Sitting of 10 April 1883

Preamble
The House met at Twelve of the clock.

MINUTES.
SELECT COMMITTEE—Commons, appointed and nominated.
WAYS AND MEANS—considered in Committee—Resolutions [April 9] reported.
PRIVATE BILLS (by Order)—Second Reading—Devon and Cornwall Central Railway (Plymouth and Devonport Extension)*; East and West Junction Railway*.
Withdrawn—Kent and Essex Junction Railway*.
PUBLIC BILL—Committee—Patents for Inventions (No. 3) [99]—R.P.
Message to attend the LORDS COMMISSIONERS;—
The House went;—and being returned;—
Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to three Bills.
Mr. SPEAKER resumed the Chair at Four of the clock.

QUESTIONS.

  GOVERNMENT ANNUITIES AND ASSURANCE ACT, 1882—THE TABLES.
  VISCOUNT LYMINGTONasked the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether, in regard to the fact that the new system of insurance and annuity under the Government Annuities and Assurance Bill, 1882, cannot be introduced until the new tables of rates have been prepared by the National Debt Commissioners,
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  he can inform the House when these Tables will be ready?
  MR. COURTNEY: Sir, the Actuary of the National Debt Office has just made a valuable Report upon the mortality of Government life annuitants up to the latest possible date. The new annuity and assurance tables depend upon the figures of this Report, and on the probable future cost of management, as to which the Post Office has not yet satisfied the Treasury. There will be no avoidable delay in laying the tables before Parliament as directed by the Act; but no doubt my noble Friend will agree with me in deprecating precipitancy in a matter which is, to a large degree, experimental, and which may involve very serious liabilities to the State.

  POST OFEICE (CONTRACTS)—THE IRISH MAIL SERVICE.
  MR. TOTTENHAMasked the Postmaster General, Under what circumstances the subsidy of £ 30,00 0 per annum was originally granted to the Chester and Holyhead Railway Company, in connection with the Irish Mail Contract, and whether it was under the Treasury Minute of the 17th September 1844, for a period of twelve years; whether this was in anticipation of the construction of the line, and in aid of the objects generally of the Promoters thereof, as expressed in Treasury Minute of the 20th August 1844; whether the payment was further continued by the present contract with the London and North Western, Chester and Holyhead, and City of Dublin Steam Packet Companies, to be payable until the termination of such contract; and, whether the payment will so terminate on the 1st of October 1883; and, if not, under what authority will it be continued, and what benefit will the Post Office or the public derive from this large subvention of public funds?
  MR. FAWCETT: Sir, the circumstances connected with the original payment of £30,000 are so complicated that I fear it would be impossible for me to explain them within the limits of an Answer to a Question. I may state, however, generally, that the payment, which began in 1844, was made in the first instance not exclusively for postal services, and came to an end 12 years afterwards. A payment of the same

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  amount was continued to the Company at the time when the present Irish mail arrangements were made in consideration of the general mail service—including the Irish—on the Chester and Holyhead Line. The payment of the £30,000 will cease with the expiration of the existing contract on the 1st of October. The advantages which the public and the Post Office derive from the payment in question are of the same character as those detailed in the Minute of 1858; and, as this is before Parliament, I do not think it will be desirable for me to occupy the time of the House in explaining them.
  MR. TOTTENHAMasked whether it was in contemplation that this payment, or an equivalent one, should be continued under the new contract?
  MR. FAWCETT: It has been already stated that it was part of the new contract to be confirmed by Parliament. I stated that on a previous occasion.

  POST OFFICE (CONTRACTS)—THE IRISH AND SCOTCH MAIL SERVICES.
  MR. TOTTENHAMasked the Postmaster General, What amount per train mile is now paid for the Irish and Scotch Mail Services respectively over the London and North Western Railway system, and bringing into the calculation the £30,000 paid to the Chester and Holyhead Company's representatives, and any other sums that may be paid to subsidiary Companies, or their representatives, along either route; if he will also state what is the gross sum now paid to the London and North Western Company for the Scotch Mail Service from London to the end of their system; and, if he will lay upon the Table a Copy of the contract for the same?
  MR. FAWCETT: Sir, in reply to the hon. Member's Question, I beg to say that there are no Scotch mail trains in the same sense in which there are Irish mail trains; for the trains which carry the Scotch mails carry also the bulk of the mails for the English districts through which they pass; whereas the Irish mail trains are used almost exclusively for the conveyance of letters going to or coming from Ireland. But even were there no difference in this respect, it would be impossible to divide the payment made to the London and North-Western Railway Company, so as to assign a stated sum to particular mail
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  trains, as the general contracts embrace under one payment the whole of the mail service performed within a given area, whether by trains under the control of the Post Office, or by trains run for ordinary traffic.

  ARMY (AUXILIARY FORCES)—THE BRIGHTON VOLUNTEER REVIEW.
  MR. MARRIOTTasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether his attention had been called to the great difficulties experienced by and the excessive cost entailed upon the authorities at Brighton in acquiring land for the recent Volunteer Review; and, whether, in consideration of the great importance of the Volunteer Force, and the great advantage of such Review to it, the Government would take steps to facilitate the compulsory temporary acquisition of land for such purposes, with proper provisoes for the reasonable compensation of those whose land was taken?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: Sir, my attention has been called, by a communication which the hon. Member has addressed to me, to the difficulty experienced by the local authorities at Brighton with regard to this subject. It does not, however, appear to me a matter in which it would be possible for the War Office to interfere. The War Department has in its own possession admirable ground for the furtherance of a Volunteer Review at Aldershot, within a convenient distance of the Metropolis. If the local authorities at Brighton are anxious to have the Review continued there it is incumbent upon them to show that they have sufficient space available; and I do not think it would be desirable for the War Office to give them extended powers to enable them compulsorily to acquire land for that purpose.

  NAVY—THE CLYDE COURT MARTIAL.
  MR. R. T. REIDasked the Secretary to the Admiralty, Whether the proceedings and sentence of the Court Martial on the late Commander of H.M.S. "Clyde," have been submitted to the counsel of the Admiralty; and, whether they have received the full approval of that official?
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: No, Sir; the proceedings of this court martial were not submitted to the

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  counsel to the Admiralty, as no legal point arose in connection with it which required his opinion.

  EXPLOSIVES ACT, 1875—STORAGE OF GUNPOWDER IN IRELAND.
  COLONEL KING-HARMANasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether it is true that fresh regulations have recently been made, by Order of Council or otherwise, in Dublin, by which the rules hitherto in force relative to the storage of gunpowder have been altered; whether private holders of gunpowder, who have hitherto stored their gunpowder in the magazine in the Phoenix Park, have had notice given them that they would have to remove their stores; and, whether Messrs. Curtis and Harvey have intimated their intention of erecting a powder magazine in the neighbourhood of Lantry, in a locality which cannot be protected by any force except patrols from the neighbouring police barrack?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, the facts are as stated in the first two paragraphs of the Question. The change is made in deference to the strong and often repeated protest of the military authorities against the practice of storing merchants' gunpowder in military magazines. Ample time was allowed for the provision of suitable accommodation elsewhere. No intimation has been made to the Irish Government by Messrs. Curtis and Harvey of their intention of erecting a magazine at Lantry. The Explosives Act of 1875 is administered by the Home Secretary, and applicants for licences must satisfy him that any proposed magazine complies with the Act and with the Orders in Council in pursuance of it to insure the public safety.
  COLONEL KING-HARMANasked if the Irish Executive would take measures to secure that any powder magazine erected outside Dublin was not dangerous to the public safety?
  MR. TREVELYANsaid, this was a matter in which the Irish Executive would not interfere unless the Home Office thought the place too far off, and asked them to act in the matter.

  PREVENTION OF CRIME (IRELAND) ACT, 1882—INTIMIDATION.
  MR. SEXIONasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutentant of Ireland,
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  Whether any landlord, or person in the employment of any landlord, who speaks any word, or does any act, in order to, and calculated to, put any tenant of such landlord in fear of any injury to or loss of his property, business, or means of living, with a view to cause such tenant either to do any act which such tenant has a legal right to abstain from doing, or to abstain from doing any act which he has a legal right to do, or in consequence of his having done or abstained from doing either of such acts respectively, will be held by the Irish Executive to have offended against the seventh section of the Crime Prevention Act, and will be proceeded against in like manner as if he had been a tenant who had so acted towards any landlord, or any person in the employment of such landlord?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, if any person wrongfully, or without legal authority, acts in the manner described in the Question, he commits an act of intimidation, and may be prosecuted under Section 7 of the Prevention of Crime Act. This is the case whether he be a landlord or a tenant, or a person not coming under either of those descriptions. The Executive cannot, however, lay down as a general rule that it will prosecute in every case where aperson—whether landlord or tenant, or otherwise—has brought himself within the provisions of the (Statute, as each case must be considered with reference to its own special circumstances before deciding whether it is one calling for the application of the Act. It is always open to any person aggrieved, or to anyone on his behalf, to institute a prosecution under that Act should he think fit to do so. I am bound to say that if there was primâ facie reason to believe that there had been anything like combined intimidation in the way described in the Question in the case of a Poor Law election, or the election of a Member of Parliament, or if a landlord threatened any tenant over whom he had the power of annoyance, and if we believed that he intended it seriously, I am bound to say that if we were so satisfied I should consider it my duty to tender my advice in favour of a prosecution, especially in the present circumstances of Ireland.
  MR. SEXTONasked whether, as the Executive had hitherto taken the initiative only in the prosecutions of persons

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  in an humble condition of life, they would for the future take the initiative in the prosecution of persons who belonged to the landlord class when charged with the same offence?
  MR. TREVELYAN: My last remarks were to the effect that in the present state of Ireland, and with the extreme probability that intimidation on the part of persons in the condition of landlords would lead, if not directly, at any rate indirectly, to violence and breaches of the law, I should consider it my duty to advise a prosecution.

  ARMY (AUXILIARY FORCES)—MILITIA REGULATIONS.
  SIR JOSEPH BAILEYasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether, considering the large number of alterations that have been made in "Regulations for the Militia," issued in 1880, he will cause a new edition to be shortly published?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON,in reply, said, that a new edition of the Regulations referred to was in course of preparation.

  ARTIZANS' AND LABOURERS' DWELLINGS ACTS.
  SIR R. ASSHETON CROSSasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department; What steps have been taken by the Commissioners of Sewers under "The Artizans' and Labourers' Dwellings Act, 1882," towards ensuring the building of suitable accommodation on the ground cleared under the Act of 1875?
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT,in reply, said, that he had been in communication with the Commissioners of Sewers with regard to the proposals of December, 1882, for providing dwellings for artizans and labourers in Golden Lane and Petticoat Lane. The plans were carefully scrutinized by the Home Office; and the Commissioners, in their letter to him of the 4th instant, assured him that they hoped to recommit those plans for consideration during the present week, and expressed their earnest desire to come to a conclusion with the work as soon as possible.

  SOUTH AFRICA—THE TRANSVAAL.
  MR. ONSLOW:I should like to ask the Prime Minister a Question of which
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  I have not had the opportunity of giving him private Notice. Whether, in fulfilment of a promise made the other evening, he will give further information in regard to the Transvaal before the resumption of the debate on Friday next?
  MR. GLADSTONE: The hon. Member has, I think, misapprehended what I said. What I said was that we should be happy to give every information if we had it; but I am not aware that we have anything to communicate.

  PARLIAMENT—BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  SIR R. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, there was a Question on the Paper in the name of the hon. Member for Chelsea (Mr. Firth) in which the House took great interest, but which had not been asked. He did not know why it had not been put; but some hon. Members would like an answer, at all events. The Question was, When it was proposed to take the first reading of the Bill for the Reform of the Government of London?
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, that he had received a notification from his hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea to the effect that he had put down the Question in error for to-day, as he had no intention of asking it to-day. The right hon. Gentleman was perfectly entitled to ask it; but he was not in a position to give any reply of a substantive character in regard to that or any other important Bill. The Corrupt Practices Bill, which had been hanging over for some time, would have to be proceeded with, and further progress would have to be made in other matters before the House before he could be in a position to fix any period for any particular Bill.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEasked when the Government intended to take Supply?
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, they were pledged, he believed, to take one day at an early date for the Navy Estimates, and he hoped on Thursday to be able to state the day.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, he put his Question in view of the fact that a Vote had been granted for a limited period with the understanding that Supply would be seriously proceeded with.

  INDIA—RUMOURED RETIREMENT OF THE VICEROY.
  MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTasked, whether the statement in the morning papers was true that Lord Ripon would retire from the Viceroyalty at the end of the year?
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, I have heard nothing from Lord Ripon on the subject, and I have seen my noble Friend the Secretary for India within the last hour, and he has heard nothing about it.

MOTIONS.
  PARLIAMENT—BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE—COUNTS OUT.

    RESOLUTION.
    SIR HUSSEY VIVIAN,in rising to move—
    "That if it shall appear, on Notice being taken, during any Debate, that forty Members are not present, the question under discussion shall be treated as a dropped order, and the House will proceed to the consideration of the next Order of the Day or Motion on the Paper,"
    said, that, as far as he knew, the subject that he was bringing forward had never been discussed by the House. It had not been considered by the two Committees which had sat on the Rules and Standing Orders of the House, nor during the debates on Procedure in the Autumn Session. The fact was, that the question was one which did not affect the Business of the House generally, but only the interests of private Members. He had gone into the statistics of Counts out during the present Parliament. On Mondays and Thursdays there had been no Counts, except late at night or rather early in the morning, so that they did not come within the question. On Tuesdays, at comparatively early hours, there were five Counts in 1880, seven in 1881, and seven in 1882. On Wednesdays there had been no Counts, on Fridays, before 11 p.m.; there had been three Counts in 1880, one in 1881, and two in 1882. However important his Notice might be, a Member had to run the risk of being unfortunate in the ballot, and possibly of being never able to bring his Motion on at any time during the Session. The average number of Members who balloted on Tuesday was something like 40,
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    and not more than five or six Motions, at the most, generally stood on the Paper on that day. It constantly happened that Members who had Motions of the utmost importance to bring forward, were unable to do so because they were unfortunate in the ballot. In his opinion, the ballot was not a scientific mode of conducting the Business of a great Assembly like that. It was a mere chance and haphazard mode of determining what Business should be taken. However important a Motion might be, and however much the House might desire to discuss it, the House had no choice but either to efface itself or to allow Motions of the most frivolous character to be put forward. He thought that was not a position in which a great deliberative Assembly, charged with the affairs of this vast Empire, ought to be placed. How, then, could the House be placed in such a position that it might choose between a good and a bad Motion? He knew of no mode so simple and so easy as that which he ventured to suggest to the House. It would be impossible to appoint a Committee to select particular Motions. That would be a most invidious office to undertake. He believed that no Committee would be willing to undertake it, and even if it did the House would not be satisfied with the decisions of such a Committee. But by the proposition which he ventured to make the whole House would decide the matter. If an hon. Member could not get 39 Members to support his Motion, it might be assumed, as a matter of course, that it could not be of very great importance. The position which, this would place the House in was very much that of voting the Previous Question. The House would, in point of fact, decline to devote a certain portion of its time to the discussion of the particular question which was submitted to it, and it would do this in such a way as to enable it to arrive at the Motion which it desired to discuss. On the other hand, no injustice would be done, because any Member who could persuade 39 other Members to constitute a House for him, would be able to go on with the discussion of his Motion. It could hardly be expected that the Government could afford to give days to private Members' Motions. At present, private Members had two days in the week, and the best portion of another day, while

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    the Government had two days, and the contingent reversion of another day. How could it be supposed, then, that the Government, with the enormous amount of work they had to do, could afford to give days for the discussion of private Members' Motions, however important they might be? "Counts" on Friday were very few in number. This arose from the contingent reversion possessed by the Government. The result was that Friday's Paper was very largely devoted to. Motions. There were constantly over 20 Motions on the Paper on Friday, chiefly, he believed, because hon. Members knew that on that day the House would be kept for them. If his Motion were carried, he had no doubt that Motions of an important character standing on the Paper on Friday would be discussed, and he also had no doubt that many Motions of a frivolous and an irrelevant character would not be discussed. He hoped it would not be considered in any way incumbent on the Government to keep a House, so that any particular Motion on the Paper should be discussed on Friday. He observed that an Amendment was to be moved by the hon. Member for Youghal (Sir Joseph M'Kenna), but he could not see its reasonableness. If 40 Members could not be found to take sufficient interest in a Motion, that Motion ought to be dropped, and that Members should be compelled to listen to it because they wished to support a subsequent Motion was absurd. He had heard it said that if this Motion was carried there would be canvassing to keep Members away from one Motion so as to support another. But there was a great deal of that now, and he did not see any great harm in it. No doubt they all enjoyed holidays, and there was a feeling that if this Motion were adopted the number of holidays would be seriously curtailed. He would point out that there were only about seven or eight Counts in a Session; that they generally took place between 8 and 9 o'clock, and that, therefore, all that the House would sacrifice would be 25 hours. But if after long debates and late sittings a holiday was wanted, the adjournment of the House should be moved, and then there would be a simple remedy applied. This was not a Party question, nor did it in any way re-open the subject of the Procedure Rules, which had been so thoroughly thrashed out. It was essen-
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    tially a private Member's question, and amounted to this, whether they would place themselves in the position of discussing such Motions as ought to be discussed. All he wished to do was to give the House control over the topics which it would and would not discuss, and to remove the feeling of people outside that while Business was so blocked as at present the House constantly effaced itself and sacrificed whole nights. He begged to move the Resolution standing in his name.
    MR. DILLWYNseconded the Motion.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That if it shall appear, on notice being taken, during any Debate, that forty Members are not present, the question under discussion shall he treated as a dropped order, and the House will proceed to the consideration of the next Order of the Day or Motion on the Paper."—(Sir Hussey Vivian.)
    SIR JOSEPH M'KENNA,in rising to move, as an Amendment—
    "That it is inexpedient to institute any rule or practice whereby discussion of Motions in order, and before the House can he evaded by the withdrawal from the House of Members favourable to some Motion later in the Orders of the same day,"
    said, when he contemplated the extent and effect of the proposed innovation, he looked on the Resolution of the hon. Baronet as the most audacious proposal ever submitted by a private Member. It threw aside all Parliamentary precedents, and ignored altogether the Parliamentary history of the greatest measures which had been carried in that House. The hon. Baronet came forward with a plan, cut and dried, for the purpose of extinguishing every right of individual Members to propose any measure to the House, unless there were 40 of them to initiate the discussion and protect its continuance. The effect of such a rule, if it had existed before, would have been to prevent the discussion of many of the most important questions on which Parliament had subsequently legislated. How could Villiers and Cobden have brought forward and discussed their Free Trade Motions, if the system proposd by the hon. Baronet had been in force? The Motion stated that after a question was treated as a dropped Order "the House would proceed" to the next Business. What House? The House in ambuscade in the Lobby? That was the new Liberalism. If this

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    were possible to be done the Government could arrange a Count out for any Motion that was unpalatable to them. A Count out even now was easy enough. The reason that it was not more often done now was that he believed the Prime Minister was averse to it; but he would not trust Ministers generally. There were some who would be glad to shunt a train of ideas when it would cost them nothing. After all, what was the extent of the inconvenience actually inflicted on the House by the present system? Eight nights or thereabouts were lost in each Session. Last year the House sat 200 days and nights, and eight more would have been added in effect to their number if the proposal of the hon. Baronet had been adopted. Surely this was no reason why the Procedure of the House should in future be revolutionized on two days in every week, and the management of its Business on those days virtually placed in the hands of the Government? He thought the bear statement of the ease was sufficient to insure the rejection of the Motion, and he therefore begged to move the Amendment standing in his name.
    Amendment proposed,
    To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "it is inexpedient to institute any rule or practice whereby discussion of Motions in order, and before the House can be evaded by the withdrawal from the House of Members favourable to some Motion later in the Orders of the same day,"—(Sir Joseph M'Kenna,)
    —instead thereof.
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    MR. ANDERSONsaid, he approved of the Motion as a whole, regarding it as a scandal that with such an enormous accumulation of Business the House should waste night after night by "Counts out." He had great sympathy for the officials of the House; but he thought their case might be met in the way which had been pointed out. At the same time, if 40 Members could not be got together to support a Motion, it would be better that the Motion should be set aside; but it was a pity that the whole night should be lost. The Motion before the House might give rise to a certain amount of Lobbying, and can-
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    vassing outside the House to get rid of a particular subject. He would also point out that as on Fridays the Business of the House consisted of the discussion of Motions brought forward as Amendments to the Motion for Supply, the scheme of the hon. Baronet would result, not in the discussion of successive Amendments, but in Supply itself becoming a dropped Order. His hon. Friend's scheme, therefore, needed alteration in this particular; but it had its merits, and he should support it as a protest against the deliberate waste of the time of the House by continual "Counts."
    MR. BERESFORD HOPEsaid, that his hon. Friend's elaborate natural history of Counts out reminded him more than anything else of one of Professor Owen's masterly diagnoses of some unknown animal just called into existence by the discovery of a jaw-bone or a toe-nail. Only twice this Session had the House been counted out, and yet the hon. Member now got up, and, like Niobe, all tears, complained how often some Notice utterly frivolous and ridiculous stood in the way of something important. His hon. Friend was extremely ungrateful to Fortune for his double success at the ballot-box, and, in complaining of the harder fate of those whose Resolutions had been counted out, ought not to forget what the fickle goddess had done for himself. The objections to the proposal were very obvious; indeed, his hon. Friend had been good enough at once to dispose of all that could be said in its favour by his admission of the infrequency of the evil which he wished to remedy. The hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson) made no such admission, but in the sorrow of his soul spoke in his most impressive manner of the mass of Business left undone in consequence of Counts out. Now, what the country understood by Business was Government Business, which ran no risk such as the hon. Member seemed to fear, and to ascribe an equal importance to the Resolutions of private Members displayed a certain confusion of thought which it was most desirable to avoid. It was not the fact that Tuesdays and Fridays were as valuable as Government nights, or, at any rate, they would not be so till the adoption of the proposal before the House. In that case it would inevitably happen

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    that the Government would control all the days of the week except Wednesday. Motion after Motion would be dismissed, and at last the Government Orders of the day would be reached, and a House would be kept for them. He appealed to the House not to be beguiled by the syren voice of the hon. Member for Glamorgan, for the whole Friday night would go into the omnivorous maw of the Treasury Bench. The supporters of the proposal could scarcely imagine that it would merely dispose of a dull or an objectionable subject, and that hon. Members whose favourite topic was counted out would be so completely above all human prejudice as to be willing to return good for evil by making a House for the next Resolution on the list. The hon. Member for Glasgow might Count out the hon. Member for Glamorgan; but his triumph would be short, for the hon. Member for Glamorgan would come back in some 25 minutes and cut short the opening of the hon. Member's case. The effect of this Motion would be to reduce the Business of the House to a kind of intellectual leap-frog. Let them pass this Resolution, and instead of six or seven Motions, as now, as the Tuesday's or Friday's bill of fare, they would have 20 or 30 on the Notice Paper, and the Lobbying and manœuvring, the whispering and running in and running out that would follow, would make a much greater scandal than any that could be said to exist at present. He trusted the House would dispose of this Motion in the most summary way; and he would end by a quotation, which none who heard it had forgotten, of their late Friend Mr. Bernal Osborne, who appealed to their charitable feelings on behalf of those good men who—
    "Do good by stealth and blush to find it fame."
    MR. ALDERMAN W. LAWRENCEsaid, he was surprised that the hon. Member should have brought forward this Motion, which was only the clôture in another form, without any responsibility on the part of the persons who put it in force. The Motion as it stood did not apply only to Tuesdays and Fridays; it applied to every day, even to Wednesday. So that if a Bill was brought forward on a Wednesday, and 40 Members did not happen to be present, it was to be dropped. He presumed that the next
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    Order was to be treated in the same way, and so one. A number of Members from the Principality or from the Sister Isle might combine and prevent a man from having his fair opportunity. It was for the benefit of the constituencies that some measures should be brought forward which, in their infancy, perhaps, did not interest a large number of Members. But it would be no satisfaction to the constituencies to find that a Motion which might be of the greatest importance to them could not be submitted to the House because their Members would not condescend to canvass in the Lobby. This Motion was one which would be most dangerous to the constitution of the House, and he trusted it would be rejected by such a majority as would prevent its being brought forward again.
    SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOTsaid, he ventured to appeal to the Prime Minister whether, considering that the House had last year spent a vast amount of time in discussing the New Rules, it was advisable to make a fresh Rule before the other Rules had been fairly tried. He hoped the Prime Minister would not give his support to the Motion of the hon. Baronet. He (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) should like to ask the hon. Member for Glamorganshire (Sir Hussey Vivian) whether he had ever been present to prevent a Count out? That was a question which he bogged very seriously to put to him, because, if his memory served him right, he had never seen the hon. Baronet in his place when the House was counted out. One remark had been made which he (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) was very glad to hear. The hon. Baronet stated that whenever the House of Commons felt interested in any question, it would always prevent that question from being counted out; and he further stated that whenever there was a "Count out," they might be quite sure that the House took no interest in the question under discussion. Well, the other night the hon. Member for Salford (Mr. Arthur Arnold) had a Motion of the Paper which he (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) very properly thought was counted out. He had no doubt the hon. Member for Salford felt that the question was a very important one. Perhaps it was, but it was not brought on at the right time. At all events, the House allowed it to be counted out. The hon.

