be offensive to the Afghan nation. He (Lord Denman) did not believe that the noble Earl the Mover of this Address would ever have agreed to the supposed wish of the Czar—to exchange his non-interference in Hindostan as to our indifference in Turkestan. The Mahomedans were a powerful race; they had often invaded the Deccan from Afghanistan, and they used to think conquest meritorious for the spread of their creed; and a Russian General had tried to make them believe that the British were the enemies of their religion; but this was not believed by their co-religionists in Constantinople, who were extremely tolerant; and in Northern India, in the time of Akbar the Great and his son, free inquiry was permitted into each faith. The noble Viscount the Under Secretary of State for India (Viscount Enfield) had said, with a sneer, that missionaries would reside in Candahar if we retained it, and that they had often done harm; his friend, The Times, had omitted to report that portion of his speech, knowing, probably, that it would offend many religious people in this country. The noble Earl the First Lord of the Admiralty (the Earl of Northbrook) had read a whole leading article, two days old, from an Indian newspaper, and had tried to impress that House with the importance of it; but their Lordships must follow truth

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and justice, and not follow the opinion of newspapers like The Times, who described the speech of the noble Marquess the late Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (the Marquess of Salisbury) as sarcastic or cynical, which latter phrase was repeated by the noble Duke (the Duke of Argyll). It had formerly been said by Bernier that Candahar could not afford a Revenue, and that neighbouring tribes should be excused tribute, in consideration of supplying the inhabitants with food; but shortly the railroad would be completed, and South India would supply whatever might be needed for the mutual benefit of North and South. He (Lord Denman) considered that Sir Frederick Roberts had saved the Empire of India by his conduct in December, 1879, and by his late valour at Candahar; but it never should have been necessary for him to leave Cabal—the pleasant place so longed for in vain by Baber, after his conquests; and the hasty withdrawal of troops from Natal, necessitating Sir Frederick Roberts' command, had caused him (Lord Denman) great regret. But if the Government were determined to go from Candahar under any circumstances, he (Lord Denman) hoped that they would not run the risk of having again soon to attempt to conquer it, and, probably, lose for ever the benefit of all the blood and treasure—with so good a result—expended upon it. The war was just, and was a war of defence; for if a Power withdrew her Ambassador it was a case of war, and if a Power refused to receive the Ambassador of a friendly Power, and entertained one from a doubtful quarter, and then fired upon the escorting party, it must take all the consequences. It had been as complete a conquest as ever existed, and it was brought about by the conduct of Shere Ali, and by the treachery of his son; and if Her Majesty's Government hastily withdrew, as if defeated, they would bitterly repent it.
LORD NAPIER AND ETTRICKsaid, that all ambiguity had been removed from the question under discussion by the character of the speeches which had been made by the noble Earl the Mover of the Resolution, by the noble Marquess who spoke last night, and by the noble Viscount who introduced the discussion that evening. They now knew that the noble Earl meant that under no circumstances should Candahar be relinquished,
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and that under all circumstances Candahar should be annexed to Her Majesty's Eastern possessions. He would briefly state the reasons which induced him to believe that their Lordships should not give their assent to the Resolution if the interests of England and of India could be maintained by any other means. He belonged to that Party who considered that India and England had a vital stake in Afghanistan. He believed that Russian influence there would be a real and substantial danger to us, which ought to be resisted by every means in our power. Under these circumstances, when the Russian political Mission had been received at Cabul, and when reluctance and opposition had been shown by the Ameer to the reception of a British Mission, he had always maintained that England had no other course to adopt than to appeal to arms. He had always said that the noble Earl the late Prime Minister and the noble Earl the late Viceroy had a just claim to their gratitude for the energy and determination which they showed in this emergency. For his part, his sympathy and approval continued to accompany the late Viceroy up to the period of the rupture of the Treaty of Gandamak by the attack on our Embassy at Cabul. The noble Earl and he parted company from that moment, for then the noble Earl rushed forward to what he must term a most adventurous and lawless policy of annexation and conquest. The noble Earl thus abandoned the policy of previous Governments, a policy which he still believed, after all that had happened, to be wise and tenable, and a policy which up to the present moment had never been condemned or repudiated either by Parliament or by the public opinion of this country. The reasons why he objected to the retention of Candahar were that it was contrary to the traditional policy of England, contrary to our diplomatic declarations, placed an unnecessary charge on the resources of India, and involved an unnecessary aggression on the independence of a free people. The traditional policy of England had been the maintenance of a great, free, united, consolidated state in Afghanistan, in friendship and alliance with the Government of India, and subordinate to that Government in its relations with foreign Powers, and absolutely free from intervention or interference

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on the part of those Powers. That policy had been approved by all the statesmen who had held the Office of Viceroy, or who had been in a position to direct Indian policy in England up to a very recent period. The only exception he could name was the late Lord Lawrence; and, notwithstanding all that had been said in reference to the views of Lord Lawrence, he did not believe that he would have remained indifferent in the presence of Russian intervention in Afghanistan. It was a policy sanctioned by the unanimous voice of all English statesmen connected with the administration of Indian affairs, and which had not been repudiated by the noble Earl who now held the position of First Lord of the Admiralty. He had heard the noble Earl the Leader of their Lordships' House descant at length upon the evil of a breaking of continuity and consistency in public affairs, and he blamed the conduct of the late Government for revoking the policy of their Predecessors. If consistency and continuity of policy were necessary foreign affairs, they wore particularly necessary in our dealings with Russia, which showed the strongest example of consistency and continuity in her policy. The noble Earl who introduced the subject gave as one of his reasons for the change of policy the unhappy massacre of our Envoy at Cabul. But the massacre of our Envoy was not the deliberate act of the Government to which he was accredited; it was partly the work of a tumultuous soldiery, and partly the result of the premature stationing of an English Envoy in Afghanistan. He did not think that the interests of England and India would be ever properly safeguarded in Afghanistan without the appointment of English officers. But the despatch of an English Envoy to the capital of Afghanistan at a moment when the Government was not yet settled, and when the passions of a defeated army were not yet assuaged, was rash and inconsiderate. He could not admit that the tragical occurrence in question was a sufficient ground for a change of policy. If the policy was just and well-founded before, it was just and well-founded after. When he said that the retention of Candahar was opposed to our diplomatic engagements he did not mean that there were any really binding engagements in existence; but there were en-
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gagements of an informal kind which ought to have been renewed and confirmed. Those engagements were embodied in the Correspondence which passed between the noble Earl and Prince Gortschakoff. The noble Earl intimated to the Russian Government that it had no right to interfere within a certain line, and Russia admitted the validity of the intimation adding, he thought with reason, that England, by having laid down a certain boundary and by subsequent assistance to the Ameer, rendered herself in some degree responsible for his conduct. That engagement amounted to this—that while England was not to interfere to the north of the Oxus, Russia was not to interfere to the south. Afghanistan was to stand between the two Empires an independent State, associated with India, and in some degree under Indian control; but not associated with Russia, and not under Russian control. That was a just and reasonable arrangement. But he could not think it wise or desirable that noble Lords who had held important positions in India in the past should embitter our relations with Russia by invidious insinuations. He was of opinion that at one time neither the noble Earl who led his Party in that House nor the noble Earl below the Gangway (the Earl of Derby) sufficiently appreciated our responsibility towards Afghanistan. They did not realize what were the logical consequences of the policy initiated by Lord Mayo; and when it was found that the Government was not prepared to give the Ameer the assurances and guarantees to which he was, perhaps, justly entitled, and to which the policy of the Government naturally led, the Ameer drifted off to a more energetic and unscrupulous party, and allied himself with Russia—an alliance which, in the circumstances, was almost inevitable. If he might offer a suggestion as to our general policy with Russia he would say—"Do not molest the Russian Government with too many representations and remonstrances upon matters in which you are not thoroughly in earnest. Do not vex them with the expression of suspicions and anxieties about any course of action which you are not determined to resist. Do not, for instance, say too much about the Turcomans. Make your purposes known to the Russian Government frankly and firmly. Convince them that you are

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in earnest, and you will suffer very little trouble or molestation at their hands." One great objection which he had to the annexation of Candahar was that it would impose an unnecessary burden upon the Government and people of India. It was impossible to make even an approximate guess of the expenses that the occupation of Candahar would involve. Fortifications would have to be built, supports maintained, and the wants of a powerful garrison supplied in a poor region vastly distant from India. This occupation would also impose upon us the necessity of organizing extensive Provinces and subjugating them to civil government. A great augmentation of the Civil and Military expenditure of India would therefore be the consequence of the adoption of the policy submitted to their Lordships in that debate. Was this a fitting time for such an augmentation, when India was crying out that her revenues should be expended for public purposes within her own borders? Upon the financial question their Lordships might be guided by what had taken place under the late Government, which showed how injurious to India an aggressive policy in Afghanistan might prove to be. The late Government, although they were responsible for the war, declined to give any financial assistance to India—with the exception of a loan of £2,000,000 without interest. That was certainly not generous treatment. The present Government, although it had not been responsible for the war, had promised to make a substantial contribution—not by way of loan, but of gift—to India towards the cost of the war. He fully agreed that we ought to abandon Candahar. Permanently to maintain it would be an unjust and ruinous policy. He looked upon the war as an unjust and unnecessary aggression. At the same time he did not think that a precipitate withdrawal of our forces was advisable. Candahar might be made an excellent vantage-ground for exercising our influence over the affairs of Afghanistan, and for contributing to what had been so much dwelt upon by the noble Viscount—the creation of a strong and united Afghanistan. A precipitate retreat might lead to disastrous results. He hoped that the Government would still be able to negotiate a settlement in Afghanistan which would be in harmony with pre-
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vious transactions, which would embody a sufficient security for our interests in India, and which would be conformable to the rights of a people with whom we had been unwillingly involved in hostilities.
THE EARL OF DUNRAVENsaid, he desired to confine himself to the most important part of the question before their Lordships—namely, the retention or the evacuation of Candahar. It was very difficult, however, not to touch a little on the past. That difficulty was shown by the fact that, although many other noble Lords had announced their intention of dealing only with the question of the retention of Candahar, they had been unable to resist the temptation to speak at considerable length on the merits of the different policies pursued by the late Government, and by the present Government when in Office before. The present Government, as he understood their objects, appeared to be desirous of maintaining certain main lines of policy which had been pursued by them formerly, and by their Predecessors; and they relied to a very great extent on opinions that were given some time ago. They allowed that the authorities they quoted had in many cases modified or changed their opinions lately; but the noble Duke the Lord Privy Seal accounted for that by the reluctance which military men were apt to feel for giving up any possession acquired by war. He did not think that was the real reason for the change of opinion, which he attributed to the altered circumstances of the case, and the difference between the position which Russia occupied some years ago and her present position. He submitted, further, that since the time they spoke of a great many important changes had occurred, and that, therefore, in order to retain the spirit of that policy, it was necessary to alter it in matters of detail and in the letter. They ought to look at the state of things now existing, and to judge whether certain modifications in our Indian Frontier were not requisite, and whether that which was good enough for us 25 years ago was good enough for us still. He knew that the noble Duke the Lord Privy Seal described any man who spoke of the bare possibility of an invasion of India by Russia as shaking in his shoes from sheer terror of Russia. Now, though himself no alarmist, he thought

