Sitting of 16 May 1881

MINUTES.
WAYS AND MEANS—considered in Committee—Resolutions [May 13] reported.
PUBLIC BILLS—Leave—Church Patronage (No. 2)* [House counted out].
Second Reading—Local Government Provisional Orders (Askern, &c.) * [152]; Land Law (Ireland) [135]—[Seventh Night]—debate further adjourned.
Second Reading—Referred to Select Committee—Local Courts of Bankruptcy (Ireland) [164].
Committee—Petty Sessions Clerks (Ireland) [41]—R. P.

QUESTIONS.

  ARMY—COMPETITIVE EXAMINATIONS.
  MR. RYLANDSasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether his attention has been directed to the following facts disclosed by the Return of March 24th relative to First Commissions in the Army—namely, that during the years 1879 and 1880, 1,630 young men qualified for First Commissions in the Army before the Civil Service Commissioners at the open Competitive Examinations; that only 448 of these successful Candidates at the open Competitive Examinations obtained First Commissions in the Army during 1879 and 1880; whilst 423 First Commissions in the Army were given to Militia Officers during the same period; whether he can state the number of young men who, having been unsuccessful in open Competitive Examinations, received First Commissions in the Army as Militia Officers, or otherwise, during the years 1879 and 1880; and, whether he is prepared to take any steps to prevent the continuance of the state of things which appears in the above-mentioned Return to have existed during the years 1879 and 1880?
  MR. CHILDERS: Sir, I have paid especial attention for some time past to the subject of the Return to which my hon. Friend refers. It is most important and instructive; but, whether from the language of the Return or not, he has been led into some misconception of the facts. The 1,630 young men who qualified for first commissions in the Army in 1879 and 1880 were not all successful candidates at the open competitions. All the successful candidates have obtained, or are in course of being given, commissions, and they are the 448 for the year 1879–80 to which my hon. Friend refers in his Question. All the Militia officers who obtained commissions are included among the 1,630 who qualified in 1879 and 1880, or among those who qualified in previous years, or have qualified by passing an equivalent examination before the Civil Service Commissioners as University candidates. What is unsatisfactory to my mind is the very large number of commissions granted to Militia officers. But for this in 1879–80 there were two

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  reasons—the first, that in previous years the number assigned to the Militia (120), under the system of nomination by colonels, had not been made up; and the second, that the vacancies in the Army were made abnormally large in those two years by the Afghan and Cape Wars. On the other hand, Sandhurst can only turn out a limited number of qualified cadets every year, so that the balance had to be made good from the Militia, and the substitution of competition among the whole of the subalterns of the Militia justified a larger number of appointments from this source. For the future, under the Army Re-organization arrangements which I have explained to the House, a smaller number of commissions by 50 will be granted annually, and even this reduced number will not be appointed after 1882, until gradually the Establishment has been brought down. The proportion given to Sandhurst—that is to say, to virtually open competition—will be much larger than in 1879–80.

  CENTRAL ASIA—CAPTAIN BUTLER'S MISSION.
  MR. LABOUCHEREasked the Secretary of State for India, Whether, in the year 1877, Captain Butler, of the 9th Regiment, was secretly ordered by Lord Lytton, then Viceroy of India, to proceed to the Perso-Turkoman Frontier, with a view of surveying the Turkoman land from the Caspian Sea to Merv; whether he was directed by Lord Lytton and by Mr. Thornton (the then Indian Foreign Secretary) to arrange to be in a position to raise the Turkoman Tribes in case of a War with Russia; whether he was specially directed to conceal the object of his mission from all the home authorities, from Her Majesty's Minister at Teheran, and from the English officials at Meshed; whether a Report of Captain Butler, as to his proceedings in the Turkoman laud, was sent by him to the Indian Foreign Office on his return from his mission; and, if so, whether there is any objection to lay the same upon the Table of the House; and, also, whether, considering that Captain Butler's health greatly suffered, owing to the hardships incurred during his mission, and that in consequence of this he was granted sick leave for eighteen months, and that his medical advisers inform him that, although still
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  suffering from the effects of his arduous mission, his health will in all probability be completely restored should he be granted leave for a further six months, such additional leave will be granted to him, instead of his being placed on half-pay, owing to his present and temporary inability to perform active service in India?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: Sir, according to Papers which I find on record at the India Office, it appears that in May, 1877, an offer from Captain Butler to proceed to Merv was accepted by the late Viceroy of India, not to "survey country from the Caspian Sea to Merv," but to
  "Gain information as to the state of affairs among the Merv Turkomans, and the geography and resources of the valley of the Murghab, without compromising Government,"
  and some pecuniary assistance was given him for this object. These Papers do not contain any evidence that Captain Butler was directed to "arrange to be in a position to raise the Turkomans in case of a war with Russia;" but, on the contrary, directly refute any such idea. It appears that Captain Butler's mission was to be undertaken at his own risk and responsibility, and that he was to make his journey as an ordinary unofficial traveller. He was ordered not to go to Teheran, chiefly on account of representations from himself that if his presence in Persia, and the object of his mission were known, difficulties might be thrown in his way by the Persian authorities. Captain Butler submitted to the Indian authorities, through the Quartermaster General, a Report of his travels on the Northern Frontier of Persia. Official information received from other sources by the Government of India has thrown considerable doubt on the accuracy of Captain Butler's Report of his proceedings. The Report itself does not contain any information of a valuable character; and, if published, would have to be accompanied by a large mass of Correspondence which would serve no useful purpose; and I do not, therefore, think it necessary to lay it on the Table. As to the latter part of the hon. Member's Question, I can only say that the matter of additional leave to Captain Butler is one entirely for the consideration of the Field Marshal Commanding in Chief, in regard to which I see no ground for interiorence

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  on the part of the Secretary of State for India.

  LUNATIC ASYLUMS (IRELAND)—LIMERICK ASYLUM—PAUPER LUNATICS.
  MR. O'SHAUGHNESSYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If it is not true that the rates of the City of Limerick have lately become charged with the maintenance in the Limerick Lunatic Asylum of several persons, not natives or inhabitants of the city, who, being prisoners in the Limerick District Prison, were transferred thence on account of mental derangement to the Limerick Lunatic Asylum, and several soldiers enlisted in the city, who, having become mentally deranged in the service, were transferred from Netley to the Limerick Lunatic Asylum; and, whether he will take into consideration the desirability of compelling the place in which a pauper lunatic, admitted to a lunatic asylum, shall have been usually resident, to contribute to his maintenance and treatment in such asylum?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER, in reply, said, the Inspector of Lunatic Asylums reported to him that two soldiers who had been confined in the Limerick District Prison, and who had become insane, were transferred to the Asylum for the county, in which they now remain. Only one soldier had been sent from Netley to the Limerick Asylum, and he was a native of the county. It would be very difficult to carry out what was recommended by a general rule; but, in individual cases, the matter might be arranged by the Inspector of Asylums, as was done in this case.

  STATE OF IRELAND—INFLAMMATORY PLACARDS—THE IRISH CONSTABULARY.
  MR. HEALYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether the following paragraph from the "Enniscorthy Guardian" of the 7th instant is correct:—
  "On Wednesday an affair took place in Enniscorthy which perhaps was the most unwarrantable stretch of authority ever attempted. In two or three places placards, a copy of Which is given below, were posted on the walls. No sooner had these caught the eye of the vigilant constabulary than they at once tore them down. This was repeated twice:
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  "Wexfordmen assemble in your thousands at the Court-house, Wexford, on Friday next, the 6th instant, at two o'clock, to witness landlordism degraded, to the collection of unjust rent through the sheriff, and to see the resources of Buckshot Forster liberally supplied for what he himself denounced as the enforcement of injustice. Contingents will attend from the various branches of the Land League. The land for the people. God save Ireland;'"
  whether the police admitted they tore down the placards by order of the head constable; and, whether the Government sanction such proceedings; and, if not, what notice has been taken of the matter?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER: Yes; I understand that the placard in question was pulled down by special order of the head constable; and I think that the head constable acted perfectly right.
  MR. HEALYasked, under what statute the head constable had acted; and, whether anybody else tearing down placards would not have been liable to be prosecuted?
  MR. O'DONNELLasked, whether the reason why the right hon. Gentleman approved of the head constable's conduct was because the words "Buckshot Forster" appeared on the placard?
  MR. HEALY, after a short pause, asked, whether the right hon. Gentleman intended to reply?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER: Sir, it appears to be thought that it is a matter of necessity and duty that Gentlemen sitting on this (the Treasury) Bench should give a reply to every Question put to them. There is no necessity for that. A Question must be answered according to the way in which it is asked, and at the discretion of those to whom it is put. This Question is manifestly for the purpose of insult. There is no more reason why a person in my position should be called on to answer it than any other person. I only state that I am perfectly ready to meet any charge that may be brought against me with regard to those placards.
  MR. HEALYbegged to move the adjournment of the House. ["Oh!"] As the right hon. Gentleman seemed to think he had put the Question to insult him, he only wished to disclaim any such intention. He must explain that his attention had been called by a resolution of the Land League branch to the matter, and he was asked to put the

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  Question in that House, and he had done so. He had put down a Question with regard to it, and, to make the Question clear, he had quoted the placard quite irrespective of the fact that it contained the words "Buckshot Forster." The question was not whether the right hon. Gentleman was bound to answer the Question, but whether he approved the conduct of the constables in pulling down the placard, and by what law or authority it was done. Force seemed now to be the only rule in Ireland, and the right hon. Gentleman who put that rule in force went down to Bradford, and thanked the people of Bradford for their kind reception of him in the name of the people of Ireland. The most comical thing was that while, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Dublin University said, the Government had not the respect of a single man in Ireland, from Cape Clear to the Giant's Causeway, the Chief Secretary for Ireland went to his constituents and thanked them in the name of the Irish people. That placard incident was a sample of what was occurring every day in the country. Surprise was expressed at outrages being committed. His (Mr. Healy's) surprise was that many more were not committed. And he could tell the right hon. Gentleman that if he continued to support the police in arbitrary acts, he would find that ten times more outrages would occur, those outrages being the only resource which those unfortunate people had against highhanded proceedings.
  MR. ALDERMAN W. LAWRENCErose to Order. He asked Mr. Speaker, whether it was competent for a Representative from Ireland to threaten the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant that if he persisted in the course he was pursuing ten times more outrages would be committed in Ireland, and to say that that was the only resource against the rule of the right hon. Gentleman which would be left to the Irish people? He asked, also, whether the House was to listen to those threats, and incitements to the people of Ireland?
  MR. SPEAKER: The course taken by the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) is taken entirely on his own responsibility. I deplore the language which I have heard this evening, coming both from him and from the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell).
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  The hon. Member has also, on his own responsibility, moved the adjournment of the House, not being satisfied with the answer he received to a Question. As the House knows, I have very frequently pointed out the great inconvenience arising from Motions of this character—Motions of which, within the last few days, we have had three examples.
  MR. HEALYsaid, he had not moved the adjournment of the House on account of dissatisfaction with an answer, but in order to protest against the statement that he had put a Question on the Paper for the purpose of insulting the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Heaven knew that they had sufficient means of attacking the right hon. Gentleman without doing that! He was going on to say, when the hon. Member for the City of London (Mr. Alderman W. Lawrence) interrupted him, that if the people of Ireland had no means of protecting themselves against the unwarrantable aggression of the right hon. Gentleman and his armed forces in Ireland it would not be surprising if the outrages were multiplied. He would give an illustration, in something which had taken place on Saturday, of the high-handed conduct of the Executive in Ireland. Two evictions were made the other day, and 13 souls were left on the roadside, and one of the police who attended it was stated to have shed tears. That was very different from the behaviour of the police, whose conduct in the county of Wexford the right hon. Gentleman justified. There had not been a single agrarian outrage in Wexford for a considerable time past; and yet in spite of that the right hon. Gentleman allowed the police to insult the people by tearing down their placards, which were put up in the most legal manner. If illegal, had not the right hon. Gentleman plenty of power under the Protection of Person and Property Act? A hundred people had already been arrested under that Act on the most frivolous and absurd charges; and as anybody could be arrested on "reasonable suspicion" of posting the placards, the Government could not plead that they were without sufficient power.
  MR. O'DONNELLsaid, he felt obliged formally to second the Motion, for the simple reason that when he asked that Question of the right hon. Gentleman,

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  he did it deliberately, for the purpose of obtaining an expression of opinion whether it was the use of insulting epithets to him on the placard that caused him to have them taken down. The fact that the right hon. Gentleman was popularly known in Ireland by epithets not complimentary was by no means without precedent in Ireland. There was a former Chief Secretary who was known as "Orange Peel;" and if that Chief Secretary had approved of the tearing down of placards, because he was alluded to in that way, it would have been legitimate for the Irish Members of that day to call attention to the pettiness of motive which such conduct revealed. Looking at this placard he saw nothing objectionable in it, except the reference to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary; and although words personally disrespectful to the right hon. Gentleman had been used in the placard, that was not a reason why he should authorize the police to interfere with and obliterate the expression of opinion on the part of the people. If the appearance in public prints of opprobrious epithets towards Members of the House was to be a ground for the suppression of those Papers, they would soon have a very considerable diminution in the journalistic literature of Great Britain. He was still under the impression that if the right hon. Gentleman had been referred to in this placard more in conformity with his own account of himself to his constituents at Bradford, there would have been no interference by the right hon. Gentleman's police auxiliaries. The placard called on the people to make a silent protest against what they all thought most condemnable; and if they had not referred to the right hon. Gentleman in Parliamentary language, however privately he (Mr. O'Donnell) might object to the use of un-Parliamentary language, he had a perfect right, with all respect to the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman about himself, to inquire whether it was merely the personal insult to himself that led him to authorize the Irish constables to do that which English constables would not be permitted to do; and, if necessary, he could quote a great number of cases. The right hon. Gentleman might be a little more tolerant of even these heated expressions on the part of isolated individuals of the Irish nation, considering
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  that he himself set the example of calling names. The right hon. Gentleman had denounced a whole class of most respectable men as village ruffians—[VOICES: Dissolute ruffians!]—that was the language he applied to respectable traders, Poor Law Guardians, and similar respectable members of society, and it was on this class that he vented his disappointment, under the Coercion Act, for his failure in Ireland.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Mr. Healy.)
  MR. W. E. FORSTER(who rose amid cries of "No, no!" from the Ministerial Benches, and "Agreed!" from the Opposition Benches above the Gangway) said: I will detain the House for only a few minutes. As far as regards this House and myself, I feel it would not be necessary for me to say a word. But I will just state that when I alluded to insult, I was referring, not to the Question of the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy), but to the Question of the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell), and I am of opinion I was justified in using that word. I understood that these placards were pulled down, not on account of the use of the particular words referred to, but for a perfectly justifiable reason—that they were summoning persons to come together in thousands on a particular day to interfere with the legal act of a sheriff in connection with an auction. I think that that was abundant reason, and I think it was sufficient reason for prosecuting anyone who put them up, or instigated others to put them up, if they could have been discovered. The hon. Member for Dungarvan chooses to say that I applied the term village ruffians—[A VOICE: Dissolute ruffians!]—to a large class of respectable persons in Ireland. I think it will be in the recollection of the House that I applied it only to those persons who committed outrages, or instigated others to commit them.
  MR. MACARTNEYsaid, he wished to enter his protest against it being supposed that the prefix "Orange," as applied to Peel, was an opprobrious epithet. It was a compliment rather than an insult.
  MR. BARRYsaid, the question was a very narrow one. If the police had acted legally in pulling down the placards,

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  he should like to know under what statute they acted; and, if they had acted illegally, why was their conduct approved? The Constabulary, no matter how they outraged public feeling in Ireland, were sure of a defender in the right hon. Gentleman. He thought, considering that the county of Wexford was entirely free from agrarian crime, that there was not even a threatening letter, it was an extraordinary thing to defend this outrageous conduct of the Constabulary. All he would say was that conduct like this could lead only to results such as the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Healy) had indicated.
  MR. A. M. SULLIVANsaid, he must express his regret that any language or epithet should have been used calculated to insult the Chief Secretary for Ireland, or any Minister of the Crown. Having said that, he would remind the House that buckshot for shooting down the Irish people had been introduced by the Predecessor of the right hon. Gentleman. As to the placards, was it not for the interest of the landlord that the people should attend the sale? He desired to know whether the police were to be allowed to tear down a placard calling upon people to attend a public auction; or whether it was intended by the Government that public auctions in Ireland should be conducted in the presence of the auctioneer and the man in charge of the cattle? [Laughter.] Hon. Gentlemen might laugh at the bare idea of an auction being conducted in a secret manner; but he (Mr. A. M. Sullivan) did not sympathize in their sentiments by any means. He knew that they would not care to have auctions in which they were pecuniarily interested conducted in such a manner. Perhaps the Chief Secretary for Ireland, or the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Law), would tell them whether the police tore down the placards illegally; or whether there was a statute empowering them to do so. If they had the statute behind them, let the House hear where it was to be found. He believed, although he did not think the Chief Secretary for Ireland had acted under the impression, that the placard was torn down on account of the sentence reflecting upon himself. The reference to the right hon. Gentleman was most offensive and unjust; but, while he could sympathize
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  with the natural feeling of irritation on the part of the Chief Secretary for Ireland at being identified with a certain class of ammunition, he told him to beware how he encouraged the Irish police in their lawlessness in tearing down placards.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)said, the question had been asked more than once, under what statute the police tore down the placard. It was torn down because it was an inflammatory placard, asking the people to assemble in their thousands, not to attend and bid at the auction, but to witness "landlordism discredited" in its attempt to enforce an unjust rent by execution of a writ from a Superior Court; and, in effect, for the purpose of obstructing the sheriff in the discharge of his lawful duty. As such, the police had a right to tear it down, not under any statute, but in accordance with what was much more important—namely, the Common Law of the land. [A VOICE: What statute?] The placard was illegal at Common Law; and, in his humble opinion, the police were perfectly justified in removing it. He hoped that after that explanation this irregular discussion might cease.
  SIR RAINALD KNIGHTLEYrose to call the attention of the House to the repeated Motions which were made for the adjournment of the House. He did not wish to see that privilege abolished; but he should like to see it regulated; and he rose to call the attention of the hon. Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn), who had a Motion on the Business of the House on the Paper for to-morrow. He should like to ask the hon. Member—
  MR. PARNELLrose to Order. He said, as far as he could gather from the remarks of the hon. Baronet, he was discussing a Motion which now stood on the Paper. He desired to know, whether the hon. Baronet was in Order in discussing, upon the Motion for the adjournment of the House, a Motion which stood on the Paper?
  MR. SPEAKER: So far as the hon. Baronet may have been discussing a Motion on the Paper for consideration to-morrow, he was not in Order.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, he entirely agreed with the hon. Baronet. That power of moving the adjournment ought not to be abolished. If wisely

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  preserved, it enabled Members to bring forward matters with which they could
  not otherwise deal. He was anxious to bring before the House a matter similar to that which had been raised by hon. Friend. It was only on Saturday night last that three men, whom be knew to be perfectly incapable of crime, were arrested in Queen's County. ["Question!"]
  MR. MACARTNEYrose to Order, and asked, whether the hon. Member could refer to matters totally foreign to the subject before the House?
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR, resuming, said, he wished to show why the House should adjourn. He held that there were some things even more important than the Land Bill. The rights of property were secondary to the rights of personal liberty and security. The right of personal security was entirely suspended in Ireland, and the powers which the Lord Lieutenant and the Chief Secretary for Ireland had vested in them were being used in the most wanton and unjustifiable manner. The three men referred to who had been arrested within the last 72 hours were perfectly incapable of crime. They were men with a character as good as that of anyone on the Ministerial Bench. They enjoyed the respect of all who knew them, and the only offence they had committed had been an offence against the landlords of the Queen's County. Those landlords monopolized the magistracy. They held every post of influence, and they had on their side a law which the Prime Minister and the Chief Secretary for Ireland admitted to be unjust. These three men in question were some time ago charged with having intimidated a certain individual in Maryborough. They were found guilty, and the magistrates sentenced them to two months' imprisonment in default of paying a fine. They appealed to the County Court Judge, and the decision was reversed, the man who was alleged to be intimidated swearing that he was not intimidated at all. The magistrates, however, had informations sworn against them, and the three men were arrested recently upon a charge of intimidation which was never committed at all. He thought the right hon. Gentleman ought to make some statement with regard to the reason why these men were arrested at 2 o'clock in the morning and lodged
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  in gaol, without having been proved to be guilty of any offence whatever.
  MR. PARNELLsaid, that the Government might have avoided the unpleasantness which had taken place during the discussion, if they had adopted in the beginning the course which they had since followed as to the supplementary Question of the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) with respect to the statute under which the Government had acted in tearing down the placards. The Chief Secretary for Ireland, instead of doing so, however, had immediately risen and, with a great show of indignation, said that he did not consider it his duty to answer insulting Questions. There was nothing insulting in the Question. The right hon. Gentleman had given no reply, and did not draw any distinction whatever between the two Questions when he refused to answer either. If the right hon. Gentleman had followed the course which he (Mr. Parnell) had pointed out, or if the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Law), acting for him, had given the information required of the Government, and informed the House that the action had taken place under the Common Law of Ireland and not under Statute Law, all reasonable grounds for his hon. Friend's moving the adjournment of the House would have been taken away, and the discussion might have been avoided. He also wished to say that in such circumstances Irish Members had no other course left them than that which they had adopted. It was very difficult for them to obtain any time for bringing those things to the attention of the House, or to obtain any information which they required. He Himself had been endeavouring to obtain some information with regard to the offences alleged to have been committed by the persons arrested under the Coercion Act in Ireland, and thrown into prison by the right hon. Gentleman. He had, however, been unable to obtain any opportunity to move a Resolution on the subject, owing to the way in which the Business was blocked. He hoped the louse would be good enough to recollect that they had placed Ireland in an exceptional position, and had given the Government exceptional powers over both the liberties and the property of the people of Ireland. They must,

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  therefore, expect that Irish Members, when they found that those powers were used, would take a course which was undoubtedly exceptional, and undoubtedly inconvenient.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  PROTECTION OF PERSON AND PROPERTY (IRELAND) ACT, 1881—TREATMENT OF PRISONERS UNDER THE ACT IN LIMERICK GAOL.
  MR. HEALY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether his attention has been called to the complaints of the political prisoners detained in Limerick Gaol, contained in the "Cork Examiner" of the 10th instant, as follows:—
  "Mr. Hodnett said the governor was most hostile towards him, and on this morning (May 9), without any reason being assigned, he was detained in his cell until ten o'clock, whereas he should have been permitted to quit the apartment at eight o'clock for breakfast, Mr. Hodnett said his apartment was the ordinary convict cell, twelve feet by six, with defective ventilation. The window was inclined slightly inwards, with an aperture of six inches to admit fresh air. He hoped that, if the prison authorities insisted on keeping the prisoners in those cells, a freer passage would be provided. Eighteen hours' detention in such cells rendered the want of pure air the more disagreeable. More suitable apartments were available for the accommodation of the political prisoners, and, as a promise had been made by the Government to provide them with the best rooms in the prison, detention, not punishment, being the object, they hoped the promise would be fulfilled. All the prisoners complained specially of the number of hours for recreation and the distribution of those hours. The total number of hours was six, four of these being in the exercise yard, and two in friendly intercourse. There was no exercise before breakfast, it was confined to the middle portion of the day. Mr. Hodnett having been in the habit of rising at six considered it a cruelty, and the other prisoners shared the same opinion at being deprived of the poor privilege of sauntering in the yard before breakfast. The doors had hitherto been locked after five o'clock in the evening;"
  and, whether the Government will take any action in the matter?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER, in reply, said, that he had received a Report from the Inspector General of the Prisons Board, stating that he had seen the prisoners confined in Limerick Gaol, and in reply to his inquiry whether they had any complaint to make, they answered in the negative, excepting the prisoner Hodnett, who made a complaint with regard to the hours of exercise. The special rules
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  required that prisoners should be allowed four hours' daily exercise—two before dinner and two after dinner—subject to the limitation that the Governor, who was responsible for the management and discipline of the prison, should fix the hours. He did not, therefore, think it reasonable that the prisoner Hodnett should be allowed to commence exercise at 6 o'clock in the morning. With regard to the ventilation, the medical officer pronounced the cells amply sufficient for all purposes, both as regarded space and ventilation.

  HIGH COURT OF CHANCERY (IRELAND)—CASE OF "KAVANAGH MINORS."
  MR. REDMONDasked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, If his attention has been called to the case of "Kavanagh Minors" in the High Court of Chancery in Ireland; whether it is a fact that the children in question, aged respectively 7, 5, and 4 years, were forcibly taken from their mother by the relatives of her deceased husband, and that on the 21st of December 1878 the Lord Chancellor appointed a guardian of the fortunes of the children, and ordered him to institute an action for the administration of the estate of their father, and further ordered that the matter of the custody of the children should be proceeded with concurrently in the Court of the Vice Chancellor; whether it is a fact that such matter respecting the custody of the children has never been proceeded with, and that, in consequence, the mother has been deprived of the custody of her children, not from any fault of her's, but because she is unable to incur the expense of repeated applications to the Court to compel the order of the Lord Chancellor to be complied with; and, whether he can take any steps to ensure that the mother shall be no longer deprived of the custody of her children to which she is by law entitled?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW): The hon. Member must be aware that I have no special means of ascertaining whether the facts of the case referred to are as stated in the Question; and, even assuming the facts to be as they are stated, I must remind him that I have no means or power whatever of interfering in the matter.

  PEACE PRESERVATION (IRELAND) ACT, 1881—TYRONE.
  MR. MACARTNEYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, What are the reasons which have induced Her Majesty's Government to place the baronies of Upper and Middle Dungannon, in the county of Tyrone, under the provisions of the Peace Preservation Act?
  MR. LITTONalso asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether he can state the grounds upon which the baronies of Lower and Middle Dungannon, in the county of Tyrone, have been proclaimed, those baronies forming one of the most peaceable districts in Ireland, and being eminently free from agrarian crime; and, whether he will be good enough to reconsider the propriety of the step so taken?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER: Sir, the Peace Preservation Act was put in force as far as the carrying of arms is concerned, and only as regards the carrying of arms, in the baronies of Upper and Middle Dungannon, and not in the barony of Lower Dungannon. These baronies were proclaimed, not on account of agrarian crime; but I must remind the hon. Member that to prevent agrarian crime was not the sole object of the Peace Preservation Act, and that, in many cases, many lamentable occurrences have resulted from the carrying of arms in the North of Ireland. All the principal localities in the County Tyrone where Party disturbances have taken place are in the baronies referred to.

  AFRICA (WEST COAST)—THE ASHANTEE WAR.
  MR. SUMMERSasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether he is in a position to lay upon the Table of the House Copies of Papers relating to the Ashantee "scare" at the Gold Coast, and to include in those Papers a Copy of the Instructions under which Sir Samuel Rowe is acting?
  Mr. GRANT DUFF: Sir, I will read the latest news from the Gold Coast with respect to what the hon. Member describes as "the Ashantee scare." It was received yesterday. Sir Samuel Rowe telegraphs—
  "Ashantee Prince delivered his message 29th April. King begs for peace; kneels before Her
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  Majesty. Offers 2,000 ounces of gold, not as payment of expenses, but as sign of sincerity—small part only here, more believed to be on the way. Replied that I should answer after due consideration. Progress most satisfactory."
  This looks as if we might soon be able to say that matters had returned to their normal state. When we are able to do so with perfect confidence, I shall lay Papers on the Table, including the Governor's Instructions.

  SOUTH AFRICA—THE BASUTO WAR—FRENCH MISSIONARIES.
  MR. SUMMERSasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether Mr. Sprigg's Ministry refused permission to a French missionary (the Rev. H. Dieterlen) to pass through the lines of the Colonial forces with medicines and ambulance materials for the use of the Basuto wounded, such permission being refused on the ground that "the Government did not feel justified in affording facilities for the prosecution of rebellion;" and, whether any communications have taken place upon the subject between Her Majesty's Government and the late Government at the Cape?
  MR. GRANT DUFF: Sir, we have had no correspondence with the Government of the Cape regarding this matter, and, indeed, have heard nothing about it. We had sonic correspondence with a French Missionary Society, which is printed at page 108 of the South African Papers, 2,821.

  ARMY—PROMOTION FROM THE RANKS.
  MAJOR NOLANasked the Secretary of State for War, What number of first Commissions, exclusive of those of Riding Master and Quartermaster, are annually granted to soldiers who have served in the ranks, and what number to gentlemen who have not passed through the ranks; and, if he intends to take measures to increase the proportion granted to the former class?
  MR. CHILDERS: Sir, the rule between 1871 and 1880 was that five commissions might be annually granted to non - commissioned officers, excluding those promoted as quartermasters, riding masters, and officers of the Coast Brigade of Artillery; but, as a matter of fact, rather more than six have been granted in consequence of special cases

  561
  having been sanctioned by the Secretary of State. I raised last year the fixed number for the line from five to ten a-year. The total number of other commissions granted of late has averaged 393 yearly; but under the new plan of organization it will be normally about 50 less. I do not propose, without further experience, to make a second addition to the number of promotions from the ranks.

  ARMY ORGANIZATION—COMPULSORY RETIREMENT OF COLONELS.
  MAJOR NOLANasked the Secretary of State for War, If, under the new Warrant to be issued on the 1st July, Colonels of fifty-eight years of ago will be allowed to complete their service in those situations to which they have been appointed for five years, or if they will be compulsorily retired on pensions before the completion of the five years term from the command of Depôt Centres and other equivalent positions; if the latter is the case, will he inform the House what is the additional expense which will be entailed on the Exchequer by such compulsory retirements, and if any compensating saving will be effected; and, what will be the gross loss incurred by the officers who would be thus compulsorily retired before the completion of their five years' term?
  MR. CHILDERS: Sir, in reply to the hon. and gallant Gentleman, I have to say that if he will wait a few days lie will find that I have determined somewhat to relax the rigid rule proposed on this subject in the Memorandum. It would be impossible, without very elaborate calculations, to assign to this part of the proposed changes the exact cost, the total of which is provided in the Estimates for the whole scheme now before the House.

  MADAGASCAR—THE NEW TREATY—IMPORTATION OF RUM FROM THE MAURITIUS.
  MR. CROPPERasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether it is the fact that the Government of Madagascar are prepared to conclude a new Treaty with England as soon as possible; and, if so, whether Her Majesty's Government will consider the expediency of enabling the Government of Madagascar to control
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  the unrestricted importation of Mauritius rum into the Island?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: Sir, the revision of the Treaty of 1865 between Great Britain and Madagascar is under the consideration of Her Majesty's Government, and communications on the subject are taking place with the Hova Government, who propose to increase the duty of 10 per cent now levied on Colonial rum.

  WESTMINSTER ABBEY—FEES ON MONUMENTS.
  MR. MACDONALDasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Whether it is true, as stated in the public journals, that the fees paid to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster Abbey for permission to erect a Monument therein to the late Earl of Beaconsfield will amount to about £400; and, if so, whether these fees will be the private emolument of the Dean and of the members of the Chapter, or for what purpose?
  LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISH: Sir, I am obliged to my hon. Friend for asking me this Question, and thus enabling me to remove an entirely erroneous misconception upon the subject. In answer to an inquiry which I have made into the statement quoted by my hon. Friend, I have been informed that there are no fees whatever paid to the Dean and Chapter for monuments erected at the public expense. Any fees for private monuments are expended entirely on the support of the fabric, and no portion whatever goes to the private emolument of the Dean or of any member of the Chapter.
  MR. MACDONALDgave Notice that on Thursday he would put another Question to the noble Lord upon the same subject.

  LAW AND JUSTICE (IRELAND)— COUNTY COURT JURISDICTION.
  MR. BIGGARasked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, If he is aware that the county court judge of Antrim exercises criminal and civil jurisdiction within the borough of Belfast, which borough has a separate jurisdiction, with a recorder, court, and officers, and is such jurisdiction by the county court judge according to the statute; and, if so, is it desirable to continue a dual jurisdiction in Belfast?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. Law): Sir, the County Court Judge and Chairman of Quarter Sessions of the county of Antrim is also Recorder of the borough of Belfast, which includes part of that county as well as part of the County Down, and as such in exercises criminal and civil jurisdiction within the borough. This is quite in accordance with the law, and is, in fact, required by the County Officers and Courts Act of 1877.
  MR. BIGGARasked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, If it is the fact that the county court judge and justices of Antrim hold the annual licensing quarter sessions for the district of Belfast about the middle of November, over one month after the licences expire; and that last year it was necessary for applicants for transfers and confirmations of licences to apply to His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland for authority to carry on trading in the interregnum; and, whether it is possible to provide fur the holding of annual licensing courts at such times as will obviate difficulties of a similar character?
  THE ATTORNLY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW): Sir, the annual licensing quarter sessions for the Belfast division of the County of Antrim
  were last year held on the 1st of November, and are this year fixed for the 31st of October. I am not aware of its having been found necessary last year to make any such applications to the Lord Lieutenant as are mentioned in the Question. Though licences expire before the middle of October, and, therefore, before the licensing quarter sessions are held in most parts of Ireland, ample opportunity is afforded for obtaining renewals and provisional transfers before that day, by application to the justices at petty sessions, or at ordinary quarter sessions, such transfers holding good until whatever time the licensing quarter sessions are held. There is thus no inconvenience or difficulty caused, nor is any change of the system required.

