Sitting of 23 May 1882

Preamble
The House met at Two of the clock.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—Resolution in Committee—Prevention of Crime (Ireland) [Allowances and Expenses].
Ordered—First Reading—Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Orders (No. 5)* [175]; Metropolitan Board of Works (Money)* [176]; Aldershot Camp Roads* [177]; Quarter Sessions Procedure (Amendment)* [178].
Second Reading—Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 4)* [159]; Local Government Provisional Order (Artizans' and Labourers' Dwellings)* [162]; Arrears of Rent (Ireland) [163].
Select Committee—Artillery Ranges* [125], Mr. Acland discharged, Mr. Brown added.
Report—Partnerships* [No. 204]; Parochial Charities (London)* [No. 205].
Committee—Prevention of Crime (Ireland) [157], debate adjourned; Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 2)* [145], discharged.
Committee—Report— Poor Law Guardians (Ireland) [7].
Considered as amended—Local Government Provisional Orders* [131]; Local Government Provisional Orders (Poor Law)* [130].

QUESTIONS.

  CRIMINAL LAW (SCOTLAND)—POLLOCKSHIELDS PUBLIC SCHOOL.
  DR. CAMERONasked the Lord Advocate, Whether any investigation was ordered by the Crown Office into the circumstances connected with the recent fatal fall of a shed at Pollock-shields Public School, near Glasgow; whether any report on the occurrence has yet been received; and, if so, whether, considering the public interest of the subject, he would have any objection to lay it before the House?
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALFOUR), in reply, said, that a searching inquiry was at once instituted into the causes of this accident, and was still being continued. As it would probably result in a criminal trial, it would not be expedient, for the ends of justice, that a confidential Report sent by the Procurator Fiscal to the Crown Office should at present be made public.

  POST OFFICE—STAFFORD POST OFFICE.
  MR. M'LARENasked the Postmaster General, Whether he has considered any representations made to him on behalf of the mail porters and stampers of the Stafford Post Office, with a view to extending their prospect of promotion, and adjusting their extra allowances on the footing of Birmingham and Liverpool; and, whether there is any reason for the delay which has taken place, owing to which none of the Stafford Post Office officials have yet received their pay for extra hours on Christmas Day, New Year's Day, and St. Valentine's Day last?
  MR. FAWCETT: Sir, the question of the pay and position of the mail porters and stampers at the Stafford Post Office is part of a much larger question of the pay and position of officers generally of a similar grade—a subject which, as I stated yesterday, is now under consideration. With regard to the second portion of the Question of my hon. Friend, I regret that, owing to some negligence on the part of the local authorities, the claims for extra duty performed at the Stafford Post Office on Christmas Day, New Year's Day, and St. Valentine's Day have not yet been settled. I have now given directions that they shall be paid immediately.

  COOLIE (INDIAN) EMIGRATION TO LA REUNION.
  MR. CROPPERasked the Secretary of State for India, Whether the emigration of Coolies from India to Réunion has been stopped; and, if so, at what date?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: Sir, the emigration of Coolies from India has not yet been actually stopped, although such stoppage has for some time past been under consideration, the position of the question being very far from satisfactory. The position, briefly stated, is this. Negotiations have long been in progress for the revision of the Convention, and for the purpose of making proper provision for the protection and well-being of the Coolies. With this object a Commission has met in Paris to arrange a basis of a revised Convention; and last year the French Government prepared a projet de décret, containing a statement of their views

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  and the concessions which, they were willing to make. This, after being reported on by the British Commissioners, was transmitted to the Government of India. As negotiations have thus been actually going on, emigration has been allowed to continue up to the present time. We have only very recently received a despatch from the Government of India, giving in detail their views on the projet de décret. They consider it indispensable that, on certain points, further concessions should be made, and, failing these, that emigration should be stopped. The despatch, I need hardly say, is receiving the most careful consideration.

  LAW AND JUSTICE (IRELAND)—MR. LEFROY, COUNTY COURT JUDGE FOR DOWN.
  MR. BIGGARasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If his attention has been drawn to an article in the "Newry Reporter" of the 27th ultimo, in which great complaints are made of Mr. Lefroy, County Court Judge for Down, and if he will make inquiry into the charges?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON), in reply, said, he had communicated with the learned Judge, but was not yet in a position to report to the House.
  MR. BIGGARintimated that he would repeat the Question.

  CRIMINAL LAW—MICHAEL DAVITT.
  MR. GORSTasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been called to a speech of Mr. Davitt, reported in the "Standard" of May 22nd, in which Mr. Davitt is reported to have said,
  "That he was at present out under the conditions of a ticket-of-leave, which conditions he treated with the same contempt as he did three years ago. In fact he had already broken them, and the last he saw of that most interesting document was to see it secured by a member of the press two hours after his discharge from Portland, and where it was now he had no knowledge;"
  and, what steps he proposes to take to prevent other persons at liberty on ticket-of-leave from imitating the example thus set of open and contemptuous defiance of the administration of the Law?
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Sir, my attention has been called to this matter. I have seen several reports of this speech, and I find that none of them correspond—at least, with regard to this particular passage. I need not point out that, before taking any serious action in cases of this kind, it is extremely necessary that we should have an authentic report of what has passed. But what ought we to look at in this matter? We ought to look a good deal more at what is done than at what is said. Now, I wish to call attention to what is alleged. Supposing this to be a correct report, what is alleged on the part of Davitt? He says that he had treated the conditions of his ticket-of-leave with the same contempt that he did three years ago—that was, when he first received the licence. Well, I was not responsible at that time. It was under the late Administration; and, therefore, what he alleges is, that he has now done what he did then, and which certainly at that time my Predecessor in Office thought did not call for interference. That is the only distinct allegation that I can find in this speech. But I wish to say that no rhodomontade of this kind in the least affects the position of a person holding a licence. Whatever he may say, he remains subject to the conditions of that licence; and if he should violate the conditions on which he is at large—that is, to respect the law and to do nothing injurious to peace and order—such a licence in any case, to any person, is revocable, and would be revoked.
  MR. GORST: Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman state whether the conditions of Mr. Davitt's ticket-of-leave were the ordinary conditions; or, whether there was anything peculiar about them?
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: They are absolutely the ordinary conditions. There is nothing peculiar about them.
  MR. JOSEPH COWENasked if it was not the fact that Mr. Davitt received a ticket-of-leave such as was presented to any ordinary man; but the conditions were such that it was quite impossible for Mr. Davitt or any political prisoner to fulfil them; and, whether both the present and the late Government had not recognized the impossibility of their fulfilment? For instance, there was the condition, among others, that the holder

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  of the ticket was not to be out after 8 o'clock at night, and that he should comply with certain police regulations. The late Government absolved the Fenian prisoners from that condition, and he understood the present Government were willing to absolve Mr. Davitt from the same provision. He wished to know if Mr. Davitt had not fulfilled the same conditions that were asked from the political prisoners of three years ago and six years ago?
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Sir, the hon. Member seems to know a good deal more about this matter than I know. All I know is this—that, as far as I am concerned, all that happened was that he received the ordinary ticket-of-leave; that there were no conditions of any kind made or absolved; and that the transaction was exactly the same as in the case of any other convict, and that there was no understanding of any kind as to the relaxation or duration of any condition.

  STATE OF IRELAND—THE AFFRAY AT BALLINA.
  MR. O'CONNOR POWERasked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, What steps he intends to take in reference to sub-inspector Ball, and those responsible for the action of the police in the recent affray at Ballina?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON), in reply, said, that he was informed that the inquest which was to have been held yesterday in this matter was postponed owing to the non-attendance of jurors. He would therefore postpone stating what steps it was intended to take, pending the result of the inquest.
  MR. O'CONNOR POWERasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether the Government propose to give any compensation to the family of the youth, Meledy, who has died from the wounds inflicted upon him by the police in the recent affray at Ballina; and, whether the families of other children who have been seriously wounded will also receive compensation?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, we only heard yesterday by telegraph of the death of this poor boy. I shall have inquiry made as to the position in life of his parents, and if I find it a proper case, will submit it to His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant with a view to some
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  compensation being awarded to them. As the remainder of the Question relates to a subject which will form the matter of a judicial inquiry, I think it better to postpone any further answer for the present.

  PROTECTION OF PERSON AND PROPERTY (IRELAND) ACT, 1881—MRS. MOORE, MISS KIRK, AND MISS O'CONNOR.
  MR. LABOUCHEREasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether it is true that Mrs. Moore, Miss Kirk, and Miss O'Connor, who have been sentenced to various terms of imprisonment, under an ancient Act, for alleged intimidation, by different stipendiary magistrates, are kept in solitude for above twenty-three hours out of the twenty-four; and, whether the time has arrived when, in the interests of the peace and tranquillity of Ireland, these ladies should be restored to their friends?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, the ladies named in this Question have been committed to prison in default of finding bail, and are treated in exact conformity with the prison rules. According to the rules for "bail prisoners," they are allowed two hours for exercise daily, and are, therefore, in their cells for 22 out of the 24 hours. They can at once return to their friends on tendering the requisite sureties.

  EGYPT (POLITICAL AFFAIRS).
  MR. G. W. ELLIOTasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether Her Majesty's Government, with or without the consent of any other Power, have taken any, and, if so, what steps to secure the freedom of the Suez Canal?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: Sir, I regret that I am unable to add anything to what I said on this subject yesterday, when I informed the House that the matter had had immediate attention at the hands of Her Majesty's Government.
  SIR WILFRID LAWSONasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether the British ironclads have been sent to Alexandria for the purpose of protecting the lives and property of Her Majesty's subjects, or for the purpose of intervening in the affairs of Egypt; and, if the latter, whether the

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  House of Commons will have an opportunity of expressing its opinion on this policy of intervention before hostilities are permitted to be commenced?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: Sir, the Fleet was sent to Alexandria to protect life and property; and we hope that its presence will contribute, without the employment of force, to the maintenance of the status quo in Egypt, of the Sovereignty of the Sultan, of the position of the Khedive, and of the liberties of the Egyptian people, as well as to the prudent development of their institutions, and to the observance of the international engagements of Egypt. While I cannot admit that the present situation is such as the hon. Baronet seems to imply, I must, on general principles, decline to give an answer to the second portion of his Question.
  SIR WILFRID LAWSON: Will my hon. Friend inform the House whether any orders have been given to the Fleet to use force to bring about all those objects he has described?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: I can make no further reply.

  IRELAND—IRISH POLICY OF THE GOVERNMENT—RELEASE OF MR. PARNELL AND OTHERS.
  SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether, considering the great interest excited by a recent political incident, he will consider it possible to lay upon the Table the letter already cited in debate addressed by him to the late Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant on learning the contents of the letter addressed by the honourable Member for Cork to the honourable and gallant Member for Clare, and the result of the conversation held by those two honourable Members at Kilmainham?
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, I am obliged to the hon. Gentleman for having postponed his Question until to-day. I have had an opportunity of considering the matter with my Colleagues, as it involves a point of delicacy; and our opinion is that a precedent for producing a letter of a confidential character, written between Colleagues in the Cabinet, would be one of great inconvenience, and so uncompensated for by any advantage or any addition to the real means of judgment possessed by the House, that we cannot agree to produce
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  the letter asked for. The hon. Gentleman may fairly say—"Why did we cite it?" I need not say, of course, that in citing that letter I cited everything that related to the particular point touched on—namely, the reference by the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) to the possibility of his being, at some undefined period, in connection with the Liberal Party. The ground taken up by the Government in the whole of this business, as the House may remember, has been this—it has been no part of our duty to produce Papers in relation to the subject at all. What was our duty was to make up our minds whether, under the terms of the Protection of Person and Property Act, there was a reasonable suspicion of a certain tendency on the part of certain persons, with reference to certain intentions under the terms of the Act. The House has never interfered with our responsibility as regards the operation of putting these Gentlemen in prison; and we were not aware of any reason, in the absence of any Motion on the subject, why we should court the House as to its participation in our responsibility on the subject of letting Gentlemen out of prison. The other part of the letter referred to a difference of opinion between myself and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster); and it appears to us that we are rightly exercising our discretion in declining to produce it for the reasons I have stated. But the letter which was read by the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), and which he had addressed to the hon. Member for Clare (Mr. O'Shea), contained references to matters outside the Protection of Life and Property Act—namely, the question of this possible relation to the Liberal Party—[Lord JOHN MANNERS: The question of arrears.] There was nothing about arrears. There was nothing cited by me about arrears at all. The reference was exclusively to the relation to the Liberal Party. That was a matter wholly outside the subject of discussion, and I own it did appear to me that the House had a perfect right to know what passed—that the intimation on the part of the hon. Member for the City of Cork was received by me. I believed it, therefore, only due to the House that I should cite the words in which I referred to it. That was the reason why I made that citation. The

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  citation was perfect and absolute as far as it went. The remainder of the letter refers to matters that took place between the prisoners and me when different views arose between us; and there is no rule which applies to the production of personal Correspondence of that nature. We think that public incovenience would result from such production uncompensated by any advantage to the public.
  SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFsaid, he wished to explain that he had based his Question on the precedent of the publication of the Correspondence which took place when Lord John Russell's Government left Office in 1851.

  SCIENCE AND ART—THE ORKNEY SAGAS.
  MR. THOROLD ROGERSasked the Secretary to the Treasury, Why the publication of the Orkney Sagas in the Rolls Series has been delayed for six years after Dr. Vigfusson, the editor, has passed the sheets for publication; why Dr. Vigfusson, the author of the great Norse English Lexicon, was not entrusted with the translation of his own work, his translation having been put into the hands of Sir George Dasent, one of the Civil Service Commissioners; and, what, in the apportionment of the Parliamentary Grant for the above-named work, have been the sums paid respectively to Dr. Vigfusson and Sir George Dasent?
  MR. COURTNEY: Sir, I have communicated with the Master of the Rolls upon this subject, and he has been good enough to furnish me with the facts of the case. Sir George Dasent, and not Dr. Vigfusson, was the original, and is now the principal, editor of the Orkney Sagas. Dr. Vigfusson was associated with him at a later date for the special purpose of furnishing the Icelandic text. This will explain how the duty of translation naturally falls to Sir George Dasent. I may add that in 1874, when Dr. Vigfusson was engaged, it was considered a doubtful matter whether his knowledge of English was sufficient to make it possible to employ him as a translator. The work has been delayed partly owing to the illness of Sir George Dasent, and latterly by the delay on the part of Dr. Vigfusson in giving certain information which he alone can furnish; but there is hope that the work will be completed
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  before long. Both gentlemen are paid for their work at the approved rates. Dr. Vigfusson has received £474 2s., and Sir George Dasent £250 on account of the work now in hand.

MOTION.
  PARLIAMENT—BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE—ARRANGEMENT OF PUBLIC BUSINESS—THE DERBY DAY.

    MOTION FOR POSTPONEMENT OF ORDERS OF THE DAY.
    MR. CHAPLINsaid, he wished to put a Question of some interest to the Prime Minister in reference to a Motion which he (Mr. Chaplin) had put upon the Paper—" That this House, at its rising, do adjourn until Thursday." He was very far from being insensible to the important consideration which the right hon. Gentleman had urged in favour of taking the very unusual course of putting down Government Business for to-morrow, which he need scarcely remind the House was Derby Day. What he wanted to know and what he felt sure there was a deep interest on the part of the House to ascertain was, that it was not to be taken as an annual precedent, and whether it was to be understood that in future the Government would not put down Government Business for Derby Day? On a distinct assurance of the right hon. Gentleman to that effect, he would not be disposed to proceed with the Motion he had put upon the Paper. He hoped such an assurance would be given.
    MR. GLADSTONE, in reply, said, there was no intention whatever of creating any precedent, by the course the Government proposed to take to-morrow, which could possibly interfere with the discretion which the House had been accustomed to exercise with regard to the disposal of that particular day. That, he hoped, would be satisfactory to the hon. Gentleman. And now he thought he might proceed to move the Motion of which he had given Notice with regard to the course of Business. He was very desirous not to vary at all from any engagement he had made with the House with regard to the course of Public Business. He stated yesterday that it was his intention that day to ask that the several

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    stages of the Prevention of Crime Bill should have precedence on each day—that it should be put down until the House should otherwise order. He also stated that it was not his intention to make any such Motion with regard to the Arrears of Rent Bill at that time, because it appeared to him to be a simple measure that did not call for a Motion of that kind. Late in the evening, when it was announced that the Government would ask the House to proceed with the Arrears of Rent Bill that day, it became necessary to alter the Notice of Motion in order to give it precedence, otherwise the Prevention of Crime Bill would take precedence by force of the Resolution. But, owing to a mistake of his, the alteration was made wider than was intended, and in order to bring it into exact correspondence with what he stated yesterday, he would move to insert certain words. The Motion would then be to the effect that the several stages of the Bills he had referred to would have precedence of all Orders of the Day and Notices of Motions, from day to day, until the House should otherwise order.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That the several stages of the Prevention of Crime (Ireland) Bill and the Adjourned Debate on the Second Reading of the Arrears of Kent (Ireland) Bill, have precedence of all Orders of the Day and Notices of Motions, from day to day, until the House shall otherwise order."—(Mr. Gladstone.)
    MR. DILLONsaid, he felt bound to protest most urgently against the Prime Minister's proposal. For some few days past he (Mr. Dillon) had listened to reiterated statements, which to some extent seemed to be accepted on all sides, that a connection of some nature existed between the Prevention of Crime Bill and the Arrears of Rent Bill. It had, in fact, been stated on high authority that they formed parts of one and the same policy, of one and the same whole, and could not be divided; but he (Mr. Dillon) thought no further time should be lost in stating that the Representatives of Ireland—at least those who sat on those (the Opposition) Benches—could not acquiesce in any such declaration of policy. The Prevention of Crime Bill, as a Bill, must stand on its own merits; and if the Head of Her Majesty's Government was under the impression that Irish Members were going to sell the liberties of the Irish people and con-
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    sent to the passage of a fresh Coercion Act in return for such a measure as the Arrears of Rent Bill, the sooner that impression was cleared away the better. The Arrears of Rent Bill might be for the benefit of the tenants; but, whether it was a benefit or not, whether it was just or unjust, it was a measure which must also stand entirely on its own merits, and it had nothing whatever to do with the passage of another Bill, or the Prevention of Crime Bill. With regard to the Prevention of Crime Bill, it was right that he should state at that time, that whatever use they might hope to obtain for the Irish tenants from the Arrears of Rent Bill—and he believed that they might have got a great deal of use if the Government had dropped the policy of coercion—the Prevention of Crime Bill would, in his opinion, entirely rob them of all the promised good to the Irish people which they had expected from the Arrears of Rent Bill. Therefore, he wished it to be distinctly understood that, in the minds of Irish Members, there could be no connection whatever between the two Bills on their side. It was their duty to protest, by the most emphatic means in their power, against a Motion which took up the entire time of the House, to the postponement of a very valuable and useful piece of legislation, for the benefit of a Bill which was neither useful nor necessary, but which was calculated to destroy any effort made for the benefit of the Irish peasantry, and to do what the House had been already warned by a leading Member of the Tory Benches (Lord George Hamilton) it would do—to land them on the threshold of another social struggle in Ireland.
    MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHYsaid, he entirely acquiesced in what had fallen from the hon. Member for Tipperary (Mr. Dillon). So far as he (Mr. Justin M'Carthy) and his hon. Friends were concerned, he felt bound to say that they were not disposed for one moment to entertain the idea that they were making an exchange between the Arrears of Rent Bill and the Coercion Bill—that because they were getting a Bill they believed to be fair and just, they were going to submit to the passing of a measure which they believed to be highly unfair, unwise, and unjust. The Prime Minister had spoken of the two Bills; but he (Mr. Justin M'Carthy)

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    observed that the terms they had used had not placed them upon an equality, as the right hon. Gentleman proposed to take the successive stages of the Prevention of Crime Bill one after the other, whereas he only yielded one stage in favour of the Arrears of Rent Bill; therefore, the two measures were not based upon equal terms, but coercive was given the advantage over remedial legislation. He (Mr. Justin M'Carthy) had no hesitation in saying that he was quite resolved to oppose in every legitimate way the passing of the repressive legislation, which he believed would not be to their advantage, but greatly to their disadvantage, tending, as it was, rather to promote and stimulate crime than to repress it.
    MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, that as it was perfectly legitimate for hon. Members to prefer one Bill before the other, he would like to know whether the two measures were to go hand-in-hand together; and whether, as soon as the Prevention of Crime Bill was passed, the Prime Minister intended with all due speed to pass the Arrears of Rent Bill through the subsequent stages; and, should that spirit of obstruction, which they had noticed on the previous night, be again manifested, whether the Prime Minister had it in contemplation to make a similar Motion with regard to the subsequent stages of the Arrears of Rent Bill as he had made with regard to the other?
    MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he could assure hon. Gentlemen opposite that it was not his intention to entrap any person who was favourable to the Arrears of Rent Bill into a support of the other Bill, any more than it was his intention to entrap those favourable to the Prevention of Crime Bill into supporting the Arrears of Rent Bill. The two Bills were absolutely distinct, and hon. Members could support or oppose both, or support one and oppose the other. All he said was that in the Ministerial mind they were part of one and the same policy. The effect of the Motion he had now made was simply to give precedence on every day upon which it might be set down to the Prevention of Crime Bill over every other Order of the Day, and it gave the like precedence to the adjourned debate upon the second reading of the Arrears of Rent Bill. But no similar precedence was given to the
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    Arrears of Rent Bill beyond the debate on the second reading. He would not describe the contingency sketched by his hon. Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) in the same terms as his hon. Friend had used. His hon. Friend, as he said last night, was "a peace-maker by profession." But he (Mr. Gladstone) would say that should there be developed in the course of the Arrears of Rent Bill a considerable number of points requiring discussion, or should it appear that many debates would be required, so that if any serious difficulty arose about the time occupied in passing the Bill, it would then be his duty to ask the House to give the Arrears of Rent Bill the same kind of precedence as he was now asking for the Crime Bill.
    MR. HEALYsaid, the Irish Members could not consent to the Prevention of Crime Bill having precedence over the remedial measure; and he would therefore propose, as an Amendment, the omission from the Prime Minister's Motion of the words "the Prevention of Crime (Ireland) Bill," and thus restricting its operation to the Arrears of Rent Bill, and placing it in its proper position by giving it precedence. He wished to know whether the Government intended to push on the third reading of the Prevention of Crime Bill before any other stage of the Arrears of Rent Bill than the second reading was taken? If so, that was a point on which there would be considerable difference of opinion. The Tories would oppose the Arrears of Rent Bill to the best of their ability. They made a very skilful point last night when they contended that the tenant's interest in a farm should be considered a portion of his assets, and should be sold out before any loan or gift was granted him by the State, and they drew from the Prime Minister the reply that it was a matter of consideration in Committee. Of course, that might be used as an admission of the justice of the suggestion, although he believed the Prime Minister had no intention whatever of making the admission. But they knew what pressure could be put upon a Government, especially when a strong Party amongst their own supporters helped them to yield. They knew what happened to the Compensation for Disturbance Bill. The Government, with the best intention,

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    brought in a certain Bill and then modified it. The same thing occurred with the Land Bill. If "Parnell's Clause" had been passed, there would have been no necessity for this Arrears of Rent Bill. Therefore, he wanted a definite understanding from the Government on this occasion, and to give them an opportunity he moved his Amendment.
    Amendment proposed, to leave out the words "the several stages of the Prevention of Crime (Ireland) Bill and."—(Mr. Healy.)
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    MR. GLADSTONE, in reply to the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy), said, that the question put by him had been previously answered by the statement he (Mr. Gladstone) made on a former day. The hon. Member asked if all the subsequent stages of the Prevention of Crime Bill were to be taken before any proposal was made with regard to the Arrears of Rent Bill? His (Mr. Gladstone's) answer was that so soon as the Arrears of Kent Bill was brought in, it was stated that there might be necessary intervals in the progress of the Prevention of Crime Bill, and that the Government would be anxious to turn those to good account for the Arrears of Rent Bill. It might be convenient, for instance, to have an interval of two or three days, for the purpose of reprinting the Bill with Amendments after going through Committee, and that interval might be utilized for the purpose of pushing on the Arrears Bill. Any opportunity that presented itself, without hindering the progress of the Prevention of Crime Bill, would be turned to account in forwarding the Arrears of Rent Bill.
    Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 228; Noes 31: Majority 197.—(Div. List, No. 95.)
    SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLsaid, he wished to remind the House that the Prime Minister had expressed his intention of carrying through the Arrears of Rent Bill in the interstices of the time occupied by the Prevention of Crime Bill. The fact, however, was, and he (Sir George Campbell) regretted to say so, that by the Resolution in its present form, that Bill would have no prece-
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    dence at all after the present stage. It would be much more simple and fair if the terms of the original Motion were adhered to, and the Resolution was made to read that each of the two Bills throughout their stages should have precedence; and he would therefore move to leave out the words "adjourned debate on second reading of," in order that precedence might be given to both Bills.
    MR. STOREYseconded the Amendment.
    Amendment proposed, to leave out the words "Adjourned Debate on Second Reading of the."—(Sir George Campbell.)
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    MR. JESSE COLLINGSconsidered that both Bills should be placed on the same footing of urgency. He should, therefore, support the Motion with great pleasure, seeing that it would only be a proper concession to those who were asked to offer no unnecessary obstruction to a measure which would seriously interfere with the liberties of their country. The country would be satisfied if it were shown that the same degree of urgency was intended for the Arrears of Rent Bill as for the Coercion Bill, and it would only be fair to the Irish Members that equal facilities should be given for the passage of a Bill that they believed would go a long way towards restoring peace to Ireland. Experience showed that after they passed Coercion Bills they had little or no guarantee that remedial measures would go through with speed and without being impaired. What had to be made apparent to the Irish Members now was that they could obtain reasonable legislation by reasonable appeals to Parliament, and without having recourse to obstruction. If the arrears legislation preceded by a few weeks the passage of the repressive measures the effect might be very desirable.
    MR. GLADSTONEhoped that his hon. Friends would not press the Motion to a division. He would point out the position in which they placed the Government. He had promised last night, and he had confirmed the promise to-day, that they would not ask the House at present to give precedence to the Arrears of Rent Bill. Now, his hon. Friends said that they hoped he would ask the

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    House at that moment, directly in the teeth of his word, to do that very thing. And why did they take that course? He had distinctly intimated to the House on every occasion, that should it appear that the passage of the Arrears of Rent Bill led to complex debate, he would propose to make that Bill urgent; but not unless it was necessary. But now that Motion was made to insist that, in defiance of his word, he should make that Bill urgent, whether it was necessary to do so or not.
    SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLsaid, he was not aware that the Prime Minister had given a pledge of that kind; but, after that, he had no other course than to ask leave to withdraw his Motion.
    MR. PARNELL: Sir, I may remind the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister that the proceedings of last night indicated that there will be some kind of difficulty in the passage of the Arrears of Rent Bill. The opposition then offered to the Bill was of a very unusual kind, and indicated strong intentions on the part of the minority in this House to oppose that Bill, and to endeavour to alter and thwart it in every possible way. Under those circumstances, I think we are entitled to ask the Prime Minister to attach, by accepting the Amendment of the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir George Campbell) the same importance to one member of the living body as to the other. We do not, of course, desire to interfere with the order of Government Business; but we do think that the Government are entitled to ask and to obtain from the House as many facilities for the passage of their remedial measures as they have obtained for their coercive measures. They have, however, unfortunately, imitated their mistake of last Session, in making coercive precede remedial legislation; but I trust, now that they have the power to do so, that they will obtain some guarantees from the Opposition, controlled by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote), that this Arrears of Rent Bill will receive fair play at their hands, and that, as they are now asking for the passage of the Coercion Bill, they will afford facilities for the passing of the Arrears of Rent Bill. This is all the more important, because, as I beg to remind the right hon. Gentleman the Premier, the period of redemption is
    1416
    going by in the case of numbers of evicted tenants, and they are being placed without the operation of the law, and, as a consequence, they will be left to their own resources or to whatever other resources may be brought into play on their behalf. I confess I think such a situation would be deplorable, and ought to be very much deprecated and avoided. I have been endeavouring during the last few days to obtain an extension of the period of redemption for evicted tenants; but owing to the enormous block in the Superior Court of the Land Commission, which has power to deal with such applications, it has been found up to the present moment impossible; therefore it happens that the vast number of tenants who, since May, 1880—the period when the present Government assumed Office—have seen all their legal rights depart month by month, is being daily augmented. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider, under these circumstances, whether he would not give some hope to those poor people by showing, as is now in his power to show, that he attaches equal importance to the Arrears of Rent Bill as he does to the Coercion Bill.
    SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, he would point out to the hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) that the House was now engaged in a Morning Sitting, and that they would have to rise at a fixed hour. An adjournment had been proposed at an early hour that morning to enable them to complete the discussion on the Arrears of Rent Bill; and it was perfectly possible, if they went to work in a business-like way, that they might conclude the debate before the House rose that afternoon at 7 o'clock. But if they entered upon irregular discussions on matters of the kind now before them, there was no saying how that might be. He could assure hon. Gentlemen from Ireland, though, possibly, they might not believe him, that on his side of the House there was no intention to place any unnecessary obstruction in the way of the Arrears of Rent Bill; and if it became fairly necessary to make alterations in the order of Public Business, in order to give more opportunities for its discussion, there would be no objection to that course. What hon. Gentlemen on his side had demanded was, that when