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it was only wise and prudent to admit the possibility of such a contingency, and to take such measures as were best fitted to guard against it. Some 25 years ago Russia was separated from us by barren steppes of great extent, and vast deserts; but since then she had crossed the steppes, traversed the deserts, and had advanced comparatively close to our Frontiers, absorbing many warlike populations on her way. The Crimea was connected by steamers with Batoum or Poti, which again were connected by railway with the Caspian. There were steamers, also, on the Caspian, and thence a railway was in course of construction, a considerable portion of which was finished, to Askabad. Askabad was not above 300 miles from Herat. From Askabad an army might march on Merv, and so to Herat, or to Herat without touching Merv, or on Candahar without going near either Merv or Herat, by means of an understanding with Persia. It might be asked, what did that matter? It mattered a great deal. Some 20 or 30 years ago Russia was separated from us by some thousands of miles of country so difficult to traverse that it was asserted that she would never overcome it; but she had overcome it, and now the Russian soldier could be transported from the very heart of Russia to within 280 miles of Herat by railway and by steamers. Munitions and artillery could also be similarly transported without the trouble of getting draught animals together. Those facts were quite sufficient to account for the change in the opinion of military men, and ought to make Parliament and the country reconsider the question of the possibility of an invasion of India by Russia. The opinions of Sir Henry Rawlinson and Sir John Adye had been given as to the enormous difficulties which Russia would encounter on the march to Merv and Herat; but since those opinions were given those difficulties had, practically speaking, been overcome, and the thing that was said to be impossible had been done. Russia had to accomplish but a very short distance to connect by rail her base of operations on the Caspian Sea with a position from which she could move at any time on Candahar, Herat, or Merv. He did not say that Russia intended to invade India; but we now had one of the greatest, if not the greatest, military Power in the world almost within strik-
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ing distance of us, and that fact involved a very great change. Some sections of the people of this country seemed to think that everything that Russia did was good, and everything that England did was bad. Shortly after the former debate in their Lordships' House upon that subject he received a letter, he did not know by whom it was written, as the writer forgot to sign his name. He did not know why; but probably the writer was a person of a forgetful habit of mind, as he had also neglected to pay the postage. In it he gave him a very excellent piece of advice. He said—"Go and learn wisdom from the Duke of Argyll." He thought that good advice until he read the next and concluding sentence in the letter, which was—"Perish India, Floreat Russia Civilizatrix." If that was the wisdom he was to learn from the noble Duke, he declined to follow the writer's advice. He did not for a moment suppose that the noble Duke's opinions were correctly represented by the passage he had quoted; but the other night the noble Duke had said to him that he ought to be glad that Russia had conquered the Tekke Turcomans and brought them under her civilizing influence. But it was said to be an iniquitous thing that a few thousand Afghans should be brought under English control. The process, as applied to the Tekke Turkomans, who must be a numerous people, as they could put 50,000 men into the fighting line, was first to slaughter a great number of them, and then reduce the rest under the authority of the most despotic Government in the world. If that was a matter for rejoicing, he failed to see why it must be a matter of regret that a few Afghans should be brought, without loss of life, under the dominion of the freest and most civilized Government on the face of the globe. So much for the possibility of invasion. Further, their Lordships had to consider the ease with which Russia could intrigue against us in Afghanistan. That was a matter removed from the realms of conjecture. They had had ample and sad experience of the ease with which Russia could make difficulties for them in that quarter of the globe. It was quite immaterial whose fault it was that she did so. The fact remained that she did, and she could do so again. No human

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being could possibly say how long or how short a time would elapse before complications would arise in Europe or Asia between Great Britain and Russia. The horizon might be very clear; but in modern times clouds gathered quickly. Her Majesty's Government might see no signs or symptoms; but they might possibly be mistaken. He had the greatest respect for the wisdom of the Members of the Cabinet; but no mere mortals could foresee events. Only a year ago they were told by the present Prime Minister, speaking of Ireland, that—
"There was an absence of crime and outrage and a general sense of comfort and satisfaction such as had been unknown in the previous history of the country."
Well, we had seen what had taken place in Ireland during the last year. Last May, the noble Earl the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs took rather a rosy view of the aspect of foreign affairs. But no man could be so blind as not to see that matters had been somewhat critical in Europe since that period. In fact, the noble Earl himself admitted only a few days ago the great delicacy and difficulty of the Greek Question. It was very likely that serious complications had hitherto been averted only by the great skill and prudence of the noble Earl. He did not impute the slightest blame to Her Majesty's Ministers. No mere human beings could foretell the future. He merely wished to point out that it was impossible, therefore, even for the accumulated wisdom of the Members of Her Majesty's Government to satisfy us that there was no danger of such a state of things arising between this country and Russia that would make it desirable for Russia to do what she could to incommode us by intriguing in Afghanistan. It was necessary, therefore, for us to guard against that possibility. There was another factor to be considered, and that was the Ameer of Afghanistan. We might feel quite satisfied about Russia; but it was possible that the Ameer might not feel so secure. As a matter of fact, we knew that Shere Ali was very much alarmed about Russia; and although the noble Duke assured him that he was not a bit afraid, that was not sufficient to re-assure Shere Ali. If the noble Duke was going to be Ameer of Afghanistan, it might be very satisfactory to us to know that that country would have a Ruler whom Russia
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could not terrify. But, as far as he was aware, there was no intention on the part of the noble Duke to become the Ruler of that country. It was very possible, therefore, that the present Ameer at Cabul, or any future Ruler there, might become so uneasy at the proximity of the great Northern Power as to render him most desirous of entering into very friendly relations with that Power. The noble Earl (the Earl of Northbrook) said that the Ameer would have no desire to lean upon anybody, or to enter into friendly relationship with Russia. Very likely he might not wish to; but he would have to do so. Afghanistan must inevitably lean upon either England or Russia. The Ameer knew very well he could not stand alone, and he would never try to do so. Considering this fact, and having in view the ease with which Russia was able seriously to incommode us in Afghanistan, and bearing in mind, also, the altered relative position of the Russian and English Frontiers in the East, it was not to be wondered at that many authorities should have changed their minds as to the value of Candahar during the last 25 years. What we had to consider was whether, having regard to these changed circumstances, our Indian Empire could be best secured by our remaining where we were, or by our retiring within our former boundaries. There was a double aspect to this question—one purely military, and the other partially political. As to the political, all Parties, he believed, agreed that it was necessary that England should exercise a considerable control over the foreign relationships of Afghanistan, and we could not do this without having some position to enable us to exercise that control. With Candahar we could exercise that control; without it we could not. We might retire if we pleased; but if it became necessary to interfere in the foreign relationships of Afghanistan we must advance again. If Candahar had been in our possession in 1878, this country would have been saved £20,000,000. The idea that we should do what was suggested by Syud Mir Mahomed—namely, that we should maintain a large force at Quetta and march into Afghanistan whenever a demonstration became necessary, marching back when we had accomplished our end, was absurd. It

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would be much too expensive. Either we must have nothing whatever to do with Afghanistan, or we must occupy such a position as would enable us to exercise the control we thought necessary in the cheapest and most efficacious manner. The idea of a strong and friendly and independent Afghanistan was all nonsense. The strength of the country depended upon the existence of some Ruler or Rulers capable of consolidating and governing the country; and that depended again entirely upon the amount of moral and material assistance given to such a Ruler or Rulers by Russia or by England. The friendliness of Afghanistan depended upon what inducements could be offered to her to be friendly. We could assist the Afghans to secure good government and the blessing of peace; but in the way of bribes we laboured under a disadvantage. Russia could offer the loot of India, and we had nothing of that kind, and no such seductive vision, to lay before them. As for the independence of Afghanistan, the country had never been independent, except for a very few years under Dost Mahomed. It had always been a prey to internecine strife. Its only chance of independence lay in the strong rule of some Sovereign supported by either Russia or England. On one Power or the other Afghanistan must certainly lean. If she was to lean upon us, we must be in such a position as to assure her, not only of our willingness, but of our power to help and protect her in the hour of need. The military opinions of the best men were strongly in favour of retaining Candahar. Without exception, all the authorities acquainted with the Frontier were of that opinion. Sir Donald Stewart's views, as expressed in the Memorandum recently published, were formulated prior to the abandonment of the so-called "scientific Frontier." If that Frontier was attained, he did not attach so much value to Candahar. But when that Frontier was given up, he did attach the greatest importance to Candahar. Sir Garnet Wolseley's was the best known name connected with the scheme of abandonment. He only defended this course on the supposition that we could go there when we wanted, and that we did not want to be there at present. In the first place, was he correct in saying that we could go there when we wanted?
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As far as the Afghans alone were concerned, we might be able to do so; but supposing Candahar to be strengthened and held by an Afghan force, and that a small Russian force was moving to their relief, were we certain that they would not be able to hold it long enough to detain us until the Russian force should arrive? It should not be forgotten that during the summer months it was practically impossible for us to move a force from the Indus to Candahar on account of the great heat. It was at one time supposed that the country between Herat and Candahar offered great difficulties to an army. That delusion had been dispelled by Ayoob Khan, who made the march without difficulty with a very large force and 36 guns. Besides, we had to calculate the cost of re-taking the place. It was not a question of taking it now, or taking it when the necessity arose. It was a question of keeping it now, when we had got it for nothing. If the Afghans were going to pay us £20,000,000 to give up possession of Candahar, the question would be a totally different one. We were asked to give up what we had now got for nothing, on the ground that we did not want it, and that we could take it again, at considerable cost, whenever we required it; and no man could possibly say how soon the necessity might arise. It was a great mistake to talk of Candahar as if it involved the acquisition of a large amount of territory. It did not. We were extending our territory, but extending it towards home. Candahar was a great bastion to our present Frontier, with a speedy communication with our base, the sea, and, consequently, with our arsenals at Bombay, in the Mediterranean, and at home in England. Candahar was not further from our base than a dozen places of the first importance in India, and it did not weaken us one atom in that respect. The advantages of Candahar, from a military point of view, had been repeatedly pointed out. It blocked the main road to India. It took in flank any army invading India by any route. Its possession would enable us to be friend our allies the Afghans, or, if necessary, to over awe them if they were disposed to turn against us. He was astonished to hear the noble and gallant Lord (Lord Chelmsford) say that he attached little importance to Candahar