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    Member for Glamorganshire must therefore think the Motion of the hon. Member for Salford came under the class of Motions which did not deserve the consideration of the House. He (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) rather agreed with him on that point. It was a question which, in his opinion, might be postponed for a considerable time. Then there was another question raised with regard to this proposed new Rule by the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson), who showed that if the House was counted out on Supply no further Business could be gone on with, because all the Business that succeeded Supply would be stopped. But the House must remember that according to the present Motion, if a question in which the Government took no interest were counted out at 1 or 2 o'clock in the morning, Supply could then be taken by the Government procuring 40 Members. He ventured to hope the Government would not consent to accept the Motion now before the House.
    MR. JOSEPH COWENsaid, that he only wished to make one observation about the Motion. It was quite true that "Counts out" occasionally took place. It was also true that they were sometimes a source of annoyance and inconvenience, especially to the hon. Members whose speeches were closed by them. But it was altogether incorrect to say that the "Counts out" seriously impeded Public Business. He took some trouble during the Procedure debates last Session to inquire into the subject, and he ascertained that last year there had only been four "Counts out" which could by any possible stretch of imagination be said to have delayed the Government's Business. And on two occasions there were extenuating circumstances. "Counts out" might be inconvenient to the private Members whose Bills or Resolutions suffered thereby; but they were often a great relief to the overworked officers of the House. They usually occurred the day after there had been a prolonged Sitting. He never promoted a "Count out," and certainly never moved one; but he was very far from thinking that "Counts out" were not occasionally a very great relief to the Government, the House, and the officials. It was undesirable that the public, who did not know the Forms of Parliament, should labour under the delusion that the alleged congestion of Business was in any
    1982
    way caused by such occurrences. As for the Motion itself, he disapproved of it. The object of the hon. Member for Glamorgan was a good one; but certainly the means by which he proposed to get at that object would not be workable. Instead of counting out the House, he wanted to count out a debate. Whatever might be said to the contrary, if the Resolution became a Rule of the House, it would end to the disadvantage of private Members. Whenever they chose, it would be in the power of a Government to count out private Members' Motions one after another until such time as their own Business was reached. It was no use saying the Government would not do this—all Governments did strange things when Party ends were to be served; and the instrument that the hon. Member for Glamorganshire proposed to put into the hands of the Ministry would certainly be utilized to the detriment of private Members. The rights of independent Members had been greatly curtailed of recent years; but this Resolution, if carried in its present form, would absolutely annihilate them.
    MR. GLADSTONEsaid, that his hon. Friend who had brought forward the Motion was well qualified by his experience and talents to call attention to a subject which must be debated from time to time. Undoubtedly, the question of "Counts out" was one which offered much scope for remark. It was a system against which much might be said; but he agreed with those who thought that, upon the whole, it did not bring about much substantial unfairness. It afforded a good deal of relief to persons who felt themselves under heavy pressure, and he thought it executed a good deal of rough and summary justice upon Motions of a class sometimes not well entitled to the attention of the House. But, as his hon. Friend had said very fairly, it was a private Member's question. It was eminently, but not exclusively so, though he had some doubt as to what the operation of the Motion might be upon Government nights of Business. But they had had a considerable number of declarations upon the question from the hon. Members on both sides of the House, and he was afraid his hon. Friend would have very little difficulty in collecting the general purport and tendency of those declara-

    1983
    tions, and would be obliged to admit that the tribunal to which he had appealed had decided against him. He was unwilling to interpose at an early period, on the ground that it did not appear to him that the question was one in which the Government ought to take any prominent part, or suggest that it had a great interest in it one way or the other. Nor did he consider it was a question as between private Members and the Government. What he did consider was that, while ostensibly, and in the mind of his hon. Friend, it was a question upon the system of counting out, it was really one involving a much larger and more important question—namely, whether the order of Business in the House ought to be determined—so far as it was not a Government night—by the free choice of independent Members taking their chance at the ballot, or whether the House should take into its own hands the arrangement of its Business with a view to giving the first chance of discussion to a Motion, or Motions, which it might deem best entitled to the first place? That was a question of vast importance. It was hardly possible to exaggerate the importance of it, because of the change which it might bring about in the relative positions of the independent judgment of individual Members and the general judgment of the House. That question was vitally affected by the present Motion. It was not at all a question of regulating the method of counting out. His hon. Friend himself had spoken of the vast importance of giving to the House a control over its own Business. He was very far from saying that that question might not at some time or other, possibly even at the present moment, be a subject deserving of consideration; it was clearly one upon which there was much to be said on both sides; but if it was to be entertained it ought to be entertained directly, and any measure upon the subject ought to be put in motion by means perfectly direct, simple, and unexceptionable. He could not agree that the system his hon. Friend desired the House to adopt was a simple one. Although it was capable of description in few and simple words on the Notice Paper, it would lead to the utmost complexity in carrying on the Business of the House. He thought, considering the principle which was in-
    1984
    volved in such a proposition, it was plain that it deserved very deliberate and distinct discussion, and that it was not a subject fit to be raised incidentally on a question about the method of working the system of counting out. And, finally, he agreed with the hon. and gallant Member (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) that Parliament had spent a great deal of time last year in settling a number of questions of great importance in regard to the Procedure of the House. In point of fact, they might compare the mass of Business with which the House then dealt to the passing of some great legislative measure, for Procedure was absolutely essential to legislation, and lay at the root of it. Now, it was quite true that the Motion did not re-open directly any points which they then decided; but he agreed with the hon. and gallant Gentleman that after they had adopted a scheme such as that, which cost them so much time and effort in the course of last year, it was desirable that they should give it some time to work, and to prove what it was worth, and that they should not revert from week to week to the consideration of isolated points of a subject which was eminently deserving' of consideration as a whole. He would certainly advise his hon. Friend not to press upon the House a Motion which, he believed, it was disinclined to receive, for he did not think the Government would, under the circumstances of the case, undertake to adopt a system, which involved so much more than it seemed to involve, and which would decide a very difficult question in a manner that would not be satisfactory to those who desired that the proceedings of the House should be straightforward, direct, and carried on in the public view.
    SIR HUSSEY VIVIANsaid, that, after the reception given to his Motion, he would not put the House to the trouble of a division.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  DISTRESS (IRELAND).

    RESOLUTION.
    MR. O'CONNOR POWER, in rising to call attention to the subject of Irish distress; and to move—
    "That the chronic distress prevailing in certain congested parts of Ireland can be most

    1985
    safely and efficaciously relieved by a judicious and economic system of migration and optional emigration, together with a consolidation of the holdings from which tenants are removed; that, in the present condition of Ireland, such a scheme can he successfully carried out only by a Government Commission, with certain statutory powers, including those of purchase and sale; and, in the opinion of this House, this is a subject which demands the serious attention of Her Majesty's Government, with a view to early legislation,"
    said, that the subject of Irish distress had repeatedly occupied the attention of successive Governments; and for the last nine years it formed the principal matter of the letters which he received from that quarter of the country which he was sent to Parliament to represent. During the recent Recess he had taken the opportunity of examining for himself the latest phase of that distress, having with that object paid visits to some of the distressed and congested districts in throe of the Western counties of Ireland. In going over this ground he was greatly struck with the contrast presented between what he saw with his own eyes, and the evidence collected and reported by the Inspectors of the Irish Local Government Board. It would be impossible for him to describe the painful condition of things which he found in the neighbourhood of Loughglin, County Roscommon. Such was the normal condition of poverty in the district that the natural consequence was that little or no notice was taken of it by the residents in the locality. In fact, the people were so accustomed to feel the pangs of hunger, and to living on the very brink of famine, that, by some mental energy, they were able to overlook the magnitude of the misfortune from which they suffered. He found persons there half-naked, in and out of house, eating the worst description of food, and without bedding, their only couch at night being a handful of straw, with no blankets to cover them except the tattered garments which did service for clothing during the day. He had witnessed equal distress in travelling through the county of Mayo and the county of Sligo, even in the neighbourhood of the seemingly prosperous town of Ballina. In fact, it might be safely said that there were tens of thousands of people in the West of Ireland who were living in the lowest state of possible existence, and whose life was bereft of all incitement to industry or thrift, or even the slightest exertion. He had
    1986
    seen numbers of those who had been prostrated by the famine fever of 1880 stretched upon their pallets, which, could not be dignified by the name of beds, with the very breath of life coming and going in their emaciated forms, and whose existence was a mere alternation between the pangs of hunger and fatal starvation. It must be borne in mind, not only that the distress which he described was painful, but that it was chronic in its character, and that the area over which it prevailed was sufficiently large to include 300,000 human beings. The history of Irish distress was a very painful one, and he was anxious not to touch upon matters in reference to it with which hon. Members were already familiar. The full effects which might have resulted from the Famine of 1880 had only been averted by the extraordinary efforts of private charity combined with public aid. Besides the £1,500,000 sterling which had been voted by that House out of the Irish Church Surplus Fund to meet that calamity, three private Associations had distributed more than an additional £500,000; so that in 1880 no less than £2,000,000 sterling had been expended in an attempt to apply a temporary remedy to meet the distress of one year alone in Ireland. When they came, however, to see what had been the cost to the country generally of Irish distress during the last 50 or 60 years, the figures were absolutely appalling. The total public expenditure on account of the Great Famine of 1846–7 was, according to Sir Charles Trevelyan, the then Secretary to the Treasury, £10,723,908 19 s. 5d., while the expenditure on behalf of private charity during that terrible time had been, at least, £3,000,000 more. The contributions by Irishmen in America in aid of their distressed friends and relatives in Ireland during the last 35 years, according to the calculations of the Emigration Commissioners, averaged £750,000 per annum. That, however, was the sum which had been remitted through banks and commercial houses alone; and the Commissioners estimated that the sums which had been sent through other channels would raise the average to £1,000,000 per annum. There must, however, be added to the £35,000,000 so remitted the sums sent over to Ireland by the Irish labourers who were working in

    1987
    England and Scotland. Taking all those sums together, he thought it might be safely assumed that during the last 35 years a sum of, at least, £50,000,000 sterling had been expended in supplementing poor incomes in Ireland, and in relieving the distress of hundreds of thousands of people. He would now ask the House to consider what were the real causes of this chronic distress in Ireland. They were, in his opinion, political, social, and industrial. Into the political causes of that distress he did not believe that that was the fitting occasion to enter, because he was anxious to submit his observations to the House in a form which would strip them of all Party bias or political partizanship. Regarding Ireland as a country whose chief wealth sprang from agriculture, he thought that the main causes of the chronic distress in that country arose, first, from overcrowding on small farms where the land was poor; secondly, from unskilful husbandry; and, thirdly, in too much dependence on the potato as a staple of life; and, as a consequence, a standard of living below that which was necessary to maintain healthy existence. In looking at the history of congested populations in Ireland, he found that from 1793, when, after nearly a century of continuous disabilities, the Irish Catholics were permitted to vote for Protestant Members of Parliament, it had become the interest of influential politicians to multiply their voting power as much as possible, and to create large numbers of holdings, giving the tenants votes, according to the low rural franchise of those days. It was in furtherance of this object that the 40 s. holdings had been created, and tenants were encouraged to subdivide their holdings as much as possible. Another cause that had led to the creation of congested districts in Ireland was the terror which the Famine of 1846 had inspired in the minds of Irish landlords that its recurrence would vitally affect their fortunes. With the prospect of having the workhouses crowded with paupers for whose support they would be chargeable, the landlords naturally took alarm; and a system of clearances began from the rich and fertile lands, which had been pursued, with more or less persistency, down to the present time. The evil of a congested population would not remedy itself by the
    1988
    operation of natural causes. In 1881—the latest year for which Returns had been made—there was an actual increase in each of the three classes into which the smaller holdings of Ireland might be divided—namely, first, those not exceeding one acre; secondly, those between one and five acres and, thirdly, those between five and 15 acres. Of the first class, there were no fewer than 50,996; of the second, 67,071; and of the third, those exceeding five and not exceeding 15 acres, 164,045. The smallest of the three classes had increased in 1881, over the preceding year, by 383, the next by 2,779, and the third by 2,710. It was only in the larger farms—those above 15 acres—that there had been any diminution. Some time ago he ventured, through the kindness of his hon. Friend the Member for Carnarvonshire (Mr. Rathbone), to ask Mr. Tuke three questions, to which, as yet, he had been unable to obtain answers. The questions were—first, what became of the holdings from which families or the previous occupiers had been emigrated; second, were those holdings consolidated or re-occupied by other tenants; and, next, what number of holdings had been permanently cleared, what number consolidated, and what number re-occupied? He should be glad to know if his hon. Friend, through more recent communications with the agents of his Committee in the West of Ireland, could now throw some light on those questions, and on the practical operation of emigration, so far as the evil of a congested population was concerned. There could, he thought, be but little difference as to the nature of the problem with which they were confronted in Ireland, though there might be considerable differences as to the practical remedies which ought to be applied. In moving the Resolution which appeared on the Paper in his name, he thought it right to say that he did not undervalue other schemes of national improvement which had been put forward on behalf of Ireland from time to time. He did not recollect any scheme proposed by an Irish Representative which he had not, in some way or other, found himself able to support; and he had always proceeded on the principle that, although he might not be able to agree to every detail of the proposal, it would be better, on the whole, to encourage the efforts of anyone, who,

    1989
    single-handed or otherwise, made an honest, sincere attempt to grapple with a great difficulty. He had supported, for example, schemes for the development of Irish fisheries, the extension of the railway system, and other objects. In connection with those proposals, and in connection with his own, he should like to say that their object in recommending Irish undertakings ought to be to try and get the control of Irish resources for the purpose of carrying them out; and, whatever proposal they made to that House, they ought always to be prepared to carry it out on the strength of Irish resources alone. He wished especially to emphasize that point. No one esteemed more highly than he did the value of self-help; and all he wanted was to put the farmers of the West of Ireland in a condition in which it might be said, for the first time in their history, that they could help themselves; and he was confident that the result would be very disappointing to their enemies, if they had any, and very gratifying to their friends on both sides of the Channel. He came first to the questional of optional emigration. During his recent investigations he had conversed much with the farmers of Eos-common, Mayo, and Sligo, and consulted them as to the questions of migration and emigration. He found that in every case where he asked, would the man willingly quit his small patch of two or throe acres of land, and undertake to enter upon the cultivation or the occupation of 20 acres of land elsewhere, on condition of paying a fixed rental for a limited number of years? he always received an affirmative reply; and, notwithstanding their attachment to their wretched holdings, they did not go so far as to prefer misery where they were to the chance of comparative prosperity in another portion of their own country. But he was bound to tell the House on the other hand, that whenever he proposed the question of emigration he found the greatest unwillingness on the part of the people to contemplate such an escape from their difficulties. He was aware that 30 Unions had applied to be scheduled for emigration purposes under the Arrears Act, and had applied to Mr. Tuke's Committee. He had always advocated freedom of choice by the tenant farmers themselves in that matter; and that choice and that option would settle
    1990
    the question as to whether or not they were prepared to go. But in those Unions there practically was no choice. He would neither promote emigration nor oppose it; but, recognizing that in the present condition of Ireland it was inevitable, he would regulate it, and he desired to see a regulated system set on foot, instead of the old haphazard landing of families on American soil, with no one to see to their welfare. It was, above all, necessary that emigrants should not have rankling in their minds, on their arrival in Canada or the United States, a burning sense of wrong, or injury, or banishment, or expatriation. He might be asked why, if he believed that migration was a practical remedy, he should trouble himself with emigration, or, if he thought that emigration would be beneficial, he should also advocate migration. He had no crotchets; and, if he were asked that question, his answer would be that emigration alone would not do, because at least half the people in need of relief were not fit to emigrate. Emigrants should be neither too young nor too old; they should not be infirm or feeble, but persons of courage and enterprize. Such people, leaving the abodes of their decayed industries in the Old World, in order to apply their labour to the fresh and vigorous industries of the New—especially if they went to join their relatives and friends—would be sure of making their way as emigrants in the country of their adoption. He now came to the question of migration, and the regret he felt in connection with that proposed mode of finding a permanent remedy for Irish distress was occasioned by the circumstance that in the nature of things it was slow, and that the necessary operations could, in the first instance, only be carried out in a gradual and experimental way. Neither of the schemes was alone sufficient to afford immediate relief and provide a permanent remedy; and, therefore, he proposed to give to the people themselves the option of saying whether they would migrate to certain unoccupied tracts in the old country or emigrate to the other side of the Atlantic. At present the only method of relief for those who were not prepared to emigrate was the workhouse. In his recent tour in Ireland he often found that a small farmer well able to work was surrounded by

    1991
    a family so young that they were unable to give him any assistance. What was to be done with a family like that? The father would, in such a ease, be unwilling to incur the danger, to his young ones, of a voyage to a far-off land; but if he could be removed elsewhere to another farm in his native country, his family would in time be able to second his efforts in the cultivation of the land. No matter how favourable the conditions were under which emigration was carried on, it ought to be limited in its character. They ought to say that up to a certain point, if the people wished to emigrate, they would assist them; but that they would only make provision for a certain number in each year, and for a number in all not greater than the country could spare without detriment to its future prosperity. No doubt many parts of Ireland were retrograding from the want of a population properly employed in productive labour. In some parts of the West of Ireland the population was so deficient that persons engaged in large farming operations were fettered in their action because they could not procure sufficient labour to effect the rotation of their crops. It was, therefore, not enough simply to say—"Get rid of your distressed population, and then the difficulty of distress will be solved." He had always held the belief that Ireland, as a whole, was not over-populated. There was not a man, woman, or child in the country who could not find the means of competent subsistence if the country were controlled by Irish opinion and Irish experience, and the people were enabled to use their own resources, unfettered by extraneous conditions. He would now invite the attention of the House to the provisions which at present existed with respect to emigration. By the 18th section of the Arrears Act Guardians of the Poor were empowered to borrow money at 3½ per cent in aid of emigration; and under the 20th section the Lord Lieutenant might authorize grants in aid of emigration to Boards of Guardians, or to any body of persons, to the extent of £100,000; and it was provided in the Act that the sum for each person should not be greater than £5. To this latter provision he entirely objected. Considering the difficulties of settling on the other side of the Atlantic,
    1992
    it would not be safe to emigrate any Irish family unless they were prepared to spend £100 in the operation. Here he might incidentally state that he believed he made a mistake, a short time ago, in crediting the Imperial Exchequer with this sum of £100,000. As a matter of fact, he found that that amount was chargeable on the Irish Church Surplus, and not on the Consolidated Fund. The 21st section of the Arrears Act authorized the Lord Lieutenant to make arrangements for securing the satisfactory emigration of persons for whom the means of emigration were provided under the Act. But the power of the Lord Lieutenant ceased with the application of £100,000; and, therefore, he maintained that for the purpose of promoting emigration on the conditions on which alone it was likely to be successful, that Statute was entirely inadequate. Under the 32nd section of the Land Act the Land Commission might contract with any public Company to promote emigration by means of loans; but the amount must not exceed £200,000 altogether, or one-third part thereof in any single year. On the question of emigration it was impossible for him, as a private Member, to speak with any confidence. He did not profess to know how many people would be likely to emigrate; but he should, at all events, like to give them first the option of migrating. Migration was a very incorrect word, however, and it failed to accurately express his meaning. Creatures who, like the swallow, migrated, went and came back again; whereas he proposed to remove people from one place and to re-settle them permanently in another. This removal and re-settlement might be done by the Government; but he was opposed to the Government undertaking the work of reclaiming the land, because he thought it would lead to intolerable jobbery. It might be done by a Joint Stock Company, as was suggested by the Land Act. But Companies would have to proceed by means of hired labour, and that would be too expensive; and, in his judgment, the land could never be profitably cultivated by that means. Then the work might be done by individual landlords; but the Irish landlord was, at the present moment, a gentleman steeped in debt, fettered by incumbrances without capital, and therefore without enterprize, and he had