    1417
    they had entered on the discussion it should be allowed to be a full and a fair one. He hoped that time would not be wasted by irregular discussion.
    MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, that, in his opinion, so far as it had gone, the discussion which was now going on was a perfectly regular and legitimate one. It would be extraordinary if the Irish Members allowed the Motion of the Premier to pass without challenge. His proposal was nothing more nor less than this—that the House should have free and exclusive scope to coercive legislation of an unexampled kind. The proposed Coercion Bill was the most horrible epitome of blundering despotism ever presented to Parliament, and they were asked to give precedence to it because the Prime Minister found that it suited his convenience to submit to the political dictation of his opponents. They could not, therefore, be expected to acquiesce in the arrangement of procedure then proposed, seeing that as much time as possible should be allowed to pass so that the House might approach the Coercion Bill with the greatest coolness and judgment. That Bill had been admittedly introduced because of the heated state of public opinion in England caused by the horrible occurrence in Phœnix Park, and that was a good reason why time should be taken to allow that heated feeling to subside. The object of the Arrears of Rent Bill was to put a stop to evictions; and he would beg to point out to hon. Gentlemen sitting on that (the Opposition) side of the House that any delay in passing it was not likely to promote the speedy payment of rents. He would, therefore, support the Amendment. So far as he was personally concerned, he should offer the Prime Minister's proposal all the opposition in his power.
    SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLagain repeated his offer to withdraw the Amendment.
    MR. HEALY: No, no!
    Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 250; Noes 35: Majority 215.—(Div. List, No. 96.)
    Main Question proposed.
    MR. PARNELL: I was under the impression, Mr. Speaker, that we were taking a division against the Main Question, which was put before the last
    1418
    division was taken; and, under these circumstances, I desire to accept the division which was taken on this Amendment as the definite judgment of the House upon the present Motion. I do not desire to waste the time of the House by taking a further division upon the Main Question; but I must solemnly protest against the course which the Government have adopted in not affording the same facilities for the passage of the Arrears of Rent Bill that they intend to afford for the passage of the Coercion Bill
    MR. O'DONNELL: Sir, I quite appreciate the statesmanlike spirit in which the Leader of the Irish Party (Mr. Parnell) has expressed his opinion upon the question before us; but, at the same time, speaking as an individual Irish Representative, and in no way desiring to be understood as slack in my support of the Leader of the Irish Party, I feel that upon this Motion I, for one, must challenge a division. I cannot take it on my conscience to allow a Motion to pass which proposes merely to give precedence to the adjourned debate on the Arrears of Rent Bill, which, when it passes this House, will be entirely at the mercy of the enemies of Ireland in "another place;" while, at the same time, it proposes to give absolute precedence to every stage of the most atrocious Coercion Bill ever passed for Ireland. I do not wish, in the slightest degree, to question the statesmanlike character of the opinion of the Leader of the Irish Party; but, statesmanlike or not, I hate the action of the British Government, and I will take every means in my power to oppose this Coercion Act, aye, and to make England sorry for it.
    MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR: The hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) was, as he says, under a misapprehension. He understood that the last division was being taken on the Main Question. But we, who were under no such apprehension, are, of course, not swayed by the same reasons. Therefore, I agree with the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) in challenging the decision of the House again, and shall vote against the Government on the Main Question.
    MR. MOORE: Sir, although not a very warm admirer of the Arrears of Rent Bill, I hope the Government will

    1419
    in some way re-consider the course they have adopted. Ever since the Bill was announced to the House the difficulties between landlord and tenant in Ireland have increased ten times over, and it is most unfair and most unjust to both parties to leave them in the state of uncertainty they are in at present. A landlord told me very lately that, up to the time of the announcement of the present Bill, he had been receiving his rents, but that immediately afterwards he could get nothing. As I said, I do not admire the Bill myself, but I think it is a necessity to enable Her Majesty's Government to carry on the government of Ireland. When such a Bill has been once promised, it is due, as a matter of justice to both classes, that the Bill should be passed without a moment's delay.
    DR. COMMINS: Sir, whilst willing to accept the last division as evidencing the sense of the House in this matter, I must, at the same time, protest most strongly against the course which has been adopted by the Government. The numerous evictions which are taking place in Ireland are the principal causes of crime in that country, and, therefore, if the object of the Government is to put an end to crime, I think they are acting inconsistently in delaying a measure of this kind. At the same time, I should prefer taking the assurance of the Prime Minister that he will do all he can to forward the Bill.
    MR. T. D. SULLIVAN: Sir, if the Government desire to pass an Arrears of Rent Bill for Ireland, I think the only way to secure the passage of such a measure is to give it precedence. If precedence is given to the Coercion Bill, what guarantee have we that we shall have an Arrears of Rent Act at all? The fate of the Compensation for Disturbance Bill awaits the Arrears of Rent Bill in "another place;" and I would impress upon the Prime Minister that if he desires to insure its passage, the only way he could do it is by giving it precedence over the Coercion Bill.
    Main Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 254; Noes 15: Majority 239.—(Div. List, No. 97.)
    Ordered, That the several stages of the Prevention of Crime (Ireland) Bill and the Adjourned Debate on the Second Reading of the Arrears of Rent (Ireland) Bill, have precedence of all Orders of the Day and Notices of Motions, from day to day, until the House shall otherwise order.

ORDER OF THE DAY.
  ARREARS OF RENT (IRELAND) BILL.
  (Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Childers, Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland.)
  ARREARS OF RENT (IRELAND) BILL.
    [BILL 163.] SECOND READING.

      ADJOURNED DEBATE. [SECOND NIGHT.]
      Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment proposed to Question [22nd May], "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 "it is inexpedient to charge the Consolidated Fund with any payment, except by way of loan, in respect of arrears of rent in Ireland,"—(Mr. Sclater-Booth,)
      —instead thereof.
      Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
      Debate resumed.
      SIR HERBERT MAXWELLsaid, it was only owing to what he might call an accident that he was left in the position of having to resume the debate. In the observations he made last night he stated that it was a remarkable fact that no Scotch Member had addressed the House on the subject. He was not oblivious of the fact that the Prime Minister was not only a Scotchman, but that he represented the Metropolitan County of Scotland; but his high position, and his multifarious and arduous duties, must have prevented him from having any degree of familiarity with the feeling of Scotch constituencies with regard to the measure. He rested his arguments for the adjournment of the debate last night on the ground, inter alia, that the constituencies of Scotland had not had time since the introduction of the Bill to consider it. As it had been printed only on Saturday it would not have reached Scotland until Sunday, and many parts of that country not until Monday morning. Since he made these remarks he had been able to examine the light in which it was regarded by the principal organs of public opinion in Scotland, and he was justified in saying that—as far as it was possible to gather the general private and public opinion of Scotland

      1421
      from the leading articles in the Scotch, papers of yesterday morning—a very large contingent of Scotch opinion was deliberately and irreconcilably opposed to the principles of the Bill. He should like to refer to a charge which had been brought against the Conservative Members by the Irish Members—and which had been in some degree countenanced by the Prime Minister in his remarks that afternoon—namely, that the Conservative Party was always ready to vote for measures of coercion, while they were averse to what were called measures of conciliation. [Mr. GLADSTONE dissented.] He saw the Prime Minister made signs of dissent; but he was under the impression that the right hon. Gentleman used words to the effect that the Conservative Party were ready to give to measures of coercion a precedence which they were resolved to refuse to this measure. Of course, if he was mistaken he begged to withdraw the statement; but, so far as he was concerned, he desired to repudiate such an imputation altogether. He had made up his mind on the second reading of the Coercion Bill not again to vote for giving the present Government any further extraordinary powers in relation to their government in Ireland. He might be wrong, and he was acting individually; but he considered the powers which were conferred upon them last year were misused to such a degree that he could not reconcile himself to aid in trusting the present Government with any further extraordinary powers. The powers conferred last year had been used with a degree of vacillation and weakness that had resulted in confusion in Ireland, and in the disruption of the Cabinet. The Government exhibited in a large and exaggerated degree all the defects which had so long marked the administration of Irish affairs by English hands. They came forward now with a demand for the strongest measure of coercion ever introduced. He did not deny the necessity for that; but, on the other hand, they offered a Bill which introduced a totally new departure. He might call it a measure of outdoor relief upon the most gigantic scale that Parliament had ever been called upon to consider. It was a Bill, the effect of which, if it passed into law, would be to pauperize one class of the country at the expense of the other; and if there was to be any consistency in
      1422
      the administration of it, the funds with which it proposed to deal ought to be administered by the Poor Law Guardians. The only argument they had heard last night in support of the measure was that of necessity. No doubt the necessities of the Government were very great; but that was not sufficient argument to induce those on the other side of the House to concur in any measure which it might seem fit for the Government to bring forward. The fact was, the Government had got itself into a scrape, and they did not know how to get out of it. They must pass the Bill, because if they did not do so Heaven knew what further revelations in connection with the Correspondence about the Kilmainham proceedings would be produced from one quarter or other. They were told that if they did not agree to the passage, and the rapid passage, of the measure, the Government would not be answerable for the condition of Ireland. Now, he had not been very long in the House; but he knew that this argument had very often been used. The Government had said exactly the same thing in the debate on the Compensation for Disturbance Bill, when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster) found Ireland unmanageable in his hands, and laid on the House of Lords for their rejection of the Bill the responsibility for the outrages that ensued. Last year the Land Act was recommended for the very same reason. Well, that Act passed, and the immediate result was the "no rent" manifesto, and a state of things that had had no parallel since 1798. It seemed to him that the consequences were much the same whether the Government measures became law, or were thrown into the waste-paper basket, and he did not, therefore, anticipate serious difficulties from the rejection of this Bill. There was no Motion for opposition to this Bill. He wished there had been. He himself would have been very glad of an opportunity to vote against the second reading of the measure. They were discussing an Amendment which he confessed did not commend itself very much to his judgment; but he was willing to defer to the more experienced Members who had supported that Amendment. The Prime Minister told the House that the Bill had been framed in accordance with

      1423
      all sections of Irish opinion. He wished to know how that was possible? To go no further than the walls of the House itself, hon. Members had heard enough last night of the very wide divergence of Irish opinion on the subject. The hon. Member for the County of Cork (Mr. Shaw), after hearing the Prime Minister's arguments, still remained unconvinced, and expressed his deliberate belief that the money ought to be advanced on loan, and not as a gift. Irish Members above the Gangway had also criticized the Bill; and the hon. Member for Clonmel (Mr. Moore) said that from the moment of its introduction the farmers who had been paying their rents had absolutely ceased their payments. Again, it could not be said that the Bill accorded with the opinions of the Conservative Irish Members. In the House the Bill pleased only the Home Rule Members below the Gangway; out of the House the Government had to reckon on the support of the Kilmainham "suspects" and the Portland ticket-of-leave man; with the Fenians also, whose truculent manifesto was rhodomontade, no doubt, but rhodomontade which, as all knew by experience, was apt to be followed by assassination. The Bill proposed to vote a large sum of money towards a most undesirable object—an object which would interfere with a natural law of our race, especially of the Celtic race, in its movement Westward—and it would tend to settle permanently on miserably inadequate portions of land tenants who would be unable to live on their holdings, even if they had them rent free. They would, therefore, be for ever subject to periodical visitations of famine and distress. The state of Scotland 50 or 60 years ago in certain respects very much resembled the state of Ireland now. It was covered with small tenancies, and in the Western districts of Scotland the ruins of what were called Irish crofts, or small farms, were still to be traced. He appealed to anyone who knew Scotland at the present day, and who could recollect it 30 or 40 years ago, and challenged anyone to deny that the tenant farmers of Scotland now were a more well-to-do and a more comfortable class, and a class who lived a more desirable life in every way, than the small crofters of the former period. The fact was, that Scotland had
      1424
      been spared all sentimental legislation. In the case of Ireland, he saw no reason why it should be treated as the right hon. Gentleman proposed. The agricultural depression, which was the ostensible reason for bringing in this measure, was not nearly as severe or as widely spread in Ireland as in England and Scotland. In the North of England the last year was one of the worst possible, while in Ireland the harvest was one of the best on record. Besides that, the produce of the small dairy farms of Ireland had not to meet the American competition which the wheat-growing farms in England and Scotland had to face. From thousands of homesteads, hitherto happy and prosperous, families had been removed in the Midland Counties of England. Why was not the same sympathy extended to English and Scotch as to Irish farmers? Were they less devoted to their homes? No; they loved their homes just as much as the Irish peasant, but they did not make so much noise about their grievances. In the flogging days in the Army those who yelled loudest did not suffer so much as those who put a bullet between the teeth and held their peace. The Irish farmers resorted to agitation, which the dignity of the English and the Scotch farmers made it impossible for them to indulge in. They had not yet learned the art of "tolling the chapel bells," and calling attention to their sufferings by outrage and intimidation. He regretted that the Prime Minister did not see his way to devoting this large sum of money to emigration, which the late Chief Secretary spoke of as the one hope of Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman only deprecated doing that now because it would weaken the popularity of the Land Act of 1881. He (Sir Herbert Maxwell) was not much concerned about the popularity of the Land Act. His opinion of that measure had never altered. He believed it would fail, and that the Bill now before the House would fail, as every Bill would fail until the Irish Government learned to make no distinction between agrarian and political agitation. He desired to ask what security against fraud was afforded by this Bill? Nothing was more difficult to guard against than concealment of goods. The overworked authorities under the Land Act would be unable to enter into a minute examination of the condition

      1425
      of tenant farmers, and the Bill would offer an inducement to the making of fraudulent claims. If he believed the Bill would result in the relief of Ireland, that the people would be happy and contented, or if he could hope that it would tend to unite Ireland to this country, he would be inclined to put his conscience on one side—as would be done by many Members who voted for this measure—and would vote for it himself. But, as he could anticipate none of these benefits to Ireland, he should be compelled to disregard the appeal made by the Government and to vote against the Bill.
      MR. VILLIERS-STUARTsaid, that when the Prime Minister expressed partial approval of the Land Laws Amendment Bill introduced by hon. Gentlemen opposite, he laid down the axiom that if the Arrears Clauses were to be compulsory, they must also be just. That axiom was only what might have been expected from an enlightened statesman, and he would vote for the second reading, relying on the right hon. Gentleman being as good as his word, and accepting such Amendments as would render the Bill just; for, as it stood, very serious injustice would be inflicted upon a number of landlords, and that upon the very class who were most deserving of consideration, and who, when appealed to by the Government to be forbearing and not to add to existing difficulties, did not press their claims as they might have done. It would place them in a mortifying position, and also those tenants who, notwithstanding every temptation to hold their rents, paid them honestly, and, in a considerable proportion of cases, at the risk of their lives. In regard to the question whether the Bill should proceed by way of loan or gift, he was one of those who signed the Memorial which was sent to the Prime Minister from his side of the House, advocating his proceeding by way of loan. The Members who had signed that Memorial did so from the belief that loans would be less demoralizing to the beneficiaries themselves, and give rise to less heartburnings among those who had paid their rents honestly. It would, moreover, allow of more liberal terms being offered to them. It was quite true that loans at 1 per cent did partake of the nature of a gift, but the demoralizing influence was absent. Loans on such
      1426
      terms, precisely because they would partake of the nature of a gift, would still have permitted of the application of the principle of compulsion, of which he approved. In supporting the second reading of the Bill, he was anxious to guard himself against being supposed to be committed to more than that the Arrears Question was of the highest importance, and ought to be dealt with, and to take precedence of everything else. As to the question of gift or loan, he and the other Irish Members who sat near him had not changed their opinion; but they deferred to that of the Prime Minister. If it was possible that the Bill should be brought to a third reading unchanged, he could not conscientiously support it; but he could not believe that such a thing would happen, because he could not believe that the wealthy and generous-hearted people of England would prefer to adopt the policy of confiscation rather than pay the price of the policy of honesty.
      MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, this was the most interesting and instructive debate they had had for a long period. It was a very remarkable fact that so many speakers on the Ministerial Benches had spoken disparagingly of one of the pillars on which this Bill rested. The Prime Minister said it rested on two pillars—gift and compulsion; and it was noteworthy that scarcely a Member on the other side—and certainly none on his own side—of the House had advocated the principle of gift. In fact, the only exceptions were the occupants of the Treasury Bench and two Irish Members on the Ministerial side of the House. Some of the principles enunciated by the Prime Minister he confessed had both surprised and alarmed him. They were informed that the principle of loan was admitted in the Bill of last year, against which some of them protested as likely to be demoralizing to the inhabitants of Ireland. They were desirous of doing anything they could to encourage independence, and they were informed that the principle of loan admitted into the Bill of last year conceded everything which was to be found in the Bill of this year. Another remarkable statement was made by the Prime Minister when he insisted that the conditions under which this arrangement should be carried out must be equitable, safe, and effectual. Shortly after the

      1427
      right hon. Gentleman had made that statement, the hon. Member for the County of Cork (Mr. Shaw)—who was, no doubt, a good judge of what was equitable—pointed out the absence of any equity in making large grants to persons who were dishonest, thriftless, and wanting in all the qualities of good citizens. The hon. Member for the County of Cork further pointed out that a man who had made an effort to pay his rent and to meet his other obligations would be discouraged by seeing the great disadvantage in which he would be placed under the Bill, compared with those who had failed to exercise his qualities of honesty and integrity. He could not imagine that any principle asserted by Parliament could be more disastrous, or more certainly dmoralizing to the community, than to make it clear that this money was not to be advanced to men who had striven to discharge their obligations to society, but to those who had entirely failed in that duty. He said, therefore, that this Bill, which the Prime Minister asked the House to accept, introduced a principle which was most unsafe and most dangerous to the State. It was absurd to call it equitable. There was another ground on which the Prime Minister asked the House to assent to the measure. It was that it would be effectual. He wished to draw attention to the absence of any provision for making this Bill effectual for the object which the Government had in view. The Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant had expressed a most earnest desire—in which he believed hon. Members on both sides, without exception joined—to give, if possible, these unfortunate people a fresh and fair start in the world, without encumbrance and without difficulty. It was notorious that those tenants who were honestly in arrear with their landlords for two or three years' rent were equally in arrear to their trade creditors. Taking the community at large, you might average the debt due to the landlord as equal to the debt due to the shopkeeper. What was proposed to be done? To clear off the debt due to the landlord, and to leave the other arrears hanging round the neck of the tenant and preventing him from earning his living. This would afford a temptation, which was practically irresistible to the shopkeepers, and
      1428
      those from whom the tenant might have borrowed money, to go at once to the man who was clear of his debt to the landlord, and to proceed in the Courts in order to obtain a decision in their favour and to compel this very man to sell his holding. In other words, we should make it easy for a shopkeeper or moneylender to proceed to that very sentence of eviction which it was professedly desired should be removed from the power of the landlord. Therefore, the scheme proposed by the Government was not equitable, safe, or effectual. But the Prime Minister said he did not bind himself absolutely to the amount, which he now estimated at £2,000,000, as being the sum of the demand which the State might have to meet in the shape of one year's arrears, because, as the right hon. Gentleman observed, the idea of receiving public money was very fascinating. He thought that, in making that statement, the Prime Minister must have had in his mind recollections of the Chancellor of the Exchequer of former days. There was a rich fund to draw upon, and it was always regarded by the public as being practically inexhaustible. He would now proceed to point out many sources of difficulty which were likely to arise under this Bill. The Prime Minister said it was very fascinating to endeavour to obtain, and to be able to receive, money from the Public Exchequer. As it was at present drawn this Bill would put it into the power of everyone who might owe a "hanging gale" to ask the Exchequer to pay half of it. This was a provision under which the whole of the tenants under £30 valuation in Ireland, who were not practically or really in arrear, could come and claim from the State half of a sum of money which they would not be called upon to pay until the year after it was due. This was a provision under which arrears of rent would be created which did not now exist, and in respect of which a large and unlooked-for demand would be made on the Public Exchequer. It appeared to him that the views which the Prime Minister had asserted were dangerous views for the future—he was going to say for the morality—of the community of this country. If there was one thing more than another which it was their duty to do, it was to persuade their countrymen that the highest

      1429
      position they could attain to was to have a respect for law and for the discharge of their obligations. This Bill was, however, a distinct reward to those who had abstained from paying their rents, and a distinct incitement to others not to do so in the future. As to the number of persons who in one way or another would be affected by the Bill, he thought it would be larger than was generally supposed. The total number of holdings in Ireland was 660,000; but, according to a Return which had been made by the Irish Local Government Board, the number of holdings under £30 valuation was 585,715. It might, therefore, be said that one-half, or nearly one-half, of the population of Ireland would come within the purview of this Bill. Indeed, assuming that there were four or five persons to every holding, there would be more than one-half of the population brought within the purview of the Bill. Assuming 200,000 to be in arrear, a considerable proportion of that number would be cottier tenants. Well, every one of these 585,715 persons who did not get relief under the Bill would have a grievance. [An hon. MEMBER: No.] There was no surer way of creating a grievance than by making distinctions between individuals of the same class in the distribution of public money. There were 585,715 heads of families in the class for whom the Bill was intended, and there were only 200,000 who it was calculated would receive any advantage from the Bill. There would thus be 400,000 families who would feel themselves aggrieved by the operation of the Bill, and these dissatisfied persons would be the most honest and enterprizing of their class—men who had done their duty at the risk of losing property and life. The rent-roll of Ireland might be reckoned at £14,000,000. For the purposes of the Bill it was assumed that 2,000,000 would be required. Those tenants, therefore, who had paid the remaining £12,000,000 of rent would feel a sense of injustice of which the Government might hear in a very unpleasant manner. With regard to the cottier tenants, his right hon. Friend the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster) and the Chief Secretary (Mr. Trevelyan) had spoken of them in terms with which, everybody must sympathize. All must desire to do something to be-
      1430
      nefit the poor tenants of the West of Ireland—Galway, Mayo, and Donegal. Emigration, or migration, was the only means of relieving these unfortunate people. By some means or other they were bound to lift those people out of the condition of misery in which they were now situated. Last year, in the debates on the Land Act, he had frequently said that the only way in which the Government could deal with the enormous difficulty—a scandal to a great Empire—of improving the lot of that congestion of starving persons was by the appointment of a Royal Commission, which should have funds at its disposal to assist their removal to another country, or to another part of Ireland. His right hon. Friend said that the settlement of arrears must come before migration; that they ought first to enable the tenants to pay their rents. But what was the good of keeping these unhappy people in a condition in which there was the strongest evidence to show that they could not keep body and soul together? It was stated in evidence before the Bessborough Commission, by Professor Baldwin, that there were 100,000 holdings in Ireland altogether too small to maintain a family, even if they were held rent free. That was stated in 1880, and, notwithstanding two good harvests, the condition of those people was as bad as ever; they were not able to pay their rents or to live or thrive. What was the statement of the reporter of The Daily News on Saturday? The Daily News says—
      "It is to be feared that these poor creatures (in Connemara) labour under a fatal disqualification to relief under that measure (the Arrears Bill). The total amount of their annual rent varies from 15s. to £5, and it is probable that if they held their land free of all rent they would still be in a very wretched plight. Sub-division has been practically unchecked, and our Correspondent mentions a case of co-partnership in which nine families, consisting of 57 persons, actually shared a plot of ground worth about £10 a-year. They are willing to emigrate, but they cannot afford it."
      They had this statement, with that of Professor Baldwin and that of The O'Conor Don. The Land Act had been in operation nearly a year, Ireland was in a worse condition now than in 1880, and yet the Government had not taken any steps which would adequately cope with this enormous evil. He spoke from his own knowledge when he said

      1431
      that there were hundreds and thousands of these poor people who would be glad to emigrate if the means were found them. Although the right hon. Gentleman might he right in saying that it would be to the advantage of the landlord if the land could be cleared of his tenants, it was utterly out of his power, in most cases, to offer sufficient inducements to them to emigrate, as the Land Acts of 1870 and 1881 imposed penalties on "disturbances" which were too onerous to be encountered; and then he had probably received no rent for many years, and was in a state of absolute poverty. Thus the landlords, in many cases, were unable to give any assistance. There was nothing in the Bill which would do any good for these people; there was nothing in the Bill of last year. There was, no doubt, a provision dealing with emigration; but he believed there was no single case in which that provision had been acted upon. Were we to wait indefinitely for something to be done to meet the evil? A moderate measure of well-considered migration or emigration would afford the greatest possible relief to these poor tenants; and for those who remained at home there would be a much better chance of success and prosperity. He had seen with his own eyes that, under present circumstances, it was impossible for thousands of human beings to find a livelihood among the stones and bogs of districts such as those of Connemara. He could not see that the right hon. Gentleman the late Chief Secretary was right in saying that in those districts this Bill would afford relief.
      MR. W. E. FORSTER: I said that nothing but emigration would relieve them.
      MR. W. H. SMITHunderstood that the right hon. Gentleman meant that the emigration was to be delayed until after the operation of the Bill on the arrears.
      MR. W. E. FORSTER: What I said was, that if the emigration was the compulsory result of extensive evictions it would not be emigration conducted with the best chance of success.
      MR. W. H. SMITHquite agreed with his right hon. Friend, whom he had misunderstood. But was the Government justified in not dealing at once with that evil? He approached the question with the strongest feeling that probably at no period in the history of this country—
      1432
      certainly not in the present generation—was the condition of Ireland more grave than at the present moment. He did not throw difficulties in the way of the Bill from any political motive adverse to the Government. These were times when political differences ought to be hushed in the endeavour to deal with a condition of affairs which was far more grave; serious, and alarming than any condition of affairs as regarded Ireland, which he had known during his lifetime. There was more serious general disaffection and more complete disloyalty in Ireland than had ever been the case before. Where there was formerly good nature; where there was a readiness to meet a stranger and a desire to make his way pleasant, there was sullen discontent. There was every indication that the population were estranged from England and the English nation. This was a condition of affairs that required to be met, not wholly by measures of repression, but certainly not by measures which were unsound in principle and wrong and dangerous in their effects. He would say this without any political or partial feeling whatever—that he believed the effect of the Land Act had not been to add a single additional loyal subject to the number in Ireland, and he believed it had not produced any satisfaction on the part of those who benefited by it. They regarded it as forced from the Government by agitation, and not as an act of justice and done from a sense of duty by the Imperial Parliament. If that was the way in which the legislation of the past had been received, they had little hope that the boon now offered would produce a feeling of loyalty. The Bill before the House ought to be allowed to pass if it were right and just, and if, on the whole, from their experience of men and society, they thought it would conduce to the good government of the country, not only in the present, but also in the future. But his objection was that it would not do that. The Bill proposed to deal with three classes of persons—first, those who could pay and would not; secondly, those who could have paid but had spent the money; and, thirdly, those who were wholly unable to pay, such as the cottier tenants of Galway, Mayo, and other parts. The Bill would benefit the first two classes; but those who could not pay—those who had been described by a writer in a