  FOREIGN JEWS IN RUSSIA—EXPULSION OF A NATURALIZED BRITISH SUBJECT.
  BARON HENRY DE WORMSasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether any steps will be taken by Her Majesty's Government with regard
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  to the case of Mr. L. Lewisohn, a highly respectable London merchant, who, though provided with a British passport, duly viséd by the Russian Consul General in London, was expelled from St. Petersburg, to which place he had proceeded on business in September last, on the ground that he was a Jew; whether it is not true that no cause of complaint, political or otherwise, was alleged against him; and, whether, with reference to Lord Tenterden's better to Mr. Lewisohn of the 2nd ultimo, informing him that the Russian authorities decline to permit him to revisit Russia, it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to withdraw their protection from British subjects abroad who may belong to the Jewish faith?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: Sir, Mr. Lewisohn, a naturalized British subject and the bearer of a Foreign Office passport, wrote on the 26th of November, to complain that on account of his being a Jew he bad been required to leave St. Petersburg at 24 hours' notice. Her Majesty's Chargéd'Affaires who was instructed to furnish a Report on the subject, stated that the notice was in accordance with Russian law, and that other foreign Representatives had at various time remonstrated unsuccessfully against similar treatment of subjects of their Governments. Notwithstanding the personal application of Lord Dufferin, the Russian authorities have declined to modify their decision in Mr. Lewisohn's case. There is no ground for the inquiry made in the last paragraph of the hon. Member's Question, which I have read with much regret.
  BARON HENRY DE WORMSasked, whether no British subject of the Jewish faith could remain in Russia?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: I believe, Sir, that no foreign Jews are allowed to remain in St. Petersburg.
  BARON HENRY DE WORMSsaid, that he would take an early opportunity of bringing the matter before the House and moving a Resolution. He would also ask, Whether Her Majesty's Government have made any representations to the Government at St. Petersburg with regard to the atrocious outrages committed upon the Jewish population in Southern Russia; and, whether they contemplate taking similar steps in the matter to those which were adopted by the late Government in the case of

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  the Jewish massacres in Roumania, and the atrocities of the Bashi-Bazouks in Bulgaria?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: Sir, Her Majesty's Government have not addressed representations to the Russian Government with regard to the outrages on Jews and students in Southern Russia; but that Government has already of themselves taken steps to quell these disorders. I may add that the cases of the Roumanian massacres and the atrocities in Bulgaria are not parallel with the disturbances in Russia; as in one case the remonstrances of Her Majesty's Government were directed against the laws in force respecting the Jews, and in the other against the conduct of troops employed by the Porte itself.
  BARON HENRY DE WORMSwished to know, whether it was not the duty of Her Majesty's Government as a civilized Government to remonstrate against the atrocities to which he had drawn attention? Remonstrances had been addressed to the Roumanian Government in similar circumstances.
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKEexplained that in the case of Roumania the protest was made in conjunction with other Powers. The Government had received no invitation from foreign Governments to interfere in the present question.

  ARMY—AUXILIARY FORCES—VOLUNTEER SURGEONS.
  MR. DONALDSON-HUDSONasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether Her Majesty's Government will accord to Volunteer Battalion Surgeons, after twelve years' service, the rank and title of Surgeon Major, as in the case of Militia Battalion Surgeons; and, whether they will give to them, under the Memorandum showing the principal changes in Army Organization, &c., intended to take effect from 1st July 1881, the same privileges upon retirement, after fifteen years' service, as to other officers of the Auxiliary Forces?
  MR. CHILDERS: Sir, in reply to the hon. Member, I have to state that Volunteer surgeons will be on the same footing as Militia surgeons not on the Departmental list—that is to say, they will, after 20 years' service, receive a step of honorary rank, or on retirement, if duly recommended for it. Volunteer surgeons will, after 15 years' service, be entitled to retain their rank.

  WAR OFFICE—STUDY OF FRENCH.
  SIR HENRY HOLLANDasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether it is the case that some correspondence has taken place between the War Office and the Head Masters of Public Schools on the subject of greater prominence being given to the study of French, and especially to a colloquial facility in that language; and, if so, whether there will be any objection to lay the Papers upon the Table?
  MR. CHILDERS: Yes, Sir. We made proposals a short time ago to the public schools on this subject, in consequence of the unfortunate deficiency in knowledge of French and German on the part of candidates for commissions. I will lay on the Table, if my hon. Friend will move for it, a copy of our letter to the Chairman of the Conference.

  STATE OF IRELAND—COUNTY OF ROSCOMMON.
  MR. O'KELLYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, On what grounds an iron police but has been erected at Kilgefin, county Roscommon; whether there are not three police barracks within a short distance of the iron hut; and, whether there is any one living near the hut requiring special protection?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER: Sir, a hut has been erected at the place referred to in the Question. There are, it is true, two police barracks at a distance of three and a-half, and one seven miles from this hut; but there are persons living near requiring special protection, which is one of the reasons that have led to the determination to erect the hut.

  STATE OF IRELAND—ALLEGED RIOT AT BALTINGLASS.
  MR. M'COANasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If he can state to the House the Report received from the Irish Police authorities respecting an alleged riot at Baltinglass on Thursday last, in which, according to the Dublin correspondence of the "Times" of Saturday, many Protestant houses were wrecked, and other serious outrages committed?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER, in reply, said, he found what was but the drunken

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  freak of a single individual had been greatly exaggerated in the correspondence in a newspaper. He might add that on the 3rd instant, the day before the occurrence, the constable who had charge of the police reported that the town was in a peaceable and orderly condition.

  SOUTH AFRICA—THE BASUTOS (THE NEGOTIATIONS).
  MR. W. FOWLERasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, What further information, if any, has been received by the Government as to the present state of the negotiations now pending between the Cape Government and the Basutos?
  MR. GRANT DUFF: Sir, the news from Basutoland is conflicting; but here is the latest telegram, received On Saturday evening from Sir Hercules Robinson—
  "14th.—General Clarke telegraphs on 12th:—'Have fairly reliable information that Basutos were to have held large meeting yesterday (11th) at Letsea's, to consider terms of Governor's award. Lerothodi and another inclined to accept, many others very doubtful.'"

  PUBLIC HEALTH.—CEMENT MANUFACTURES.
  MR. WARTONasked the President of the Local Government Board, Whether he can state the number of work-people employed by cement; manufacturers in England; and, whether any complaints have been received by the Local Government Board from inhabitants of parishes where cement works are carried on?
  MR. DODSON: Sir, I have no information as to the number of work-people employed in cement works in England; but as far as I have been able to ascertain, there are altogether between 100 and 150 of such works. The Local Government Board have not, so far as I am aware, received any formal complaints from sanitary authorities where these works are carried on; but complaints were made by residents before the Royal Commission, and the Board themselves have received complaints of the injurious effects of these works from persons affected by them, and notably from the pilots and others interested in the traffic of the River Thames.

  FRANCE AND TUNIS (THE TREATY).
  MR. MONTAGUE GUESTasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, -Whether Her Majesty's Government can recognize any Treaty made with France by the Bey of Tunis, under the pressure of the superior force which has been brought against him, and in contravention of the Firman of 1871, which forbids the Bey, as the Governor of "an integral part of the Ottoman Empire," to make Treaties with any foreign Powers, which Firman Her Majesty's Government have stated they have fully recognized?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: Sir, I have already promised that the Papers shall be immediately laid before Parliament; and meanwhile, it will, perhaps, be the more convenient course to defer the discussion of particular points until the whole case is seen.
  MR. MONTAGUE GUESTsaid, that after the unsatisfactory answer just given, and considering the importance of the matter, he felt obliged, though with deep regret, to move the adjournment of the House. He felt that that was the only moment at which the question could be raised by a private Member. The subject required the grave and immediate attention of the House. In contravention of assurances which the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs said he had received from the French Government, that there was no intention to annex any territory in Tunis, the French Forces, 30,000 or 40,000 strong, had marched into a friendly country, and the French Fleet had been sent to lake possession of the important position of Bizerta. This country had received a Circular from M. St. Hilaire, and if he (Mr. Guest) were to read a few extracts from it, the House would be astonished at the way in which Her Majesty's Government had been hoodwinked. In that Circular M. St. Hilaire said—
  "We are ready, as soon as good relations are resumed, to engage in a host of other not less enterprizes—lighthouses on the coast, inland roads to connect many populous and prosperous towns with each other, vast irrigations in a country where there is no lack of rivers, but where they are not better turned to account than the forests; the working of abundant mines of every kind of metal; an improved cultivation of lands acquired by Europeans in the regency, or even of the lands of the natives; the employment of the hot springs, which the Romans discovered and used. Tunis is, in general, very

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  fertile, as the prodigious wealth of ancient Carthage sufficiently shows. Under the protection of France all the natural gifts of that country can be developed afresh, with all the energy and intensity of modern methods and practices. We may add that, if the Bey will trust us, the internal administration may receive not less necessary and certain improvements. … It is not France alone that would profit by all this progress, which the Regency may acquire if it wishes. All civilized nations would benefit by it, and there is nothing to prevent us from doing to Tunis, without conquest or fighting, what we are doing in Algeria, and what England is doing in India."
  Now, he would ask the House whether the French Government, after what he had just read, were justified in saying that they did not mean to annex any territory? He should, moreover, like to know whether, considering its position, this country had no interest in the question whether Tunis was or was not to be an independent State? ["No, no!"] To those hon. Members behind him who cried "No!" he would only reply that there were in the Regency of Tunis 10,000 British subjects, while the Italians numbered 15,000, and the French only 1,000, and that Tunis was situated at the entrance of the channel leading to Malta, cutting off the whole Eastern Mediterranean, and commanding the passage by which all traffic must pass to Syria, Egypt, the Black Sea, Turkey, and the Adriatic. To those who wished to enter the Black Sea, the Adriatic, or were going to the East, was it, he should like to know, a matter of no importance that a great nation like France should place herself so as to command such a channel? What would be the consequence of her having done so in time of war? At the first threatening of war with France insurances would at once go up, and the whole carrying trade would be transferred from British ships to those of other neutral nations. Then traffic would be handed over from our vessels to those of other nations. Then he would ask the House to consider for a moment the position of Bizerta itself. His hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs had informed him the other evening, in answer to a Question which he had put to him, that he was aware of its importance, though he certainly would have imagined that he was not, for he said that without the expenditure of a large sum of money it was almost impossible that it could be used as a harbour. He (Mr. Guest)
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  would, however, refer hon. Members to a letter which appeared in The Times newspaper that morning from Admiral Spratt, in which he stated on his professional authority that for a sum of less than £250,000 all obstruction could be removed from the channel, and that Bizerta could be made at once a most important harbour. Moreover, in taking the position of Bizerta into account, it should not, he might add, be forgotten that it was the only commanding port in North Africa. When the present state of affairs was duly considered, it was only right that the House should bear in mind that in 1871 a Firman had been granted by the Sultan to the Bey of Tunis. The substance of that Firman was—
  "1. That the Regency of Tunis shall form, as heretofore, an integral part of the Ottoman dominions. 2. That the Boys on their accession shall apply for and receive their investiture from the Sultan, their suzerain. 3. That the Hutba (Friday's prayer) shall be, as heretofore, said in the name of the Sultan [this shows the Sultan's spiritual supremacy]. 4. That the money shall he coined in his name [this shows the Sultan's administrative supremacy]. 5. That, in lieu of tribute, Tunis shall furnish a contingent of troops in case of war. 6. That, although the Bey might make Commercial Treaties with foreign Powers, he was entirely debarred from entering into political Treaties with them, or from yielding or ceding to them any part of Tunisian territory."
  Now, having had it on good authority, he was, he believed, correct in saying that the Government of England had expressed their satisfaction to the Bey at that Firman having been granted, and that the Governments of Austria, Russia, and Germany had congratulated the Bey on the occasion. It was only the other day that he had put a Question to the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs on the subject, and he had been informed in reply that the French did not recognize the Firman. He would, however, refer hon. Members to the Circular which had been addressed by the Sultan to the Ministers of Foreign Powers, in which it was shown most distinctly that so late as 1863 this suzerainty over Tunis was acknowledged by the French. When had they, he would ask, ceased to recognize it? There was not the slightest doubt that the authority of the Sultan over Tunis had existed for a great many years, and that it had been acknowledged by Her Majesty's Government. Again, France had declared that Tunis was independent, and was

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  perfectly able to make this Treaty with them; but if Tunis was independent in 1881, she was equally independent in 1871, and able to make the arrangement she had made with the Porte by the Firman of that year. What was the position of the Boy at the present moment? France had annexed the country, and he should like to know, in the event of any question arising between this country and Tunis not of a commercial nature, whether the Government would pay attention to the Firman of 1871, the authority of which they said they recognized, or to the Treaty which had just been concluded with France? For his own part, notwithstanding the highhanded proceedings of the French in overrunning a friendly country, he hoped the Government would stick to the Firman of 1871. He was aware that it was said that Lord Salisbury had made an arrangement with France in 1878. He would ask, however, what power Lord Salisbury had, after the Berlin Treaty, to make such an arrangement? Lord Salisbury had, he believed, denied that he had made any such arrangement as that attributed to him. ["Oh, oh!"] He was willing to abstain from going into the question whether Lord Salisbury had or had not made such an arrangement, because it was probable that the House would hear some authoritative statement on the point before the discussion closed. For his own part, he thought it was impossible that an English Minister could have agreed to hand over to the Government of France any portion of the Ottoman Empire. In any case, however, it had been thrown in the teeth of the Liberal Party that, in everything they had done since they had come into power, they had attempted to reverse the policy of their Predecessors in Office; and even assuming that Lord Salisbury had made the arrangement attributed to him, was it to be contended that on this question alone the present Government were bound to abide by and carry into effect the policy of their Predecessors? In his opinion, Her Majesty's Government were bound to protest against this high-handed—he was almost going to say this outrageous—attack which had been made by France upon Tunis. They had marched into a friendly country a three of some 30,000 or 40,000 men, and had taken possession of one of the most important ports on the
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  Mediterranean, and had forced the unfortunate Bey of Tunis to sign a Treaty at the point of the bayonet. He recommended the Government to join Italy in making a most determined protest against the course that had been taken. He apologized to the House for having occupied so much of their time on this occasion; but he felt that the subject was one on which that House and this country should speak out, in order that the public of Europe might know what their feelings were in reference to it, and that France—with whom we were on the most friendly terms—should be made aware without delay that her proceedings in this matter did not commend themselves to us. The fact was that, led on by Germany and Prince Bismarck, France had fallen into a trap, although she was, for the moment, as proud as if she were marching on Berlin. He begged, in conclusion, to move the adjournment of the House.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Mr. Montague Guest.)
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, it is not for me to animadvert upon the use which my hon. Friend the Member for Wareham (Mr. Montague Guest) has made of his power to move the adjournment of the House, nor on the rather full and animated and pointed statement which he has delivered upon that Motion, entering into the whole question of Tunis. But it is for me, in the responsible position that I hold, in the first place, entirely to associate myself with the answer which was previously given to the Question by my hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Sir Charles W. Dilke); and, in the second place, to represent to the House in the most earnest and strongest manner that justice, policy, and I would almost say decency, require that this discussion should not now be continued. On one point only can I refer to the statement of my hon. Friend the Member for Wareham, because it is an historical point which while confirming does not touch any of the matters which he probably may desire, and may very legitimately desire, to bring under the notice of the House. It is the statement which he has made that up to the year 1863 France recognized the connection between Tunis and the Ottoman Empire.

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  Now, that point has been a subject for very many years of correspondence, if not of controversy, between the Foreign Office of this country and the French Government from time to time. I would observe, with regard to these recognitions, that they are made a good deal to depend upon convenience by this Power and that; and if my hon. Friend is prepared to go all lengths in the assertion of the measures which this country ought to take in consequence of our recognizing the suzerainty of Turkey over Tunis, whilst France does not recognize it, he will feel that we are open to the question whether we ourselves have acted upon that principle, and admitted the suzerainty of Turkey in cases where she has claimed it. I believe I am quite accurate in saying that Turkey claimed the suzerainty over Algiers, before the French came into the possession of it; but we, considering ourselves to have a cause of quarrel with Algiers, bombarded the town without asking leave of the Porte. It will, I believe, be necessary to consider the principle upon which we have ourselves acted in laying down the law for other people's grievances. In the view of our Foreign Office, this matter has long been a matter of correspondence and controversy, and the British Government has always contended that Turkey exercised a power of suzerainty over Tunis, while the French Government has as steadily denied it. Moreover, the French Government was supported in that denial by the Government of Italy down to a very recent period. Do not let the House suppose for a moment that I mention this as a point determining, or even having any bearing upon, the merits of this question; but I merely wish that the matter of fact should not be omitted or misinterpreted. I pass, Sir, to the earnest representation I have made, and for which I will now state the grounds. My hon. Friend the Member for Wareham has, undoubtedly, in the strongest terms, arraigned the policy and conduct of the Government of France. Well, let us consider what are the titles of a friendly nation upon our courtesy and consideration. France is a country with which for more than a generation of men we have been in close and unbroken alliance; and I must say I think it is not stating too high the obligations that we ought to observe towards such a country, and, indeed, I will say towards
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  any country, that when we have very strong charges to bring against her policy and conduct, we should take care that the House is placed in possession of authentic information before we do anything in the way of bringing such charges. My hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State has stated that this information is being pressed forward with all speed, and that in the course, I hope, of two or three days, it will be in the possession of the House. I put it to the House, as the first of the two propositions I wish to make, that if there is a disposition, and evidently there is, in the mind of some—I now give no opinion upon the matter—to arraign the conduct of the French Government, it is but right and just—and I will add but decent—that we should have that authentic information which is on its way to us in our hands before we proceed to consider the form and extent of the arraignment as to their conduct. With regard to the other question, which is a most legitimate one for my hon. Friend the Member for Wareham to raise, the conduct of Her Majesty's Government, I have no doubt that conduct will be closely and carefully scrutinized, as it ought to be. My hon. Friend says that we have been hoodwinked and deluded, and betrayed into a false position. Well, those are assertions which I only name for the purpose of showing that if I do not now contest them, I may not be held to overlook them, or subscribe to them, or any other. But the claim I would make on this portion of the question—namely, the conduct of Her Majesty's Government, is really one that I would venture to place quite as high as the claim I have just made in respect of our obligations towards a friendly and neighbouring country. My claim is that you cannot judge the conduct of Her Majesty's Government until you have the Papers before you. Nay, more, you ought not to attempt so to judge it, even if it were true that this was a question on which their conduct had exclusively turned upon proceedings of their own. But it is right I should say that when the Papers are produced, the most important portions of the Correspondence that we shall lay before the House, so far as they involve the proceedings of this country, are portions which belong, not to the time of the present, but to the time of the previous Administration. My hon.

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  Friend the Member for Wareham has referred to something which he supposes to have been stated or done by Lord Salisbury. I am quite sure that my hon. Friend will feel with me that there could not be a more gross deviation from Parliamentary etiquette, and there could not be a more gross deviation from the rules of substantial justice, than I should be chargeable with if I were in general terms, and without the production of the documents, to enter upon a discussion of the conduct of Lord Salisbury. I state Lord Salisbury personally, because my hon. Friend mentioned Lord Salisbury but I have not the smallest reason to believe—on the contrary, my belief is exactly the opposite one—that Lord Salisbury, with regard to these proceedings on this important question, was in any manner separated from the general action of the Government of which he was a Member. Under these circumstances, my hon. Friend and others will see that though the time may be very close at hand when this subject should be discussed, yet that it would not be right that we should attempt to discuss it in the absence of the Papers now in preparation. It would lead to no benefit whatever; it would conduct us to no solid conclusion; and I do not hesitate to say that it might be productive of very serious inconvenience and difficulty.
  MR. O'DONNELLsaid, he felt very strongly the appeal by the Prime Minister to the House to wait for further information. At one time Her Majesty's Government professed to have knowledge on the subject. He admitted that the House ought not in a hurry to enter into a discussion; but, assuming that there was ground for the appeal, he thought the House ought to know what was the policy of Her Majesty's Government. Surely there could be no objection on the part of a patriotic Administration to inform the House what was their policy. They knew that some time ago Her Majesty's Government believed that the Regency of Tunis was an integral portion of the Ottoman Empire. Did Her Majesty's Government believe that, or had they given up their contention in the face of the arms of France? In fact, were they in the presence of another surrender? They knew it was a cardinal principle of Her Majesty's Government to defend popular rights and the rights of nationalities. Had they maintained
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  popular rights at present? Surely the House ought to know whether Her Majesty's Government had assented to an annexation of Tunis. [Great interruption here ensued, upon which the hon. Member resumed his seat, saying he must decline to continue his speech.]
  MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT: I rise to Order, Sir; I beg to direct your attention to the fact that the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler) is interrupting the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) by incoherent cries.
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: I rise, Sir, to give a most distinct denial to that statement.
  MR. O'DONNELLresumed by assuring hon. Members opposite that it was only from a conviction of the importance of the subject that he had ventured to address any observations to the House. Hon. Members had asked for information again and again. Had Her Majesty's Government made up their minds, or did they intend to spring a surprise on the House this day week? Could they have been in communication with the French Government all these weeks and months, and not have arrived at any policy on the subject? Had they consented to a hauling down of the British flag? Speaking as an Irishman, he thought he had a right to plead for a recognition of national rights.
  MR. J. COWENsaid, he quite agreed with the Prime Minister that any discussion of the Tunisian question at the present time would be inconvenient and unjust. They ought not to condemn the French Government until they had had an opportunity of being heard. But it was only fair to say that if his hon. Friend (Mr. Guest) had been precipitate in bringing the matter before the house, the French Government had been equally, if not a good deal more, precipitate in the course they had pursued. He feared there was little chance of their explaining away the action that had been taken. The English and Italian Governments had every reason to believe that the French simply meditated punishing the Kroumirs for their raids on Algerian territory. It was but too evident now that the Kroumir incursions had merely been made a pretext for an annexation that had long been contemplated. At least, that was the only view it was possible to take upon

  577
  the case as it stood. He would be glad if subsequent intelligence justified him in altering his opinion. He had no desire to further prolong the discussion; but he wished to ask this question. The Tunisian Government owed a debt of some £5,000,000. A few years ago it was upwards of £6,000,000. The Bey was unable to pay the interest, and an International Financial Commission was established for collecting the taxes and taking charge of the Debt. This Commission consisted of one Englishman, one Frenchman, one Italian, and two Tunisians. It had been in existence now for some time, and its operations had been highly successful. The interest had been regularly paid, and the Debt had been gradually but substantially reduced. Now, he understood, by the Treaty just concluded, that this International Commission had been annulled, and a French Commission had been substituted for it. That was an important matter. A good deal of the Tunisian Debt was held by English people, and it was only right that they should be represented on the Commission. What he wished to ask the Government was, whether the Papers they were about to submit would enlighten Parliament on the part the French Cabinet had taken in destroying the old International Commission and supplanting it by a French Commission?
  SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFasked whether the Papers to be laid upon the Table would include the Treaty said to have been signed within the last few days; and, also, whether the Government would produce any communications which might have passed with the Italian Government with respect to the action of the French Government?
  MR. BOURKEalso wished to ask, whether any Papers would be included relating to Biserta Bay which were at the Foreign Office? He believed that there were some Papers at the Admiralty also, in relation to that matter, which the House would like to see.
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE, in reply to the hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. J. Cowen), said, there were points connected with the International Financial Commission on which information would be given in the Papers to be laid before the House. In answer to the hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff), he had to say that the Treaty
  578
  would be given in the Papers. The communication with the Italian Government would be given. In answer to the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Bourke), he thought his Question had better be put to the Admiralty.
  MR. BOURKEgave Notice, that be would, to-morrow, ask a Question about the Papers to which he referred.
  MR. MONTAGUE GUESTsaid, he was willing, after the statement of the Prime Minister, to withdraw his Motion.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  MR. MONTAGUE GUESTasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether, with regard to a threat made by the French in 1864 to fire on any Turkish ironclads that might attempt to proceed to Tunis, upon which the honourable Member for Rochester asked for Lord Palmerston's answer at that time, if he did not say that "there was no answer whatever to it;" if he is aware that in 1864, on the arrival of the French and Italian Fleets in Tunis, Admiral Yelverton was ordered to that place with the English Fleet, and that the Porte sent likewise a squadron under Mustapha Bey, with the Sultan's Commissioner, Haidar Effendi; and, if he will lay upon the Table the Papers referring to that transaction?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: Sir, my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff) having asked me whether the French Government had threatened to forcibly prevent a Turkish naval force from visiting Tunis, I incidentally stated in my reply that the French Government had so acted in 1841 and in 1864. My hon. Friend the Member for Rochester (Mr. Otway) then asked me what answer Lord Palmerston made, and I replied that the French Government not having asked his consent to their proceeding, he had made none. My hon. Friend then observed that he had sent the British Fleet, and my hon. Friend the Member for Wareham (Mr. Guest) now asks me if that is so. On the former occasion, in 1841, the French Government despatched to Tunis a fleet carrying 438 guns. Lord Palmerston sent a far smaller force to protect British life and property, and with distinct orders "to take no part in the dispute." On the later occasion, in 1864, on the occurrence of riots in the Regency of Tunis, in the course of which the houses of some

  579
  British merchants were pillaged, Lord Palmerston sent one large and one small ship to protect British life and property. When France interfered in the matter, a few weeks later, the French Government sent a large force, which was ultimately increased till it numbered five unarmoured ships of the Line, two iron-clads, and five other steam men-of-war; and the Italian Government, who had at that time an understanding with the French Government with regard to Tunis, sent four unarmoured frigates. one iron-clad, and one corvette, the Italian ships having also troops on board for disembarkation. There never were more than two British ships at Tunis at any one time in the course of 1864, and their mission was to protect British life and property.
  MR. OTWAYasked, whether the Papers to be laid on the Table relating to Tunis would include the negotiations of 1868 and 1869 in regard to the Financial Commission?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE, in reply, said, that the Papers relating to Tunis were almost of incredible bulk, and it would be impossible to include in those about to be produced the Papers referring to the negotiations of 1868 as to the Financial Commission.
  MR. MONTAGUE GUESTasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether, in view of the concert stated to have been established between the Great Powers with the especial object of regulating the affairs of the East and maintaining the Peace of Europe, France consulted the other Powers who were parties to the said concert before invading Tunisian territory, and is now acting with their concurrence and sanction?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: Sir, the French Government did not consult the Powers.

  CONTAGIOUS DISEASES (ANIMALS) ACTS—IMPORTATION OF CATTLE FROM IRELAND.
  MR. LEAasked the Vice President of the Council, If there is any justification for the alarm which exists as to the importation into this Country of cattle from Ireland alleged to be diseased, and which is acting so prejudicially to the interests of the farmers and graziers; and, whether any contagious disease exists amongst cattle in Ireland?
  MR. MUNDELLA, in reply, said, he had endeavoured in his former answers to state there was no justification for the alarm which existed as to the importation into this country of cattle disease from Ireland. The foot-and-mouth disease had ceased to exist in Ireland since October, 1879. There was the residuum of pleuro-pneumonia, but it was not much less than in this country. He only wished the English cattle were in as good a sanitary condition as the Irish cattle at present.

  POOR LAW (IRELAND)—BANBRIDGE WORKHOUSE.
  MR. A. M. SULLIVANasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether, in view of the correspondence which has recently passed between the Very Rev. John O'Brien, of Banbridge, and the Local Government Board in reference to some orphan children, recently inmates of the Banbridge Workhouse, the Government will take steps to enable Boards of Guardians in such cases to exercise some more efficient guardianship over orphans, the custody of whom may be obtained from the Guardians by persons of a different religious persuasion?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER, in reply, said, that the children in question were given up to a relative—the aunt, he believed—by the Board of Guardians. The Board of Guardians had already ample power to exercise sufficient guardianship over orphans. The 8th section of the 25 & 26 Vict. only required Guardians to give up orphans to relatives if the Guardians were of opinion the relatives were fit persons to be entrusted with the children.

  CENTRAL ASIA—LORD DUFFERIN'S DESPATCH.
  MR. NORTHCOTEasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, On what day Her Majesty's Government telegraphed to St. Petersburg for permission to publish Lord Dufferin's Despatch of 8th March, and the Papers referred to in his speech of the 13th instant?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: Sir, Lord Dufferin's despatch of the 8th of March relating to a conversation with M. de Giers was received on the 14th of that month. Lord Dufferin was informed

  581
  that it would be desirable to include a Report of this conversation in the Blue Book, and was asked in the usual terms, whether M. de Giers had any objection to his language being published? On the 17th, Lord Dufferin telegraphed that M. de Giers wished certain omissions to be made, and that a note of these omissions was being despatched by the messenger. It left St. Petersburg on that day, and reached the Foreign Office on the night of the 21st. I only became aware of its receipt on the day of the debate, as the despatch had to be seen by the Secretary of State and the Permanent Under Secretary of State before it reached me, and my recollection was that it had been received only on that day. The Secretary of State on the 22nd ordered the Blue Book to be immediately issued; but as it was found that it could not be got ready before the debate terminated, it was after the debate delayed to include a further despatch, bearing the date of March 26, which had been asked for in this House.

  FRANCE—THE NEW COMMERCIAL TREATY.
  MR. BOURKE: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs a Question of which I have given him private Notice, in regard to the French Commercial Treaty. It will be remembered that the Treaty expires on the 8th of November. I believe the French Chambers will be dissolved within six weeks or two months of this time; and, therefore, unless the negotiations are concluded between this time and the middle of July, there will be very little chance of any new Treaty being negotiated before the old one expires. I should like, therefore, to ask the Government, Whether, under the circumstances, they will suggest to the French Government the desirability of prolonging the existing Treaty for six months, after the 8th of November? I do not know whether Her Majesty's Government have made any communication with the French Government. If not, I think the present circumstances would justify their making it now.
  MR. MACFARLANE: Before the hon. Gentleman answers that Question, I also have one which I should like to ask him—namely, Whether, in the event of the proposed French Tariff
  582
  being adverse to this country, Her Majesty's Government will afford the House an opportunity of discussing the Treaty before any engagement of a permanent character is entered into; and, whether the Government will consider the desirability of freeing itself from obligations which will hamper this country in reference to its Customs regulations with out offering an equivalent advantage?
  MR. MAC IVERsaid, he should like to know also, What was the present position of the question of the Sugar Bounties, and the Bounties on Shipping?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: Sir, in March last Her Majesty's Government foresaw the difficulties adverted to by the right hon. Member, and, as I have already on more than one occasion stated in this House, asked the French Government to prolong the existing Tariff for a period sufficient for all negotiations for a fresh Treaty to be carried on and concluded; but the French Government decline to agree to this suggestion. In reply to the Question of the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Macfarlane), I would refer him to the replies which were given by me on the 7th of April and by the Prime Minister on the 28th of that month. In reply to the hon. Member for Birkenhead (Mr. Mac Iver), the sugar question is not under the Foreign Office, but under the control of the Board of Trade. The question as to the bounties on shipping will be brought forward again.

  PARLIAMENT—BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE—LAND LAW (IRELAND) BILL.
  MR. M'COAN: I desire to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland a Question of which I have given him private Notice—namely, Whether he is correctly reported in his speech at Bradford to have said that he believed the Land Law (Ireland) Bill would be passed without any material or substantial alteration; and, whether he desires to convey by that remark that the Amendments to be moved by the Irish Members will not be fairly, and so far as circumstances will allow, generously considered by the Government?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER, in reply, said, he had not read the report alluded to,

  583
  Certainly, if he had stated to his constituents anything that would lead to the supposition that the Government meant not to give the usual consideration to Amendments, he did not intend to make such a statement; and he was perfectly sure that no such meaning as that was gathered by his audience. He believed that he had expressed a hope that the Bill would pass, and that it would pass in its main features. But, at the same time, he mentioned one important matter which he thought would be discussed very considerably in Committee, and, of course, he had no authority to preclude the discussion of Amendments, nor was he disposed to say anything so absurd. He trusted he should not be supposed to even wish anything of the sort.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNORhoped that before the debate on the second reading closed, it would be stated what Amendments the Government would accept.

  PARLIAMENT—PUBLIC BUSINESS—THE TRANSVAAL.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS - BEACHsaid, he wished to put a Question as to his Notice of Motion in regard to the Transvaal. He understood the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, on a former occasion, to have said that circumstances had somewhat altered in the Transvaal since the Easter Recess; and that, at that time, in his judgment, it would be contrary to the public interest that any debate on the subject should take place. Now, he (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) had not the least wish, in the delicate nature of the circumstances, to do anything which would prejudice the Public Service; but, at the same time, he was anxious that the discussion of his Motion should not be indefinitely delayed. He therefore asked the right hon. Gentleman, Whether, in his view, circumstances had not so far changed as to admit of such a discussion being taken?
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, the representation which I made with respect to the altered state of affairs in South Africa as bearing on the proposed Motion of the right hon. Gentleman had reference to the examination we had been able to make of the transactions at Potchefstroom; and on those transactions certain measures of the Government required to be adopted. Until those measures are completed, I cannot give any answer
  584
  to the Question put by the right hon. Gentleman. The last telegram which I saw, and which is dated yesterday, would imply that we shall have the information speedily. But they are not concluded at present, and matters, strictly speaking, are as they were when I last spoke.