    1993
    the additional excuse that his income had been cut down 20 per cent by Act of! Parliament. It was not a sound objection to his scheme that if the land he referred to could be reclaimed and improved profitably the work would be undertaken by Irish landlords. Under the present circumstances, to expect the landlords to enter upon the cultivation and improvement of the land was in itself an expectation very wild and very imaginary indeed. Therefore, he came to the conclusion that it was the tenant living and working upon the land, in the expectation of future ownership, who alone could cultivate it with profit and advantage. So intimate was the subject of the reclamation of land with migration in their debates, that he found them treated under the same head in the Land Act. He should like to explain the process of migration as he proposed to carry it out. He calculated that at least 50,000 families, or 250,000 persons, ought to be permanently moved from their present holdings. It was hard to say what proportion of these, if the option were given them, would elect to emigrate; that would have to be determined by future experience; but for the purpose of migration he would take now only half the number; and, allowing 20 acres of land for each family, this would involve, for 25,000 families, the acquisition by the Commissioners of 500,000 acres of semi-waste, unoccupied land. The question naturally arose as to the size of the farms upon which these removed families would be set, and there was some conflict of evidence upon that point. It was impossible for a small farmer to cultivate 20 acres with the spade. But it was easy if he had a horse and a plough and domestic labour; therefore the 20 acres was not necessarily a limit. He put it down as an average. He would take the land as worth 5s. per acre. He would estimate it at 20 years' purchase, and the tenant right at four years' purchase; the 20 acres would cost £120, which, multiplied by 25,000, the number of the new holdings to be created by the Commission, would amount to £3,000,000 sterling. He estimated the cost of dwellings, main drainage, and main roads at about £2,000,000 more. Thus the sum of £5,000,000 sterling placed at the disposal of any Government Commission appointed for the purpose would, in his humble judgment, be
    1994
    adequate to meet the entire cost of the removal of these 25,000 families. When the economic character of the scheme had been tested, he had no doubt that its success would be established; and his hope was, that Parliament would then be willing to sanction further expenditure in the same direction, so long as a single acre of land, suitable for tillage, remained to be occupied and cultivated. He proposed that the repayments of the money thus advanced should be by means of fixed rentals, including principal and interest for a certain number of years, at the termination of which the tenants would become the owners. He would propose that no rent should be paid in the first two years after the settlement, and during this time the tenants would be supported by wages for work done under the supervision of the Commission. He did not mean that the Government or its agents should engage in the direct supervision of the cultivation of the land. The supervision of the Commission to which he referred was a supervision which should be sufficient to satisfy them that the tenant was working for a certain specified time in the improvement of his own farm. He had stated already that one of the causes of distress was unskilled husbandry; and it was, therefore, an essential part of this scheme that wherever a colony of these new settlers was founded a school-house should be immediately erected, for the purpose of imparting technical instruction in the improvement of agriculture. This building could also be made a storehouse for agricultural implements; and if any small farmer was unable to keep a plough or a horse, facilities might be provided at this central store for his hiring them to carry on his husbandry. He also would like to see houses built somewhat after the excellent example of those belonging to the Midland Great Western Railway Company, situate near Enfield, and referred to by the Bessborough Commission. When similar schemes had been discussed on former occasions, the security of the land itself had always been offered for the return of the money advanced. That security was generally, and he thought rightly, held to be insufficient. He proposed, therefore, in order that the Treasury might have the most solid security possible, that the charge should fall on the whole of the assessable property of Ire-

    1995
    land, and that the Lord Lieutenant should have power to levy a rate in aid over the whole county in which migration took place, or, if necessary, over a still wider area, so that by no possibility could the Imperial Exchequer suffer a loss. He did not, however, believe it would be necessary to levy a rate over more than a county; but he thought the area of taxation should not be less. It was always said to be inadvisable to make the farmers tenants of the State, lest they should be at the mercy of political agitators; but security of the kind he suggested would do away with this familiar objection to all schemes for the creation of a peasant proprietary. What ever area was chosen for the levying of the rate, the condition should be maintained of not allowing the tenants ever to fall below one-half of their stipulated payments. It was necessary, at the same time, that the Government Commission, the creation of which he contemplated, should have power to purchase compulsorily semi-waste lands, to consolidate holdings when the tenants had voluntarily quitted them, to prevent subdivision, and to award, subject to an appeal to the Land Commission, compensation to all whose property was taken for the purposes of the Commission. Having thus stated his plan, he had to say he could never have placed it before the House had it not been for the spontaneous assistance he had received from the hon. Baronet the Member for South Shropshire (Sir Baldwyn Leighton), for whose kind co-operation he was sincerely grateful. He had only to remark that proposals had often before been made to deal with semi waste and improvable land in Ireland; and of these one of the most noticeable was that of Lord John Russell in 1847. Speaking in the House in that year, Lord John Russell quoted the authority of Sir Robert Kane to the effect that the waste lands in Ireland which might be dealt with amounted to about 4,600,000 acres. The scheme of the noble Lord, which was, in principle, essentially similar to the proposal now before the House, included the outlay of £1,000,000 sterling, compulsory power of purchase by the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, the reclamation of waste lands, the making of roads, the establishment of a system of drainage, the erection of buildings, the division of the land into
    1996
    plots, but prohibited, as he would now, any cultivation of the land, through the agency of a Public Department. His Lordship anticipated that many advantages would accrue from this plan, and that many persons who had been driven to despair, and even into crime, would be able to earn a comfortable living, and that by it would be raised a class of small proprietors which would form a valuable link in the social life of Ireland. As to the availability of the land, he would refer to the evidence of Professor Baldwin and Major Robertson, the Assistant Commissioners to the Richmond Commission, to show that even in. the neighbourhood of some of the over-populated districts there was a great deal of semi-waste and rapidly-deteriorating laud, which needed only preliminary improvements to make it admirably fit for the purposes of his scheme. Indeed, Professor Baldwin spoke of it specifically as land to which it was desirable to migrate people, and mentioned vast neglected tracts of land, the mere drainage of which would increase their value at least 50 per cent. In various debates in that House reference had been made to the Bessborough Commission; and until he had read up the evidence given before that Commission he was really under the impression that the Commission had reported against a scheme of this kind. He found that the Earl of Bessborough and Baron Dowse had spoken disparagingly of the project; but the O'Conor Don, although he did not believe in the economic wisdom of a project of the kind, still said he would like to see the project tried. He also spoke of emigration in most disparaging tones. The hon. Member for the County Cork (Mr. Shaw) strongly advocated the purchase by the Land Commission of waste and semi-waste lands, to which people might be removed from the more thickly-populated districts. Professor Baldwin also referred to two estates—those of Mr. Crosbie, in Kerry, and of Colonel Pitt Kennedy, in the North of Ireland, where the process of transferring persons in one form or another had been, successfully carried out. He was sure, moreover, that the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) would, on the present occasion, as he had on a former occasion, be prepared to say that his efforts had been attended with success as far as the improvement of the

    1997
    land was concerned. He (Mr. O'Connor Power) thought he was entitled to say that if this proposal, in the opinion of Her Majesty's Government, was not feasible, it was the duty of Her Majesty's Government, in view of the condition of those Western counties, to produce some plan of its own. He knew of no question which more urgently called for attention, acknowledging even the other heavy responsibilities of the Government. He would say England's interests in Egypt, the Transvaal, and Afghanistan dwindled into insignificance compared with her interests in Ireland, and the expenditure involved was much less than what had been expended on one of England's email wars, three of which they had been engaged in within a very recent period. That expenditure would, he believed, solve for ever the difficulty of chronic distress in Ireland. Some 66 years ago, on the occasion of a King's visit, Byron described in these memorable words the condition of Ireland—
    "The castle still stands, though the Senate's no more,
    And the famine that dwelt in her freedom-less crags
    Is extending its steps to her desolate shore."
    How often had not that picture been vividly reproduced in the sad history of Ireland since the day George IV. landed at Kingstown? Was not Ireland still at the world's gate in tatters and poverty? During the last few days, had not the Bishops of Ireland appealed from the impotence of her Government to the charity of mankind? Had they not raised again the piercing cry of Irish distress, which had so often before startled humanity, and excited its sympathy—a cry now borne, by every wind that blows, to the expatriated children of Ireland in every part of the globe; and should it be said that in this Imperial Parliament there was no sufficient statesmanship to grapple, once for all, with the cause of Ireland's protracted suffering and accumulated misfortune? He, for one, would not abandon himself to so melancholy a conclusion. On the contrary, he preferred to indulge a hope that the Government and the House of Commons would now, at last, realize the gravity of the situation in Ireland, and the measures required to promote her welfare, and that in the very extremity of her distress might be found the means of
    1998
    restoring to that country her prosperity, her tranquillity, and her freedom. The hon. and learned Gentleman concluded by moving the Resolution which stood in his name.
    SIR BALDWYN LEIGHTON, in seconding the Motion of the hon. and learned Member for Mayo, said he hoped no apology was due from an English Member for taking a prominent part in an Irish question; and perhaps even an Englishman was placed at an advantage in taking part in supporting such a proposal, inasmuch as he might be considered as regarding the matter from an impartial point of view. The present Motion sprang out of the Debate on the Address. At that time, in reply to the Prime Minister's sort of appeal and cry of help to the House generally upon this subject, he got up and said he would support any proposal of a practical kind to deal with this distress. And he might even be allowed to add these facts. In 1880, at the time of the appointment of the Bessborough Commission, he tried to have the scope of inquiry extended to the question of the reclamation of land, as he considered it of vital importance. At the time of the passing of the Irish Land Act he asked the Prime Minister whether he would deal with this question; and last year, in the Debate on the Address, he put before the House the utter inability of the Land Act to touch the condition of the West of Ireland. Before the Railway Rates Committee, he proposed and carried, with the aid of the Irish Members, a recommendation that the Irish Canals should, as a means of providing better communication, be handed over to the management of the Local Bodies. There was a remark of Lord Dufferin's which exactly expressed his own feelings on the subject. His Lordship said that for years past there had existed in Ireland a broad fringe of poverty which no legislation could touch, and a condition of things only varied by intervals of famine—intervals which would probably recur. This would continue until something was done to change the condition of the existence of the people. In former days Lord John Russell and Sir Robert Peel made proposals in this direction; but they were stopped by the financial crux of the question. In the present proposal of the hon. and learned Member for Mayo

    1999
    provision was made for dealing with the financial question. With reference to loans to Ireland, he (Sir Baldwyn Leighton) admitted that that country had not been a satisfactory debtor. She had already repudiated debts she had incurred; but that would not altogether induce him to refuse to advance money. He listened with disappointment to the proposals made by the Government in the Debate on the Address. It was like offering a stone when the people asked for bread. The Motion before the House raised two questions—emigration and migration. As to emigration, he looked upon it only as an alternative and last resource. He would exhaust every possible plan before he would give his adhesion to anything like a scheme of wholesale emigration. He did not look into the past—there was no use in doing so. They should look at what the Irish people were at the present moment; and it should be remembered that the Irish were passionately attached to the soil, to their homes, and to their domestic relations. He regretted the language used by the Government, which only led to agitation, and taught the people not to rely upon themselves. Emigration would not solve the question of dealing with 250,000 or 500,000 starving people. Then came the other alternative—that of migration. Charity, with which they had attempted to arrest famine, had proved unsatisfactory. Until a few years ago, he believed that it would have been possible to relieve the pauperism of Ireland by the development of industries. Something might have been done to extend the flax industry, both in the production and the manufacture. The fisheries, also, might have been developed. But those and all other commercial enterprizes required capital, and no capital would now go to Ireland. As industrialization would not now solve the question, it, therefore, remained to see what other remedies they could discover for the present pauperism of a great part of the country. The remedy proposed by the hon. and learned Member for Mayo was a re-settlement of the people upon the land. The question that presented itself was whether or not there was sufficient land available, and what would be the financial aspect of the scheme. Probably they would hear from the Government that no land was available. But here were six witnesses to the
    2000
    contrary. The hon. and learned Member for Mayo, having made inquiries in his own county, told the House that there was available land there; and the hon. Member for Galway County (Mr. Mitchell Henry) would certify to the same for his district. Then they had the evidence of Professor Baldwin and Major Robertson, given before the various Commissions on the Land Question. Besides that, two practical landowners, Mr. Crosbie, of Kerry, and Colonel Pitt Kennedy, of Tyrone, had actually carried out such an undertaking on their own estates. The evidence of Professor Baldwin was conclusive as to the necessity for doing away with the overcrowding in the South and West, and for migrating and emigrating the people from the congested districts. Now, if this witness's evidence is unworthy of credit on this point, and it is the gist of his evidence, then his whole evidence must be rejected. Professor Baldwin and Major Robertson were also strongly of opinion that there was plenty of land available for re-settling the people and preventing overcrowding. As Professor Baldwin was a Government witness before the Commissions, and had since been appointed to office under the Land Act, the Government must have confidence in his opinions. But it might well be asked, where was the money to come from, and what was to be the security? He could imagine half-a-dozen places where it might come from; but he knew of only two sources from which it could come. There was the Money Market. Did any hon. Member suppose that a company or a private individual, or anybody else, could go into the market and ask for advances of money on land in the present state of affairs? He did not think they could. There was private capital in the possession of the landlords or of someone who chose to spend money, like the hon. Member for Galway. He did not think the present state of Ireland was such as greatly to invite private capital. He was obliged to dismiss these sources, and there were two others which he should mention, only, however, to dismiss them—one was that milch cow of Irish finance, the Church Surplus Fund, and with regard to which, perhaps, the Chief Secretary would say if there was any of it left. He would also dismiss what he would call the American Dollar, which,

    2001
    no doubt, had come into Ireland lately, in some form or another, to a considerable amount. This brought him to the only two sources from which they could expect to raise the necessary capital—one was the local rates; the other was, perhaps, even a safer source—the thrift of the people. He believed in the thrift of the people if it could be developed and brought out, for there was a great deal of thrift in the Irish people if it were stimulated, while it was also a sound source of capital. These were the only two sources to which they could look for any capital in carrying out any scheme of this kind. He invited the Government, therefore, to consider what could be done, in the first place, by Union rating; and, in the second, by the extension of the Post Office Savings Banks in Ireland. To carry it out there must be a Commission, and great care should be exercised in selecting the men. If the right men were not selected the scheme would fail. They should be men of practical experience, and if the scheme failed at first he would not, on that account, be inclined to give it up, but would appoint other Commissioners—indeed, he would have two or three sets of Commissioners. Then there was another consideration which, like the one just mentioned, might be regarded as a matter of detail by some, but would, he should be inclined to consider, be a matter of principle, and that was the selection of the tenants. If this were a proposal for England, he would only take tenants with a little money; but in Ireland they would be compelled to take tenants of very slender means, and their labour must be regarded as their capital. With regard to the payment of the interest, he would suggest that it should be thrown on the rates of the Union, so that there would be no shirking of payment by the people. For the first three years this interest might be repayable without the Sinking Fund. He earnestly hoped the Government would so far adopt the proposal as to make a trial of it. It could not involve any great financial loss. If the Government did not see their way to make the trial, he hoped they would be able to give the House some very satisfactory reason for their refusal, though he did not know what reason they could offer. The proposal having been brought forward, the Government must not only give a good
    2002
    reason for not making the trial, but must make au alternative proposal, for things could not remain as they were. The condition of the people in the West of Ireland was like a barrel of gunpowder near a fuse; and if duty did not move the Government, the fact that the condition of those people was a danger to the State ought to induce them to provide a remedy. It was a strange thing that we—the most practical and administrative race in the world, the most colonizing and governing nation—should manage other more distant races—India, South Africa, and Egypt—and yet fail in bringing about even moderate prosperity with people at our own door, part and parcel of our Imperial domain. And then that English statesmen should get up and say they could do nothing—as they would, perhaps, tell them to-night! The hon. Baronet concluded by seconding the Motion.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That the chronic distress prevailing in certain congested parts of Ireland can he most safely and efficaciously relieved by a judicious and economic system of migration and optional emigration, together with a consolidation of the holdings from which tenants are removed; that, in the present condition of Ireland, such a scheme can he successfully carried out only by a Government Commission, with certain statutory powers, including those of purchase and sale; and, in the opinion of this House, this is a subject which demands the serious attention of Her Majesty's Government, with a view to early legislation."—(Mr. O'Connor Power.)
    VISCOUNT LYMINGTON, in rising to move, as an Amendment, the omission of the words "migration and optional," said, he felt bound, before dealing with the question of emigration, to say a few words about the scheme which had been propounded by his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Mayo in his able and interesting speech. He was quite at one with his hon. and learned Friend as to the magnitude of the distress and the urgency of the question, and he hoped that that House would attempt to apply a remedy to the existing evils. But the magnitude of the question might be made more apparent by the statement of Professor Baldwin that there were 100,000 tenants holding farms of less than 10 acres each and of a valuation of £5 or under. The actual condition of the tenants was most pitiable,

    2003
    and they were in a hopeless state of insolvency, as was shown by the evidence given before the Duke of Richmond's Commission. Much might, no doubt, be done by better farming and model farms, and prizes for dairy and other produce might be productive of much good. But it would be a serious thing to attempt to carry out in full the programme of his hon. and learned Friend. It must be borne in mind that the migrated families would have to be supported, and even clothed and educated, in the interval between their migration and the time when they would have begun to work their 20-acre farms to advantage. Besides, farms of that kind could not be worked without capital. In farms of that size the use of horses would be indispensable, and the occasional loan of a horse would by no means answer the farmer's purpose. Besides, Ireland did not really lend itself to cultivation in small farms. The climate was not genial enough, or the land rich enough, to enable it to compete with those countries in Europe where small cultivation prevailed. Such farms were too large for peasant cultivation, and too small for ordinary farming. Whence, too, was the money to be derived for carrying such a scheme into operation? His hon. and learned Friend seemed to have forgotten the provisions of the Land Act of 1881. His hon. and learned Friend had spoken of buying up the tenant right at four years' purchase. But the tenant right had enormously increased in value since the passing of the Land Act, and thon there was the landlord's interest. In those cases, moreover, when the landlord occupied his own land, and no tenant right existed, the owner would be apt to set a very high price on the land which enjoyed so exceptional an advantage. If the State undertook this it would have to ask the tenants to pay a rent far higher than the rents of the surrounding tenants who would be assessed at a fair rate by the Sub-Commissioners. Therefore, supposing that there were no economic disadvantages, and no other complications or difficulties in the scheme of his hon. and learned Friend, the result would be that these Crown tenants would be at a disadvantage as compared with other tenants, and would, consequently, be dissatisfied with their own position. His hon. and learned Friend suggested that the whole cost of
    2004
    the scheme should be paid for out of Irish rates; but, for his own part, if he could support a scheme of this kind, he should contend that the whole burden ought to fall on the National Exchequer. The statistics with regard to local taxation in Ireland were appalling. Local taxation had increased since 1871 from £2,786,000 to £3,391,000 at the present time, while the amount of rateable property in Ireland had remained almost stationary. To take another view—in. the Province of Connaught the poor rate, exclusive of other rates, varied from 1s. 1d. to 9s. 8d. in the pound. Under these circumstances, would it be wise to propose that a scheme which must involve such a very serious outlay should be charged upon Ireland? He maintained that the scheme of the hon. and learned Member for Mayo was not a wise one. It was too complicated—it was an impossible matter which no State and no Government could wisely undertake. If such a scheme were wise, it was certainly the duty of this country, and of the United Kingdom, to accept it as a national charge for a national purpose. Undoubtedly, the tendency of agriculture in Ireland was to large pastoral farms, grazing lands for cattle; and it was a remarkable fact that since 1860 the decrease of the land under arable crops amounted to nearly 1,000,000 acres. It might be true that in certain cases proprietors had in times past rather hardly and unfairly pressed forward the development of this particular industry; but it was also true that in the long run it had succeeded as regarded the prosperity of agriculture in Ireland. But the hon. and learned Member, in the speech which he addressed, to the House, really told them a very painful fact, which was apparent to everyone—that in Ireland there was no other outlet for industry but agriculture. The remedy for this lay, and could only lay, in the introduction of capital into the country; and that depended both on the temper in which Parliament approached Irish questions, whether they approached them with patience and firmness, and also upon the attitude of the people of Ireland themselves. Parliament had, by the Act of 1881, conferred great boons on the Irish people, and he trusted the Irish tenants would devote their time and their energies to making the most of those boons, and to taking advantage of the oppor-

    2005
    tunities they possessed in the naturally productive character of the soil. In this respect he thought the Land Act would have an effect. It must be gradual. Tree sale could not at once, but it would gradually, tend towards the consolidation of the holdings. He quite agreed that the distress which prevailed in Ireland demanded a present remedy. It was not right for them to overlook it, or for Parliament to permit it to exist, without, at least, taking some energetic steps to alleviate it. The only remedy to hand that was practical lay in a well-devised scheme of State-aided emigration. The opposition to emigration, so far as he had been able to understand it, had been a very strong feeling of distrust on the part of the priests, because it would have the effect of landing their flocks on other shores, separating them from the religious influences which they had at home, and placing them on the confines of great cities across the Atlantic with divers temptations, the result of which had often been that men who in Ireland, although poor, led virtuous lives, drifted into the paths of crime. This was a matter which would be rectified if the Government would undertake by a Commission, or by entrusting the agencies which already existed for the purpose in the West of Ireland, to regulate emigration. He believed it would be necessary for emigration to be successfully undertaken, and in a manner to give satisfaction to the people of Ireland, that arrangements should be made as to the homesteads on which they were to be placed on arrival in Canada or the United States. It would also be very desirable that the emigration should be that of families, and not of individuals only, and that large bodies of emigrants should be accompanied by a priest. The State, he thought, would well lay out several hundred thousand pounds in assisting emigration; but there was naturally a very strong disinclination on the part of the taxpayer to accept any large and new liabilities, and especially to undertake expenditure that would necessarily be periodical. He was decidedly opposed to emigration being conducted under the auspices of the Poor Law Guardians. The interest of the Poor Law Guardians was obviously to emigrate all persons who were likely to come upon the rates, and the effect was very largely to dis-
    2006
    credit the scheme of emigration. The House should make up its mind whether it intended to spend any public money. He did not think that the distress in Ireland could remedy itself. It was a matter which could not be met by local taxes. He maintained that public money would be well expended in emigration, because it would be an attempt to rescue from a life of squalid poverty and degradation a class of men who had in them the seeds of industry, and of offering them some opportunity for raising their position. He did not, by his Amendment, nor would the House, if it were to accept it, pledge itself to stand by emigration as the only possible remedy; and he wished to remark, lest it should lead to any misunderstanding, that he proposed to omit the word "optional," not because any scheme of emigration could be other than optional, but because the use of the word was tautological and unnecessary. Emigration not optional would be transportation. He would welcome most heartily any practical remedies that might be suggested for Irish distress. But in regard to any scheme that might be suggested the House could only be guided in its judgment and decision upon its practical merits. Abstract expressions of sympathy were valueless. It seemed to him that it would be best, while negativing the proposal of the hon. and learned Member for Mayo, which appeared both mischievous and unpractical, to utilize the present discussion by pressing upon the Government the only remedy to hand which would entail some expenditure of Imperial money for a practical benefit, and, in spite of misrepresentation, thereby indicate that there was a strong sympathy in that House towards Ireland—that while they were determined that Ireland should be united to them by every tie, they were also resolved that she should benefit by being associated with her richer neighbour. He moved the Amendment of which he had given Notice.
    Amendment proposed, to leave out the words "migration and optional."—(Viscount Lymington.) Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    MR. O'SHAUGHNESSYsaid, that if anything was clear from the Resolution