      1433
      morning paper as living from hand to mouth with enormous difficulty—would be left unprovided for. There had been a considerable cessation of labour in the West of Ireland. Persons had been thrown out of employment through the terrorism of the Land League and the operation of the Land Act; and he feared that it would be a long time before that employment would be renewed, owing to the withdrawal of capital from the country. He felt sure that the employment would not be shortly renewed, even if the Government were able to restore security to life and property in Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman the present Chief Secretary, in his speech last night, observed that the landlords had made a bad debt, a portion of which would now be paid by the State. He must apologize for having, perhaps, old-fashioned notions; but he did not think it the duty of Parliament or of the Exchequer to pay anybody's bad debts. It was a great misfortune to the landlords, no doubt; but he believed that to say that bad debts, in the shape of rents accruing during bad seasons or otherwise, should be provided for by the State was to make an assertion which was dangerous to financial policy, and which tended to public immorality. Another objection he had to the measure was that it would take away a fund which might have been used with great advantage for reproductive purposes. In whichever way they looked at it, they could not consider the grant of the Irish Church Surplus Fund anything other than a grant of public money. [An hon. MEMBER: Of Irish money.] Well, he wished to speak of Irishmen as Englishmen, and as inhabitants of the United Kingdom. His great hope would be to deal with Ireland in the same way as England, and he hoped the time would yet come when they might be treated as one nation. Many of the greatest names in English history were Irish. Many of their greatest statesmen and of their greatest soldiers had been Irishmen, and he saw no reason why the distinction between the two countries should be kept up. There was a disposition to continually resort to the Church Surplus, just as a boy went to a jampot as long as it lasted; but he thought that if the capital of this fund had been preserved, it might have been used most beneficially for Ireland. He objected to the prin-
      1434
      ciple of the measure entirely. If men were in arrear with their rent, they were most likely in debt also to the shopkeeper and to others, and why should the debts which were owing for rent be the only ones defrayed by the State? He was convinced that the only way of dealing with people in arrear in that manner was to put them through a rapid and easy bankruptcy. Even the leading organ of Liberal opinion in Ireland—The Freeman's Journal—pointed out that one serious objection to this Bill was that the relief arrangement involved lawsuits. It appeared to him to be the height of folly to relieve people who were in hopeless debt and misery of a part of their burdens only, and to leave, perhaps, the bulk of the debts unsatisfied. It had been said that the bankruptcy to which he had alluded would involve eviction. But he did not know that that was necessary. He said last year, and he would repeat it, that a measure dealing with this question, in order to be successful, must be kept beyond the range of Party politics. For his own part, he certainly was unwilling to vote for a Bill which appeared to him unsound in principle, likely to perpetuate most grave evils, and offering a distinct premium on dishonesty, and which afforded no reasonable hope of grappling successfully with the great difficulty which they had to meet in Ireland. He believed that end might be accomplished if sufficient courage were shown by the Government in the matter. He should regret greatly if the condition of Ireland should render the affairs of that country the mere shuttlecock of Parties; and he was satisfied that that House would cheerfully submit to any sacrifice if a real determined effort were made to grapple with the evils that prevailed in Ireland, if that could be done apart from politics and apart from social disturbance. He declared, however, that this Bill would offer the greatest possible inducement to the repudiation of contracts in Ireland, instead of extending, as he hoped it would have done, the facilities for purchase. The only argument that had been put forward in support of the Bill was that it had been rendered necessary by three years' failure of crops; but what was there to assure the House that another three years' failure of crops would not occur within the next few years, in which case they might be asked to pass another Relief Bill similar to the

      1435
      present to pay the tenants' debts out of the public funds? The right hon. Member for Bradford had excused the introduction of the Bill on the ground of the exceptional state of things in Ireland; but, for his part, he saw no security that such a state of things would not recur. The Bill might be a necessity, but he could not reconcile it with his conscience to allow the measure to pass without entering his protest against its principle. He was convinced, if only men of great power and influence had the courage, that a better way could be found, without serious danger to the State, of meeting a difficulty which he was convinced that every loyal man and every Christian would wish to see met.
      MR. CHILDERSsaid, he had listened to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down with great interest, and he was bound to say that he agreed cordially with many of the sentiments that it contained. The spirit of that speech was good throughout, and many of the suggestions which the right hon. Gentleman had made were well worthy of the consideration of Parliament and of the country. Before touching upon the general principles of the measure, he should like to refer to the first reason which the right hon. Gentleman gave as weighing with him in opposition to the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman objected to the Bill, because, he said, it would enable a large number of the tenants to settle with their landlords, after which they would find themselves face to face with the shopkeepers, who would evict them without mercy. But if that was a sound objection to a scheme of gift, he failed to see how it would be met by making the gift a loan. If he correctly understood the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion, he wished to inaugurate a huge plan of bankruptcy, and that he desired it to be understood that he and his Friends would be prepared to sacrifice large sums of money to enable the people of Ireland to get rid of their liabilities. What he failed, however, to see was how, under the scheme of the right hon. Gentleman, these unfortunate people, who would be deprived of all their property, would benefit; and, moreover, the right hon. Gentleman had failed to point out in what manner his scheme could be rendered practicable. The right hon. Gentleman had, indeed, made one suggestion—namely, that some
      1436
      large and universal scheme of emigration should be adopted for the overcrowded Western districts of Ireland. He (Mr. Childers) knew something of the good side of emigration, and of the advantage it was to many poor people in this country to be enabled to settle in Colonies where the social institutions were similar to those here; and any such system of emigration, primâ facie, would receive his support. But had the right hon. Gentleman well weighed and considered the difficulties involved in emigration from Ireland? It raised questions relating to the religious sentiments of the Irish people, which up to the present time Parliament had been unable to solve. He did not hesitate to say, after having made inquiries on the subject in the West of Ireland, that unless some security was given that their religious connections would not be broken off, emigration would be always a violation of the wishes of large sections of the Irish people. If it were possible to mature a sound system of emigration from the overcrowded districts of Ireland, it would receive no stronger support than from himself. The suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman as to a fuller explanation of what was meant by a "hanging gale," in Sub-section 3 of the 1st clause of the Bill, would, no doubt, receive attention in Committee. There was a peculiarity in the present debate to which, he wished to call attention. Three Notices of Amendment were given by the Opposition. Of these the third had been adopted by that Party. The first Amendment, which certainly had at one time the countenance of the Leader of the Opposition, was a general one, declaring that "no gift of public money" would effect the objects of the Bill; the second said that a contribution of public money for this purpose "should, in the present circumstances, take the shape of a loan, and not of a gift." The Amendment now under discussion was still more limited, because it stated that—
      "No payment in respect of arrears of rent in Ireland should be made by way of gift, if that payment was to be a charge on the Consolidated Fund."
      From this he inferred that the Opposition were not prepared to test the principle involved in the first and second Amendments. The right hon. Gentleman, in fact, said that his Amendment raised the "narrowest possible issue,"

      1437
      and that it did not prohibit payment by way of gift from the Church Fund. He went even further, and said that, if the Church Fund was not sufficient for these payments by way of gift, the balance of the £2,000,000 might be charged on Irish land, and that a rate of 1d. in the pound for six years on Irish land would meet the £400,000 or £500,000 required to be raised. But was it not evident from this that the Amendment before the House was unreal? It did not touch the real question. It was intended merely to catch votes. It did not contest with the Government the principle of the Bill. It raised only a side issue, which, judging from the divisions at the previous Sitting of the House, did not commend itself to the approval of the House. They were not discussing the real points of the present Bill. The right hon. Gentleman said he would give them an illustration from former transactions of this kind, and proposed that the advances should be made from the Consolidated Fund by way of a loan, in order to express the intention of Parliament, rather than with a view of recovering the money after the loans were made. The right hon. Gentleman said this had been done with regard to the tithe loans, a portion of which was not repaid, while another portion was repaid to only a small extent. Was not this, then, an unreal proposal if founded on such precedents? The right hon. Gentleman also objected to the Bill on the ground of the present state of the finances. He said there was no Surplus, and he referred to the fact that they were paying £500,000 a-year to help the taxes of India. But who had brought upon them that charge? The Vote in Aid of the Finances of India had become necessary solely in consequence of the unfortunate war waged by right hon. Gentlemen opposite—a war with regard to which the country had expressed its distinct disapproval. He must now refer to the statements of the hon. Member for Downpatrick (Mr. Mulholland), than whom no one was better informed with regard to the financial affairs connected with the late Established Irish Church. The hon. Gentleman had referred to the unsatisfactory condition of the Church Fund, and he said that the fund's assets were not in excess of its liabilities, and that it was impossible to look to it as a means of support. It was said that the Re-
      1438
      port of the Commissioners contained no balance-sheet. He had listened attentively to the hon. Member, and he had by him the accounts of the Irish Church Fund; and he thought it was right that the statement of the hon. Member in this particular should be corrected as soon as possible. From the Report of the 1st of November, 1880, he found that the estimated present value of the Church Estate, before later charges had been placed on it, was £12,400,000. The liabilities were—Loan from National Debt Commission, £5,600,000; other liabilities, £300,000; total, £5,900,000; making the surplus £6,500,000. The subsequent charges were—Intermediate education, £1,000,000; pensions of schoolmasters, £1,300,000; the loss to Estate by the relief of distress advances being made at 1 per cent. £550,000; total, £2,850,000; leaving a balance of £3,650,000. Then they must take this as subject to estimated depreciation on £12,400,000 from non-payment of rent, and he did not pretend to say how much this might be, but if even 10 per cent. it left a large balance. He next turned to the present position of the income. The present income, according to the Commissioners' Report, was £562,000, to which must be added repayment of advances for distress during 35 years, £49,000; making together £611,000. On the other side of the account there were sundry charges, £61,500; interest on £500,000 borrowed, £17,500; annuity for 25 years, to replace loan from Commission, £295,700; teachers' pensions, £39,000; intermediate education, £32,500; Royal University, £20,000; relief of distress bonds, £45,500; total, £511,700. The income would gradually fall in 40 years from £562,000 to £467,000, and 10 years afterwards to £293,000. The expenditure, after 25 years, would fall to £216,000. The proposed method of dealing with the loan of £2,000,000, if the whole of that were considered to be chargeable on the Church Fund, would be to extend the annuity from 25 years to 35 years, the term of the repayment of the instalments of the advances for the relief of distress, and to create a similar annuity for the £500,000 which remained due to the National Debt Commissioners. The charge would then be £262,600, instead of £312,200, showing a diminution of charge of £50,600. If

      1439
      that were done, and £62,500 were the charge for the interest of the £2,000,000, and 5 per cent were deducted for non-receipt of income, what would be the surplus? The Actuarial Report was that the surplus available to pay off the £2,000,000 would be from £45,000 in 1885 to £28,000 in 1915, the maximum being £57,000 in 1905. If those figures were correct, it was evident that the Church Fund would well bear the £1,500,000 charge which it was proposed to place upon it. With regard to the ascertaining the inability to pay of the persons to whom advances were made, a strong observation had been made by the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. W. H. Smith) to the effect that those who did not receive any portion of the public money, but who were of the same class as those who did, would have a grievance. But that was a complaint which could equally be brought against the Poor Law, and almost in every case in which public money reached some hands and not others. The noble Lord the Member for Middlesex (Lord George Hamilton) had twitted the Government with their inability to say the same thing twice. Last year, the noble Lord said the Government maintained that it would not be possible to demand that a tenant should prove his inability to pay rent, but this year they required such proof. Well, that a tenant should be required to prove his inability to pay was advocated last year by the noble Lord himself and the right hon. Baronet the Member for South-West Lancashire (Sir R. Assheton Cross); and he held that it was hard that the Government should be taken to task by the noble Lord for adopting after consideration the suggestion which he and the Leaders of his Party had put forward. The Government had been asked, with reference to the question of a tenant's inability to pay rent, whether he would have to strip himself of his tenant right before claiming to be in that condition? If a tenant, in order to pay, had to deprive himself of his holding altogether, so as to be no longer a tenant, then that would be inconsistent with the objects of the Bill; but if it continued to be what in business phraseology was called "a going concern," but would bear no further burden, then inability to pay might be proved. The hon. Member for East Surrey (Mr. Grantham) had said that the first necessity for Ireland
      1440
      was an improved class of tenants; and so far as legislation could effect that object, there was ground for believing that under the operation of the Land Act, aided by this Bill, the class of tenants in Ireland would be improved. The main question with regard to this Bill was whether the advance to be made in relief of the tenants should be made by way of loan or as a gift? The right hon. Gentleman opposite said that nobody was for the principle of gift and everybody in favour of that of loan. He thought, on the contrary, that everybody was for gift, all the various proposals that had been made as to the principle of loan having contained in them the element of gift. One plan had been strongly urged into which the element of gift largely entered—namely, the proposal of the hon. Member for Cork County (Mr. Shaw)—that three-fourths of all arrears up to November, 1880, should be lent for a period of 35 years at 1 per cent. without any limit as to the amount of rent or the number of years during which the arrears had accumulated, or any distinction as to whether the tenant was able to pay or not. Having made a calculation as to the amount of money which would have to be advanced in order to carry out that plan, he (Mr. Childers) found it would probably amount to £6,000,000, of which £2,000,000 would be a gift. So that the difference between the hon. Member's proposal and that of the Government was that while the former would involve as large a gift as the Government proposed to give, it would make the State a creditor to the tenants to the extent of £4,000,000 more, to be spread over several hundred thousand debtors and during a period of 35 years. He pitied the Government that would adopt such a proposal. The hon. Member for Down-patrick (Mr. Mulholland) used an expression which surprised him—namely, that the lending of money without interest was really an operation on a sound basis. He did not know whether the hon. Member would apply that in private life; he should think not. His right hon. Friend the late Chief Secretary made a remark as to the persons by whom this Bill was to be administered—that was to say, the persons who would have to decide upon the ability to pay. As that was a matter which they would be able to discuss well in Committee, he (Mr. Childers)

      1441
      would not enter upon it now. However they might differ upon the question whether this Bill was of little or of great importance, he firmly believed its operation would be beneficial. The judgments given under the Land Act showed that, on the average, rents had been excessive; and that being acknowledged, it seemed but reasonable, after the three years' famine, that the Government should assist the tenants to pay the rent which accrued during that disastrous time. As Parliament had passed a measure for the protection of tenants with regard to the future, it did not appear to be unreasonable that Parliament should, for the purpose of making an adjustment between landlords and tenants, pass another measure dealing with the past; and, therefore, he hoped the House would pass this Bill.
      MR. J. LOWTHER: I had not intended to address any observations this afternoon to the House, and I should not have done so had it not been for the very cordial, though somewhat unusual, invitation addressed to me at an early hour this morning by the Prime Minister. I had intended, had time permitted, to have addressed a few words to the House last night with regard to this Bill. I was about to have stated on my own part, while fully agreeing with my right hon. Friend the Member for North Hampshire (Mr. Sclater-Booth) as to the preference for a loan over that of a gift, that it appeared to me that it was comparatively a matter of detail. My objection to the measure is far antecedent to any distinctions between a loan and a gift. I object myself to that which I consider is a distinct encouragement to dishonesty and a premium placed upon fraud, for the encouragement of the tenants who, during exceptionally good years, have been able to pay their rents, and who have chosen not to do so. The right hon. Gentleman, who has only a moment since left his place, intimated that I made use of expressions outside the walls of this House which I was not prepared to make in this Assembly. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will be returning directly, and I will confine myself for a few minutes to observations with regard to the Bill itself. This Bill, in my opinion, contains one great defect, in so far as the only means for ascertaining whether the tenant is or is not a fraudulent debtor or a person in
      1442
      adversity is a reference to the Commission—to that public body created under the Land Act, which has not yet succeeded in inspiring the public with any confidence. Sir, I was observing that the Prime Minister, who is now in his place, referred to certain remarks of mine in a place other than this House, to which he appeared to take exception. He has not, so far, favoured me with a reference to the particular remarks to which he refers, although I see that he has sources of information at hand. I have to remind the House and the right hon. Gentleman that I addressed a very few words to the House on the announcement made by the right hon. Gentleman—now some three weeks ago. My words were few; but I remember that I said that the announcement made by the right hon. Gentleman was, in my opinion, an abdication on the part of the Government de jure in favour of the Government de facto, and that the arrangement announced would be regarded throughout the length and breadth of the country as an ignominious surrender to the forces of lawlessness and crime. Those were the words of which I made use in this House, and I am not aware that elsewhere I have receded from them, or, I am bound to say, improved upon them. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman might kindly call my attention to the particular remarks to which he takes exception. If the right hon. Gentleman gives me a reference, I will see whether I have succeeded in obtaining the information which he desires. I find during the same speech I spoke of it in these——
      MR. GLADSTONEhere made an observation which was inaudible in the Gallery.
      MR. J. LOWTHER: What date? Will the right hon. Gentleman kindly give me the date?
      MR. GLADSTONE: On May the 18th.
      MR. J. LOWTHER: Well, Sir, I think, perhaps, it would be the meeting at Keighley.
      MR. GLADSTONE: It is to that I would call the right hon. Gentleman's attention if he has been correctly reported; it is on the subject of the conduct of the Government in relation to the release of the Members of Parliament and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster). I will not give him the re-

      1443
      ference unless they are accurately reported. Under the head of "Mr. Lowther at Bradford," the right hon. Gentleman deplored "the weakness and vacillation of the Member for Bradford;" and, having done that, he goes on to account for it. He found the cause for that weakness and vacillation—namely, "the treacherous action of Mr. Forster's Colleagues." He said—
      "Mr. Forster was a good man struggling with adversity; he had disloyal Colleagues, who were conducting clandestine negotiations to a great extent wholly unknown to him, and machinations were elaborated to oust him from the Cabinet."
      I wish to know whether the right hon. Gentleman is correctly reported?
      MR. J. LOWTHER: They are substantially accurate, and certainly, as far as my information enables me to form an opinion, they are accurate still. What are the facts? As announced by various Ministers to this House, communications were taking place between a certain Member of the Cabinet and an Irish Member of Parliament without, so far as evidence has reached me, the concurrence of the right hon. Gentleman then the Chief Secretary for Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman has been asked several times whether he is prepared to lay those documents on the Table. I must own myself that if I had possessed a Colleague who was capable of conducting communications in any shape or form behind my back I should have taken most serious exception to his course. But what certainly appears on the face of the somewhat disjointed communications which have from time to time been extracted from Members of the Government? The House must arrive at the conclusion that communications had taken place between the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford and the hon. Member for Clare (Mr. O'Shea), and that certain correspondence had taken place.
      LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICErose to Order. He wished to know whether the observations which the right hon. Gentleman was making were in Order, as being germane to the Bill under discussion?
      MR. SPEAKER: The observations of the right hon. Gentleman are not germane to the Bill under discussion, and his observations can only be received in the form of a personal explanation.
      1444
      If the House thinks proper to receive the observations in that sense, no doubt it will allow him to make the observations; but they are foreign to the subject-matter of the Bill.
      MR. J. LOWTHER: The right hon. Gentleman has quoted words which I admit to be substantially accurate. I have a different newspaper here, with, perhaps, a slightly varied report; but I do not care to go into details. I believe the impression upon my mind is shared by the great bulk of the inhabitants of the United Kingdom.
      MR. JOHN BRIGHT: Especially in Yorkshire.
      MR. J. LOWTHER: The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster says, "Especially in Yorkshire." I think if the right hon. Gentleman consults persons holding his own political opinion in that Division of Yorkshire, to which probably he more especially refers, I think he will find that opinion widely entertained; and that a certain political event, to which he, perhaps, intended to refer, was to some appreciable extent influenced by the views entertained by many intelligent persons with regard to transactions of this kind. I have no wish to stand in the way of the House and a division; but I felt myself bound, in response to the invitation of the right hon. Gentleman, to state that any statement I make outside the House I am perfectly willing, so far as it is germane to the discussion, to maintain in this House. If the right hon. Gentleman will produce the documents, and can assure me that the right hon. Member for Bradford was consulted during all the stages in these negotiations, both written and oral, which have taken place between his Colleagues or any of his Colleagues and any Irish Members, I will gladly say that I will withdraw.
      Question put.
      The House divided:—Ayes 296; Noes 181: Majority 115.—(Div. List, No. 98.)
      MR. STORERrose, and was about to address the Chair, when——
      MR. SPEAKERpointed out to the hon. Member that if his desire in rising was to debate the question, the second reading must be postponed till the evening. He inquired whether that was the object of the hon. Member?
      MR. STORERsaid, he did not wish to delay the division; but there had been no protest made against the Bill on behalf of the agricultural interest. He wished earnestly to make that protest.
      Main Question put, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
      The House divided:—Ayes269; Noes 157: Majority 112.

      AYES.

      Acland, C. T. D.

      Collins, E.

      Agnew, W.

      Colthurst, Col. D. La T.

      Ainsworth, D.

      Commins, A.

      Allen, H. G.

      Corbet, W. J.

      Amory, Sir J. H.

      Corbett, J.

      Armitstead, G.

      Cotes, C. C.

      Arnold, A.

      Courtney, L. H.

      Ashley, hon. E. M.

      Cowan, J.

      Balfour, Sir G.

      Cowper, hon. H. F.

      Balfour, J. B.

      Craig, W. Y.

      Balfour, J. S.

      Creyke, R.

      Baring, T. C.

      Cropper, J.

      Baring, Viscount

      Cross, J. K.

      Barnes, A.

      Cunliffe, Sir R. A.

      Barran, J.

      Currie, Sir D.

      Biddulph, M.

      Davey, H.

      Biggar, J. G.

      Davies, D.

      Blake, J. A.

      Davies, R.

      Blennerhassett, R. P.

      De Ferrieres, Baron

      Bolton, J. C.

      Dickson, T. A.

      Borlase, W. C.

      Dilke, Sir C. W.

      Brand, H. R.

      Dillon, J.

      Brassey, H. A.

      Dillwyn, L. L.

      Brassey, Sir T.

      Dodds, J.

      Brett, R. B.

      Dodson, rt. hon. J. G.

      Bright, rt. hon. J.

      Duckham, T.

      Bright, J. (Manchester)

      Dundas, hon. J. C.

      Brinton, J.

      Earp, T.

      Broadhurst, H.

      Ebrington, Viscount

      Brooks, M.

      Edwards, P.

      Brown, A. H.

      Errington, G.

      Bruce, rt. hon. Lord C.

      Evans, T. W.

      Bruce, hon. R. P.

      Farquharson, Dr. R.

      Bryce, J.

      Fawcett, rt. hon. H.

      Burt, T.

      Ferguson, R.

      Buszard, M. C.

      Findlater, W.

      Butt, C. P.

      Fitzmaurice, Lord E.

      Byrne, G. M.

      Flower, C.

      Caine, W. S.

      Foljambe, C. G. S.

      Callan, P.

      Foljambe, F. J. S.

      Cameron, C.

      Forster, Sir C.

      Campbell-Bannerman, H.

      Forster, rt. hon. W. E.

      Fry, L.

      Carbutt, E. H.

      Fry, T.

      Carington, hon. Col. W. H. P.

      Givan, J.

      Gladstone, rt. hn. W.E.

      Causton, R. K.

      Gladstone, H. J.

      Cavendish, Lord E.

      Gladstone, W. H.

      Chamberlain, rt. hn. J.

      Glyn, hon. S. C.

      Chambers, Sir T.

      Grafton, F. W.

      Cheetham, J. F.

      Grant, A.

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

      Grenfell, W. H.

      Clarke, J. C.

      Gurdon, R. T.

      Clifford, C. C.

      Hamilton, J. G. C.

      Cohen, A.

      Hartington, Marq. of

      Collings, J.

      Hastings, G. W.

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      Hayter, Sir A. D.

      O'Brien, Sir P.

      Healy, T. M.

      O'Connor, A.

      Henderson, F.

      O'Connor, T. P.

      Heneage, E.

      O'Conor, D. M.

      Henry, M.

      O'Donoghne, The

      Herschell, Sir F.

      O'Gorman Mahon, Col. The

      Hibbert, J. T.

      Hill, T. R.

      O'Kelly, J.

      Holden, I.

      O'Shaughnessy, R.

      Hollond, J. R.

      O'Shea, W. H.

      Holms, J.

      O'Sullivan, W. H.

      Hopwood, C. H.

      Paget, T. T.

      Howard, J.

      Palmer, C. M.

      Illingworth, A.

      Palmer, G.

      Inderwick, F. A.

      Palmer, J. H.

      James, C.

      Parker, C. S.

      James, Sir H.

      Parnell, C. S.

      James, W. H.

      Pease, A.

      Jardine, R.

      Peddie, J. D.

      Jenkins, D. J.

      Pennington, F.

      Jenkins, Sir J. J.

      Philips, R. N.

      Johnson, E.

      Playfair, rt. hon. L.

      Johnson, rt. hon. W. M.

      Porter, A. M.

      Kinnear, J.

      Portman, hn. W. H. B.

      Labouchere, H.

      Potter, T. B.

      Laing, S.

      Powell, W. R. H.

      Lalor, R.

      Power, J. O'C.

      Lawrence, Sir J. C.

      Power, R.

      Lawson, Sir W.

      Pugh, L. P.

      Lea, T.

      Pulley, J.

      Leake, R.

      Ralli, P.

      Leamy, E.

      Ramsay, J.

      Leatham, W. H.

      Ramsden, Sir J.

      Lee, H.

      Rathbone, W.

      Leeman, J. J.

      Redmond, J. E.

      Lefevre, right hon. G. J. S.

      Reed, Sir E. J.

      Reid, R. T.

      Leigh, hon. G. H. C.

      Richardson, J. N.

      Lloyd, M.

      Richardson, T.

      Lubbock, Sir J.

      Roberts, J.

      Lyons, R. D.

      Rogers, J. E. T.

      M'Arthur, A.

      Russell, C.

      M'Arthur, W.

      Russell, G. W. E.

      M'Carthy, J.

      Russell, Lord A.

      M'Clure, Sir T.

      Rylands, P.

      M'Coan, J. C.

      Samuelson, H.

      Macfarlane, D. H.

      Seely, C. (Nottingham)

      M'Intyre, Æneas J.

      Sexton, T.

      M'Kenna, Sir J. N.

      Sheil, E.

      Mackie, R. B.

      Sheridan, H. B.

      Mackintosh, C. F.

      Shield, H.

      M'Lagan, P.

      Simon, Serjeant J.

      M'Laren, C. B. B.

      Sinclair, Sir J. G. T.

      M'Minnies, J. G.

      Slagg, J.

      Magniac, C.

      Stanley, hon. E. L.

      Mappin, F. T.

      Stansfeld, rt. hon. J.

      Marjoribanks, E.

      Stanton, W. J.

      Martin, P.

      Stevenson, J. C.

      Martin, R. B.

      Stewart, J.

      Marum, E. M.

      Stuart, H. V.

      Mason, H.

      Sullivan, T. D.

      Matheson, Sir A.

      Summers, W.

      Maxwell-Heron, J.

      Synan, E. J.

      Meldon, C. H.

      Tavistock, Marquess of

      Mellor, J. W.

      Taylor, P. A.

      Milbank, Sir F. A.

      Tennant, C.

      Molloy, B. C.

      Thomasson, J. P.

      Monk, C. J.

      Thompson, T. C.

      Morgan, rt. hn. G. O.

      Tillett, J. H.

      Morley, S.

      Trevelyan, rt. hn. G. O.

      Mundella, rt. hon. A. J.

      Villiers, rt. hon. C. P.

      Nelson, I.

      Vivian, A. P.

      O'Beirne, Major F.

      Vivian, Sir H. H.

      1447

      Walter, J.

      Willyams, E. W. B.

      Watkin, Sir E. W.

      Wilson, C. H.

      Waugh, E.

      Wilson, I.

      Webster, J.

      Wodehouse, E. R.

      Wedderburn, Sir D.

      Woolf, S.

      Whitbread, S.

      Wiggin, H.