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from a military point of view, and that he would invade India through Cabul and the Khyber if Candahar were held in force by the enemy, and had open railway communication with the sea. Well, it might seem presumptuous of him; but he ventured to assert that few military men would be as rash as the noble and gallant Lord. And the noble Earl (the Earl of Derby) spoke of the foolishness of blocking men up in Candahar in the event of a war with Russia. Why, it was the very best place in the world for them to be. Such an argument was absurd. It told equally against holding any strong position with an armed force. In the terrible contingency of an invasion of India, accompanied, as it would probably be, by internal troubles in that country, it would be an inestimable advantage to us, and would give us time. We could supply our troops there with all the necessary munitions of war direct from the Mediterranean or England, and India could not even be threatened until she had had ample time to make necessary preparations. The expense was the only real and solid ground of objection to remaining at Candahar. We had a perfectly moral right to remain there. As far as that went, it was doubtful if we were not morally obliged to remain there. We certainly gave our assurance that Candahar should never come again under the yoke of Cabul; and now we were going to leave the people a prey to the struggles of rival claimants to the Throne, and propose to ourselves to witness complacently at a distance the result of that struggle, which would end, as the noble Duke said, in the survival of the fittest. The noble Viscount (Viscount Enfield) waxed eloquent about the magnanimity of our resolve to retire, and offered to their Lordships' dazzled imagination a pleasing picture of the way in which the gossip of the bazaars would recount how England, having accomplished her purpose in Afghanistan, left the invaded country. He thought the noble Viscount forgot the concluding part of the sentence, which would be that we had left the country, leaving our friends behind us to do the best they could for themselves, and to pay the penalty of their friendship. Was it impossible for us to retain our probity and sense of honour in the East? Was there something in the Asiatic atmosphere that rendered it impossible for
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anyone to be honest? The noble Marquess reminded their Lordships of the number of Russian promises that had been broken. Were we to follow that bad example, and was England to break faith also? We promised the Candaharis that they should never again come under the yoke of Cabul. Were Her Majesty's Government prepared to carry out that undertaking? Could they guarantee the Candaharis against the yoke of Cabul if we left the country, or did they propose to return at any moment to Candahar to protect our friends there? It was said that the late Government broke faith also in the matter of the Kuram Valley. Was that any reason why the present Government should do the same? Was a breach of faith the only thing in which the Liberal Party would follow the lead of the Tories? We made certain promises, and we were morally bound to fulfil them. Was breaking them the proper way to ingratiate ourselves with the Afghans? The noble Viscount grow very eloquent about the Afghans and their love of independence. He said that they did not care for danger—in which they resembled the noble Duke—and they did not care for poverty, in which they resembled nobody he had ever heard of. But, granting for a moment that they did not care for either poverty or danger, he could not quite follow the noble Viscount that, therefore, they must necessarily detest our rule. As a matter of fact, there were some 700,000 Afghans dwelling very peaceably in the Peshawur district under our government. Were we to suppose that they were afraid of danger, and did dislike poverty, and that, in consequence, they were contented with our rule; or was it not more likely that the noble Viscount was somewhat mistaken in his estimate of the difficulties which we should encounter in endeavouring to ingratiate ourselves with the Natives of Afghanistan? It would be a strange thing if we, who had succeeded with savages and semi-savages, with populations, more or less civilized, all over the world, should fail in this particular instance of Afghanistan. The noble Duke, quoting the opinion of General Jacobs, said—"We command Asiatics by high moral power alone." But another high authority, Prince Gortschakoff, in a Circular despatch, says—

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"It is a peculiarity of Asiatics to respect nothing but visible and palpable force; the moral force of reason and of the interests of civilization has, as yet, no hold on them. … The work has then always to be done over again from the beginning."
The noble Duke quoted Sir Donald Stewart's opinion as to the feelings of the Candaharis towards us. No opinion on the subject could be worth anything to us at present. The Candaharis were not Afghans. The Afghans were their masters. Since we had announced our intention of leaving the Candaharis to the tender mercies of their conquerors, it was not likely that they would dare to express their preference for us. A great deal of stress was laid upon the fact that, whereas it was difficult for us to gain the confidence of the Afghans, it would be at least equally difficult for Russia. It was said that the Afghans would never put up with Russia as a conqueror. But Russia would never come as a conqueror. She would come as a friend and an ally, a warm supporter of some aspirant to the Throne, either in Herat or Cabul. The terms which she would offer would be men and money, the Sovereignty of Afghanistan, the recovery of that portion of the Punjaub which once belonged to Afghanistan, and the loot of India. What the real cost of the occupation would be it was impossible to say. It had been estimated very highly, as high, he believed, as £2,000,000 a-year. Other authorities, however, had computed the extra cost at about £500,000. Moreover, no allowance for the value of the trade was made, and the value of the Central Asian trade must be very great. If Russia had no designs upon India, and if the Central Asian trade was of no value, what on earth could Russia's object be in going to the vast expense she had incurred in pushing her way towards India? The noble Viscount, quoting from a lecture given by Colonel Browne, mentioned Dr. Bellew and Mr. Andrew, as being authorities from whom we might find that with regard to commerce, &c., our previous relations with Afghanistan were satisfactory. But he (the Earl of Dunraven) found that Dr. Bellew had said that the gold mines of Candahar, if properly worked by Europeans, would be a considerable source of revenue; and Mr. Andrew says—
"As the English Government have betrayed an indifference towards the development of
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trade in Central Asia, so have the Russian Government increased their endeavours, and with success, to stock the markets of Turkestan. Instead of trade between India and Central Asia having augmented of late years, it has actually diminished."
He had little doubt that in a short time the trade would develop to such an extent that the revenues of the country would pay for the administration of it. He thought, further, that we could very well afford to pay the Ameer such a proportion of the present revenue as would be fair, and that the occupation would not be a source of expense to this country. Why could we not occupy Candahar in the same way as we now occupied Quetta? Why should we not make an arrangement similar to that which we had with the Khan of Khelat? As to the cost, he must take exception to the figures of the noble Viscount. If he understood him right, he quoted the whole cost of building barracks and fortifications, and charged them to the yearly expense of Candahar.
VISCOUNT ENFIELDwas understood to observe here that he had not done this.
THE EARL OF DUNRAVEN: The noble Viscount must have intended to give them the interest on the capital sum, and not the capital sum itself. The noble Viscount also spoke of saving the expense of the railway. The expense would not be saved unless the railway were continued to Candahar. The railway, as it was, was like an Irish famine-road, beginning somewhere and ending nowhere. If not continued, the whole cost of it must be written off. The military expenses had certainly been over rated; and he must ask their Lordships to bear in mind that the actual force in India was not increased, and that the troops sent to Candahar and on the line of communication would be deducted from those stationed on the present Frontier. The cost of maintaining troops at Candahar, with a railway to the sea, could not be very great. The cost of the military occupation was really insignificant as compared with the advantages to be gained. Even if the retention did cost £1,000,000 or £1,500,000, he believed it would be money wisely spent. He believed it would be most false economy to give up Candahar. The evacuation would certainly cost us, at some future time, a war of re-

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occupation. And retention might possibly save us from the frightfulcal amity of a general war with Russia all over the world. He did not at all approve the policy which was generally attributed to the late Government. He disliked a policy of ambition and extension of territory. He believed our Empire was large enough as it was. But he held that Candahar could not really be looked upon as an extension of territory. He was keenly alive to the necessity of economy. It was on that ground he advocated the retention of Candahar. He was strongly in favour of the principles of the present Government. He only wished to see them really carried out. Virtues when pushed to the extremes sometimes became vices, and principles sometimes degenerated into prejudices. He feared that through the mere desire to appear to be economical, from the wish to seem not to desire extension of territory, England would be throwing away an opportunity to strengthen her present Frontier, and would be committing an act of extravagance, the extent of which the country would not be able to judge of until it was staggering under the heavy burden of a great war, or complaining of the considerable, though comparatively small, expense of a third Afghan campaign. That the country would give up Candahar he very much feared, because the country would think it was saving money by so doing. If they understood what was really the case—that to give up this position was a most expensive luxury, and that thereby they were degrading the good name of England and weakening India—he was sure there was not a man in England who would consent to the evacuation. That it would be necessary to keep Candahar for all time he did not assert. If they had seen a strong and friendly Ruler in possession of that country, and felt assured that in retiring they could trust to his friendship and his ability to maintain his position, he did not say but what they could have retired to the Indus. But such was not the case. He should have preferred if the words "at present" had been introduced into the Resolution before the House. But, as it was, he had little hesitation in voting with the noble Earl opposite, although it was with great reluctance that he felt himself compelled to differ from Her Majesty's Government.
LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEY: My Lords, I rise to support the Government in their resolution to redeem their pledges to restore the independence of Afghanistan; and not only theirs, but the pledges of the late Government and of the late Viceroy, who proclaimed that we were making war on Shore Ali, and not upon the Afghans. I rejoice that the despatch of Lord Hartington, of November last, has taken such high moral ground, and has put in so prominent a place the question of our duty to restore the independence of Afghanistan, and for that consideration only I should give my vote to Her Majesty's Ministers; but I hope to show that they are right on grounds of expediency also. A considerable part of the speech of the noble Earl who moved the Resolution seemed to be an indictment of the noble Marquess who was Secretary of State in 1878. For the noble Earl imagined the case of our Frontier officers in correspondence with the Khans of Khiva and Bokhara, and said that the noble Earl, now the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, would have promptly and properly complied with the Russian demand to cease such letters. If so, why did not the noble Marquess prefer a complaint to Russia; and why did not the late Government obtain, and remain satisfied with, the explanations of Russia, who was the real offender, instead of invading Afghanistan? The noble Earl, after mentioning what Russia could offer to the Ameer of Cabul as a bribe, said that we could offer him nothing. That is hardly the case. Has the noble Earl forgotten the Pathans, a numerous and most valuable part of the population of Hindustan? They are the children of Afghans, who, in the time of the Moguls, were encouraged to come to India, and ought now to be similarly encouraged. India should be to Afghanistan what England was to Scotland after the accession of James I., or what France was to Alsace. The noble Marquess said a good deal about the constant increase of danger from Russia, and the rapid advance of that Power. What is much more remarkable is the rapid and sudden change of mind of the noble Marquess, from the time when he spoke of maps on a small scale. What confidence can the noble Marquess ask your Lordships to have in his opinions, when he has changed from the extreme of confidence