    2007
    of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Mayo, it was that they had a population considerably excessive in certain districts of their country. This population could not be called a farming population. It was quite true that it farmed; but the farms were so small that the people could not live on them. They did not attempt to live on them. Their holdings were really little more than a home for their families. They found it very difficult to secure labour in their own district, and many thousands were driven to seek employment in England. The effect of this was to keep the wages of those who remained at home down to a miserable sum, and to keep the standard of living and comfort so low that all those motives which were found by experience to be the best stimulants for the improvement of a nation were really wanting in Ireland. It had been said that these men ought to give up their holdings and become mere labourers. If there was permanent and regular employment to be had in Ireland there would be something to be said for that proposal. But such was not the case. The Motion of the hon. and learned Member proposed two remedies for the excess of population admitted to exist in the districts referred to. One was to turn these men into farmers, properly so-called, to give them farms of sufficient size; and the other was emigration, which he was glad the hon. and learned Member for Mayo suggested should be optional. Compulsion or undue stimulation of emigration would be impolitic and futile. No one would suggest it; but he was glad that his hon. and learned Friend had emphasized the point. The number of candidates for the sum given from the Duchess of Marl borough's Fund, and for Mr. Tuke's scheme, proved that many of the people desired to emigrate. He had received a statement from Mr. Vere Foster, showing that a large number of Catholic clergymen had sought his aid on behalf of parishioners wishing to emigrate. The Catholic clergy looked with natural and proper reluctance on the departure of the people; but Mr. Vere Foster's experience showed that they largely recognized the necessities of the case. The principal opposition came from Boards of Guardians, and he did not think the farming interest on the Boards were quite wise on the point. The alterna-
    2008
    tive to emigration was that labourers were to become farmers. Now, where were they to get land? The cry against large farms and pasture farms answered that question. The programme was not exactly what would suit the farming interest. True, the presence of a large population kept labour cheap; but if outdoor relief were extended, as opponents of emigration urged, farmers would pay dearly for cheap labour, and learn that low wages meant exorbitant rates. It was said that France, with its peasant proprietary, was able to do without emigration. But France was manufacturing as well as agricultural; and commerce drew off its excess agricultural population. Besides, the population of France did not increase substantially, and its agricultural population was actually decreasing in many districts, while the town population was increasing. There was a stream of emigration from Germany, which sent out nearly 250,000 last year, from Denmark, Sweden, Italy, and every old country where the population increased, and there was no corresponding expansion of commerce. Suppose all Irish cottiers and small holders were given 10 acre farms. No doubt there would be great industry and care, and things would go on pretty well for some time. But, in the meanwhile, unless manufactures sprung up quickly and expanded, and if the natural growth of population went on at an accelerated pace, in 20 or 25 years the present problem would arise again. There would be a larger number of people in the country; and they would be compelled, at the end of a few years, either to look to emigration, or to make a subdivision of the land, which would lead to the same miserable state of things as existed at present. Turning to the project of providing the cottiers with larger holdings two proposals had been made—one to distribute among them for purposes of tillage the large farms now used for pasture; the other to give them lands not in cultivation. The rich pasture lands were all in occupation, and should be obtained by agreement or compulsion. If obtained by agreement, they should be paid for at a high price, and therefore bear a high rent—a rent which they could not pay unless turned to the best account, and which they never could pay as tillage farms. As to com-

    2009
    pulsion, would it be practical to apply it? Even if it were applied it would only lead to the necessity of paying a higher price, and imposing consequently a higher rent, which could not be paid. Another proposal was to allocate inferior lands, or lands that had gone out of cultivation. Why did they go out of cultivation? Because their cultivation did not pay. Spade industry would certainly make land pay which would be unprofitable with a large farmer. If industry could succeed, the industry of the hard-working men who went habitually to England for work would be sure of success. But spade industry in Ireland was still rude as compared with Continental countries. It would require time to grow, and the improvement of waste lands would be carried on under great difficulty at first. Medium tillage lands would be most suitable if the experiment were tried, but with three conditions. First, the rent or amount of instalment of purchase should be fair. Now, if the Government were to purchase they would have to pay the usual high price, and a high rent or rate of repayment by the peasant should be charged. He did not think the Government should undertake the purchase. That would be better done by independent responsible organizations, to whom the Government could lend on proper security. He confessed he did not like the prospect of the Government undertaking the duties of a landed proprietor on a large scale. With regard to the proposal to throw the security for the repayment upon the counties, he believed it would be looked upon with considerable misgivings and anxiety. They must admit that there had not been great anxiety to pay the small potato rate.
    MR. O'CONNOR POWERsaid, that rate was levied on the Poor Unions.
    MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY: Then, again, which county would they charge? The county the people left? It would reply that when these people were living in their cottages they cost the county nothing, and it did not see why it should be called upon to pay for them when they had left it. The county to which they went? It would say it saw no reason why it should be taxed for the poverty of another district; and, further, he was bound to say that the 2d. in the pound proposed by the hon.
    2010
    Baronet (Sir Baldwyn Leighton) as the rate to be levied would be nothing at all compared with the responsibility which would be cast upon their shoulders. It would be the duty of the Government to enforce the payment of these instalments; but he was afraid that if the same movement that was started some time ago arose again, and if someone in Chicago said—"You did not pay rent to the landlords; are you now going to pay it to the English Government?" a condition of things would arise which would bring the country nearer to civil war than it was before. [Cries of "Shame, shame!" from the Irish Members, and Ministerial cheers."] He would say that deliberately. [Cries of "Shame, shame!"] The theory of this movement was that the tenant should pay a fair rent for the land in question; and it would be the duty of the Government to enforce that rent if a combination was formed against paying.
    MR. O'CONNOR POWER: Certainly. Why not?
    MR. O'SHAUGHNESSYsaid, that, for his part, he was in favour of purchases and lettings or re-sales being made by independent organizations standing between the Government and the people. Capital was another necessity. Some small holders might have it; many would be without it. If this were to be obtained otherwise than by accumulation, from which there was not much under present circumstances to be hoped, it could only be obtained by the agency of loans from voluntary organizations. Another requisite was agricultural skill, which was a different thing from agricultural industry, and did not at present exist in an advanced state among spade cultivators in Ireland. M. Laveleye, the Belgian economist, who understood these matters and discussed them from a most sympathetic point of view, had pointed this out. The skill would come by degrees; but its absence at first would cause some difficulty and many failures. On the whole, the change from cottier proprietary could only be a matter of slow growth, and the Government could do little more than aid responsible organizations by loans for the purpose. He doubted if compulsory purchase was practicable; but, if so, it was not wise, because it would mean high prices and heavy rents. The

    2011
    best prospect was purchase by agreement, and for this an organized system would be necessary. The people had shown an aptitude for political organization which would now prove useful if transferred from politics to this subject. The organization wanted was not that of financial companies looking for profit, but organizations like Mr. Tuke's. Their main duty would be to supervise purchases and re-sales or lettings, and to provide security for repayment of Government advances, no very serious responsibility if land were bought at a fair price, and if the new tenants were honestly disposed to meet their liabilities. Two things were required for the success of such organizations. First, all classes, landlord as well as tenant, and all parties, should co-operate. It was certainly the interest of the upper classes to settle the question, and the only obstacle was the bitterness which had grown so much lately. It would be the duty of popular leaders to tone down the bitter feeling and try and restore harmony between classes. The second and most important condition was the restoration of the financial credit of the cultivating class, which had been severely shaken by the promiscuous refusal to pay rent which had existed before the "no rent" manifesto, and bad not died out when it was announced that that manifesto was to become inoperative. The State was only the trustee of the public purse, and would not be permitted to lend except on trustworthy security. The project of the hon. and learned Member for Mayo would have an improved prospect of success when the lessons of the last three years were unlearned, and when the credit of the agricultural class was somewhat restored.
    MR. O'DONNELLsaid, the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Limerick (Mr. O'Shaughnessy) was likely to create more interest in Ireland than in that House; and, if he had to give a summary of it, he should say that on that occasion the hon. and learned Member had played the part of pilot fish to the Treasury Bench shark, who would probably follow him. The hon. and learned Member sought to convince the House that this way of dealing with Irish distress was a very good way; but, unfortunately, it was not practical; that the other way suggested was also excel-
    2012
    lent, but not practical; that the third, fourth, and fifth plans were, unhappily, all equally unpracticable; and that the only solution of the present difficulty in Ireland was for the people to put their trust in a Liberal Government that had a keen appreciation of the talents of their Liberal supporters. The hon. and learned Member professed to sympathize, to some extent, with the spirit of the Resolution of the hon. and learned Member for Mayo (Mr. O'Connor Power); but, so far as any purpose was discernible in his speech, it was in support of the Amendment of the noble Lord opposite (Viscount Lymington). With reference to the speech of the noble Lord, he could not help thinking that it was very well summarized beforehand in a cartoon which appeared in this week's United Ireland. That cartoon represented an eminent Liberal on one side of the page, and Cromwell on the other, an eminent Radical who anticipated some of his followers in the initiation of the policy of "Hell or Connaught" for the Irish race. A conversation was represented to be going on between the eminent Radical of the 17th century and the eminent Liberal of the 19th. The gist of the conversation was, that Cromwell was congratulating his successor in the government of Ireland on having hit upon a more effective method of getting rid of the Irish race than he had hit upon himself. Cromwell only suggested that the Irish people might be driven into Connaught, while the Chief Secretary gave them no alternative on this earth upon this side of the Coast of America. He had no doubt that the Government would be prepared to endorse the plan; but he regarded it as nothing less than a policy of extermination. It might be called the dynamite policy of Her Majesty's Government in Ireland; and the crime, when committed by a responsible Government upon hundreds and thousands of people, was hardly less than the offences committed by any other class of misdoers. To his mind, the English nation owed the Irish an enormous debt of gratitude for inestimable services rendered them. The British nation, according to the testimony of the Duke of Wellington, would have failed in the contest against the French had it not been for the Irish soldiery. They now only asked for a paltry sum—whether it was £7,000,000

    2013
    or £20,000,000, it was a paltry sum compared with the vast sum the Government had flung among the Afghan mountains, into South Africa, or Egypt. It would enable Ireland to make a fair start, of which it had hitherto been debarred. But what was the return the British Government made for the service he had mentioned? Why, only a policy of rack-renting and extermination. During the past half-century the Irish people contributed in rack rents, which were spent in England, the sum of £500,000,000 sterling, and had also enormously contributed by their labour to the profits of British manufacture. In the name of expedience, and in the name of the present and future, he called on the Government not to trifle, or shuffle, or put forward any flimsy, small pretexts of the murderous "pinch of hunger" policy, but to meet the exigency as if it occurred in Lancashire. Let the necessary sum be forthcoming on the Imperial credit or from the Imperial Funds; and he ventured to say that were £20,000,000 to be advanced without delay for the purpose of giving these poor people a fair start, in 10 years time the interest on the money lent would be paid over and over again. Within the last three years 100,000 men, women, and children had been driven from the shores of Ireland. In spite of the efforts of so-called remedial legislation, the sentence of banishment was at that moment imminent over the heads of 40,000 more. This monstrous, unmanly, and murderous war against Ireland must cease. The history of English conduct towards Ireland was a history of infamy. Was it not time for it to cease? The Irish Party might not be listened to now; but they would be listened to, perhaps, when the words "too late" were on the lips of Englishmen. It was no use introducing peddling remedies, or putting Liberal place-hunters in fat sinecures for the evils of Ireland. This the Government had already done. The Government, using the arguments of some of their supporters, might declare that they could not accept the extravagant proposals made from the Home Rule Benches; but for every £10,000,000 which was refused to Ireland there would be £10,000,000 wanted; and he feared that, before the century was passed, it would be regretted that no
    2014
    attempt had been made to do justice to Ireland. It was the height of folly, and an insult to human intelligence, to delay assistance to Ireland until she was able to stand on her own legs; for the country had been struck down and kept down from generation to generation. Only for a short period of 18 or 20 years had Ireland been free from the grasp of England. The Government might pass Coercion Acts and make them permanent, and continue to adopt the policy of the Mississippi steamboat captain, who got a negro to sit on the safety valve of the engine; but, some time or other, an explosion would take place. He would only add that, if English statesmen were determined to get rid of the Irish people, then he would advise the Irish race all over the world, by every legitimate means, to get rid of English misgovernment in Ireland.
    MR. EWARTsaid, he cordially supported the Motion of the hon. and learned Member for Mayo (Mr. O'Connor Power). He felt mortified that the affairs of his country should occupy so much of the time and labour of Parliament; and he thought a remedy for the existing state of things ought to be devised. There was no remedy, however, except the removal of the people from their miserable holdings, which were not sufficient to support nature, to some place where they could find a respectable living. He preferred voluntary emigration as a means of obtaining relief; but he thought that much good would be effected by the reclamation of waste land. He would urge the Government to give the present proposal a trial on a small scale first. He saw no difficulty in raising the money by the poor rates; but as the Chancellor of the Exchequer had said that by the aid of the Terminable Annuities the National Debt was being paid off at the rate of £.5,000,000 a-year, he thought that some of that money might profitably be expended in reclaiming the waste lands of Ireland, although he was well aware of the enormous difficulties of such an undertaking.
    COLONEL COLTHUESTsaid, he thought that far more people would desire to emigrate than could possibly be properly provided for. He wished especially to warn the Government against using the agency of Boards of Guardians for that purpose. The only desire of Guardians was to got rid of the poorest and most

    2015
    helpless, who could not possibly succeed as emigrants. Emigration could only be successfully carried out under a Special Commission which should be wholly independent of the Boards of Guardians. With respect to the reclamation of land, experience had amply proved that it was possible, and in many cases profitable. The Government had, some 50 years ago, undertaken reclamation at King William's Town, and it was commonly said to be a failure. In 1854 the land was sold at a very low price, owing to mismanagement; but the work had been by no means a failure. Unfortunately, the land had been disposed of, not to the occupiers, but to speculators. But, in spite of that, when he visited the place not long ago, he found it an oasis in the desert, compared with the surrounding more or less unreclaimed or badly reclaimed land. In 1843, under the Act of 1843, an attempt was made to encourage works of arterial drainage, and during the 10 following years 500 applications were made under that Act, and many most useful works begun, which had since been completed. But, unfortunately, during the famine years, some works were undertaken, and the scope of others enlarged, with a view to affording employment; and a very large, and, in many cases, an injudicious outlay incurred. Some owners became alarmed, a Committee of Inquiry was appointed, and a change of system determined upon, under which only about 20 works had been carried out from 1863 to 1882. He would only add that neither the scheme of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Mayo, nor any other scheme, would have a chance of success, unless the law gave the power to the Board of Works to initiato works of arterial drainage as well as to carry them out.
    MR. O'BRIENsaid, that, although he had an Amendment on the Paper, he found that the difference between him and the hon. and learned Member for Mayo (Mr. O'Connor Power) was not so substantial as the terms of his Motion, had led him to anticipate; but he was afraid that it was of no use shutting their eyes to the fact that the two words in the Motion that had the greatest charm for the ears of that House were "emigration" and "consolidation." He could not agree that the transportation of the Irish people—no
    2016
    matter under what seductive conditions—? was the duty or business of any Government worthy the name; and he was quite sure that, as a measure of relief for this particular class of tenants under any conditions that the Government wore likely to concede, any scheme of Government emigration would be a curse to the unfortunate people themselves, and would be a reproach to anyone who had hand, act, or part in sanctioning it. He had no sympathy for the Government that could find no better plan for dealing with a difficult)' which was one of the hereditary punishments of English crime in Ireland. At best, it was the resource of feebleness to say, as the Government said—"We have here 50,000 or 100,000 people, whose misery is always appealing to us and rebuking us. Let us buy them off and ship them away to another hemisphere, so that whatever happens to them we will be out of earshot." Whatever the motive of this scheme of emigration was it would only end in failure. The scheme of emigration by families was a perfectly delusive one. The people they wanted to keep at home—the young and the strong, and those who had means to carry away—would go readily enough. They wanted no stimulus to emigrate; 84,000 people went last year, and 3,000,000 had emigrated since the time of the Famine—a pretty severe drain on Ireland if bloodletting were any good for her. The very people the Government wanted to go would not go; and no country would receive the old, the helpless, and the feeble, as had been mentioned by the hon. and learned Member for Mayo. What were many of these poor people to do in a new country, where they were just as much out of place as if they were Red Indians—people, one-half of whom did not speak English and had never handled a plough? He had had the curiosity to inquire into the success of the Government scheme of emigration in Donegal, and found that the cases were not such as touched upon the real question at all. As regarded the question of consolidation, he wished to say that if Government succeeded in tempting away any large portion of the population they would not in any way benefit those who remained behind. As the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) had often stated, those little holdings were altogether worked by the spade labour

    2017
    of the tenants and their family; they would not pay anybody who would have to use hired labour; they were utterly worthless for grazing purposes; and if they were not cultivated, they would, in a few years, rush back into heath and rushes. It was quite possible that if a lot of these little holdings were suddenly thrown on the market, there would be land-grabbers to grasp at them, and offer impossible rents for them; but had not Ireland suffered enough from earth-hunger of that sort already? No; the true remedy was that suggested by the Bishops—to take things as they found them, and make the best of them. These little holdings were capable of supporting their tenants with the other means of living which they possessed if the tenants had some little stock—were more skilled in agriculture, if the rack-rents were reduced, and some security given for the improvements made. If the proposal of the Bishops of Ireland, made three months ago, had been accepted, and a few hundred thousand pounds risked in loans to these small tenants, the Government would have had, by this time, the men earning the money on their own lands; they soon would have been able to feed themselves and re-stock their holdings; and if, in addition, some little encouragement was given to their fisheries, the Government would have done something that statesmen might be prouder of than of their empty workhouses and emigrant ships. The Royal Commission proposed by the hon. and learned Member for Mayo might have some result; but he had no faith in official Commissions. It seemed like a mockery that they should be debating this subject that night without any reference to the fact that while they were talking thousands of people were in a state of frenzy and despair for want of food or of seeds to put into the ground. Inspector Woodhouse himself stated that in the parish of Glencolumbkill there were 1,400 people; one-third of the whole population did not own any possession, except some fowls and, perhaps, a pig, and had no seed potatoes or oats; but while making these admissions the Government Inspectors sent in Reports the obvious effect of which, he did not say their purpose, was to whittle away and to minimize the poverty and sufferings of the people, and not only to stay the hand of the Government, but
    2018
    stay the hand of private charity as well. These officials seemed to think it was all right as long as the people were not dying like flies of hunger. Anybody who had been through these districts could tell them that people had died and were dying of hunger. The neglect of the last few months had sowed the seeds of permanent disease and decay in thousands of constitutions; and if the people were not dying like flies they might thank, not the foresight of the Government, but the charity of people who did not allow themselves to be chilled by the scepticism of the Government, for the Government had done nothing except to send officials through the country to see, apparently, how much longer the people could hold out. To tell them to go into the workhouse was to betray a most heartrending incapacity to understand the feelings of the people. They would die first—not even the priests could induce them to go there. If there were, as they were told in that House, local arrangements for Poor Law relief, they were unworkable and inoperative. All the Government offered was a ticket of admission to a workhouse perhaps 20 miles distant. He did not want to harrow the House by going into details of the distress which he had himself seen among the people; but he would ask whether the Government were going, for the next four and a-half months, to leave the whole of that wretched population to depend upon that charity which the Government themselves, by their attitude, were discouraging? Until the potatoes were fit for digging—and in Donegal that would not be until the middle of August—if there were any potatoes to dig at all, the great bulk of these people would have to be supported by private or public charity if they were to remain alive, and that was apart altogether from where they were going to get the seeds to put down at all within the next few weeks. The other night Members from Ireland appealed to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, for the sake of these poor people, for some share of the £2,700,000 that he was dispensing with such lordly generosity among rich people who did not want it. They pointed out that in dealing with these people they were not dealing with turbulent politicians, but with a people who, perhaps unfortunately for themselves, were about the meekest and most in offen-

    2019
    sive on earth. They pointed out that it was not a matter of politics, but of common humanity; but they might as well have appealed to the winds and waves on the Donegal shores. He had no further appeal to make, except that which had been made by the Catholic Bishops—namely, to ask the Irish people abroad to do what they had often done before—to feed their unfortunate fellow-countrymen whom an English Government and rack-renting landlords, supported by England, had left to starvation. He would be glad if he was wrong, and if the speech of the Chief Secretary undeceived him; but he confessed that he had not much hope of any great or permanent amelioration of the condition of the peasants in the West of Ireland until their country obtained the control of its own resources, and used them not for the extermination of the people, but for their encouragement, happiness, and prosperity in their own land.
    MR. TREVELYANsaid, that he did not propose to refer at any great length to the speech of the hon. Member who had just sat down. It was a speech marked by great earnestness and sincerity; and the language, though strong and energetic, did not, he was quite certain, run ahead of the hon. Member's convictions, and was merely strong and energetic for the purpose of impressing those convictions on the House. The reason that he did not propose to follow his speech closely was that he had very much work before him, not in the length of the speech which he was about to make, but in the extreme gravity of the subject which had been brought forward. The hon. Member could not be said to have spoken outside his Amendment, which, although he could not move, he had referred to. The hon. Member's Amendment contained certain negative propositions and some very positive proposals for granting outdoor relief, for making loans to small occupiers and other purposes, and the three or four most important questions to which, if he attempted to reply, he should consume more time than the House would be willing to concede. With no want of respect to the hon. Member, he should refer him, on those subjects, to the speeches which he had made on former occasions, and should address himself at once to the proposal of the hon. and learned Member for Mayo (Mr. O'Connor Power),
    2020
    which, to save time, might be said to embrace all proposals with regard to reclamation. With respect to the other speeches that had been made, the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) had used large words introducing a great many issues, and had endeavoured to persuade, or rather to force, the House to contribute £10,000.000 or £20,000,000 as a reward to Ireland for her former services and as compensation for her injuries. The hon. Member, with all his eloquence, certainly did not do anything to contribute towards persuading him that the scheme in favour of which he was speaking was a scheme on which £10,000,000 or £20,000,000 could be spent with any advantage to Ireland. The speech of the hon. Member for Belfast (Mr. Ewart), who spoke more quietly than the hon. Member for Dungarvan, was, however, more calculated to alarm financiers, for he proposed to take the £60,000,000 or £70,000,000 accruing from time to time by the determination of Terminable Annuities, applicable to the reduction of the National Debt, and apply them to the development of Irish resources. But the services of the country must be considered on their own merits, and a proposed service must be defended absolutely on its own ground, without the money that was required for another service. The importance of this debate he considered to be great, and the question one of the most urgent character; while, though the Resolution was in somewhat vague terms, there was much in it which gave the Government satisfaction, for it called attention to the chronic character of the distress in parts of Ireland. The hon. and learned Member said he intended to propose a permanent remedy, and the fact was that it was no use looking for any relief from temporary measures. In order to be effectual they must be permanent. What was the remedy proposed? With regard to that, the hon. and learned Member had wisely given the Government Notice of his scheme, knowing that it would be of no use to bring it suddenly forward when it was impossible for them to consider it. What, then, was the cause of the chronic distress in some parts of Ireland? Certainly, it was not so severe as it was in 1847. It was much more local, and that enabled the Government to look at those parts of the country which were suffer-