  NAVY—DESTRUCTION OF H.M.S. "DOTEREL."
  MR. W. H. SMITH: I wish to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty, If the attention of the Admiralty has been called to a statement in the "Daily News" of Saturday last, to the effect that information received from the Pacific station had come to the knowledge of the Government that Fenians were likely to blow up the men-of-war on that station, and that precautions were taken shortly before the disaster to the "Doterel;" whether it is in the power of the hon. Gentleman to give any information to the House on the subject; and, whether there is any connection between this information and the destruction of the "Doterel?"
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, it is true that information, early in last winter, reached the Admiralty from abroad, which their Lordships thought it right to communicate to certain of the foreign stations. At the end of the letter in each case the following paragraph occurred:—
  "My Lords do not wish to attach undue importance to the information in question; but they desire to notify it to you, with the view of such precautions being taken to secure the safety of Her Majesty's ships and vessels under your command as you may deem to be necessary."
  One of these stations communicated with was the Pacific, to which the Doterel belonged; and the Admiralty do not attach importance to what, with their present knowledge, they are inclined to regard as nothing more than a coincidence. With respect to the steps taken since the loss of the Doterel, I may say that the Garnet sailed for Sandy Point on the 6th from Montevideo; and on the 4th the sloop Penguin, with a complete equipment of divers and diving apparatus from Coquimbo. The Garnet must be before this at Sandy Point, and the Penguin should be there in a day or two. The Britannia, bringing the survivors, is expected at Liverpool on the 31st, where preparations have been made for their reception; and Commander Evans has

  585
  been ordered to proceed at once to the Admiralty, while the others go on to Portsmouth, so that within a fortnight the questions as to the disaster will be cleared up as far as human testimony can clear them up beyond the point of theory and conjecture.

  LAND LAW (IRELAND) BILL.
  MR. PARNELLwished to ask, with reference to the reply given to his hon. Friend the junior Member for County Wicklow (Mr. M'Coan), that the Government would give reasonable consideration to Amendments moved by Irish Members in the Committee stage of the Land Bill, If the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland meant the same reasonable consideration which he gave to Amendments moved by Irish Members during the passage of the two Coercion Bills?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER: Sir, what I meant to say was this—that the fullest consideration would be given to all bonâ fide Amendments.

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

    SECOND READING. ADJOURNED DEBATE. [SEVENTH NIGHT.]
    Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment proposed to Question [25th April], "That the Bill be now read a second time."
    And which Amendment was,
    To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "this House, while willing to consider any just measure, founded upon sound principles, that will benefit tenants of land in Ireland, is of opinion that the leading provisions of the Land Law (Ireland) Bill are in the main economically unsound, unjust, and impolitic,"—(Lord Elcho,)
    —instead thereof.
    Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    Debate resumed.
    MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, I desire to apologize to the House for my having requested my hon. and learned Friend
    586
    the Solicitor General for Ireland (Mr. W. M. Johnson) to permit me, instead of himself, to address it at this early portion of the evening—though not quite so early as I hoped it would have been. Various observations have been made by hon. Members, who appear to think there has been either a purpose or unnecessary reservation on the part of the Government with respect to some questions of interest raised in the Land Law (Ireland) Bill; and I have made up my own mind that it is well for me—though I do not see the justice of the objection—to do all that lies in my power to obviate its repetition. I have, therefore, determined to take advantage of the opportunity secured by my hon. and learned Friend, and to solicit the privilege of addressing the House tonight; and being somewhat indisposed, and not able to remain in the House throughout the evening, to venture to make a change in the arrangement as to the person by whom the debate is to be resumed.
    Now, Sir, before I speak on the Bill, with the second reading of which we are concerned, I wish to refer to two words which we have heard often repeated in this debate. The first word is "confiscation," and the second word is "compensation." They are words that are, and ought to be, in close association together; for I certainly should be very slow to deny that where confiscation could be proved, compensation ought to follow. But, Sir, I must say that those words are used too frequently and too soon. They are almost the stock expressions of debate upon certain classes of questions. They have repeatedly, again and again, been urged with the greatest confidence where, in some cases, no proof has been shown, and where, in other cases, disproof has been furnished abundantly. I will not refer now in detail to the charges that were made upon the very limited measure that we introduced last year with respect to Compensation for Disturbance, because that remains as it was 12 months ago—a matter of opinion—having been nipped in the bud, and having been prevented from doing the extended evil which was anticipated from it by hon. Gentlemen opposite, or the great good which we, on our part, confidently believed that it would have produced. Hon. Gentlemen opposite know—I need hardly remind them—how

    587
    this charge of confiscation was raised on the repeal of the Corn Laws; and how it was raised last year upon the very humble, though useful, measure introduced by my right hon. and learned Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department in respect to Ground Game. It is more to the purpose that I should remind them how freely it was raised when the Land Bill was under discussion in 1870. ["Hear, hear!"] It was used on that occasion by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin); but I had not intended to quote him in regard to it had he not invited me by his cheer. It was, however, used by others, who may be considered as representative men of the Party. Lord Salisbury described that Bill as bribing one class by plundering another. He said—"You are bribing one class and plundering another, and you are setting an example easily followed." Lord Cairns used much the same language. He, spoke candidly, and said, "You allow me the option of purchasing my own property"—words which themselves imply confiscation. Indeed, he quoted with praise a declaration from a certain publication, that there would be no settlement of the question without something which would be called confiscation. ["Hear, hear!"] Well, I am very glad that I am not mis-stating anything as regards the case. "Confiscation" was the word applied to the leading enactments of the Land Bill of 1870. Did the Land Act, when it became the law of the land, confiscate the property of the landlords? Did it injure the property of the landlords? We affirm, on the contrary, and upon evidence, that it improved the property of the landlords. [Dissent.] A shake of the head is less authoritative than the Returns made of authentic transactions in Courts of Justice; and authentic transactions in an Irish Court of Justice from year to year show us two things. In the first place, the rents have increased under the action of the Land Act. I am not speaking now of undue increase; I would say rents have grown under the action of the Land Act. And, in the second place, upon the increased rents, with the larger rental, a larger number of years' purchase has been obtained where the property has come into the market. And that, Sir, has been the end of the charge
    588
    of confiscation with respect to the Land Act.
    But I humbly think there have been cases much more like confiscation than the Land Act. I find a case in my own experience in 1874, though it was on a more limited scale: I refer to the confiscation of the advowsons in Scotland under the Church Patronage Act. I mentioned it at the time, and I never knew a clearer case in my life. I allude to the confiscation of advowsons in the Church of Scotland under the Church Patronage Act. But that is a small matter. Confiscation has come nearer to Ireland in previous legislation. When, in a country where it is now admitted that the improvements upon the holdings are, as a rule, the work of the tenants, we allowed and encouraged the landlord to carry those improvements into the market and to sell them for his own benefit—then, indeed, there was something like confiscation. I never heard, Sir, on that occasion that the Members for the University of Dublin or anyone else belonging to their Party was scandalized at the proceedings of Parliament. It was a most unfortunate and deplorable business. I do not say, and I do not believe, that those who made the recommendations which led to it—the Members of the Devon Commission—were actuated by any evil motive. I believe it was a sheer error, arising out of a sheer want of regard for existing facts. But I want to point it out as teaching a lesson of caution and circumspection to those who so freely and so readily use these hard words and east them at the head of men who also consider that to propose principles of confiscation would be a disgrace—a disgrace to the Ministers who suggested and the Parliament which would tolerate them for a moment.
    I own that I go myself further than what I have stated with regard to the Encumbered Estates Act. By it we have established a system in Ireland, during the present century, which essentially altered the position of the Irish tenant without his permission—I may say without his knowledge. The old system of the Irish law made it hardly practicable for a landlord, without the greatest delay and difficulty, to put into force extreme measures against the tenant. I do not make that statement upon feeble or doubtful authority.

    589
    I make it on the statement of a Preamble of an Act which altered that state of things. The Act of 1816, which did that, recited in its Preamble that such were the expenses and delays of ejectment that it was entirely and absolutely impracticable as a remedy. We must not, therefore, refuse to look at the fact that if the recital of that Preamble be true, there was a permanence and security of tenure then attaching to the Irish tenant which you have since taken away. He has never acquiesced in that abstraction of such security which he possessed and enjoyed; he has maintained against it a continual protest; he has certainly not allowed it to lapse into abeyance. What I wish to say is that we are endeavouring, and it is time to endeavour, to establish the order of something like equal justice in Ireland in those matters; and that those who plead on behalf of landlords—and they have a perfect right to plead against anything that they think trespasses on those rights—should recollect what is clue to others who have so long suffered from a course of legislation continued through generation after generation, endured too long without complaint, and now resulting in difficulties with which we are endeavouring to cope, and in the endeavour to cope with which I think we are entitled to some tittle of consideration on the part of this House.
    Now, first, with regard to the charges of confiscation. I will only say that the Government cannot admit that they make any confiscation, or in any way approach confiscation, in this Bill, and are not prepared in consequence to admit any plea for compensation. The proof of confiscation—the proof of damage resulting from the action of the Legislature—is the very first step that must be taken and that must be established beyond doubt before the House can fairly be called upon to consider whether it will grant compensation or not. In 1846 the Irish landlord was not inconsiderably compensated at the time of the repeal of the Corn Laws, notwithstanding the enormous benefits conferred upon him by Sir Robert Peel in that measure. There was not a single commodity reared in Ireland for export that has not increased in price under the action of Free Trade, and yet for the change that brought about those results the Irish landlords were compensated by
    590
    the transfer of a moiety of the charge for the Constabulary to the Consolidated Fund, a moiety which then, I think, amounted to £300,000 or £400,000, but now amounts to more than £1,000,000. I will now pass from the question of confiscation and compensation, and come to the Bill.
    Now I wish to observe, Sir, that I have never known a case of so large a measure debated for such a length of time of which so few points have been brought into serious discussion. The points that have been brought into serious discussion, in very different degrees, are, as far as I know, these. We have heard much of fair rents, and we have had reference to the question of arrears. On the question of arrears I will say nothing, except that it is an important question; but there will be no advantage, indeed there would be a difficulty, in dealing with it in detail on the second reading of the Bill. In the same way, another bye-question which we have considered, and the result of which consideration appears in the Bill—but it may be worthy, noth withstanding, of further consideration—is the question of current leases. That also is evidently a question which, in my opinion, ought to be reserved for the Committee on the Bill. Another question, Sir, that has been repeatedly raised has been the apparent unfairness and hardship of refusing to the landlords, as it is said, the power to go into the Court. That is certainly an obvious and plausible question. If you permit the tenant to come into your Court, why do you not permit the landlord? That question seems to have caused much difficulty, and one hon. and learned Gentleman, the Member for Antrim (Mr. Macnaghten), was so struck with the force of that question that he said he should propose that the landlord should be permitted to go into Court. But how did the hon. and learned Member propose to do so? His speech was characterized by great critical and logical power. But he proposed to give an experimental proof of his constructive powers, and that was a much more dangerous task. He said it was a hard case that a landlord having 150 tenants should be liable to 150 suits. What he proposes is this—"I will let the landlord go into Court and exhibit to the Court the state of his rents, and get from the Court a certificate that his

    591
    rents are fair. But the landlord must undertake not to raise his rents for a certain number of years." Did the hon. and learned Gentleman, who is a lawyer, propose that that proceeding should take place behind the back of the tenant? [Mr. MACNAGHTEN: Certainly not.] That is the answer I get. I am glad to find that the hon. and learned Gentleman, when under criticism, is not insensible to comment. He means then that there must be notice to the tenant. Very good. The consequence is that the hon. and learned Gentleman proposes, by way of giving favour to the landlord, that he shall have 150 suits on at the same time, in order that he may be rewarded by the privilege of having the rent established, which rent he must not raise for a certain number of years. I cannot conceive that the hon. and learned Gentleman was serious in making such a proposal as that the landlord should be allowed to come as a privilege into Court and raise the question of increasing every rent on his estate.
    But, Sir, we have proceeded on an entirely opposite principle—the principle of disturbing nothing that we could avoid disturbing, and of leaving outside the Court and the action of the Court all those who are willing to be so left, in order that they may settle their affairs without the intervention of the Court. That is the frame of the Bill. The Bill does not open the Court to the whole tenantry of Ireland; it leaves the initiative of going before the Court to the landlord. But still that is not an answer to the question. Why not allow the landlord to go into Court? In the first place, you are entirely mistaken in the idea that the landlord has no power to go into Court. That is a mistake made by many hon. Gentlemen who have made eloquent speeches on the other side of the House, evidently without having read beyond the first page of the Bill. Now, Sir, what is the interest of the landlord in this matter? His interest, in the first place, lies in keeping up his rent to a fair and just standard. That interest is secured to him by giving him the power of raising his rent, and throwing it upon the tenant to go into Court in order to obtain a judicial rent against him. Some people say—"Why don't you allow the landlord to escape the odium of raising of rent by obtaining
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    a judicial sentence from the Court?" They think—it is the first time I ever heard it—that any landlord in this country believes that lie is diminishing the odium of some proceeding that ho takes against a tenant in his own interest by founding upon it a lawsuit in which he involves the tenant. The fact is, that so far from diminishing odium, he would, in my opinion, largely increase it, when he mingles the action of the Court with his own pressure upon the tenant.
    Then, again, there is the interest of the landlord, if he wishes to avoid the risk of having a tenant rack-rented, not only in his own rent, but in the tenant right for which he pays to the outgoing tenant. The landlord may fairly plead—at any rate, the Bill admits it—that the tenant right may rack-rent the incoming tenant as much as an extravagant rent. Be it right or wrong, we have provided in the Bill for that, and all that we have heard of successive sales of tenant right—rising one above another—is utterly inapplicable to the Bill. The 1st clause of the Bill provides for it. Hon. Gentlemen who have spoken on this subject have only read the first limb of the first sentence of the 1st clause. It says that the tenant shall be allowed to sell his tenant right for the best price that he can obtain. Hon. Gentlemen read so far, and no farther. But if they went on, they would find that the tenant is required to give notice to the landlord, and the landlord, on receiving that notice, may agree with the tenant on the amount of the tenant right that the outgoing man is to receive; and, if he cannot agree with the tenant, he may take him into the Court for the purpose. Thus the two items of the landlord's interest are secured—his interest as to the rent, by his power of raising the rent his interest as to the tenant right, by his power of taking the tenant into Court. But it may be said—"Why don't you give him a wider power still, and allow him always to go into Court?" That is a fair question for discussion, and we have well considered it. But I think the House will probably agree in our conclusion that the wiser course is that which we have adopted. In the strange state of things which has prevailed in Ireland the Court has been looked upon as a sort of Paradise into which everybody would rush. That is not our view at all in the matter. We conceive

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    that the action of the Court must impose considerable burdens on small owners who cannot undertake to pay the expenses of civil litigation; and the expenses of civil litigation, however you may control them, must be severely felt by the poor man and the small man. To the landlord the expenses frequently may be light; to the tenant they may be very severe. But, be it understood, it is in the indiscriminate power of the landlord to go into Court. Let that matter be argued in Committee if there is any question about it. We shall hear what is to be said, with perfect willingness to be convinced if good and sufficient reasons can be given; but we have not acted without reason or consideration in the course we have taken. I have shown also that it is totally inaccurate to say that the landlord has no power of going into Court, because, in the matter of tenant right, which he can check in no other way, this Bill authorizes him to go into the Court. [An hon. MEMBER: Where?] In the 3rd sub-section of the 1st clause it is stated that, on receiving notice, the landlord may purchase the tenancy for such amount as may be agreed upon, or, in the event of disagreement, as may be settled by the Court. The resort to the Court is there as clearly indicated as can be. [Sir R.ASSHETON CROSS: When is that power given?] When there is a change of tenancy. The 1st clause says—
    "On receiving such notice the landlord may purchase the tenancy for such sum as may be agreed upon, or, in the event of disagreement, may be settled by the Court to he the value thereof."
    That contemplates most distinctly the case when the tenancy passes from one person to another; but I do not believe the words convey that it is to be a resumption of the land by permanent possession on the part of the landlord. The landlord may agree with the tenant upon the sum to be paid for the purchase, or he may have the sum fixed by the Court.
    And now I will take the question of the constitution of the Court. I own this matter has received from one of the Members for the University of Dublin such discussion in detail as I have hardly ever known given upon the second reading of a Bill, and with a warmth and vehemence such as I have scarcely ever seen exceeded even by him. This is a
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    matter necessarily of detail, for consideration and adjustment. The state of the case is this—I am bound to make an admission. In one point this Bill, for which, I think, the draftsman cannot be too much praised, whatever judgment its authors may deserve, does not exactly correspond with our intention. Our intention was to give an option of passing by the Civil Bill Court, if it was decided so to act; but it was also thought there should be power of going into the Civil Bill Court. The tenant, we thought, should have the power, if he pleased, of going to the Commission, or the agent of the Commission, at once. I put it respectfully to hon. Gentlemen, whether it is desirable to go further than that? I am not now raising the question of the arrangements to be made for the conduct of proceedings in the Civil Bill Courts; but I submit it would not have been wise wholly to pass by a body of gentlemen who have had an opportunity under the Land Act of acquiring a mass of experience such as is not possessed by any other body of gentlemen in Ireland. I will go one step further, and say I cannot for myself—it may be owing to my ignorance—think, upon the figures, that the result of actions in the Civil Bill Court have been very discreditable. Hon. Gentlemen who are lawyers will be able to form a much better judgment than I can in this matter; but I invite attention to these facts. For the four years previous to 1877—before that time we have no available account—we have the number of land claims which were entered before the Court. These claims were 1,688. The appeals tried from these cases were 212. The judgments confirmed were 140, and, so far as I can make out from the figures, there were 50 judgments which have been reversed, upon a total of 1,688 cases tried—that is to say, 3 per cent, which means that 32 out of every 33 men who came before the Civil Bill Court had justice done to them. I cannot suppose that will be considered a very unsatisfactory result. I can hardly think the Court deserves the severity of judgment which has been pronounced by some. Great fault is found with the Bill because of what it is said may be done by our Commissioner or by his deputy, and the most dreadful pictures have been painted of the consequences of placing power in the hands of incompetent

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    men. We shall be very glad to hear in Committee of any safeguard that can be provided; but the House will bear in mind this fact. It is hardly possible, however, to forecast the details of the probable transactions under this Bill. No one can tell where they will rise—how they will rise—in what part of the country they will rise.
    This leads me to another remark on the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Antrim. He complained that the Bill was not sufficiently elastic. How does he propose to make it more elastic in this matter of the Court? He said, Why do you not appoint two Commissioners for each Province? How do we know what will be requisite for each Province? In one Province there may be little or no demand. In Leinster and Ulster, for example, it is possible the demand will be very different from what it will be in the other Provinces. What we propose is, not that a multitude of public officers shall be created before we know whether there shall be any duties for them to perform, but that officers of the Court may be appointed as necessity arises and according to the measure of the necessity. So much for certain of the points raised. And as to the very important point of a fair rent, one of the Members of the University of Dublin condemns our proposal as undoubted confiscation tempered and flavoured with cowardice; while other hon. Gentlemen, more moderate in their mode of looking at the measure, think that the words we have used are defective and even dangerous. I see the senior Member for the University of Dublin (Mr.
    Plunket) in his place, and I must pay him a deserved compliment. I do not think it was possible to submit arguments more calmly, clearly, or more fairly to the consideration of the House than he did.
    Let me endeavour to go through the points of this question, and, in doing so, I shall make another more agreeable reference to the hon. and learned Member for Antrim. He made a remark with which I, for one, most cordially agree. He said the very terms "fair rent" conveyed their own meaning. They are really the charter of those who are interested in fair rents; but it is a question, and a very difficult question, to know how far we can go in development, in restriction, and in direction. I
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    have to admit, however, that the Government are not very proud of their workmanship in this portion of their undertaking, and I hope it may be amended, mid materially amended, in Committee. But, at the present moment, my wish is to draw in the clearest manner a distinction between that which is essential and that which is secondary and accidental in this clause. And here I must complain of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the late Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Gibson). He holds that, according to the best legal construction, the proceedings of the Court would be carried on thus: a certain rent would be fixed, and then a tenant-right outside Ulster equivalent to seven years' rent will be deducted from that original rent. Now we protest altogether against that method of deduction; it is not the tanner, so far as I know, in which these things are conducted in Ireland now. In this very difficult business it is some comfort to recollect that this subject of rents is not new to Irish lawyers and Irish Judges; in Ulster it has been before them for some time, and in other parts of Ireland it has come before them in eases of eviction under the operation of the Land Act. I must go a little further and complain that the right hon. and learned Gentleman not only put a construction upon the clause by interpolating words of his own into it that are not there, but he then went on to exhibit his own method in a supposed case, stating his argument on an altogether fallacious basis. He imagined a case in which he supposed the fair rent in the market was £24. The fair rent in the market! That was his starting-point in this great argument; but that starting-point is poisoned with a fallacy from the beginning. Our whole contention is, that these words, applied to Ireland generally—"a fair rent in the market"—are words involving a contradicion in terms, for the rent in the market is not a fair rent. Consequently, everything that the right hon. and learned Gentleman founded upon that fallacious assumption was as fallacious as the assumption from which he started. The essence of this clause really must be considered apart from particular words which one person or another may desire to add to the description of that essence. I believe we were right in requiring that the Court shall hear and take into consideration

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    all the circumstances of the case. Beyond that, what we feel is this: there is one circumstance of the case so important, so paramount for every settlement of the question, that we must take notice of it, and that is the tenant's interest. We cannot leave that covered up by any general expression of "all the circumstances of the case." We are bound to point to the tenant's interest. Now no one can say, I think, that there has been any reticence on the part of the Government as to what the interest of the tenant is. My right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General for Ireland said most truly that if you were to admit this doctrine of deduction it would be a deduction from the top market rent, and not from the fair rent. Now, supposing the case of a top market rent in Ireland, what does that include as a general rule? In the first place, it includes annual payment for the value of the tenant's improvements, and that is the first and the greatest element of legitimate tenant right. In the second place, it includes the excess which is found in open biddings for holdings in Ireland, in consequence of the scarcity of land as compared with the demand for it—just as in buying a curiosity in this country, simply because the article is rare, the buyer will go far beyond the intrinsic value in the price he gives, so, under the necessity of a much sterner order in Ireland in bidding for land, the bidder is ready to give more than he really ought to give, or can properly afford to give—and that excess in bidding for the land, owing to the scarcity of land in Ireland, is the second and remaining element of tenant right.
    And here I come to the very fair and pertinent question of the senior Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Plunket). I say that neither of these elements of value belongs to the landlord. Both of them form constituent parts of the tenant right, and those taken together may be said very fairly, in general terms, to constitute that which the tenant has to sell. Now it has been supposed to be absurd to make any reference in this matter to the compensation for disturbance and for improvements under the Land Act, and I admit, as the clause now stands, the words have too exclusive prominence given to them. They stand as if they
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    were the only thing to be looked at outside Ulster, at all events, as requiring definite notice, whereas they are not. But, on the other hand, hon. Gentlemen must recollect that these words are most important and operative words under the Land Act of 1870. Under that Act, as it passed this House and went to the House of Lords, it stood thus—that no yearly tenant could be evicted from his holding without being compensated for his improvements and for disturbance, on a scale with a maximum of seven years. Well, the effect of that was that the Act, as it went from this House, permitted assignment, and that assignment constituted tenant right. I challenge contradiction to that statement. The place of a man whose holding was the means of livelihood was a thing worth paying for, and the people are willing to pay for it. The complaint is that they only pay too much; and when we said to the holders of land—"We will fortify your position by taking care that you shall not be removed from it," we gave them virtually the tenant right, and a real interest in the holding. But what was done in the House of Lords? A prohibition to assign. Although, however, the property was made inalienable, though the privilege of alienation was unfortunately taken away, yet the property itself remains; and upon cases of eviction how is the thing worked? I am not now speaking of eviction for non-payment of rent, but of those cases, happily, I believe, not very numerous, where the eviction has been of a more arbitrary kind. In those cases what happens is this:—The landlord has evicted, the tenant claimed compensation for disturbance, the landlord looked out for another tenant; that other tenant, and not the landlord, has paid to the outgoing man the compensation for disturbance; and that is the basis of the tenant right. Depend upon it, under the operation of the Land Act there have been at work causes which, gradually but surely, have tended to the distinct development of a system of tenant right in all agricultural holdings of Ireland; and not only so, but have tended to give to that tenant right a form, corresponding in the main to the compensation for disturbance and compensation for improvements.
    I have explained, therefore, what the tenant has to transfer. I say he has to

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    transfer these improvements; and if he is in a position fortified by compensation for disturbance, his holding being a means of livelihood, which it is worth another man's while to pay for, he has got this apart from the landlord; and it is perfectly fair and just that you should not interpose any obstacle. Therefore, in our view, the tenant right in Ireland is made up of elements neither of which belongs to the landlord, and which no landlord except an unjust landlord, and the case I trust is exceptional, endeavours to convert to his own profit. But an unjust landlord must be prepared to be interfered with. We will not undertake to respect the use he has made of the peculiar circumstances of the country, and of the long and favourable presumptions of the Legislature towards him, or allow his doing less than justice to those who stand towards him in the relation of social inferiors and dependents.
    I trust, then, it will be understood that, in considering tenant right, these, and these only, are the elements which, so far as our views go, the Court will be entitled to exact. We assert distinctly and maintain that such is the legitimate basis of tenant right over and above improvements; but we assert also that that is an element which forms no part whatever of a landlord's legitimate rent, and which consequently is not to be deducted from the rent, and constitutes no interference with it at all. I will not enter into further detail on this question. We shall have other opportunities of doing so.
    The principles of this Bill I have never heard once described in any speech from the opposite side of the House during this debate. Every observation that has been made has gone, as it has appeared to me, upon bye-points—for I call just and fair rent, however vital it may be, a bye-point. If we admit fair rent, you will, I hope, hold us to give a substantial meaning to those words; but it is a bye-point. But the principles of the Bill I have heard excellently described by those hon. Gentlemen who have studied the Bill on this side of the House. My hon. Friend the Member for Tyrone (Mr. Litton) perfectly comprehended it. The basis of it lies in the land scarcity of Ireland, and its principle is this—in the first place, a frank acceptance of the Irish custom, and especially this custom of tenant
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    right. And now I am going to make an observation—not dogmatically; but I must say that, in my reading about land in Ireland, it has often occurred to me that the truly wise landlord in Ireland was the man who not only was liberal to his tenants, but who gave to that liberality a form and method of application adapted to the usages of the country. I do firmly believe that there are many wise, good, and enlightened landlords in Ireland, using those words in the general sense, who have freely spent money and parted with money for the sake of what they thought doing their duty, but who would have done their duty more profitably for themselves, and more advantageously to the country, if they had been less intent upon importing exotic habits into the country, and more inclined to allow the people to work according to their usages and traditions. At any rate, I hope hon. Gentlemen will see from our point of view that nothing is so plain as the duty of accepting the principle of tenant right. I cannot say with what satisfaction I listened to the able speech of my noble Friend the Member for Barnstaple (Viscount Lymington) upon this subject. His father, Lord Portsmouth, is one of those who tell you plainly, as I understand him, that he does not come before you in the character of a martyr or a victim. He does not say he has suffered by his practice to his tenants; but he has said that the frank allowance of tenant right has been most profitable to himself. That has been the result of universal experience in Ireland, and it is established by the experience of Ulster. Whatever you may say of the extensive and almost unintelligible prices which are sometimes obtained there for tenant right, it is undeniable that whereas, in general, rents in Ireland have grown much more slowly than in England or Scotland, the slowness of their growth is really to be attributed to the insecurity of the tenant. Equally undeniable is it that within Ireland itself, if you compare the growth in Ulster, where there was tenant right, to the growth in the other three Provinces, where there was none, it has been far more rapid in Ulster; and that is entirely owing to the fact and presence of tenant right.
    Some hon. Gentlemen have referred to speeches of mine, and have put me back to what is a very unacceptable

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    task—that of reading them over again—but I must say that there is only one important particular in my speeches of 1870—to which I will at present refer—which I do not strictly and literally abide by. The principles upon which we have proceeded are—first, a perfectly frank acceptance of Irish custom; and, secondly, what is undoubtedly a great departure from the principles of free contract—namely, the introduction of judicial authority to settle a grievance between man and man with regard to agricultural holdings. Sir, I do not for a moment disguise the magnitude of that proposal. It is, if I may say so, the one really Radical proposal in this Bill. It is the one and only proposal that involves a strong and sharp departure from ordinary principles for the regulation of private affairs. I do not disguise it. But I ask you to observe this—first, it is required by the circumstances of the country; and, secondly, it is limited by those provisions which we have introduced, and which, in every case, though you have not thought fit to take any notice of it, have left it open to parties to return, when they conveniently can, to the ordinary principles of contract.
    Are we justified in introducing this Radical proposal for committing to a Court the regulation of these private and personal appeals? In presenting this Bill to the House I stated what were not the reasons which, in my opinion, would justify it, and also what the reasons were which would. The necessity which I pleaded was a necessity, in the first place, arising from the unprecedented position of Ireland with regard to the pressure of the demand for land as compared with the supply; and, secondly, the unfortunate but inevitable results of the conduct of harsh and grasping and even cruel landlords, who, though few in proportion to the whole, have it fatally in their power to compromise the best interests of other men. I also quoted authority—and I have heard no one from the opposite side of the House make any reference to the authorities under which we are acting—I also pointed out that the Commissioners had recommended the introduction of this great innovation. I will now refer to one Commissioner who sits before me—namely, the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin).
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    He is one of the fathers of this Bill. Far be it from me to say he has ever owned it, or even made the smallest confession. But in ascribing it to him I am doing him an honour. He is not aware of the extent of his connection with this Bill. I will also refer to two persons who, when the Land Act of 1870 was under discussion in this House, recommended the reference of these matters to a Court. One of them is a Nobleman who is still alive—I mean Lord Winmarleigh. The other was the eminent man whose loss you are—and I cannot wonder at it—now deeply mourning. In 1870, Mr. Disraeli said—
    "If a man without a lease, and who had paid his rent, is evicted, let his case go before the tribunal you shall appoint; let the Judge investigate all the elements of the equity of the case; and let him come to a decision which on one side shall guard the tenant from coercion, and, on the other, preserve the landlord from fraud."—[3 Hansard, cxcix. 1821.]
    That, of course, is the object of the new Court. Therefore, you have in those words the substance of this tremendous proposal. I shall now read the words of the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire, who has put his hand to this paragraph—
    "Bearing in mind the system by which the improvements and equipments of a farm are very generally the work of the tenant, and the fact that a yearly tenant is at any time liable to have his rent raised by the increased value given to his holding, by the expenditure of his capital and labour, legislative interference to protect him from an arbitrary increase of rent does not seem unnatural, and we are inclined to think that by the majority of landowners, a measure properly framed to accomplish this end would not be objected to."
    I understand the hon. Gentleman to point to what I may call the preamble of the sentence. [Mr. CHAPLIN: Read the next paragraph.] I have not got it here; but the next paragraph treats of the three "F's," and we have not proposed the three "F's." I will come to that by-and-bye. The hon. Member is quite justified in pointing out that the preamble of this sentence has reference exclusively to improvements. That is quite true; but the enacting part has not. If the hon. Member had been content to say in his Report—"In consequence of the arbitrary increase of rent put upon the improvements of the tenant, we, the Commissioners, recommend that his improvements shall be protected by the intervention of a Court," that

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    would have been one thing. But that is not what he has done. He has recommended the intervention of the Court for the purpose of preventing all cases of an arbitrary increase of rent. But an arbitrary increase of rent is not limited to the tenant's improvements. It includes the swallowing up of the tenant's interest, and taking advantage of his property and the state of the market to get more than the commodity is worth. The hon. Gentleman, in recommending that the tenant shall be protected against an arbitrary increase of rent, without limiting that recommendation in the slightest degree to the particular case of improvements, has made himself responsible for the great and the only violent recommendation of this Bill.
    I admit the Commissioners have said nothing at all excepting about rent. They have said nothing about tenant right; they have said nothing about security and fixity of tenure. Did the Commissioners really suppose that you could bring in a Court to determine rent and entirely refuse to take cognizance of the question of security of tenure'? Is it possible to say—"A Commission shall determine the rent to-day, and the land- lord shall, if he please, put out the man to-morrow?" The hon. Member will not rise and answer that question, although I paid him the compliment of ascribing to him the paternity of the Bill. The hon. Gentleman will see, if you authorize the Court to fix the rent, that it necessarily involves some duration of the rent. If you involve some duration of the rent you are fixing it, and between you and us the difference is only one of degree. We have not said rents shall be perpetual. We have introduced provisions by which they may be re-fixed from time to time, as circumstances would arise. In the same way with tenant right, I do not believe the hon. Member, and I feel sure that no Member from Ireland, will say that when a Court has fixed judicially the rent of a holding and given to that rent a certain term of years through which it shall exist indefeasibly, except by the fault of the tenant, the tenant's interest should not be an interest saleable in the market. These three things are inseparable. They are three strands of one cord, and they are absolutely indefeasible. We have largely qualified them
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    all; but to have attempted to deal with one of them, and not made a consistent whole, would, in my opinion, have proved totally unworthy of the great question with which we have to deal.
    We have, therefore, I admit, with reference to the very grave circumstances of Ireland, made this great departure from the principles of free contract. But with that great departure we have combined provisions to enable the parties to return to free contract when they may find it expedient to do so. And, lastly, one of the principles of the Bill is in a set of provisions intended to promote and further the acquisition of capital and Of a permanent proprietary interest, and advances of public money for certain other important purposes. Under these circumstances, I must own it is with the deepest regret that I have observed the conduct of the Party opposite on this occasion. I am very sorry that the noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire (Lord Elcho) is not in the House. The Opposition are going to support him in the assertion that—
    "The leading provisions of the Land Law (Ireland) Bill are in the main economically unsound, unjust, and impolitic."
    My noble Friend delivered his speech with such good humour, and was himself so obviously pleased with what fell from his lips, that it became infectious throughout the House. I myself was not insensible to the charm of it; and, I must say, it was an excellent example of a speech, in which an experienced Member of Parliament showed that you may say very strong things without giving offence. He gave no offence to me; but I am sorry to say that he misapprehended and misunderstood the case, greatly, I think, to his own prejudice. Is it possible that any Gentleman on the opposite side of the House can think that he is promoting the interests either of his Party or of the country by representing that this Bill gives perpetuity of tenure, perpetual fixity of rent, and unlimited tenant right? As a matter of fact, the tenant right is limited; the judicial rent is rent only for a term; and the security or possession given. to the tenant is not only defensible in consequence of his own breach of contract, but also after the first 15 years, which, after all, is not perpetuity. It is also defeasible if the landlord is able to make out a reasonable and sufficient case for