      TELLERS.

      Williams, S. C. E.

      Grosvenor, Lord R.

      Williamson, S.

      Kensington, Lord

      Willis, W.

      NOES.

      Allsopp, C.

      Foster, W. H.

      Amherst, W. A. T.

      Fowler, R. N.

      Ashmead-Bartlett, E.

      Fremantle, hon. T. F.

      Aylmer, J. E. F.

      Freshfield, C. K.

      Bailey, Sir J. R.

      Galway, Viscount

      Balfour, A. J.

      Garnier, J. C.

      Barttelot, Sir W. B.

      Gibson, rt. hon. E.

      Bateson, Sir T.

      Giffard, Sir H. S.

      Beach, rt. hn. Sir M. H.

      Goldney, Sir G.

      Beach, W. W. B.

      Gorst, T. E.

      Bective, Earl of

      Grantham, W.

      Bentinck, rt. hn. G. C.

      Greene, E.

      Birkbeck, E.

      Gregory, G. B.

      Blackburne, Col. J. I.

      Grey, A. H. G.

      Boord, T. W.

      Guest, M. J.

      Bourke, rt. hon. R.

      Hamilton, Lord C. J.

      Broadley, W. H. H.

      Hay, rt. hon. Admiral Sir J. C. D.

      Brodrick, hon. W. St. J. F.

      Herbert, hon. S.

      Bulwer, T. R.

      Hicks, E.

      Burghley, Lord

      Hildyard, T. B. T.

      Burrell, Sir W. W.

      Holland, Sir H. T.

      Buxton, Sir R. J.

      Hope, rt. hn. A. J. B. B.

      Campbell, J. A.

      Kennard, Col. E. H.

      Carden, Sir R. W.

      Kennaway, Sir J. H.

      Castlereagh, Viscount

      Knightley, Sir R.

      Cecil, Lord E. H. B. G.

      Lacon, Sir E. H. K.

      Chaplin, H.

      Lawrance, J. C.

      Christie, W. L.

      Lechmere, Sir E. A. H.

      Clarke, E.

      Legh, W. J.

      Coddington, W.

      Leigh, R.

      Cole, Viscount

      Leighton, S.

      Compton, F.

      Lennox, Lord H. G.

      Cotton, W. J. R.

      Levett, T. J.

      Cress, rt. hon. Sir R. A.

      Lewisham, Viscount

      Davenport, H. T.

      Lindsay, Sir R. L.

      Davenport, W. B.

      Loder, R.

      Dawnay, Col. hon. L. P.

      Long, W. H.

      Dawnay, hon. G. C.

      Lopes, Sir M.

      Dickson, Major A. G.

      Lowther, rt. hon. J.

      Digby, Col. hon. E.

      Lowther, hon. W.

      Dixon-Hartland, F. D.

      Mac Iver, D.

      Donaldson-Hudson, C.

      M'Garel-Hogg, Sir J.

      Douglas, A. Akers-

      Master, T. W. C.

      Dyke, rt. hn. Sir W. H.

      Maxwell, Sir H. E.

      Ecroyd, W. F.

      Miles, C. W.

      Elcho, Lord

      Miles, Sir P. J. W.

      Elliot, G. W.

      Monckton, F.

      Emlyn, Viscount

      Morgan, hon. F.

      Estcourt, G. S.

      Mowbray, rt. hn. Sir J. R.

      Feilden, Maj.-Gen. R. J.

      Newdegate, C. N.

      Fellowes, W. H.

      Newport, Viscount

      Fenwick-Bisset, M.

      Nicholson, W. N.

      Filmer, Sir E.

      Noel, rt. hon. G. J.

      Finch, G. H.

      North, Colonel J. S.

      Fletcher, Sir H.

      Northcote, H. S.

      Floyer, J.

      Northcote, rt. hn. Sir S. H.

      Folkestone, Viscount

      Forester, C. T. W.

      Onslow, D.

      Fort, R.

      Pell, A.

      1448

      Pemberton, E. L.

      Selwin-Ibbetson, Sir H. J.

      Percy, Earl

      Percy, Lord A.

      Severne, J. E.

      Phipps, C. N. P.

      Smith, rt. hon. W. H.

      Plunket, rt. hon. D. R.

      Stanley, rt. hn. Col. F.

      Price, Captain G. E.

      Storer G.

      Raikes, rt. hon. H. C.

      Sykes, C.

      Rankin, J.

      Talbot, J. G.

      Rendlesham, Lord

      Taylor, rt. hn. Col. T. E.

      Repton, G. W.

      Thynne, Lord H. F.

      Ridley, Sir M. W.

      Tollemache, hon. W. F.

      Ritchie, C. T.

      Tottenham, A. L.

      Rolls, J. A.

      Tyler, Sir H. W.

      Ross, A. H.

      Warton, C. N.

      Ross, C. C.

      Whitley, E.

      Round, J.

      Williams, Colonel O.

      St. Aubyn, W. M.

      Wilmot, Sir J. E.

      Salt, T.

      Wroughton, P.

      Schreiber, C.

      Yorke, J. R.

      Sclater-Booth, rt. hon. G.

      TELLERS.

      Scott, Lord H.

      Thornhill, T.

      Scott, M. D.

      Winn, R.

      Bill committed for Thursday.
      The House suspended its Sitting at Seven of the clock.
      The House resumed its Sitting at Nine of the clock.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  PREVENTION OF CRIME (IRELAND) BILL.— [BILL 157.]
  (Secretary Sir William Harcourt, Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Attorney General, Mr. Solicitor General, Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland.)
  PREVENTION OF CRIME (IRELAND) BILL.— [BILL 157.]

    COMMITTEE. [FIRST NIGHT.]
    Order for Committee read.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."—(Sir William Harcourt.)
    MR. JOSEPH COWENsaid, he had given Notice of an Amendment to the second reading of the Bill; but as it was the general desire of the House that that stage should be disposed of last week, he had not moved it. But he purposed to do so now. He had made a slight alteration in the Amendment; but it affected more its wording than its meaning. The mixed feeling of impatience and hopelessness with which the House entered upon the discussion of a fresh Irish Coercion Bill—the 50th in 80 years—was but natural. It was reasonable, too, that the wrath and horror excited by the tragedy in Phœnix Park should colour the discussion. The character of the victims, and the circum-

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    stances of the crime, combined to concentrate attention. But there had been murders as detestable and as dastardly, if not as daring, that had excited small comment and provoked little protest. Painful though these assassinations were, they did not constitute the most disturbing element of the situation. They were but the outward and visible signs of the existence of an irritating virus. The Government expected that the Bill before the House would bring a temporary relief. He did not share that opinion. He thought its effect would be the very opposite. But of this they might be sure—that until the social suppuration was drained off, there would be a constant recurrence of these eruptions. Few things in human history were more visibly related—as cause and effect—than Irish misery and Irish outrage. The one was the outcome of the other. Average Englishmen treated Irish politics as a pest, Irish grievances as a nuisance, and Irish history as a myth; but if they were to grasp the troubles that caused them such ceaseless disturbance, they would have to probe the evil to the bottom. Irish customs were not singularities to be stared at, or extravagances to be ridiculed; but were living and active forces, which had deeply and continuously affected national life. If the perennial discontent was to be appeased, these customs would have to be studied, and the drift of them understood. It was impossible to conceive that any number of men would deliberately run the risk of being hanged for the sole purpose of gratifying personal dislike. To argue in support of such an opinion was to suppose the existence of a diabolism in Irish character inconsistent with human nature. There must be a cause for these troubles. What was that cause? It originated partly in the injustice of the past, and partly in the suffering of the present. According to old Irish law, the land belonged, not to the individual, but the tribe. The Chiefs held their position as much by choice as by inheritance. Every Irish peasant had a share—it might be a small share, but he had a share—in the land he tilled. That right was inviolate and indefeasible. It was recognized by law and acted upon by custom. We overturned the clan system and established the landlord system. We drove the Irish Chiefs into beggary and exile,
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    and the Irish peasants into the bogs and mountains. They were not sufficiently numerous to rebel; they were not sufficiently influential to make their voice heard in the Legislature; but they were powerful enough to combine, and they did so. They formed agrarian associations, after the model and according to the principles of English trades unions. The English workmen were accustomed at one time to cut the driving bands and bellows of black-legs. Irish peasants, in like manner, injured the property and attacked the lives of the landlords, or of tenants who refused to comply with their trade combinations. The Rapparees, the Levellers, the Whiteboys, and the Peep o' Day Boys of past times in the South of Ireland; the Hearts of Oak and the Hearts of Steel in the North; and the Ribbonmen and Moonlighters of modern days had all a common origin. The idea that animated them was identical. The purpose they sought to serve was the same. They were the trade societies of the peasantry. The excesses that they committed did not originate in depravity of disposition, or in mere Celtic restiveness. They were wild and unregulated protests against personal injustice and public grievances. Hon. Gentlemen talked as if the present state of Ireland was new. Unfortunately, there was no novelty in it. It was the normal condition of the country. Agitations and offences of the kind complained of were—he was going to say—as old as their round towers; certainly, they were as old as the Conquest and the Confiscations. The poet Spenser, and Payne, two of the adventurers planted in Munster after the Elizabethan settlement, described the state of Ireland in their day. If hon. Members would take the trouble to refer to the works of Spenser or Payne they would find the condition existing then was the exact counterpart of what existed now. If they took a chapter from Spenser's book, and altered the dates and names, it could be read as a description of the South and West of Ireland to-day. Nothing had changed. There was the same bitter feeling between landlord and tenant, the same cause of complaint, the same disorder, and the same class of outrages. Sir William Petty—the founder of the House of Lansdowne, and one who was largely concerned in the Cromwellian settlement—Mr. Wake-

    1451
    field, Mr. Plowden, and Arthur Young also described Ireland at different periods, and the descriptions they gave tallied with those that were now being given from day to day. Even Mr. Thackeray, writing at a still more recent date, and with no special leaning towards the Irish people, accounted for the disturbances in the same way that the other writers referred to had done. There was no difference of opinion amongst persons who had examined the subject amply and dispassionately. Suffering produced the discontent, and the discontent the crime. The evictions which were now being carried out upon such an extended scale fed the disorder. Evictions, indeed, were but spawning-grounds for it; but a more striking circumstance was this—that there was no country in Europe, whose people were mainly dependent on agriculture, where like troubles had not arisen. The peasant war in Germany, the conflict in France previous to the Revolution, the farmers' struggles in Denmark and in Hungary, were but reproductions of the state of things that existed in Ireland. The people were divorced from the soil, ground down by their landlords, and engaged in a perpetual struggle between starvation and pauperism. They resorted to the same remedies to better their position. The same class of crimes existed there that they found in Ireland—injuring the landlords' property, burning the produce of recalcitrant tenants, and the maiming of their cattle. In Russia, at the present moment, a like state of affairs prevailed. A few days ago the Continental papers contained a long account of a struggle going forward in the South-East of Russia, which was, in character and design, exactly the same as that going on in the South-West corner of Ireland. The Russian peasants were shooting at their landlords, burning their dwellings, and injuring their cattle, just as Irish peasants, unfortunately, were doing. He was not citing these facts as a justification, or a palliation, of what took place in Ireland. But he was desirous that the House should understand that similar conditions of social life produced like results. In other countries in the West of Europe a beneficent change had taken place. The demands of the peasants had been complied with. There were now no struggles in France, Germany, Denmark, and
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    Switzerland. The most turbulent populations, through a wise alteration in agrarian laws, had become the most conservative and law-abiding, and the most poverty-stricken had become the most prosperous. A like result would come when they applied to Ireland the same remedies that had been applied in France and Germany. Ireland was suffering from a severe agricultural depression, extending almost to famine. The effect of that distress should be removed, and permanent security in their holdings, as well as reasonable encouragement to labour, should be given to tenants. With these conditions a change like that which had taken place on the Continent would be experienced in Ireland. Hon. Gentlemen said there had been no troubles of this kind in England. That was true; but England was an exception. The people had been dissevered from the soil; but they had had other and profitable outlets for their energy. They had mining, manufacturing, and shipping industries to fly to. But if we had not possessed these outlets, we should have had troubles equivalent to those that existed in Ireland. The Government might rest assured that their coercion measures would be utterly ineffectual in dealing with these grievances. If crime was to be prevented, the cause of the crime must first be removed. They would learn, as other statesmen had learnt before them, that prosperity alone would banish crime, and that contentment was the best policeman. But there were other disturbing elements in Ireland besides agrarian injustice. There were political differences which were more difficult to deal with than the social differences. However unpleasant it might be to Englishmen, they would have to face the question, and the sooner they faced it manfully the better it would be. Experience had shown how impossible it was to force laws from without upon another people while we ignored the customs or traditions of that people. Let them look at the mode in which they treated the different sections of the United Kingdom, and learn from that one of the causes of the chronic disaffection in Ireland. We conquered Wales. We subjugated the inhabitants by sheer force of arms. We overturned their independent system of Government, and we planted in their midst our own. But, having done so, we endeavoured, with

    1453
    fair success, to remove from amongst them everything that could revive or recall the recollection of our invasion and their conquest; and we succeeded. Wales was, and had been now for centuries, as legitimately a part of England as Northumberland. We dealt differently with Scotland. There we made a bargain, and the bargain was not brought about by fraud or force, but was deliberately entered into, and freely and fairly discussed and settled. The Scotch people consented to surrender a certain measure of national independence in consideration of their getting specified material advantages. They retained to themselves their Church, their Law Courts, their educational system, their local institutions—everything, in fact, which did not distinctly conflict with the Union. Scotch affairs were administered according to Scotch ideas, Scotch principles, and Scotch prejudices. After the Union the direction of affairs in Scotland was really more controlled by Scotchmen than immediately preceding it. And what had been the result? Scotland was one of the most loyal, contented, and prosperous sections of the British Empire. How had we acted in Ireland? We had neither fully conquered the country, nor had we really united it with us. We had established a nominal union of the Government; but we had got no genuine union of the people. We had set up a sort of artificial uniformity, and we called that unity; but it was hollow and unreal. We had thrust upon the Irish people an alien Church, a hateful system of land tenure, and a mode of law that was opposed to their traditions and conflicted with their interests. We governed Ireland by Euglishmen, in accordance with English ideas; and we had as much discontent there as we had had content in Scotland. Every 10 years there was either an insurrection or an agitation broadening to the dimensions of an insurrection. The Government of Ireland resembled one of the fair cities on the slopes of Mount Vesuvius. It was a tenant at will to the volcano beneath. He did not question the good intentions of English statesmen. No one could be interested in Irish disorder. But he did question the wisdom of English policy. Conservatives had tried to govern Ireland according to Conservative principles; the Liberals had tried to govern her according to
    1454
    Liberal principles. Neither of them had succeeded, and for this simple reason—that the Irish people wanted to be governed according to their own principles. Their desire was to rule themselves, and it was natural. It was a commonplace in politics that men would submit to inconveniences inflicted by men of their own race and creed that they would not tolerate if forced upon them by strangers. Englishmen had a high idea of their own institutions; but they should recollect that all the world did not share in their estimate of things English. Take the present Government. No one would question their good intentions. He would make an even stronger statement than that. He believed the Prime Minister and his Colleagues were eagerly and ardently anxious to better the condition of Ireland, and, with restrictions, to assimilate the institutions to popular aspirations. He accorded to them all the credit for this desire that their most enthusiastic friends could claim for them. But what had they done quite recently? There had been four highly important Offices in the Irish Administration vacant—the Viceroyalty, the Chief Secretaryship, the Under Secretaryship, and the Head of the Constabulary. Every one of these places was filled up by Englishmen; and two, if not three, of the men appointed had never been in Ireland, and none of them had any knowledge of Irish life and customs derived from living in the country. The Government, as a consequence, was vested in the hands of men who were something more than strangers. Why was that? No one could say that there were not Irishmen qualified to fill these posts. For their numbers, the Irish race had produced more distinguished men than any other country in Europe. There was no nation of such limited extent that could count among its sons men so notable in arms, arts, literature, and administration. In every walk of life they had forced themselves into prominence. A few years ago, five of the English Colonies were governed by Irishmen, and four out of these five were rebels who had been driven out of the country for their political opinions. The idea, therefore, that there were not capable Irishmen for filling these four situations could not be entertained. Why, then, were they not selected? The fact—the damaging and dishonouring

    1455
    fact—ought to be stated broadly and plainly. Irishmen were not selected for these posts, because Liberal Irishmen could not be trusted to hold high political offices in their own country. They might grumble at such, an unpleasant statement, but it was true. The Conservative Irishmen could be trusted, because they belonged to the garrison; but Liberal Irishmen, by their very liberality, were kept out of office in their own land by Liberal Englishmen. He would ask Liberal Members sitting near him what they would have said, thought, or done, if they had been treated as they had treated Ireland? Let them reverse the positions. Let them conceive England being the minor island and Ireland the major. What mode of speech would they have held if four Catholic Irishmen had been sent over from Dublin to rule Protestant Englishmen from the Horse Guards or from Scotland Yard? It required no stretch of imagination to conjure up the energetic protests that would have been made against such a proceeding. There were no Members of the House who voted with so much alacrity and seeming relish for every measure of repression for Ireland as the Scotch Members did. They never allowed an opportunity to pass without giving both voice and vote in favour of coercion. They were proud of their national history and expatiated on their achievements; but they had small sympathy for their struggling neighbours. How would they like to have Presbyterian Scotland governed by four Irish Catholics? Take the Bill before the House. It proposed to abolish trial by jury, to put down public meetings, to gag the Press, and to establish a wholesale system of police surveillance and intimidations. It vested the lives, property, and liberty of the Irish people virtually in one man and his myrmidons. That Bill had been drawn by a Government in which there was not a single Irishman except the Law Officers, whose position was Executive and not Administrative. It had been adopted, or would be adopted, by a House of Commons in which Irish Members were in an insignificant minority. It would be interpreted by English officials and enforced by English soldiers. He would ask hon. Members, dispassionately and calmly, to inquire of themselves what they would have said if such legislation had been initiated and carried into effect
    1456
    in their countries in a like manner? It needed no eloquence, no argument. It simply required a plain statement of these facts to revive all the race antipathies in the minds of the Irish peasants. The procedure of the Government over this Bill was more than sufficient to justify everything that was said about Ireland being a conquered country and being ruled as such, rather than as an integral part of the United Kingdom. A cardinal defect in our government of Ireland had been the transitory and incomplete character of our system of administration. The present Ministry had followed a Penelope policy. They had unwoven one month what they had woven the previous month. They came last Session to Parliament, and they said—"Ireland is suffering, and in consequence of suffering she is disturbed. Give us powers to crush the disturbance and cure the suffering." They got both. They got their Coercion Bill and their Land Bill, although those measures confronted the policy, principle, and prejudices of an important section of the House. What had they done with the powers? They promised us a great deal. During the first three months of 1881 there were 769 agrarian offences, and during the first three months of 1882 there were 1,417. During the first three months of 1881 there were 350 families containing 1,732 persons evicted. During the same period of 1882 there were 1,317 families evicted, containing 7,020 persons. Or, to put these figures in a sentence, there had been double as many agrarian offences with the Coercion Act as there were without it; and there had been nearly six times as many people evicted with the Land Act as without it. He did not wish to attach undue importance to statistics. He knew they were capable of varied interpretations; but, if the figures quoted did not condemn the combined policy of coercion and concession that the Ministry had pursued, he knew not what would. If those figures told them anything, they told them that coercion should be abandoned, and that the Land Act should be amended. There had been other political movements in Ireland of almost equal strength to the one now convulsing the country; but the present movement had features that none other possessed. It had resources that none of them had. It had behind it not only the Irish

    1457
    people at home, but the whole of the Irish race. The Irish in America and in the Colonies were as deeply interested and as largely concerned in the agitation now going forward as Irishmen in Connemara. The strength of this new factor in Irish agitation had not been gauged. It was an uncertain quantity, and it was a disturbing one. And this the English people would discover. After a painful period of suffering and emigration—when thousands of Irish peasants sailed for America—it was said by a writer of influence that they had left with a vengeance. That was true in a double sense. The peasants departed in large numbers, and they went with an envenomed bitterness in their hearts. They had done for themselves, for their country, and their race, a noble work in a new world. They had got political power, civic equality, and social influence; and the contrast between their improved position and the misery they had left only heightened their detestation of the injustice they had endured, and the destitution in which they had lived. They had resolved—and every honour to them for it—that their countrymen should not continue to oscillate between the poorhouse and starvation. They aided them to start a rebellion 15 or 16 years ago, and it failed. They had now aided them to initiate a revolution, and it bid fair to be successful. One of the objects of this new Bill was to stop intercourse between the Irish in America and the Irish in Ireland. The Government might as well try to stop the Gulf Stream. Irish politicians had had contact with other people before—with France and with Spain. But the intercourse there had been that of allies, and not of relatives. The Irish abroad were bound to those at home by the treble ties of kinship, and interest, and affection, and these were strong enough to break any prison bars. The influences were both subtle and potent, and they would override and defy any Coercion Bill, however deftly drawn. The Irish in America and in the Colonies had made up their minds upon two things—first, that their countrymen should be lifted out of that pinching poverty in which they had for generations subsisted; second, that the greatest disqualification for a man to take Office in the Government of his country should no longer be because he was a Liberal
    1458
    Irishman. Until these two points were conceded, the connection between the Irish in America and the Irish in Ireland would not be curtailed by any Coercion Bill that either this Government or any other Government could pass. Ministers would not take warning by their past failures. They were now entering upon the same course of procedure that they followed last year. Their mixture of repression and concession was condemned then by a small section of the House. Again and again they were told that the benefits of the Land Act—whatever benefits they were—would be more than neutralized by the irritation and exasperation engendered by the Coercion Act. But they would not listen. It was a satisfaction to him, to his hon. Friend the Member for the City of Durham (Mr. T. C. Thompson), and one or two others, that they had pertinaciously, determinedly, and bitterly opposed the Coercion Bill of last year. He had never—at any time when that measure had been before the House—either directly or indirectly, given a vote in its favour, or in favour of any of its collateral provisions. The late Chief Secretary scowled at them and scolded them; but they held on their course, uninfluenced by either the protests or the sneers of Ministers or their supporters. And what had been the result? The despised minority had turned out to be right. The late Chief Secretary admitted that his Coercion Bill had failed. The Government admitted it so completely that they had abandoned it. But they were going to repeat the old error. They were attempting a fresh Land Bill, and they were sending along with it a Coercion Bill of another character. He would have them to remember that the same men who told them last year that their Coercion Bill would fail were telling them with equal persistency that their present Coercion Bill would fail. It was in every way likely that 12 months hence the Government would be lamenting the failure of their new Bill, just as this year they were lamenting the failure of their last one. There were two points he had always insisted on against the Coercion Bill—first, that its administration would not be left, as the Government promised it should be, to the responsible officers of the Administration in Dublin or in London, but that it

    1459
    would drift into the hands of presumptuous Jacks in office, who would use its powers vindictively, and with a view of gratifying feelings of personal resentment and revenge. Certainly, the result had justified that contention. They had had scores of instances before the House to prove the correctness of that statement. He need only cite the case of Inspector Smith. That notorious constable had issued a Circular ordering those under his command to shoot men on suspicion, and that Circular was six weeks in force before the late Chief Secretary knew of its existence. There had been another case, too, that he had some personal knowledge of. He cited it as showing the utter inability of the Chief Secretary—or of his responsible assistants in Dublin—to grasp all the administration of a Coercion Act. It was impossible to conceive that one man, or half-a-dozen men, could familiarize themselves with all the circumstances that justified the arrest of 1,000 persons on suspicion. The case he wished to mention was this. There was a gentleman connected with the borough he represented—a man of education, character, and of the highest respectability—who was in Ireland during the latter months of last year. His name was Michael James Kelly. The Government wished to arrest a gentleman they called J. J. Kelly. Both the Mr. Kellys happened to belong to, or be connected with, Newry. The warrant was issued for the arrest of Mr. J. J. Kelly, but he succeeded in leaving the country. The officers, however, took Mr. Michael J. Kelly instead, put him in Armagh Gaol, and kept him there several months. Now, he would ask some of the ardent Liberal Coercionists behind him, how they would like to have been lodged in prison and kept there four or five months by mistake? And that was only one of scores, or rather hundreds, of instances that could be mentioned as to how the last Coercion Act was administered, and how the present one would be administered. Acts of cruelty of this kind were actually essential to the operation of such a measure. The brothers Lloyd—the Irish Haynaus—what had they not done? He would undertake to say that if these gentlemen had made a tenth portion of the assaults upon personal liberty in the North of England that they had made in Ireland there would have been an insur-
    1460
    rection. And yet they were permitted to pursue their high-handed, intolerant, and overbearing course, not only without check, but with absolute encouragement. These had been the results of the old Coercion Act. The action of the new one would be equally reprehensible, and it would be equally out of the reach of the influence and control of the responsible Irish Ministers. The second objection to the measure of last year was that it destroyed legitimate political agitation, and led to the establishment of secret societies. Indeed, the Irish Viceroy candidly acknowledged that this had been done. Earl Cowper affirmed that although they had not put down agitation, they had driven it under the surface. He had always understood that physicians strove to bring diseases to the surface; because when they had them upon the skin they could measure them and master them much better than they could when beneath it. What applied to physical science applied to Government. But the late Irish Viceroy seemed to think differently. The present Bill would operate in this direction even worse than the last. No doubt, the speeches of his hon. Friends the Member for Tipperary (Mr. Dillon), or the Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton), were inconvenient and sometimes troublesome; but they had infinitely better have these two Gentlemen speaking openly in the committee-room in Sackville Street—with a reporter at their elbows and a telegraph wire at the door, by whose instrumentality every word they said could be flashed to the farthest corners of the Kingdom in a few minutes—than have secret societies overrunning the country. The Government seemed to think differently. They had abolished open discussion in the Land League committee-rooms, and they had got in its place assassination in Phœnix Park. He scarcely thought, upon consideration, that even Ministers would admit that that was a change for the better. The Government was composed of men of ability, of political experience, and of knowledge; and yet, in spite of that, they undertook the fruitless task of putting down secret societies and assassinations by Coercion Bills. He could scarcely have believed it possible that there could have been serious politicians who would at this time of day have embarked in so hopeless an under-

    1461
    taking. History was time-teaching by example; but history gave them no hope for such an enterprize. There was great distress in this country immediately succeeding the war with France, and, as a result of the distress, there was great disorder. Drastic legislation was attempted to restrain it. Parliament passed, amongst other measures, the odious Six Acts. And what did they lead to? They culminated in the Cato Street Conspiracy. A similarly disastrous result might follow from the Act that the Government were now going to put in force in Ireland. There was no country in the world so beset with secret associations as Russia. Society there was honeycombed by them. The Czar had unlimited power. He could make a Coercion Bill every day—two, if he liked—and yet what was his position? He was a prisoner in his own Palace. His life was a burden to him. His Coronation, which ought to have taken place months ago, was to be delayed indefinitely, because he was afraid that wherever it was held the building would be undermined and blown into the air. Did the Government believe, after recent events, that they would be better able than the Emperor of Russia was to avoid assassinations and conspiracy by such a measure as that before the House? It would put down political agitation—that was clear enough. It would destroy the liberty of the Press, take away the right of public meeting, and create political silence throughout the South and West of Ireland. All that it would certainly do. But did they seriously think that was a desirable end to accomplish? Would it terrify assassins—men like those who, taking their lives in their hands, committed the terrible deed which took place a fortnight ago in Phœnix Park? Was it conceivable that the Government imagined any measure they could pass would intimidate men of that character? The lessons of history seemed to have very little effect upon Ministers. The Bourbons, the Bonapartes, and the Haps-burgs had carried out this policy of repression far more effectually than ever an English Ministry dared attempt to do. And with what result? They had sat upon the safety valve, and had been blown to pieces. The last exemplar of the class had had a tragic experience in his efforts to put down public opinion.
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    He gagged the Press and shut up public meetings. He had at his command, not 30,000 troops, but 300,000. He had a Senate crammed with servile place-men, and a House of Deputies equally subservient. He had power almost superhuman, and it was backed by craft rivalling the power. Yet the outraged rights of human liberty laughed them all to scorn. A sharp, clear stroke of popular indignation smote the keystone of the arch of European despotism and shattered it to fragments. And our Government, and all Governments, might rest assured that their attempts to repress the legitimate and necessary expression of public opinion would end in equal disaster. They could win the Irish people's hearts by just laws, by equitable administration; but they never could win them—never deserved to win them—by measures as hateful and as odious as that under consideration. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving the following Resolution:—
    "That while this House is desirous of aiding Her Majesty's Government in any measures which they can show to be necessary to adopt for preventing, detecting, and punishing crime, it disapproves of restrictions being imposed on the free expression of public opinion in Ireland."
    MR. T. C. THOMPSON, in seconding the Amendment, attributed all their troubles in Ireland to misgovernment, for in the course of a long succession of years they had violated all the principles of government which had contributed so much to the greatness and glory of England. There was a grand old proverb on the Tyne, "that nothing is so queer as folk;" and, but for the facts before them, it would be difficult to imagine that they in that House of Commons should at that moment be resisting, and with little probability of success, a measure which struck at the rights of the people throughout this Empire. And those were the rights of free assemblage and free speech. It bad been often observed, in the course of these discussions, that it was the first duty of a Government to maintain law and order. He would venture to differ from that proposition. He would venture to say that it was the first duty of a Government to maintain the security of its people on the firm basis of established law. Now, what was the established law? What did they find it rested