    2021
    ing at that time, and which were not suffering now, with a view to determine what remedies to apply to the rest. When he was in Ireland he was always inquiring, and it was rather hard to find an answer, for some district to be pointed out which was very much distressed in 1847, but which was not so now, and he found one in Skibbereen. Mr. Senior, a gentleman of great authority, talked about certain districts being reduced to "one vast Skibbereen," meaning that they would be reduced to great poverty. Skibbereen was now very much the reverse of unprosperous. He had been able to obtain the figures respecting its three baronies—namely, Carberry East, Carberry West, and the West of East Carberry—he could not obtain statistics regarding the Unions—but they showed that whereas in 1841 one district contained a population of 130,000, it now contained 68,000, a diminution of 47 per cent. In the rural part of Cork County,—that was, excepting the City of Cork—the population had fallen 46 percent, in Limerick 50, and in Tipperary it had fallen from 435,000 to 199,000, or 54 per cent. Now, the diminution in the Union of Clifden was only 30 per cent, in Bolmullet 29 per cent, in Newport 16 per cent, in Oughterard 13 per cent, and in Swinford only 4 per cent. It would be seen, therefore, that there was no proportionate reduction in these years in the districts now distressed. [Mr. SEXTOX: Since what date?] Since 1841; and this diminution was not in the more populous, but in the poorer parts. Therefore, they came to the conclusion that the distressed districts were those in which the population was large and the land usually poor. So far they agreed with the hon. and learned Member. They also agreed that the automatic reduction of population was not sufficient, and that it required to be stimulated. They agreed also in promoting emigration; but side by side with the emigration scheme he promoted a scheme of migration, and it was on the system of migration that the Government joined issue with the hon. and learned Member. It was a very important issue, and if the Resolution was carried the country would be pledged to action of a very serious character. The hon. and learned Member proposed to place families upon farms of 20 acres of semi-waste land. The scheme of the hon. and
    2022
    learned Member did not, he was glad to find, refer to the breaking up of rich grazing farms in the central districts of Ireland. That proposal, he imagined, was only advanced upon the platform, and the cost of that plan for each family would be so great that it would be ruinous to the Exchequer, and also ruinous to the most successful industries in Ireland. The hon. and learned Member proposed to take land of the value of 5s. per acre, and he assumed that the fee simple might be secured for £6 an acre. In order to settle these 25,000 families he would require 500,000 acres, which would be equivalent to an outlay to the public of £3,000,000, with £2,000,000 extra for farm buildings, roads, and so on, as against the £625,000 for which they would be emigrated by the Government, being at the rate of £5 per individual; but he said the £625,000 would be a dead loss, while the £5,000,000 would be advanced in the shape of a loan, which would be repaid after the lapse of a certain number of years. Now, what were the difficulties which the Government felt with regard to this scheme? The groundwork of it was the assumption that there were 500,000 acres, chiefly in the West of Ireland, of waste and semi-waste land fit for cultivation, and that 20 acres would support a family and pay a tolerably large rent. But observe how large that rent was. If the finance of the hon. and learned Member was correct, every such family would owe the Government £200 for the 20 acres, a sum to be paid off, together with the interest, at 3 per cent. Now, in the first place, the hon. and learned Member put at too low a figure the debt from the tenant to the Government. He would not dispute as to the number of years' purchase. He would allow that the selling price was £6 on an acre. But, allowing that, he thought he could show that £120 for the purchase money, and £8 for the proportion of the rent for the farm house, farm buildings, roads, &c, was too low. They brought these people from one district to another, in order to better their condition, and to do so permanently. Now, in the opinion of Sir Richard Griffith—than whom no higher authority on Irish matters existed—no farm ought to be less than 30 statute acres as an absolute minimum. It was most important that the farmer should

    2023
    have 40 or 50 acres; but, at least, he should have 30 acres of good arable and grazing land, to enable him to become one of a solid, prosperous yeomanry; for if they did not do that he did not see what object they should obtain. Now, to stock such a farm, to raise the buildings, and make the roads, would demand, not £80, but at least £250.
    MR. O'CONNOR POWER: I do not propose to stock the farm. As I explained in my speech, I would only proceed very gradually.
    MR. TREVELYANsaid, he was going to take the hon. and learned Member's figures, because the Government were not satisfied with them as they stood. The purchase of a farm of good land would require, not £200, but £750. £200 would have to be repaid to the Government, with 3 per cent per annum for interest. To repay that sum at the end of 30 years would be equal to £10 4s. a-year, or 10 s. 2d. an acre; if repaid within 40 years it would be £8 13 s. a-year, or 8s. 8d. an acre; if within 50 years—which was a long time indeed to look forward to for becoming a peasant proprietor—it would be £7 15 s., or 7s. 9d. an acre. In the "Bright Clauses" of the Act of 1870, and in the Act of 1881, 31 years was taken as the limit; but, in order to bring the thing to a narrow issue, he would allow that it was safe to take the term of 50 years. If that was admitted, it had to be proved that 600,000 acres of land could be found susceptible of such cultivation as would not only support a family, but enable the tenant to pay 2s. 9d. for every acre more than was paid under the present conditions. How did such land exist? According to a paper by Mr. Ball Green, who was in the office of Sir Richard Griffith, the area of Ireland in bog, moor, and mountain was 4,497,000 acres. This bog, moor, and mountain was classified thus. There were 1,200,000 of deep fat bog in the low country. A small sum might be expended in draining this partially, and in making roads for the purpose of making this land accessible and available for farming; but, except in very small portions, to turn this into arable land was altogether out of the question. There were 1,100,000 acres of wild mountain tops, ranging in elevation from 1,000 feet and upwards. This elevated land was quite incapable of the improvements of the nature
    2024
    suggested. This gave 1,000,000 acres ranging from 800 feet to 1,000 feet in height. Now, said Mr. Ball Green, something must be done to try and make these mountains better adapted for grazing, especially young cattle in the summer months; but any large outlay with a view to reclamation and the culture of crops would not be remunerative. There remained something like 1,200,000 acres. This land might be improved by opening surface drains, which would cost about 20 s. an acre. He remembered seeing pastures of that sort, which reminded him of the Cheviot Hills in his own county. Mr. Ball Green had said that the value of these lands might be increased by about 2s. 6d. per acre; but the condition under which the value of the land could be increased was that it should be taken by capitalists for the purpose of feeding large flocks of sheep, and not by small cottier tenants, for the purpose of growing crops. But the general conclusion of Sir Richard Griffith with reference to those lands was that it was expedient to encourage parties with capital to open drains for the purpose of improving the quality of the natural grass, and that would be most advantageously effected by the proprietors themselves. That system was carried out in Scotland successfully. Such lands were not suited for allotments for the poor, as the cultivation of potatoes was always doubtful. How provident Sir Richard Griffith was in that opinion was proved by the fact that in the last 10 years 400,000 acres had got out of tillage. That had been quoted, he hardly knew why, to prove the necessity of legislation such as that recommended by the hon. and learned Member; but, in his (Mr. Trevelyan's) opinion, it was a powerful warning against it. Land that had been going out of tillage for economic reasons was hardly suited for the purpose recommended. [Mr. O'CONNOR POWER: I said the tenants had no security.] The tenants would have security now; they had now an absolute security; but it was better to leave it to economical causes, and see whether they would induce them to take it. If there was much land capable of tillage in Ireland, but not tilled, even if it were not the interest of the farmer to bring it under tillage, it was the highest interest of the landlord to do so. The hon. and learned Member had said there were people who were not fit to

    2025
    emigrate on account of their being unenterprizing and not strong in body. But he (Mr. Trevelyan), believed that if a man were not good in work he was not fit to emigrate. They might augur from the Bright Clauses and the Land Act how very little chance there was of the proposal of the hon. and learned Member being successfully carried out; for it was, after all, another form of peasant proprietary, and proposed that the peasant should buy indifferent or bad land. There had not been more than 1,200 applications in 12 years from men who had had the opportunity of purchasing land, and among those were a surprising number of men of good and even high position. A very small number of Irish farmers had availed themselves of the opportunity of purchasing good and improvable land though they already had the stock; and now the Government were asked to induce a vast number of poor people without stock, with no connection with the soil, to purchase bad land, which had been rejected by tenants and landlords as not susceptible of cultivation. The land in question, though bad for tillage, was good for grazing; but there were tenants on it already, and the work of ejecting those tenants was one of extreme difficulty, and cause for great irritation, because an improving landlord in Ireland who wished to buy out had, at certain periods, been most unpopular; and that would be the position of the British Government if the proposal of the hon. and learned Member were carried out. Then, again, there were the labourers in the neighbourhood, often badly enough off, so that if the present occupiers were dispossessed they would have the first claim to the land; and he was not sure that the Government, even with money in their hands, would find it more easy to get rid of the existing tenants than the landlord who now wished to clear his land for consolidation or other purposes. But, besides having the same difficulties in clearing the land as a landlord, the Government would have the same difficulty in getting in the rent. It was impossible for anyone who had watched the commencement of public ownership in Ireland to be blind to the danger of extending that system indefinitely, or under unfavourable circumstances. On a limited scale, and in isolated cases, it might be that the Go-
    2026
    vernment could collect rent more easily than the landlord; but the case might be very different if, in a large district, the Government was the only landlord inheriting all the feelings which had at times been felt and expressed against the landlord class. And if they were now to try the experiment of making the Government a landlord and rent-charger they would make it under the most unfavourable circumstances. The people in the congested districts—the districts from which the population had to be migrated—had, in many cases, got entirely out of the habit of paying rent. He was not now entering into politics; he was mentioning facts. [An hon. MEMBER: The Church Body collected their rent.] If the hon. Gentleman who had interrupted him had listened to his argument he would have heard that he admitted that there were isolated cases scattered over Ireland in which rent had been paid. The Church tenants had been mostly people who paid rent; but the people in the congested districts had not been paying rent—that was a plain fact. In some of the districts the average rent was 30 s. a-year; and that rent had not been paid, in many cases, for five or six years past. Clergymen, whom hon. Gentlemen opposite would recognize from their point of view as the greatest friends of the tenants, had spoken of the terrible hardships which these poor people had had to undergo; and it had been represented as a very great grievance, and a main cause of the present distress, that they had had to muster a single years' rent in order to take advantage of the Arrears Act. And they were to take these people, with their habits and with their ideas as to the payment of rent, and they were to tell them to pay a rent, not of 30 s. but of £8 a-year—a rent some 40 per cent greater than the land could bear. To bring the Government into relations with such people in the character of an exactor of rent, and an evictor if it did not get the rent, would be as unfortunate a proceeding as could well be devised. They would be told they had the collateral security of a rate in aid from the neighbourhood, or from, in case of need, the whole of Ireland. The hon. Baronet opposite (Sir Baldwyn Leighton) had said he would begin by making the Union from which the people went undergo its share of the burden, together

    2027
    with the Union to which they went. The hon. Baronet mentioned Mayo. He (Mr. Trevelyan) would turn to the circumstances of the distressed Unions in Mayo—namely, Glenties and Swinford. The united valuation of those Unions was £96,000, and the population 110,000. He was willing to let the hon. and learned Member for Mayo (Mr. O'Connor Power) say how many of the 110,000 people might be migrated under his scheme; but he (Mr. Trevelyan) reckoned that the number would not be less than 20,000, and 20,000 persons at £20 per head would involve the two Unions in an outlay of £400,000. Two Unions with a valuation of £96,000 would, according to the hon. Baronet (Sir Baldwyn Leighton), have to bear the responsibility of a debt of £400,000.
    SIR BALDWYN LEIGHTON: I said the county.
    MR. TREVELYANbegged the hon. Baronet's pardon, and would withdraw anything he had said under the misapprehension. The hon. Baronet, however, did say that the nature of the rate in aid would be such that it would extend as required, first over the Union, then over the county, and then over the whole of Ireland. Now, if they knew anything of human nature, they knew that when the people were aware that they had behind them, first their Union, then their county, and then the whole of Ireland, a penny of rent would not be got from any except the most exceptionally honest and energetic, and that not because they were Irishmen, but because they were human beings. If they failed, then, in paying their rent, with what justice could the Government go to the neighbouring baronies and counties, and ask them to pay money to make up the shortcomings of rent of tenants in what would be comparatively distant districts? The Government already found some difficulty in collecting taxes to which any exception could be taken. Great difficulty was experienced in collecting such taxes as those for compensation for injury to life and property, and for the outstanding loans towards the relief of distress. The people did not like paying such taxes; but just fancy asking one farmer to pay another farmer's rent! The hon. and learned Member's scheme was interesting and extremely well worked out; and he (Mr. Trevelyan) should be very glad
    2028
    if it could be carried out to a limited extent by a company—or by an association which had at its head Mr. Tuke. If ever the time came when any responsible body was prepared to take the matter in hand, and to lay any carefully devised scheme before the Government, it should receive their best consideration. The Government were reluctantly obliged to differ from the hon. and learned Gentleman; and he (Mr. Trevelyan) now begged the House not to vote with the hon. and learned Member because of the hearty support he had given to the notion of emigration. By declining to adopt the Motion of the hon. and learned Member no hon. Member would commit himself against emigration; for the Government, while they were forced to differ from the hon. and learned Member, agreed that the chronic distress of Ireland must be relieved by a permanent method, and the permanent method which they believed to be most effective, and most in accord with the wishes of the people, was emigration. They believed this because they were told so by people they could trust, and because of facts which no one could gainsay. Since 1851, the date when official information began to be collected, 2,800,000 emigrants had left Ireland; and this enormous emigration had been conducted by the private resources of the people, except so far as it was assisted, to a limited extent, by Boards of Guardians—to the extent of 34,000 persons. This emigration, being conducted by private means, failed where it was most needed—namely, in those districts where the misery and depression of the conditions under which the people lived loft them without the means of exchanging those conditions for others and better ones. This fact had been long known to private men of great benevolence, who had offered the means of emigration to certain families in the West of Ireland, and who, whatever else they had effected, had ascertained that the people were largely anxious to try their fortunes in another land. At this point the Government determined to step in and assist with money where money was required; but in stepping in they felt they incurred very heavy obligations. The automatic emigration in earlier days from Ireland had been conducted under conditions which involved the emigrants in great hardship, both

    2029
    when they were going out and in the land where they found themselves; and the Government, though their action in the matter was only that of offering to assist those who wished to emigrate, felt bound to see Government money only given to emigration of the sort that would benefit both those who went and those who stayed in Ireland. On this point they differed from the Conference of Roman Catholic clergy of the diocese of Swinford, who, in a series of resolutions they passed, said they had neither publicly nor privately discouraged emigration, but they were opposed to family emigration. The Government did not dispute the sincerity of the Roman Catholic clergy; but they differed from them as to the sort of emigration desirable. The Government held that if a whole family emigrated it would be happier when it was on another shore; and there was much more hope that if a whole family emigrated the land left would be added to the neighbouring farm, and that, therefore, permanent congestion of the population would be prevented in the future. If they disagreed with Professor Baldwin in certain matters, they agreed with him in this—that when emigration or migration took place a whole family should go together. But even without the alternative of a scheme of migration, the people had gladly, and in great numbers, accepted emigration. At the last Report 21,462 people had applied from 29 Unions. In most of these the people had to supplement the Government grant out of their own resources, unless the Union thought fit to borrow; but in four Unions, or parts of Unions, the operations were put under the care of Mr. Tuke and his associates. In those four Unions, out of a population of 45,900, 6,420 had applied to be emigrated. Mr. Tuke and Mr. Sydney Buxton, giving that time and personal labour which people were so much less willing to give than money, undergoing hardships and toils in wild and scattered districts, had commenced, incidental to extended operations, the work of emigration in a manner most satisfactory to the people in their charge. Mr. Tuke, in a letter to the Under Secretary, said—
    "I think the Lord Lieutenant may like to know that our work has really commenced, and that our first detachment left Galway on Good Friday. The party consisted of 33 families and
    2030
    a few single men and women, together 24 persons. The whole of the emigrants were going to friends or relatives in the United States, and the accompanying list of their destinations may he of interest as showing how widely they are spread. There was not the slightest sign of regret on leaving—no shedding of tears. This must largely be attributed to the adoption of the family method of emigration, in place of the single member of the family leaving as has usually been needful hitherto in the absence of any assisted passage."
    Since then 350 men, women, and children had gone from Belmullet in a spirit of hope and cheerfulness which excited the sympathy of those who witnessed it. In all, he supposed, Mr. Tuke and his friends alone had emigrated from the four Unions placed under their charge from 4,000 to 5,000 persons; and only within the last few days he (Mr. Trevelyan) had learned with great delight that by making personal efforts of an extreme nature, and especially by enlisting the services for that purpose of Mr. Hodgkin, they hoped to take over the Union of Glenties, and, perhaps, several of the districts in Donegal. There was another Committee working hard at Ardfert, and another at Killarney. Great care was taken to accept only those families in which the workers outnumbered the non-workers, in order that the people might find themselves in their new home in a condition to face the difficulty of their new position. This had produced one very painful result—namely, that many families, whose appeal for help was the most urgent and the most piteous, had to be refused. The expectations of the Government as to the economical effects of their action had been fulfilled. They had made careful inquiry as to what became of the land which was abandoned by the emigrants; and they were told that in the majority of instances it was let to the adjoining occupiers, being either sold by the outgoing tenant or given by the landlord. Such was the Report of Mr. H. A. Robinson, the Local Government Board Inspector; and he had written to-day for the statistics which Mr. Robinson had collected. Emigration was successful when those whom people knew and trusted invited them across the water; and the Government were determined to send no one to the United States who had not such an invitation, and no one to Canada whose place was not prepared for him either

    2031
    by private benevolence or public organization. He had got a Report from Mr. Tuke in which that gentleman informed him that—
    "As regards the families selected for Canada, some will go direct to situations promised for them to Mr. Hodgkin during his recent useful visit last autumn. A few will proceed to Winnipeg, where a Committee has been formed for their reception by Archbishop Tuché, and all others are consigned to the care of the emigration agents of the Canadian Government at Toronto, to be forwarded as required."
    Hon. Members must not think this was a small matter. It was necessary to begin somewhat slowly and carefully. Hon. Members must not think the results inadequate; they must not lose sight of the enormous importance of-the assertion of the principle of Government aid to emigration, and the translation of that principle into ever so moderate an amount of effective action. Offers of the most interesting nature had been made to the Government, offers which he did not wish to describe in detail, but which the Government believed involved a far smaller expenditure than that which would be required by the less extensive scheme for re-settling whole families in Ireland. Those offers showed that a very large number of families might be settled where they would be very much wanted, and where they would be welcomed under circumstances which would absolutely insure their success, as families and as small communities, within a very limited time. The only reason why the offers had not been closed with already was that the Government were determined not to spoil by hurry the success of their operations. If, as was now the case, the emigrants went out with friends and to friends, with a comfortable outfit, in a good ship, with everybody they cared for most about them—if, when they were on the other side of the water, they found themselves in a place where they were wanted and welcomed, they would send back accounts which would draw out those whom they left behind—their neighbours and connections; and by a process which was consistent with humanity, with sound policy, and with the true economic outlines and principles of Government action, a result would be produced which would make the West of Ireland a far more prosperous, and, as he believed, a far happier country in the future than it had been in
    2032
    the past. In what he had said be had endeavoured to be practical, and he did not think hon. Gentlemen would accuse him of having been heartless. He had only now to say that if the Government could not accept the Resolution of the hon. and learned Member for Mayo (Mr. O'Connor Power), even after his admirable speech, it was because they believed that it would deal a serious blow at the true doctrines of Government interference.
    MR. MITCHELL HENRYsaid, he hoped the House would indulge him for a few moments while he addressed himself to this subject, to which, for many years, he had paid the greatest attention. He was, of course, well acquainted with the West of Ireland; and he and others interested in that part of the country could not but feel grateful to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for his concluding observations. He confessed, however, that with this exception the whole tone of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman had gone like a lump of lead to his heart. All that the right hon. Gentleman had said came to this—human beings, our fellow-countrymen in Ireland, were to be considered as so many economic entities, and were to be got rid of out of the country because it was too much trouble to consider, and too difficult to determine, what was to be done with them in their present condition. When Chief Secretaries, who knew little or nothing of the country, stood up in the House of Commons and proclaimed such sentiments, he felt sure they would be heard of in Ireland with dismay and horror. The right hon. Gentleman had said, in language which could not be mistaken, that in the economy of the United Kingdom Ireland ought to be a grazing farm. He (Mr. Mitchell Henry) denied that. He maintained that the rearing of beasts consequent on the extirpation of the people was neither wise, nor could it ever be successful. The right hon. Gentleman had told them that wherever the population had declined there had been something like prosperity. How much would he like the population of Ireland to decline? Did the House know that, at the present moment, there were fewer people in Ireland than in any year during the present century? The decline in population commenced in 1800, the year of the Union of Ireland with England

    2033
    and with short intervals it had continued to decline, until, at the present moment, the population was 1,000,000 below what it was in 1853. How was that decline brought about? By emigration, forced by hunger and the pangs of suffering. If that was a thing of which a Government ought to be proud, he admitted the British Government had reason to be proud. Were they not, on the contrary, told by everybody who had written on economical questions that the glory and prosperity of a country depended upon its population? Let them compare the state of things in England and Scotland with the state of things in Ireland. In Ireland there had been, ever since the beginning of the century, a decline of population, until at this moment there were fewer people there than ever before—he believed that now there were only 5,129,000. The population of England during the same time had increased three-fold, for instead of 9,000,000 people in England and Wales in 1801, there were now 27,000,000. In Scotland, in place of a population of 1,608,000 in 1801, there was now a population of 3,731,000. Was it not a fair question for the House to ask itself—"How is it that in England there has been this trebling of the population and prosperity, and in Scotland there has been more than a doubling of the population and prosperity, while in Ireland there has been nothing but misery and famine and a decrease of population?" That was the practical question they had to answer; and the reply to it was that the mistaken economical laws which this country had imposed upon Ireland, against the advice of her chosen Representatives, had been absolutely fatal to the population. But more than that; he knew that during the whole time the country had been governed by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who had no practical knowledge of the place which they had to govern. If his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, who had told them, when they proposed to make a better use of the land which God had given to the people of Ireland, that it was impossible to reclaim it or make it better, was in earnest, he recommended him to take a tour in the West of Ireland and see whether reclamation and improvement were impossible. His right hon. Friend had intro-
    2034
    duced into his speech a number of figures taken from a Paper emanating from Mr. Ball Green, which were, no doubt, intended to produce a considerable effect upon the House. But he would ask what authority was Mr. Ball Green, who lived at the Valuation Office in Dublin, upon this question—what did he know about the reclamation and improvement of land? [A laugh.] The Secretary to the Treasury laughed at this; but he could assure the House that the person who had been quoted as an authority by the Chief Secretary had no knowledge whatever of what ought to be done in Ireland. He had always stated in that House, and it would soon be acknowledged in this country, that, however the population of Ireland might be thinned out by emigration, there would always be a residuum which would remain in a state of chronic starvation unless the Government did something to improve the quality of the land on which they must live. What was necessary to be done it was easy to see. In the West of Ireland, the part of the country he was best acquainted with, there was a great deal of the land in a state very much like that of a sponge saturated with water; and, if this had been a matter to be dealt with by any Foreign Government, the work of reclamation would have been carried out years ago. The amount of money required for that purpose was not nearly so great as that which had to be expended in keeping the Irish people in subjection. If the land were drained, he could say, from his own experience of 20 years, that at an expenditure of £10 per acre it could be raised from a state of absolute unproductiveness and made worth no less than £1 an acre. But they were told by the right hon. Gentleman that it was impossible to reclaim this land. He was not, and had never been, in favour of a great ideal scheme to reclaim the whole of the land of Ireland to be carried out by the Government, or by a Commission, or by public Companies. But he said that every portion of the country that was distressed should be separately treated after investigation of the particular circumstances of those portions of the country. That appeared to him the common-sense way of proceeding. If they wished to relieve the distress in Connemara, they must undertake some of those works, which he, in his