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    resumption. We may be right, or we may be wrong; but why begin the unfortunate course of inflaming and exaggerating your statement of the provisions of the Bill? Surely it was a case in which the public interest, and, most of all, your own interests, would make it desirable that you should understand everything in as favourable a sense as reason will permit you to attach to it.
    So far as we are concerned, I am not complaining of what you have done; I am not at all sure that your conduct has been adverse to our Bill. Your censures and denunciations have gone forth through the length and breadth of Ireland as the strongest testimonials on behalf of our measure to secure to it the adhesion of the people; and I think it is very likely that you may have induced by your statements—entirely out-stripping the fact—some persons in Ireland to think that the Bill contains what it does not contain. It is a very large and strong measure; it is a measure as large, I hope, as the necessities of that country demand. But we have carefully endeavoured to prevent its wanton or its needless enlargement, and to leave every ground and every opening for the maintenance of the present social relations in Ireland, and likewise for the return of that which we know to be the best system for the cultivation of land under all normal circumstances—namely, a system where its particulars are arranged by free discussion between one man and another.
    That being so, what are the Party opposite going to do? The noble Lord the Member for North Leicestershire (Lord John Manners) has given Notice of a hostile Amendment. Everybody knows that the meaning of an Amendment on the second reading is not only opposition to the Bill, but it is the extreme form of opposition to the Bill. The noble Lord, however, who has been a Member of several Cabinets, has not only given Notice of an Amendment, but has announced that he is going to vote for the Amendment of the noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire (Lord Elcho). I presume that he made that announcement on behalf of his Colleagues. In the Notice of the noble Lord the Member for North Leicestershire I perceive the first effect of the death of Lord Beaconsfield. If he had lived that Notice would not, in my opinion, have
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    been given. I have had an experience of Lord Beaconsfield from a post opposite to me; but it has been a long experience; and you do not remain wholly ignorant of a man with whom, on a thousand questions, you are obliged, however unequally, to measure swords. When, Sir, a Liberal Government came into Office in 1868, and proposed the Disestablishment of the Irish Church, it would have been in the power of Lord Beaconsfield, if he had thought fit, to have prolonged the contest for years. On the contrary, I have not a doubt that Lord Beaconsfield thought that the issue was certain, and that for every interest—for the interest of the country, for the interests of his Party and his own—the sooner the goal was reached the better. He might have, I believe, taken the same course of prolonging the contest on the Land Bill of 1870; and that Bill, relatively to the circumstances in which it was introduced, was quite as great an innovation—quite as daring a measure of remedy—estimated with reference to what went before, as the present Bill when regarded with reference to the measure of 1870.
    Well, what is intended to be done now? Do you who sit opposite think—is there any one of you who thinks—that this question will ever be settled by a measure smaller than the Bill before the House? And if by powerful combination, beginning below the Gangway, among a limited number, but still not of unimportant persons, and carried on elsewhere with stronger ties and ramifications—if you thus succeed in overthrowing this Bill, and the Government which attaches its fortunes to this Bill, and if you take their places, you will pass, not a smaller, but a larger measure. Nor am I the first person who has said this. I know not if the hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) is in his place. [A VOICE: Yes.] I hold in my hand a speech which he delivered on the 6th of December last at Waterford, and which I read with great interest; but I am not going to quote from it for the purpose of making any charge against him. It was perfectly natural for him to say what he did. He began by predicting that if Mr. Gladstone should proceed to legislate on the Irish Land Question he would infallibly break up his Cabinet, "and that," he added,

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    "would be rather unfortunate, or it may seem to be rather unfortunate, for us; but I do not think the event will prove that it is unfortunate for us." He goes on to say that for England it would be unfortunate; but for him, with his views, it would not be unfortunate. The meaning, Sir, is plain. The hon. Gentleman knows well that if the Party opposite came into Office they would, under pressure, as they have done before, bring in a larger Bill than this; and that the words "Fraud, force, and folly," as applied to the three "F.'s," would gradually dwindle and grow pale, and that the hon. Member might wave his flag of triumph over a measure passed by a Conservative Government of which, perhaps, some Conservatives would themselves be heard to say, the landlords scowling in the background—"How much more liberal a measure it is, after all, than that which was brought forward by the Liberal Party."
    But hon. Gentlemen opposite are judges of their own conduct. The matter, however, is one of a serious character. We are playing with edged tools in the state Ireland is now in. There is not a step which we have taken in reference to this measure which has not been taken under an overwhelming sense of responsibility. We do not mean to trifle with that which we have taken in hand. Yon must judge of your own duty; we must judge of ours. We shall use every effort legitimately belonging to us: first, to pass this Bill; secondly, to pass it speedily; and, thirdly, to pass it in an effectual form. My right hon. Friend (Mr. W. E. Forster) has been charged, I think needlessly—I do not see that his words give the slightest colour to the charge—with having given an intimation that we should haughtily refuse to discuss Amendments in the Bill. No, Sir, we have no such intention. I am not looking to one quarter of the House in preference to another. In proportion to our intense anxiety to be the bearers of some message of peace and good to Ireland is our willingness and desire to
    receive, from whatever quarter it may come, assistance in bringing the Bill as nearly as may be to perfection. We are not so vain as to think our first effort within the walls of the Cabinet room enable us to dispense with all the criticism, suggestions, and improvements which the intellect and ingenuity of this
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    great Assembly may furnish. But permit me to say—and I hope I shall not be misunderstood—not on the ground of any will or decision of ours, but because of the logical laws of events, that nothing appears to me so unlikely as that the Bill should be to any great extent changed. Were it to be vitally and fundamentally changed, in the sense of the Amendment of the noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire, the people of Ireland, it may be assumed, would reject it as one man. But there is another construction to be put on the suggestion of change, and I have to suppose the case of a fundamental alteration in the sense which a portion of the Irish Members may desire. In considering that matter, among other points, I cannot exclude from our consideration that the settlement of this question does not depend on the judgment of this House alone. There is another Assembly which we must confront, where we are in a small minority; but, which will claim, and. is constitutionally entitled, to give its independent vote on the provisions of this Bill. If we hold by those provisions, I am so confident of their general character—I am so deeply persuaded of their general moderation, as well as efficiency—that I feel we can with a good conscience and with a sanguine hope address ourselves to whatever duties may belong to us for the purpose of the prompt passing of this Bill. But, if they see we are prepared to alter its character, in what is called the popular sense; and, having brought it in as one measure, to send it up to them as another; most justly might those who will have elsewhere to pronounce upon it say—"We are dealing with a set of men who do not know their own minds, and we refuse to defer to their authority."
    I am therefore well convinced that the nature of this Bill, although it may be open, as I have admitted, to criticism in some particulars, is nevertheless of such a character that the ultimate choice of Parliament will be between the Bill in its essence or nothing; between the acceptance or the rejection of the Bill as it now stands. As I have said, we on this side will not shrink from the performance Of our part, for if we did there would be no condemnation too severe to pass on us for our rashness and temerity. At this crisis I gratefully acknowledge the

    609
    spirit in which this Bill has been generally received in Ireland. The landlords of Ireland showed in 1870 that they were not deficient in penetration. They were, I believe, at that time as much as they are now under the impression that their true interest is to have this question settled, and to have it settled at once. I gratefully acknowledge the generous reception which our proposals have received in Ireland. They have been received there as by men who have felt the force of the evils pressing upon them, and who were desirous of hailing the advent of whatever would give fair promise of offering a remedy. Let that generous reception in Ireland be met by a corresponding feeling on this side of the Channel, and within the walls of these great Legislative Assemblies. Then the year 1881 will not have passed away without adding to the Statute Book another great emancipating and redeeming measure, necessary alike for the prosperity of Ireland, the fame of Parliament, and the strength and solidity of the United Kingdom.
    MR. FITZPATRICKsaid, in rising to discuss the measure before the House, he must explain that he considered that in that Bill there were three Bills:—1st, one having for its object the extinction of the landlord by creating a new law of land tenure; 2nd, a Bill for creating a peasant proprietary; and, 3rd, a Bill for the reclamation of waste land and the carrying out of emigration. In examining No. 1 Bill, the new law of tenure, he confessed to a natural nervousness in daring to discuss or attack a measure which, up to then, had apparently puzzled even its own foster parents, if not its originator; but as very little light could be thrown upon it by anyone, he must only conclude that it was a vast web of law, in which the unfortunate landowner was to be entangled and slowly sucked to death by lawyers, Land League, and statesmen, who would thus be enabled to buy up his property at a cheap rate so as to carry out Bill No. 2 without much cost to the Exchequer. If the Bill was really meant as a remedy for the state of Ireland he could only say that, as an Irishman, he felt a deep sense of shame and astonishment that any such antediluvian measure should be deemed necessary to insure the prosperity of their
    610
    land. They had always been considered a shrewd, quick-witted nation. Their countrymen had always been supposed to be good hands at a bargain; and he, for one, believed they were so still; but the Bill before the House upset that theory altogether. It assumed that an Irishman had no knowledge of a bargain, no spirit of commerce or dealing. In point of fact, the Land Law (Ireland) Bill, with its three Judges, was to stand for the next 15 years in loco parentis to the whole nation. Now, possibly, this might, in some cases, be advisable. Some of their wayward fellow-countrymen did require guidance, and a check on some of the mischief done by their idle hands would be very useful; but why, might he ask, was that newly-created father not to take into equal consideration the good and the evil, the just and the unjust? The Premier had told them that the Irish landlords had stood their trial, and had been acquitted; but, at the same moment, and in almost the same breath, he mulcted the whole class he had just applauded to the amount of many millions. He said a few had not discharged their duties and had abused their rights. For their sins he would punish all. Did a just Government hang every man in a town because a murder was committed within its limits? That was not justice, it was not even expediency. It was merely the surrender of the moderate Liberal opinion to the wild Radical tail which was now the motive power in all Government actions. By the Bill before the House Government demolished piecemeal, and by studied legal devices the rights that had not only existed by prescription for centuries—his family had held the same land for over 900 years—but what was much more dangerous and unstates-manlike, they confiscated boldly the rights, and actually a large part of the capital, which was paid for land under the Encumbered Estates Court, where an indefeasible Parliamentary title was given at each sale. What was the equivalent offered? The option of selling at a reduced rate to the Land Commission; that reduction being forced on the unfortunate owner not by a fall in the market value of his property, but by the action of the Bill itself, which, after fixing his rent on the most unequal scale, flooded the market with estates for sale. A Scotch Member of that House

    611
    said, in an able pamphlet he wrote in 1869—
    "The faith of Parliament is pledged to the purchasers under the Courts that they shall be sole proprietors, with all the rights of proprietors, and it will be breaking faith with those proprietors if the Legislature deprive them of any of those rights which it certainly would do if the demands of some people in Ireland were conceded."
    Those demands were now conceded, and the rights of those proprietors were now confiscated without any hint at compensation—the Premier himself having stated that there would exist, after the passing of this Bill, "a joint proprietorship in the soil." They were told that this measure was framed to meet Irish views. They were advised to accept it, because it was one of the first true attempts of England to meet the desires of the Irish nation. But what were the true facts of the case? Again a price had been placed on the landlord's head; a sufficient number had been shot; a good long reign of anarchy and agitation had paved the way to further concessions to the tenant, who had broken contract and renounced honest dealing; while the many landlords, who had done their duty throughout a dangerous and trying time, both by cause and country, were penalized without compensation, were condemned though acquitted. Did the Government realize what was the party to meet whose views that measure had been brought in? It consisted of all that was anti-English in Ireland, all that was violent and Communistic, and was numerically small. Were the opinions of the majority of real Irishmen not to be considered as well? Apparently not. At any rate, there was no trace of those opinions in the present measure, and even the strong, almost Radical, expositions of Mr. Stuart Mill and the present Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Bright) were not represented. They, at all times, urged compensation for confiscation of the landlord's rights and privileges, as well as compensation for disturbance for the tenant; and he had reason to believe such clauses for compensation were in the Bill in the month of January, if not later. Judge Longfield, in one of the best articles published by the Cobden Club, always incalculated the idea of paying for what was taken from the landlord by the action of the State. He paid in that essay, referring to the continued
    612
    concession made to agitation and murder—
    "Success acquired by such measures would not produce intended results, Riches acquired by fraud and outrage are not long enjoyed, for the qualities by which they are acquired are inconsistent with the qualities which are necessary to retain them."
    They had had the outrage for the last two years. In that Bill they had the fraud; and it merely required time to produce the effect he predicted. Tenants would mortgage and spend their stolen property; the banks, the loan funds, the gombeen or usurer would grow rich, the tenant poorer; another wild time of famine and murder would force some future Radical Government to confiscate again what might be left to the landowners of that day, were they fee-simple owners of large estates or peasant proprietors. Such would always be the case. They were told in Her Gracious Majesty's Speech from the Throne that the Bill was intended as an Amendment on the Act of 1870. As he read the 1st clause, it was in direct antagonism to the spirit of the Act of 1870. In that Act the owner was incited to buy up his Ulster tenant right; in the Bill that custom was extended over Ireland. When he came to the institution of a Court to fix rents, he was met by the Premier's own words, in his reply on the second reading of the Bill of 1870. First of all, he asked—"How are these rents to be valued? What is the test?" In 1881 they had the answer. By estimating and deducting from it the value that he proposed to carve out of the owner's property by Clause 1, and by estimating, not the improvements done by the landlord, adding value to the holding, but by the amount of compensation for disturbance. He finished up with a sentence very appropriate to this Bill—
    "Two persons have a vital interest in the land. One of them is the landlord, who regards the estate as a whole, and who is very largely concerned in the development of its general prosperity; the other is the tenant, whose position it is desirable to simplify as much as possible, in order that he may be able to devote the whole of his resources and his capital, if he thinks fit, to the prosecution of his trade. But if you once adopt this principle to which I am referring, you cannot retain these two classes upon the land; the man who becomes a mere annuitant loses all general interest in its prosperity."—[3 Hansard, cxcix. 1848.]
    The principles the right hon. Gentleman was there alluding to were free sale and

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    fixity of tenure, and he (Mr. Fitzpatrick) would confess those words were quite sufficiently sweeping in their condemnation. He had very ably also pointed out the dangers of free sale, now that a tenant could not employ his capital in benefiting his farm if he had used it in buying up the interest. And, finally, he proved that the existence of two persons on the land was impossible, once they had made the landlord an annuitant only. As that was effected by the Bill now before the House, all Irishmen who owned property must come to the conclusion that it was the object of the Government to get rid of them in a body. He had no doubt the hon. Member for Cork City (Mr. Parnell) and his satellites were satisfied with that issue; but they, even, did not seem to consider the Bill clear on that point. Why, might he ask, was there all that beating about the bush? If the State wished to get rid of the landowners of Ireland, compensate them, and let them go; but do not let it be said they were driven out by legal fraud and Ministerial trickery. Why, even a Railway Company gave compensation for what it took, and also for the rights it invaded or confiscated. Could it be that the State of Great Britain was more niggardly than the Railway Companies, whom it forced to pay for what they appropriated? But, even supposing the owners expropriated, what was to be done with the labouring classes, numbering 1,444,700 souls? Were they to be left to the tender mercies of the new peasant proprietary? Anyone who knew the rural districts of Ireland was well aware that the only permanent labour given was that of the owners of large farms and proprietors. The average tenant farmer never employed anyone except as a servant boy, and even him not permanently. If they swept away the landowning class and put in their places the peasant farmers, they would not only be doing an injustice to that class, but they would have, in after years, two evils to content with—either a famine, and rates at 12 s. in the pound; or else a further agitation, and most violent feuds between the labourers and the peasant proprietors. Even during last year, owing to the unsettled condition of the country and the enforced absence and poverty of many owners, the labouring population was in a wretched condition. No
    614
    class in Ireland except the landowners took an interest in the labourer; he was of no value to the agitator or priest, as he had neither vote nor
    money; and he was a continual source of annoyance to the farmer, being often a burden on the rates in winter, while in summer he naturally exacted the highest wages he could command. He could not here help expressing astonishment that no provision had been placed in the Bill to deal with the labourers' case; and he hoped before the second reading was over they would have a distinct undertaking from the Ministry on the point. He thought that everyone was agreed that some definite explanation for the introduction of the unjust Clause 1 and its conjunctive clauses should be made by Her Majesty's Government before the Bill was read a second time; and he confessed that unless some definite assurance was given that, in Committee, compensation clauses would be inserted to meet the injustice done to landowners by the clause, he should, to the utmost extent, oppose the second reading. He could not but say that there were many points in the Bill which met with his approval, and which, though radically opposed as they were to all laws of political economy, and though the Bill was completely opposed to the Bill of 1870, and not an amendment to it, as suggested by its promoter, still there was much in it that might prove of value if it was carried out in the proper spirit. Referring to Clause 1, he found that no allowance was made for the fact that many landlords had persistently prohibited tenant right on their estates by freeing every incoming tenant from any claim by the outgoer out of their own pockets. They had done the improvements in many instances themselves, over £3,000,000 having been spent by landlords on improvements since 1840. They had kept their rents low for years in order that their tenantry might be thriving and prosperous. They had been acquitted, in the Prime Minister's own words; and yet, in the same breath, he mulcted them of a large portion of the value that their toleration, their kindness had conferred on the farms and their occupiers. He did not understand that injustice, unless it was that, in the hurry of compilation, a compensating clause was omitted. Let him take an example from an estate which he was best acquainted with

    615
    in Ireland, and where he could produce documentary evidence to support what he said. The owner of an estate had expended in improvements during 40 years upwards of £25,000, and ho had never charged interest or extra rent, except since the Act of 1870, and then only in about 10 cases out of 336 tenancies. He had paid in cash £16,000 to compensate tenants for improvements made by them, and to assist in emigrating outgoing tenants, so that no system of sales of tenancy might creep in. Lastly, out of 336 tenancies he had not raised the rent, except in 12 cases, during the last 20 years. The total value of that increase was £321 2s.
    5d. out of an estate roughly estimated at £17,000 per annum. The owner had, as he had before said, never permitted the sale of interest by the outgoing tenant to the incoming one, as he had always considered it better for the farmer to have the capital in his own pocket instead of in that of a man who was off to America or the Colonies. Here they had the instance of a landlord who, to the best of his ability, did his duty. He had improved and reclaimed, and had never rack-rented. Now, what would be the result if this Bill became law as it now stood? Every farthing the owner had spent as capital invested in the land would go into the tenant's pocket, unless he chose to raise his rents or to force a sale under the Bill to obtain the value of his improvements, To exemplify his protest, he would take one case out of the 336 tenancies as it would stand under the Bill. A was the tenant, B the owner. A, the tenant, had held for 20 years, from 1860, at same rent. B, the landlord, at some period, say five years after the tenancy was created, provided A with improvements, buildings, drainage, &c., to the amount of £200. A enjoyed the interest of that £200 for 15 years at 5 per cent—say £150—and he held the land at the same low rent. This Bill becomes law. B, the owner, must either raise A's rent, which he may not desire to do, having no wish to disturb the friendly relations that have existed; or, what was worse, he might have to force a sale on A to obtain value for his improvements—£200. But, suppose no change were made, and things should go on as they were, then A, the tenant, might at any time sell his interest—
    616
    namely, the £150 or more pound's worth which had accrued on the farm from B's moderation and good-feeling as to an owner's duties and rights. This was a particular case. Now, take the effect generally on the 839 estates tabulated by the Land Committee, where improvements bad been done by owner and tenant; and on the 200 where improvements had been done by owner exclusively, making a total of 1,039 estates in all, with an area of 4,861,881 acres. To this could be added 466,610 acres, being estates of gentlemen who were known to do improvements, and to be kind landlords, such as Lords Fitzwilliam, Powers-court, Monck, Portarlington, and others. This made a total of 5,228,491 acres, or over one-fourth of Ireland, in which owners had executed improvements. Rather a different result from the one-tenth, as stated by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Again, if they added to that the uncultivated land—4,630,000 acres—they found that, roughly, one-half of Ireland was represented in the tables. Numbers of estates were not returned which might be managed admirably; and, as town parks, residential farms, demesnes, and pastoral holdings for one year and under were omitted, he had no doubt that the case could have been made more powerful than it was if all those types had been included. In any case, he would merely refer for his argument to the 4,861,881 of which they had data, and on which improvements had been made by the landlords in the majority of instances, and by tenant and landlord combined in some others. Next, he took the acreage on which rents had not been raised for 20 years. According to the same tables, that was on 3,500,000 acres. If he added to that the same estates as before, which was quite fair, from everyone's personal knowledge of those landlords, they found that on 3,966,610 acres, or, roughly, one-fifth of all Ireland, the rents had not been raised for 20 years. Taking £1 per Irish acre as a low rent, and 30 s. as an average letting rent, not a competition rent, they found that for 20 years at least the tenants on 3,473,098 acres had been benefiting to the extent of 10 s. per acre for 20 years, making a total value of £1,736,549. That was merely the result on the few estates scheduled by the Committee; but how many millions it meant all over Ireland it was

    617
    impossible to calculate, there being 19,000 owners of land in Ireland. Those millions, whatever the amount, were handed over directly to the tenant by the Bill. Then, if they took the two classes of estates together—namely, those where rents had not been raised for 20 years, and where improvements had been made at large by the landlord, and, to a certain extent, by the tenant—they could prove conclusively the injustice and spoliation of the measure as it now stood. But some might say that the owners on those estates might have raised their rents, and that it was their look-out now if they lost the value. Well, that sounded to him a very queer argument. Because a man had done his best to help into a solvent and peaceful condition a country such as Ireland was 40 years ago, struggling out of misery and famine, and because he had denied himself and sacrificed his capital and his lifetime to insure that issue, they now, when the true pressure of poverty was gone, except in the far West and South, and merely acting under the coercion of lawlessness, penalized and fined that man, and forced him, by their Bill, to adopt a different course of action, or to expatriate himself from the country to which he had devoted all. He said they forced him, because, by the action of the Bill, the issue on estates of that type must be as follows. He would take the case of a holding where the tenant had given assistance in improvements, but where the owner had done the actual building and drainage, and had not raised the rent for 20 years or added interest. If the owner, finding that all amenities between landlord and tenant were done away with by the Bill, determined to raise his rent to the new judicial value, not a competition value, he was placed in one of these utterly unfair conditions by Clause 3. Under sub-section 1, supposing the owner desired to raise his rent and the tenant accepted the increase of rent, the rise in the rent might cover, in a retrospective manner, the interest on the improvements made by the owner; but at any time during the statutory term, 15 years, the tenant had the right to sell the interest in his holding—that was, he could sell the value of the money the owner had left in his hands for 20 years; he could sell the difference between the actual low rent paid for 20 years and the rent that might have been obtained.
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    But supposing the tenant did not accept the increase of rent, but sold his interest, what happened was this—He received the full value of the owner's money left out on the farm for 20 years, owing to the fact of its being a low rent, and, should the Court think fit, they could fine the owner 10 years' value of the increased rent he had demanded. That was, to his mind, the worst case. Then, supposing that the tenant did not sell, and did not accept the increased rent, but demanded compensation for disturbance. What was the effect? To show it clearly, he must refer to his first case. There the owner had a farm valued at over £100—say £150; he had effected £200 worth of improvements, had not raised rents during 20 years, and had not charged interest. The Court, in deciding the tenant's compensation, deducted, first, the £200 worth of owner's improvements from the compensation due—namely, £450. That was three times the rental, and he would add £50 as improvements made by the tenant, making £500 due to the tenant and £200 duo to the landlord. The tenant, therefore, received £300 in cash after he had benefited for 20 years from the low rent asked by the owner, that £300 being in addition to the interest on the money which the owner had left on the farm for 20 years in the shape of a low rent. If that was calculated in the same way as before—namely, £1 per acre low rent, and 30 s. the full letting rent, he found that on a farm valued at £150, and of 150 acres area, each acre let at £1, the dead loss was for 20 years £1,400, so that the tenant received that as well as the £300. But supposing that the tenant refused the increase of rent and took the owner into Court. A rent was fixed for 15 years, the improvements he had made were not taken into account, and he had to look forward to the day when the tenant might sell and receive compensation in some shape. The tenant meanwhile enjoyed the interest of the capital sunk by the landlord in the farm for 15 years, at any rate, and possibly for as many more. If that was true British justice and fair play he was much surprised. The people were at present demoralized, and a Court which might have worked pretty well two years ago would not work well now. The cry at present was "Griffith's valuation," and the cry in future might be, "Down

    619
    with the Court which decided that more should be paid." The present period of 18 months before a landlord could reenter was too long. He thought it might with advantage be reduced to six mouths. As to the general effect of the Bill, did the Government imagine it would stop crime? It would be many years, he feared, before the country got back to the state it was in four or five years ago. But he had still confidence in his country. He had stuck to it all his life, and he trusted, if the Court did issue its mandates, the landlords would do their best by the tenants in the best spirit. As to peasant proprietors, by all means let there be a yeoman class if they could create them; but he thought harm would be done if they forced the large farmer to buy bit by bit. As to reclamation of waste land, he suggested that a large scheme of draining the large river basins should be entered upon; but he doubted entirely whether they would induce Companies, with the prospect of another agitation, to upset their property and the money embarked, to engage in the work. He rejoiced that there was to be no compulsory scheme of emigration. He regretted nothing more than to see his poor countrymen sent out of the country, and driven out of their homes. Nothing did so much harm. As Sir Robert Peel said—"These men go to America, but they will come back some day;" and that had proved true. They had come back many of them, and they were a great danger. Emigration ought not to be left to chance. Emigration should be carried out in families or in communities. The land of their adoption should be marked out for them. Their spiritual advisers should receive them. If emigration was carried out in a liberal spirit there would not be that bitter feeling which at present existed among emigrants. But the Bill said they were all to go to the British Colonies. If there was one thing that angered an Irishman it was to be told to go to the British Colonies. Tell him that and he would certainly go elsewhere. In conclusion, he would say that there were many portions of the Bill which he could willingly accept. He thoroughly agreed with the proposals with respect to compensation, the reclamation of waste land, and the establishment of a peasant proprietary. At the same time, he could not but think it
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    would be in some respects unworkable and unjust to the good landlord. But if the Government wished to deal with the question in a satisfactory manner there was one thing above all to which he thought they ought to turn their efforts, and that was the utter suppression of the mischievous action of the Land League.
    COLONEL COLTHURSTsaid, he would not have ventured to follow so close upon the Prime Minister had it not been that in spite of the Prime Minister's speech the hon. Member for Portarlington (Mr. Fitzpatrick) had repeated the same arguments which they had heard from hon. Gentlemen opposite with regard to tenant right outside of Ulster. If the hon. Gentleman would not accept the Prime Minister as an authority he would give him another—namely, Judge Longfield. That eminent judge had been a Land Reformer all his life, and was a strong opponent of the Land Act of 1870. Now, however, after seeing the working of that Act, and with full knowledge that Parliament was about to legislate on the subject, Judge Longfield maintained that as that Act recognized the claim of a tenant to compensation for disturbance Parliament should have gone further and prevented eviction, except for some causes, and then only under the directions of some tribunal. Thus a tenant would have fixity of tenure, and then the rent must be regulated by the tribunal. That being so they could not prevent a tenant selling his interest to the best advantage, and therefore he would have the "three F's," free sale being the least objectionable of them. The present Bill was not a new departure; it was based upon the Land Act of 1870. He did not think it was extravagant to estimate the tenant right as worth seven years' purchase, considering that it had been put as high as 10 years by some very competent authorities, and that as the direct result of the Act of 1870; but he was afraid that if the question of arrears was not relegated to the Courts the Bill would be greatly marred. He hoped, also, that all leases made since 1868 would be subjected to the revising power of the Court. In 1868 some landlords began the practice of forcing leases upon tenants in anticipation of the Act of 1870, and since 1870 a considerable number of tenants had been compelled to accept leases exacting

    621
    a rack rent. It would, therefore, be a great flaw in the Bill if those tenants were left without any protection. Turning to the question of the reclamation of waste lands, he said he believed that the clauses dealing with that subject would be almost inoperative. They could hardly expect to see Companies formed for this land reclamation. The work of reclamation ought to be undertaken by a Public Department; but when done on a small scale it should be by the efforts of the tenants themselves. He regretted that no provision was made in the Bill for arterial drainage. Whatever opinion they might form with regard to the respective faults and merits of landlords and tenants, there could be no doubt whatever that arterial drainage was an absolute necessity in Ireland; and he hoped that the question would be considered by Her Majesty's Government. There was another point to which he wished to call attention, and that was with respect to the lending of money for agricultural improvements. The loans for land improvement were entirely out of the reach of the tenants, because the law required 40 years of an unexpired lease, and they all knew that such a tenure was very rare in Ireland. He hoped Her Majesty's Government would insert a provision in the Bill enabling statutory tenants under this Bill to obtain loans for agricultural improvements, and he was sure the happiest results would follow. In conclusion, he would merely observe that the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government had fully justified the confidence which the people of Ireland had placed in his willingness and ability to deal in a satisfactory manner with the Land Question; and he ventured to hope that the power and confidence which the right hon. Gentleman possessed would pilot the Bill through the discussions that might await it in that House, and send it from the House with a momentum which would cause it to surmount any obstacles that might meet it "elsewhere."
    MR. RODWELLsaid, he thought he ought, as a Member of the Richmond Commission, to offer a few remarks to the House on the Bill under consideration. There was a marvellous unanimity on the part of those who had addressed the House, with the single exception of the noble Lord (Lord Elcho), as to the necessity of some legislation
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    on the Land Question, and of the grievous consequences which would ensue if some legislation did not take place. He could not support the Amendment of the noble Lord, because it was founded entirely upon unsatisfactory pre-misses. The noble Lord, in a most uncompromising speech, held stoutly by freedom of contract; but there was no freedom of contract in Ireland with regard to land, so that no parallel could be formed between freedom of contract in England and Ireland. From the evidence he had heard and read he had come distinctly to the conclusion that landlord and tenant did not meet on equal terms in drawing up contracts, and there could be no real freedom of contract where the parties did not meet on equal terms. The evidence taken before the Commission showed that excessive competition for land, the unreasonable payments for tenant right, the arbitrary increase of rents, the overcrowding of the population in certain districts, and the minute sub-division of farms were the chief causes of evils to be dealt with. For 100 years Ireland had suffered severely from bad and oppressive laws. We must cast off our prejudices in favour of English law; it was an exotic, and would not flourish on Irish soil. His sympathies were strongly with the Irish people in the matter, and he was anxious to approach the question in a fair and impartial manner. With respect to the fixing of a fair rent, he was bound to say that, in his opinion, it needed a little more than the value of works done by the tenant. It was a matter of principle, and was shadowed out by one of the most intelligent and able of Irish landlords, Mr. Kavanagh, when, in his Report, he advocated a reference to arbitration. That gentleman had given it as his opinion that in all cases where the landlord and the tenant could not agree as to what was a fair rent the matter should be left to arbitration. But that was one of the things which the Bill did not propose to carry out. He must say he was surprised to hear the Prime Minister state that the Bill would put the landlord and the tenant in the same position. If the parties came to a mutual agreement that would be so; but if they could not do so, then the only chance of appeal given to the landlord was to resort to the odious step of

    623
    raising his rent. In that respect the Bill appeared to him to be a very one-sided measure; it certainly failed to carry out the arbitration contemplated by Mr. Kavanagh and other Commissioners. The Report went on to say—"We view the affording of such security as necessary," and what that meant was security against the capricious raising of rent; security against capricious evictions; security against the landlord taking advantage of the tenant's improvements; and security against the tenant's greed for land. The disease which prevailed in Ireland, and which had led to the injurious agitation which had prevailed, was a hunger, a greed for land; and, therefore, the security he spoke of in the Report was security against all the things he had just stated. With respect to the "three F's," they had been supported by many witnesses, but by none of them to the extent demanded by the Home Rule Party. It was very much a question of degree. The "three F's" might mean a great deal or very little. They might mean no rents or low rents, perpetuity of tenure, and perfect Parliamentary freedom to the tenant to do what he pleased with his land. On the other hand, the "three F's" existed already in the relations between English landlords and tenants. The tenants held at fair rents, they had fixity of tenure during the term of their leases, and they were entitled to something beyond the value of the improved rent they made the land worth by their capital and industry. The "three F's" had frightened a great many people; but they were not, he thought, so very formidable after all, when qualified so as not to do injustice to either party. But the "three F's" provided by the Bill went far beyond the recommendations of the Richmond or the Bess- borough Commissioners, and even beyond what Lord Carlingford recommended, and that noble Lord was Chief Secretary for Ireland at the time of the passing of the Act of 1870, and in doing so it created a difficulty in the way of those who desired to assist the Government in this matter. The right hon. Gentleman the senior Member for Birmingham (Mr. John Bright) spoke of the safeguards which the Bill provided; but he had not enlightened the House as to what those safeguards
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    were. No attempt had been made to explain what the safeguards really consisted of, although the question had been asked from each corner of the House. Again, the right hon. Gentleman spoke of the "concessions" made by the Bill to the tenants. The Bill could make no concessions. What it did was to compel the landlords to make concessions, making them give up what they were unwilling to yield without some compensation. Later on the right hon. Gentleman said—
    "The Bill is intended to guarantee to the tenant the value of his improvements, and that he should have a certain security in the defined value of his holding."
    Why, that was the very thing as to which for seven nights the House had been asking an explanation. The security was uncertain and undefined at this moment. The brilliant speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister left them just as much in the dark as they were before. He (Mr. Rodwell) had been occupied a great many years in construing Acts of Parliament, in preparing clauses, and in dealing with clauses; but if asked his opinion as to that part of the present Bill, he confessed that his opinion would be worth nothing. The fact he had stated he could assure the Government created a difficulty in the minds, not of the opponents of the Bill only, but in the minds of its supporters as well. Tenant right was the turning point of the Bill, and on this point it was worth while referring to something which had been written by the Postmaster General in his treatise on political economy. He said that the whole question of justice or injustice, as regarded anything more than the remuneration of the outgoing tenant for any improvement he had made, turned upon the consideration whether the goodwill of the occupation belonged to the landlord or the tenant; and he added—"We think it is the sole property of the tenant." What did the right hon. Gentleman. think of the tenant right proposed by the Bill? It was not defined; it was not pretended it was goodwill; it was an undefined something, an additional value to the property which might be owing to other causes than the capital or the exertions of the tenant; and the learned Professor said it belonged to the landlord and not to the tenant. One reason why he could not support the