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    upon? It might be said to rest on four mighty pillars, which had become part of the great fabric of the nation. The first was the sanctity of their home, which was everyone's castle; the next, freedom from arbitrary arrest and the personal liberty of the subject; the third, liberty of the Press; and, broader and stronger than the others, trial by jury. He was sure that the greatness of England was owing to her laws, built up by the Constitution on those great principles, and that whenever any effort had been made to break through them it had always been accompanied by evil and disaster. These were known, and were the Common Law of England—all, except, of course, the freedom of the Press—in this country before the arrival of the bastard William, with his legions of Normans. He tried to break them down, but failed, because they were too deeply rooted in the minds of the Saxon people. Other nations considered themselves our equals in civilization, and refinement, and progress; but if any trouble or emergency befell them they invariably looked, to us for an example, and tried to imitate the popular institutions of England. But no nation had ever achieved such power as we had. We governed, far from our home, mighty peoples. We enjoyed at home unbridled freedom—freedom such as was never known elsewhere; but, by some strange idiosyncracy of our nature, in governing those dependent on us, we seemed always at first to break away from those grand principles which we had established for ourselves. That these great principles were no invention of to-day all our history proved. Thus, when Lord Mansfield spoke of the emancipation of the slave, he put forth no new opinion of his own, but declared only that which was and had ever been the principle of our Constitution. So, when Mr. Fox brought in his great Bill, and declared that libel was a question for the jury, and not for the Judge, he laid claim to nothing more than to declare what was a principle of our institutions. And so, when Lord Halifax tossed up his hat in the Court of King's Bench as soon as he heard the verdict of not guilty in the trial of the seven Bishops, it was not because a new principle of our Constitution was put forth; but because he found in that verdict a new proof of the reliance of our people on
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    trial by jury. The present plan of the Government had often been tried before; but the result had always been unfortunate. We tried it with the Colonies of America, and with what result? Those Colonies were lost to us for ever. We tried it in Canada, and with what result? Many in that House remembered when Canada was on the verge of rebellion. But the moment we gave Canada the same institutions as our own, it became most loyal, and there was no people now more faithful to the English connection. Only the other day intimation was given that municipal institutions and efforts in the direction of self-government were to be extended to India; and it might, perhaps, be the strongest claim of our great Minister for the admiration of those who came after us that he first laid the foundation of true freedom in that splendid appanage of the Crown. For who did not feel that if we gave the people of India the same privileges as we enjoyed there would be no one, from the Himalayas to Ceylon, who would be hostile to our rule? But we had nearer home one of the most beautiful and magnificent countries that Providence had ever given to man to rule over, but which had been a curse instead of a blessing to us. From the time of Henry II. the connection had been most unfortunate to both peoples. Although it had given us great wealth and added largely to our power, our conduct to it had made it the same source of misery and wretchedness to us that slavery was to the United States of America, wounding our very consciences day by day. What reason had we to make Ireland discontented? It was inhabited by a race as noble as any on earth; by women peerless in beauty and purity; by men brave and skilful in arms and arts, and as cognizant of the laws and blessings of civilization as any nation in the whole world. It was a sad and pitiful thing to reflect upon, that instead of law and order, and all the blessings of freedom, we had during the whole 700 years of our rule denied them most of the rights of free men. We had always governed Ireland by the most shameless corruption, and never by her own independent men. No nation ever prospered that did not govern itself. They must, if they wanted to make Ireland contented and happy, give her in-

    1465
    stitutions exactly like those institutions which we possessed ourselves, and administered, not by us, but by Irishmen. It was impossible to change that which had been laid down from the very beginning of history. We saw the same thing in Italy and in other countries, where foreigners administered the law kindly and well; yet the countries which they ruled never prospered or became contented. It might be asked how Ireland could be governed by Irishmen; and he would answer that in that House there were 100 Members from that country, who were capable of fulfilling those duties if called upon to do so. Why should not those 100 Members be formed into a Committee, sitting permanently in Dublin, working at the legislation, which might afterwards receive the assent of that House, and administering there far better than we here could administer the affairs of their own country. Surely no men were more eloquent in pleading the wrongs of their country than those hon. Members, nor were there any more capable of administering her affairs. In that House men would be found to administer the affairs of Ireland as well as the affairs of England had ever been administered. Was there anything in Ireland to which Englishmen could point with approbation? The Head of the present Government—he was not going to say anything against the Government itself, because every individual Member of it deserved well of his country—had asserted when he came into Office that Ireland was then in a more peaceful condition than shehadbeen for years. [Mr. GLADSTONE: Oh, no.] Well, he (Mr. Thompson) understood that was so. He understood that Ireland was so orderly then that the Government were able to do without those repressive measures which up to that time were considered so necessary for the government of the country. It was true that Lord Beaconsfield said, in his celebrated letter, that he conceived that Ireland was on the verge of rebellion; but it was a peculiarity of Lord Bea-consfield's character that he looked with dread on all secret societies. No doubt, there were Fenians, and Ribbonmen, and Whiteboys; but they differed in most respects from what we meant by secret societies. Still, he (Mr. Thompson) believed that the existence of those societies had impressed Lord Beacons-
    1466
    field with the same sort of dread which he entertained for the celebrated secret associations of Italy. In his (Mr. Thompson's) opinion, the secret societies of Ireland were the result of the misgovernment of England and the poverty of the country. When the present Liberal Government came into Office there was every appearance that Ireland was in as peaceful a condition as ever she was in before; but it must not be forgotten that in 1879 that country suffered from a most terrible famine, and in 1880 there were signs of fearful distress coming on. The Government saw the evil; but, unfortunately, they ceased to press on those steps which would restrain the power of eviction. They all knew the fate of the Compensation for Disturbance Bill. In these days it had become the custom to throw obloquy on the late Chief Secretary (Mr. W. E. Forster); but although there were many who thought the right hon. Gentleman went too far in what he said concerning the rejection of that measure by the House of Lords, yet there were not a few now who thought that he did not go far enough in denunciation of that act. The Liberal Government found that, by the rejection of that measure, it was impossible to carry out its own measures. It seemed to him that on that occasion the Government showed very considerable weakness by not insisting on the Bill they had passed through the House of Commons. During the whole autumn of 1880 and 1881 the prospect of famine increased in Ireland; and then, instead of governing the country on Liberal principles, the Government introduced stern measures of repression. The evils which followed this repressive policy were predicted. They came in fearful force from men on both sides. Sad and terrible as were the assassinations in Dublin, not less sad and terrible was the slaughter of innocent children by the police at Ballina. Those little children, rejoicing in the escape of those whom they were taught to believe were the friends of their country, went out blowing their little trumpets in the streets, and then and there were mercilessly attacked and fired upon by the police. He could hardly conceive anything more terrible than that. It was the sad, perhaps the inevitable result, from measures which put down freedom. It was believed then that

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    the policy of repression was about to be abandoned, and that the era of peace and quietness was about to be ushered in. But in answer to that came forth a measure by which the Press of Ireland was to be put down. He hoped that such a measure would not be passed by that House. If it was, more evil might be expected; but if the people of Ireland were treated kindly, and subjected to the same method of administration which prevailed in England, they would in a short time see that unhappy country peaceful and contented.
    Amendment proposed,
    To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "while this House is desirous of aiding Her Majesty's Government in any measures which they can show to be necessary to adopt for preventing, detecting, and punishing crime, it disapproves of restrictions being imposed on the free expression of public opinion in Ireland,"—(Mr. Joseph Cowen,)
    —instead thereof.
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    MR. CHARLES RUSSELLsaid, he did not propose to discuss all the interesting topics dwelt upon by the two hon. Members who had preceded him, but would address himself more strictly to the question before the House. He was as anxious as any Member to relieve his nation from the reproach of crime, and to assist by all right, necessary, and thorough means the putting down of crime. But, he felt bound to ask, would this Bill repress crime? Would it tranquillize the country? Would it, when it had ceased to operate, leave the country in a better position than it was in now? Would it leave the people in greater sympathy with the law and imbued with greater abhorrence of crime? If the answer were, it would do these things, then, even if it were a straining of law, if it were a divergence from the Constitutional path, he would say that it should be made. But if they believed, as he believed, that this Bill would not repress crime, that it would not tranquillize the country, that it might, indeed, drive the symptoms of crime and disaffection beneath the surface, without touching their cause, and that it would leave the country in a state probably of greater irritation and disaffection, then they were bound, as he had done, to
    1468
    vote against this Bill. Just and proper allusion had been made to the fact that after the recent terrible tragedy in Phœnix Park the country assumed a patient and judicial attitude, not yielding precipitately to feelings of impatience; but simply desiring that the law should be asserted. But between that crime and the policy of coercion there was not the least justifying connection. The commission of that grave crime afforded no reason and no justification for a departure from the policy of conciliation and of remedial legislation upon which it had been hoped the Government had finally entered. The crime was, in truth, a vile and shocking protest against that very policy of conciliation; it was disconnected with the other crimes which had unhappily disgraced Ireland, and was traceable to different sources. It was with shame and regret he recognized the fact that there had been shocking crimes which lowered and implied a serious change in the national character. They were either acts of wild vengeance for long-endured wrongs, or in later days, perhaps to a greater extent, they were acts intended to be a protective terrorism on behalf of the persons who were in dread of eviction, which was practically ruin, and which, indeed, had been described by the Prime Minister as tantamount, in many cases, to a sentence of death. The feeling of impatience which possessed Englishmen with respect to Ireland was not without some plausible justification. They said—"How impossible it is to deal with Ireland and with Irishmen. Here has the Imperial Parliament been for two entire Sessions occupied with legislation for them, to the neglect of Scotch, Welsh, and English Business. Here have English Members submitted to give up their time to the affairs of Ireland. A great Land Act has been passed, which has conferred upon them benefits which are not enjoyed by the people of any other part of the United Kingdom. Everything that can be done has been done for them, and yet Ireland is no better affected than before; crime is prevailing, so that men throw up their hands in despair and say—'What can be done with such a people, and with such crime?'" Articulated, that was the feeling which prevailed among Englishmen; but, as political memories were short, he would remind the House of what had taken place since the acces-

    1469
    sion of the present Government to Office. In 1878–9 Ireland had been reduced to a state of famine. She was obliged, practically, to become a mendicant to the world for alms. Bad season had succeeded bad season; and under a system of rack-renting, which was now generally admitted, the people were reduced to the direst distress. In that condition of things it was thought necessary that some protection should be interposed between the excessive power of the landlords and the suffering tenantry, and that protection was formulated in the Compensation for Disturbance Bill, which was thrown out by the House of Lords and not persisted in by the Government. After that ineffectual effort on the part of the Government, Parliament broke up; and the starving people were left to face the autumn and the winter, exposed to the unrestricted exercise of their right by the landlords in the eviction of tenants for the non-payment of unjust rent. [Mr. BULWER: Very few.] He affirmed, he believed with greater knowledge than that of the hon. and learned Member, that these powers of the landlords were exercised in many cases in which the rent was very unjust. What was the result? Far be it from him to defend the criminal means adopted by the tenants to protect themselves; but he could not shut his eyes to the causes; he could not ignore the passions which actuated human nature, and influences of self-interest and self-protection; and, deplorable and criminal as might have been the acts of the tenants left without the shield which the Government attempted to give them, he could only recognize in those terrible deeds the protective agency of secret associations and of grave criminal acts, to which they resorted to save themselves. It was true that many of the acts done were criminal; but was it astonishing that they were committed? Up to the rejection of the Bill by the Lords there had not been a great average of crime; but it increased greatly during the autumn and the winter. The following year the Government brought in the Land Bill—he gave them every credit for it—and carried it in the face of very great difficulties, not the least of which was the dislike shown to it by very many of their own followers. It was a marvellous effort on the part of the Prime Minister;
    1470
    but what proportion of the Irish people did it affect? As yet only a very small proportion of the Irish people had benefited by it. He was not pointing to the fact that there were large classes outside its provisions, such as the leaseholders, who, in accepting such leases, were in many cases under as much constraint as yearly tenants; but there were large masses of people deeply involved in arrears from bad seasons, who found no protection, and who could derive no benefit from the measure, so long as the Arrears Question was not thoroughly dealt with. What advantage was it to tell them that in a few years' time the Commissioners under the Act might reach their district and reduce their rent, but only prospectively? It might be that in the remote future benefit would be derived; but that was not the result of the present operation of the Act—only a very small proportion of the country and a mere handful of the people were deriving from it any present benefit. These were considerations which every honest man should entertain in allaying impatience at the conduct of the Irish people. And, like all other remedial legislation, the Land Act did not go single-handed, but it was accompanied by coercive legislation. There was no instance in the history of Ireland for the last 80 years in which three, four, or five years of remedial legislation had been allowed to tell its quieting tale and make its effect felt on the people, but such legislation had always been accompanied by coercive measures, which had robbed the remedial legislation of half its grace and half its efficacy. He now came to the provisions of this measure, and was bound to say that he had the strongest possible objection to the supersession of trial by jury. He had heard with regret and surprise the speech of the hon. and learned Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Bryce), in which his hon. and learned Friend observed that it was almost a species of pedantry to speak of juries as if they were a real and an important part of judicial administration in these days. That was not his opinion. The institution of juries had not merely given justice to the countries in which it existed, but it had conveyed to the minds of the people the belief that justice was, in fact, done. As regarded the supersession of juries, he began by conceding that, in his opinion, there had been

    1471
    cases in Ireland in which juries, according to our view of the evidence, ought to have convicted when they had not convicted. Therein there seemed to have been in several cases a failure of justice. But this was not the real difficulty in regard to the detection or punishment of crime. Granting that several such cases existed, what proportion did they bear to the undetected crime? The real difficulty consisted in procuring evidence of sufficient cogency to warrant them in convicting. Did hon. Members suppose that the people would have greater confidence in the proposed new tribunal than they had in the preceding tribunal? Did they imagine that evidence would be more readily forthcoming because the people had less confidence in the tribunal? He desired to put his opposition to this Bill on its real ground. He did not join in the wholesale condemnation and abuse of the Irish Judges which he had heard from the Benches opposite. He believed them to be men of the highest honour and integrity, and it was not because he believed any innocent men would suffer under this Bill that he objected to it. He did not even believe, however, that under the new tribunal a larger number of convictions would be obtained. It had been alleged by his right hon. and learned Friend the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) that the fact of there being no certainty of conviction kept the people from giving evidence; but he had never heard one syllable of proof in support of that proposition. Was there, then, any clear ground of disadvantage from this new tribunal? In the first place, after the declaration of the Irish Judges, it would be a self-discredited tribunal. In the face of the decision which the Judges had, by a large majority, if not unanimously arrived at, could it be alleged that this tribunal would be accepted with anything like confidence or satisfaction by the Irish people? He would now refer to two classes of offences—those in connection with newspapers and public meetings, proposed to be dealt with by the Bill. He had heard that one newspaper circulating in Ireland from America contained most pernicious and treasonable trash; and he did not hesitate to say that he should not have the least objection to see the importation and dissemina-
    1472
    tion of such literature peremptorily stopped by the Government. Nevertheless, he had still to be satisfied that the existing law was not adequate to put down anything that was wrong in the utterances of the Irish Press. He desired that persons publishing matter that was treasonable, seditious, or calculated to disturb the peace should be punished by Constitutional means, and that these exceptional measures should not be resorted to. There was no proof that in this regard the ordinary law had failed. As to public meetings, they would be told with sincerity and truth that the only object of the clause was to prevent meetings which were treasonable or seditious, or openly hostile to the peace. Such professions might be made in perfect good faith, as they had been on previous occasions; but he feared the Press and Public Meeting Clauses would be so applied as to put down the free expression of public opinion in Ireland, and the people of Ireland would believe them to be directed to that object. Even though the expression of that opinion should be irregular, riotous, and bordering on sedition, he maintained it was much better that that should be allowed than that there should be a repression and keeping down of anything like honest opinion and outspoken criticism. To use a trite illustration, it was very much like sitting on the safety-valve of a steam engine to prevent an explosion. As regarded the clauses relating to search, to aliens, and to the prevention of nocturnal meetings, he went heart and soul with the Government. Under fair safeguards, even if those clauses should involve individual discomfort, that was a price which every man ought to be willing to pay for the purpose of putting down that pest and bane of Irish life—the secret societies. But he did not wish too high a price to be paid even for that; and, therefore, he desired to have the clauses properly safeguarded. He next came to the question of summary jurisdiction. In the abstract he was in favour of it. There was one fault in the Irish Statutes, and that was the enormous penalties for certain crimes, which led to the delay arising from the fact that such cases had to go to the higher tribunals. He desired to point out that this clause proposed to create a new class of offences; and it gave to two Resident Magistrates,

    1473
    exclusive of any other authority, and of the ordinary magistrates, the power of dealing summarily with those offences—and that without appeal—and the power of inflicting six months' imprisonment with hard labour. Now, who were the Resident Magistrates? [Home Rule Cheer.] He feared he should disappoint hon. Members opposite, for he was going to mention no names; he had never uttered a syllable against individuals. But the Resident Magistrates, when sent to a district, saw the Country Inspectors and the Sub-Inspectors, asked if crime was rife, reproached them if they had failed to detect the criminals, and urged them to greater vigilance. The Inspectors, accordingly, became more alert, and did or did not, as the case might be, catch the offenders. But what he wished to impress upon the House was that these Resident Magistrates first assumed the executive power of the law and then exercised judicial functions. That was a monstrous system, which did not exist in any country but Ireland. It was all the more monstrous in Ireland, because there the great want was to create a sympathy with and confidence in the law. The stipendiary magistrates in this country were trained lawyers; but those of Ireland were at once policemen and Judges. They were, for the most part, ex-Sub-Inspectors, or military men who had gained their experience of Constitutional Law in Burmah or in India. Those were the men who were sent to stand indifferently and dispassionately between the Crown and the subject. That system erected by the Bill was, in his humble opinion, utterly indefensible. At least, those Resident Magistrates should be trained lawyers; their duties should be judicial only, and not executive and judicial, and there should be associated with them the local magistracy of the district; and there ought to be an appeal to Quarter Sessions. He himself intended to move an Amendment to that effect; and unless some such Amendment was passed, the result would, he (Mr. Russell) feared, be disastrous. The result of the present system was to encourage men in high position in the country to throw off all responsibility on to the shoulders of Resident Magistrates. It was, in a word, the system which was known as "Dublin Castle." He was anxious to help the Government as far
    1474
    he could to put down crime and secret organizations. But there was little in the Bill which would effect that purpose; much that would tend to produce results of a very different character. No Government had ever been able to cope with secret societies by legislation. The root of the disorder was not to be removed by measures of repression. Lord Cowper was reported to have said that the Coercion Bill had driven discontent beneath the surface. But the history of every Coercion Bill showed that the repression of public opinion produced far greater evils than it was intended to prevent. What Coercion Bill had ever proved a success. In 1833, in the Administration of Lord Grey, in which Lord Wellesley was Lord Lieutenant, a Coercion Bill drastic and severe, but not more so than the present, was introduced. It was in operation two years, and Lord Wellesley was compelled to acknowledge, "The law is powerless, for it is safer to disobey it." Lord Melbourne's Administration came in, and Lord Norman by became Lord Lieutenant, with Lord Morpeth as Chief Secretary and Thomas Drummond as Under Secretary. Notwithstanding the warnings which were addressed to them, the Government of that day relaxed the law, and introduced a very mild measure for the protection of life and property. In consequence, there was a lull in the commission of agrarian offences, and such offences largely diminished. Mr. Sharman Crawford made a speech on that Bill, which would form an admirable argument against the present. They all knew what had been the experience of the Coercion Act of 1881; and the fact of the professions made by the Government when that measure was passing through Parliament showed how little they could put any trust in such professions. Under that Act crime had existed and flourished, and a criminal spirit had eaten into the very vitals of the people. The true cure for the evils of Ireland lay in remedial measures, not in coercion; and he was sorry the Government had not had the courage to bring forward their remedial legislation without introducing a Coercion Bill. He believed that would be found more effective than repressive measures, besides saving the country the present expense of the military and police forces. Either the Government

    1475
    of Ireland must be a Constitutional one or not—it must either be representative or not. A representative Government was, as he understood it, one in which opinions were represented. He did not mean to say that all opinions in Ireland should be accepted as true and just; but opinions generally must not be disregarded. They could not expect the people to have confidence in the rule of the Government while their voice and that of their Representatives was unheard. But what was the state of things to this day? The Irish Government was, as he had often before said, one of the most centralized systems in the world, and a most unnational Government. With the exception of the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal, and his right hon. and hon. Friends the Attorney and Solicitor General for Ireland, there was not an Irishman in the Government of that country. As regarded his right hon. Friend the newly-appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland, he thought he deserved to be treated with every consideration in the exceedingly difficult and onerous task he had undertaken, and to receive the assistance of all sides of the House in the effort he was making to bring about a just administration of the affairs of Ireland, and a vindication of the authority of the law. He apologized for detaining the House so long. He had spoken exactly as he felt upon the question, and he would not oppose the Bill if he believed that its main effect would be to repress crime; but he believed it would be productive of crime, that it would irritate the people instead of tranquillizing them, and that it would leave the country in a worse condition at the end of its proposed three years' operation than it was at present.
    MR. PLUNKET: Sir, I had no intention whatever of taking part in the debate, for certainly it is the last feeling in my mind to wish in any way to impede the progress of Business, for the sake of which the House has already made great sacrifices; but so far as the debate has gone it has proceeded very much in a spirit hostile to the measure which has been submitted to the House by the Government, and as no Member of the Government has yet spoken, nor any of their supporters, in their defence of the measure, I venture to offer some observations in support of the Bill. I do so
    1476
    with the deepest regret. There is no Irishman in any quarter of the House who detests or regrets coercive measures more than I do. ["Oh!"] I think it was the hon. Member for Cavan who made that exclamation. [Mr. BIGGAR: Hear, hear!] I challenge him to point to a sentence I have ever uttered unfriendly to any interest or any liberty of my country. It is a most agreeable recollection of my public life that I took part officially under the late Government in reducing one of the strongest coercive Bills to the mildest that has ever passed this House; and, from the bottom of my heart, I say that if I rise to support a strong coercive measure now it is only because the necessity for it has been forced upon my mind by circumstances and events of the most terrible character to which I cannot shut my eyes. I wish to make some reply to the speech of the hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. Joseph Cowen). It was eloquent and impassioned in the extreme, and, giving vent to generous sentiments, it was naturally applauded by very many persons in this House; but I venture to think it was not quite as practical in its character, or quite as much pointed to the particular matter of his Amendment, or the measure before the House, as his speeches usually are. I went very much with him as he referred to the old history of misgovernment in Ireland. I have no more pleasure in going back to those times than the hon. Gentleman himself. But why always recall these miserable recollections? Why always, like a ghoul, dig up the corpses of the past, and rake amongst the graves and dark places of history for topics which can do nothing but inflame the feelings of those who live in the present, and thus make the task of government in Ireland more heavy? As I listened to his eloquent periods, I could not help thinking that he might as well have been telling us about Titans, or the story of "Jack the Giant-Killer," as relating these old events. It has been the effort of both the great Parties in the State for many years, though not always agreeing in the means, yet always strenuously striving, with the same purpose, to efface, as far as possible, the disagreeable records of the past, and to remove the causes of discontent; and I think the hon. Member might very well have left those ancient memories alone. When

    1477
    the hon. Member came to the present time, what had he really to complain of? He prefaced his complaints by saying that Irishmen would rather be badly governed by Irishmen than well governed by Englishmen. This sentiment gave the tone to the whole of his speech. While it undoubtedly was all in the direction of separation, it was not, I think, very practical in its application to the present time. He said much about the four English officials who govern Ireland. I do not wish to defend the present Government for their appointments; but it is all nonsense to say there is any difference between the honest intention of Irishmen and Englishmen to govern uprightly when they go to Ireland. Of course, I do not deny that there may be some difference in their knowledge of the country; but I must say, so far as we have had the opportunity of judging of my right hon. Friend who has lately been appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland, that he has already secured for himself, at all events, a favourable hearing and favourable attention for his efforts to fill the place which, I say, was so bravely, gallantly, and ably filled, though pursuing in so many respects a policy from which I differed, by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bradford. But, Sir, I want to say a word or two on this subject to the hon. Member for Newcastle. There is another view to be taken of the employment of Englishmen in Ireland in high Offices. The hon. Member for Newcastle himself referred to the fact that at one time there were four Irishmen filling high places in the Colonies who had before been rebels in Ireland. There have been multitudes of Irishmen in English administration, not only those who had rebellious sympathies in their youth, but loyal men, who have filled high places in all the great Colonies of the Crown. I know not those whom the hon. Member had particularly in his mind when he was speaking; but I remember the names of Mayo and Dufferin, and many another. Not only that, but many of them have filled the high places of the Army of England. I shall not now review the beadroll of glory, still glittering at this day with such names as those of Garnet Wolseley and Frederick Roberts. What are the names associated with the great history of our rule in India? Why, Irish
    1478
    soldiers and Catholics who have followed Irishmen, whose names are most glorious in the records of the conquest and maintenance of the Indian Empire. I say, when you talk about the accident that at the present time there are Englishmen administering high places in Ireland, you must set off against it the numbers of Irishmen who administer high Offices throughout this Empire. I protest against this spirit of taking a separatist view of the interests of the two countries. Only a short time ago the English Bench itself was adorned by three Irishmen at one time—two of whom were Irish Catholics. My hon. and learned Friend who spoke last, is in himself a signal instance of the opportunities which Irishmen are afforded—generously afforded—in England, and all through the Empire, of achieving success and distinction, and winning high places; and I must say they liberally avail themselves of their opportunities. Well, Sir, the next thing complained of was a rather singular grievance. He says the Irish Members in this House are an insignificant minority. Well, of course, Irishmen area minority in this House; but to call them, in whatever part of the House they sit, an insignificant minority is, I think, a mistake. It will be a difficult impression to produce on the minds of Englishmen. As a matter of fact, I believe Ireland enjoys a larger representation, relatively to her share of the population of the Three Kingdoms, than either England or Scotland. Whether that is so or not, Irish Members contrive to occupy a great deal of the time of this House; and I have an idea myself that one of the most sad consequences in connection with any measure of Home Rule would be, that after my countrymen on both sides of the House had left this Assembly, it might be more business-like, but I venture to think it would be far less interesting. Do not the Irish Members take up all your time with their grievances, their humour, and their eloquence? They are really the spoilt children of this House. I am afraid I must admit that I am myself obnoxious to this criticism. But on this occasion, at all events, I promise not to delay the House longer than I can help. I think, perhaps, if there was a little less legislation for Ireland, and a little more government of Ireland, it might be for