    2035
    private capacity, had carried out on a very small and insignificant scale, but with some success. The result would be that the land would not only pay for the expenditure of money, but it would be made as good agricultural land as could be found in England, Ireland, or Scotland. He did not say it could be made into land equal to the grazing lands in Meath and some parts of Wick-low, which yielded perennial grass crops without labour for the cattle to fatten upon; but it could be made to repay the cultivator as well as any average land in the kingdom. But what was the next tiling to be done? How could the Chief Secretary talk to the House about the prosperity, the happiness, and the prospects of the West of Ireland, if the farmers in that part of the country, after rearing stock remained unable to get it to market without a considerable loss? There was a large trade in pigs in Connemara which represented no less a sum than £20,000 a-year. But those pigs were 40 miles from a railway, and every head of cattle and every bit of produce which an industrious farmer had to sell in that part of the country lost one-third of its value, because it was out of the district of railways. He had never ventured to approach the present Secretary to the Treasury, or make any request of him on this subject, because he know how unfailing were his tendencies to economy, although he had besieged other Secretaries to the Treasury and the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government for some slight assistance to make a light railway from Galway to Clifden; but as for getting any practical help or assistance from them, one might as well "bay the moon." And yet, what happened? They had been horrified, during the last two or three years, at crimes of the most dreadful character which had been committed in Connemara. Did the House know that previous to those years crime was almost unknown in that district; that the peace had been kept within its area of 50 square miles by about 20 policemen, and that, too, for years in the midst of the starvation which prevailed there? But these were practical matters, and they had been congratulated because those poor creatures who were in a state of starvation were willing, when someone offered them a £5 note, to emigrate. He knew that
    2036
    any number of them could be induced to go, and he admitted that in regard to a certain number of them it would be a great kindness to remove them. But again he asked, what was to be done with those who remained behind? Was the question to come up year by year as it had done in the past? How many famines there had been in Ireland since the beginning of the century he did not know; but it was a fact that five years never elapsed without a public appeal being made, not to the benevolent of England only, but to the whole of Europe and America; and yet, because it was said that the political economy of this country required that the works of the kind he had indicated should be carried out by private enter-prize, they did not take the smallest pains permanently to relieve the distressed districts. Supposing that 4,000 people were emigrated as the right hon. Gentleman suggested, or even if that number were doubled, it must be remembered that Irish families were not very small as a rule, and in the course of a few years the children of the present day who remained in Ireland would have grown up, and then there would be the same congestion of population as now existed, with the same distress, unless the quality of the land on which they had to live was improved, and the people were placed within easy communication with markets. But there was another matter to which he would allude very briefly. Had the House seriously addressed itself to the question why it was that the poverty of Ireland was so intense and distressing? The real answer to this was, that the wealth and produce of the country came over to England in the shape of taxes and rents to absentee landlords. While, in England, the taxation did not amount to 10 per cent of the income of the country, very nearly one-fourth of the whole income of Ireland went in taxation. They might talk of political economy and benevolent intentions; but was it not a scandal that while the income of Great Britain was £1,000,000,000, there were many hundreds of people in Ireland who, at some time of every year, lived upon boiled seaweed sprinkled with oatmeal? That went on from year to year; and he asked whether it was not the duty of our statesmen to grapple with a problem of the kind, and endea-

    2037
    vour to raise the condition of those people. Were they to be told that the only thing that could be done was to clear them off the face of the land. It was impossible that this state of things could continue. They knew what the present condition of Ireland was. He had condemned with perfect sincerity what had occurred during the past two or three years, and the views he now expressed he had maintained from the first, having neither swerved from them nor gone beyond them. But he firmly believed that unless a different view of the Irish problem was taken than that which favoured the proposal to clear away the Irish population, no measures of repression would shelter this country from the inconveniences resulting from Irish disaffection. The good feelings of a people could not be aroused by treating them as stocks and stones. England, at the present moment, was employing a very large portion of its Army in Ireland; and they knew very well that it would be impossible for her to go to war, while that state of things continued, with any foreign nation. The man who prophesied that the distress in Ireland could be permanently removed by getting rid of a certain number of persons, and who, by means of the emigrant ship, would put out of sight this dreadful spectre of starvation and destitution, was no friend to this country. The friend of England was the man who would tell the naked truth, and that was that neither political disabilities nor questions of nationality were the causes of the difficulties with Ireland. The causes of these difficulties were to be summed up in the simple phrase—Empty stomachs and idle hands. If those hands were idle from causes over which the people had control—that was to say, if the people were wilfully idle—he would be the first to condemn them; but he knew well that the poor Irish cottier was one of the most hard working of God's creatures, and when he came over to this country to work in the way of trade or harvesting he presented a picture of self-denial and perseverance that was not to be met with amongst any other class. Let hon. Members consider how these men conducted themselves at harvest time in this country, and at such places as Jarrow, Newcastle-on-Tyne, and Liverpool, where they worked from morning till night for
    2038
    the smallest pay. It was only that evening that an hon. Member had said to him in conversation, when urging the desirability of giving something for the people to do in the shape of task-work—"I have seen the Irish labourer in our towns engaged in such work as digging out the foundations of buildings, and my heart has bled for them when I considered the kind of work they have to do for the merest pittance." These were the people who in England readily did hard work, but at home they had none to do. How could they till a soil that was saturated with water, and what hope had they from their flocks when they found that one-third of their value was lost in the cost of getting them to market? But the Government held out no hope that they would do anything for the starving population of the West. He had addressed the House in warm tones on this question. For the last two or three years these subjects had not been under discussion. They had had exciting political topics, and many matters had engaged their attention, the memory of which was not very sweet to him; but throughout all he had cherished the hope that his right hon. Friend, when he came into Office, and before making up his mind, would go to the West of Ireland and see for himself the state of things which existed there. But he had not done that; he had preferred to go on in the old way, getting his information from the old sources in Dublin. If this were continued he saw no hope of any amelioration of the people's distress. He concluded as he began, by stating that the land in the West of Ireland could be reclaimed economically, wisely, and profitably; and he repeated that until they did deal in some way with the land, upon which a certain residuum of the population must live, they could never hope to solve, in a satisfactory manner, the dreadful problem coming constantly before them.
    MR. W. H. SMITH: I have no wish to prolong, except for a few moments, this very interesting debate; but I cannot refrain from making a few observations on the Motion before the House. In his closing words the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) said the land of Ireland was capable of being reclaimed profitably, and he implied that it was the duty of the Government to attempt that work, which has not yet

    2039
    been successfully accomplished. I cannot help reminding the hon. Member that there exists on the Statute Book a positive obligation on the part of the State to advance, to any persons properly qualified and able to give sufficient security, money at a rate of interest considerably below that at which money can be borrowed for any other undertaking. It seems to me that this country have given an invitation to persons who, like the hon. Member himself, are interested in the prosperity of Ireland, if only they will undertake the task of doing that which they say will be profitable. There is a margin between the interest to be charged on that money, and the ordinary interest on money, which would give a profit to the hon. Gentleman if he and his friends will undertake the duty. The Resolution which the hon. and learned Member for Mayo (Mr. O'Connor Power) has asked us to assent to is not in any sense a Party Resolution, nor is this a Party debate; but the House is asked to consider a question of the most vital importance concerning the interests of the people of Ireland. We are asked to consider what will be for their best interest; and, for my own part, I wish to put aside all considerations which usually enter into debates in this House, and, if it be possible to do so, to ask the House and the country to deliberate on the course which should be best for the distressed people of Ireland. I understand the hon. and learned Gentleman to object to emigration, because it is treating human beings as if they were economic realities. What are human beings but economic realities? How can we get rid of the fact that we are realities, and must be dealt with upon sound economical principles? The great fault in all our discussions has been that we have not been willing to look on the people of Ireland as if they were economic realities, but have discussed their condition with a great amount of sentiment, and I am afraid with an amount of Party feeling, which has deprived us of the power of looking upon them as economic realities. What we have desired to do has been to put these people in a position in which they ought to be, to maintain themselves as they ought to do, and to not only sustain themselves, but to discharge their duties to society as they ought to discharge them. The
    2040
    hon. and learned Member for Mayo says that it is impossible and we who know anything of the west of Ireland know that it is actually impossible, for the people who are located in the distressed districts to discharge the duties of human beings in the condition in which they are placed. We are all agreed that something must be done to lift them from that position; and the hon. and learned Member for Mayo proposes that there shall be a double process. He admits that emigration is desirable, and he distinctly recommends emigration; but the hon. Member for Galway declines to accept emigration.
    MR. MITCHELL HENRY: I have always favoured emigration from congested districts; but I say it is not a permanent remedy. There are railways and drainage works.
    MR. W. H. SMITH: I entirely admit that drainage and railway works are desirable; but why are not such works provided for these districts? Simply because there is no probable economic result. The hon. Member is acquainted with the ordinary ways of business; how is it he has not put himself at the head of some organization to set on foot railways and drainage which would yield a moderate profit, while providing occupation for the people and fix them on the land on which he desires that they should remain? There is no one in this House or in this country who would not desire to see the people now in Ireland actively and profitably employed, if proper and successful employment could be found for them. It is a painful necessity of the position in which we are placed that we should offer them an opportunity to emigrate to improve their position. I regard it as a misfortune that the sufferings of these people should render it expedient and desirable to offer emigration to them; but I feel that emigration is better than starvation. Emigration is, no doubt, a misfortune; but it is a misfortune which many English people have to face, and do face. The circumstances under which the people of Ireland at present exist are such as to render it expedient, and a matter of simple kindness to the people, to offer them that assistance which the hon. and learned Member for Mayo admits as necessary in regard to a certain portion of them. Then the question is—Is migration

    2041
    possible? The hon. and learned Member says there are 500,000 acres of land to which migration would be possible, and recommends that occupiers should be compulsorily expropriated, that this land should be acquired, and these cottiers placed on 20 acres of this poor land each, where they could obtain happiness and prosperity. I have some knowledge of this poor land, and I cannot imagine anything that would be more pitiful than to remove occupiers who have very little knowledge of farming from the West Coast of Ireland to 20 acres of bog land, or improvable land as it is called, which is only worth 5s. an acre. My own conviction is that we should only change a very bad condition for something which would be infinitely worse, and perpetuate the state of things to which attention has been called—a condition of things in which sub-division and increased poverty and misery must result. The hon. and learned Member for Mayo referred to one circumstance which certainly was alarming and saddening—namely, the great increase of sub-divisions in 1881, especially of holdings between five and 15 acres. I do not know whether his figures are strictly accurate; but if they are, the argument I should draw from them is that there exists an incurable disposition to sub-divide small holdings in Ireland; and if you transfer the people who have that inclination to poor and miserable holdings, with a perfect right to sub-divide, you will have in a few years a repetition, in a still worse form, of the distress and misery from which the people are now suffering. I trust the Resolution which the hon. and learned Member has moved will not be accepted by the House. It is one which I think cannot bring any hope of redress or security to Ireland; it will not heal the distress from which the people are suffering; and it will only postpone the evils which at present afflict that country.
    MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, I do not propose to enter into the general debate, nor do I rise to answer the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Mayo. My right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland has stated generally the views of the Government; but I wish to call the attention of the House to the manner in which the vote will be taken. The noble Lord the Member for
    2042
    Barnstaple (Viscount Lymington) has moved an Amendment in two portions, and the first part is to leave out the words "migration and optional." It is our intention to vote with the noble Lord on the first part of the Amendment; but I do not thereby mean to convey—nor did my right hon. Friend mean to convey—that the Government are opposed, under all circumstances and conditions, to every plan of migration. That does not at all follow; but the hon. and learned Member for Mayo (Mr. O'Connor Power) has proposed—and, I must say, in a speech of very great ability and moderation of tone—a plan of migration which is based on large public advances, with a thorough and complete re-imbursement. That being the basis of his proposal, my right hon. Friend has shown that, however well-intended re-imbursement might be, it would be impracticable. In the first place, the tenants could not bear it. The Lord Lieutenant could not, I believe, venture to tax them outside the area, for the purpose of making those inside the area pay the rents of certain occupied lands of the State; and if the Lord Lieutenant should so charge rents on the rates, I am afraid the temptation would be irresistible to the favoured occupiers to decline to pay the rents, when they knew that the rents would be paid from the public funds. I am bound to say there is another reason why we cannot accept the plan of migration. Although a largo portion of the plan and the speech of the hon. and learned Member proceeded on an exposition of this method of making the resources of Ireland liable for reimbursing this money, there is not a word of that in the Motion. Hon. Gentlemen who will consider the Motion will see that the Motion charges the entire liability on the funds of the State, but says not one word about replacing those funds. Therefore, not from any universal or pre-conceived hostility to plans of migration which, under other circumstances, I can conceive might be practicable, we must support the Amendment. I am sorry that we have not had an opportunity of considering all the Amendments which have been put on the Paper. I do not very often agree with the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar); but I must say I think there is a good deal of sense

    2043
    in the Amendment he has put on the Paper. My object is to explain to the hon. and learned Member for Mayo (Mr. O'Connor Power) that we are obliged to vote against the introduction of the words "migration and optional" in his Motion, but that it is not out of any general hostility to every plan of the kind that we cannot accept the responsibility for or accept his plan.
    LORD GEORGE HAMILTONsaid, he thought the House would be in some difficulty if the proposal of the Government was accepted. He had come down to vote for the Motion; but after hearing the discussion he was not able to do so. If, however, the House divided on the Amendment of the noble Lord the Member for Barnstaple they would strike out a certain part of the Amendment, and then pledge themselves to deal with the distressed districts in Ireland in a manner which might not be agreeable to all, because they would pledge themselves to a plan of State emigration. It seemed to him that if the Government did not approve of the Motion in its entirety, much the simplest course would be for the noble Lord to withdraw his Amendment, and then the Government might move the Previous Question, and so enable the House to go to a direct vote.
    MR. DAWSONsaid, he thought the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, with his very brief experience of the West of Ireland, had put himself at issue, not only with the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Mayo (Mr. O'Connor Power), but with a Catholic Archbishop and four Catholic Bishops, whose dioceses were affected by this Motion. The Chief Secretary, instead of being guided by the views of those eminent ecclesiastics, who so well knew that part of the country, preferred to take his information, forsooth, from Air. Ball Green and other officials, whose knowledge, compared with that of the personages to whom he had referred, must be extremely limited. Nothing was more disappointing to the people of Ireland than to find that when right hon. Gentlemen came over from England to govern them, they fell back for all their information on gentlemen of this kind—gentlemen of proved worth, no doubt, but, compared with the Arch-
    2044
    bishops and Bishops, of no importance, and of no experience in regard to the internal affairs of the Island. It was a great misfortune that the right hon. Gentleman had almost entirely ignored the opinion of those high ecclesiastics, and that he had almost retired from his own platform as a responsible Minister by putting to the fore the opinions of men whom nobody knew in Ireland, and who were only humble officials. The right hon. Gentleman had said that if they made the State the landlord and the rent collector there would never be any return—nothing would ever be paid. Well, they could only judge in such matters by the experience of the past. Whilst the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had been speaking, he (Air. Dawson) had, as the House would remember, called his attention to a Church Body who had acquired land. That Body had got in the thin end of the wedge in this matter by advancing sums and giving credit to small tenants in Ireland. Could anyone show him a single one of the tenants who had been so treated who had not loyally met his responsibilities? He challenged the right hon. Gentleman, on the part of the people of Ireland, to point out a single case where these tenants had neglected to pay for their holdings. Were the Irish Members to tell the Chief Secretary to read the Cobden Papers—to toll him how small advances in Germany and Prussia had been made and repaid; were they to tell him that in those countries the very system advocated by the hon. and learned Member for Mayo had been carried out by means of the consolidated taxes of the country? Were they to tell him that the great land revolution in those countries had been worked out, and how, if he appreciated the importance of the statement, he could work out a similar reform in Ireland? But the right hon. Gentleman had said that a nation like Ireland could not buy the land, and had gone into statistics and figures upon the point—and everybody knew that statistics and figures could be made to prove anything. Well, he (Mr. Dawson) would give the right hon. Gentleman three points in proper order of time which might serve to alter his opinion on this matter. In the first place, the Society of Friends, after the Famine of 1816, had spent a great deal of money in reclaim-

    2045
    ing waste lands, and these had been secured by a well-to-do peasantry. The Devon Commission had referred to the reclamation of waste lands in Ireland, stating that the people had been supported on the mountain sides, that small sums had been advanced to them which they had paid back with interest; and they had become, as they reclaimed the land, respectable and well-to-do, instead of wretched and impoverished. He (Mr. Dawson) was sorry the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster) was not in the House at this moment pursuing the rôle that he at one time affected—for the right hon. Gentleman was a member of the Society of Friends, who had recommended the plan which the right hon. Gentleman had put in practice in Ireland with benefit to the tenants and profit to those who had managed it. Then, again, would the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary tell him that he did not know that Mr. John Stuart Mill, in his work on Political Economy, had laid down abundant proofs of the profitable reclamation of land in Ireland—reclamations which had not been attended by a single loss to those who had made the advances? And, lastly, would the right hon. Gentleman tell him that he had not read the statements of Professor Baldwin? That gentleman had told them, in regard to Donegal, exactly what the Archbishops of the Province and the four Bishops had told them—namely, that there was an immense quantity of land in that district capable, not only of supplying the people with food, but of keeping them in plenty, if it were properly reclaimed and cultivated. Donegal was only half reclaimed, and Professor Bald win told them that land, which years ago was only valued at 1s. an acre, was now worth 20 s. and 25 s. an acre, and was capable of supplying the people with comforts which before they knew little or nothing about. He (Mr. Dawson) was no sentimentalist, and should not advocate the keeping of the people in Ireland; and he should not complain so much if the Government could say that in this matter they had done all they could—if they could say—"We have developed Ireland all we can, and we find there is really a superabundant population." No false sympathy whatever would induce him to keep the people in their own land if
    2046
    it was not capable of supporting them; but he maintained that the evidence to which he had referred incontestably proved that there were millions of acres of land in Ireland capable of reclamation, and of supplying the means of support to the people. He believed the real reason why these lands were not reclaimed, and the capacity of the country for maintaining its population was not fully developed, was this—that the very moment they got anyone in Ireland who knew anything about the country, whose experience was considerable, and who had plenty of intelligence and knowledge of the country, he was drafted away and someone put in his place. They had an example of that just now in the Irish capital; a man who understood everything connected with his department was being drafted away, and some new apprentice was coming to try his hand at the work. The opinions of the Bishops were all set at bought in that House. The right hon. Gentleman told the House nothing, either from his own knowledge or on the authority of these Bishops; but he gave them all the information he received from Mr. Ball Green, or other raw recruits in the administration of Ireland. He would put it to the House, was it right for the Chief Secretary to put the opinion of such a man as that against the opinions of such high authorities in all matters concerning the condition of the country and the welfare of the people as he (Mr. Dawson) had mentioned? He asked the House, was it right for the right hon. Gentleman to put the opinions of these officials against what he might call National opinion in Ireland—was it right that the opinions of people who were paid for advising should be taken before those who had only the morality and well-being of the country at heart? His advice to the Irish people, through their Representatives in that House, would be that they should keep their money from the Post Office and from those banks in Ireland which sent their capital over to England to develop the resources of that country—if they kept their money from the payment of extravagant duties—if they kept their money from whisky, and, as the people of Northern Italy had done, restrained themselves for a time from luxuries—if they kept away from England that

    2047
    £5,000,000 or £6,000,000 a-year which they sent over, and applied it to developing their internal resources, they would be doing more for the country and more for its industry and commerce than anything they could do by other means. He only hoped that the talent and earnestness and eloquence of the Party with which he was connected would be devoted to instructing the Irish people that every penny of money of theirs which crossed the Channel, in the shape of deposits in the banks and the payment of duties, went out, not to improve their position, but to advance the interests of Great Britain; and to show the people of Ireland that their duty was to keep their money at home for the forwarding of industrial, progressive, and reproductive measures. But. whatever they might do, it was not for a responsible Minister for Ireland to tell them, after the proofs they had received of reproductive reclamation, after what they had seen as the result of the action of the Society of Friends subsequent to the Famine, to tell them that the lesson they had never learnt was that a radical cure for the evils Ireland was suffering was emigration. The amelioration of the condition of Ireland was not to be found in that, nor by the adoption of terrible repressive measures such as they had passed in a few hours the other night. With regard to that measure, he did not blame them for passing it; but, while they only took a few hours to pass that Bill, a Bill, as he said, of a repressive and terrible character, which might be very questionable in its results, it took hours, and days, and weeks, and years of weary talk to induce them to adopt a policy which would tend more than anything else to secure a lasting peace in Ireland. Every decade was showing them a decreasing population in Ireland. Lord John Russell, when he introduced his Poor Laws, had said that the population of Ireland, which was then 8,000,000, was one which he would not say it could not support, but that it was a population which might increase and still be supported. Was it, then, for an administrator in 1883, in view of the large reduction that had taken place since the time of Lord John Russell, to say that it was only on a diminishing population that they could base the loyalty of the Irish people?
    2048
    Was it a prudent thing for this country to send 80,000, or 90,000, or 100,000 people a-year perforce across the Atlantic to the United States—and he said the United States, because everybody knew that Irish emigrants went there in preference to Canada? Was it a prudent thing to expatriate so many people forcibly? Who could sleep safely in his bed in this country threatened with such a course of conduct as that which they had to contemplate when they hurried through the Explosives Bill? Was it worth while, for the sake of keeping up a small minority in Ireland, to risk the expatriation, the defection of millions of the Irish people—to drive them from their own land, and sow the seeds of revenge in the breasts of millions of people in another land? No doubt, the problem was a grave one. For his own part, he had never advocated, either in that House or out of it, any but Constitutional measures. He had said, give the people a share in their own government; but he looked in vain for measures of that description. They were always postponed; and he saw in their place only a lot of useless measures of oppression hurried into law. He would suggest that the Government should say to the people—"Emigrate, or cultivate the land you have got." They should give the people the chance of cultivating the land of their I own country—give thorn the opportunity, give them a chance, and then, if they preferred to emigrate, they would not leave their homes with heart-burnings, and with the fearful feelings of revenge which possessed so many of them now. It was extremely dangerous to tell the Irish people, as the right hon. Gentleman had done, and as he (Mr. Dawson) had heard him tell them with extreme sorrow, that the only possible answer that he had to give them in this matter was—"Emigrate, emigrate, disappear, disappear; and the more you go, the more you emigrate—the more you depopulate Ireland, the more prosperous will that country become." If that was what the I right hon. Gentleman preached to the Irish people to produce permanent peace and prosperity, he would undertake to say that a more mistaken course was never followed by any English Minister.
    MR. T. F. O'CONNORsaid, that a considerable portion of the discussion had been occupied by hon. Members