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    Bill was that he could not support the provisions as to fair rent. He agreed with Lord Carlingford that in fixing a fair rent the Court should consider the buildings, fences, and other permanent improvements provided by the tenant, and that the Court should also take reclamations into account, unless the tenant had enjoyed them for a period or at a rent which had enabled him to recoup himself. But there was no such indication of fair rent in this Bill; and the late Attorney General for Ireland had discussed this question, adducing figures to show the injustice of the proposal which had never been met or grappled with. As to free sale, all the witnesses before the Commission broke down when they were pressed to support unlimited free sale, and, at the same time, justify the limitation of the rent which the landlord could get from a tenant. Professor Baldwin struggled hard, but ineffectually, to support his position on this point, and Major Robinson disagreed with the contention of Professor Baldwin. The point had not been sufficiently discussed in this debate. If it was wrong to encourage the landlord's greed by allowing him to extort what rent he could, how could they justify encouraging the tenant's greed by allowing him to sell the goodwill at a preposterous price? The system could tend only to make the worse form of rack rents, and to tempt tenants to borrow money from usurers at ruinous interest. Such a system was injurious to every interest; and, therefore, he thought the provisions as to free sale were the most objectionable part of the Bill. With these in it, he could not vote for the second reading. No doubt, there was land in Ireland which was not cultivated, or only partially cultivated, which would employ and feed a part of the population; and, though the Bill did not do all that might be desired to promote this object, it ought to have a chance of being made acceptable in Committee. There was evidence from a great number of landlords that some Bill was a necessity, and that legislation must take place. None could defend or wish to promote such relations of landlord and tenants as were admitted to exist in the case of the Portsmouth estates. Lord Portsmouth did not live on the property; he did not discharge the duties not exercise the rights or privileges of
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    a landlord; and when things were reduced to this state, and the landlord became a rent-charger, the sooner a sweep was made the better. The Prime Minister, in introducing the Land Bill of 1870, had loudly protested against such a calamity. The Bill ought to amend such conditions, and it ought not to bring them about. He could not shut his eyes to the gravity of the occasion. He would not take upon himself the responsibility of putting any impediment in the way of the Bill being read a second time; but he could not vote for the second reading. Free sale had been one of the causes of the mischief specified by the Richmond Commission, and he was asked to say it was to be one of the remedies; that was an inconsistency he could not be guilty of. He would endeavour to assist in amending the Bill in Committee, and in providing some of those safeguards to protect the interests of landlords which were hinted at in the first speech of the Prime Minister, but were not to be found in the Bill.
    DR. KINNEARsaid, he was anxious to put before the House what he believed to be the impression in Ireland in regard to this Land Bill, which was designed to remedy the evils from which Ireland was now suffering. They were all aware in that House that the demands for legislative reform of the Land Laws of Ireland had been very loud and very long; but now that this Land Bill had been introduced into that House there was a measure of satisfaction over the entire of Ireland, and especially over that portion of Ireland with which he was best acquainted. He shared in the feeling of gratification which was felt in Ireland at the introduction of the Bill, because he was fully persuaded that the peace and prosperity of Ireland entirely depended upon the legislative adjustment of this question. Intimately acquainted as he was with Ireland, he would go further, and say the firm conviction of his soul was that the loyalty of Ireland depended upon the legislative adjustment of this question. It had been no ordinary call with regard to the necessity of this Bill. Landlords and tenants in Ireland could not be left to settle this question among themselves. He could testify that the universal consensus of opinion in Ireland was favourable to legislation. He had been privileged to hold conversations with large

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    numbers of intelligent gentlemen of the tenant farming class, and he had been privileged to attend some conferences upon the Land Question, and especially upon the question of this Bill, and in these conferences they enjoyed the fullest and frankest of thoughts and sentiments. He had had the honour of receiving a large number of letters from all parts of Ireland suggesting improvements, and suggesting where provisions might well be left out, and he was in a position to testify to the universal consensus of opinion in that country in favour of this Bill. It was desirable that there should be something like unanimity within the walls of the House, that they might frame the Bill when it got into Committee in accordance with the wants and requirements of Ireland. He had looked into this Bill with considerable attention. He had not been able to look at it with a legal eye as many hon. Members in that House had been able to do; but with the light of his own understanding he had looked at it from the standpoint of humanity. He had carried into the study of this Bill his feelings of common sense, and he had come to the conclusion that the Bill was framed in the most generous spirit, and that it honestly aimed at a hill and adequate settlement of this question for Ireland. It was seen that this Bill had not met universal acceptance out-of-doors. What Bill ever brought into the House had ever received universal acceptance out-of-doors? One thing they knew—that it incorporated a principle of vast importance to Ireland, and it was a principle which formulated concessions of unquestionable value. He looked upon the Bill as one of the best boons that Parliament ever conferred upon oppressed Ireland. Now, he would not conceal it from himself, nor should he conceal it from that House, the conviction of his mind that there were defects in the Bill, and that some portion of the machinery was exceedingly cumbrous iii its operation. There was a general desire from Ireland that when this Bill got beyond its present stage and into Committee all these difficulties would be more or less removed. There was very general satisfaction over the entire Kingdom of Ireland that these principles for which they had been so long contending were in some measure recognized by this Bill—that they had attained the
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    prominency to which they had now reached, standing at the forefront of the practical politics of the day, patronized by a strong Government, and sympathized in by the whole Liberal Party of the British Empire. It was a compliment to the inhabitants of Ireland that all these principles conveyed in the term commonly known as the "three F's" were in some measure recognized by this Bill. He should not enter into a discussion of the Bill at that hour, but would merely refer to the general satisfaction which was felt in Ireland over the facility that would be afforded by this Bill for the extension of the Bright Clauses of 1870 and the great principles of peasant proprietorship, which had been looked forward to with such great anxiety throughout Ireland; and there was a hope expressed that when this Bill got into Committee the Government would be induced to grant where required the whole of the purchase money, so that the peasant might arrive at this happy and triumphant stage. The tenant right already recognized by the Act of 1870 ought to be sufficient security for lending where required the whole of the purchase-money. He was opposed to the emigration clauses, and advocated migration from densely populated centres to unreclaimed lands, for the advantage of such a course to the British Empire would be indescribable. Thousands of homes would be created in this way, peasant labour would be utilized to a large and profitable extent, the national wealth would be largely increased, and he was convinced of it that the theory of an almost periodic recurrence of famine would be exploded. He regretted that in the Bill there was no attempt to deal with absentee landlords, who were draining the country of its thousands of the hard-earned savings of the people. He also regretted the absence of all reference to the London Companies and the anomalous position they occupied in Ireland, and begged to intimate that he would call attention to that subject in Committee on the Bill.
    SIR JOSEPH M'KENNAsaid, he would admit that the Bill was framed. with benevolent intentions towards the Irish tenant class, and not without a statesmanlike view of their case; but he denied that the Bill was adequate to the occasion, because it contemplated no subsidy whatever from the State to carry

    629
    it into effect, while it purported to deal with the rights, without trenching on the pecuniary interests, of the landlords. What he complained of was, that the Bill did not trench upon the rights of the landlords sufficiently to settle the question, and did not compensate the landlords for rights it took away—a thing which ought to be done for the sake of the tenants themselves. He regarded this Bill pretty much as he would a Bill in Chancery designed for the protection of one party at the expense of another, and promoted by a third, who was the real offender; but who came forward, without any tender of restitution on his own part, with a scheme of settlement to get rid of disturbance. He would not speak in enigmas. The real offender in the case of Ireland was the English Government, not the present Administration, but the English Government in its wide and permanent sense, which left out of account altogether that it was bound to make restitution. By means of a fiscal system at once insidious and oppressive, it had, within the last 30 years, drained away from Ireland unjustly £3,000,000 a-year more than the proportion which Irish taxation ought to bear to the taxation of Great Britain. The sum in excess of her fair quota absorbed from Ireland during the last 30 years amounted to three times more than would suffice to settle this question on principles which would commend themselves to every just and impartial man in Ireland. Ireland was almost wholly an agricultural and a pastoral country, and all the burdens that had to be borne by her must come from the produce of her soil and the industry of her inhabitants. The amount which remained for the support of the tillers of the soil and the profits of industry could not be more than the value of the produce minus the amount carried away for rent and taxation. The radical difficulty and unsoundness at the bottom of the Irish Land Question was one of Imperial misgovernment. Yes, he repeated, the evil was one of Imperial misgovernment. Misgovernment by misadventure and from ignorance, he was prepared to admit, and not misgovernment of conscious tyranny. He would explain the case as it appeared to him. The difficulty on the surface was that the landlords of Ireland, under the terms of lawful contracts, in a considerable
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    number of cases, claimed from their tenants higher rents than the tenants could afford to pay; and the exactions of the landlords, enforced by eviction or legal proceedings of some kind, were resisted by the tenants as inequitable, and opposed to natural justice. That was the difficulty on the surface. There was this also—sometimes the rent demanded was too high, but was not quite impossible of payment. The law, as it stood, said to the tenants—"You must pay your rent according to your contract, or give up your holding should the landlord desire it." This Bill proposed to meet such cases, and said there should be in future a new valuation, a new tenure, and a judicial rent superseding contract. He should observe this Bill would be wholly illusory if it did not, in a large number of cases reduce the rents which the landlords had been heretofore receiving, and might receive again except for the passing of this law. If they could convince the Irish people that the effect of the Bill would be merely to raise some rents and to lower others a little, and to give security of tenure for 15 years, subject to a new valuation, the Bill would not have found so good an acceptance as it had. A great deal more must be done for the tenants or the Bill would be no settlement at all. But, whatever they did for the tenants, if they trenched on the rights of the landlord, they ought to compensate him in some way for the rights they took away. It was probable that the landlords who had not raised their rents since 1852 would find themselves in no difficulty under the Bill, because the rents for 1852 were fixed on a scale of market prices much lower than the market prices at present. But the difficulty they had to contend with in Ireland was this—that, ignoring the process of impoverishment silently going on all the time, landlords had been increasing the rents, and tenants agreeing to pay those enhanced rents, without recognizing the fact that the conditions under which they lived were completely changed in consequence of the enormous additions to the taxation of the country. The valuation of 1852 was expressly based on a schedule of prices. Since that time prices had risen very considerably, as was shown authoritatively by the figures quoted in the Schedule to the Bill introduced by the Chief Secretary

    631
    for Ireland in the year 1877. While prices were thus advancing, the landlords were raising their rents, solely on the ground that the value of agricultural produce was enhanced; and persons who were not conversant with the statistics of Irish taxation might ads why that did not afford a sufficient reason for the action of the landlords. He wished to settle that question, and, at the same time, to show that the English Government was the real defendant in the case. The apparently anomalous fact that the value of land had not risen simultaneously with the rise in the prices of agricultural produce was due to several causes. Everyone knew that a heavily taxed people were not able to pay very high rents, and it was equally notorious that the taxation of Ireland had enormously increased in the last 30 years. In fact, so greatly had it grown during that period that if the whole Imperial taxation of the country were converted into Income Tax, the amount would be 5s. 3d. in the pound, whereas a sum of 2s. 7d. in the pound in Great Britain would discharge the entire taxation. That was a grievance that had nothing to do with ancient wrongs and bygone days of oppression, but had grown up altogether in our own times. Actually within the last 30 years, the taxation of Ireland had been increased per head of the population in the proportion of 120 per cent, though the real increase was 75 per cent, the diminution of the population accounting for the difference for the remainder. On the other hand, the taxation of Great Britain had been reduced during the same time by 6 or 7 per cent. To put the case more cogently, the proportion of taxation that a country could bear was absolute, and not relative. The 2 rupees paid per head in India weighed more heavily on the population of that country than would the same amount on the people of France or Great Britain. And so, with respect to Ireland, the actual taxation of Ireland was not greater than that of Great Britain, but relatively it was quite as great. In order to take a proper view of the country in the present day, it was worth while to notice the normal taxation as far back as the year 1841. A Parliamentary Return epitomized his argument. and showed that in 1841 the taxation per head of the population of Great Britain was £2 9s. 9d.
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    and of Ireland 9s. 6d. Between 1841 and 1851 the great Famine occurred, and the population was very much diminished. The taxation during that decade remained about the same. In 1851 it rose to 12 s.
    2d. per head of the population, and he did not complain of that; but in 1861 it advanced to £1 2s. 1d., and in 1871 to £1 6s. 2d. During that period the taxation had been greatly reduced in Great Britain. In consequence of the increase of taxation in Ireland, the tenants were unable to pay their rents. The gross revenue raised by taxation in Ireland, which was less than £4,000,000 in 1841, had risen to upwards of £7,000,000 in 1871. The only reason why he had ever advocated a separate Parliament for Ireland on the Federal principle was that he believed it was impossible, in the absence of some system of Home Rule, to make a fair distribution of the means of the two countries. But the Government did not propose to review the system of taxation in Ireland. Instead of doing so, they affirmed what was not the fact, for they affected to say that this was a question between landlord and tenant. When the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster found travellers weary and stricken who had fallen among thieves, he did not treat them as the good Samaritan; he did nothing for them, not even giving them 2d. in the way of a loan. He contended that if justice was to be done to Ireland, it must be done in such a manner as to administer the taxes raised in Ireland just the same as if there existed an Irish Parliament. No matter how the subject was viewed, the same lesson was learned in the end—namely, that Ireland has been impoverished by Imperial taxation. ["No!"] He said "Yes." He maintained it was now the duty of the State to use the means which it had already drawn from Ireland in excess of her fair quota to take largely the landlords' right, and constitute a yeomanry with perpetuity of tenure, a moderate rent, and to indemnify reasonably the owners of property who had to surrender a portion of their inheritance for the public good.
    MR. SPEAKERreminded the hon. Member that he must keep to the Question, which was the second reading of the Land Bill.
    SIR JOSEPH M'KENNAsaid, he would conclude his observations by repeating

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    that, in order to settle the Land Question, the Irish people were entitled to a liberal grant from the British Parliament.
    COLONEL STANLEY: Sir, during the time I have had a seat in this House I have never felt so deeply the responsibility of addressing the House as upon this subject. I desire to explain in a few words why I and those who act with me think it necessary to vote against the second reading of the Bill. I must, in the first place, make the avowal that it is with some hesitation on my own part that I came to such a conclusion. I know perfectly well that misrepresentation is likely to be made upon the subject—I know the course I have indicated is open to the interpretation that we on this side of the House are not prepared to consider circumstances as they exist, and that we do not consider any legislation necessary. That is a view of which I cannot approve. On the other hand, it seems to many, who entertain, as I do, a strong opinion against both the wisdom and the expediency of some of the fundamental principles of the Bill, that it is more straightforward to vote against it at this stage than to allow it sub silentio to be read a second time under the tacit understanding that we accept it as something which may be turned into an entirely different creation in Committee. The Prime Minister, with a perfect fairness from the Parliamentary point of view, endeavoured to pin those who had spoken against the measure to the terms of the Amendment moved by the noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire (Lord Elcho). But I would point out that, under the Parliamentary conditions of the case, there are only three courses open to us—namely, to vote for the Bill, to refrain from voting altogether, a course which, I will venture to say, considering the magnitude of the question, is hardly consistent with decency, or, lastly, to vote against the Bill. I look at the Bill as a measure of administrative reform. I was very much struck with the manner in which the Prime Minister this evening plunged into a defence—or, rather, a repudiation—of the term "confiscation" as applied to this measure. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to find some consolation in the fact that that word has been used on other occasions, and particularly during the passage of the Land Bill of 1870.
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    Then the right hon. Gentleman went on to ask whether that Bill did, in point of fact, injure the property of the landlord? Well, I will give an answer to that question, and the witness I will call into court is one to whose opinion I believe hon. Gentlemen opposite will give full weight—namely, Judge Flanagan, one of the principal Judges of the Landed Estates Court. In examination before the Select Committee on the Land Act of 1870, Judge Flanagan was asked whether the value of land had risen or fallen since the Act had been passed; and his answer was that, taking price as a test of value, it had not fallen, but that if the Land Act had never been passed it would have commanded a higher price than it actually did, inasmuch as the price of beef, butter, and other commodities had in the interval greatly risen. From that opinion we may draw our own conclusion as to the effect which the present Bill will have upon the property of the Irish landlords. The right hon. Gentleman went on to say that if the State found it necessary to take what are termed confiscatory measures, it was no more necessary to give compensation than it was in the case of the Church Patronage Bill which passed into an Act a few years ago. The right hon. Gentleman argued that confiscation in that case took place without compensation having followed; but how do the facts stand? If there was confiscation in the Scotch Church Patronage Bill, compensation was proposed in the clauses of the Bill; and, as a matter of fact, some of the lay patrons availed themselves of that compensation. We have had to-night sonic important admissions upon the point, in an explanation of which the House has been waiting for seven nights with some anxiety. I am not one of those who believe in what is easy to say and difficult to refute—that the Cabinet has been disunited upon that or upon any other point. I have heard Cabinets spoken of as disunited, which were entirely in accord, and it is difficult to prove such things, except that, in the present instance, we have actually the fact that one Member of the Cabinet has left them upon this measure. I have nothing more to say on that head; but I must call attention to one or two discrepancies with which I could not help being struck in the speeches which have been made during the debates upon

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    the Bill. I think it would have been worth while for the Government to have spent some little time in agreeing upon some common course Of argument, so that one Member of the Cabinet should not rest upon one part as the primary element in the Bill, and another upon another part. In the able and lucid speech of the Prime Minister, in which he had introduced the Bill, a great deal was said on the landlord and tenant clause of the Bill, and somewhat less on the clauses relating to emigration and the purchase of their holdings by tenants. This evening the right hon. Gentleman has spoken almost exclusively of the landlord and tenant clause, and referred to the other questions only by a passing allusion. The right hon. Gentleman went on to comment on the 7th clause; but even after the explanations of the right hon. Gentleman it is quite obvious that that clause will require to be cleared up, or at least considerably modified in Committee. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster has fallen foul of my hon. and learned Friend I he late Attorney General (Sir John Holker) for having said that the Bill is difficult to interpret, and that it has been designedly so drawn. The right hon. Gentleman said that he had never heard of such a charge in all his experience being made against a Government. I observe, however, as a matter of fact, that the right hon. Gentleman did not say that the clause might not have been drawn in a simpler form. I have, however, a sufficiently high opinion of the Government draftsman to believe that he could have drawn the clause in a much simpler form if he had been allowed to do so. The right hon. Gentleman had said that evening that the Government are not proud of the workmanship of that clause of the Bill. It is true that the draftsman might have found himself in many respects hampered by the declarations of the right hon. Gentleman in 1870 in arguments which are still unanswered and unanswerable, and it seems to me that it would not be an unfair compromise if we on this side of the House agree to make no reference to the right hon. Gentleman's speeches in 1870 on the understanding that the Government consent to the modification of the clause. I say that notwithstanding that the hon. Member for County Cork (Mr. Shaw)
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    has said that he has been able to understand the Bill five minutes after perusing it. I am certainly not asking too much to ask, as that clause is to he the charter of the tenant and that by which the course of law is to be guided, that the clause ought certainly to be made perfectly clear, so as to leave as little as possible to the discretion of local Courts. I will say a word on the interposition of a Court in transactions which have hitherto been matters of free contract. I am not a holder of Irish land; but I have, in times past, been connected with property in Ireland, and from the knowledge which I possess I do not think that it would be otherwise than wise that the tenant should have some tribunal to which he can appeal. I think that in many cases it will be wise and right that there shall be a power of appeal to time Court; but what has been said of the Courts to be instituted under the Bill? It is quite true that the right hon. Gentleman told us, as I understood, there are clauses about the Courts which require to be materially altered. All I can say is that it is unfortunate that it was not thought of before the final revisal of the Bill, which has gone through so many editions. The Civil Bill Court, as it stands in the Bill, has met with the disapproval of all concerned. One hon. Member said the Civil Bill Court was an old and dishonoured institution, and it failed to do the work of 1870. The hon. and learned Member for Antrim (Mr. Macnaghten) called it unsatisfactory, and said it was not unlikely to wreck the Bill. The hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) said that make the Court the sole arbitrator between landlord and tenant would be productive of nothing but disaster. But the unkindest cut of all was that the right hon. Gentleman himself came forward and said that under the provisions of the Bill, in many cases, it was intended to give the Civil Bill Court the go-by altogether. Then there is another point in connection with the Courts. I confess that I am one of those who, from personal knowledge of tenants, greatly fear an increase of litigation, though, on the property with which I was connected, we had so little trouble that I have known marriage portions to be assured upon a farm of which the tenant himself had only an annual holding. The tenant, by going into Court, has all to gain, and apparently has nothing to

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    lose. I agree with the hon. and learned Member for Antrim that in many cases it would be wise to give a certificate, if it were possible to do so. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of the objections which have been entertained to the refusal of the Government, under the present Bill, to allow landlords to go into Court, and he alluded to the certificate spoken of by the hon. and learned Member for Antrim, to whom we listened with so much satisfaction the other night. As I understand the hon. and learned Member for Antrim, his case is not that in all cases the bringing of cases into Court will be prevented, but that the granting of certificates will enable the proprietor of an estate to give an intending purchaser, so to speak, a clean bill of health for the estate; and, at all events, it will protect any person to whom he may sell his estate from a number of actions. The right hon. Gentleman spoke about safeguards being introduced in Committee, and used other terms of the same sort. I understand that it is possible that when we reach Committee some modifications may be introduced, and that the objection which is entertained to the Courts not being as open to the landlord as to the tenant may be remedied at a future stage of the Bill. I do not wish to take up the time of the House over the very vexed question of the 7th clause. It is a question which really, after all, can be dealt with equally well when the Bill goes into Committee. But it seems to me that some of the arguments which the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister has used to-night and on a former occasion are somewhat extraordinary; and they hardly appear, to my simple understanding, to justify some of the conclusions which his superior intellect has drawn from them. Now, what are the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman? He said—
    "Before the Land Act of 1870 the tenancy was determinable upon a certain notice at the close of each year, at the sole will of the landlord, and without any other consequence whatever. What the tenant had to assign was so small that the assignment was little worth giving or receiving. But in the Land Act—not, I must own, with a view to fortify the principle of tenant right, but simply with a view to defend the tenant in possession of his holding and to render it difficult for the landlord capriciously to get rid of him, we proceeded to enact a scale of compensation for disturbance, without which the tenant could not be removed. That being
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    so, a valuable consideration was, by the Act of 1870, evidently tacked on to every yearly tenancy in Ireland."—[Hansard, cclx. 902.]
    That was very much the case, and a still more valuable consideration is now being again tacked on. The right hon. Gentleman goes on to say—
    "And under the Act of 1870, whether we intended it or not, tenant right has become something sensible and considerable."—[Ibid.]
    Therefore, because you gave the tenant a right which you disowned at that time, and which you say you did not intend to give, or did not know that you were giving, and which the right hon. Gentleman, in the most distinct terms, disclaimed in 1870—because I say that right has been given, it is upon that ground, says the right hon. Gentleman, that you have established a right—it is a right that belongs to the tenant for ever, and it must now be deducted from the rights enjoyed by the landlord. My opinion certainly is that, as was said by the hon. and learned Member for Antrim, if you make your addition wrong and your subtraction afterwards, you are not likely to come to a generally accurate result; and I confess that I believe that if you go on with this process of subtraction the interests of the landlord will, in the end, be very greatly depreciated. I do not know whether I correctly understood the right hon. Gentleman; but I think he said that this is not by any means parting with the interest of the landlord. He said that the landlord might at any time resume the property. So he can resume it in the same way that he could go into a shop and resume any article that he saw there—namely, by paying for it. I may have read the Bill wrong, and, if so, I hope to be put right; but I confess I do not see that this resumption is a resumption unaccompanied by a money payment. Then the right hon. Gentleman says that the excess of the tenant right is provided against by the Bill. But, on the other hand, he says that the excess of tenant right is so provided against by the Bill that there is no fear of its unduly depressing that part of the property which may belong to the landlord, or producing the dangerous consequences which some hon. Gentlemen apprehend. But we have to consider, not what the right hon. Gentleman thinks or intends, but what is to be the interpretation of the Bill; and my right hon.

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    and learned Friend the late Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Gibson) showed clearly enough that any lawyer called upon to pledge his professional reputation would tell us that this must be read in connection with other clauses, and that under Clause 7, sub-section 3, the Court, whether it pleased or not, would be obliged to take into consideration the interest of the tenant, and would be bound by the regulations of the Bill. There is another argument which I must notice in connection with this part of the Bill, and I beg the pardon of the House for being obliged to go into it at such great length at so late an hour. The right hon. Gentleman said there were two things which constituted the tenant right—there were the tenant's improvements, and there was also, as part of the tenant right, the excess in the price of bidding; and he instanced that by saying that land was in the position of a rare or very valuable commodity, and that the price given for it might be far greater than the intrinsic value. But the right hon. Gentleman, to the best of my belief, did not attempt to sustain, and did not sustain any reason whatever, Why, in the case of an inherently rare and valuable commodity, you are to take away from the owner some part of the price which its rarity may have assigned to it. I wish now to say one or two words with regard to another subject upon which the right hon. Gentleman said a little—namely, the increase in the number of proprietors. That is a subject which the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister and the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland gave comparatively little prominence to. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, following the lead of the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, put it only as a secondary consideration of the Bill; but the noble Lord the Secretary of State for India put it as a point of vital importance; and, as far as I understood it, the whole speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster was directed towards it. I think the House will agree with me that nothing could be more striking than the general concurrence of opinion there has been in the course of the present debate that it is wise to increase the number of owners of land in Ireland. To that doctrine we on this side of the House give
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    as cordial an assent as you do yourselves on the other side, provided only that the increase is brought about by natural growth, and not by a violent disturbance or a violent political change. This is neither the place nor the time to discuss the direct or relative advantages of large and small farms. All I can say is, that in my own district, with which, I believe, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary is pretty well acquainted—in the northern parts of Lancashire, Westmoreland, and Cumberland, there are a good many of the occupiers who are called "statesmen"—yeomen who hold their land by as good and as old a title as any Gentleman who has a seat in this House. Now, I am not one of those who wish to see the ownership of property divided into the proprietorship of house to house, and of field to field. Nor do I think that it is desirable, on economical grounds, that all the small properties should be absorbed by the larger and greater owners; but, as a matter of fact, and I regret it deeply, that these "statesmen" in the North of England are slowly but certainly disappearing, finding, as they do, that by embarking in trade and commerce they can realize 7 or 10 or 15 per cent upon their capital; whereas they find that by devoting themselves to the cultivation of the land they can only gain 1 or 2 per cent. It is said that this is a step in the direction of free trade in land. My right hon. Friend the First Commissioner of Works! Mr. Shaw Lefevre) says that when peasant proprietors are created there will he an absolute free trade in land; and the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, as far as I understood them, went to the same extent. But is that the case? Not at all. As I read the Bill, you do not propose to exempt the new purchaser from any of the fetters or conditions you intend to attach to the ownership of land. It is perfectly true, as was described by the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Brand), that the Bill places restrictions upon the owners of land in respect of all but what they may choose to occupy themselves. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, speaking upon this matter the other night, disposed, in a few sentences, of the nonsensical idea that there could actually be a peasant proprietorship created without the proprietorship determining, in some

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    instances, into a landlord ownership. Then, as to this free trade in land, after all, where is it? You are doing away elsewhere with copyhold. It is thought that it is not for the advantage of the public, and of the general good, that a copyhold tenancy should prevail. But although there is a Bill now before the House, and attempts have been made in past years to abolish these tenures, what are you doing by this Land Bill? You are really creating a more stringent and a closer copyhold in Ireland than any of those you are proposing to get rid of in England. Then, it appears to me that those who use the argument of free trade in land fail altogether in their propositions. To my mind, it only shows how the principles of political economy can be thrown aside at convenience in order to meet the political emergency of the moment. I will go now to another point. I have said that there was a certain amount of difference of opinion between Members of the Cabinet—I do not say that there actually was, but there appeared to be—as to the relative importance of the provisions of the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, as we know, laid stress on the landlord and tenant portion of the Bill, and another Minister attaches great importance to a peasant proprietary. But the noble Lord the Secretary of State for India appears to take an entirely different view of the question, and, we are obliged to look into these various opinions in order that we may have the greatest amount of light thrown upon the real intentions of the Government in bringing forward the Bill. In the course of an investigation which I made for this purpose, I came across a speech delivered recently by the noble Lord on a political occasion at the Fishmongers' Hall. The noble Lord said, in the introductory part of his remarks, that he had intended to excuse himself from attending the dinner—that he had not intended to go there—and, as far as that is concerned, I dare say from the comments which have since been made upon his remarks that long before this debate closes he will wish that he had not been induced to change his original intention. Now, the noble Lord, as we all know, always speaks to the point. He does not speak without consideration, and if there were anything to make his remarks especially important it was the
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    fact explained by the noble Lord himself that he officially attended the dinner on that occasion as one of the Representatives of the Government in the unavoidable absence of the Prime Minister. The noble Lord, therefore, speaking in his capacity as a Member of the Government at a dinner of his political friends, and this great question occupying public attention at that moment to the exclusion of everything else, made use of these words—
    "The evils of Ireland are too deep seated to be removed by any changes in the relations between the landlord and owner and the occupier. We believe, as my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy has so constantly urged that these evils will never be effectually removed until there has been established a great increase in the number of holders of property in Ireland, until the vast disproportion between the owners and occupiers has been somewhat diminished, and until a larger number of occupiers are placed in a position that would give them some participation in the rights of property."
    The noble Lord went on to say, in which I entirely agree with him, that our first object should be to do all in our power to enable the Irish people to become to a greater extent proprietors of the land, and that it is to such modes of legislation we must look for any ultimate improvement in the condition of Ireland. There are many other matters which require attention; but in the opinion of the noble Lord these are the true remedies to be applied, but it must take some time to carry them into effect, and they cannot be immediate. There is an interval, he says, to bridge over, and he tells us the modus vivendi must be discovered. He adds that Her Majesty's Government have endeavoured by their proposals to submit such a modus vivendi to the consideration of Parliament. According to the noble Lord, the arrangement now before the House is intended to bridge over the interval now subsisting between the landlord and tenant for a certain period. Then, why are we not told at once by Her Majesty's Government why these great proposals are put as the secondary parts of the Bill? I trust the noble Lord will believe me when I ask in no spirit of hostility why, if this is the case, the Government do not take the purchase clauses and the emigration clauses before they take the rest of the Bill? We have heard in general terms that it is intended to make an annual grant to carry out the emigration

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    scheme and to aid in the purchase of estates; but we are told, on the other hand, that the amount of the grant is to be decided by an annual Vote of Parliament. It seems to me that we are left entirely in the dark on the subject, and that the House may be legislating in one direction while the Treasury may be acting entirely in another. Therefore, upon these points I think we ought to have a definite statement upon the matter. I may say, on many grounds, in regard to the purchase of land, that I share the feeling of my right hon. Friend the Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith) that it would be undesirable for the Government to undertake such purchase by their own direct agency. I confess that for many reasons I should very greatly prefer that the purchases should be made through the agency of something like a Land Bank. I do not know whether it is either expedient or necessary that I should touch further upon this part of the question; but, speaking generally, I may say that the proposals of the Government at the present moment seem to be somewhat illusory for the reasons I have already mentioned. When the creation of a Land Bank was first suggested the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Shaw) remarked that no Land Bank could have the power of borrowing money at anything like the same rate of interest that the Government could obtain it. But if such a bank had the Government behind it so as to give a guarantee, either directly or indirectly, the money might be borrowed on the security of debentures issued upon property, or might be obtained in the many other ways in which property may be dealt with; and I must say that all I have heard, read, and seen, incline me to believe that there would be no practical difficulty in a bank of the character indicated being able to obtain ample funds, at a comparatively low rate of interest, to enable it to carry out the object of the Bill. There is, therefore, much to recommend the creation of a Land Bank, and certainly some of the arguments which have been stated against it are not of the same force as at first sight appeared. In the course of this debate one thing has struck me very painfully and very forcibly. During all the years that I have sat in this House I have carefully avoided anything in the nature of making a personal
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    attack upon anybody, and certainly I am not going to begin making such attacks now. But I must confess that I was amazed, and almost ashamed to hear the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, in the course of his remarks, make use of arguments which seemed altogether unworthy of him. I could scarcely believe that I had correctly understood the right hon. Gentleman until on referring to the usual sources of information I found that my impression was correct. The right hon. Gentleman was not afraid to import into this discussion—a discussion which his Leader asked the House to consider apart altogether from Party feelings, and as one which affects the interests of the Empire only—the right hon. Gentleman was not afraid, I say, to import into the debate arguments which I have certainly heard of as being used in tumultuous Party meetings, but which I have never heard used in places where questions were calmly deliberated upon—arguments calculated to arouse many angry feelings, which I, for one, had hoped, in the course of this discussion, would have been buried. The right hon. Gentleman did not think it unworthy of him to say, without qualification—
    "The vast estates that are held in Ireland are estates that were created mainly at the time, and in consequence of the confiscations of which we read in Irish history."
    We have often heard the general proposition—"Ireland for the Irish," and we have heard it asserted that Irishmen are the real owners of the soil; but it is convenient to leave out of the question the large number of Irish families who are still among the largest owners of the soil. Let me take a few names which occur to me at the moment. We are told that this Land Question has arisen because the estates have been created only in the manner spoken of by the right hon. Gentleman. But everybody knows that that is not the case. If the right hon. Gentleman is still under that impression, let me ask him if he has never heard of the estates held by the O'Conor Don, Lord Inchiquin, the Knight of Kerry, the families of Kavanagh, M'Dermott, the O'Donoghue, and many others, whose names may be easily made known to persons who care to inquire into the subject. Does he not know that the titles of these families as owners are