    1479
    the advantage of the country. Well, then, the next grievance of the hon. Member, so far as I make out, was that there had been a policy adopted by the present Government of combined conciliation and repression. Well, I am not going to defend a policy of combined conciliation and repression. I have ventured pretty often to criticize it strongly; and in presence of the awful events of the present time, I should find it difficult to speak calmly on that subject—but I am not desirous of introducing any polemical matter into this debate. I would, however, remind the hon. Member for Newcastle that the present Government, at all events, began their policy by a very strong act of conciliation—namely, the dropping of the Arms Act; and it is rather a pertinent observation to make with reference to the measure which is now under consideration, that the consequence was that the Home Secretary had to come back to this House a year afterwards, and say that they had tried a generous experiment, but that the experiment had failed. Now, passing smaller matters, there was a very important point mentioned by the hon. Member for Newcastle. He called attention to something the seriousness of which the House, perhaps, has not fully realized—the influence now exercised in Ireland by the Irishmen who have gone abroad to America and elsewhere. I do believe if it were not for that influence, the difficulties with which you have to deal to-day would be small and trifling by comparison. When I was a young man, Ireland was advancing not only in prosperity, but in peace. That process was going on, blending Irish interests with those of the Empire, even as Scotch interests were formerly united. But this unfortunate Irish-American influence was brought to bear on the Irish vote. The hon. Member described the feelings of affection and sympathy between the Irish at home and the Irish abroad, and I concur in the truth of all that he said on the subject. There is nothing nobler or grander that I know in modern history than the kindness which has been shown by Irishmen who have gone abroad to those who remain at home, binding them together by countless threads of sympathy. And every mail that crosses the Atlantic and carries letters backwards and forwards plies like the shuttle in the loom—drawing toge-
    1480
    ther those threads, making their web strong and difficult to break. But if it be true that the love of the Irish abroad for the Irish at home is strong as death, their jealousy of England is cruel as the grave. It is to the interests of certain persons in America and elsewhere to stir up all the fiercest passions of the Irish abroad, to draw from them their money, to make a great going concern for the purpose of spreading disloyalty among the Irish at home, setting them against their English brethren and against the English Government. It is with this tremendous influence, founded on great and high and noble feelings, but built up into a foul conspiracy for the purpose of outrage, and crime, and treason in Ireland, that you have to contend with in future; and I venture to warn the House that, although it be a new influence, it is a strong and growing influence, and will prepare for you in the future great difficulties and great dangers. It is not the moderate Leaders of the Irish race in America who will prevail. It is those who bid highest for popular favour, and who have most tempting and exciting plans, that will prevail We have seen how quickly the feeling was turned away from those who showed shame for what happened in the Phœnix Park, and how quickly the mastery was obtained by those who preach most inhuman sentiments. If you do not take care and govern Ireland by the Imperial power of these Three Kingdoms, it will be governed for you, and in spite of you, by men but little less violent than O'Donovan Rossa. I have no wish to trespass long upon the attention of the House, and therefore I shall not follow my hon. and learned Friend the hon. Member for Dundalk (Mr. Charles Russell) in his criticisms on the various clauses of the Bill. My hon. and learned Friend spoke generously and favourably of the Irish Judges; and we all know that the Irish Judges are men of the highest character and honour, as well as of great ability. As to the stipendiary magistrates, I may point out that they are all Irishmen with, I believe, a single exception. Many of them are Catholics and Liberals, and have no more antipathy to the Irish people among whom they live than my hon. and learned Friend himself. These charges against the Castle, the magistrates, and the constabulary are in-

    1481
    stigated by one feeling—a deadly hatred of everything which supports the authority of this Imperial Parliament in Ireland. It is right that someone should say a word in support of the effort now at last vigorously made to support law and order in Ireland. While, as I said before, I deeply regret the necessity of such a measure, its necessity cannot be denied; and I do trust, now that the Government have made up their minds as to what is best, they will not suffer themselves to be shifted from the ground they have taken up by such representations as we have heard tonight. It is a painful thing to have to use coercion at all; but to use it with an uncertain hand, as if you had not the courage or had not the strength to impose it, is the most cruel and fatal policy of all.
    MR. O'CONNOR POWER: Sir, I do not complain of the speech of the right hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Plunket). As no Representative from Ireland has volunteered to support the policy of Her Majesty's Government, he has thought it right, out of the abundance of his charity, that he should administer some consolation to the Prime Minister and his Colleagues. It is, however, due to the position of the right hon. and learned Gentleman that I should notice some of the observations which have fallen from him in the course of his speech. The right hon. and learned Gentleman commented with some severity upon the historical character of the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle (Mr. J. Cowen); and he asked why my hon. Friend had endeavoured to raise up the embers of historical strife in order to illuminate the argument he wished to advance. But it was necessary that my hon. Friend should revert to the past in his desire to deal effectively with the question of Irish grievances; and, therefore, he gave a sketch of the overthrow of the ancient Irish land system, and the substitution of English landlordism in its place. We have not made such enormous progress from that bloody and bitter past that the right hon. and learned Gentleman should ask us to congratulate each other on the happiness of the present time. Whatever may be said about the present of Ireland, in comparison with the past, it must be acknowledged that the pre-
    1482
    sent condition of Ireland is such that the most liberal of English Governments dare not trust the administration of that country into Irish hands. Do not talk to me about the recollections of the past. It is not the past, but the present, that we have to deal with; and there is quite enough in the present condition of Ireland, and the utter nullity of Irish opinion in the government of that country, to account for all the discontent and disaffection which has covered the land. The right hon. and learned Gentleman touched another very practical question in reference to Irish administration. He said it was true—and he seemed to think it was by accident—that Englishmen administer the affairs of Ireland; "but," he added, "Did not Lord Dufferin go to Canada? Was not Lord Mayo Governor General of India?" I have heard that observation made very often. I am told to be content with the government of Ireland by aliens, because distinguished Irishmen have been selected to govern distant Colonies. But I have this answer to make. When Her Majesty's Government send an Irishman out as Governor General of Canada, they know very well that the Governor General of that Province can only act in accordance with the advice of the Canadian Ministers, and those Ministers are responsible to the prevailing opinion of the Canadian Parliament elected by the Canadian people. The Governor General who goes out to Canada does not go there to carry out the policy of a Party, but as the unfettered Representative of the Sovereign to govern the people of Canada Constitutionally, according to Canadian opinion, and guided by the advice of the Canadian Ministers. The reference of the right hon. and learned Gentleman to India was not in point at all, from the simple circumstance that India does not possess a Constitutional Government. I decline, therefore, to accept the analogy which the right hon. and learned Gentleman seeks to draw in the case of India. In order to justify his argument, the Government of Ireland must be shaped in accordance with Indian precedents. The right hon. and learned Gentleman referred to the speech of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dundalk (Mr. Charles Russell) as a proof of the opportunities afforded to Irishmen in this country; and he commended not more warmly than I am

    1483
    prepared to endorse the hospitality which Englishmen extend to Irishmen of talent. But this is only the outcome of civilization. If Englishmen go to the United States or Canada, if they settle in Prance or Germany, the same hospitality is extended to them; and I presume that, whatever position my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dundalk (Mr. Charles Russell) has won for himself in this country, he has won it by the exercise of his own talent, by his own Irish ability, Irish courage, and Irish pluck; and I think that those who have extended English hospitality to him, for the time being, have had no reason to be dissatisfied with the result. I have ventured to trespass on the indulgence of the House to-night for the simple reason that I have been an attentive listener during the whole of the debate which has taken place on this important Bill. I have read that Bill several times very carefully, and I am not ashamed to confess to the House that I have yet but a very imperfect idea of the probable effect of some of its most important provisions. An appeal has been made to the House, in the progress of the debate upon the Bill, to consider it rapidly in the interest of the dispatch of Public Business. I am sure that that appeal will have due weight with all sections of Members in this House; but I must take leave to say here and now that, having regard to the portentous and revolutionary character of the measure, it would be nothing less than a grave public scandal if Parliament assented to it without carefully scrutinizing its leading provisions, and trying to ascertain how far they are calculated to carry out the professed, object of the Bill. At an earlier stage information was asked from Her Majesty's Government which, in my judgment, is material to the consideration of, perhaps, the most important clause of this Bill. That information has not yet been forthcoming. We are asked in the very first page of the Bill, in the very first clause of it, to consent to the abolition of trial by jury in six different classes of offences. The Government were called upon a few days ago to produce statistics which would enable the House to form an estimate as to how far the system of trial by jury had proved a failure in respect of the trial of persons prosecuted for these various offences.
    1484
    Now, no attempt has been made by the Government to give that information; and I submit that it is not only necessary that the House should possess that information, but I should hope that Her Majesty's Government themselves did not commit themselves to this grave proposal to abolish trial by jury until they had themselves gone carefully over the statistics and satisfied themselves that the proposal was absolutely necessary. A question was asked of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. W. M. Johnson) in reference to trial by jury for the offences of treason and treason-felony. The hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) inquired in how many cases, during the last 10 or 15 years, persons who had been indicted for treason or treason-felony had not been convicted when the weight of evidence was in favour of conviction? The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland stated that it would occupy at least two months to give a satisfactory answer to that question. Now, I think I can give a satisfactory answer to it at once, and I will give it in the form of a challenge to the right hon. and learned Gentleman. My challenge is this. I challenge the right hon. and learned Gentleman to produce one single instance, during the last 15 years, where a person in Ireland was indicted for treason or treason-felony and the jury gave a verdict against the weight of evidence? I challenge the right hon. and learned Gentleman to produce a single instance. I recollect the history of the last trials for treason and treason-felony in Ireland, when O'Donovan Rossa, Michael Davitt, and other gentlemen were tried. My recollection is that certainly nineteen-twentieths of the persons who were then put upon their trial for these offences were found guilty on the weight of evidence. [Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT: Davitt was tried in England.] Mr. Davitt was, no doubt, tried in England; but surely the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary is not so forgetful of history as to suppose that the only persons who were convicted were tried here. Mr. Davitt and two or three others were tried here; but I am speaking of the great bulk of those who were tried. I might go back to 1848, when the offence of treason-felony was first created, and I think it will be found

    1485
    that if juries returned a verdict against the weight of evidence, they were not verdicts that were favourable to the prisoners who were arraigned before them. We have asked the Government for information upon these two points, and that information has not been supplied. I will put a question, then, to Her Majesty's Government, and I will put it seriously, also, to independent Liberal Members on the other side of the House who have already made the grave mistake of committing themselves to the policy of this Bill. I will ask them to tell me when, if ever, since Constitutional liberty was first established in this country, it was proposed by any Government, in any period of public excitement, to abolish trial by jury for political offences? Was anything of the kind done during the Reign of Terror in 1793? Was anything of the kind done during the period of the Rebellion in Ireland in 1798? Was anything of the kind done at the time of Emmet's abortive insurrectionary attempt in 1803? Was any step taken in the direction of abolishing trial by jury in 1848, in 1865, or in 1866? At what period in the Constitutional history of the country was a proposal ever made before by Her Majesty s Government to abolish trial by jury? I do not underrate the gravity of the present situation; but will anyone tell me that, grave as the situation is, that it bears any comparison with the revolutionary periods I have quoted, and in the very fervour of which the sacred institution of trial by jury was preserved as the Ark of the Covenant of the British Constitution? Then, I say, that before we consent to its abolition we have a right to challenge Her Majesty's Government to produce the evidence which, in their opinion, justifies so extreme a measure. If this Bill is not the result of a wild and reckless panic, Her Majesty's Government must have some other ground for having agreed among themselves upon the proposal to abolish trial by jury, which they have not yet communicated to the House. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dundalk (Mr. Charles Russell) has properly directed attention to the exceedingly grave effect the Bill will have upon the Irish Judges, who are called upon, under the Bill, to act as Judges in these six different classes of offences. They have, I believe, unanimously protested against
    1486
    the proposal to lay this burden upon them. I confess that I agree with my hon. and learned Friend that it is difficult to imagine how a proposal of this kind can be carried out in the face of that protest; and I trust that it is not yet too late for Her Majesty's Government to seriously re-consider the whole matter; and, having got an expression of Irish opinion, which does not bear in any degree the taint of political partizanship—namely, an expression of opinion from the Irish Judges—we shall wait to see if that of itself will make any impression upon their councils. While I have voted against the second reading of the Bill, and intend to give it, in its general aspects, a determined opposition, I am bound to acknowledge that the measure contains some provisions which, in view of the present unhappy condition of Ireland, I am not prepared to say are altogether unnecessary. I notice that Clause 4 is an attempt to put down intimidation. Well, now, I believe that Her Majesty's Government are perfectly sincere in their desire to put down, the system of intimidation which has, in too many instances, been carried out in Ireland during the last two years; and I must say that I heartily sympathize with them in the desire they have expressed to put down that intimidation. I have said before, and I hope I shall be excused if I repeat it again, that I am equally opposed to coercion on the part of Her Majesty's Government, and to the intimidation which has been practised by certain sections and branches of the Land League. I have no desire to make the whole organization of the Land League responsible for what has been done; but I repudiate and defy intimidation in every form. That is the attitude which I have always taken, and it is the attitude which I intend to maintain. During recent days we have had the expression of the just feeling of the Irish people in reference to many of the serious crimes which have been committed in the country. We have heard the feeling of horror with which they regard these crimes; but there are other crimes, which, although they may not lead directly to the spilling of innocent blood, are in themselves reprehensible and worthy of the strongest condemnation. Take the doctrine of "Boycotting" in Ireland, which has

    1487
    been alluded to. I denounce it as brutal and immoral. I do not recognize that any political organization, whether composed of 10 men or 10,000,000 men, has the right to coerce any man in the free exercise of his judgment, and of the rights which he conceives he possesses as a member of a civilized community. Clause 4 of this Bill proposes to deal with that offence; and, as far as it proposes to deal with intimidation of that character, I say that I am in favour of the provision. But, then, it is not necessary, if your object is to put down intimidation of the character I have described—intimidation which isolates a man from his fellow-men, which marks him out as a person scarcely fit to live in society; which, in some instances, deprives him of the means of obtaining the necessaries of life for himself and his family—if you only propose to put down that hellish system, then I am in favour of your proposal. But let me have a definition of what intimidation is? Do not tell me that it includes every suggestion or every nod which A may make to B, with the supposed object of influencing B to do something which he may not wish to do, or to refrain from doing something which he wishes to do. The definition contained in the clause is far too sweeping; and I trust that, in Committee, an attempt will be made to bring the language of the Bill more in accordance with the professed object you have in view—namely, to put down intimidation in Ireland. Clause 5 declares that every person who takes part in any riot or unlawful assembly commits an offence under the Act; and, by reference to the Bill, hon. Members will see that by Clause 19, any two Resident Magistrates, who may themselves have taken part in instigating a riot by their blundering and incapacity, are empowered to try the very persons they may have implicated in such disturbance. They have not only to try them, but to sentence them, if they think proper, to imprisonment with hard labour for six months. The right hon. Baronet the Leader of the Opposition (Sir Stafford Northcote) stated, at a former stage of the discussion, that it was absolutely necessary, when you consented to pass a Bill of this description, that you should be very careful about its administration. His argument went rather
    1488
    to show that it was necessary to have a firm administration; and the right hon. Gentleman used words, which I readily endorse, when he said that the administration was half the battle. I wish that the right hon. Gentleman would extend that maxim a little further, because, if he were speaking of the whole of the government of Ireland, he might say that administration was not only half the battle, but the whole battle, as far as securing the peace and tranquillity of the country is concerned. In another sense I say, then, that the success, or want of success, which may attend this measure, must in a great degree depend on the manner in which it is administered. I want to know whether such gentlemen as Sub-Inspector Ball, who has been evicted from Ballina, and other persons in a similar character, are to be sent to other parts of the country to administer this Bill, and are to receive orders from the Resident Magistrates in reference to riots and unlawful assemblies? Are persons like County Inspector Smith, magistrates like Major Trail, to be intrusted with the administration of this measure? If they are, it will be impossible to carry out the professed objects of the Bill under their administration. We are told, in the Preamble of the measure, that its object is to put down secret societies and unlawful combinations for illegal purposes, and, by some extraordinary process of reasoning, we are expected to convince ourselves that the best way to put down secret societies and secret action is to suppress public meetings. We are even invited to go further in the direction of suppressing public sentiment, and are asked to attack the Press. I am ready to endorse, in the strongest manner, the strong terms which the right hon. Gentlemen the Chief Secretary for Ireland applied to some of the doctrines propounded by the Irish-American newspapers; but I would ask the hon. Gentleman are there no newspapers published in England, from week to week and from day to day, which give expression to doctrines subversive of society? I am afraid there are; and I am afraid that it is impossible, in any free country, to suppress entirely the expression of opinions and doctrines which are not in accordance with the expression of the opinion of civilized communities. But I do not think that is a sufficient reason

    1489
    for suppressing newspapers in the summary manner proposed in this Bill. On the contrary, I regard the Press of Ireland as the safety-valve of popular passion, as the indicator of the grievances which call loudest for redress; and if you shut up these avenues of public opinion in so summary a manner, and decline to carry on the government of Ireland in accordance with public opinion, the whole matter reduces itself to this—that you are determined henceforth, or during the next three years, at any rate, to regard Ireland as a conquered country, or a country remaining to be conquered, in which public opinion is to be stifled at its source lest it should seem to conflict with your aspirations of government in that country. We are asked, also, in this Bill to sanction the power of unlimited search, at any time, by day or night, and we are told that the object of this unlimited power of search is to enable the Government to discover what the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary (Sir William Harcourt) very forcibly described as the "apparatus of murder." If that be the object of this clause, I want to know what advantage you gain by making a search of that kind in the middle of the night? It is not likely, if persons have arms and documents concealed, that they will be found changing them from one place to another in the middle of the night, because, if it were so, it would not be nenessary to search the houses at all. You would only have to wait on the high road, and you would soon come into possession of the apparatus of murder. I can understand night-searching, if the object be to search for persons; but if the object be to search for arms and documents, I can see no reason whatever why we should not consent to limit or prevent these searches being carried out after sunset, at night, and before sunrise in the morning. There is one important part of the Bill which seems to have escaped attention in every quarter of the House. I refer to that part of it which proposes to revive the Alien Act. Now, I regard this portion of the Bill as something which is likely to be attended with the very gravest consequences, and for this reason. I feel with the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Plunket), and other hon. Members who have spoken in the course of the debate,
    1490
    that the position of the Irish population in America is, undoubtedly, the greatest danger to the maintenance of English power in Ireland at the present time; and I can conceive that, in the future history of the Anglo-Irish struggle, the danger is to be anticipated from the other side of the Atlantic. I noticed at the great Irish meeting held in New York, some six or seven weeks ago, for the purpose of calling on the American Government to demand the release of certain American citizens imprisoned in Irish gaols, that messages and telegrams were read at the meeting from all the leading responsible politicians of the United States—Senators, Members of Congress, Governors of States, ex-Secretaries of State, and people of the highest note in the land were called upon to give expression to their opinion. I will mention the name of one particular individual, because it is a name that is more familiar to the people of England, probably, than any other I could mention—I mean General Grant. General Grant was received in this country, not long ago, with princely honour and hospitality by the British people. He was handed round the country, and the people were led to believe that the mission of the great General was to propagate love, and peace, and good-fellowship. Well, General Grant wrote to the meeting I refer to, saying—
    "If I were President of the United States, I would demand the release of our citizens in Ireland or insist on their being immediately brought to trial."
    I will not pause to inquire whether General Grant may have been indulging in a little electoral fireworks or not. General Grant, if he were President of the United States, might possibly think that he was not called on, either as a General or as President, to adopt a hostile attitude towards England; but I look to his words as an acknowledgment of the power which elicited the expression of that opinion; and if I find every prominent man in the United States, without distinction of political Party—not merely the democrats who hope to get into power on the strength of the Irish vote, but Republicans of every shade of opinion—sending messages of sympathy to this meeting, then I am justified in regarding the position of the Irish race in America as a position which England has to recognize if she wishes to make

    1491
    peace with the Irish people at home. Well, what do you propose to do? You propose to revive an Act, the earliest effect of which would be not merely to to emphasize the hostility of irresponsible politicians in America, but to alienate the sympathies of the American Government itself. What is the history of this Alien Act? I am afraid there are very few hon. Members in this House who have studied the proposals of the Bill. There is hardly a step you can take which will not strike you with the fact that you are called on to do something hitherto recognized as most repugnant to the spirit of the British Constitution. What is the history of this odious Alien Act? In all the troubles and struggles of this country with aspirants to the Throne; in its contests with the Pope and his emissaries; in all the desperate periods of its past history, we never heard of the Alien Act until the 17th of September, 1793, when, during the Reign of Terror in France, the very security and independence of the United Kingdom were threatened, it was introduced by a Conservative Government and opposed by the Leaders of the Liberal Party; and, although it was in operation, more or less, for 33 years subsequently, during the whole of that time it was opposed by every man of eminence in the Liberal Party in both Houses of Parliament, and it was regarded as so odious in itself that it had to be renewed from year to year, like the Mutiny Bill. It was never passed for a longer period than one year, and during the 33 years it subsequently occupied a place on the Statute Book it was opposed by every prominent Member of the Liberal Party. I should like to mention the names of some of the distinguished statesmen who were conspicuous for their opposition to the Alien Act. Among those who opposed it in 1793 were Lord Lansdowne, Lord Grey, and Mr. Pox, and subsequently by Mr. Abercromby and Mr. Whitbread. In 1816 it was opposed by Sir Samuel Romilly, Mr. Homer, Mr. J. P. Grant, Sir James Mackintosh, Mr. C. Wynne, Lord Milton, Lord Althorpe, Mr. Baring, Mr. Lamb (afterwards Lord Melbourne), and Mr. Brougham; subsequently by Lord Auckland, the Duke of Sussex, Lord King, Lord Lansdowne, Lord Grey, and Lord Holland; and in later years
    1492
    by Lord Durham. In 1824, Lord John Russell and Mr. Denman were Tellers against the measure; and in 1848, when, after an interval, it was again proposed, I find that the Division List against it contains the names of Hume, Molesworth, Cobden, and Bright. I am glad that this has brought us to the name of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Bright), because I wish the House to allow me to quote a very short extract from a speech which the right hon. Gentleman delivered on the third reading of the Alien Bill, when it was introduced in 1848. I venture to give the quotation for this additional reason—that what the right hon. Gentleman then said as to the policy of the Alien Act most vitally applies to the whole policy of the present Bill introduced by Her Majesty's Government, of which the right hon. Gentleman is a Member. Addressing the House on the third reading of the Alien Bill in 1848, the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster said—
    "With respect to the measure more immediately under consideration, he would take occasion to observe that, from the hour it was first introduced to the present moment, when it was about to receive its third reading, he had never heard an argument in its favour. To say that it ought to be passed"—I wish the House to mark this passage—"To say that it ought to be passed, simply because the House had confidence in the Ministry, was to talk in the silliest and most childish strain imaginable. To assign such a reason for assenting to such a Bill was really amongst the most preposterous of all conceivable things. Why, on the same plea, the House ought to support the Government if they were to bring forward ten times as oppressive a measure for our own people as this Bill of pains and penalties was for foreigners."—[3 Hansard, xcviii. 867.]
    Yes; and I say to the English Members of this House—If you consent to vote for such a measure as that now before you, for the purpose of restricting the freedom of the Irish people, or, as you would express it, for carrying on the government of Ireland, because you have confidence in Her Majesty's Government—if that Government were to come forward and propose a similar measure; or, to use the words of the right hon. Gentleman, if they were to bring forward ten times as strong a measure for oppressing the people of England, you would be equally justified in recording your votes in favour of that proposal. I might go further, and show how far the spirit of

    1493
    this Alien Act is opposed to the genius and spirit of the British Constitution, in addition to the practical reasons I gave a short time ago in my reference to the state of the Irish nation in America, which is so great a political Power. But I do not wish to trespass unduly upon the time of the House by too minutely critizing special clauses in the Bill. I should, however, like for a moment or two to refer to a subject which has occupied a prominent place in our minds throughout all the stages of this discussion. I refer to the Phœnix Park atrocity. I am glad to see the right hon. and learned Gentleman the ex-Attorney General for Ireland and the junior Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) in his place, because I have to complain that the right hon. and learned Gentleman, when he spoke upon this subject a few evenings ago, was the very first, as far as I know in this country, at any rate the first public man, and certainly the first man in this House, to venture upon casting any imputation upon the masses of the people of Ireland in connection with that terrible tragedy. What did the right hon. and learned Gentleman say? He said—"It is all very well to pass resolutions expressive of your horror at the terrible deed; but it must be borne in mind that the deed was carried out in daylight, that there must have been many witnesses, and, nevertheless, the assassins are still at large." Now, I will put this simple question. If an imputation is to rest on the character of the people of Dublin or the people of Ireland in connection with that barbarous crime, and the right hon. and learned Gentleman is to ask me where were the eyes of the people, I ask him where were the eyes of the police organized under the system of coercion he was so ready last year to recommend for the adoption of the House, and which has been carried out by his Friend the right hon. Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster)? "Where were the eyes of the police?" I ask, when you put the question, "Where were the eyes of the people?" I look upon the circumstances attending the perpetration of that crime as something which simply illustrates the chances of war. [Cries of "Oh!"] I certainly look upon it in that light. The failure to discover it is unaccountable, I admit, on any other supposition; but, if it be unaccountable—and the right
    1494
    hon. and learned Gentleman agrees with me that it is unaccountable—then he is not entitled to account for it by any secret sympathy with the assassins on the part of the Irish people. The Irish people of all classes have reprobated that crime. [Cries of "No!"] They have reprobated it, I think, in language which ought to bring home to every fair English mind a conviction of their sincerity; and I do not think it is fair for the right hon. and learned Gentleman to cast the imputation upon them which was indicated in his reference. As far as the people of Ireland are concerned they had every reason to expect that the administration which the late Lord Frederick Cavendish went to Ireland to carry out would be one calculated to promote the peace and the prosperity of that country; and I am sure that those among the Irish Members who knew the noble Lord in this House would have felt that, although they might be able to discover, at some time or other, in his policy an opponent, they would have found a generous opponent—a man with whom it would have been an honour to be associated even under the conditions of Party warfare. I do not know whether it is of any use appealing to the House to pause before assenting to the proposals contained in this Bill, by any reference to the consequences which have followed similar legislation in other countries. I think it is not necessary, because reference has already been made to it in the course of the debate; but I am sure the state of Russia at the present time, where measures of repression and coercion and despotic power in all its guises and forms are rampant, give no assurance whatever that similar legislation for Ireland will be productive of different consequences. I object then, Sir, to this Bill, because I think it is far in excess of what the situation in Ireland requires. There are many grave proposals contained in the measure, any one of which, if it stood alone, would excite considerable opposition. There is in this Bill such a catalogue of extraordinary and despotic powers, as I undertake to say were never before presented to the House at any period of English history, and such as I believe have seldom, if ever, been proposed to any Parliament at any time in the history of the world. Let me simply enumerate what these powers are before I

    1495
    sit down. First of all, you are asked to give to one man the power to abolish, trial by jury in six different classes of offences; you are asked to give power to enter and search dwelling-houses at any hour by night and day; to give power to arrest any person out before sunrise or after sunset; power to try a person summarily and send them to prison for six months with hard labour, and without the right of appeal; power to arrest aliens and imprison them forthwith, if they refuse or are unable to give security for their good behaviour; power to expel aliens; power to suppress public meetings; power to suppress newspapers; power to summon witnesses before anyone who has been acccused; and power to levy compensation for injuries, and to levy a tax for the maintenance of extra police on a whole district—thus involving the innocent with the guilty in a common punishment. These, and many other powers too numerous to mention, are included within the four corners of this Bill. I say, therefore, that it is a revolutionary measure; that it is a measure which. no precedent in English history can be quoted to justify; that, grave as the situation is in Ireland, the difficulties can be mastered without this drastic Bill; and I denounce it as an invasion of the rights of the Irish people, and a weak and humiliating and a shameful confession in the eyes of Europe that English administration in Ireland today, as in the past, is a disgraceful failure.
    THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER): Sir, I feel myself bound to notice some of the more important arguments advanced by the hon. and learned Member for Mayo (Mr. O'Connor Power), and also those which have been so ably urged by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dundalk (Mr. Charles Russell). In one observation of my hon. and learned Friend I entirely concur—that this Bill, if it be not a Bill aimed against crime, and in so far as it is not calculated to repress and put down crime, is not a Bill that ought to commend itself to the judgment of this House. But I trust the House will come to the conclusion that in one and all of its important clauses and provisions it is not only a Bill aimed against crime, but one calculated to accomplish its object. My hon. and learned Friend
    1496
    the Member for Dundalk (Mr. Charles Russell) has conceded that no amount of severity, or apparent severity, in the provisions of the Bill would disentitle it to the countenance of the House if it be really calculated to achieve that end; and really that argument needs no elaboration. In the present circumstances of the country, it is obvious that either the law must now assert its supremacy, or disorder must get the upper hand over law. Now, this measure has been described, and described with truth, as being a measure of coercion. In one sense it is a measure of coercion. It is a measure to coerce crime and compel the wrong-doer to obey the law; but it is not a measure of coercion in the sense of compelling the loyal, the well-disposed, and the law-abiding to do anything, or to make any sacrifice, which reasonable and honourable citizens ought not to be willing to do or to make in the circumstances of the country in which they live. One of the changes which this Bill introduces, and one which is merely of a temporary character, has been referred to both by the hon. and learned Member for Mayo (Mr. O'Connor Power) and by those who have preceded him in this debate—namely, the important clause which proposes to give the Judges the jurisdiction of trying both law and fact in certain criminal cases. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dundalk (Mr. Charles Russell) has argued, in reference to this matter, that the opinion which has been expressed by the Judges ought to have great weight with the Legislature, and ought to be of importance in determining the decision, inasmuch as they have raised an objection to the proposal of the Government, not on the ground of personal inconvenience, but upon public grounds. Of course, Her Majesty's Government, and those whose duty it is to advise the Government, must give the greatest weight to the opinions and representations of these learned persons. I most thoroughly concur in what has been said on both sides of the House as to the ability, the uprightness, the intelligence, and the fearlessness of the Irish Bench; and I know well that when the Legislature imposes on them the duty of determining the matters which this Bill confides to them, they will discharge that duty to the best of their ability, without fear, favour, or affection.