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in Russia to the extreme of distrust; when he has only now become alive to the manner in which Russia invaded Turkey by means of Servia; when he succumbed to the wiles of General Ignatieff, and, again, to those of Count Schouvaloff; and whilst the discrepancy between his secret Agreement of June 19 and his Circular of April 9 is still unexplained? The noble Marquess says we cannot make war with Russia all over the world, since we cannot touch Cronstadt or make war in the Black Sea, except in alliance with Turkey; and scoffs at Her Majesty's Ministers because they cannot form such an alliance, as though the noble Marquess had not done as much as Mr. Gladstone to destroy Turkish confidence in England; and when he says that we cannot touch Russia in the Baltic, he forgets that the re-constitution of Poland and the restoration to Germany of the German Baltic Provinces are still unsettled questions. If we come to expediency, great stress has been laid upon the Russian Correspondence captured at Cabul. I do not attach any importance to it; it tells nothing which was not known before of the Russian designs. Nobody acquainted with Russian history expected good faith from Russia, and nobody would be disappointed. In this case there is not so much duplicity; and I must admire the tenacity and energy of the Russians, and regret that there is not the same energy and thoroughness on the side of my country. For what does the noble Earl the late Viceroy say of war with Russia in Central Asia in paragraph 46 of his Minute?—
"The more closely I contemplate such a catastrophe, the greater is the repugnance with which I regard it—a repugnance amounting almost to horror. In such a war we should doubtless be successful, for we can meet Russia with far superior forces on the Oxus. But it is the consequences of success that we have to consider. We should probably stir up a Mahomedan rising throughout the Khanates, and we can realize the horrors of such a rising if we picture to ourselves another Indian mutiny."
Why does the noble Earl show this tender solicitude for the Russians, when he is contemplating an invasion of India by them? He also says, in the same paragraph—
"A British statesman, remembering the American War, and the lasting effect which a few hostile cruisers have had on America's commercial prosperity, may well hesitate before exposing British commerce to the same risks."—[Afghanistan, (1881). No. 2. p. 12.]
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So that, with all our ships and supposed maritime superiority, we are to shrink from a contest with Russia, even on our own element. It is true that we have tied up our right hand by the Declaration of Paris; and what more conclusive testimony could be brought forward against the abolition of privateering and the right of search than this confession of fear by the noble Earl of the results of a war with Russia? The noble Earl objected that the publication of his Minute was not a patriotic act, because it was a confidential statement of our means of attack and defence. It reveals, however, nothing to the Russians that they did not know perfectly well before, except, perhaps, the desponding view taken by the noble Earl of the results of a war with Russia. General Skobeleff, when in Roumelia, revealed much more of the hostile designs of Russia against our rule in India than anything contained in these Papers, and his conversation was published at the time by an English newspaper. I have much more to say; but, as I see your Lordships are anxious to go to a division, I will not detain the House longer.
THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD: My Lords, the question really before your Lordships is whether it is or is not wise to evacuate Candahar; and I shall endeavour to confine my observations strictly to that subject, or, at least, with one exception of a slight character. I see no use in reviewing again the history of the Afghan War, or of the proceedings which preceded it. Your Lordships, having been appealed to on that subject, have given your opinion in great numbers and after long and full discussion. It would, therefore, in my opinion, be unnecessary for me now to enter upon a consideration of that matter in detail. There are one or two salient facts to guide us in coming to a correct conclusion, and which I now allude to from the tone which the debate has taken. It is on record that the Ameer of Afghanistan appealed for succour some years ago to the Viceroy of the Queen in India, who is now First Lord of the Admiralty, and the Viceroy thought it his duty to reject the overtures made to him. It also stands upon record that this rejection was the origin of all the misunderstandings and misfortunes which have since occurred. It also stands upon record that about three years after-

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wards, panic-stricken, I suppose, by the rumour that the Russians were approaching Merv, the then Viceroy decided on the plan which, in his opinion, should be then adopted to meet the difficulties and dangers of the case; and he proposed an offensive and defensive Treaty with Afghanistan, and the establishment of a resident British Minister at Herat. These are great salient truths; and I am quite surprisd, remembering these historical facts, at the tone which the noble Earl the First Lord of the Admiralty took with reference to my noble Friend the late Viceroy of India. One would suppose that the noble Earl was not only a pupil of the peace-at-any-price school, but that he was also graduating for higher honours in the more refined school which would wage war and at the same time negotiate peace—and negotiate with all the more readiness if our arms had been defeated. I was much disappointed, my Lords, at the reply the noble Duke the Lord Privy Seal made to my noble Friend near me (Viscount Cranbrook). I had listened, as a very full House had listened, with pleasure to that speech; and a speech more exhaustive, more animated, more completely touching every point of the subject, I have rarely heard. Well, I knew that my noble Friend was to be followed by one whose ability was equal to any emergency—one who is an ornament of this House, and invariably delights the audience which he addresses. Well, my Lords, what did we hear? Was there any answer to the speech of my noble Friend? On the contrary, we had a series of biographies of Indian worthies, and when the list closed it was, as usual, flung at the head of my noble Friend the late Viceroy. Under these circumstances, I think we have had enough of recurrence to the past, and that we may confine our consideration to the point before us. My Lords, there is, however, one point only, before I touch upon the question of Candahar, on which I would like to make one or two remarks, and that is about our relations with Russia, which have formed so important a portion of our discussion to-night, as on previous occasions. Now, my Lords, when my noble Friend (the Marquess of Salisbury) and myself were commissioned to proceed as Plenipotentiaries to Berlin nearly three years ago,
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our instructions were to achieve, if possible, two great objects. One, of course, to secure and guard the interests of our own country, and the other to combine with the other Powers, if possible, for some unity of feeling which might secure, if not the perpetual, at least the lasting peace of Europe. Well, my Lords, it was obvious that it was quite impossible to arrive at any understanding which would give a fair probability of a lasting European peace if there was not sympathy on the part of Russia, and the time seemed to have arrived, a Congress being called upon to settle the affairs of Europe, to make some effort to come, if possible, to some direct understanding with Russia which might tend to the beneficial result we had in view. I must say that before we could take any such steps we were anticipated by the illustrious Chancellor of that Empire, who expressed a desire on the part of Russia that some attempt should be made to put an end to that chronic misunderstanding which seemed always to be recurring between the two countries of Great Britain and Russia. I do not, my Lords, mean to say that there was at any time an intention of an Alliance, or a Treaty, or a Convention; but what we all seemed to desire was that, if possible, instead of hostile distrust, there should be, at least, some approximation to confidence, and that when any occurrences of a controversial character took place in those parts of the world where the interests of Russia and England clashed, there should be, at least, a friendly and candid communication of views between the two Powers, which might remove causes which were not at all adequate reasons for misunderstanding. Well, my Lords, when we returned to England, I took the earliest opportunity of declaring in this House that, with regard to those circumstances which had occurred in Central Asia, the unconcealed object of which, on the part of Russia, was to embarrass and disturb English interests in that part of the world, that, so far as those preparations had been made by Russia in the belief that war was immediately pending between the two countries, we held that we had no cause to complain, and that we were willing to forget, and wished to forget, all that had occurred in that respect. And, in consequence, a formal communication of our views, which I do