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    long antecedent to any question of conquest or confiscation? Does the Land League make any such distinction as the right hon. Gentleman draws? In all the letters that have been written on the subject, and in all the speeches which have been made at public meetings in Ireland, have we ever seen any proposition to exempt from the operation of the Land League those landlords who held such an ancient or indefeasible title? But the right hon. Gentleman goes even further than that. He comments upon the fact of the land being in the possession of owners "who differ in religious convictions from the bulk of the people." But can the right hon. Gentleman really presume to say, in cold blood, that he is prepared to sustain the assertion that the question of religion has anything to do with the matter, or that there have not been just as fierce attacks made against Roman Catholic and Presbyterian landlords as against Protestants, notwithstanding the fact that the right hon. Gentleman is anxious to show that the occupiers of the soil claim a religious connection with Roman Catholics only. The right hon. Gentleman commented at some length upon this matter; but as I do not think his comments ought to go entirely unanswered, I have, to the best of my power, endeavoured to answer them. But the right hon. Gentleman continued his extraordinary statements. He went on to say that—
    "If you complain that the Bill gives too much to the tenants and takes all that it does give from the landlords, I should make this answer—If, at this moment, all that the tenants have done were gone, and all that the landlords have done were left, that is the sort of map I should very much like to see, for its publication would finish this discussion in five minutes. Well, if that were to take place, if all that the tenants have done were swept off the soil, and all that the landlords have done were left upon it, the land would be as bare of house and barn, fences and cultivation, as it was in pre-historic times."
    Surely the right hon. Gentleman cannot have read the very able reports of the Commissioner of The Times, nor can he have read the statements in other newspapers as to the number of landowners who have improved their estates. Has the right hon. Gentleman never seen the pamphlet quoted with great propriety by his leader, the Prime Minister, called "Facts and Figures," in which it is shown from Returns correctly obtained from owners and occupiers, that
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    since 1840, as far as can be ascertained, the amount expended by landlords in the improvement of the land occupied by tenants is not less than £3,500,000? Is he further unacquainted with the fact, and, if so, I will make him a present of the figures, which he will find in the same pamphlet at page 33, that in Leinster out of 608 estates, in 194 the agricultural improvements have been made by the landlords, 202 by the tenants, and 212 conjointly; but of a total number of 1,627 estates, in 839 cases contributions were made both by the landlord and tenant, and in 200 cases by the landlord alone. But in connection with this point an ad captandum argument has been used. It is said that—"Taking from the amount of money spent the sums borrowed by the landlords under various Acts and securities, you will find that they themselves have spent but a very small portion of the whole amount." That is a plausible argument; but it is also true that it is covered by the fact that the tenants have not paid interest on the borrowed money. And, further, if the landlords have contracted loans without charging any additional interest to the tenant, undoubtedly we have a right to claim on their behalf that they have not been backward in effecting improvements. We know of an instance in which out of £30,000, £13,000 only was passed through the private account, the whole of the remainder being spent on the estate; and I am certain that the properties to which I have alluded more than once in the course of this debate have been dealt with in a similar spirit. I know of one case in which an amount, exceeding the whole rental of the property, was actually expended upon it in many years. The question in the minds of many persons stands thus. They say—"We are quite willing to consider fairly this question of tenant security; but, after all, is this measure intended merely to meet the evils which it is proposed to redress, or are you, under the guise of remedial legislation, entering upon a course of political change which you are unwilling openly to avow?" I cannot think the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant can be very much obliged to his Colleague at Bradford, who, the other day, connected so closely the questions of English and Irish land tenure, more especially as we have had it admitted in the

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    course of the debate that there was an essential distinction to be drawn between the English and Scotch and the Irish systems of land tenure, inasmuch as on this side of the water the buildings, and so forth, are almost without exception the property of the landlords.
    MR. ILLINGWORTH: The right hon. and gallant Gentleman altogether mistakes my meaning, in saying that I was trying to attach the question of land tenure in England to the Irish question. I said that the settlement of the Irish question was only secondary to the English people as contrasted with the Irish people.
    COLONEL STANLEY: I was not present when the hon. Gentleman made the remarks to which I have referred, and I am very glad to hear him now make a public recantation of what has been erroneously attributed to him. We are, on our part, pleased to take note of that fact.
    MR. ILLINGWORTH: I made no recantation at all. I simply offered an explanation.
    COLONEL STANLEY: I said "recantation of what had been erroneously attributed to the hon. Gentleman." We are now, upon the second reading of this Bill, considering the principles which underlie its action; and I have pointed out, perhaps at undue length, why we on this side are obliged to take a course of opposition to it at this stage. We know that the two main sources of this measure have been the "earth-hunger" and the agitation which has of late been too prominent a feature in Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government has said he had every reason to be thankful for the manner in which this Bill had been received in Ireland. But has the spirit in which the Bill has been brought forward been responded to? Has it caused the Land League to diminish one whit of its teaching, or have those who have acted, as they think, in obedience to its commands, abated one whit in their violence? The Government have conceded much to agitation; depend upon it, that agitation will demand more. The right hon. Gentleman asks, will this question ever be settled by a Bill smaller than the present one; and "Echo" from these Benches replies—"or by any Land Bill?" You wish to establish confidence, and you take means that, to a great extent, tend to banish all capital, except that which is tied, from the country. You wish to create owner-
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    ship, and you deprive it, as one of your ex-Colleagues has shown, of one of its most necessary attributes. The right hon. Gentleman speaks in the spirit of one of the ancients, whom he is so fond of quoting, and seems to say—"Let us go where fortune, kinder than a parent, may take us." He may be prepared to embark on a course that may, to a certain extent, allay agitation, but which can only succeed in attaining that object by drawing a Bill, so to speak, upon futurity, which posterity will have considerable difficulty in discounting. If the right hon. Gentleman does not know to what this course of concession tends, I suspect there are many hon. Gentlemen on the Benches below the Gangway who can tell him. I would venture to say that if this legislation is not conducted upon sound and right principles it must inevitably sooner or later come to naught. The right hon. Gentleman has endeavoured to throw upon us the responsibility which might attend any miscarriage of this Bill, and I think I am rightly interpreting his expressions as applied, not only to a determined opposition, but to an undetermined Party. Hon. Gentlemen on this side were, he said, judges of their own conduct; and he asked us if we were amongst the number of those who were anxious to decline to carry a message of peace to "another place," adding that he looked both to this House and the House of Lords with considerable anxiety for the fate of the measure. He said, however, that the other House had always well considered questions of this kind; and it seemed to me that the sole argument which the right hon. Gentleman left out was that in which he might have asked us, in consideration of the great questions which he believed to be involved in the Bill, to take away all impediment to its course and make it as near as possible perfect, in order that it might be presented in "another place" in its best form. However tardily, it is well to find that the principles of our great Leader now departed are recognized by the right hon. Gentleman. But he added that the Motion of the noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire (Lord Elcho) was the first notice of a change in position which had occurred in this House owing to the death of our late Leader. The great question before us may have presented some difficulties; but, as a humble Member of the Conservative Party, I will not allow that

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    statement of the right hon. Gentleman to remain uncontradicted one moment longer than I can help. I say that with reference to a Party led in this House by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon since Lord Beaconsfield left us for the House of Lords—a Party, united as it is, the right hon. Gentleman was not justified even by implication in the conclusion which he drew. I have endeavoured to point out some of the main objections which I hold to the fundamental principles of the Bill, and why the holding of those objections have influenced me to vote against the second reading. This, however, I would say—nothing is further from the intention of many of us who take this course than the tactics of obstruction or delay which the right hon. Gentleman feared the Bill might meet with in its progress. We agree entirely with him in thinking that the sooner the goal is reached the better, for it is not well that this question should be dangled before the public and made the incessant theme of agitation in Ireland. Nor is it well that by new concessions to public clamour, or undue concession to foregone conclusions or Party prejudice, the measure should be damaged in its progress. Although we have thought it right to protest against the Bill at this stage, I trust that it will meet, when the practical work in Committee is reached, with the same consideration and the same temperate criticism as we have endeavoured to extend to the second reading.
    MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, he had never risen to address the House with feelings of deeper depression than at that moment. Whatever prolongation of the debate on the second reading had taken place, it was not due to the speeches of hon. Members with whom he generally acted, for they had abstained from intruding themselves in the discussion until the air had, so to speak, been cleared by the sense—or non-sense—which might come from various parts of the House. The opinions he had formed on this Bill, after long and painful consideration, were opinions not merely of a minority of Members of the House, but of a minority of a minority, for he had reason to believe that his views with regard to this measure were not shared by even the majority of Irish Members. Under those circumstances, he must claim particular indulgence
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    from the House, and would endeavour to earn it, by abstaining from a single expression that, by its heat or intemperance, might injure the cause he had at heart. Accordingly, he passed by the many hard, bitter, and unjust things which had been said by both English and Irish Members, not only with regard to himself, but also the action of the Land League in Ireland. He did not believe a Minister had ever introduced to the House a Bill of equal magnitude, or dealing with a problem of greater complexity. The Government had reason to be satisfied with the reception it had met with; for it had been praised alike by Radicals, Whigs, and Ministerialists, and by one of the ablest exponents of Irish Conservatism on that side of the House. It had also received the praises of those Irish Members who were Ministerialists first, and Irishmen a very long way afterwards. An old proverb told them that when rogues fell out honest men came by their own. When he saw Whigs and Conservatives joining together, he thought it was high time for the policemen to look after the pockets of the Irish tenants as affected by this Bill. He was not much affected in his judgment of the Bill by the predictions which came from hon. Members on the other side of the House as to its results. Was there ever an Act ushered into existence amidst so loud a chorus of approval as the Land Act of 1870; and had ever an Act gone to its dishonoured tomb amidst so little expression of even the decencies of burial? All the history of the past legislation with regard to Ireland, all the history of the land legislation that had attempted to regulate the joint interests of landlord and tenant in the soil, all the past examples of history in that respect in Ireland, and in every other country, was a lesson of warning and a beacon to those who had the interests of the tenants at heart; for nothing had been more clearly proved by the history of land legislation than that on paper everything the tenant wanted, or could fairly demand, was given, but that when the Act came into operation the tenant might be left in almost a worse position than he was before. He would not go over the stale ground of the Act of 1870; but he would take the predictions with regard to that Act on three main points. One of the predictions

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    —which came from the right hon. and learned Gentleman the senior Member for the University of Dublin—was that that Act would take £120,000,100 from the landlords and put it into the pockets of the tenants. Another calculation was that the 600,000 tenants in Ireland would obtain £100 each for improvements, and £100 each for disturbance. Those were the predictions; but what were the results? In the three years 1871, 1872, and 1873, the total amount awarded by the Land Court was £461,149; and the average awarded to the tenants was not £100 for improvements and £100 for disturbance, but £27 5s. That was the manner in which £120,000,000 were taken from the landlords and put into the pockets of the tenants. Then it was said by the hon. Member for Tralee, with regard to the effects of the Act of 1870 on evictions—and the hon. Member in the same speech uttered many wise warnings against some defects in the Act, which were not attended to—that if the Bill passed he believed it would be next to impossible for a landlord to evict a tenant, unless he had such reasons for doing so as everybody capable of discriminating between right and wrong would sanction. How tragic was the contrast between that prediction and the 1,060 decrees executed in 1877, the 2,888 decrees executed in 1880, and the 2,500 decrees which, according to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, had been issued at one Quarter Sessions in the present year! He would not go in detail into the other predictions and the contrast between them and the result; but it was said that the Bill would stop rack-renting, and rack-renting had gone on in Ulster since 1870 with a frequency and relentlessness never before paralleled. It was said that the Bill would stop emigration; and last year there was a larger emigration from Ireland than in any of the preceding 26 years. It was said by the Prime Minister that the Bill might reasonably be considered a final solution of the difficulties in Ireland; and here to-day they were face to face with the difficulties in a more threatening and more wholesale manner than in any previous period. Therefore he said there was a yawning chasm between the predictions of 1870 and the realities of 1881. Allusion had been made by the right hon. and gallant
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    Gentleman (Colonel Stanley) to the very remarkable speech made by the noble Lord the Secretary of State for India with regard to the intentions of this Bill. The speech of the noble Lord was far away the most encouraging speech he had heard from the Ministers—it was far away the best speech on this question that had come front Englishmen, because it was the most Land League speech delivered on the question. The noble Lord said the ultimate solution of the land difficulty in Ireland was a peasant proprietary. That was what the Land League said; and the first portion of the Bill, according to the noble Lord, was in no sense a final attempt at solving the question, but was merely a modus vivendi to fill up the interval between the present condition of the tenant and the halcyon period when every tiller of the soil should be its owner. He should like to see those words repeated and emphasized from the Treasury Bench, because, if that was the view of the Government as to the operation of this Bill, it proved that this was a Bill which the Land. League of Ireland would be justified in gladly accepting, and nothing would more encourage the Ministers than that the Lion of the Executive Government and the Lamb of the Land League in Dublin should lie down together. The first portion of the Bill was defined by the noble Lord as a modus vivendi. He wished he could accept that definition as accurate. He had so long forgotten the study of the classics that he did not know whether he should be right or wrong; but he should rather call the Bill a modus moriendi for the tenants, and not a
    modus vivendi. He believed he should be able to clearly prove that, whatever might be the benefit from the Bill to the tenantry, it was a remote thing, but that the injury to the tenant was very clear and very near. What was the position of the Irish tenant? The hon. Member for Roscommon a few days ago put a Question to the Chief Secretary as to whether or not the evidence of the hon. Member for Kilkenny, the evidence of Colonel King-Harman, and the evidence of several witnesses before the Bessborough Commission did not agree in stating that the condition of a large number of the tenants in Ireland at the present moment was a condition of indebtedness which in many parts

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    amounted to absolute bankruptcy. If hon. Members would look through either the Commission over which the Duke of Richmond presided, or that presided over by Lord Bessborough, they would find that both the tenant farmer and the landlord, both the official, like Professor Baldwin, and the active politician agreed in representing that indebtedness as existing. There were three facts acknowledged by everybody. It was acknowledged that the Irish tenants had gone through three bad seasons recently; that a large portion of those tenants would have been face to face with famine but for almsgiving from all parts of the world on a scale of gigantic generosity; and the state of the Irish tenants through their past indebtedness, approaching to bankruptcy, received its final seal of acknowledgment by the introduction last year of a Compensation for Disturbance Bill, the main effect of which was to alter by law existing contracts with regard to rent. Therefore, he called the Ministers themselves to witness. His chief testimony was Ministerial utterances—that the condition of a large number of the Irish tenants was a condition of large indebtedness amounting almost to bankruptcy. His charge against this Bill was that the people for whose benefit the Compensation for Disturbance Bill was brought in last year were left utterly, entirely, and completely unprotected by this Bill. Do not let there be again any of the miserable excuses which the Government gave for their conduct on the Bill of last year. It was their statement that unless they carried that Bill the task of governing Ireland would be difficult, and well-nigh impossible. A large portion of the tenants were threatened with eviction, which, as the Prime Minister had said, came very near to a sentence of starvation. Those amounted to nearly 15,000 in number; and because of the rebuff of another Assembly which they were now trying alternately to bully and cajolo—to hold up as a bugbear and a Paradise alternately—the Government left those 15,000 sentences to be carried out, and left the government of the country difficult and well-nigh impossible. And when the Land League took up the work of government which the Government could not fulfil, and gave that protection which the Government could not extend, they were thanked by having their leaders
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    dragged through the mire and the mud. He hoped the lesson of the Compensation for Disturbance Bill would not be lost on the Government; and if, having introduced this Bill, they left the tenants still unprotected, the Irish people would know what to think of the friendliness of the present Government. The tenants were in arrear; and, supposing the Bill passed in its present shape, how did the tenant in arrear stand? The landlord did not find the collection of his rents very easy just now. He would go to the tenant and say "Here is a Bill given by the Liberal Ministry; by the friendly hands of the First Lord of the Treasury, and by the Chief Secretary," whose humanity was now a bye - word in Ireland. Here was a Bill which was approved of by the hon. Member for the County of Cork, a displaced but still adored leader; here was a Bill approved of by several hon. Members who were supposed to be extreme advocates of the tenants' cause. Surely the tenant could not object to a Bill introduced under such beneficent auspices. The landlord would say—"You owe me three years' rent. You have the right of free sale. Here is this magnificent measure; this final, this generous, this gigantic boon to you and all your fellows. Go into Court and get £30. I will take what you owe me, and the shopkeeper whom you owe for meal will try to take his £30." The solicitor would try to take £2 or £3, and how much of the £30 would remain to the tenant, upon whom this Bill was to confer such benefits? The shopkeeper might make a composition, and the landlord might give up his right of precedence; but all that would be left to the tenant might be as much as would take him to the nearest emigration ship, so that he might leave his home. What, then, was the position of the tenant? It was this—his farm gone, his house broken up, and not a penny left in his pocket. And what was the position of the landlord? The old tenant gone, and a new and a better tenant in his stead; or, if he employed the right of pre-emption, he would have the farm back in his own possession without paying anything for it, because the compensation to the tenant for disturbance would be swallowed up by the arrears. The landlord either took the farm back himself, or gave it to a new and better tenant, and the latter had to pay the

    655
    compensation for disturbance which, but for this Bill, the landlord would have had to pay. Further, the landlord got payment of his arrears. This magnificent Bill was a magnificent Bill, the good results of which were all on the side of the landlord, while the bad results were on the side of the tenant. Then, with regard to emigration, the tenant would be at a double disadvantage. There would be the landlord shoving him out through what was called "free sale" at the door, and at the door was the emigration agent—under the emigration clause—with a free pass, bidding him go to that land in the West, where an Irishman had some chance of success. So that there was a double agency for eviction going on. What, therefore, did this part of the Bill mean? It meant, with regard to something like 100,000 or 200,000 tenants, eviction, vast, huge, made easy and profitable to the landlord, and expensive to the tenant. The right hon. Gentleman had spoken of the generous reception which this Bill had received in Ireland. It had received a generous reception; but the generosity had, he thought, rather overcome the prudence and good sense of the people. What made the case in regard to the tenants worse? They were in arrear of rack rent; they were in arrear of rent which was acknowledged by hon. Gentlemen opposite to be an unfair rent. Cases of rack-renting had been given over and over again in the House. In one case the rent was increased at one stroke from £530 to £790 a-year. Professor Baldwin had told them that in the case of one farm on Lord —'s estate, the rent had been increased by 95 per cent in a few years; in 1860 the rent was £6 10 s. 6d., and it was increased, year by year, until in 1869 it was £12 13 s. 2d. Now, what were they going to do with a case like this, which was simply one of monstrous injustice? According to the Bill no one was going to be driven out of his house and home because he could not pay an unjust rent. But mark this, they had carefully made, with the exception of one clause to which he would presently refer, the whole effect of the Bill prospective. Hon. Gentlemen talked of compensation to landlords. He could meet them by the claim of restitution to the tenant. But there was nothing about such restitution. The Bill was almost
    656
    entirely prospective in its operation, because, when the landlord and tenant went to the Court for the purpose of fixing the rent, the rent should be deemed to be rent payable by the tenant from the period of the next succeeding rent day. There was not a word with regard to the past. It was only with regard to the future that the Bill came in, and accordingly the Bill would help the landlords to evict between 100,000 and 200,000 tenants for arrears of rent, the injustice of which the Government themselves admitted. He now wanted to deal with the general facts, and subsection 4 of the famous Clause 7. There were some hon. Friends of his Who were under the delusion that this section was going to make a large and general reduction of rents in Ireland. They wore under that delusion, in spite of the most express admissions from the Treasury Bench, for when the ex-Attorney General for Ireland stated that the effect of the Bill would be to leave rents pretty much as they now stood, up rose the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster to confirm and emphasize that declaration. The right hon. Gentleman said that, in his opinion, in nine cases out of 10, the rent would remain exactly where it was. What was the position he and his hon. Friends took up with regard to the renting of Ireland? It was this—that unless they had a very general and almost wholesale reduction, the tenant farmers of Ireland would be utterly unable to compete with any success, under the changed condition of agriculture with American competition. ["Hear, hear!"] An English Member cheered that observation. Why was that? Because those who represented the agricultural and landed interests had been taught, within the last two or three years, to believe that if the farmers of England were to be able to compete with America they must be required to pay smaller rents; and if lower rents on a large scale be demanded in England, with how much greater force ought they to be demanded in Ireland, where they had no capital but their spade? If any of his hon. Friends were under the impression that this Bill was going to largely reduce rents they could never retain that impression under the words of disillusion which had come from the Treasury Bench. If, intrusted with the interests and hopes of the

    657
    Irish tenants in his constituency; if, raised by no merit of his own to be one of the executive body of their tenant organization, he were to deceive them with the false hope that they would be saved from eviction, that they would get free sale and have their rents largely reduced, what would be his position when they had had experience of the operation of the Bill? He would be very probably regarded as a deceiver of those who had put trust in him. This Bill conferred no new property on the tenant; it conferred no property on the tenant that was not already acknowledged in the Act of 1870. It provided different machinery for the protection of that property it was true, and the new machinery was no better than the old; in fact, it was the old machinery re-furnished, and no tinkering could make the machinery of the Land Act of 1870 good machinery. It conferred no new property on the tenant. It left the question of the tenant's property in the land exactly where it stood in the Land Act of 1870. The average value of the tenant's property in the land was fixed by the Land Courts under the Act of 1870 at £27 5s., and the Irish tenants might now be rejoiced to learn that the present Bill would not increase that value. [An hon. MEMBER: And after a law suit.] Yes, after a law suit; and this magnificent measure, which was to stop agitation, which was to break the reign of Saturn—he thought he had better say Satyr—this Bill, which recognized the property of the tenant in the soil, valued that property at £27 5s. each. But in order to get this recognition of property in the soil a law suit was necessary. He was delighted to hear the Prime Minister emphasize the fact that law was much more offensive and dangerous to the tenant than to the landlord. The Prime Minister well knew that the tenant was poor and the landlord was rich. What did the declaration of the Prime Minister mean? They would find the declaration would be repeated on many Land League platforms within the next two or three years, because it meant that the tenant, being poor, had been simply impotent against the landlord, and it was only by combination that his poverty could be put upon an equality with the richness of the landlord. He should take care, when he went to any Land League
    658
    meetings, to emphasize that advice which he had been giving consistently for the last 12 months. Litigation was made absolutely inevitable. What was the evidence of the Commissions on the question of litigation? It was to the effect that a large number of the tenants of Ireland dreaded going to law. It was said the Irish were litigious. His hon. Friend the senior Member for the City of Waterford (Mr. R. Power) told him that in Ireland it was unusual even for tenants to go through the legal process of making a will. The man would get a Poor Law Guardian to draw up his will, it was signed or not, and the whole thing went on by a quiet understanding. He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) could say that to the ordinary Irish peasant nothing was more appalling or abhorrent to his imagination than the prospect of litigation; and he boldly asserted that many of the tenants went without, over and over again, compensation for improvement and for disturbance rather than face the uncertain risk of a suit at law before a landlord Judge. He had incidentally alluded to the question of emigration, and had endeavoured to show the House that emigration was a powerful ally of eviction. He wanted to show that emigration was the deadly enemy of migration. There was plenty of work for every Irishman on Irish land, and Ireland was quite able to support a much greater population than she had at present. What did emigration mean? What was meant by a family leaving Connaught for the United States? It meant, from the very lowest point of view, the exportation of the wealth-producing machine. Why was America anxious to get the Irish emigrant, and why was Canada willing to pay his passage? Because they knew that farmers who were brought from Ireland and put there would produce not only his own food, but would also very largely increase the general wealth of the community. Every emigrant who was shipped to America was lost to Ireland. Too many had left already, for there was plenty of land in Ireland on which to employ them. Until the population was congested there was no need to send Irishmen to America or Manitoba. Let them be sent on the 2,000,000 acres of unreclaimed land, and in a few years' time the present waste land of Ireland would be amongst the most productive

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    land in the country. They wanted to break up the grazing farms in Ireland. The lands which now formed grazing farms were lands held from the people. Let the Government give their Commission, as they had the right, power to expropriate these lands at a fair price, and relegate them to the surplus population in Connaught and other agricultural districts. But what was his great objection to emigration? If they were to put emigration in the one, and migration in the other scale, which would overbalance the other? Migration was a difficult process, emigration was an easy process; migration required care, emigration meant that they had only to give the emigrant a ticket and he was disposed of. The temptation to the authorities to get rid of disturbance in Ireland by the short, and summary, and easy process of sending people out of the country was overwhelming. It was evident that the emigration clauses must be struck out of the Bill. They must ask the Government to give their Commission larger powers than it had at present; they must ask the Government to make their plans of migration more definite and better. He did not think they would have much difficulty in getting leaseholders included in the Bill; and they ought to ask the Government to deal at once with the position of the agricultural labourer. They were tired of agitation in Ireland; they wanted some peace, if the English Parliament would let them have it. They did not want any mere tempestuous agitation in order to educate the mind of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and accordingly they asked that the Bill should deal at once in a large and generous spirit with the agricultural labourer. These being his views with regard to the Bill, he would be actually stultifying himself if he voted for the second. reading. He did not want to say anything unpleasant; but, between the Amendment of the noble Lord the Member for Haddingtonshire (Lord Elcho) and the Amendment of the ex-Postmaster General (Lord John Manners), it was evident confusion and obstruction were in the Conservative camp. The principles of the Bill were principles which no one seriously contested at this time of day. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Bright) had said of the House of Lords—"If you do
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    not pass this Bill, worse will come." They were accused of embarrassing the Ministry; of damning the Bill in the eyes of "another place;" but when the Prime Minister requested them to do nothing to imperil the measure in
    "another place," he would reply to him that that which did most harm to the Bill came from himself and the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. The Prime Minister had said that if the present Ministry were put out of Office, and they were succeeded by a Conservative Ministry, they would have not a small but a large Land Bill. Well, he (Mr. O'Connor) was not a Conservative; he bore no love to the Conservative Party, but, on the contrary, looked on the principles of its opponents—the Liberal Party—as those of progress and humanity. He should regard the accession of a Conservative Ministry as a great misfortune for England and the world generally; but he came there not as an English Member, not as a Member for the Universe, but as an Irish Representative, and it was his duty, his desire, and his intention to watch most carefully the interests of his constituents. There were other people to take care of the interests of England and of humanity. When, therefore, they were told by the Prime Minister that if they could only get him out of his place, and secure the appointment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote) in his stead, they would get a better land measure for Ireland, there was a considerable thaw in his principles, and he felt very much inclined to do what he could to assist the Conservatives to power rather than to lend his effort to maintain the Liberals in Office. The Irish people came not here as mendicants asking for the smallest concession, but they came asking Parliament to give its sanction to the conquest that they themselves had gained. without Parliament, and in spite of Parliament. What was his duty as a Representative of what were called the extreme views of the Irish tenantry? It was not Ids conception of his duty to speak the soft sawder of the hon. Member for Cork and of the hon. Gentlemen who went with him. They stood face to face with this grim reality, that either the landlords or the tenants must go down. Neither could survive the struggle. [Loud laughter.] He claimed his right

    661
    to occasionally vindicate his nationality by making a blunder of that kind; but what he had intended to say was, that both could not survive the struggle. He was an advocate of the eviction of landlords. He agreed with the Secretary of State for India (the Marquess of Hartington) that the eviction of the landlords was the final solution of this question, and he was not going to vote for a Bill which impeded rather than accelerated the final solution as to which he and the noble Lord agreed. He should be making bankrupt the hopes of the Irish tenants, playing false to their interests and betraying their trust, if he told them that this Bill gave them a victory for which victory they had still to fight, and he was more afraid of deceiving them than of offending the present Ministry. He would be no party to bringing them into the Fools' Paradise, where hopes would be excited only to be bitterly disappointed by-and-bye.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now
    adjourned."—(Mr. Chaplin.)
    Motion agreed to.
    Debate further adjourned till Thursday.

    LOCAL COURTS OF BANKRUPTCY (IRELAND) BILL [Lords.]— [BILL 164.]
    (Mr Attorney General for Ireland.)
    SECOND READING.
    Order for Second Reading read.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Attorney General for Ireland.)
    MAJOR NOLANsaid, this Bill was down for second reading for the first time; and, under the circumstances, he believed it was competent for him to block it. He did not wish to block it for himself, but on behalf of the hon. Member for Louth; and he should not continue to do it when the hon. Member, who was at present absent, returned to London. The hon. Member had telegraphed to him requesting him to block the Bill.
    MR. P. MARTINsaid there were three or four Notices to block the measure.
    MR. GORSTwas sorry it was the desire of some hon. Members to discuss the measure, but hoped they would not
    662
    persevere in pressing it on. The Bill was only printed on Saturday and delivered this morning, therefore there had been hardly any time to consider it. The matter, altogether, was one of little moment, and should not be brought on for discussion at that hour of the morning—1.30 A. M.—therefore he would formally move the adjournment of the debate, which would enable the Attorney General for Ireland to speak now without interfering with his right to address the House on the second reading.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Mr. Gorst.)
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)said, the measure was identical in terms with the Bill which had already been before the House five times, therefore he thought it was unreasonable to stop its progress on the ground that it was too late an hour to discuss it. If this were the first time the Bill had been submitted to the House, he would not have objected to the course taken by hon. Members; but such was not the case. The subject was introduced by Lord Cairns when he brought in the Irish Judicature Act of 1876; and the noble and learned Lord, drawing a contrast between the Bankruptcy Law of England and Ireland, pointed out that there was a Bankruptcy jurisdiction in every County Court of England, whilst there was only one Bankruptcy Court in Ireland, and said that it was desirable that Bankruptcy Courts should be established in some of the principal centres of industry in Ireland. He thought it desirable that a measure should be passed as soon as possible, and in 1878 the Irish Attorney General brought in a Bill—
    MAJOR NOLAN: I rise to Order. I wish, Mr. Speaker, to have your decision on this point. The first time a Bill is put down for second reading, is it not competent for an hon. Member to block it?
    MR. SPEAKER: This is an Order of the Day; there is no Notice of Opposition on the Paper, therefore the right hon. and learned Gentleman can go on.
    MAJOR NOLAN: It is the first time the Bill has appeared on the Paper.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)said, the measure was first of all brought in in 1878, again

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    in 1879, next in the first Session of 1880, a fourth time in the second Session of 1880, and now, for a fifth time, it was brought in this Session; whilst the measure had been four times passed by the House of Lords, being approved of by the late and present Lord Chancellors of Great Britain, as well as by the present Lord Chancellor of Ireland. A number of hon. Members representing the commercial centres of Ireland had been anxious to see the measure pressed forward last Session; but there had been the same kind of opposition to it then as there seemed to be now, and at the close of the Session the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant withdrew it, as he (the Attorney General for Ireland) believed, on the understanding that it would be brought in again this Session, read a second time, and referred to a Select Committee. The large Provincial towns of Ireland wished the measure to be passed, and he thought the House was inclined to favour it; and the Government were prepared, directly the present stage was passed, to send it to a Select Committee, as arranged last year. He hoped the House would not yield to the opposition sought to be raised by a few lawyers, who resisted the measure merely on professional grounds.
    Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
    Original Question again proposed.
    Mr. P. MARTIN, so far as he personally was concerned, desired to deny that this proposed measure was opposed on professional grounds. He objected to the measure because he believed it wholly overlooked the interests of small traders and farmers in all other places in Ireland except the centres named in the Bill. Th Bankruptcy Code in Ireland was in a very confused and unsatisfactory state. A most desirable opportunity now presented itself for the permanent reform of the system in Ireland in the Bankruptcy Bill for England before the House. They ought not to have one Bankruptcy Law for England and another for Ireland; but there should be one complete and perfect Code for the two countries. He (Mr. P. Martin) said that everyone should know that one of the great disadvantages of the Irish law at this moment was that, in point of fact, by the Bankruptcy Amendment Act passed in 1872, the local jurisdiction theretofore vested in the Chairmen
    664
    of the several counties in insolvency matters was taken away, so that small creditors in the different Provincial towns of Ireland were deprived of the means of recovering debts under jurisdiction analogous to the Law of Bankruptcy. In England there were Provincial Bankruptcy Courts, and he thought that the Attorney General would do well to introduce a Bill which would facilitate the recovery of debts and arrangements with creditors in the several counties in Ireland by conferring on the present County Court Judges a jurisdiction limited in amount and extent. This Bill inforced no such principle. The Government sought to perpetuate an old and vicious system, and, in seeking to do that, they would purchase the silence of Belfast by giving it a local Court of Bankruptcy, and in the same way they sought ingeniously to deal with Cork, and to silence its opposition by giving it, also, a Court of Bankruptcy. But the people of the greater part of Ireland were to be deprived of the means of getting their debts, to please, forsooth, the merchants of Belfast and Cork, with whom the right hon. and learned Gentleman, it appeared, had made some sort of arrangement, for the purpose of facilitating the passing of the Bill. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman's own constituents and the Cork merchants would deem it convenient to have a local Court in which to settle their little difficulties, and to aid them in the process of whitewashing; but he hoped the House would not listen to their one-sided appeal. Let the right hon. and learned Gentleman devote a little of the time at his disposal, either to the preparation of a Bill such as he suggested, so as to extend, for the general benefit of Ireland, such of the provisions of the new Bankruptcy Code as were valuable, and to amend the present complex and confusing Acts in force in Ireland. If a Bankruptcy Act was to be passed its benefit ought to be extended all over Ireland. Therefore, he trusted that the House would not allow this Bill to be hurried through that night, and that it would accede to the Motion he now made.
    MR. BIGGARsaid, in rising to second the Motion for the adjournment of the debate, he did not intend to go into the merits or demerits of this particular measure, inasmuch as it had only been delivered to him that morning.