    2049
    who had a very slight acquaintance with. Irish affairs; and now, perhaps, an Irish Member, who did know something about Ireland, might be allowed to occupy a few moments. It had been proposed that the Amendment to the Motion should be withdrawn; but to that course the Irish Members objected. They should insist upon its being put to the House, because it pledged the Government to emigration pure and simple as a remedy for the ills of Ireland; because it was the only remedy the Government had to propose. It was all very well for the Prime Minister to say the Government objected to migration put forward in the form in which the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Mayo (Mr. O'Connor Power) had put it forward. The Government said they were ready to consider a scheme of migration, and such a scheme was now before them on the Books of the House in the Motion they were now debating. The Motion simply dealt with migration, and the plan the hon. and learned Gentleman had proposed was his own, to which he had definitely pledged himself. The Government put their foot down against it, and, by so doing, showed themselves opposed to migration in any form. Let them take the attitude of the Government as demonstrated in the speech of the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, and was it not evident that the only plan they had to offer was emigration? If that were so, let them say it frankly—let them vote for the Amendment, or let that be the record of the opinion of the Government which should go forth to the people of Ireland. The speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, if it meant anything at all, meant that emigration was the only possible remedy for the distress in Ireland. [Mr. GLADSTONE dissented.] The right hon. Gentleman had said so distinctly, and it was all nonsense for the Prime Minister to shake his head at that proposition. When a right hon. Gentleman was declaring that it was with sorrow and distress that English Members found themselves compelled to agree to the emigration of the Irish people—when the right hon. Gentleman said that that was the feeling of every Member of that House—he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) had cried out "No, no!" The right hon. Gentleman had turned on him, and re-
    2050
    peated that he was expressing the real feelings of every Member of the House; and then he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) had ventured, perhaps contrary to the Rules of the House, to interject in an interrogatory manner, when the right hon. Gentleman was referring to the numbers of people in this country in a state of; distress—"Why don't you propose emigration for them?" There was not a city in England or in Scotland in which there were not tens of thousands who would be only too glad to go to New Zealand, America, or Canada, if the State would emigrate them. They were not so much attached to the aristocratic institutions of this country that they would not care to leave it if they had the opportunity. Had the Government more sympathy for distressed Ireland than they had for England or Scotland? Why did they not propose emigration for the people of England and Scotland? Because they did not want to get rid of them, and they did want to get rid of the Irish population. He was willing to admit there were a certain number of Englishmen who were awakening, at a late hour, to the wrongs and injustices of the people of Ireland. He was aware there were a certain number of Englishmen who considered the emigration of the Irish people a desirable thing from a pecuniary point of view. Even Lord Derby had said that a few millions of pounds spent on the people of Ireland would pay very well. The Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant had been accused of cold-bloodedness; he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) accused him of levity. The right hon. Gentleman brought to the consideration of the question as clear and able a mind as other Members of the House did; but he spoke in one way and acted in another. The right hon. Gentleman was diffuse upon the want of economy in regard to the system of reclamation. He supposed the Chief Secretary could have told them that reclamation had been tried and failed in this country, and could have said—"See how many acres are going out of cultivation on account of the inclemency of the seasons and the severity of foreign competition." How was it that, with American competition the same in both cases, land was going out of cultivation here and not in Continental countries? The answer was plain. In foreign countries they had a small land system and

    2051
    small holdings, while here there was an unsound land system and large holdings. The right hon. Gentleman had quoted Sir Richard Griffith; but if he had gone to Madame Tussaud's and trotted one of the figures out as an authority on agriculture, it could not have been more antiquated an authority on the subject than Sir Richard Griffith. In Switzerland some holdings were as small as one acre, and the majority of the people were a great deal better off than the people of England; and yet the right hon. Gentleman quoted Sir Richard Griffith to show that 30 acres was the smallest holding upon which a man could live respectably. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith) had asked why Companies did not take up the task of reclamation. The real reason was that there was no security and no tranquillity in Ireland. ["Hear, hear!"] He was very glad to find himself for once at one with the Tory Party. He repeated, there was no peace and no security in Ireland. Did the House think there would ever be peace until the Government was placed on a better basis? And what would be a proper basis? A basis which was approved by the people. Did the English Government receive the approval of the people? Did it not meet with their constant and earnest, and sometimes violent protest? If there were a popular Government in Ireland, the right hon. Gentleman the present Chief Secretary would not long remain in Office. He objected to the withdrawal of the Amendment of the noble Viscount (Viscount Lymington). The Motion of his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. O'Connor Power) might have been assented to by the Government without any hesitation. They had not chosen to accede to it; and, therefore, he and his hon. Friends intended to force them to stand true to their principles.
    Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 33; Noes 99: Majority 66—(Div. List, No. 54.)
    MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, I now propose to put a negative upon the Resolution, because, if carried in its present shape, it would give a place and a sense to emigration which was not placed upon it in the speech of my right hon. Friend
    2052
    the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, and which never has been placed upon it by the Government. It would, moreover, involve the appointment of a Royal Commission on Emigration, which, in our opinion, would be inexpedient.
    MR. O'CONNOR POWERsaid, after the division that had taken place, he did not propose to trouble the House to go to a division.
    Main Question, as amended, put, and negatived.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  PATENTS FOR INVENTIONS (No. 3) BILL.— [BILL 99.]
  (Mr. Anderson, Mr. Brown, Mr. Broadhurst, Mr. Jackson, Mr. Hinde Palmer.)
  PATENTS FOR INVENTIONS (No. 3) BILL.— [BILL 99.]

    COMMITTEE.
    Order for Committee read.
    MR. ANDERSON, in rising to move, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," said, he should explain that it was his intention to report Progress immediately the Bill went into Committee, because, in all probability, this Bill would not go any further, but would subsequently be withdrawn in favour of the Government measure, but not until that was further advanced. He wished to put the Bill more completely in the power of the House than it was at present; because, as the House was aware, any Bill which came from private Members was exposed to the action of one particular Member, and was not really under the control of the House, owing to the blocking Motions which he placed, on the Paper.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."—(Mr. Anderson.)
    Motion agreed to.
    Bill considered in Committee.
    (In the Committee.)
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. Anderson.)
    Motion agreed to.
    Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Tuesday 8th May.

    WAYS AND MEANS.
    Resolutions [April 9] reported, and agreed to.
    Ordered, That it be an Instruction to the Gentlemen appointed to prepare and bring in a Bill upon the Resolution reported from the Committee of the whole House upon Ways and Means on the 6th day of this instant April, and then agreed to by the House, that they do make provision therein, pursuant to the said Resolutions.

  MOTION.

    COMMONS.
    Select Committee appointed, "to consider every Report made by the Inclosure Commissioners certifying the expediency of any Provisional Order for the inclosure or regulation of a Common, and presented to the House during the last or present Sessions, before a Bill be
    2054
    brought in for the confirmation of such Order."
    Ordered, That it be an Instruction to the Committee, that they have power in respect to each such Provisional Order, to inquire and report to the House whether the same should be confirmed by Parliament, and, if so, whether with or without modification; and, in the event of their being of opinion that the same should not be confirmed, except subject to modifications, to report such modifications accordingly with a view to such Provisional Order being remitted to the Inclosure Commissioners.
    Committee to consist of the following Members:—Sir HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON, Mr. ACLAND, Sir WALTER BARTTELOT, Mr. PELL, Mr. BROADHURST, Mr. BRYCE, Mr. RICHARD POWER; and Five Members to be nominated by the Committee of Selection:—Power to send for persons, papers, and records; Five to be the quorum.
    House adjourned at a quarter before Two o'clock.

Preamble
Their Lordships met at Twelve of the clock.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—First Reading—Army (Annual)* (25); Land Drainage Provisional Order* (26); Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Orders (No. 2)* (27); Tramways (Ireland) Provisional Order (Extension of Time)* (28).
Second Reading—Representative Peers (Scotland) (5); Representative Peers (Scotland) Election Procedure (6), negatived.
Royal Assent—Consolidated Fund (No. 2) [46 Vict. c. 5]; National Gallery (Loan) [46 Vict. c. 4]; Explosive Substances [46 Vict. c. 3].
THE LORD CHANCELLORacquainted the House, That Her Majesty had been pleased to issue a Commission to several Lords therein named, for declaring Her Royal Assent to several Acts agreed upon by both Houses of Parliament.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.
The Royal Assent was given, by Commission, to three Bills.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed at a quarter past Four of the clock.

REPRESENTATIVE PEERS (SCOTLAND) BILLS.

  PETITION PRESENTED.
  THE EARL OF GALLOWAY,in presenting a Petition from the Members of the Learned Professions in Scotland and others, praying that in any legislation bearing upon the Peerage of Scotland the jurisdiction of the Court of Session may be provided for, said: My Lords, in allusion to the two Bills of very grave importance which stand on your Lordships Orders to-day for second reading—namely, the Representative Peers (Scotland) Bill and the Representative Peers (Scotland) Election Procedure Bill, I hope I may be allowed to read a Petition which I have been requested to present. It is signed by two-thirds of the Sheriffs of Scotland. Perhaps I may be allowed to remind English Peers that the Sheriffs of Scotland are learned men, their qualifications being very different from those of Sheriffs in other parts of the United Kingdom; and I may say that the absence of the signatures of the other Sheriffs is due to various causes, some of them being absent from this country, and this Bill having been brought on for second reading rather hurriedly, there has been no opportunity of getting the Petition forwarded in time for their signatures. The Petition also contains the signatures of the Lord Provosts of Edinburgh and Glasgow as representing the people of Scotland; but the object of its promoters was not to get numbers of signatures, but specially to secure names representative of all the men learned in law and history. The noble Earl presented the Petition accordingly:—
  "That, previous to the Treaty of Union, questions involving the right to a Peerage of Scotland were decided by the Court of Session—the Supreme Court of Scotland; that questions of precedence between Peers were expressly reserved to that Court in the decree of ranking, and that by the 19th Article of the Treaty of Union the 'authority and privileges' of the Court of Session were upheld unimpaired;
  "That, nevertheless, subsequently to the Union the practice has been introduced of Scottage Peerage claims being referred, in the first instance to, and virtually decided by, the resolutions of the Committee for Privileges of your Lordships' House;
  "That such Committee, composed of members of your right hon. House, not necessarily conversant with the law of Scotland, has not been found in all respects a satisfactory substi-

  1939
  tute for the Supreme Court of Scotland in dealing: with the rights of Peers of that kingdom, and that its proceedings have not always secured that general acquiesence of opinion which the rulings of your Lordships' House should command;
  "That it appears from one of the bills before your Lordships it is proposed to empower your right hon. House to make alterations in the Union Roll, and that as a matter affecting both public and private interests, as well as one in which Scottish national sentiment is concerned, it deserves your Lordships' earnest solicitude not to prejudice the rights of precedency of any of the ancient and historic dignities of Scotland as established by that roll.
  And praying—
  "That in any legislation hearing upon the Peerage of Scotland your Lordships will provide for the jurisdiction of the Court of Session, subject to appeal to your right hon. House, as a judicial tribunal, and that in the case of petitions relating thereto Her Most Gracious Majesty be advised to direct reference in the first instance to the said Court of Session, and your petitioners will ever," &c.
  Petition that in any legislation bearing upon the Peerage of Scotland the jurisdiction of the Court of Session may be provided for; of Members of the Learned Professions in Scotland and others.—(The Earl of Galloway.)
  Petition read, and ordered to lie on the Table.

REPRESENTATIVE PEERS (SCOTLAND) BiLL.—(No. 5.)
(The Lord Chancellor.)
REPRESENTATIVE PEERS (SCOTLAND) BiLL.—(No. 5.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2*."—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  THE EARL OF KINTOREsaid, he would rather personally have taken a silent part in the discussion of this measure; but he felt that there were higher considerations than mere personal feelings, and he therefore asked leave to address a few words to their Lordships' House, both on the ground that, as a Peer of Scotland, he was concerned in the maintenance of the rights and privileges of that body secured to them by the Treaty of Union, and also on the narrower ground that, as he had had the advantage of being a Member of the Committee of this House which reported on the subject last year, he had had some opportunity of studying the question. He wished to say at once that he fully recognized the desire of the
  1940
  noble and learned Earl upon the Woolsack to do all he could to bring the question to a satisfactory settlement. It was just because bethought this Bill, as it now stood, contained one or two proposals that would inflict an injustice on the Peers of Scotland, and, in some degree, militate against the object of the noble and learned Lord, that he ventured to draw their Lordships' attention to it. With regard to the first part of the Bill he had very little to say, unless it were at a future stage, when he might possibly propose an Amendment on Clause 1, in regard to the duties of the Lord Clerk Register. However that might be, the first four sections of the Bill happily established the principle that the Electoral Roll should be a Roll of Peers, and not of peerages. But when they came to Clause 5, they there found a proposal to which he, for one, wholly and entirely objected. That clause provided that any person claiming to have succeeded to the honour enjoyed by a deceased Peer, might present a Petition to the House of Lords, praying that his name be entered on the Election Roll. The clause provided—
  "That the House of Lords shall thereupon cause inquiries to be made into the same by the Lord Chancellor, in the manner usual in like cases of succession to any peerage in Ireland, and the House, if satisfied with the report received from the Lord Chancellor, may direct the Lord Clerk Register to insert the name of the petitioner on the Election Roll accordingly, or, otherwise, may refuse to give such direction until he has established his claim before the Committee of Privileges."
  He wished to speak of the Lord Chancellor with the greatest deference. The noble and learned Earl filled his high Office in a manner which earned the admiration of this House and of the country. But the noble and learned Earl did not owe the high position which he held to any special knowledge of Scottish law. He was essentially an English lawyer, and therefore he thought it a most undesirable proposal that the fortunes of Scottish Peers, many of them holders of very ancient Peerages, should be assigned to the decision of the noble and learned Earl. Possibly he would be told that the Lord Chancellor made inquiries in the case of Irish Peerages, and that in regard to these he was in the habit of referring to the Ulster Roll. But in the Committee

  1941
  which sat last year, they had had the advantage of hearing evidence with regard to the Ulster Roll. It appeared that the standard reference in all questions of Irish Peerage was the Ulster Roll. It also appeared that the power to add to that Roll and of deleting from it was absolute. With regard to the proposed terms of reference to the Lord Chancellor, he considered that they were too wide, and, though he did not for a moment mean to say that his noble and learned Friend would erase any name from the Roll without good and sufficient grounds, he said that the powers were far too large to be willingly accepted by the Scottish Peers as a model definition of the jurisdiction of the Lord Chancellor. Sir Bernard Burke had informed the Committee last year that it was the custom in times past to submit the Roll annually to the Irish House of Lords, and that to-day it was the custom to submit it annually to the Lord Lieutenant. He was asked if that was for its correction and approval, and he replied that he did not think so. He thought it was simply for the information of claimants. He (the Earl of Kintore) was aware that there were some representative Peers sitting in this House who were not at one with him on this subject; but he was perfectly and absolutely certain that the proposal to assign these cases to the decision of the Lord Chancellor, as set forth in the Bill, was one which met with strong resistance on the part of a large preponderance of the Scottish Peers. He did not wish to be understood for a moment as objecting to the powers of this House to decide questions of Scottish Peerage. He believed it was undisputed that in former times that power was exercised. However that might be, it had for many years been the practice for this House to decide upon them, and he, for one, was content that it should there remain. At the same time, he wished to point out strongly the advantage that would accrue to this House in arriving at a decision were they to obtain the opinion of the Court of Session. The Committee of Privileges was an absolutely impartial body, but he believed that, with possibly a single exception, all the noble Lords sitting on that Committee were other than Scottish Lords. While that state of things existed, he feared there was great danger that the de-
  1942
  cisions of their Lordships' House, founded upon the Report of that Committee, would continue to meet with grave dissatisfaction in Scotland. He did not ask that the Court of Session should be intrusted with the final determination of questions affecting the rights of the Scottish Peerage. All he wished was that the opinion of that Court should be obtained on any questions referring to the Electoral Roll. He claimed that a considerable financial saving might be effected by adopting this proposal. At present, charter chests had to be ransacked in Edinburgh, and agents brought to London for an indefinite period and at considerable expense, whereas if they could produce the documents at the bar of the High Court in Edinburgh, and prove it by witnesses, that evidence might be accepted by their Lordships' House, and a great deal of expense thereby saved. Something might also be said about the dignity of their Lordships' House. Although he was more than anxious that the rights and privileges of the Scottish Peerage should be maintained, he was equally jealous with regard to the Prerogatives and Privileges of this House. He believed the other House of Parliament would be in their strict right were they to refer Petitions against the return of any Member of their House to be tried by themselves; but, as a matter of fact, they invariably referred such Petitions to be heard before the Judges of the land. Why they could not do the same thing in somewhat similar circumstances passed his understanding. With regard to Section 8, he saw it was proposed in that clause that the House should have power to rectify the Union Roll. He should like to know plainly what that meant. He remembered that a few years ago a proposal by the noble Duke before him to rectify the Roll, was successfully resisted by the noble Marquess opposite, and he was not aware of anything that had since occurred to alter the reasons that had then been advanced. In conclusion, he begged to thank their Lordships for the attention with which they had listened to his observations on this, the first, occasion of his addressing their Lordships' House.
  LORD ELPHINSTONEsaid, he did not agree with the noble Earl who had just spoken in thinking that the Court

  1943
  of Session should exercise control in those cases.
  THE EARL OF KINTOREexplained that he had not said that the Court of Session should exercise control, but only that the House would find great advantage in obtaining; their opinion.
  LORD ELPHINSTONEsaid, that the Court of Session had no jurisdiction in these cases, and did not claim any such jurisdiction. The noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack had referred, in introducing the Bill, to several cases that had come before this House in the last century, and the noble Earl the Chairman of Committees (the Earl of Redesdale) had also referred to several cases. He believed no fewer than 40 Peerage cases connected with Scotland had been decided in their Lordships' House, and he was not quite sure whether there were not more. But he intended to refer to two cases which had not been brought before this House. In 1873 a claim was made by Mr. Goodeve Erskine to the estates held by a noble Lord who sat in this House. The question was raised in the Court of Session, and it was there decided that he could not sustain his claim to the estates unless he proved his claim to the title of Earl of Mar. Lord Shand, one of the Lords in the Outer House of the Court of Session, pointed out that the question of title could not be determined by that Court, and fell to be determined by the House of Lords. The case was referred to the Inner House, when Lord Ardmillan observed—
  "The right to the title of Earl of Mar is directly and immediately involved in this case, nor has this Court the power of disposing of that question of Peers' succession; it must be decided by the House of Peers."
  That was the opinion of two Lords of Session within the last 10 years. Those who advocated the Court of Session as a Court of Appeal, seemed to forget that, by the Act of Union, Peers of Scotland became Peers of Great Britain, with equal rights and privileges in all respects with Peers belonging to other parts of the Kingdom except that of voting. Were they prepared to ask the Peers of England to submit their Peerage cases to the decision of the Court of Session? If they were not, then he could not understand the equality of rights and privileges. The same rule must apply to the one as to the other. Suppose one Lord
  1944
  in the Court of Session had jurisdiction over Peerages, and a contested case came before him. That contested claim was decided, say, in favour of A; B naturally appealed to the House of Lords, and the House of Lords said that B was the Peer and A the Commoner. Here they should have had a different verdict from the highest Court in England, and the highest in Scotland. He contended that if they gave this jurisdiction to the Court of Session, it would necessarily lead to great expense. He therefore hoped their Lordships would not consent to that proposal.
  THE MARQUESS OF HUNTLYsaid, he had nothing to withdraw from the expression of opinion he had given when the Bill was introduced by the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack, because he considered the Bill a real honest attempt to settle a vexed question. There were only two points of the Bill which he thought it would be necessary to alter, and he hoped that if the second reading were passed, the noble and learned Lord would take these two points into his careful consideration. He congratulated the noble Earl opposite (the Earl of Kintore) on the manner in which he had addressed their Lordships for the first time, and hoped this would not be the last time that he would make a contribution to the debates in their Lordships' House. With regard to the great point, whether the Court of Session should make primary inquiry into Scottish Peerage cases, the Committee which had inquired into the matter had reported distinctly in favour of the Court of Session being the preliminary body to which inquiry should be remitted. The Act of Union did nothing to impair the jurisdiction of the Court of Session. He did not wish to do away with the ultimate jurisdiction of this House, for it was the Supreme Assembly to which, ultimately, all such cases must come. What he would suggest was, that when a Petition was presented in a Scottish Peerage case, it should be remitted by the House to the Court of Session for inquiry. He believed it would be done cheaper and better in this way, because the Judges would be acquainted with all the points in the case, and the Court of Session should report to the House. If there was no objection taken to the Report, then the Lord Chancellor would ratify it, and it

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  could be moved in the House and resolved that the decision should be carried into effect. If this was not done, then there could be an appeal to the House. He believed this was an arrangement which would be most compatible with the feelings of the majority of the Scottish Peers, and also compatible with the feelings of the majority of the people of Scotland. The other proposal of the noble Earl was that they should have the same system introduced in Scotland as they had in Ireland. He was very much startled to hear such a proposal made by the noble Lord on the Report of the Committee of 1874, which was presided over by the noble Earl (the Earl of Rosebery). On reading the Report of the Committee, he found that Clause 6 only went in a limited extent in that direction. All the clause said was that the Committee had recommended that, for the future, the Roll of Peers for Scotland should be drawn up by the Lord Clerk Register of Scotland, under the direction of the House of Lords, and that no alteration was to be made in it without authority of the House of Lords. In the Report of the Committee of 1874 he saw nothing recommending an inquiry by the Lord Chancellor. With all due deference to the Peers of Ireland, he thought it would be rather an objection to introduce any Irish rule whatever into the Scottish Peerage, and he hoped the noble and learned Earl would withdraw the proposal. He certainly did not oppose the second reading of the Bill; but he hoped the views of his brother Scottish Peers would be carefully considered in Committee.
  LORD INCHIQUIN,as a Member of the Committee which sat last year, said, that the procedure adopted in regard to Irish Peerages was most simple, and as advisable as any that could be adopted. When they made their recommendations, they did so with the view of putting an end to the indecent exhibitions which took place at the election of Scotch Peers. One of the points put before them by the noble Earl who first spoke was that of expense. He believed there would be no saving of expense by the cases being taken in the first instance before the Court of Session. Nine times out of ten there would be a second inquiry, leading to additional expense. With regard to the allegation that they were
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  departing from the old Scotch system, they must remember that when the respective Unions took place, Scotch Peers became British Peers, and Irish Peers became Peers of the United Kingdom, so that now the Peerage was practically one. Why, then, was it desired to refer questions relating to a part of that Peerage to a Court sitting only in one part of the Kingdom? He thought that a strong argument for retaining the original jurisdiction of the House of Lords.
  LORD WATSONsaid, he was a Member of the Committee last year, and he desired to offer one or two words in explanation of the considerations which induced him to agree with the views of the majority of the Committee. By the Act of Union, Peers of Scotland became entitled to the privileges of British Peers; but he disputed the position of the noble Lord, or what appeared to be his position, that they ceased to be Peers of Scotland. He believed that the people of Scotland took a very great interest in this Bill. It had been very largely discussed, and, he was sorry to say, with a degree of heat and acrimony in some cases which was altogether unnecessary. Reference had been made in many quarters to the rights of the Court of Session to deal with Peerage cases before the Act of Union. He doubted whether the evidence, if carefully sifted, would bear out all that was said on the point. He should rather be inclined to come to the conclusion, upon such evidence as he had been able to discover of a satisfactory character, that the Sovereign, the fountain of honour in Scotland, reserved to himself the right of determining by whose advice he should be governed in the matter of recognizing a new Peer or recognizing the right of succession; and, accordingly, although they found that in the majority of cases it was intimated that the Peer claiming honours had better go to the Court of Session, and establish his right by succession or otherwise, yet there were occasions upon which His Majesty took the advice of his Privy Council, and there were other occasions on which he discarded the advice of both these bodies, and acted solely on his own opinion. All these questions as to the proper tribunal for disposing of Peerage claims before the Union seemed to him to be out of place now, and it was idle to discuss them. They were, no