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not doubt will be found in the annals of the Foreign Office, was made on the subject; and we received, as I stated at the time, an answer from St. Petersburg of the most satisfactory kind—in fact, expressing all those views and sentiments which Prince Gortschakoff, the Chancellor of the Empire, had expressed to us at Berlin. Your Lordships are aware that within a short time there has been laid upon your Table a Correspondence which has been described as a sinister Correspondence, and which has for so long a time been the subject of interest, I would say of suppressed interest, in many political circles. Your Lordships may remark that at the end of that Correspondence the present Russian Ambassador alludes in a summary to a despatch of Count Schouvaloff, in which there is a long quotation or summary of what I had expressed to Count Schouvaloff in a conversation. I am sure, my Lords, that nobody who took up those Papers but would believe that it was an account of the Russian Ambassador's interview with me, after the discovery of the Cabul Correspondence, entirely condoning on my part the past, and approving everything that Russia had done. Otherwise they could see no reason for the publication of that despatch. But, my Lords, if you look at the date of the despatch, you will find that it was in November, 1878; whereas the despatches between the Russian authorities and the Ameer, which were discovered after the second capture of Cabul, were not obtained by the British Government until exactly a year afterwards—namely, October or November, 1879. And therefore it does appear to me most extraordinary that while the despatch of Count Schouvaloff, giving an account of his interview with me, condoning the conduct of the Russian Government under certain conditions and circumstances which are almost verbatim what I did express in this House about a month previously—that anyone could think there was any connection between those despatches so found a year afterwards at Cabul and that conversation. Your Lordships may also remark that in this curious publication there is, in inverted commas, what purports to be an announcement on my part that in my opinion the Government of India had forced our hands upon the subject of war, and had occasioned a
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declaration of war not only before it was necessary, but when it was, perhaps, altogether unnecessary. The case was exactly the opposite of that. Instead of Her Majesty's Government complaining of being forced by the Government of India to make war, it so happened that the Government of India was most anxious to avoid war. We were sometimes appealed to by the Government of India to know what was our decision, as it fell upon them to make preparations for war, if war were decided upon; and it was of the greatest importance that the season of military operations should not be lost. But the Government of India was as anxious as the English Government to avoid war; and when the affair came very near, the Government of India pledged itself voluntarily to undertake no military operation without our sanction and advice. Her Majesty's Government, as your Lordships may well remember, for it is in the Papers on the Table of the House, were anxious to give Shere Ali a locus penitentiœ and instructed the Government of India to concede to him a period of three weeks again to consider what he would do. We had to calculate every day, and consider the exact time that would not interfere with military operations if they became necessary. My Lords, I am quite certain that Count Schouvaloff was utterly incapable of intentionally misrepresenting anything I expressed to him. He was well known to every Member of this House, a great ornament of society, a most honourable man, and I am sure incapable of any miserable manœuvres of the kind; and therefore, when I announced that there was no foundation for that reported declaration of mine, I suggested that it must have been a misapprehension. I understand that it was a misapprehension, and that it referred, not to our hand being forced by the Government of India to go to war—that was absolutely absurd—but to the Mission which two months before had been sent by the Indian Government, but not with the sanction of the English Government. Your Lordships are well aware of the failure of that expedition; but the expedition was not an operation of war; it was a mission of peace, and the Indian Government sent, as its head, an individual who was the personal friend of Shere Ali, and who they be-

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lieved would have succeeded in accomplishing their great object. I have taken the liberty of making these remarks, because I considered it was absolutely necessary that I should recall your Lordships' attention to the fact that the alleged conversation with Count Schouvaloff appended to the Papers discovered at Cabul took place, in fact, one year before they were discovered; and, further, that the expressions which excited my pain and surprise really referred to other circumstances, and the matter, therefore, requires no further comment. I will now ask your Lordships to consider this question of Afghanistan. I ought, perhaps, to notice a remark that has been made—Why, when these despatches were discovered at Cabul, were they not published by the late Government? Now, I should have thought that the reply to such an inquiry was an obvious one. Certainly it would not have been in harmony with good feeling between the English Plenipotentiaries and Prince Gortschakoff, if we took, at the earliest opportunity, a step which would not have tended to the cultivation of that friendly sentiment between the two countries, which was our object. It was our opinion that the publication of these despatches would cause considerable irritation both in England and in Russia, and that for the public welfare they ought not to be published. We are asked—"Why do you assent to their publication now?" Well, I am not the person who has assented to their publication now—it is the Minister. But I am not all surprised at their appearance. I always took it for granted, after the extraordinary proceedings which occurred with regard to Afghanistan during the General Election, that sooner or later there must have been a discussion on the subject. It was when in the frenzy of the hustings the country was enlightened on the causes of the war in Afghanistan, when it was denounced as one which had only been conceived and occasioned by the late Ministry unnecessarily, and to the great damage of the country—it was not until these expressions were used, and when we found, on the change of Government, they were going to be acted upon, that it became necessary to consider whether some steps should not be taken on our part to enlighten the country generally upon this question of Afghan polities. Why, you know, my Lords, what has occurred.
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Who could have supposed that our successors, with the Cabul Papers, not published, but in their possession to guide them, should have announced in the manner they did that the whole of our policy in Afghanistan would be repudiated? Our whole policy in Afghanistan was described as a monstrous romance, as if there had been no occasion for a single incident that occurred. Our recollection of the previous connection of the First Lord of the Admiralty (the Earl of Northbrook) with the Ameer seemed to be entirely effaced from the memory of the nation. And, therefore, when my noble Friend the late Viceroy found that the only reward for his public labours was public calumny, when he found himself held up in so false and distorted a form to his country, it is not surprising that, as a Member of this House, he should have taken an opportunity of calling your Lordships' attention to the subject of these despatches. Now, I will refer to the real subject before us, and I would ask the Lord Privy Seal why he did not answer the two most important questions asked in this debate—they were asked by the noble Viscount near me. The first is, What do the Government mean to do with Candahar when they evacuate it in a month hence? The next question is, Why are we not favoured with the opinion of Lord Ripon and his Councillors? These are two questions which we have certainly a right to have answered, and I hope they will be answered before the vote is called. My noble Friend (the Earl of Derby), who made an animated speech—and I do not know there is anything that would excite enthusiasm in him except the contemplated surrender of some national territory—made a distinct point on this head. He asked why we made such a great point of retaining Candahar at present, when we were willing, when we made the Treaty of Gandamak, to restore it to the Native Prince? Well, I should have thought—although my noble Friend dwelt upon the point as if it were quite incapable of an answer—that the answer was obvious. When we negotiated the Treaty of Gandamak our policy was, if possible, to create a powerful and an independent Afghanistan; and if that were our policy, which unquestionably it was, everybody must feel that to attempt in

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any way to retain Candahar under these circumstances must baffle and defeat that policy. And what is that policy, let me ask? Why, my Lords, it is the old policy with regard to the relations between this country and India and Afghanistan, which has been approved by all public men. I say all public men. I believe that Lord Lawrence, who is always to be spoken of with great respect, although the Lord Privy Seal says we systematically insulted him, was as decided as anyone on the old and accepted policy of this country about Afghanistan. It was that there should be fostered an English interest in Afghanistan, and that a Russian one should not for a moment be tolerated. That is the policy we pursued. What is the policy you are going to adopt? Where will English interests be when you have evacuated Afghanistan? What will be the state of Afghanistan? Without exaggeration, it will be a state of anarchy. We have always announced, as a reason for interfering in Afghanistan, that we cannot tolerate a state of anarchy on our Frontiers. Is not that an argument as good for Russia as for us? Will not the Russians say—"Afghanistan is in a state of anarchy, and we cannot go on civilizing Turkestan when Afghanistan is in a state of anarchy?" Therefore, you are furnishing Russia with an occasion for advancing. When I speak of this policy of Russia, I do not speak of it in a hostile spirit. Russia has a right to its policy as well as England. Russia has as good a right to create an Empire in Tartary as we have in India. She must take the consequences if the creation of her Empire endangers our power. I see nothing in that feeling on the part of England which should occasion any want of friendliness between this country and Russia. We must guard against what may be looked upon as the inevitable designs of a great Power. Lord Palmerston, in one of the most considerable measures of his life—the fortification of the Channel—a much more expensive one than even the retention of Candahar, according to the estimate given by Sir Henry Norman—when Lord Palmerston proposed to fortify the Channel, was that looked upon as a symbol of hostility to the French people? We all know that Lord Palmerston was a Minister who, in all matters relating to foreign affairs, took the course which he believed
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to be most advisable for the interests of the country. Yet everyone knows that he was, in feeling, very friendly to the French Alliance; and yet that was an operation immediately directed against France for the purpose of putting an end to the continual fluctuations of bluster and fear which such a situation as England was in at that time must necessarily entail. I come now for one moment to the question of finance. I am not going all over the Estimates. I am only surprised, considering the Estimates that have been produced, that anyone has had the courage to bring them under our notice. I should have thought that the Government, with their minds intent on this great question, could have obtained from the authorities of India some business-like document to put before us. I shall not enter into a discussion as to whether Sir Henry Norman's hurry-scurry estimate is the best or the worst. I shall take it for granted that whoever has the responsibility of dealing with this matter will take care to have due information before he acts. But I will remind your Lordships of this one fact—that everything that has been alleged respecting the retention of Candahar, and the consequent expenses of thus retaining it, was said about the Punjaub when you took it. We heard, when the retention of the Punjaub was proposed, that it was impossible to raise any respectable revenue there; that the country was bare; that the population, compared with India, was sparse; and that it was quite impossible that the expenditure of our government could be repaid. All these arguments were urged against annexation of any kind. But, eventually, you found a very prosperous country in the Punjaub and Scinde, which proved a source of wealth and strength to India. I will not believe, without much better proof, that the retaining Candahar—the capital of an extremely fertile district—will entail upon you a result less satisfactory than the result of the retention of the Punjaub and Scinde. The primâ facie evidence is, I think, in favour of a rich district paying its expenses, and, in time, probably paying more than its expenses. There is another point connected with Candahar of which much has been made in this debate and on other occasions. It is said that we are debarred from annexing or retaining