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    Indeed, he had been informed by one hon. Member interested in the question that the Bill had not even then been delivered to him. For that reason alone, he thought they were fully justified in asking for an adjournment, and that no further Progress be made until there had been time sufficient for full consideration of the measure. He found that the Bill proposed to create a number of new offices out of money to be voted by Parliament. That was a question which concerned both English and Irish Members. Then it proposed to give compensation to certain parties in Dublin for any part of their business taken from them by the operation of the Bill. It seemed to him preposterous that large monetary engagements should be entered into at half-past 1 or 2 o'clock in the morning, without the slightest explanation whatever being afforded by the right hon. and learned Gentleman who moved the second reading of the Bill. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had pointed out that similar Bills had been introduced in former Sessions of Parliament; but he took very great care not to give the least hint to the House with regard to the creation of the new offices which he asked to be created under the Bill. It appeared to him a very curious thing that the House should be asked, as a mere matter of form, to commit itself and the country to a very large expense. He, therefore, cordially seconded the Motion for adjournment.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Mr. Patrick Martin.)
    MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, that certain representatives of large trading interests in Dublin had waited upon his right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General for Ireland and himself with reference to this subject. They had pointed out that there were no Bankruptcy Courts in the large towns in Ireland, and that all Bankruptcy business had to be transacted at great inconvenience and expense in Dublin. A stronger case, in his opinion, could not have been made out. The hon. and learned Member for Kilkenny (Mr. P. Martin) had also pointed out that other towns were similarly situated, and it was precisely that argument of the hon. Member that made the Government think that the Bill could be
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    very properly sent to a Select Committee. The hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) said that very little notice had been given of the Bill. But he ventured to say there was no Gentleman in the House interested in the question who did not know the Bill by heart. The hon. and learned Member for Kildare (Mr. Meldon) had opposed the Bill rather strongly last year, but seemed to welcome the idea that it would be considered by a Select Committee. The Government were sometimes taunted with not considering Irish interests; but it seemed to him they could not show their wish to do so better than by saying—"Here is a Bill which has been brought forward year after year, it is very influentially supported in Ireland, and all we ask is that it should be placed in a position that will enable it to be fairly considered by a Select Committee representing the different interests concerned." He did not see how any proposal to remedy what had been alleged to be a grievance in Ireland could be more fairly made; and he trusted that hon. Members opposite would allow that consideration to weigh with them.
    MR. HEALYthought the proposition of the Government a very reasonable one. He had not given the Government a vote since he had been a Member of the House; but, with mixed feelings of pain and pleasure, he should do so on the present occasion.
    MR. R. POWERsaid, he rose to oppose the Bill because it did not apply to Waterford. He was at a loss to understand why Londonderry, Galway, and Limerick should be included and Waterford omitted from the Bill. The latter had quite as much claim to be inserted as the other places; and he objected to its exclusion in favour of Londonderry, amongst other reasons, on account of the Representatives which Londonderry returned to the House. But he objected to the Bill on higher grounds. It really meant the establishment of unequal laws. The Government proposed to bring in one Bill for England and another for Ireland. Both were entirely different in their character, and the result of this legislation would be that a few years hence there would be agitation amongst the people of Ireland, and Irish Members would come to that House and ask for equalization of

    667
    the laws. If Her Majesty's Government proposed to establish Bankruptcy Courts in Londonderry, Galway, and Dublin, why, he asked, did they not also propose to place them in every large town in Ireland? But he was quite prepared to admit that a Bankruptcy Bill was most necessary in Ireland at the present time. The opposition which the Bill had met with from lawyers was certainly a very significant fact. For his own part, he looked with a certain amount of suspicion upon any Bill that was entirely opposed by lawyers, and especially by Dublin lawyers. The present Bill would, of course, put into the hands of the lawyers in the towns named therein the practice and fees of the lawyers who resided in Dublin. The opposition of the latter was, therefore, perfectly intelligible to him. He had already stated his reason for opposing the second reading of the Bill; but he trusted that Her Majesty's Government would render further opposition unnecessary by including Waterford in its provisions.
    MR. T. D. SULLIVANsaid, he rose simply for the purpose of supporting the second reading of the Bill.
    Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 9; Noes 57: Majority 48.—(Div. List, No. 203.)
    Original Question put, and agreed to.
    Bill read a second time.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be committed to a Select Committee."—(Mr. Attorney General for Ireland.)
    MR. P MARTINbegged to oppose that Motion on the ground that no Notice had been given.
    MR. SPEAKER: I must point out to the hon. and learned Member that no Notice is necessary in the case of a Motion of this kind.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Bill committed to a Select Committee.

  PETTY SESSIONS CLERKS (IRELAND) BILL.— [BILL 41.]
  (Mr. Litton, Hr. James Richardson.)
  PETTY SESSIONS CLERKS (IRELAND) BILL.— [BILL 41.]

    COMMITTEE.
    Bill considered in Committee.
    (In the Committee.)
    MR. BIGGARpointed out that the Amendments upon the Paper to this Bill
    668
    were of a very important character, and required examination at the hands of hon. Members, especially those who represented Irish constituencies. Among other things, he observed that the Bill raised the question of pensions, which the Petty Sessions Clerks were to receive. That was a matter which deserved full consideration, and it was utterly impossible to deal with it in a satisfactory manner at that hour—2.5 A.M. He trusted that hon. Members in charge of the Bill would not persist in proceeding further in Committee that night.
    Motion made and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. Biggar.)
    MR. LITTONsaid, he should be the last person to ask the House to proceed with the Bill before hon. Members had fully considered its provisions; but the Amendments on the Paper were of a formal nature, and these, he thought, might very well be taken. When the Superannuation Clause, to which the hon. Member for Cavan objected, was reached, if the House thought proper, and the hon. Member deemed it right to renew his objection to the clause, he (Mr. Litton) would not object to report Progress.
    MAJOR NOLANthought the present a favourable opportunity for passing the Bill. There were so few chances of getting Irish Bills into Committee that he trusted the hon. Member for Cavan would withdraw his Motion.
    MR. BIGGARwas willing, after the appeal of the hon. and gallant Member for Galway, to agree to the formal Amendments being taken. He should feel it his duty, however, to renew his Motion to report Progress when the Superannuation Clause was reached.
    MR. R. POWERasked what had become of the Amendments which had stood in the name of the hon. and learned Member for Kildare (Mr. Meldon)?
    MR. LITTONsaid, they had been included in the Amendments which he was about to move by arrangement with the hon. and learned Member.
    Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
    Clause I (Salaries of clerks of petty sessions in Ireland not to depend on amount of fines or petty sessions stamps), agreed to.
    Clause 2 (Provisions for securing Petty Sessions Clerks Fund from variation).
    On the Motion of Mr. LITTON, Amendment made, in page 1, line 20, after
    "salaries," by inserting "and retiring allowances."
    MR. HEALYthought the hon. and learned Member for Tyrone should give the Committee an explanation as to why the Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for Armagh (Mr. De La Poer Beresford) had not been moved.
    MR. LITTONsaid, the Amendment in question had been put down to meet certain objections which had been raised by some of the Town Commissioners in Ireland. The hon. Member was now satisfied that the Definition Clause with regard to "local authorities" rendered it unnecessary for him to propose his Amendment.
    Clause, as amended, agreed to.
    On the Motion of Mr. LITTON, the following Clauses were added to the
    Bill:—
    "It shall not be necessary for a Petty Sessions Clerk to enter into a new bond with sureties on each occasion of increase in his salary, nor, except when by reason of the death or insolvency of his sureties or for other sufficient reason the Lord Lieutenant may consider such to be necessary, shall a new bond be required, but the original bond as against the original sureties shall remain of full force and effect notwithstanding such increase of salary.
    (Definition Clause.)
    "'Local authorities' shall mean the treasurers of counties and treasurers of boroughs to whom the surplus moneys arising from the sale of licences are payable under 'The Dogs Regulation (Ireland) Act, 1865,' and any Act amending the same.
    "'Petty sessions clerks' shall include the registrar of petty sessions clerks and his clerks."
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. Litton.)
    Motion agreed to.
    Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Wednesday.

    WAYS AND MEANS.
    Resolutions [May 13] reported, and. agreed to.
    Instruction to the Committee on the Customs and Inland Revenue Bill, that they have power to make provision therein, pursuant to the said Resolutions.

MOTION.
  CHURCH PATRONAGE (No. 2) BILL.

    MOTION FOR LEAVE.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Laws relating to patronage, simony, and exchange of Benefices in the Church of England."—(Mr. E. Stanhope.)
    SIR WILFRID LAWSONasked the hon. Gentleman opposite to explain the nature of this Bill.
    MR. E. STANHOPEpointed out that the proposed Bill contained exactly those proposals which the Prime Minister had said would meet with the support of the Government. The other portions of the former Bill would stand over for further consideration. As soon as leave was given to introduce the Bill, he should move that the former Order be discharged.
    MR. ILLINGWORTHrose to Order. He wished to know whether it was competent for an hon. Member, having already one Bill before the House, to introduce another upon the same subject before the original Order was discharged?
    MR. SPEAKER: The procedure of the hon. Member is quite regular.
    MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, he had given his hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Illingworth) his assistance on a previous occasion in dividing against the former Bill. He hardly knew what course his hon. Friend was about to pursue; but if he intended to persist in obstructive action, as formerly, he should give him his cordial support.
    MR. DILLWYNasked whether the Motion should not have been brought before the Committee of the Whole House?
    MR. SPEAKER: I see no ground for that course being taken.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Mr. Tillett.)
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)said, he thought the course proposed was somewhat discourteous to the hon. Gentleman opposite, who was simply asking leave to introduce a Bill which the Prime Minister had intimated would receive the support of the Government.
    SIR WILFRID LAWSONthought the other Bill should be withdrawn before leave was given, otherwise there would be two Bills running at the same time.
    MR. E. STANHOPEsaid, it was quite impossible for him to accede to this suggestion. The moment he received permission to bring in the second Bill he should withdraw the first. He was much indebted to his hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General for the manner in which he had urged the House to agree to his Motion. One of the chief objections raised to the first Bill was that hon. Members opposite were in ignorance as to the clauses which would be proceeded with. They then considered that a new Bill should be introduced, and now opposed him in carrying out their own suggestion.
    Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members not being present,
    House adjourned at a quarter after Two o'clock.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—Second Reading—Inclosure Provisional Orders (Scotton and Ferry Common)* (64); Regulation Provisional Order (Langbar Moor)* (63); Regulation Provisional Order (Beamsley Moor)* (62); Metropolitan Commons Supplemental * (65); Inclosure Provisional Order (Wibsey Slack and Low Moor Commons) * (71).
FRANCE AND TUNIS—THE TREATY.

  QUESTION.
  EARL DE LA WARRasked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether any information could be given with regard to the nature of the Treaty or Convention which was reported to have been signed by the Bey of Tunis? From accounts which had been received, it appeared that the French General with a large escort, and supported by a strong force in the immediate vicinity of the City of Tunis, demanded an audience of the Bey, who was at length, under great pressure, induced to sign a Treaty virtually placing the Regency of Tunis under a French Protectorate.
  EARL GRANVILLE: The Treaty which has been signed appears in some of the newspapers; but it will be only officially communicated to us at the, time when it is communicated to the French Chambers. After it has been so communicated it wilt be included in the Papers which will be laid on the Table of your Lordships' House.

  RUSSIA—PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS.
  THE EARL OF ROSEBERY: I beg to ask the noble Earl the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs a Question of which I have given him private Notice. I wish to know, Whether he has received any information from Her Majesty's Consul at Odessa or elsewhere with regard to the alleged persecutions, and even massacres, that have been perpetrated on the Jewish population in Southern Russia?
  EARL GRANVILLE: I have received no information from Odessa; but I received this morning a despatch from the Chargéd'Affaires at St. Petersburg to the following effect:—
  "Serious riots, accompanied with acts of great violence against the Jews, have lately occurred at Elizabethgrad and Kieff; and The Official Gazette of to-day states that General Drenteln telegraphs from the latter place that order has now been re-established, but that disturbances against the Jews have broken out at the stations of Tartovo, Imerinki, and in the town of Vassilkoff, and that troops have been despatched to the above places. Riots of a similar nature, not possessing, however, a dangerous character, have, it is stated, occurred in the districts of Konatop and Ananieff.—I have the honour to be, with the highest respect, your Lordship's most obedient servant,
  (Signed) "HUGH WYNDHAM."

PUBLIC HEALTH—IMPORTATION OF AMERICAN HAMS AND BUTTERINE.

  QUESTION. OBSERVATIONS.
  LORD STANLEY OF ALDERLEYrose to ask Her Majesty's Government, Whether they will prohibit the importation of American hams of which a large proportion are infested with trichinæ and bacilli, also of such oleo-margarine or butterine as contains the grease of pigs suffering from the new disease of swine at Chicago, and the fat of horses infected with disease, or such as is adulterated with soapstone? The noble Lord said this question had attracted the attention of the Government some time ago. They had made inquiries of their Inspectors on the subject, and on the 8th of March Mr. Dodson said he believed no case of trichinosis had occurred in this country, and that there was no cause for alarm on that score. He had directed a Circular to be issued to the several sanitary authorities as to precautions in cooking hams and pork. Yet the Local Government Board's ninth Annual Report for 1879–80 contained a medical Report on
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  an epidemic on board the Cornwall school-ship, which was proved to be caused by trichinosis, by Mr. Power having exhumed a boy who had died of it, named Richard Pierce, and discovered that his body was full of trichinæ, and one still living, wandering trichina. A case of trichinosis which occurred at Kansas was thus described by the British Consul—
  "In this case the victim was a farmer. He had been ill for some time, and became much reduced in flesh. Upon consulting a physician trichinæ were found; worms were in his flesh by the million, being scraped and squeezed from the pores of his skin. They are felt creeping through his flesh, and are literally eating up his substance. The disease is thought to have been contracted by eating sausages."
  The Consul reports that two persons recently died of this disease at Milwaukee and one at Chicago, and at that city several people were ill with it. From the answers given on behalf of the Government in "another place" it would appear that they were not sufficiently alive to the dangers incurred from American hams, which were frequently infested by trichinæ and bacilli. Trichinosis was frequently fatal; and the Local Board appeared, as late as the 8th of March last, to be still under the impression that these parasites could be rendered harmless by boiling the meat which contained them. A medical man, however, published the result of his experiments in The Irish Times, and stated that when boiling hams he had not obtained a higher temperature than 45 degrees inside the meat near the bone, which was much too low to kill the trichinæ. Professor Vacher, of Paris, said that the idea that ordinary cooking destroyed trichinæ was quite illusory, and that opinion was based on his experiments. He was told that this low temperature was owing to the salt in the hams. The Local Government Board also appeared to rely upon microscopic examination of hams and pork by the sanitary authorities; but it was not every person that was capable of using the microscope effectively, and the number of hams imported from America was too great for any reliance to be placed upon microscopic examination as a complete protection against the introduction of trichinosis. That was the reason why the French Government decided on prohibiting the importation of American hams by a decree dated February 18,

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  and in doing so it followed the example of Germany, Italy, Austria, Spain, Portugal, and Greece, which had already taken that step. He was informed at the Office of Commerce and Agriculture at Paris that 30 per cent of the hams examined microscopically were infested with trichinæ. Even though the attention of the French medical men was directed to an exceptionally bad consignment, yet a much smaller proportion might cause a great mortality. Trichinæ appeared to have been first heard of about the year 1835; but last year another parasite made its appearance in American hams. Seven of these were eaten by many people at a sale at Welbeck; cases of illness of as many as 72 persons were recorded, besides others that were attacked; four deaths subsequently became the subject of official investigation, and he had heard of two other deaths on the same occasion from the same cause not included in the official Report. The Report by Dr. Ballard, founded on microscopic examinations by Dr. Klein, who was a great authority in such matters, established that these parasites or organisms, to which they had given the name of bacilli, were capable of reproduction, either artificially or by being swallowed or innoculated; and their reproduction and the diseases caused by them in several organs of the body was very rapid. That was proved by experiments on various kinds of animals. All the hams that caused sickness and death to 72 known persons at Welbeck were cooked. The Government could not, therefore, continue to rely upon boiling as a safeguard, and the Circular to the medical officers which was to have been issued in March last with recommendations as to cooking, would be of no avail to prevent disease, and could only serve to obtain for the Local Government Board undeserved credit for good intentions and vigilance. Nothing short of prohibition could keep out the infected hams or secure greater care on the part of those engaged in this trade in America to exclude diseased swine. At Chicago 1,700,000 pigs were killed annually at a large establishment, and as the greatest activity in that trade was from November to May about 12,000 pigs were killed in a day at that modern Gennesareth. M. Molinari, the French agriculturist, had visited and described the establishment and the rapidity with
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  which the pigs were killed. And in dealing with such large numbers it was impossible to expect sufficient care to have been taken to exclude the unhealthy. There was, however, another danger in American meats and butters, perhaps worse than those of trichinosis. All these products were mixed with some chemical solution of an antiseptic nature, such as salicylic acid, chloride of lime, bisulphate of lime, potash, borax, creosote, pyroligneous acid, carbolic acid, sulphuric acid. All these solutions were injurious to and undermined the constitution; and if an excessive quantity were present in a portion of the meat, these drugs might have a fatal effect. With regard to the butterine or oleo-margarine, there were two questions, that of fraud with regard to wholesome oleo-margarine which was sold as butter, and that of the inferior and unwholesome qualities of butterine. It appeared from the Correspondence lately presented to Parliament that a very large quantity of oleo-margarine was imported and sold in this country as butter, and at a price far in excess of its value or the cost of producing it, the difference of the price of cost and sale having been stated to be as much as 5d. and 1s. a pound. An attempt had been made by the American trade to obtain real Cork firkins in order to pass off these compounds as Cork butter. But besides the butterine made under Mège's patent in a few well-known factories, there was a great number of compounds made in imitation of oleo-margarine, of pig's fat and the fat of diseased horses. Some persons in the United States had been very angry with some of the foreign Consuls for having attributed to mortality among the swine at Chicago to trichinosis, when it was really only a kind of cholera, or a disease to which they had given that name; but whatever the disease, the prevalence of it should be a reason, if not for prohibition of the butterine called suine, at least for its being not allowed to enter this country except under its true name. Mr. Arthur Arnold, M.P. for Salford, had shown that much of the butterine sold in Manchester was unfit for food; but that, owing to the omission of the word "butter" in the Public Health Act of 1875, the health officers could not interfere with it. The majority against the Resolution of Sir Herbert Maxwell was only 16. American industry had

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  reached a lower depth of adulteration, and soapstone powder was largely used to increase the bulk of flour and butterine. Everyone knew, from the label on Dinneford's fluid magnesia, that magnesia might cause obstructions; and he had a good medical opinion that soapstone powder was still more likely to cause obstructions. The right hon. Member for Birmingham (Mr. Chamberlain) said he had a medical opinion in favour of the wholesomeness of soapstone—he was, probably, the only man who would rely upon it.
  THE MARQUESS OF HUNTLYsaid, he could assure the noble Lord that the matters referred to had received, and were still receiving, the careful attention of the Government. It was extremely doubtful whether there was any power to prohibit the importation of any of the articles referred to in the Question. The point turned upon Sections 42 and 43 of the Customs Laws Consolidation Act, 1856. The first prohibited the importation of the carcases of any infected animals which the Privy Council might by order prohibit, in order to prevent the dissemination of any contagious distemper. This, however, appeared to be limited to the prevention of diseases among animals, and not to extend diseases among human beings. The second provided that the importation of arms, ammunition, gunpowder, or any other goods might be prohibited by Proclamation or Order in Council. The expression "or any other goods" would probably be construed to refer to goods of the kind enumerated—namely, munitions of war. There was no well-established case of American hams imported into this country being infected with trichinæ, and the only instance in which bacilli had been discovered was the well known Welbeck case. The Local Government Board some time since issued a Circular to all the sanitary authorities in the country, pointing out the precautions to be adopted in cooking pigs' flesh, and impressing upon them the necessity of seeing that their officers used special vigilance in inspecting meat of the description referred to, and dealing promptly with such as appeared to be diseased. There was no reason to suppose that this advice had not been acted upon. As regarded oleo-margarine or butterine imported from America, there was nothing to show that it contained
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  the grease of pigs suffering from the new disease of swine in Chicago, or the fat of infected horses. There was no evidence of any injury from oleomargarine or butterine which had been imported from America; and with respect to such as was adulterated with soapstone, there was no reason to believe that it was injurious to health at all. Of course, if it were sold as butter, an offence was committed against the Sale of Food and Drugs Act, which could be dealt with under that Act. Moreover, assuming it to be injurious to health, Section 3 of that Act would apply, which provided that if any person sold an article that was injurious to health he should be liable first to a penalty of £20, and then to imprisonment for misdemeanour. Even if there were prohibition, the examination, &c. of butterine at the Custom House could scarcely be carried out, looking to its perishable character; and to insist upon such an examination would be, in effect, to prohibit the introduction of foreign butter altogether. Having regard to these circumstances, it did not appear that the Government was in a position to prohibit the importation of these hams and the other things mentioned in the Question.

ARMY ORGANIZATION—TERRITORIAL TITLES OF REGIMENTS.

  MOTION FOR AN ADDRESS.
  THE EARL OF GALLOWAYrose to move—
  "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that Her Majesty will be graciously pleased to cause a re-consideration of the proposal to efface the present numerical and other distinctions in regiments of the line and Militia by the substitution of novel (so-called) 'territorial' titles, inasmuch as this proposed substitution is known to be viewed as subversive of esprit de corps, and is in consequence most distasteful to the officers, non-commissioned officers, and privates generally, whilst it has not the advantage of increasing the Army by a single additional trained or untrained soldier; the proposed re-organization being moreover practically but a fuller development of the present twin (or linked) battalion system which the Report of Lord Airey's Committee has already proved to have been attended with the most disastrous results."
  The noble Earl said he gave Notice of this Motion so long ago as the 7th of April; he did it on his own responsibility, and there was nothing in it of a

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  Party nature. In 1875 and 1879, during the reign of a Conservative Government, he had brought forward Motions on military matters in a similar manner, solely in the interests of the Army and of the country. Four days after he gave Notice of the present Motion, there appeared in the newspapers an epitome of the General Order of the War Office to carry out the scheme of Army Re-organization, embracing the establishment of the territorial system. He had found among several friends of his own extraordinary ignorance as to the meaning of these territorial arrangements; and he should, therefore, venture to give some explanation of the matter. It was 10 years since Lord Cardwell, as Secretary of State, started the scheme of pairs of battalions, whether double or linked. The basis of the scheme was that there should be one battalion at home to be the feeder of its twin battalion abroad, and this arrangement had continued down to the present time. At the same time, it had been thought desirable to establish a local connection between the Militia regiments in the district in which these pairs of battalions of Regulars were supposed to be localized; two Militia battalions were affiliated to two battalions of the Line, making the third and fourth battalions of the brigade, or, as it was now to be termed, the "territorial" regiment. That change was simply nominal, except in regard to the change of uniform and the change of title. As the General Order came out on the 11th of April, it might be thought that his Motion was a day after the fair, but that was not a fair way of looking at it; indeed, he regretted that it would he a part of his duty that night to show that the Secretary of State for War was open to the charge of unfair dealing in the matter—first of all on account of the way in which he had treated the Report of the Committee presided over by the noble and gallant Lord on his right (Lord Airey); and, secondly, in having stated that this proposed re-organization was simply what was proposed by his Predecessor in Office. To appreciate the position in which the question stood, it was necessary to trace it chronologically from its origin; and this could be done most conveniently by giving an epitome of the evidence of Mr. R. A. Knox, Estimate Clerk at the War Office, before
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  the Militia Committee presided over by the late Secretary of State for War, at the time of his holding the Office of Financial Secretary. The Committee was specially appointed to inquire into "certain questions that had arisen with respect to the Militia and the present brigade depôt system in connection with it;" and it was important to bear this fact in mind, on account of Mr. Childers now attributing the initiation of the proposed system of "territorial" regiments to Colonel Stanley, his Predecessor at the War Office. Mr. Knox began by saying that, in March 1869, in introducing the Army Estimates, Mr. Cardwell said he had a strong disposition to favour a system of shorter enlistments. In the end of the same year great pressure had been put upon the Indian Government by the Home Government to reduce public expenditure, and in consequence the Indian Government had offered to send home seven Infantry and four Cavalry regiments. Ultimately, after much discussion at home, it was decided to reduce the number of companies as well as of battalions in India; and the result was that there were to be 50 regiments of Infantry alone in India, instead of 52, and eight companies in each, instead of 10. At the same time, it was determined to withdraw a certain number of battalions from the Colonies, the result being that whereas in 1869, 46 battalions only were at home, in the following year the number at home was increased to 68, and of course there was a corresponding decrease in India and the Colonies. In the same year the short-service system was introduced, with which, however, his Motion had nothing to do. In 1871, Mr. Cardwell explained why he abolished depôt battalions. But this Mr. Knox explained in his evidence was the real commencement of the twin—or double and linked—battalion system, which, he said, was the forerunner, and not the sequitur, of the brigade depôt system; and he continued to describe it thus—
  "In the plan that was proposed to the Indian Government in 1870, to effect the reductions in their military expenditure, the plan of linking the battalions of the Service where the regiments did not consist of two battalions was fully drawn out, and I will just read briefly what the plan was. This was in February, 1870—'The principle attempted to be carried out in the following scheme is (1) that the Infantry shall be composed

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  of regiments, each consisting of two battalions, within which service shall be interchangeable for both officers and men; (2) that the normal distribution of those regiments shall be one battalion at home, and one abroad, which would take their tours of foreign service alternately; (3) [this was one of the advantages pointed out of the scheme, says Mr. Knox] that the cadre of the home battalion be so organized as to admit of a second battalion being detached for service, and yet a strong cadre left at home for depôt purposes. The plan in its perfection can be at once worked in all regiments possessing two battalions, one of which is at home and the other abroad. As regards the other battalions, if it may be assumed that before long the number of battalions serving at home and abroad will be equal, one battalion at home could be permanently attached to a battalion abroad as its reserve and depôt, and to alternate with it in its tour of foreign service.' Mr. Knox adds—'Under this arrangement eight companies of the two-battalion regiments would be on foreign service, and 12 companies on home service.' This was in 1870, before the Memorandum of His Royal Highness or the Report of General Macdougall's Committee. In order to start this two-battalion system, a plan was started in the Short Service Act of 1870, which (he says) 'may be described almost as general service for the enlistment of men.' In 1871 Mr. Cardwell explained why he had abolished depôt battalions (in language, as it seemed to him (Lord Galloway), but too curiously applicable in every detail to his own subsequent invention of brigade depôts) in these words—'That system was costly, it was inefficient, it removed the officers from direct subordination to their commanding officers, and placed them under the commanding officers of the depôt battalions. Now it is proposed to establish training centres for the Regular troops and the Militia upon the local principle.' He then explained a proposal to appoint colonels to command large bodies of from 15,000 to 20,000 men. The permanent staff of Militia and Volunteers were to be utilized by these colonels, who were to be colonels commanding of Militia, when the latter were not out for training. Militia and Regular recruits were to be trained together. Militia recruits to have longer training. Billeting of Militia at this time also was objected to. More Regular battalions at home entailed a necessity for more barracks. It was considered, therefore, a convenience was thus afforded to carry out what was wished, of establishing a more intimate connection between the two Forces; 'and thus,' said Mr. Cardwell, 'follows the principle laid down by Mr. Pitt in 1803, that all the instruction of the Militia Forces should be given by the Army.' So far up to 1871 (inclusive), the principle of short service and localization was determined on—that is, identifying with each locality the recruiting and training of Regular, Reserve, and Auxiliary Forces. In 1872, the mode of carrying it out was explained definitely by Mr. Cardwell, and at the same time the brigade depôt system introduced. The chief points were thus notified—'Association of two battalions of Regulars, and two of Militia; the two battalions of Regulars having 20 companies, giving technical strength of one battalion of eight companies for foreign service, the same for home service, and one battalion
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  of four companies, which you can mak into a third battalion or a depôt.' Mr. Cardwell, in 1872, explained in the House of Commons 'that in consequence of further withdrawals from the Colonies and abroad the number at home was 71, and abroad 70 of the 141 battalions of Infantry of the Line;' adding, 'it is intended that of two Line battalions united in one brigade, one shall always be abroad and one always at home. The two Militia regiments will be associated with them in the same brigade.' He (Mr. Cardwell) continued—'That the permanent staff of the two Militia regiments will be associated with the local depôt, and when present interests cease, the new permanent staff was to be appointed from the battalion which constitutes the depôt. Army Reserve men and Pensioners in each district were to be attached to the depôt centre for payment, training, &c. Infantry Militia battalions to be placed under canvas at their respective depôt centres. Line and Militia recruits were to be sent direct to brigade depôts for their recruit training.' Adding—'The object sought to be attained by this arrangement is that the battalion at home may serve as a feeder for the supply of casualties in the twin battalion of the same district serving abroad.' After further questions and answers, A. 22, page 5, Mr. Knox saysô'The plan which was in the mind of the Secretary of State in 1871–2 did not include brigade depôts at all; it simply included an idea of dividing the country into large sub-districts commanded by a colonel on the Staff to superintend recruiting and inspect the Auxiliary Forces.
  In 1870, estimates provided for 17 colonels
  In 1872, estimates provided for 30 colonels
  In 1873, estimates reduced to 15 colonels
  On page 8, in reply to Questions 66–8, by Sir Garnet Wolseley asking whether the intention had not been to amalgamate eventually the linked regiments, and designate them as one corps, and whether The Army List was not changed with that view in its form, Mr. Knox admitted all this, but said it was found inconvenient for reference, and was therefore changed back again. Thus, up to 1872 (inclusive), had been formulated a system embracing (1) twin battalions; (2) short service enlistment; (3) brigade depôts."
  Short service was not part of to-night's question. The twin battalion, whether double or linked, was the one and same principle—requiring one battalion always abroad, the other always at home. Brigade depôts may be shortly described as the localization principle, to be carried out by a fusion of the training machinery, and, in consequence, destroying the single battalion (whether Regulars or Militia) as "the tactical unit." This was all started in 1873. In two years the Militia found it was suffering from the effects of the new organization, and set up a howl of lamentation which resulted in the appointment of a Committee which reported in November, 1876.