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    At the same time, while admitting that their opinion is entitled to the greatest weight, yet Her Majesty's Government would not be justified in allowing that opinion to outweigh the best judgment they themselves have been able to form, if that judgment be in accordance with the opinion of the Legislature of the country. With reference to the unwillingness of the Irish Judges to undertake the work formerly discharged by jurors, it is important to observe that on a previous occasion the Judges entertained similar misgivings; but it turned out that their misgivings, were not justified by the result. I refer to the transference of the trial of Election Petitions to the Judges. At that time the Legislature transferred to the Judges the duty of deciding upon very important and delicate questions involving matters concerning Party politics—matters of the very utmost nicety. They shrunk at first from undertaking the duty. I can well understand their reluctance. It was precisely similar to the reluctance expressed now by some of the members of the Irish Judicial Bench with reference to the functions which this Bill proposes to impose upon them. But what has been the result? I do not think this House would be willing to take away from the Judges the duty which has been imposed on them, in regard to Election Petitions, against their will; and I believe the Judges themselves find, after all, that the honest and fearless discharge of public duties not only insures justice, but commands the confidence of the public; and I feel perfectly certain that when it is recognized by the public that this—which I admit to be an odious duty—is cast on the Judges by the Legislature, and is accepted by them, in obedience to the voice of the nation, and as a trust imposed on them, the public confidence in their integrity and justice will be in no degree shaken. Now, what is the necessity for this step? The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Mayo (Mr. O'Connor Power) has invited statistics in reference to the failure of juries to find a verdict of guilty when proper evidence has been given before them. I need not remind the House that it is utterly impossible that any such statistics can be given, because statistics are a mere matter of figures, whereas verdicts are a mere matter of evidence. And, although perfectly well
    1498
    known, as it is known in many cases—indeed, in most cases—of an agrarian character, that juries do not, as a matter of fact, discharge their duty, yet, while that is so, it is impossible to count up, in so many cases, at such an Assize, that juries went wrong, while in others they went right. The balance of evidence must, to a certain extent, remain as a matter of opinion; but, while it is a matter of opinion, it is a matter of opinion of the highest weight. Let anyone read the evidence given before the Committee of the House of Lords. The learned Judges examined before that Committee did not arrive at a conclusion from general and vague statements as to the failure in a particular class of cases; but they found the cases illustrated by examples and facts, and all resulting in the statement, on the part of those learned persons, that in agrarian offences, in a great part of the country, it is impossible to obtain a conviction. It is perfectly fair to point out that that failure of justice has, in many cases, resulted, not from any unwillingness on the part of juries to discharge their duty, but from the absence of evidence before the jury. I quite concede that that has been the case in some, and, indeed, in many instances, and that it will account for many of the failures of justice which have occurred. But, while that is so, it needs but little knowledge of human nature, and but very little knowledge of the Irish character, to corroborate the statement advanced by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) the other evening—that the Irish peasant will not come forward to give evidence in a case when he knows perfectly well that the man against whom he is required to testify is to be tried by his friends and neighbours, or by persons under whose terrorism the crime has been brought about, who, they know, will acquit the prisoner, whose ill-will they would be liable to subsequently. But if you once insure a perfectly fearless tribunal, justice will be done on the evidence presented to it, and evidence will be forthcoming in cases where otherwise it would not. Under these circumstances, having regard to these facts, and the terrible failures of justice which have taken place at every Assize, with the single exception of the Cork Winter Assize, which, let it be re-

    1499
    membered, was so severely criticized in this House—under these circumstances, I say, we look forward to the operation of the tribunal to be constituted under this Bill as hopeful of the best results; and I, for one, cordially agree with what has been stated by the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk (Mr. Charles Russell), that, having such a tribunal as this, there was absolutely no fear of any innocent man being convicted. Everyone acquainted with the character of the men of which the Irish Bench is constituted, well know that they would not be less careful of individual liberty than juries. Therefore, Sir, I regard, this clause of the Bill as being one of the very greatest importance. But there is another clause, not now in the Bill, which will be introduced as a Government Amendment before it passes this House. I refer to the clause indicated by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department, which, I hope, as an auxiliary to the ordinary exercise of the Common Law, will prove an efficient and useful instrument. It is to the effect that power shall be given to have cases tried in districts different from those in which crimes have been committed, by special juries, or by juries of superior intelligence, who will not be likely to be influenced by causes which terrorize or intimidate persons in a humbler and less defensible position. I look upon this Amendment as not unimportant. It will be placed on the Paper, I understand, immediately, and I believe it will do much to lighten the work of the tribunal. Another portion of the Bill has been criticized with great fairness by the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk, and by other speakers also. I refer to the summary jurisdiction which this Bill proposes to refer on Resident Magistrates. Now, my hon. and learned Friend has mentioned that many of the laws upon our Statute Book impose very severe maximum penalties for offences which might well be dealt with by smaller punishment. Many cases tried at the Assizes, which might well be dealt with in a summary manner, are now necessarily kept over for a considerable time, to the inconvenience of persons accused if they happen to be innocent, in a manner that sometimes amounts to a public scandal. It has, therefore, been deemed necessary to extend summary
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    jurisdiction to many of these offences, but in a way which would not leave it in the power of the magistrates to whom it was intrusted to inflict the severe maximum penalties in our Statute Book. In point of fact, it is much more important that crime should be dealt with speedily and with reasonable certainty, and be tried free from the apprehension of violence and intimidation, than that it should be disposed of in a way that would insure heavier penalties at the cost of delay. Well, Sir, a Court of Resident Magistrates is naturally the one to which such offences will go. If it were proposed in this Bill that the trial of the class of offences to be referred to the Resident Magistrates should be intrusted to a Court composed of the country gentry and the landlord class, I need not say we should have had an outcry in this House with reference to the proposal that men engaged in agrarian occupations should be tried by their own landlords in relation to crimes connected with land. The arguments used against the Resident Magistracy would have been raised with more force if the proposal were that these offences should be tried by the local gentry. At the same time, it is obvious that there would be, under certain circumstances, great risk of inconvenience, and possibly even of injustice being done, if the magistrate who was engaged most in the course of his magisterial duties in investigating a crime, were afterwards to be the person to deal with it in the judicial capacity. That point has been fairly entered upon by my hon. and learned Friend; it is one to which the attention of the Government must necessarily be turned; and I am in a position to state that it is intended by the executive to make such arrangements in reference to these tribunals as will absolutely separate what I may call the Executive from the judicial functions of the magistrates, and that these judicial functions will be intrusted to magistrates who will have nothing to do but to decide in Court upon cases brought before them. That is a matter which I think ought to go far to relieve anxiety in any fair mind with reference to the constitution of these tribunals, and with reference to the exercise of their jurisdiction. Sir, this is a matter which has presented itself to the notice of the Government from within and not from without, and I will add that attention

    1501
    has been directed to it for a considerable time. Another matter has been mentioned this evening, which I am in a position also to state has already received the serious and earnest consideration of Her Majesty's Government. This Bill, it is true, contains no clause providing for appeal in cases of summary jurisdiction. But, in reference to that, although I am not in a position to say the matter is decided upon, I can assure the House that the question of the propriety of giving appeal in these cases—the same as is given in ordinary cases of jurisdiction—is one which is engaging the serious attention of Her Majesty's Government; and I believe that if it can be shown that the ends of justice will be served thereby, the proposal to give appeal will be adopted by them. And now, with regard to this most important portion of the Bill, which deals with the tribunals to be established in the place of juries, I may say, on the subject of summary jurisdiction, that I think the House need be under no apprehension that there is any desire on the part of Her Majesty's Government to do more than is necessary, or more than that which is acknowledged by all to be the object of the Bill—namely, the repression and punishment of crime and guilt where it exists, with some guarantee that no innocent man shall suffer, and that jusce shall be done and nothing but justice. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dundalk said that he regretted some of the other provisions of the Bill, amongst them that relating to the Press. Sir, I am unwilling to recall to the memory of the House what are the circumstances under which some clause of this kind has become absolutely imperative; but I will say that from one end of Ireland to the other, those connected with the administration of the law have arrived at the conclusion that unless something is done to put a stop to the dissemination of the pernicious matter daily circulated there, the country will never be at peace. I need not particularize these publications. We have had them under the notice of the House, and they continue to circulate now. In one paper we read of five dollars being offered for the assassination of a landlord; in another we have directions given as to the manufacture of dynamite for the destruction of public buildings and persons named. [An hon. MEM-
    1502
    BER: In Irish, papers?] I did not say in Irish papers. We find also offers of rewards to persons to go to America, whose expenses will be paid, and who will be taught the use of dynamite, and then sent back to use it. We find these things in The United Irishman, and we find them with scarcely less openly avowed murderous intention in other papers which circulate throughout the length and breadth of the land, or did so until the Government so far put a stop to them. I do not refer specially to Irish papers, although in this House there has been evidence given from Irish papers themselves of the publication of matter scarcely less mischievous than that to which I have alluded. As regards these newspapers, therefore, it is is quite necessary that they should be dealt with. "Deal with them by the ordinary law," say some of our friends—that is to say, by trial by jury, which has failed in the manner I have described in connection with every other kind of agrarian offence. Now, I ask, under these circumstances, what would be the use of these prosecutions? Their effect would be simply to give a stimulus to the circulation of particular papers, and to give them greater publicity and notoriety. And here it should be borne in mind that we are not proposing a perpetual law, but a law to meet a temporary necessity. We are acting in this matter purely on the defensive; we are acting for the rights and liberties of the nation; we are not attempting to gag or stifle any free discussion; we are aiming simply and strictly at crime alone. Are we, then, to wait until it is decided whether the publications I have alluded to are criminal or not? Are we to wait until the whole thing is done, and then institute a prosecution which will lead, perhaps, to a verdict of triumphant acquittal? This matter must be dealt with by someone. Should it be left to the magistrates? I can well understand the objections to that course. I think the liberties of the Press are better protected by the exercise of a discretion which must rest with the Chief of the Executive, and I believe there can be no better guarantee given than is afforded in the present case. The same difficulty presents itself in connection with public meetings, as I have indicated in the case of certain publications, and if these

    1503
    are to be stopped at all they must be stopped beforehand. There must, therefore, be some tribunal other than the ordinary tribunals established to deal with them, and the decisions in these matters is accordingly left to the Chief of the Executive. It is repugnant to everyone connected with the administration of the law to have anything to do with interference either as regards the publication of the Press or public meetings. But, at the same time, while there are publications of the Press and public meetings which the public interest demands should be permitted to go on, there are others which the public interest also imperatively demands should be put down. Therefore, it seems to me that in the case of public meetings also, no better guarantee can be given than that proposed in the Bill. I say, again, this is not a Bill which is to last for ever. It is a Bill to continue in operation for a certain time to meet a temporary necessity. Sir, I do not intend to enter at any considerable length upon a discussion of the other clauses of this measure, which are admitted by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dundalk to be, in principle, perfectly legitimate. I refer especially to the powers of search, and the powers conferred by the revival of the Alien Act, which will enable the country to deal with crime for the purpose of prevention. Some such provisions as these are necessary; and everyone who knows the country is aware that at this moment there are numbers of emissaries from the United States in certain Irish towns, many of whom are known to be organizing some work against the law. It is obvious, therefore, that there should be the power of making such persons give an account of themselves, and, in the event of their not doing so, of compelling them to go to a place where they have some legitimate business. It is the right of a community to defend itself in this way, and it cannot be suggested of the power in question that it will lead to the slightest harm or detriment to any law-abiding person. It is impossible to say that it will not cause personal discomfort; but that can only occur in very rare cases, and such discomfort, I am satisfied, any loyal subject of the Grown will be ready to suffer, in order that the community, of which he is a member, may be saved. With regard to the clause re-
    1504
    lating to the summoning of witnesses, to which the hon. Member for Mayo so strongly objects, I am bound to say that the force of his objection is not apparent to me. There is power in the Bill to enable magistrates to summon witnesses to give evidence even when no person is charged. I cannot see that there is any hardship in asking a person to give evidence in that manner. If a crime has occurred, and a person knows about it, he is bound to state what he knows; on the other hand, if he knows nothing, be will say so. The summoning of witnesses in this way is of every-day occurrence in the case of Coroners' inquests, where it is to the interest of the public that a full investigation should take place; and I feel satisfied that if this power had been in existence some time ago, we might have been able to unearth some of those connected with the most desperate assassinations in the country. That is my conviction when I recollect the murder of the two persons at Lough Mask, whose bodies were put into a boat, taken out into the lake, and sunk in the presence of persons who must have seen what was going on; and I think it is a scandal to our power to say that there is nothing to compel them to come forward and say they saw it. Therefore, it seems to me there can be no valid objection to such a clause as that to which I have referred. With regard to the provisions which impose pecuniary fines on districts in which murder, injury, or maiming have occurred, no doubt there is a primâ facie objection here, just as there is in the case of the cost of additional police; but after all, while that is so, there is nothing in the clause which is repugnant to the principles of the law under which we have lived in England. It is but the old Common Law of England, under which the Hundreds were responsible for one another; and it is the same as the law in Ireland with reference to malicious injury to property, which gives power to recover compensation for injury, to be assessed by the Grand Jury. Here we have not thought proper to throw on the Grand Jury the powers of this Act, but have thought it better, in order that the investigation may be prompt, that this jurisdiction should be conferred on persons not connected with the districts. Surely, if it be right, when a house is burned without evidence of combination—a thing that may be ex-

    1505
    ceptional—that it should be left to the decision of the jury to mulct the district for an unknown amount, there is no unfairness in attempting to achieve two objects—one to compensate the family of the victim; and the other to convince the people of the neighbourhood that it is their own pecuniary interest to protect themselves and their neighbours, and to combine to put down crime and outrage. I have great faith in that argument, and I know no class of persons with whom it has greater weight than Irish Members. In many cases the fear of pecuniary results has prevented agrarian crime. I believe, therefore, that this Bill, in one and all its provisions—I do not say in reference to one and all its details—but in all its features this Bill deserves the support of the House as being an honest effort to protect the community against crime and outrage. It has been described as the most severe measure ever passed for Ireland; but anyone who makes that statement cannot have carefully read Lord Grey's Act of 1833, the provisions of which infinitely transcend this Bill in stringency. As regards the provisions of this Bill, the functions cast on the police will be, as far as possible, minimized in severity. Whilst houses are to be searched for apparatus of crime, that search is only to be conducted on the individual and personal responsibility of an officer present on the occasion, and shall not be left to be exercised by constables or by persons against whom charges might subsequently be made that they were acting beyond their powers. The Bill seems to me one which eminently deserves the support of this House. We are at present discussing an Amendment to go into Committee. Many of the topics presented to the House seem to me more suitable for the second reading than for Committee; but as these matters have been brought before the House, it was necessary to satisfy the House, as I have endeavoured to do, that however this Bill may be in some respects amended, in the main it is a Bill calculated to attain its object, and that in the administration of it will lie the best hope for the peace and prosperity of the country; and that, although some of its provisions may look strict and severe, yet in their strictness lies the greatest mercy for the community.
    MR. DILLONsaid, he would move the adjournment of the debate.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Mr. Dillon.)
    Motion agreed to.
    Debate adjourned till To-morrow.

  PREVENTION OF CRIME (IRELAND) [ALLOWANCES AND EXPENSES].
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom, or out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, of allowances to Judges; and remuneration to persons appointed to investigate claims for compensation, as well as of allowances to officers and others, and of any expenses which may become payable under the provisions of any Act of the present Session for the Prevention of Crime in Ireland."—(Mr. Trevelyan.)
  MR. HEALYasked, whether, when the Prevention of Crime Bill got into Committee, the House would be informed what the exact remuneration of the stipendiary magistrates would be, together with the names of the special constabulary officers who were to carry out the Act, and the amounts they were to receive?
  MR. DAWSONsaid, he wished to know from the Law Officers what was really the distinction between Resident Magistrates and ordinary magistrates? It had been his privilege once to hear a great Constitutional lawyer—Chief Justice Whiteside—lay down the principle that there was no distinction, except for the legal acumen of the Resident Magistrates.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)said, there was no distinction, with one or two exceptions, he believed.
  MR. DAWSONsaid, every day in Ireland the ordinary magistrate was dwindled into insignificance by the Resident Magistrate.
  DR. COMMINSsaid, there were a great number of Statutes, from which it appeared that a Resident Magistrate was equal to two ordinary magistrates.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON), said, he thought that only appeared in one or two Acts.
  MR. CALLANasked whether there was any intention to limit the duration

  1507
  of office of Resident Magistrates? The Resident Magistrates, who had power to give six months' imprisonment without appeal, were the persons who were consulted by the police, and who directed them, to institute prosecutions. Was there any intention to alter that state of things?
  MR. HEALYbegged to repeat his question with regard to the amounts to be paid to the Resident Magistrates, whose salaries were now to come out of the Consolidated Fund.
  MR. DAWSONsaid, that the Resident Magistrates were merely appointed, because of their local knowledge, to assist ordinary magistrates; and he had heard Chief justice Whiteside strongly condemn the conduct of an ordinary magistrate who gave way to a Resident Magistrate. It was becoming quite the rule in Ireland for the whole judicial functions of the Executive to be centred in those dictators, who ruled with the most imperious hand both the magistrates and the people of Ireland. Why were these Resident Magistrates chosen to be the new Judges? They were the men who reduced a policemen if he did not bring forward charges of crime, and then they became the judges of the crimes themselves. He thought the attention of the House should be strongly directed to this matter. By this system the magistrates had been made bad by exalting them, and it made the ordinary magistrates bad by degrading them from their proper functions.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, he was not aware that this Committee had any reference to Resident Magistrates. There was no proposal in the Bill to take any money for Resident Magistrates, and the money part of the Bill only referred to the Judges and the extra work which they would have to perform. He, therefore, hoped that there would be no further opposition to this proposal, which was merely to provide extra salaries for the discharge of extra duties.
  MR. O'DONNELLsaid, that, as far as he could understand, the House was now being asked to grant facilities for the furtherance of a system of policy which was to substitute arbitrary power for the last vestiges of Constitutional Law in Ireland; and he was disposed to oppose that proposition according to the Constitutional Forms of the House. He was disposed to take a division against the
  1508
  proposal—in the first place, because it seemed to him that the proposal assumed that the prospect of the Bill which was at present before the House being amended in any essential degree was absolutely hopeless. The House was also left entirely in the dark as to the manner in which these proposed agents of coercion were to be remunerated. He had not the slightest idea of, and no information had been afforded as to, the manner in which this remuneration would be apportioned; and, under those circumstances, he was not inclined to take a leap in the dark, especially in connection with such a subject. He had been unable to catch exactly the precise form in which the questions had been put to the House, although there had been a good deal of examination and cross-examination between hon. Members on both sides of the House; but, as far as he could gather, the present question was one upon which a division could be taken, and if he could find a Teller, or one hon. Member to divide with him, he would take a division against any measure to be used as an excuse for furthering the establishment of Constitutional despotism in Ireland.
  MR. HEALYsaid, he regarded this matter as purely pro formâ, and did not see any necessity for entering any protest upon it. He simply raised the question for information, thinking that the salary of the Resident Magistrates was involved; but if the Judges were to have extra work they would surely have to be paid for it.
  MR. O'DONNELLsaid, he objected to the extra payments to Judges under these circumstances. He did not like the idea of paying either by piecework or by the day in the case of jurors to whom such powers would be given as were now to be established in Ireland. The further subvention of Government functionaries in the place of Constitutional juries was a proposition which should be opposed from the initial step in which it came before the House. If he was not supported his opposition would fall to the ground; if he was supported he should go to a division.
  MR. SEXTONsaid, he thought there was a good deal in what his hon. Friend had said. The Government were proposing to take the first step for providing funds for persons who were to have duties imposed upon them under the

  1509
  Prevention of Crime Act; and he thought it would have been more orderly to wait till the Bill had passed through Committee, because then it would be known whether those duties were to devolve on the Judges or not.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, that course could not be adopted, because the House could not go into Committee upon a Bill containing money charges without this Motion. The hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) was quite right in regarding this as a formal proceeding to allow a Vote in Committee in regard to a Bill which included money provisions, and the Motion in no way affected the principle of the Bill. It was simply a formal proceeding, which was absolutely necessary before the House could go into Committee on any measure including money charges.
  MR. SEXTONsaid, he was very sorry the Government had not seen their way to tell them what was the amount of remuneration they proposed to give. If they found the amount proposed to be given to the Judges was in excess of what they considered proper, they would, no doubt, think that it might assume, to a great extent, the form and nature of a bribe. There might be excessive remuneration given for the purpose, and the Judges might be disposed to give decisions very much opposed to the public interest. He was inclined to support his hon. Friend the Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell).
  MR. TREVELYANsaid, that no extra allowances would be paid to the Resident Magistrates, and as soon as the allowances to the Judges were fixed he would communicate the information to the House.
  MR. O'DONNELLsaid, the proposal was practically in the nature of a Vote of Supply for Coercion, and it was with regard to its special application to the Judges that objection was taken. There were two facts before the Committee. The first fact was that the Judges of Ireland had unanimously protested against the new duties; and the second fact was that the Government proposed to give to these unwilling Judges such pecuniary inducement as would soften their disinclination and cause them to take up the odious work of coercion. There could be no more scandalous proposal. No proposal had been made with such indecent haste, and no proposal could
  1510
  be more calculated to fill the people of Ireland with the most justifiable distrust of the powers proposed to be conferred on the Judges. They had got the whole Irish Bench protesting against the proposal to convert them into Judge and jury at once; and they had the Treasury asking the Representatives of the Irish people to facilitate them in the work of placing such pecuniary rewards at the disposal of the Judges as would induce them to take up the work of coercion. That was the plain English of such a proposal. If such a proposal were made in a foreign Parliament, there was no English paper that would not hold it up to scorn and detestation. They held it up to the scorn and detestation of every son of Ireland, in whatever part of the world he might be. If there was an objectionable feature in the proposed coercion, the proposal to bribe the Judges of Ireland to go against their own consciences was, perhaps, the most atrocious.
  DR. COMMINSsaid, he confessed there was something which was very singular in the proposal. The suggestion to give remuneration to the Judges came upon them by surprise.
  MR. TREVELYAN: I would refer the hon. and learned Member to Clause 24.
  DR. COMMINSsaid, that clause only made the thing worse. Special Commissions were not unknown in England; and he challenged the Home Secretary, who, no doubt, was well acquainted with the subject, to point out a single instance in which a Judge, for holding a special commission, had received one penny in addition to his stated salary. It was only a few years ago that there were only two commissions of gaol delivery in the year; now there were four; so that the work of the Judges in this respect had been simply doubled. Not a farthing, however, had been added to their salary. No such inducement to perform the extra work was offered to them as was now offered by this Bill to the Irish Judges.
  MR. SEXTONasked whether, when they got to that part of the Bill providing for the establishment of a Court of Special Commission, the Chief Secretary would state what amount it was proposed to give to the Judges?
  MR. TREVELYANpromised to state the amount before they got to the clause.
  Question put.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 92; Noes 21: Majority 71.—(Div. List, No. 100.)
  Resolution to be reported To-morrow.

  POOR LAW GUARDIANS (IRELAND) BILL.— [BILL 7.]
  (Mr. Leahy, Mr. Gray, Mr. O'Sullivan.)
  POOR LAW GUARDIANS (IRELAND) BILL.— [BILL 7.]