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Candahar by our public declarations and agreements, and in the front of these is always placed the celebrated Proclamation of the Queen when she accepted the Sovereignty of India. Now, my Lords, I can speak with some confidence upon that subject, for, to a certain extent, I am responsible for that Proclamation. It never entered into my head that there was anything in that Proclamation which should prevent the Queen, if she went to war with a foreign Power, making such terms on the conclusion of peace as she might think fit, and availing herself of her power to take any Provinces by right of conquest. The Proclamation is essentially a domestic Proclamation addressed to the Princes of India, and the obligation of that Proclamation has been most rigidly observed. There is no instance in which Her Majesty has been counselled to deviate from it; and I must repudiate the attempt to treat the Queen's Proclamation on her assumption of the full Sovereignty of India as a bar to the retention of Candahar if the Government should deem that retention wise and prudent. As to the petty observation that the Commanding Officers announced to the people that they were making war against Princes only and not upon subjects, it may be easily disposed of. Such an announcement is not peculiarly an Oriental custom. In all the wars that have taken place of late—certainly in some of them—similar assurances have been given by the invading Power; but it has not prevented rich countries losing their capitals, and ancient Empires being dislocated. It has generally been found that you can drive a coach and six through declarations of that kind, and the fact that the people whom you have subdued have not attempted to drive you back would be a sufficient reason for treating them less as enemies when peace has been arranged. I have now, my Lords, attempted to touch upon the principal points in this question of the retention of Candahar. I have not heard an answer to the speeches of my noble Friend who introduced this subject to your notice, of the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Salisbury), and of the noble Viscount who addressed your Lordships first this evening. We may, I trust, have an opportunity of obtaining that information. There are many authorities, both in
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oratory and statesmanship, who have not yet addressed the House, and we may receive the information we desire. It will not be unreasonable, therefore, if I repeat a few points on which we may lay particular stress. We want to know why we are not favoured with the views of Lord Ripon and his Council, and what scheme the Government have in view if they evacuate Candahar in the short space of time announced—namely, in less than a month. On this subject I have not taken any exaggerated view, though I wish myself that Candahar should be retained. Noble Lords opposite cheered the noble Earl (the Earl of Dunraven) who addressed us from those Benches with so much power, and who seemed to admit that he would be satisfied if Candahar were to be retained for a certain period of time. Well, that is not a subject we are called upon to discuss; but there is nothing unusual in retaining possession of a considerable town or province until the country, after great disquietude, war, and revolution, has subsided into comparative tranquillity. That is not an Oriental practice. It has been practised in some of the greatest countries in Europe. There have been such things as military occupations before the present time. If the Government had come forward and announced that they intended to give up almost everything that we had obtained, but that in the present state of Afghanistan they did not see their way to leave Candahar, though they did not think fit to appropriate it absolutely, I should still have regretted their not annexing Candahar, but I should have felt that they were making a reasonable and statesmanlike suggestion, which should be received with attention. Such a course would have received the respectful consideration of this House. But when we have been told, without the slightest preparation, that events are about to take place that may exercise a most injurious influence on our Indian Empire and the general welfare of our interests, I think the time has come when it befits the House of Lords to express its opinion upon the subject. I myself believe that even if we abandoned Candahar we should still be able to retain our Indian Empire. I do not think that is absolutely essential to us. There are some very important places which are called the keys of

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India. There is Herat, and there is Merv. I do not know whether Merv has yet been taken by the Russians. I see in the newspapers it is taken. Perhaps the First Lord of the Admiralty will be able to inform us.
THE EARL OF NORTHBROOK: It is not a seaport.
THE EARL OF BEACONSFIELD: No; it is not a seaport; but in these days in Central Asia railways connect places with seaports. Still, there is Merv; then there is Herat, Ghazni, Balkh, and Candahar. My opinion is that, though such places may not be absolutely essential to us, yet that I should regret to see them in possession of any great military Power—I should look upon such an event with regret, and perhaps with some degree of apprehension; but even if the great military Power were there I trust we might still be able to maintain our Empire. My Lords, the key of India is not Merv, or Herat, or Candahar. The key of India is London. The majesty of sovereignty, the spirit and vigour of your Parliaments, the inexhaustible resources of a free, an ingenious, and a determined people—these are the keys of India. But, my Lords, a wise statesman would be chary in drawing upon what I may call the arterial sources of his power. He would seek to sustain his Empire by resources prompt and ready at hand. You have observed that system in this country for the last 100 years. You have skilfully acquired many of the strong places of the world. You have established a chain of fortifications which has connected the Metropolis with its most distant dependencies, and when you have had to consider your boundaries by the valour of your soldiers and the skill of your engineers, you have generally managed to obtain a precise and scientific Frontier. Well, my Lords, I hope we shall pursue the same policy. If we pursue the same policy, Candahar is eminently one of those places which would contribute to the maintenance of our Empire. It is advisable to retain it on economical grounds. As my noble Friend said in his speech, would it be a becoming course for us now to withdraw, when the fact that the power of England can be felt promptly and on the spot is the best security for peace, and therefore the best guarantee of economy. I think the views taken by my noble Friend below the Gangway (the
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Earl of Derby) on this subject are essentially erroneous views, and in no point more erroneous than in decrying the duty which the House of Lords may occasionally fulfil to express its opinion upon questions of this magnitude. I have no wish in any way to take an exaggerated view of the feeling of the country on the question of Candahar. I believe it to be a real, deep, and increasing feeling. I believe that every day the subject is more considered the opinion will become more matured that our Ministers are taking a rash and precipitate step in that which they propose. If that be the case, then, when opinion is restless, when its absolute bias is ambiguous, what can be a more legitimate occasion than for the Peers of England to come forward and give to the country the result of their thought, their wisdom, and their experience, and give it, as I hope they will to-night, for the maintenance of the Empire of India?
EARL GRANVILLE: My Lords, there was one portion, and only one, of the noble Earl's speech with which I agree, and that is the one in which he disagrees with my noble Friend below the Gangway; and I can say that was the only part of the remarkable speech of my noble Friend which he made last night in which I am not able to concur. I do not in the slightest degree complain of this subject having been brought before your Lordships for consideration. I remember a noble Lord who was a great authority in the construction of Votes of Censure. He used to say—"You cannot make them too mild. The mildness does not signify, and you catch all the mild votes." I think that story applies to the noble Earl opposite. I cannot conceive a milder Vote of Censure than that—as was pointed out yesterday by my noble Friend—which has been proposed by the noble Earl. I think, as I shall point out later, that I can find one reason why the noble Earl made it so mild. There is, however, one peculiarity I would point out. When he brought this Motion forward, he said there was not sufficient information before the House, and that at a time when he did not know what information was going to be supplied to your Lordships. The course of this debate has been somewhat singular. It appears to have been one very instructive and very

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interesting; but I cannot help remarking that, although some of our independent Friends on this side of the House have spoken some in favour and some against us, and have uttered the very friendly criticisms which they very often bestow on the Government behind whose Benches they sit, and although noble Lords opposite have come down in such enormous numbers to vote, while we have had magnificent speeches from three ex-Secretaries of State and from the late Prime Minister to-night, there has not been one single independent Conservative Peer who has said one word on the subject, and yesterday there were only two, one of them the only military authority in this House, who spoke against the Motion. Now, the other day, in anticipation of this debate, the noble Earl the late Prime Minister said that we were to free this debate from old stories that were already settled; and in that sentiment I entirly and cordially agree. But when the noble Earl brought forward this Motion I am not sure that an hour or an hour and a-half of his speech was not entirely occupied with those old stories which his Chief wished wholly to dismiss. Another peculiarity of this debate, which I regret very much, was that a noble Lord, notwithstanding our request, should have insisted on getting up to close the debate, although several Peers were desirous of speaking, one of them being the late Under Secretary of State for India in the present Government. I think, my Lords, we have a right to speak, even although we may be opposed by an enormous majority of votes. Those who have spoken in favour of the Motion have had one advantage over us, which is that, while in arguing against this Motion we were obliged to bring forward what reasons we could find, noble Lords opposite have had this resource—that if it was not convenient to reply to some of the arguments which have been made, or if any arguments failed them, they could fall back on abuse of Russia. And this abuse comes with peculiar flavour when it is addressed by two ex-Seretaries of State, one of them the late Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and perfectly certain to occupy sonic of the highest Offices in the Government of the country. Having said that, I must state how marked was the difference presented by the late Prime Minister's
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speech. It appears to me that he spoke with his great experience, and with much more political tact, and that there was not one word in his speech which betrayed unfriendly feeling towards the Russian Government, or one which was likely to excite the feelings of this country to re-act again in Russia by rousing feelings which it is certainly our interest to soothe and not to inflame. The noble Marquess opposite could not contain his dissatisfaction at the statement made by the noble Viscount (Viscount Enfield) that our relations were friendly with Russia. Now, I must say that during the last year, seeing as I have done the plans that were contemplated by Russia on the one side and by this country on the other, as possibly carrying out the greatest possible injury to each of those countries without conferring the slightest advantage on either of them. I feel great satisfaction not that we have any special alliance, because we have none, not that we have any secret understanding with Russia, because we are absolutely without one, but that we are on that friendly footing with Russia which I desire to be upon with every country in the world. The noble Earl spoke in regard to Russia, and to the circumstances connected with the despatches that were found at Cabul, and he gave an explanation which I was very glad to hear of a sort of controversy that had arisen as to a conversation between himself and Count Shouvaloff. I need not say that, if there was any difference between a Russian statesman, however distinguished, and one in the position of the noble Earl, I am sure that your Lordships would be inclined to believe your countryman as to the accuracy of the statement. At the same time, it is satisfactory to find that by the explanation given by the noble Earl to-day there seems to have been no difference whatever between him and the Russian Ambassador, and that the only difference was that it was not with regard to the war, which Count Schouvaloff did not say, but with regard to the Mission of Sir Neville Chamberlain—the origin of the whole mischief—that the Home Government appeared to have entirely disapproved. There is one question with regard to these letters on which I must say a word. It is not my place to make any defence of or charge against

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the Russian Government. It is an affair of the late Government. I could never quite understand the course which they took—namely, that of utterly refusing either to let the Russian Government know anything about these Papers, or to let the English public do so; and then, when we came into Office, thinking it desirable that they should be produced. I do not understand the distinction as far as the public advantage is concerned. But I have nothing to say about these Papers. Many noble Lords who have spoken seem to think that we are absolutely the slaves of any assurance that Russia might give. Now, I am always ready to believe when an assurance is given to me that it is intended with perfect sincerity at the time; but I certainly should not think of shaping my future policy on the basis of the certainty that that assurance would always be maintained, and would never yield either to circumstances or to persons. So that the real question remains, with the possibility of Russia at some future time—I own that I think at a very distant time—trying to invade India, or even intriguing in Afghanistan or elsewhere, what is the best way of meeting such an attack if made? There is one question which we have asked three times, and to which we have never had an answer; and I will venture to repeat it a fourth time. It was asked by the noble Duke behind me of the noble Earl the late Viceroy of India, What was the foundation of the assurance that the Viceroy sent to the Ameer that Russia was quite ready to share with England in the destruction of Afghanistan? Now, it is quite impossible that the noble Earl should have made that statement without having a perfectly solid and authentic foundation for it. We are really interested in knowing, whether publicly or secretly, what was the character of the negotiation between the noble Earl and the noble Marquess with regard to Afghanistan; and I must say this—that I think that I have a right to complain, as I think that any Conservative successor to the Foreign Office would have a right to complain, that such an important negotiation should have gone on between Her Majesty's Government and the Russian Government, and that in two important Offices—the India Office and the Foreign Office—there should not be the slightest record on the subject. Now, my Lords, I go to the question
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whether it is desirable to retain Candahar or not. There is one point which has been introduced, which I should not have originated—namely, that of morality. After what has fallen from the noble Lord, I do wish to enter a small protest on the question. I protest against such language being used, and suggest, in the same way as International Law is based on certain principles, which are also the foundation of municipal law, I have no doubt that the ruling principle of the intercourse of nations ought to be based on the same general principles as the intercourse between individuals. I do protest against morality being called sentiment, because that is an argument that might apply to the person who objects to the man who is picking my pocket. The next question is the military question. I am absolutely without self-confidence on military matters. I have not the ability which enables the noble Earl the late Viceroy of India to write pages on strategical considerations. I own if I were to go upon my own unaided opinion I should say it would not be a good military move to take an isolated fortress, in a mountain country, 400 miles from your own Frontier, with the road to it going through deserts, mountains, and defiles, presenting all the difficulties of forage, fuel, and water.
THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: It was proposed to make a railway.
EARL GRANVILLE: The noble Marquess says a railway is about to be made; but I am not so perfectly certain of that. The expense of making a railway and the fortifications required to defend it is enormous. I know the noble Marquess does not care about that. I come to the question of military authority. On reading these military Memoranda, I find that they are not in the least confined to military considerations. I found in General Merewether's Memorandum, for instance, that there is a certain number of lines with regard to military considerations, that there is double that number with regard to political considerations, and four times that amount with regard to trade. I do not know whether the illustrious Duke on the Cross Benches would allow me to allude to his Memorandum. We all know the illustrious Duke's ability and his knowledge; and though I am afraid I sometimes differ from him, I can most honestly state that I am always glad to