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  Here he wished to point out that Colonel Stanley, then Financial Secretary at the War Office, and Chairman of this Committee, prefaced a question which he put to Mr. Knox by a remark which showed that the whole object of the appointment of the Committee was to inquire into the evils from which the Militia was suffering. He said—"This question of the brigade depôt is only referred to us as far as the Militia is concerned." The two chief points which the Committee of which Colonel Stanley was the Chairman recommended were—first, that the Militia battalion should have returned to it its Adjutant, Quartermaster, and permanent Staff, in order to have it restored as a tactical unit; and, secondly—he was quite prepared to admit this much—that the double or twin battalion system having been established, as far as the Infantry of the Line was concerned, the two Militia battalions of the district should become the third and fourth battalions in direct association with them, thus forming in each district a regiment composed of two battalions of the Line and two of the Militia. But the Committee further said that where both battalions of the Line were abroad at the same time the normal establishment of 100 men at the depôt should be expanded to 600, and that, if necessary, one Militia battalion or more should be embodied. It should also be remembered that that Committee was empowered to report only as to improvements in detail on the system established, not to recommend its reversal. The Report was made in November, 1876; and in 1877 the noble Viscount (Viscount Cranbrook), then Secretary of State for War, acted on tin advice of the Committee as to restoring each Militia battalion as a tactical unit by giving it back its Staff. The recommendation about the "territorial" regiments came to nothing; and it might. therefore, be fairly argued that the proposition could not have found favour with Viscount Cranbrook. In the spring of 1878 Colonel Stanley became Secretary of State for War; but he did not attempt to introduce "territorial" regiments. He wished their Lordships to bear in mind that Mr. Cardwell, when Secretary of State for War, always urged that the sole object of the new system was to insure that the country should always be prepared for war; and this it
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  was most important to bear in mind in arguing the merits of this question, for it was too apt to be lost sight of. This time, in 1878, indeed, was the first opportunity of testing the new system. But what happened? Two years ago there were two small wars on our hands, the Zulu War and the Afghan War; but in both cases there was a universal outcry against the wretched state in which our battalions had to be sent out. There were innumerable Returns called for on the subject; and, as their Lordships must remember, on both sides of both Houses the subject was continually brought forward. He himself, among others, brought the subject under their Lordships' notice; and his special argument was that the breakdown was far more attributable to the twin battalion, with its sequitur the brigade depôt system, than to the short service system. After he had spoken, the Duke of Buccleuch acquiesced in his remarks, upon which Lord Cardwell got up and said he was surprised at the noble Duke's acquiescence, because he was one of those who signed the Report. The noble Duke said it was perfectly true he had signed the Report—
  "But the result of his experience since 1876 had disappointed his expectation that the new system would prove a success."
  Lord Limerick, who also sat on the Committee of 1876, said on the same occasion it was true that he also had signed the Report;" but if the question bad been an open one"—in other words, if they had had to report on the advisability of the system itself—"the result would have been different." The real fact—as told him by Members of the Committee—was that there was so much recommended in the Report that was good that no one liked to decline to sign it. But there was a further fact, which was that though the "territorial" system was recommended by the Committee, anyone who read the evidence would find that Sir Garnet Wolseley was the person who was really anxious for that system. Sir Garnet Wolseley had at that time carried out the Red River Expedition—a bloodless campaign—with great credit to himself; he had afterwards marched to Coomassie through a mass of jungle, in very difficult circumstances, fighting his way up to that city with yet greater credit to himself, having rightly estimated exactly

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  the number of days it would take. He was thus, at this particular moment, at the zenith of his fame, and it was only natural that his opinion at the time should be taken in preference to any other. Anyone who went through the evidence would see that the Report, as regarded the "territorial" system, was his child alone. His reason for dealing fully with that part of the subject was that on the 3rd of March last the Secretary of State for War having at length been induced to promise the production of the Report of the Army Organization Committee on the following morning, had announced that his Predecessor's Committee in 1876 had recommended the complete fusion of the four battalions—two of the Line and two of the Militia—into one territorial regiment; and he was, therefore, now anxious to point out that, although attributed to Colonel Stanley, as Chairman, the scheme was in reality that of Sir Garnet Wolseley. It might be, naturally, further asked why the changes recommended in 1876 had not been carried into effect up to this time, if Colonel Stanley was so anxious to act upon his own supposed recommendation. But too much stress, it must be admitted, should not be laid on his not having adopted it during the time he was Secretary of State for War, for he found on his hands, in 1878 and 1879, the Afghan and Zulu Wars. Shortly after the late Secretary of State for War came into Office there were constant complaints of the Unprepared condition of our Forces; and Colonel Stanley evidently doubted whether the establishment of territorial regiments was likely to prove the true remedy for that unfortunate state of things. He, on the contrary, appointed a Committee, as strong a Committee as could possibly have been chosen, to inquire into the subject. It was worth while to notice the treatment received, not only by that Committee, but also by Parliament, at the hands of the present Government. The Blue Book in which this Report was published contained great quantities of important evidence, and the Report itself displayed the deepest and most copious knowledge of military matters. That Report was received by Colonel Stanley during the last few days of his tenure of Office; then came in March, 1880, the Dissolution of Parliament, and, though Parliament re-assembled in April and sat on into the second week in September,
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  the Report still remained in the hands of the Government, in spite of the constant remonstrances of political friends and foes in Parliament. On November 1 The Times published the first of a series of articles on Army Reform, which bore evident marks of inspiration, and this continued at intervals until the tardy production of the Report early in last March. He did not blame a journal for anxiously endeavouring to be well informed; but it was extraordinary, to say the least of it, that the Report should have been so long withheld from Parliament after it had been practically communicated to The Times, and even after the production of the Report their Lordships had further just reason to complain. Notice was given in that House that attention would be called to the Report by Lord Abinger on the 20th March, scarce a fortnight after its production; but the debate was postponed for a fortnight at the special request of the Duke of Argyll, at that time a Cabinet Minister, as his Grace suggested, "for the convenience of the Government." The discussion was therefore fixed for April 4; but before that day arrived was issued, bearing date the 1st of April, Mr. Childers's re-organization scheme. That was treatment of which both the Committee and the Members of both Houses had a just right to complain. The Secretary of State for War had in some cases accepted the recommendations of the Committee in a modified form. In adverting, however, to the proposal for abolishing the system of linked battalions, the right hon. Gentleman said—
  "I must refer to this part of their Report with some qualification; because, however eminent may have been the gentlemen who constituted the Committee, their opinion on this question was not sought in the official reference to them, On the contrary, they were told 'that there was no intention on the part of the Government to depart from the general principles of re-organization which had been accepted by the country since 1870.'"
  This was not a pleasant way of alluding to what a Committee of distinguished Officers evidently considered to be the most important part of their Report. Mr. Childers went on to remark—
  "I find, however, that at the last moment, when five-sixths of the Evidence had been taken, and when the Committee were on the eve of preparing their Report, a note, in an unofficial form, of which there is no record in the War Office, was received by the Chairman

  527
  of the Committee, saying that they were not 'precluded from touching on' this question. Whatever may have been the authority for this note, I must decline to treat the recommendations of the Committee on this head, in which they were not unanimous, as other than the personal opinions of a body of officers for whom, as individuals, I have the greatest respect"—[3 Hansard, cclix. 195.]
  Within the last three days he had been authorized by his noble and gallant Friend who presided over that Committee to say that on various occasions he went on various points for more direct authority to the Secretary of State for War, and that the right hon. Gentleman's special instructions were, that the Report should be made as wide as possible. It had been alleged that the note was an unofficial one; but his noble and gallant Friend would inform their Lordships that he not only received a verbal sanction from the Secretary of State to go into this question, but that, in order that there might be no mistake, a note was sent to him by the permanent Under Secretary corroborating that sanction. But if further proof be wanted on this subject, reference need only be made to Clause 14 and the following paragraph of the Instructions to the Committee, signed by the Secretary of State for War—
  "Clause 14 (n.) Lastly, as being a matter closely connected with the above considerations, it would be well that the Committee should place on record their opinion whether the present organization of battalions and companies is, on the whole, the best for the purposes required for the English Army, both at home and abroad.
  "The Committee may further report upon any other question that may be raised, during the investigation, in connection with the above references, and they may call for any Papers or Returns which they may deem necessary.
  "War Office,
  "20th June, 1879. (Signed) FRED. STANLEY."
  In regard to the remark of Mr. Childers "that the Committee were not unanimous on this head," he might point out that this could only refer to Sir Patrick M'Dougall, who, having been Chairman of the Localization of Forces Committee, was bound to put a good face on the matter and to support the system of linked battalions. For Sir Patrick was the only dissentient to unlinking; and even he (whose opinions on Army Reorganization the noble Lord quoted at great length) admitted that the system of linked battalions had not worked well, though he excused its shortcomings on the ground that it had been "unfairly
  528
  weighted," making, however, this remarkable admission, that—
  "It is only in time of peace that the number of battalions at home can balance the number abroad;"
  and yet it was acknowledged that it was this basis upon which the system was dependent for expansion in time of war. Their Lordships would see, therefore, that too much importance ought not to be attached to the so-called want of unanimity on the part of Lord Airey's Committee. He must now ask permission to quote several passages from the Report of the Committee in support of his argument. On reference to paragraphs 21, &c., on page 10 of the Report of the Committee, it would be seen that the original scheme—that was, Lord Cardwell's—could never be carried out—namely, "that one battalion should always be at home, and one always abroad," on account of the distribution of battalions from year to year, which would be best shown by quoting the following extracts from the Report of the Committee, of which paragraphs 21, 22, 23, 24, 27, 28, 29, and 30, 31, 32, 34, were thus analyzed—

  BATTALIONS.

  At Home.

  Abroad.

  1872

  70

  71

  1873

  70

  71

  1874

  69

  72

  1875

  70

  71

  1876

  69

  72

  1877

  68½

  72½

  1878

  64

  77

  1879 (Feb.)

  59

  82

  "Defects of scheme as worked are that even in time of peace the demand for men to supply the battalions on foreign service cannot be met from the depôts, and recourse must be had to the linked battalions, which are thus deprived of their best men; the recruits being transferred, after few weeks at depôts, on to home battalions, and then on to others, unsettles their minds, their interest in obtaining good opinion of officers lessened, discipline and regimental esprit de corps both suffer—no knowledge of one another between men and officers must prove fatal.
  "In time of war these defects are intensified, and battalions first for service are rendered inefficient.
  "A call for volunteers from the Reserve may be ineffectual (as proved in June, 1879, when 11 sergeants, 19 corporals, and 1,039 privates only responded at a most favourable opportunity in every way); but in any case the men not immediately available.
  "These defects caused by varying distribution of numbers of battalions decreased in their strength. No source left available whence the men required for war could be supplied but by

  529
  taking volunteers from battalions at home. They in turn when wanted become skeletons."
  He must ask permission further to read, in extenso, paragraphs on page 42—namely, 263, 264, 265, 266 (as well as paragraph 27 in the Summary) on Linked Battalions—
  "We cannot close our Report without referring to a question which, being intimately connected with the present organization, has been pressed upon our consideration in the evidence we have taken, and has a most important bearing on the efficiency of the Army. In the early part of our Report (in 25 and following paragraphs), we pointed out the evils which have arisen from the system in force of linking battalions, by which the battalion at home is practically converted into a depôt for its affiliated battalion abroad, having to furnish drafts for its maintenance to such an extent as to be utterly subversive of efficiency and of that esprit de corps which is essential to the constitution of a good and effective corps for service in the field.
  "(264.) We pointed out that under this system the field for the selection of non-commissioned officers was restricted, and that the efficiency of the battalions first on the roster for foreign service was seriously impaired.
  "(265.) We have expressed our opinion (paragraph 170) that it is essentially necessary that the weak battalions at home should be in a condition to receive the men of the Reserve when called out on emergency, so that they may be got into good working order without delay; but we are of opinion that this cannot be the case so long as the home battalion is the depôt of its affiliated battalion abroad. The evidence, also, as to the conduct of the young battalions employed in the Zulu War has clearly shown that under the existing system there is a deficiency of that solidity which is due to a thorough knowledge of the various members of a corps, including officers, non-commissioned officers, and privates, of each other, and of that feeling of comradeship which is a great motive in causing men to stand by each other with firmness and resolution in the hour of trial.
  "(266.) The result of the evidence we have taken has been to impress strongly upon our minds the absolute necessity of some decided measure being taken to re-establish to the utmost that esprit de corps which formerly bound men of the same regiment together as a family having common interests and such strong ties that the honour and credit of the regiment was dearly cherished. by each individual composing it. This feeling not only tends to efficiency in war, but to promote good discipline and conduct in peace. After much consideration, we have come to the conclusion that it can only be re-established by unlinking the battalions, by which we mean that the officers and men should, as formerly, belong to separate units, and not be transferable from one to the other. We are aware that this measure, according to the scheme for organization we have proposed, will be attended with expense; but so strongly are we impressed with its necessity, that we unhesitatingly recommend it, and are decidedly of opinion that the expenditure
  530
  will be more than compensated if, by this means, a proper feeling of esprit de corps can be restored. This expenditure will be caused by the necessity of maintaining larger depôts, but will be compensated, in great measure, by the considerable additions it will bring to the Reserves, and their more rapid growth. Such brigade depôts as shall not be converted into training depôts should be used for the head-quarters of Militia regiments; for training the recruits of the Militia; as recruiting centres; and as centres for the Reserve men residing in that subdistrict. The establishment of a depôt from each regiment in each district will not be necessary, and the staff of the brigade depôts should be reduced to such an extent as will suffice for the duties which will remain to be performed thereat.
  "(Summary 27.) With a view to prevent the frequent drafting of men from one regiment for service in another, to the cessation of the system by which one regiment serves as a depôt for another, and to the re-establishment of esprit de corps in, and efficiency of, regiments, the present system of linking should be done away with.

  (Signed)

  AIREY (Chairman)

  NAPIER of MAGDALA

  J. L. A. SIMMONS

  P. L. MACDOUGALL Generals.

  J. W. ARMSTRONG

  H. W. NORMAN

  A. ALISON

  W. B. SAUNDERS

  H. HUTTON Colonels.

  T. G. BILGE

  He fearlessly challenged the statements made by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War on this subject. The right hon. Gentleman said that if the large scheme was adopted they should repeal their legislation and undo their policy. That need not be the case, for, practically speaking, they need hardly disturb the existing organization. "They should," said the right hon. Gentleman, "alter the whole system of brigade enlisting." Well, he asked whether it was not easier to enlist men for one particular regiment than for more than one regiment? Again, he said that they would "confuse the right and seniority of every officer appointed within the last eight years." That was simply an effort of the imagination.
  EARL GRANVILLEwished to point out to the noble Earl that it was not usual in that House to read from a written speech.
  THE EARL OF GALLOWAYsaid, that to read a speech was not his habit. He had copied quotations he meant to rely on, thinking that it would be more convenient to read them from the manuscript in his hand than from the Blue

  531
  Book. He had confined his reading to quotations and figures. If the noble Earl looked at the paper he would see that it consisted of memoranda which, legible to him, would be quite useless to anyone else. The subject was one of great importance, and he held that it was the bounden duty of every Member of Parliament who believed that a grave wrong was about to be done to the country to rise in his place and protest against it. The figures he was about to quote were taken from the revised Estimates of the Secretary of State for War, and the result of the detailed statement was that 68 depôts would have establishments for the training of about 3,530 officers, non-commissioned officers, and men. The total cost of the 68 brigade depôts, without including recruits, would be £184,167 without rations, or, including rations, £250,000. By the scheme proposed by his noble and gallant Friend the Chairman of the Committee, the cost would be under £150,000. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War said that by his scheme the first 12 regiments for foreign service would have 950 men, and 150 each for their depôt, or 1,100 men. But under the larger scheme the number of men would be the same—they would keep 300 for furnishing the battalion abroad, and have 800 in the other battalion, whether linked or separate. The right hon. Gentleman said, with respect to territorial regiments, they proposed that the two battalions of the Line and two of Militia which now formed a territorial brigade should henceforth form territorial regiments with a common depôt. Then followed a statement of, as he would call it, a general dislocation as to the Scotch regiments, with the addition that "the other two depôts—Edinburgh and Ayr—would remain unchanged." His noble Friend opposite said that no increased expense would be attached to the change. [The Earl of MORLEY dissented.] What the noble Earl said in reply to his having moved for a Return of the expense to the country and individual officers incidental to the proposed changes—and he was now quoting from Hansard—was that the expense of the proposed changes would be very slight, as only badges and facings would be changed this year. The more important changes, such as alterations in
  532
  the colour of uniforms, would be deferred till the next issue of clothing. A Return would be misleading. As to the officers, he did not really see how it could affect them very much. Such was the noble Earl's reply. He had himself got an estimate of the cost from Messrs. Hobson—a moderate firm in Little Windmill Street—and it appeared that the alteration in the Scotch regiments would cost the officers £49 5s. per head, and in the English regiments £18 2s. 6d.; while the cost to the country in their behalf, or else to the individual officers themselves, of the one brigade with which he himself was associated—namely, the 61st, at Ayr, would be over £6,000. This was for the officers alone of one single brigade to be converted into a "territorial" regiment. The Opinion of officers on the subject generally might not, perhaps, be thought worthy of consideration, after the treatment recently experienced by those distinguished Officers who had framed their Report as the result of the most exhaustive evidence; but he would quote some opinions of non-commissioned officers and privates as to the proposed amalgamation of Infantry regiments, the abolition of their numbers, and the extinction of their regimental individuality. A corporal at the 52nd Light Infantry, a remarkably fine and intelligent man, said—
  "I am quite sure nothing would cause more general discontent than doing away with the numbers. What would my regiment be without its number? It is only by its number that it is known in history, and if the number is taken away there, will be no connection between the regiment and its history."
  A corporal of the 6th Regiment, a fine young fellow, an Irishman, said—
  "Is it take away our numbers? Sure, then, we would be only Militia. They have taken away half our facings, and when the number is gone the history of the old regiment will be gone too."
  A sergeant of the 52nd, a smart young fellow, said—
  "I have heard of some changes, but didn't hear till now that we were to lose our numbers. That will be bad. But you see, sir, they have left us the stripes on both arms yet."
  A sergeant of the 69th said—
  "These changes will cause great discontent. We hate the 41st already because we are to be joined with them."
  A colour sergeant of the 22nd said—
  "I couldn't bear to leave my regiment for any other, and I should not like to leave

  533
  my battalion. I should resign my stripes sooner than go to the other battalion. I am quite ready to go anywhere to-morrow with my own battalion. I wish they would send for a sergeant from each regiment, and ask him what he thinks of these changes."
  A private of the 73rd said—
  "I am a Londoner, and I don't want to be a Highlander and to wear the kilt. I know my regiment was the second battalion of the 42nd; but that was many years ago, and we don't want to go back."
  He held in his hand several other quotations, all of the same import, which it would be unnecessary to read. He might add that he had also received sundry growls by letter as to specific changes; but that was not his point. He wished to show that both the country and individual officers would be put to great expense in order to create general dislocation and fresh re-allocation, which would take a century to learn, and all that to perpetuate a system which had proved to be rotten and to have broken down by the Report of the Committee appointed specially to investigate the subject after taking voluminous evidence. To continue and perpetuate this system in its intensity was simply to court fresh disaster. He imagined he would be told in reply that the new organization would give au aggregate increase of 2,792 in the number of men, as suggested by a curiosity Memorandum emanating from the War Office. He denied it, and requested proof. Neither Lord Airey nor General Sir Lintorn Simmons admitted it, for there was nothing in the proposed re-organization that could supply more men. It was said that there would be an advantage in a regiment being kept abroad longer—namely, for 16 years, and that it would be more economical. But it was no economy. The regiment would have changed nearly three times over in that time. If they had to send out 1,000 men in one regiment, or live drafts of 200 men each, the expense was the same. He might be told that the House of Commons had passed the scheme; but he utterly denied that the House of Commons had had an opportunity of really discussing it; and he had seen in the newspapers that the scheme had been challenged by Notice of Motion in the other House, although no opportunity had yet been afforded for discussion on the point. He doubted also the wisdom of raising fresh suspicions in
  534
  the minds of the Militia as to their becoming Line soldiers. He begged to apologize to their Lordships for the length at which he had spoken. He thought, however, that he had proved the proposed scheme of re-organization to be, in detail, ridiculous as regarded the changes in uniform, and, in principle, unsound, unreal, and unpopular—he might almost have added inhumane. But that was a question which came under the head of the "Waste of the Army," with which he would have a further opportunity of dealing. In regard to the length of his speech, he must plead the importance of the subject; and simply ask them to consider the serious state of matters now on the shores of the Mediterranean, and the equally serious state of things across the Irish Channel. He asked, then, whether this was a time well chosen for taking away from regiments those traditionary numbers and special distinctions in dress to which they had been so long accustomed, of which they were so justly proud, and which they still so dearly cherished?
  Moved, That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that Her Majesty will be graciously pleased to cause a re-consideration of the proposal to efface the present numerical and other distinctions in regiments of the line and militia by the substitution of novel (so-called) "territorial" titles, inasmuch as this proposed substitution is known to be viewed as subversive of esprit de corps, and is in consequence most distasteful to the officers, noncommissioned officers, and privates generally, whilst it has not the advantage of increasing the Army by a single additional trained or untrained soldier; the proposed re-organization being moreover practically but a fuller development of the present twin (or linked) battalion system which the Report of Lord Airey's Committee has already proved to have been attended with the most disastrous results.—(The Earl of Galloway.)
  THE EARL OF MORLEYadmitted the great importance of the subject introduced by the noble Lord. The noble Lord had gone at great length into the history of Army Organization since Lord Cardwell's scheme was framed, 10 years ago; and he trusted that the noble Lord would acquit him of any discourtesy if his answer did not extend to the same length. He doubted whether his noble Friend fully appreciated the great difficulties which surrounded questions relating to the organization of the British Army. The important fact must be always borne in mind that more than

  535
  half our Army was employed in foreign service—50 battalions of Infantry being permanently stationed in India, and 20 in the Colonies; and that these battalions were annually kept up to their full strength by drafts from home. This fact lay at the basis of every scheme of organization. The problem to be solved was how to keep up a sufficiently large Force at home, and, at the same time, to feed the Army abroad. The scheme now criticized was based on no new principles; it was the logical consequence or development of Lord Cardwell's original measure. That measure rested on two important principles—namely, first, the organization of the Infantry of the Line in double battalions; and, secondly, the localization of those battalions connected with Militia battalions at the brigade depôts. The first principle was carried into effect by "linking" two regiments in cases where they had not a double, or, as in the Rifle Brigade and 60th, a four-battalion constitution, the object being to facilitate the relief of foreign battalions. The second principle had for its object the union of the Auxiliary and Regular Forces, and the improvement of recruiting in all parts of the country. He could assure the noble Lord that the Government was very grateful to Lord Airey's Committee for the ability and industry with which they had conducted their inquiries; and, so far from depreciating the importance of their Report, the Secretary of State, he was glad to say, had been able to adopt, in a great measure, the most important recommendations of that Report. He had not been able to adopt their suggestion that all the linked regiments should be unlinked, and that we should revert to a single-battalion organization. On this point the Committee were by no means unanimous. Moreover, another Committee, presided over by the late Secretary of State for War, and composed of several distinguished Officers and Members of this House, had three years previously recommended a distinctly opposite course—namely, the formation of territorial regiments, consisting of two Line and two Militia battalions. With this conflict of authorities, the Secretary of State was bound to consider the two proposals on their merits. The noble Lord had attributed all the difficulties in completing battalions for service in
  536
  South Africa to the linking system. He was at a loss to understand how he arrived at that conclusion. If, as the noble lord appeared to wish, all regiments had had but one battalion, fed by a depôt at home, would the difficulties then experienced have been avoided? Far from it; the battalions on active service would equally have been made up to their full strength by volunteers from other regiments. There would have been no other source from which the men could have been drawn, for it was clear that the depôt formed only when the battalion was ordered on foreign service could not have furnished them. The true cause of all these difficulties was to be sought, not in the system of double-battalion regiment, but rather in the fact that that system had not been worked out in the manner which was suggested by those who, in the first instance, recommended its adoption. The regiments at the top of the roster for foreign service were all far weaker than they ought to have been. Instead of having 18 regiments of 800 men, these regiments were only at a strength of 740; and, moreover, in consequence of the opinion given by the Law Officers of the Crown, the late Government did not at first consider that they could accept the service of volunteers from the Army Reserve. In consequence of the weakness of the regiments, large numbers of men were required to raise them to war strength; and as the Reserve men, even as volunteers, could not be employed, these men were drawn from other battalions and regiments at home—a most unfortunate proceeding, but one which was constantly resorted to in former days—in the days, for instance, of the Crimean War—and for which the new organization was by no means responsible. Indeed, he (the Earl of Morley) might fairly say that, had the linking system never been introduced, the difficulties in the way of preparing the battalions for the war in South Africa in 1879 would have been even greater than those which they had actually experienced. Further, he might quote the case of the two four-battalion regiments—namely, the 60th and the Rifle Brigade. The comparative case with which battalions of these regiments were prepared for service was an argument for going further in the direction of

  537
  large regiments than was now proposed, rather than of adopting the course suggested by the noble Lord. He admitted that the linking system had not worked quite satisfactorily—there had been a certain amount of friction, there had been found a want of unity of sentiment in many cases between the two linked battalions. It was impossible to remain in the present position; we must go forwards, or back—back to single battalions, or forwards to consolidated regiments of double battalions, with the same constitution as the first 25 regiments of Infantry. The noble Lord quoted from a speech of his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State the objections to reverting to the old organization—namely—"You would then have to repeal the whole of the localization scheme. You must break up the first 25 regiments, the 60th, and the Rifle Brigade, into single battalions; and you would practically have little or no use for the depots, on which nearly £3,500,000 had been expended." In spite of the noble Lord's argument, he ventured to think that these were very strong arguments against such a course of proceeding. There was, however, another way of regarding the question. To supply the annual reliefs for battalions on foreign service a very large number of recruits would be required—the estimates varied from 16,000 to 20,000; and if, as was now proposed, no soldier was to be sent to India with less than one year's service, the latter figure would probably not be much above the mark. These men would, according to the noble Lord's scheme, be posted to the depôts of the battalions abroad; whether in small depôts, or in battalions, or at large training stations, as proposed by Lord Airey's Committee, it was not necessary now to inquire. These recruits would be quite useless for home service. The question would then arise, By whom would the expense be borne? It was not likely that any Government would impose this burden on the Indian Exchequer; and, on the other hand, it was doubtful whether this country would pay for an army of recruits useless for service at home. No doubt, the difficulty might be met by including these 16,000 men in the Home Establishment, and treating them as supernumerary to the service battalions.
  538
  But if the home battalions were to be kept at their present strength, this would mean a very large addition to the Home Army; and he asked their Lordships whether there was any probability of the House of Commons assenting to such an addition? If, on the other hand, the Home Establishment could not be increased to such an extent, the only possible means of finding place for these depôts would be either by diminishing the strength or the numbers of the home battalions. It was admitted on all hands that the home battalions could not be reduced in strength. Consequently, the only alternative left would be to reduce their number, and to find room for the 16,000 men in the depôts of foreign battalions. They would be forced to destroy at least 20 battalions of Infantry. Was that the best way to strengthen the Army? For the sake of reverting to the old organization, they would destroy 20 or more regiments which, though weak in times of peace, could, in a case of national emergency, be developed, by means of the Army and the Militia Reserve, into thoroughly efficient battalions. This argument appeared to him (the Earl of Morley) conclusive. For these and other reasons the Secretary of State had determined to adopt the recommendations of Colonel Stanley's Committee. The Report of that Committee had been adopted without a dissentient voice. The noble Lord had hinted that certain Members of that Committee, who were colonels of Militia, and also distinguished Peers, had signed the Report because some of the recommendations would benefit the Militia, not because they agreed with the territorial system—which was, after all, the great principle on which all the other recommendations were based. He could not accept such an explanation; it was not likely that the noble Lords in question would have taken such a course. Had they entertained at the time the opinions attributed to them by the noble Lord, they would have qualified their assent, or they would have explained their views in Supplementary Reports, as was done by several Members of Lord Airey's Committee who differed, in principle or in detail, from the Report of the majority. Without such qualifications, the Report stood as one which was adopted unanimously by a strong and

  539
  able Committee. Now, with regard to the question of esprit de corps, he (the Earl of Morley) was far from undervaluing the importance of esprit de corps in the Army. It was a sentiment which he honoured and respected in the highest degree, and one to which as little violence as possible should be done. But respect for this sentiment might be carried a little too far, if it were allowed to prohibit any changes of organization which were, in other respects, for the good of the Army at large. Moreover, he would ask whether these changes would, as the noble Lord foretold, destroy all esprit de corps in the Army? He should be extremely sorry to think that these anticipations would be realized. Every effort had been made to preserve, in each case, the badges and distinctions in which the various regiments felt a just and an honourable pride. Every effort had been made to associate together regiments which were connected together by local or other ties. In some cases, no doubt, a certain amount of self-sacrifice would be required; but these cases had been brought within the narrowest possible limits; and even if in these cases the old associations were, for a time, weakened, he hoped and believed that, in process of time, an enlarged esprit de corps would grow up in the territorial regiments which it was now proposed to create. Many persons, he was aware, considered this a fanciful theory. A sentiment of this kind could not be created in a day; but even now, though the local system was as vet scarcely in thorough operation, experience showed that this enlarged esprit de corps was being gradually formed. In the Appendix to the last Report of the Inspector General of Recruiting would be found the answers of 64 colonels commanding depôts to the question—"Is a local connection beginning to establish itself? "Fifty-four of these officers gave affirmative answers, and only five directly negative answers. That could not but he regarded as highly satisfactory. The noble Lord referred to the expense which would devolve on officers in consequence of changes of uniform. On that subject he (the Earl of Morley) could only say that arrangements would be made to render this expense as light as possible; and in cases where regiments
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  which had now scarlet uniforms were converted into Rifles or kilted regiments, the Secretary of State for War would be prepared to give the officers some pecuniary assistance, the amount of which was now being considered. While speaking of the officers, he would point out that in double-battalion regiments they had this not inconsiderable advantage—they could, if they wished, exchange from the home to the foreign battalion, or vice versâ, without losing their places in the regimental list; whereas, if an officer exchanged from one regiment to another, he was placed invariably at the bottom of his rank in his new regiment. He had listened attentively to the speech of the noble Lord, and had not heard an argument which proved that the single-battalion organization was better suited to the peculiar conditions of the British Army than the organization which now existed, and which it was proposed to consolidate. Not one of the defects which the noble Lord deplored would be met by the retrogressive policy which he proposed. It might be argued that an organization of regiments, consisting of three or four battalions, would be more elastic and capable of adapting itself to sudden emergencies than a double-battalion system; but to contract regiments to a single battalion, resting, when abroad, on its own depôt, would, he maintained, be a step in the wrong direction. Such a course would render it impossible to carry into effect the new system of supporting our Indian and Colonial Army, which he (the Earl of Morley) had explained on a previous occasion. The object of this new system was, as far as possible, to insure the Indian Government that the men sent out to them would serve in that country for a full term of seven years. The efficiency of the Indian Army would thus be promoted, and a very considerable economy would be effected—a matter of very great importance. It would be effected by retaining the battalions for a longer period in India, and supplying their deficiency by annual drafts, rather than by relieving a large number of battalions. He had already shown that by reducing the number of battalions annually sent abroad as reliefs from eight to four the constitution of the Army at home would also be improved. It would,

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  in these circumstances, be much easier to keep the regiments first on the roster up to their full strength, ready for any sudden emergency, without suddenly pouring into their ranks a large number of young and half-trained recruits, a course which obviously diminished their efficiency. The system which he was now advocating would, he believed, at the same time, facilitate our foreign reliefs, and would tend to improve the constitution of the home and foreign Army. It would promote the union which it was most desirable to establish between the Regular and Auxiliary Forces; it would stimulate recruiting throughout the country, and would, by degrees, form an enlarged esprit de corps in the territorial regiments, without obliterating the associations which these regiments cherished. If these proposed changes were for the good of the Army at large, even though at first they might be at variance with the feelings of some individuals, he could, with confidence, rely on the public spirit and patriotism of officers and men to accept them, and to assist loyally in carrying them into effect.
  VISCOUNT BURYurged his noble Friend behind him (the Earl of Galloway) to be content with the expression of opinion which he had elicited from the Government, and not to push his Motion to a division, especially as the House was almost empty, and as the changes referred to were actually being carried into effect under a General Order recently issued. There were, no doubt, several noble Lords who would have liked to address the House on this subject; but other occasions would certainly arise on which they would be able to do so. For his own part, he would only point out, in reference to the speech they had just heard, that while the noble Earl assumed that existing defects in the organization of the Army were about to be remedied, the adoption of the territorial system would not in the least help them to attain that end. The great difficulty was to obtain men. By the new system they would not get any greater number. Another difficulty was—seeing that there were to be 71 battalions at home and 70 abroad—that the dislocation of any single battalion would dislocate the whole. The new territorial system would dislocate them in exactly the same way. The scheme of the Secretary
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  of State for War had many good points, which deserved a fair trial, and that trial would have been given it in the most complete manner if the linked regiments had been left together, and not changed into territorial regiments, which, he maintained, entirely subverted the regimental plan upon which the British Army had been successfully based in the past. He did not believe that the territorial system would succeed, and he thought it was a step which might hereafter have to be retraced; but the responsibility meantime must rest with the Government, and he would advise his noble Friend not to divide the House on the question.
  THE EARL OF NORTHBROOKremarked, that the noble Viscount (Viscount Bury) had not correctly appreciated the remarks of his noble Friend (the Earl of Morley). The system of territorial regiments was not an invention of the present Government, but had been handed down to them from their Predecessors in Office; and he was surprised at the objections raised to it by the noble Viscount, because it was the recommendation of Colonel Stanley, the late Secretary of State for War, under whom the noble Viscount had served. As regarded the difficulty of meeting Colonial wars, their Lordships ought to bear in mind that it was not upon the territorial system alone, or indeed principally, that the Government relied. The development of that system was only one of a series of measures which had been introduced by the present Secretary of State for War; and it should be remembered in these discussions that we were now in a much better position as regarded Reserves than we had ever been previously. He agreed with the noble Viscount that it would be inconvenient to prolong the debate, and would only add that their Lordships might rely upon the Secretary of State for War endeavouring to meet the various difficulties of the situation to the best of his ability, and that he would do his best to preserve the esprit de corps of the regiments.
  LORD AIREYdid not complain of the course which the Government had pursued in adopting their own scheme in preference to that recommended by the Committee over which he presided; but he thought that there were just grounds for complaining that the Government had unduly delayed the publication of

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  their Report. He believed that if it had been produced sooner, the system would have been different from what it was now. He had great doubts whether the present system was anything more than an experiment.
  LORD CHELMSFORDsaid, he had intended to speak upon this Motion; but, looking at the state of the House, he would reserve what he had to say to a future occasion. Too much stress had been laid upon the Committee over which Colonel Stanley presided having recommended the formation of territorial regiments. The double-battalion system had not at that time been tried and failed. The weak point of the system was that when the home battalion acted as a feeder to the one abroad, it became absolutely unfit to be employed on active service. It would require about 600, or even 700, Reserve men to bring it up to war strength; and it would consequently be some time before a battalion so composed could possibly be fit to take the field.
  THE EARL OF GALLOWAYprotested against the doctrine that if a civilian met a soldier in the street he was not at liberty to inquire of him how he liked the Service, his regiment, and his uniform.
  Motion (by leave of the House) withdrawn.
  House adjourned at half past Eight o'clock, till To-morrow, half past Ten o'clock.