    COMMITTEE. [Progress 22nd May.]
    Bill considered in Committee.
    (In the Committee.)
    Clause 1 (Guardians to hold office for three years).
    MR. TOTTENHAMmoved, in page 1, line 11, to leave out "three," and insert "two." The Bill involved an entirely new principle of election in the case of Poor Law Guardians. Being more or less a tentative measure, and considering the new class of Guardians who, under the system of the ballot, would be elected, he thought it was expedient that Guardians should not be elected for more than two years. Such was the object of the Amendment he now proposed.
    Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 11, leave out "three," and insert "two."—(Mr. Tottenham.)
    Question proposed, "That the word proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
    MR. WARTONasked, whether, in the event of the Amendment being negatived, they should propose that "one" should be inserted instead of "three?"
    THE CHAIRMAN: The Question is that the word "three" stand part of the clause. The Committee must first negative that before any other Amendment can be moved.
    MR. GIBSONsaid, the Bill proposed to make a complete revolution in the mode of electing Poor Law Guardians in Ireland; and it proposed to make a great change in the character and duration of their office. He assumed that the Irish Government had got a full and complete Report from the permanent administration of the Local Government Board in Ireland, indicating their opinion upon each clause and each Amendment placed on the Paper. The Amendments had been on the Paper for some days, and the Committee were entitled to
    1512
    hear a clear statement as to the opinion of the Department upon the Amendments as they were made. This was rather a late hour to proceed with the Bill, though he did not wish to throw any obstacle in the way of the progress of the Bill on that account. He might, however, take an objection which was at once temperate and reasonable. At present the tenure of office of Poor Law Guardians was one year; it was now proposed to extend it to three years. That was an immense change. His hon. Friend (Mr. Tottenham) suggested the advisability of only doubling the present tenure of office. He (Mr. Gibson) admitted that elections were a source of great expense to the Unions; but, under all the circumstances of the case, he thought it might be well to make the duration of office of a Poor Law Guardian not longer than two years.
    MR. GRAYsaid, he did not think there was any great question of principle involved, either in the proposal in the Bill, or in the Amendment now under consideration. The suggestion that the appointment of a Poor Law Guardian should endure for three years instead of one was made in accordance with the recommendation of the Select Committee which investigated the matter, and it was made simply and solely for the purpose of avoiding the expense of frequent elections. It was considered that if they provided for triennial elections they could get over the one substantial argument which was urged against the change—namely, that it might involve some additional expense. He was sure, however, that if the Government thought it would be well to accept the Amendment, no objection would be raised on the part of his hon. Friends.
    MR. TREVELYANsaid, that, on account of the multifarious matters he had had to attend to, he had had very little time to devote to the consideration of the Bill now before the Committee. He had been enabled, however, to obtain the general views of the Board, and they appeared to be consistent with common sense, though he was not quite sure it would be easy to carry them out in the Bill. With the general object of the Bill the Board were quite in harmony. The Board saw no objection to a Poor Law Guardian holding office for three years; but, at the same time, they considered that a general election every

    1513
    three years might, if it took place over the whole town, cause an amount of excitement in troubled times which it was not desirable to create. They were, therefore, of opinion that one-third of the Guardians should retire annually; and that it should be so arranged that the elections should take place in certain wards or divisions of the town one year, and in different wards or divisions another year. They would thus, instead of having one general election every three years, have elections annually, but in different districts of the town. He did not disguise from himself the fact that there might be some difficulty in making such a provision in the Bill. The Government saw no objection to Guardians holding office for three years, though if, in order to pass the Bill through the House, hon. Members below and above the Gangway opposite were to agree to two years, the Government would not object. There was one objection which the Board took to a particular clause of the Bill. The objection appeared to be well-founded, and had reference to the clause which entitled each voter to deposit as many ballot papers in the box as he had single votes.
    Amendment agreed to.
    MR. WARTONmoved, in page t, line 13, to leave out "at present," and insert "now." He considered "at present" was rather too colloquial for an Act of Parliament; "now" was far preferable.
    Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 13, leave out "at present," and insert "now."—(Mr. Warton.)
    Amendment agreed to.
    MR. TOTTENHAMmoved, in lines 14 and 18, to leave out "three," and insert "two." The Amendments were simply consequential upon the Amendment he had just proposed.
    Amendment proposed,
    In page 1, line 14, leave out "three," and insert "two;" also, in line 18, leave out "three," and insert "two."—(Mr. Tottenham.)
    Amendment agreed to.
    MR. TOTTENHAMmoved, in line 18, after "vacancy," to insert—
    "Provided such vacancy shall not have occurred within three months of the expiration of the term aforesaid."
    The object of the Amendment was to
    1514
    provide that, in the event of a vacancy occurring within the last three months of the term of office of a Guardian, the electors or the Union should not be put to the expense of a bye-election, because another election would have to take place in three months.
    Amendment proposed,
    In page 1, line 18, after "vacancy," insert "Provided such vacancy shall not have occurred within three months of the expiration of the term aforesaid."—(Mr Tottenham.)
    Question, "That those words be there inserted," put, and agreed to.
    Clause, as amended, agreed to, and ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Clause 2 (From 1st March 1883 elections to be conducted by ballot).
    MR. FITZPATRICKmoved, in page 1, line 26, after "shall," to insert "except in the case of persons voting by proxy." He proposed the Amendment in the interest of the Bill, and in the interest of those persons who had a stake in the country, and who generally voted by proxy. It very often happened that a man had property in one or two electoral districts. If all the elections were taking place on the same day, such a man would have, like Sir Boyle Roche's bird, to fly backwards and forwards, and possibly be unable to be in the right place at the right minute. Their property and their interest would, in consequence, be unrepresented, unless they allowed voting by proxy. In other places the system of proxy voting had been found to work well, and he could not see any valid reason why it should not be introduced in Ireland. He, therefore, ventured to move the Amendment.
    Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 26, after "shall," insert "except in the case of persons voting by proxy."—(Mr. Fitzpatrick.)
    Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
    MR. GRAYsaid, the Amendment struck at the very essence of the Bill, and if it were passed the Bill might very well be abandoned entirely. The propriety of abolishing proxy voting was fully discussed on the second reading. The arguments in favour of proxy voting did not apply solely to the election of Poor Law Guardians, but to the election of Members of the House of Commons.

    1515
    If a man were qualified to vote in three or four constituencies, it was evident he could not be in the right place at the right time for all the elections; he must, therefore, decide at which election he would vote. If a man could vote by proxy for Poor Law Guardians, he ought certainly to be entitled to vote by proxy for Members of the House of Commons. It must be remembered that, originally, Boards of Guardians were constituted to dispense relief to the poor, and there might then have been some excuse for proxy voting. Latterly, however, very much more important duties had been imposed upon them; duties involving, in many respects, an interference which the liberty of the subject, and the administration of the sanitary laws. If there was any reason whatever why a man should be entitled to vote by proxy for the election of persons to carry out duties of this kind, there was quite as much reason why they should vote by proxy for the election of members of Town Councils and other bodies. The whole subject was adequately discussed on the second reading; the House sanctioned the abolition of proxy voting, and he hoped the Committee would not now destroy the Bill by the adoption of the present Amendment.
    MR. TOTTENHAMsaid, that, as far as his recollection served him of the discussion which took place on the second reading, no exception was taken to the proxy vote. On the contrary, when he had raised the point, he was corrected by hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway, who said that no objection was taken to the proxy vote. The principal thing which entitled the owner of property to have a proxy vote, or to have some little advantage over those who possessed the ordinary vote, was that he paid, in the first instance, one-half of the whole of the rates, and in the case of holdings under £4 he paid the whole. Surely a person occupying that position was entitled to vote by proxy quite as much as a man who only paid half of his own rates was entitled to vote in person. Take the case of ladies who were the owners of property; it was absurd to expect that they could run from one place to another—to perhaps half-a-dozen places consecutively on the same day in order to record their vote. In the same way, persons who were not ex-officio Guardians, but who happened to
    1516
    be non-resident, although fully entitled by their contributions to the rates to have some voice in the election of Guardians, were deprived of their votes. He did not think there could be any reasonable objection to the Amendment proposed by his hon. Friend; and if his hon. Friend felt dispose to divide the Committee he would support him.
    COLONEL NOLANsaid, that one objection to the proxy vote was that it led to very great complications. He had had many objections sent to him from the country about the voting, and particularly to the proxy vote. Most of the objections to the voting had relation, however, to the intimidation which was practised, and to other irregularities which were committed in reference to the vote; but if they required the votes to be deposited by ballot they would get rid of much of the objection now entertained. He did not think it was expedient to adopt the Amendment.
    MR. GIBSONsaid, he was of opinion that if they got rid of the proxy vote they might do away with a certain amount of complaint; but, at the same time, they would get rid of a good deal of the power of those who had to pay the rates. He failed to see the slightest analogy in the case mentioned by the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray)—namely, that of Poor Law Guardians, and the election of Members of Parliament. To the Guardians were intrusted the actual duty of dispensing the money paid by the ratepayers. The landowner, as had been pointed out by his hon. Friend the Member for Leitrim (Mr. Tottenham), had, in the West of Ireland, where the holdings were very small, and mostly under £4 in value, to pay every farthing of the poor rates; and it was most unreasonable, at this time of day, to deprive the landowner of his right to legitimate representation. He thought the owners of property were entitled to fair consideration, and he asked for nothing more. It was to be borne in mind that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant had indicated that the Bill, when passed, would still leave the country agitated by the constant recurrence of these Poor Law elections; but they would take place in future on the same day, and the Guardians would be elected for three years. In the absence of some satisfactory check, he thought it was

    1517
    advisable to deal cautiously with any changes in the existing law. It might be wise or reasonable to abolish proxy voting, if the Legislature would so modify the system of election that owners of property would be able with facility to get from one election to another; but to have all the elections taking place at the same time would render it impossible for the owners of property to exercise all their franchises, although vitally interested in them. It was not like the voting for Members of Parliament in different counties. In voting for one Member, they might vote for one that might represent all their interests in the Imperial Parliament, and the same individual might enjoy the luxury of voting for four or five. But the voting for a Poor Law Guardian was quite a different thing. Then they were voting for men who were to expend the rates they so largely contributed to. He was not sure that this was the best place in the Bill for raising the question of voting by proxy; but he did not agree with the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray) when he said that voting by proxy was the principle of the Bill. The Preamble of the Bill recited that it was desirable that in all contested elections for Poor Law Guardians the poll should be taken by ballot. He thought the question now raised would come in much better in Clause 4 than in the present clause; but that was a matter for the consideration of his hon. Friend.
    MR. O'SULLIVANsaid, the question now raised involved one of two great principles contained in the Bill, the first being the establishment of voting by ballot, and the second doing away with voting by proxy. In regard to the latter object, he certainly desired to destroy that principle as far as he was able. The hon. Member for Leitrim (Mr. Tottenham) said the landlord paid one-half of the rates; but even if he were deprived of the right to vote by proxy, it must be remembered that he would still have half the representation of the Board, without any trouble at all, as the magistrates, who were all landowners, composed the ex-officio Guardians, who were not required to stand any election at all. Surely that ought to be sufficient for them. Persons who had property had it generally in the same Union, and no Union was so large that he was unable to vote personally at more
    1518
    than one election, even where they took place on the same day. He might go into seven or eight divisions on the same day without great inconvenience. If the Committee accepted this Amendment in any shape or form they would destroy one of the principles of the Bill. He thought it was quite sufficient for the landlords to have one-half of the representation on the Board in the ex-officio Guardians, without wanting also to have the greatest part of the elected Guardians. The right hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) complained that the election of Guardians would cause great agitation all over the country during a particular week. But the same thing had taken place all over the country ever since the Unions were established, and this Bill would really lessen the inconvenience, because the elections in future would only take place once in every three years. He believed the abolition of voting by proxy was quite as important as election by ballot; and he should, therefore, oppose the Amendment.
    MR. TREVELYANsaid, he did not quite agree with the argument of the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray), although he certainly did agree with the hon. Member's conclusion. He failed to see the same perfect analogy between this case and that of the Parliamentary representation. In his opinion, the vote in the latter case did not represent property, but the personalty of the man, who was entitled to exercise the vote; whereas, in the case of the Poor Law Guardian, the vote did really represent property. But he did not think that that difference between the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray) and himself made them differ in their conclusion. As far as he could gather, there was no statutory day actually fixed for these elections; but there was a certain margin, although not a very wide one, within which they could be held. It was large enough, however, to make it that persons possessing property in different Unions should not be debarred from voting, during the same election, in all of them. Under these circumstances, he thought it was necessary that very great inconvenience should be shown to exist before the Committee should be induced to give their support to the proposition, especially when it

    1519
    was considered that if it were adopted there would cease to be any secret ballot at all. He did not think the position required much argument. If there was any value in the secrecy of the ballot, he was satisfied the Committee would not accept the Amendment. It was said that coercion would be used to influence the vote. He was not yet sufficiently acquainted with Ireland to know what pressure might be resorted to in these elections; but he concluded that there was good ground for the complaint which was made. If the Committee were prepared to support the Bill at all, he was of opinion that upon this ground they ought to be unwilling to accept the Amendment which the hon. Member had submitted to them.
    MR. WARTONsaid, he had great difficulty in supporting the view taken by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, and other hon. Members who had spoken on the same side. What was the present difficulty? It was that persons who possessed property had it situated probably in several Unions, and they were unable to vote personally in all of them; whereas, in the case of Parliamentary elections, the same difficulty was not experienced in voting in four or five counties. The point raised by the right hon. Gentleman was that the secrecy of the ballot would be interfered with unless every person was compelled to vote by ballot. He (Mr. Warton) did not see why it should not be possible to devise some means by which a person having a single vote might be required to vote by ballot, and yet that another person entitled to several votes should have the power of voting by means of voting papers. There were complaints in regard to the single vote which did not apply to voting papers, and the reason was that a person having only one vote was open to influence, while those having more than one were not likely to be subjected to undue influence. He thought something should be done to allow those having plural votes to vote by means of voting papers.
    MR. FITZPATRICKsaid, he thought that, after the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, it would be wiser for him to withdraw this particular Amendment; but he thought the right hon. Gentleman would be able to satisfy himself, after he had had a little more acquaintance with Ireland, that this
    1520
    class of voting was actually necessary. He would bring on the question again upon Clause 3 on an Amendment, of which he had given Notice, in line 11. He trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would consult with the Local Government Board on the matter, and ascertain if it was not possible to frame rules which would allow of the transmission of voting papers.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    MR. GIBSONsaid, the next Amendment was one which he did not think there would be much difference of opinion upon. The clause provided that, from the 1st of March, 1883, the elections should be conducted by ballot, and the poll at every such election should, so far as circumstances admit, be taken in the manner now prescribed by law for taking the poll at contested municipal elections in Ireland. He proposed to add to the end of the clause the words "any dispute at such elections as to the validity thereof to be determined by the Local Government Board." If some such Amendment were not adopted all the expense and paraphernalia necessary for putting an election in motion might be thrown away.
    Amendment proposed,
    In line 28, to add the words, "any dispute at such elections as to the validity thereof to be determined by the Local Government Board."—(Mr. Gibson.)
    Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
    MR. HEALYasked if the right hon. and learned Gentleman had any objection to add to the Amendment the words "after due legal inquiry?"
    MR. GRAYsaid, the Amendment suggested by his hon. Friend the Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) was unnecessary, as the Local Government Board already possessed the power to inquire.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Clause, as amended, agreed to, and ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Clause 3 (Local Government Board to frame regulations by sealed order).
    Amendment proposed, in page 2, line 7, leave out "person," and insert "clerks of unions."—(Mr. Fitzpatrick.)
    Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
    MR. O'SULLIVANsaid, he thought the Amendment was quite unnecessary. There were officers already in existence who were empowered by the Local Government Board to carry out these elections.
    MR. GRAYsaid, that there was only one clerk of a Union, although there might be many electoral divisions. All the elections took place at the same time, and the clerk of the Union could not be in a number of places at the same time. The system would work precisely as it did at present if the clause were left as it now stood.
    Amendment negatived.
    MR. TOTTENHAMsaid, the object of his next Amendment was to declare that those contemporaneous elections in different parts of the Union should take place at the workhouses of the Unions, in order to prevent their unnecessary multiplication and increased expenses and staff.
    Amendment proposed, in page 2, line 8, after "places," insert "being the workhouses of such unions."—(Mr. Tottenham.)
    Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
    MR. WARTONpointed out that this wording would not agree with the word "places" standing in the clause.
    COLONEL NOLANsaid, that the effect of the Amendment of the hon. Member for Leitrim would be to reverse the whole policy of the Parliamentary Ballot Act, inasmuch as it would make it necessary for the small tenants to come to one place from a distance of many miles around in order to vote at the Poor Law elections. He should certainly oppose the Amendment.
    Question put, and negatived.
    MR. FITZPATRICKsaid, the Local Government Board having power, under the Bill, to make certain regulations with regard to Poor Law elections, he proposed they should also make arrangements for the transmission of proxies. He had no doubt, after the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, that he would agree to this Amendment.
    Amendment proposed, in page 2, line 11, after "poll," insert "and for trans-
    1522
    mission of proxy votes to returning officer."—(Mr. Fitzpatrick.)
    Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
    MR. HEALYrose to Order. He wished to ask whether this Amendment could be put, inasmuch as there was no reference to proxy votes in the Bill?
    THE CHAIRMANsaid, there was no objection to the Amendment in the form proposed.
    MR. T. A. DICKSONsaid, he objected to the Amendment. They were quite capable of doing their own business in that House without leaving it to the Local Board; and, if he recollected rightly, on the second reading of the Bill this system of voting by proxy was condemned, and all the voters placed in an equal position.
    MR. GIBSONsuggested that the Amendment should be negatived, unless hon. Members below the Gangway wished to proceed with it.
    Question put, and negatived.
    Clause agreed to, and ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Clauses 4 and 5 agreed to.
    Clause 6 (School-houses, constabulary barracks, &c., may be used for taking the poll at poor law elections).
    MR. GIBSONsaid, the clause provided that the Returning Officer at an election for a Poor Law Guardian in Ireland might use, free of charge, for the purpose of taking a poll at such election, any room in any national school-house, constabulary barracks, or Court or Sessions House in Ireland, which might be convenient for the purpose. He did not object to the Court or Sessions Houses in Ireland being used for polling; but he greatly objected to the school-houses being used for that purpose. He would not go into any argument on this subject, but would merely express his opinion that it would be quite sufficient to use the Petty Sessions quarters for taking polls. The use of school-houses for the purpose was objectionable, as was still more so the use of constabulary barracks.
    Amendment proposed, in page 2, lines 29 and 30, leave out "room in any national school-house, constabulary barracks, or."—(Mr. Gibson.)
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
    MR. HEALYsaid, that it was the universal custom in England to use board school-rooms for the purposes of these elections; and he was, therefore, unable to see what objection there could be to their being so made use of in Ireland.
    MR. GIVANsaid, the object of this provision was to save expense to the ratepayers. Very often there was no Petty Sessions house in the Union, and if the national school-house could be used it would prevent expense. He thought the right hon. and learned Gentleman should withdraw the Amendment.
    MR. GIBSONsaid, he should be quite content to leave the matter to the consideration of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant.
    MR. T. D. SULLIVANsaid, he thought constabulary barracks were very objectionable places in which to hold these elections. On the other hand, he regarded the school-houses as very proper places to be used for the purpose. He was in favour of the words "constabulary barracks" being left out of the clause.
    MR. TREVELYANsaid, his recollection was that all public buildings were properly used for the purpose of elections.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Amendment proposed, in page 2, line 29, leave out "constabulary barracks."—(Mr. Gibson.)
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
    COLONEL NOLANsaid, it was expressly provided in the Ballot Act that no stoppage should be made from the payments to the schools on account of the time occupied with the polling.
    THE CHAIRMANsaid, that the Question now before the Committee was that of the constabulary barracks only.
    MR. O'SULLIVANsaid, he had no objection to the present Amendment. He could see, however, no reason why it should have been proposed to leave out the words "school-house."
    MR. O'DONNELLsaid, he could see no real objection to the use of constabu-
    1524
    lary barracks for the purpose of elections. It was not in their own abodes that the constabulary were objectionable; it was when they broke into the houses of other people.
    MR. TOTTENHAMsaid, the practical objection to the use of constabulary barracks was that they generally had no room available for the purpose of taking a poll. As a rule, they contained only a kitchen and day-room, with dormitories and offices.
    MR. GRAYsaid, he thought that, whatever might be the feeling with regard to the action of the constabulary in certain districts, there was no objection whatever to entering the constabulary barracks for the purpose of saving expense to the ratepayers.
    Amendment agreed to.
    MR. GIBSONsaid, it was obvious that at the end of this clause some words should be added which would prevent interference with public business at the places named. He, therefore, begged to move the Amendment in his name.
    Amendment proposed,
    In page 2, line 31, at end, add "and which may not interfere with the discharge or performance of the usual public business thereof."—(Mr. Gibson.)
    Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
    COLONEL NOLANsaid, he thought some words were specially necessary to protect the managers of schools from pecuniary loss in consequence of the school-houses being used for polling. He proposed to add words to the effect that no deduction should be made on account of the suspension of teaching from the grants to school managers. It was impossible that teaching and polling could go on at the schools at the same time; and, as he had already pointed out, it was inserted in the Ballot Act that no stop should be made for the suspension of teaching under similar circumstances. He was most anxious that no deduction should be made in the present case, and suggested that the right hon. and learned Gentleman should withdraw the Amendment before the Committee and accept that which he had indicated.
    MR. GIBSONsaid, he had no objection to the Amendment of the hon. and gallant Member; but he thought it was desirable to make provision for the

    1525
    polling to go on elsewhere when the building was required for public business. That was, however, a matter for the Government. With regard to the Court or Sessions Houses, it was undoubtedly necessary that these should not be interfered with, so far as the discharge of their business was concerned.
    MR. T. A. DICKSONsaid, his experience was that the clerk of the Union would consult the convenience of the Court and magistrates in fixing the day of election. The magistrates would certainly not inconvenience themselves by allowing the election to take place at a time when they had public business to get through.
    MR. GRAYsaid, that all the powers of the Local Government Board were preserved to them under this Bill, and they could certainly be relied upon to make proper provisions with regard to polling. It would be necessary that the work of the school should be suspended for the day in case of election; but that was a very small matter, and would not interfere with the business of the country to any appreciable extent.
    Amendment negatived.
    Amendment proposed,
    In page 2, at the end, to add "no deduction shall he made from the allowances made to or for any school, on account of the suspension of teaching caused by the using of the school-house for the purpose of this Act."—(Colonel Nolan.)
    Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
    MR. T. A. DICKSONsuggested that the word "national" should be inserted in the Amendment before the word "school."
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Clause, as amended, agreed to, and ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Clause 7 (Saving certain powers of Local Government Board).
    On the Motion of Mr. GIBSON, Amendments made, in page 2, line 32, after "alter," by inserting "effect;" in page 2, line 34, by leaving out "under," and inserting "with."
    Clause, as amended, agreed to, and ordered to stand part of the Bill.
    Clause 8 agreed to.
    MR. TOTTENHAMmoved, on behalf of the hon. Member for Tyrone (Mr.
    1526
    Macartney), to insert, after Clause 6, the following new Clause:—
    (Qualification for office.)
    "No person shall be nominated as a candidate for the office of poor law guardian unless he shall be an occupier or owner of land situated within the electoral division for which he shall be nominated."
    New Clause brought up, and read the first time.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the proposed new Clause be read a second time."
    MR. HEALYsaid, he objected to one hon. Member moving an Amendment on behalf of another.
    THE CHAIRMAN: In Committee any clause may be moved by one Member for another, but not in the House.
    MR. TOTTENHAMsaid, he thought it was obvious that this clause ought to be inserted, because the person most fitted to represent ratepayers was the person who himself was a ratepayer within the electoral division.
    MR. GIVANrose to Order. This Amendment was conversant with the qualification, and not with the election of Guardians, and, therefore, could not be proposed.
    THE CHAIRMAN: The title of the Bill is "Poor Law Guardians (Ireland) Bill."
    MR. GIVAN: Elections.
    THE CHAIRMAN: It relates to elections; but the general title is "Poor Law Guardians."
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)said, this was a Bill for election of Guardians, and not for their qualifications; and it would be just as consonant to move that women might be elected Guardians as to move this clause.
    MR. GIBSONsaid, that the clause was quite in Order, and that it was within the right of any hon. Member to move that women should be elected.
    THE CHAIRMAN: It is quite within Order, because it has reference to the qualification of Guardians.
    COLONEL NOLANsaid, he strongly objected to the clause. It might happen that in an electoral division a person would be qualified with a £30 liability; and in the electoral division in which he lived, he believed there were only two persons who were properly qualified. One was a Guardian, but could not speak

    1527
    English, and the other person would not serve, so that he was practically no Guardian at all. There were several similar cases. If the property qualification was removed, he should not object so much to the clause; but at the present moment he did object.
    MR. TOTTENHAMsaid, the qualification being only £20, he thought the objection of the hon. and gallant Member could not arise anywhere but in Connemara.
    COLONEL NOLANsaid, he was a Chairman of Guardians, and he thought he might know something about the matter.
    MR. GRAYsaid, he objected altogether to anything which would limit the choice of the electors. If reliance was placed on electors, they must be allowed to select the men they thought most fitted.
    Question put, and negatived.
    MR. O'DONNELLbegged to more a new clause providing that ministers of all religious denominations might be elected as Guardians. He pointed out that it was a great part of the functions of Guardians to take care of the poor, and no person was better acquainted with the necessities of poor families than ministers of religion. On many occasions, where purely cheese-paring considerations had prevailed, ministers of religion had produced a good effect on Boards of Guardians; and he thought their services would be very useful during the famine season in Ireland. It was found that the way in which many Boards of Guardians had saddled their Unions with expenses for adequate relief was found to be a very serious difficulty; and in many other ways the system was injurious. There was no reason why membership of a religious denomination as a minister, or priest, or otherwise, should form a disqualification. If it pleased the electors to elect a priest, or a curate, or a vicar, he did not see why they should be prevented from choosing the men they thought best fitted to represent them on the Board. He thought the electors themselves were the best judges as to whom they were to send to represent them on the Boards of Guardians; and he held distinctly that there were special grounds why ministers of religion were well qualified for election. In 1880, upon some Bill which was be-
    1528
    fore the House he brought this question up, and the late Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. W. E. Forster) very sympathetically expressed his approval of the suggestions he made.
    New Clause (That ministers of religion of all denominations may be elected as guardians,)—(Mr. O'Donnell,)—brought up, and read the first time.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the proposed new Clause be read a second time."
    MR. HEALYsaid, there was one objection to this clause which the hon. Gentleman had not foreseen—namely, that there was scarcely a Poor Law Union in which ministers were not salaried officials; and they would, therefore, be excluded from sitting as Guardians. Therefore, although this clause might enfranchise a few ministers of religion, he did not think it was worth while to impede the Bill for that purpose.
    MR. GIBSONsaid, he hoped the hon. Member would not press his clause. He thought the Committee had gone through the Paper with reasonable rapidity; but to start a new clause now would be likely to provoke discussion, and he would suggest that it was better not to do that now, because it would obviously require three-quarters of an hour's debate.
    MR. O'DONNELLsaid, that in the most free-thinking countries in Europe there was no objection to ministers of religion, where the electors chose to elect them. In Germany and in France ministers of all denominations were eligible. He would not, however, press his Motion.
    Motion and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
    MR. T. A. DICKSONproposed to move a new clause, providing that any unmarried female, being of full age, and rated for relief of the poor to the prescribed amount, should be eligible to be elected as a Poor Law Guardian. He said this clause simply equalized the law in Ireland with that in England and Scotland. One Board of Guardians last week had approved unanimously of this clause being added to the Bill; and he had received from several Boards of Guardians expressions of their approval of the clause. He, therefore, hoped the

    1529
    Committee would accept it. Speaking as a Guardian, he had often felt, in going the round of the wards, how beneficial women Guardians would be as to matters into which a man could not properly enter. Female Guardians were very useful in England, and he did not see why the same principle should not be adopted in Ireland.
    New Clause (That any unmarried female, being of full age, and fully rated for relief of the poor, shall be eligible to be elected as a guardian,)—(Mr. T. A. Dickson,)—brought up, and read the first time.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the proposed new Clause be read a second time."
    MR. O'DONNELLsaid, he would move to omit the word "unmarried."
    MR. GIBSONsaid, this was a most interesting matter, which was worthy of a full-dress debate. The hon. Member for Dungarvan had laid his hand on a weak spot of the Amendment, for it was obvious that unmarried ladies would have substantial difficulties in carrying on their work. It was clear this clause had been hurriedly drawn, and he would suggest that the hon. Member should turn it over in his mind and consult public opinion upon it, and see if the clause was regarded with favour. If it was, he supposed nobody would strongly object to it. He himself had no violent views either one way or the other, and was prepared to consider the question from an impartial and independent point of view.
    Question put, and negatived.
    Preamble agreed to.
    House resumed.
    Bill reported; as amended, to be considered To-morrow.

MOTIONS.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) PROVISIONAL ORDERS (NO. 5) BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. SOLICITOR GENERAL for IRELAND, Bill to confirm certain Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board for Ireland, relating to Banbridge, Ennis, Larne, and Londonderry, ordered to be brought in by Mr. SOLICITOR GENERAL for IRELAND and Mr. ATTORNEY GENERAL for IRELAND.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 175.]

  METROPOLITAN BOARD OF WORKS (MONEY) BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. COURTNEY, Bill further to amend the Acts relating to the raising of money by the Metropolitan Board of Works; and for other purposes, ordered to be brought in by Mr. COURTNEY and Lord RICHARD GROSVENOR.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 176.]

  ALDERSHOT CAMP ROADS BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. Secretary CHILDERS, Bill to confer powers on the Secretary of State for the War Department for the formation of certain roads, and the stopping up of other roads near the Camp at Aldershot, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Secretary CHILDERS and Sir ARTHUR HAYTER.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 177.]

  QUARTER SESSIONS PROCEDURE (AMENDMENT) BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. HASTINGS, Bill to amend the Procedure of Courts of Quarter Sessions in certain cases, ordered to be brought in by Mr. HASTINGS, Mr. RICHARD PAGET, and Mr. GURDON.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 178.]
  House adjourned at a quarter before Three o'clock.