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see his opinions on large or small subjects before I form an opinion. But what I do know is this—that the illustrious Duke has a remarkable knowledge of everything connected with military matters. I remember Sir George Lewis telling me he was very ignorant when he joined the War Office, and that there was nobody there, or in the Horse Guards, who gave him such immediate and accurate information on all details as the illustrious Duke. I turned to the illustrious Duke's Memorandum, and I found hardly anything about military considerations; but there is a great deal about political considerations, and, like General Merewether, his great argument is that of trade. Well, I happened to be in the Board of Trade twice. I gave some attention to economical subjects. I have been more or less a tradesman all my life; therefore, ex officio, I think I have a right to have an opinion as well as the illustrious Duke. I cannot help thinking, when I find so much political and trade padding put in by General Officers, that they must have felt they required considerable assistance to fill up the argument for the retention of Candahar. But what is the amount of this trade? In our last Return, the whole trade going through Candahar amounted in English money to £250,000. The English portion of that amount was £134,000; and if you put a pretty fair profit, say to the extent of 20 per cent, on it, the total profit would amount to about £26,000. Why, my Lords, if that amount was quadrupled, or even a still greater amount produced, is it possible to imagine it would justify the expenditure of so large a sum as would be unquestionably necessary to keep it up? Well, now, with regard to the authorities on the political question. The noble Earl has requested me to answer two questions which were put by the noble Viscount this evening—one was, that I should tell your Lordships exactly what was proposed to be done in Candahar if we evacuated it; and the other was, what was the opinion of the Governor General and Council in India? With regard to the first, I have the satisfaction of being able to inform the noble Marquess that the Secretary of State for India hopes, as his Colleagues do, that he is making arrangements which will be satisfactory as regards the evacuation. ["Hear, hear!" and laughter.] That is his opinion; and I
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hardly understand the noble Lords who occupy the official Benches opposite take the matter up facetiously, as they must understand that at this moment it would not be for the advantage of the Public Service that we should make any more definite statement on the subject. As to the second question, I do not think that it requires an answer, because the noble Lord seems to know all about it, and stated himself that the Governor General of India did not approve of the evacuation of Candahar.
VISCOUNT CRANBROOK: I beg pardon. I asked the question of the noble Earl. I asked him to say what the Governor General of India's opinion on the subject was.
EARL GRANVILLE: I think that it is not many hours ago since the noble Viscount assumed that the Governor General of India was opposed to the evacuation. Whether that was an assumption or not, I can state that he is perfectly wrong; and I am not at all sure that he is right even about the feelings of the rest of the Council, always excepting Major Baring, whose opinions are well known. Reference has been made to the Minute of Sir Donald Stewart. It has been said that we have not brought it forward. We have not brought it forward because we have not yet got it. But I have reason to know that when your Lordships see that Minute, you will find that Sir Donald Stewart has not changed his views at all with regard to the military position; that he does not think that the occupation of Candahar will be a source of strength to us, but of weakness; and that his change of opinion is purely political, and is founded on the reason that having once announced our intention of retaining Candahar we ought not to retire from it. That may be a perfectly legitimate argument; but it is not one which in the slightest degree affects the military question. With regard to this political question, I think that we are agreed now that we are considering what would be the best way of meeting aggression by any foreign Power, and that we are not sitting down supinely waiting until we are attacked. I was glad to hear from the noble Marquess a perfect contradiction of what he had recently said about his apprehension of any actual invasion of India by Russia. It has been said that our opinion as to the evacuation of

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Candahar should have been changed by the fact that the Russians, having sent their best General with a small but well-equipped army into Central Asia, have achieved a great victory over the nomad Turcomans. My Lords, this fear of Russia has not sprung up within the last few years. I dare say that many of your Lordships have read a Memoir of Lord Ellenborough, in which it is stated that that noble Lord, some 50 years ago, differing from the Duke of Wellington and Lord Hardinge, who regarded the idea of a Russian invasion as a nightmare—the very expression that was adopted recently by the noble Marquess—said that the India Company were terrified with regard to Russia, that he was terrified also, and that it was his feeling that it would be his fate to meet the Russians near the Indus and to gain a great victory over them. That was said 50 years ago. Lord Ellenborough unfortunately died, as people do generally after a certain age, without that Russian invasion having taken place, and it is possible that no real invasion will ever be attempted. But the noble Lord said, with more truth, that Russia or other foreign countries may try intrigues and other sinister influences. How do you intend to meet it? The other day you unfortunately sent one of your cleverest European Envoys, Sir Louis Cavagnari, to Cabul; but he was kept utterly in the dark, and he failed to get as much information as would have been got by your Indian Envoys, who were thrown over so unnecessarily. Let me ask, therefore, how is the occupation of Candahar to prevent secret intrigues going on at Cabul? I believe that one of the greatest evils, the principal evil of the unfortunate change of policy—because what has been done by noble Lords opposite in this matter has been to repudiate a policy of 40 years—adopted by the late Government, has been that it has absolutely manured the soil of Afghanistan for the purposes of foreign intrigues. I have before stated, with no want of respect for Russia, that I do not admit that Russian statesmen and diplomatists are so eminently superior to those of all other countries in Europe. I do not often believe in diplomatic successes—they are very often hollow and dangerous; but of all the diplomatic successes I ever heard of, that of Russia in Afghanistan is the
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greatest. Without sending an army, without spending £1,000, by the mere Mission of a General at an opportune moment they drained us of £20,000,000, and lost us all sorts of valuable lives, and they threw Afghanistan into a state which was absolutely contrary to that which our Government professed it to be their great object to maintain. The noble Lord gave us very re-assuring accounts of the financial value of retaining Candahar. The noble Earl the late Prime Minister talked of the helter-skelter estimate given by one of the most eminent members of the Indian Council—a man who has served in Afghanistan, and who for nearly 20 years has been the actual War Minister of that country. I think that that was rather a helter-skelter observation on the part of the noble Earl. I have arrived at that age when, in taking estimates, I think it safer to take the highest; and therefore I do not feel that the noble Lord's estimate is, after all, so very re-assuring. None of your Lordships can imagine that this was the only instance of the kind. Do you imagine that our Estimates for fortifications have never been exceeded? When Lord Napier, with great skill and success, conducted the Abyssinian War, the late Government assured the country that the cost would not exceed £3,000,000; but, as matter of fact, the amount reached £9,000,000; and I now say, perfectly without Party feeling, that Sir Henry Norman's Estimates, which have been most carefully and moderately made, and set down at £1,400,000, will be found to reach, at least, £2,000,000, even if they do not exceed that amount; and let it be understood that this is not a capital sum of which I am speaking, but a yearly payment as estimated by Sir Henry Norman, which, in my opinion, will be exceeded by £500,000 or £600,000. Is it the custom, let me ask, in this country, whenever military officers recommend that a thing should be done—which they do most conscientiously and loyally—for it to be done? I remember the time when the late Duke of Wellington, thinking that Cherbourg was a standing menace to this country, recommended that a large harbour should be made in the Channel Island group, and that the islands themselves should be fortified. The result was that a very large sum of money was spent; but the

309
fortifications do not exist, the harbour is choked up, and I do not think any public spirit has been evoked in order to procure the completion of the fortifications. I have a great notion that if you have £2,000,000 a-year to expend on military affairs, and consult military officers of experience concerning the best way of expending it, you will be told that there are better channels into which the money could be poured than by retaining and fortifying an out-of-the-way place, lying 400 miles from the Frontier of our Indian Empire. There are many persons in high positions who hold this view, and at the risk of boring your Lordships by speaking on a subject to which I have often referred in your Lordships' House, I may mention Dover Harbour. The illustrious Duke the Commander-in-Chief, and all the military and naval authorities, entertain a strong view as to the importance of Dover Harbour in a military point of view, and it was settled it should be improved in that sense; but, after two or three years, the late Prime Minister refused to go on with the works, and did this exclusively on grounds of economy. And what was the ground of the economical consideration on that occasion? It was not a question, as now, of an annual outlay from £1,400,000 to £2,000,000 upon the retention and fortification of Candhar, but a capital expenditure of not much more than £1,000,000, which was refused on grounds of economy which rose between the Board of Trade and the Treasury, as to whether the whole of the interest of that sum would be recouped or not. Therefore, the works were discontinued during the Government of the late Prime Minister, and I dare say that some of my economical Colleagues may follow the bad example set to them. But, although such a work as that recommended by military men is refused, we are asked with light hearts to make the large expenditure to which I have alluded in order to maintain an isolated fortress in a distant land, which some military men declare will be a source of weakness rather than strength. My Lords, we have received a number of lessons in the course of this debate on high policy and patriotism. I will certainly not concede a monopoly to patriotism to noble Lords sitting on the opposite side of the House, nor, indeed, do I think
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they would claim it. But, with regard to their policy, particularly with regard to India, are we encouraged to follow the advice of the noble Lord? In January, 1880, we were told that the intention of Her Majesty's late Government was to prevent foreign influence predominating in Afghanistan, and to make it into a strong and independent country, a state of things which everyone would like to see accomplished. But what has become of that policy? Shortly afterwards it was known that a Russian General had arrived at Cabul. So much for the prevention of foreign influence in Afghanistan. Then we were to have a scientific Frontier. What has happened with respect to that? There were three points in it. First, it was the Khyber Valley, which at one time was of the greatest importance; then it was the Kuram; and next it was the Pass we still retain. But the Khyber and the Kuram Valley Passes have been thrown away as utterly useless; there is no question about that, and these were the principal points of that scientific Frontier. I remember a noble Friend of mine who fell overboard from his yacht. Dreadful anxiety followed, and the boat was at once ordered to be lowered. Before it could be done his dog—a magnificent Newfoundland dog—jumped into the sea. The sailors cheered. In three minutes the dog triumphantly brought back to the vessel, not my noble Friend, but his cap, which was the first thing he had been able to find. I cannot help thinking that my noble Friend the late Viceroy has acted the part of that noble and intelligent animal. His whole policy fell into the water, he jumped in, and laid hold of the first thing he could, which was this discovery of the importance of the retention of Candahar. I cannot conceive that this discovery is very much more valuable than the goldlaced cap was which the dog rescued and brought back. I cannot understand why he recommends to your Lordships such a mild Motion. It does not in the least bind anyone either to the retention of Candahar, or to the retirement from it, or to an enormous extension by annexation to the Empire of Afghanistan. The noble Earl, who now avoids asking your Lordships to retain Candahar, says—this is the despatch of the 9th of September, 1878—

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"That the recent occupation of Quetta has materially improved our position. The command of the southern passes is now in our hands, and from Multan to the sea, a distance of 500 miles, our frontier is well guarded. While we, securely established at Quetta, can at any moment descend on the plains of Candahar, or advance to meet our adversary in the open field, no enemy can debouch on our plains without first besieging and taking Quetta—a task of no slight difficulty, and involving much loss of precious time—and then forcing a long and difficult pass held by us."
That partly disposes of Candahar. The noble Lord then says—
"From a military point of view, our position here leaves little to be desired, beyond the improvement of our communications between Quetta and the Indus … I do not consider that the occupation of the town of Candahar would greatly strengthen our western frontier."—[Afghanistan (1881) No. 2, pp. 6&9.]
I could quote similar passages written to the same effect by the noble Earl in 1879. It is rather inconsistent on the part of the noble Earl to be the Mover of a Resolution of this kind, which, though in words it avoids expressing an opinion, will be voted on generally by your Lordships as bearing directly on the question whether we shall retain Candahar or not. My Lords, I say that Her Majesty's late Government have left us no policy to repudiate or continue; and, therefore, we shall do that which we think best, not in blind confidence as to our position being absolutely secure, though we do feel perfect confidence we could resist a foreign foe—but we shall do that which bears least heavily on the taxpayer of India, while, at the same time, it gives us an absolutely strong and powerful military Frontier.
On question, their Lordships divided:—Contents 165; Not-Contents 76: Majority 89.

CONTENTS.

Beaufort, D.

Amherst, E.

Leeds, D.

Annesley, E.

Norfolk, D.

Aylesford, E.

Northumberland, D.

Bathurst, E.

Portland, D.

Beaconsfield, E.

Richmond, D.

Beauchamp, E.

Sutherland, D.

Belmore, E.

Wellington, D.

Bradford, E.

Brooke and Warwick, E.

Abercorn, M. (D. Abercorn.)

Cadogan, E.

Abergavenny, M.

Cairns, E.

Ailsa, M.

Cathcart, E.

Bristol, M.

Cawdor, E.

Bute, M.

Clarendon, E.

Exeter, M.

Clonmell, E.

Salisbury, M.

Coventry, E.

Winchester, M.

Dartmouth, E.

312

Denbigh, E.

Carleton, L. (E. Shannon.)

Doncaster, E. (D. Buccleuch and Queensberry.)

Churston, L.

Clements, L. (E. Leitrim.)

Feversham, E.

Fitzwilliam, E.

Clinton, L.

Gainsborough, E.

Cloncurry, L.

Graham, E. (D. Montrose.)

Colchester, L.

Colville of Culross, L.

Haddington, E.

De L'Isle and Dudley, L.

Harewood, E.

Ilchester, E.

Denman, L.

Jersey, E.

de Ros, L. [Teller.]

Lanesborough, E.

De Saumarez, L.

Lathom, E. [Teller.]

Digby, L.

Lindsey, E.

Dorchester, L.

Lucan, E.

Dunmore, L. (E. Dunmore.)

Lytton, E.

Malmesbury, E.

Dunsany, L.

Mansfield, E.

Ellenborough, L.

Manvers, E.

Forester, L.

Mar and Kellie, E.

Gage, L. (V. Gage.)

Mount Cashell, E.

Gormanston, L. (V. Gormanston.)

Mount Edgcumbe, E.

Onslow, E.

Grey de Radcliffe, L. (V. Grey de Wilton.)

Poulett, E.

Redesdale, E.

Gwydir, L.

Romney, E.

Harlech, L.

Rosslyn, E.

Harris, L.

Sandwich, E.

Hartismere, L.(L. Henniker.)

Selkirk, E.

Sondes, E.

Hawke, L.

Stanhope, E.

Hay, L. (E. Kinnoul.)

Tankerville, E.

Heytesbury, L.

Verulam, E.

Houghton, L.

Waldegrave, E.

Inchiquin, L.

Wharncliffe, E.

Keane, L.

Kenlis, L. (M. Headfort.)

Clancarty, V. (E. Clancarty.)

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

Cranbrook, V.

Gough, V.

Kintore, L. (E. Kintore.)

Hardinge, V.

Hereford, V.

Leconfield, L.

Hood, V.

Londesborough, L.

Hutchinson, V. (E. Donoughmore.)

Lovat, L.

Level and Holland, L. (E. Egmont.)

Melville, V.

Strathallan, V.

Lyveden, L.

Templetown, V.

Massy, L.

Mont Eagle, L. (M. Sligo.)

Peterborough, L. Bp.

St. Albans, L. Bp.

Mowbray, L.

Norton, L.

Abinger, L.

O'Neill, L.

Airey, L.

Oranmore and Browne, L.

Alington, L.

Amherst, L. (V. Holmesdale.)

Ormathwaite, L.

Penrhyn, L.

Annaly, L.

Poltimore, L.

Ashford, L. (V. Bury.)

Ranfurly, L. (E. Ranfurly.)

Aveland, L.

Balfour of Burleigh, L.

Rodney, L.

Ross, L. (E. Glasgow.)

Bateman, L.

Sackville, L.

Beaumont, L.

Saltersford, L.(E. Courtown.)

Blackburn, L.

Blantyre, L.

Saltoun, L.

Borthwick, L.

Sandys, L.

Braybrooke, L.

Shute, L. (V. Barrington.)

Brodrick, L. (V. Midleton.)

Stratheden and Campbell, L.

Byron, L.

313

Strathnairn, L.

Westbury, L.

Tollemache, L.

Wigan, L. (E. Crawford and Balcarres.)

Tredegar, L.

Trevor, L.

Willoughby de Broke, L.

Tyrone, L. (M. Waterford.)

Wimborne, L.

Vernon, L.

Windsor, L.

Watson, L.

Zouche of Haryngworth, L.

Waveney, L.

NOT-CONTENTS.

Selborne, L.(L. Chancellor.)

Congleton, L

Crewe, L.

Dormer, L.

Bedford, D.

Ebury, L.

Devonshire, D.

Elgin, L. (E. Elgin and Kincardine.)

Saint Albans, D.

Emly, L.

Bath, M.

Ettrick, L. (L. Napier.)

Lansdowne, M.

Foley, L.

Northampton, M.

Kenmare, L. (E. Kenmare.)

Airlie, E.

Lawrence, L.

Camperdown, E.

Leigh, L.

Dartrey, E.

Lismore, L. (V. Lismore.)

Derby, E.

Ducie, E.

Lyttelton, L.

Durham, E.

Meldrum, L. (M. Huntly.)

Essex, E.

Granville, E.

Methuen, L.

Kimberley, E.

Moncreiff, L.

Morley, E.

Monson, L. [Teller.]

Northbrook, E.

Monteagle of Brandon, L.

Spencer, E.

Suffolk and Berkshire, E.

Mount Temple, L.

O'Hagan, L.

Sydney, E.

Ponsonby, L. (E. Bessborough.)

Yarborough, E.

Ramsay, L. (E. Dalhousie.)

Sherbrooke, V.

Ribblesdale, L.

Aberdare, L.

Romilly, L.

Ashburton, L.

Rosebery, L. (E. Rosebery.)

Auckland, L.

Blachford, L.

Sandhurst, L.

Boyle, L. (E. Cork and Orrery.) [Teller.]

Saye and Sele, L.

Seaton, L.

Brabourne, L.

Sefton, L. (E. Sefton.)

Braye, L.

Skene, L. (E. Fife.)

Breadalbane, L. (E. Breadalbane.)

Stanley of Alderley, L.

Strafford, L. (V. Enfield.)

Calthorpe, L.

Carlingford, L.

Sudeley, L.

Carrington, L.

Sundridge, L. (D. Argyll.)

Carysfort, L.(E.Carysfort.)

Thurlow, L.

Churchill, L.

Wenlock, L.

Clifford of Chudleigh, L.

Wolverton, L.

Wrottesley, L.

Coleridge, L.

Resolved in the affirmative.

COURT OF SESSION (SCOTLAND) BILL [H.L.]
A Bill to reduce the number of the Judges, and to improve the judicial arrangements of the Court of Session—Was presented by The LORD CHANCELLOR; read 1a. (No. 42.)
House adjourned at half past Twelve o'clock, to Monday next, half past Ten o'clock.