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  doubt, of great antiquarian interest, and threw a great deal of light on the history of the time and the Constitution of the period; but that did not afford the smallest aid in the present question, because the Act of Union put an end to the jurisdiction of the Court of Session. After that Act had been construed in one way by the Sovereign, and by the Peers themselves, and by the Court which was now said to have merely a rival claim, was it to be said that all this was to be set aside, and that they were to go back upon the old procedure before the Act of Union, instead of following the procedure which had since been uniformly adopted? He rather thought if they were to adopt the rights of the Scottish Sovereigns with respect to Peerages, that the King or Queen of Britain would be quite entitled to take the advice of this House, or any other competent body selected to advise on the matter. He thought that if they were to test this question purely on the ground of the Constitution of Scotland, that was the result they would necessarily arrive at. But the real question, and the only question raised in the present Bill, was this. It was the only question, as he understood it, to which the majority of the Committee desired to call attention. He spoke to some extent under correction, because his judicial duties elsewhere to a considerable extent interfered with his attendance in the Committee, and lie had not the privilege of hearing a great deal of that evidence, which tended to show that this House had recognized the authority of the Court of Session since 1707. But his noble and learned Friend opposite (Lord Moncreiff), who represented the law of Scotland on that Committee, never, so far as he understood, entertained any doubt that this House had not exercised any authority except what was conferred upon it by the Act of Union, or proposed to take away that authority from this House and transfer it to the Court of Session. He did not attribute to the majority of the Committee any such intention, and if he had thought that the Resolution of the Committee was such, he should have accompanied his adherence to it with a very earnest protest against the grounds on which they had arrived at it. The Committee of Privileges was, as he understood on very high authority, not a judicial body. He did not think it was very
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  material, in considering a Bill like this, whether it was a judicial body, because the work it had to perform was purely judicial; and he was right in assuming that most persons were of opinion that the Committee of Privileges was quite competent to perform that judicial work efficiently and to the satisfaction not only of the Peers themselves, but of the country at large. But the question for consideration was, How should the Committee most efficiently discharge its functions? He consented to the recommendation which had received embodiment in the Bill on the understanding that they should have it in their power to derive what assistance might appear to them to be of advantage from the Court below, either in the way of relieving the House of Lords of what some conceived to be the drudgery of taking evidence and collecting documents, and still further the assistance of the Judges of the Court of Session where it might appear to the Committee that their assistance would be valuable. Although he had every confidence in and every respect for the distinguished men who had hitherto sat on the Committee, and for those who sat in that House now, he was bound to say that when they came to consider the judicial question, it was of importance, it was at times an enormous advantage, to have a complicated case thoroughly sifted before they came to deal with it finally and determinately by having the opinion of competent men, pointing out the divergent lines of thought and conclusion that might arise from a full consideration of the evidence in the case. It was entirely in that spirit that he concurred in the decision of the Committee, and he should be sorry to see the House dispense with its authority, or delegate its authority. He did not consider that either of these proceedings would be advantageous to the claimants of Peerages, or consistent with the dignity of the House. But lie could see nothing derogatory to the House in delegating its duties in regard to taking evidence, or recovering documents which even the ordinary Superior Courts were in the habit of committing, in important cases, to one of its own members. There were many cases in which matters were so referred by a Superior Court to a clerk or a Commissioner. Why should the House of Lords perform those duties itself which

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  a Court of Appeal or a Superior Court would delegate to an Inferior Court, or an officer of Court? He did not say that the House of Lords should lose the control in cases; but it might with advantage be relieved from some portion of the drudgery which otherwise it would have to perform. Something had been said with reference to the mention of Ireland in the Bill. It was not a usual mode of legislation, and he would remind the Lord Chancellor that in Scotland they were singularly sensitive with regard to their national privileges, and he was afraid he would find that in Scotland it would not be deemed consistent with the national dignity to refer for authority in a Scottish Bill to Ireland. It was very plain, if the phrase admitted of a short and easy explanation, that there was no reason why that explanation should not be given in terms without reference to Ireland. There was one other point which he desired the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack to consider before the Bill came on at another stage, and that was the proposition to give statutory power to open up matters of precedence established by the Union Roll. There might be mistakes on that Roll; but it closely followed the Decreet of Ranking of 1606, and practically had governed precedence in Scotland for nearly 300 years, and it was open to any Peer to assert his proper place according to that Roll. He should say in general terms that there was no measure before the House now in which it was suggested that the Court of Session should have exclusive jurisdiction, or that any reference should be made to the Court of Session, unless it should be found necessary. But he would earnestly press on the noble and learned Lord to consider whether the powers of reference given to the Committee of Privileges should be somewhat wider than they were at present as contained in the Bill. The extent of the reference itself was entirely within the power of the Committee of Privileges, and why should they tie up their hands to taking evidence, or to the recovering of certain documents, thus inflicting on the House the necessity of sitting day after day hearing evidence and performing work of a nature which was not generally either very pleasant or very edifying? He trusted that the Bill, with such Amendments as might be made
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  upon it in Committee, would not only prove a satisfactory solution of the question—he would not say of "indecencies"—he would say rather the unfortunate incidents attending the election of Peers in Scotland—but would, at the same time, settle all those questions which had been raised as to the rights of the Sovereign in times gone by, and the legal effect of the Act of Union.
  THE EARL OF BELMOREsaid, with reference to the remarks of the noble Lord as to this being an adoption of Irish law, that the law referred to was a modern enactment, passed since he himself had come into that House. In 1857 a Bill was introduced to extend to Irish Peers the advantages extended to every Peer in England—namely, that the Lord Chancellor should inquire whether a son was the rightful successor to his father, or a brother to a brother, instead of obliging them to go before the Committee for Privileges, as was formerly always the case, even when no difficulty whatever arose. But this had nothing to do with the Act of Union, or with any Irish law, but was an Act which, as he had said, was passed since he entered that House.
  LORD BALFOURthanked the noble and learned Earl on the Woolsack for having taken up this question; and he was glad to find that in the course of the present discussion the propriety of this Bill, and of giving it a second reading, had been acknowledged. He would defer saying anything upon the merits of the proposals that had been made in regard to it until he saw what Amendments were placed upon the Notice Paper in the next stage. He would observe, however, that he did not share in the least the jealousy which had been expressed in regard to the duty proposed to be laid on the Lord Chancellor under the Bill; it was a purely Ministerial duty, and in a matter so nearly affecting those who sat in that House, it seemed to him the Lord Chancellor was a very proper person to perform the work. He had no jealousy whatever of the Lord Chancellor. The noble Lord who had spoken from the Front Bench had disposed of the question of what was the position in the past of the Court of Session, as bearing upon the controversy. He was very glad that he had given a very clear exposition of the position of the Court of Session; but he could not share with him

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  the desire to see the Court of Session called in to judge upon Peerage cases. That was a matter on which the House would do well to guard its jurisdiction, and he would view with the very greatest possible suspicion any proposal to transfer any part of the jurisdiction of the House, however small, to the Court of Session. He would be very glad if those who were in favour of that would say whether they intended to make the Court of Session a Court of First Instance in Peerage cases. Was the Court of Session to have the right of expressing any opinion? If the Court was not to express an opinion, he thought it was hardly proper to bring it into this matter. If it were to express an opinion, it was making it a Court of First Instance, and instead of having one tribunal to settle Peerage cases, they would have two. That, he thought, would be most unfortunate, for the result of that would be long and expensive processes. He should give general support to the noble and learned Earl's Bill, and he hoped his Lordship would press it on so that the question might be settled once for all during this Session of Parliament.
  LORD MONCREIFFsaid, having had the honour of presiding over the Committee appointed to consider this subject, he wished to say a few words before the discussion closed. He did not propose, although the Bill of his noble and learned Friend did not proceed exactly upon the lines of the Report of the Committee, to throw any obstacle on the present occasion in the way of his proposition. On the contrary, he was glad his noble and learned Friend had introduced this Bill, and that for two reasons. In the first place, he thought that the difference of opinion which took place, and was exhibited in the Committee, and still more in the discussion which they had at the end of last Session, satisfied him that, except in the hands of the Government, they were not likely to bring this matter to a satisfactory conclusion. In the second place, although those proposals were not altogether, as he had said, upon the lines of the Report of the Committee, they did contain material out of which a satisfactory adjustment of the differences that still existed might be made. He wished, however, to recall attention to the real ground of the appointment of the Committee, and what
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  was the subject with which they were mainly required to deal with. It was not to set up a tribunal for the adjudication of the rights of the Scottish Peers, but to remedy abuses which had existed ever since the Union, to which various Acts of Parliament and Resolutions of the House applied, but which objections continued as strong and as objectionable as ever. It was simply this—that, as regarded the meetings of the Scottish Peers to elect Representatives, there were, and had been, so far as the law was concerned, no means whatever to determine who were entitled to act and vote on such occasions, and for this reason, that the Roll called over was not a Roll of individual names, but a Roll of titles and dignities, to which anyone might answer, without their being power or authority in the body collectively to determine. That had been the subject of discussion in this House over and over again, and it was thought that state of confusion and irregularity ought to be put an end to at once and for ever. Accordingly, it was proposed that not a Roll of Peerages, but a Roll of names, should be made up by the Lord Clerk Register, whose official duty it was to take charge of those matters. Of course, in order to do that, it was necessary to have some means of ascertaining who were the persons whose names should be put upon the Roll. What was proposed by the Committee was not that any power should be given to the Court of Session or anyone to determine an absolute right to a title, but simply to set up a Registration Court, in order that the right of the franchise might be determined from time to time, not the absolute right, but the primâ facie right. The Committee thought it was not unreasonable, as the Lord Clerk Register was the Scottish official having charge of this matter, and the titles to Peerages were contained in the Register Office, that the Court of Session, in the first instance, should be the Court to which reference ought to be made in making up the Roll. The Committee did not wish to give to the Court of Session jurisdiction excluding that which belonged to their Lordships' House. It was thought the proposed arrangement would be for the convenience of all parties. Therefore, it did not certainly occur to them that they were in any degree entrenching upon the privileges of

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  the House. It was only proposed to make up an Election Roll, and not to determine the absolute right of Peers. That did not seem an unreasonable proposition. The truth was, whether the Scottish Peers and English Peers were British Peers or not, the Scottish Peers did stand in a position different from the English, and the privilege of voting at elections without any authority was one which the Scottish Peers had enjoyed from the time of the Union. It was proposed in the Bill to deal with questions of protest. These were controverted and contested cases. There were few of them, and in order to make up an Election Roll there were not more than three or four at the most which would have to be decided. The Bill went further, and in the matter of succession affected a greater number. When a man succeeded his father, it was proposed, and must be proposed, that some means or other should be adopted in order that he might show his title to have his name entered upon the Roll. In regard to the protests, he had only to endorse entirely the recommendation of his noble and learned Friend opposite. When they came to Committee on the Bill, it might be worth considering whether the power of referring to the Court of Session contained in the 7th clause should not be made larger and wider. There was a recommendation to that effect in the Report of the Committee. In regard to the 5th clause, that was a matter of very considerable interest, and, although he had no desire to throw any obstacle in the way of the proposition, he ventured to think the proposition of the Committee was not an unreasonable one. Their object was to place upon the Roll, the successor to the title, and that the Lord Clerk Register should have access to the Court of Session in the first instance in a mere matter of propinquity or pedigree. It did seem rather hard that Peers who formerly required no proceedings should have to come to their Lordships' House, whatever the nature of their claims, when in all probability no one could take any objection to them. On the whole, the propositions were not very far apart; and after this discussion and the suggestions made, they might possibly be able to reconcile them.
  THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIANsaid, this question had caused a great deal of
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  unnecessary feeling in Scotland. It was the result of a sort of Home Rule feeling. There was an idea in Scotland that the English were inclined to interfere too much with Scottish rights, and that the English Peers interfered with the rights of the Scottish Peers. That was not a matter which ought to have any influence upon their Lordships in deciding a question of this sort. The Bill, lie thought, was a good one, and he thanked the noble Lord for introducing it.
  THE EARL OF REDESDALE (CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES)said, he would remind their Lordships that a great many of the Peers of Scotland, as well as of Ireland, were also Members of that House as Peers of the United Kingdom. In such cases the right of succession was necessarily determined in the ordinary way by this House, and there would thus be two inquiries, one before that House and the other before the Court of Session in the case of Scottish Peers, if the suggestion of the noble Lord were adopted. In his opinion, the simplicity of the proceedings proposed in the Bill brought in by the noble and learned Earl on the Woolsack was such that no reasonable objection could be taken to them. If there was any difficulty in any case, the Lord Chancellor would report to the House, and if the proof of the successor were simple, it could be conducted in the cheapest way.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, he had listened to the discussion which had taken place with great interest and satisfaction, because the tone of it had been such as to encourage him in the belief that the endeavour he had made to settle this important question would not fail. He assured their Lordships that he had not undertaken the matter from any disposition presumptuously to interfere with the privileges of the Scottish Peers, or with questions which he freely admitted noble Lords connected with Scotland might be much better qualified to settle. For a great length of time this matter had occupied the attention of their Lordships in Committees and otherwise, and no result had followed. Last Session a Bill was introduced by a noble Lord from Scotland, but it was not persevered with. It was suggested to him by more than one noble Lord, and that not from one side of the House only, that he

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  should consider whether the Government could not do a service in this matter by endeavouring to settle the question. The Government were not unwilling to do BO, having regard to the Report of the Committee presided over by his noble Friend (the Earl of Rosebery) in 1874. He had thought that, looking to the mixture of legal questions, and the position which, however unworthily, he held by the virtue of his Office in this House, it would probably be satisfactory to their Lordships—as it appeared to be the desire of all that the matter should be settled—that it should be in his hands as suggested. But for the manner in which this debate had been conducted, he might have repented of the decision which he then arrived at. He had no conception at the time that any feeling would be excited in Scotland or elsewhere upon this matter, or that it would be supposed there was any intention to show less than due consideration to the feelings of any portion of the Scottish people. His sole object was to get this matter settled upon reasonable, satisfactory, and practical lines. The only principle which to him appeared indispensably necessary was the maintenance of the authority and jurisdiction in these matters of the House of Lords. That he thought absolutely necessary. Nothing which he had yet heard or read—for there had been much interesting literature as well as speeches upon this subject—had shaken his conviction. He had no disposition to be inflexible, and he did not object to any changes in detail, provided they were consistent with that principle, and in his judgment really likely to work as improvements. He was bound to say that while he by no means rejected the notion that the particular manner in which he proposed to enable the House to refer for assistance to the Court of Session might be capable of being usefully amended or enlarged, yet he had heard nothing to lead him to think that it would be consistent with the principle of maintaining the authority of their Lordships' House, or practically convenient to go so far in that direction as was proposed by the Committee of 1882. He was bound frankly to say that, because, if he had thought otherwise, he should have been the first to admit the consideration due to the noble Lords who were Members of that Committee. But
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  when it was proposed, in the first instance, to refer the settlement of the Roll to the Court of Session, and afterwards also to refer all disputed questions coming to this House to the Court of Session, he could not assent to either of those propositions. To say that the right of voting should in the first instance be settled by the Court of Session was not consistent with maintaining the authority and jurisdiction of the House. For what would be the effect of settling the right of voting by a body which had no jurisdiction? Either they might put persons practically in a position to vote, and it might be, by a majority of votes, to turn an election of Peers, whom this House might hold to have no such right, or they would gain no greater certainty as to the Roll of Peers, or as to their rights, than they had at present. If the body to whom such a power was given had jurisdiction already, it might be consistent; but not so, if it was recognized as having no jurisdiction, and as being called in simply by virtue of its presumed special learning. He had come to the conclusion that the method on which the Bill he had introduced proceeded was more certain in its effect, and more consistent with the principle he had laid down. As to the Electoral Roll of Peers, he thought the Lord Clerk Register should make out a Roll, including all those who were not subject to protest, and that those who were omitted should take the course necessary to establish their claim to the Peerage. If there was no real contest, the thing would be simple and easy. Coming to the question of succession, his noble Friend who first addressed their Lordships (Lord Kintore) did not seem to understand the provisions of the clause relating to that matter, and appeared to think that some arbitrary power was proposed to be conferred upon the Lord Chancellor by it. This was an entire mistake, which probably would never have been made if the practice as to Irish Peers had not been referred to. He was sorry he had put anything in about Ireland. It was a blunder to mention Ireland, and blunders were sometimes worse than crimes, as their Lordships knew. His excuse was that Ireland and Scotland were alike in this, that while the conditions of election differed, they both elected Representative Peers. The procedure as to both countries might, in that respect, reasonably be expected to agree in sub-

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  stance, and must necessarily differ from that of England. In the case of an English Peerage, the person who claimed to have succeeded on the death of a Peer applied to the Lord Chancellor, that a writ might be issued to summon him to Parliament, without any Petition being presented to the Crown or to the House. The Lord Chancellor had to consider the materials laid before him, and to say whether the proof of succession was complete and beyond question. If it were, he directed the writ to issue, and the Peer took his seat in the House according to the usual procedure of this House. If it were not—if there were any question whatever—the Chancellor reported to the House, and the House referred that question to the Committee of Privileges. The difference, and the only difference, in the case of Irish Representative Peers was this, that under the Act of 1857, a Petition was presented to this House, and the House was in the habit of referring it to the Lord Chancellor, who, when there was no writ to be issued, had no original authority. What was proposed in this Bill was merely that Petitioners on succession should present their Petitions to the House, and the House should then refer them to the Lord Chancellor. If any noble Lord from Scotland had any proposition to bring forward which would better ascertain the succession, and place it for the future more entirely beyond controversy—for that was the object of the Bill—he should be quite willing to accept any good method of doing it; although, primâ facie, he should have thought that what the Legislature, for practical reasons, had very recently considered proper for Ireland, were it only for the sake of avoiding differences of procedure, was that which would, in the first instance, seem best. With regard to the other criticism upon the point as to the order of precedence on the Union Roll, it was the practice of a number of noble Lords, who thought themselves not properly ranked in that order of precedence, to enter protests at every election. He saw it stated in learned works, although, for his own part, he doubted it, that the Scottish Prescription Act was supposed to run in favour of precedence, and that to avoid that Act these continual protests were made. He doubted whether the Prescription Act had anything to do with the order of precedence, but the practice
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  of protests for precedence still went on at Holyrood at every election. He had not thought it safe to assume that it would be satisfactory to noble Lords from Scotland that the precedence upon the Union Roll should be stereotyped now by Act of Parliament. He had no attachment to the provision of the Bill on this subject, and should be quite content to be guided by the general sense of the House on the point. He did not know that he need say anything more; but he could not help observing that he had received great satisfaction from the general assent in this discussion to the principle that the jurisdiction was in this House, and ought to be maintained House, of their Lordships who had made I themselves acquainted with the literature to which he had referred, knew that there were those by whom that proposition had been very confidently and strenously denied. He had read a very interesting and able work, written by an accomplished Nobleman, no longer, he was sorry to say, among them, in which this House was put in the disagreeable position of exercising a usurped jurisdiction, without any warrant of law, in all Scottish Peerage cases, and indeed in all Scottish appeals whatsoever, except in so far as recent statutes might recognize them. And, with respect even to statutes of the Imperial Parliament, that noble Person did not appear to admit their authority on these subjects. He was very glad that it had become unnecessary to refer to antiquarian learning as to the jurisdiction, whatever it was, exercised before the Union, in cases involving rights of Peerage, by the Court of Session. He agreed with what had fallen from his noble and learned Friend (Lord Watson) on that subject. There were five or six cases in which the Court of Session, before the Union, exercised the jurisdiction of reducing, that was setting aside, deeds or charters purporting to grant, or to surrender, honours and dignities or rights connected with them. That appeared to him to be a different thing from a direct jurisdiction such as that which had been exercised by this House, since the Union, in questions of Peerage. In two or three other cases, the Crown, or the Scottish Parliament, or the Scottish Privy Council, seemed to have remitted, for determination by the Court of Session, questions more directly concerning the right to Peerages; just as King James VI. by the Decreet of

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  Ranking, referred to that Court the correction of any errors in the Decreet, as to the order of precedency. The anxious desire that he had to see this question satisfactorily settled, and that in a manner satisfactory to Scotland, as well as to other parts of the United Kingdom, would lead him to receive with great respect and attention all proposals for amending the details of the Bill which might come from any noble Lord.
  THE EARL OF GALLOWAYsaid, he was glad that the line adopted by the noble and learned Lord rendered it unnecessary for him to oppose the second reading of the Bill. He hoped their Lordships would agree to the second reading of his own Bill, without discussion, the more so because he hoped to point out the really small difference that existed between the two Bills. On the invitation of the noble and learned Lord, lie proposed in Committee to move Amendments to the noble and learned Lord's Bill which would have the effect of making it very like the measure which stood in his own name upon the Paper. The noble and learned Lord seemed to think that a proposal had been made to abolish their Lordships' jurisdiction. He begged to assure the noble and learned Lord that no such proposal was contained in his Bill, nor was any proposal of that kind made in the Committee which had considered the subject. The whole question merely came to this—whether it was advisable that they should get the benefit of a Report of the Court of Session, instead of having the trouble and expense of ransacking charter chests in Edinburgh for transmission to London, and of sending up witnesses to be examined in London—whether it was not preferable that the Committee of Privileges should escape all that drudgery, and refer the question to the Court of Session to consider these points, to take the evidence, and send it up along with their own Report to this House, before the House sent the case at all to the Committee of Privileges? That was the main point of difference between the two Bills. The noble and learned Earl had said that he had made a blunder in putting Ireland into the Bill. He (the Earl of Galloway) thought there should be some Memorandum laid upon the Table of the House showing how the noble and learned Earl arrived at the conclusion as to who had the right to vote at the election of Irish Represen-
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  tative Peers, so that the House might be in a position to know by what means he proposed to arrive at a decision as to who had a right to vote at Holyrood as to the Representative Peers of Scotland. There was another point to which he would refer, though it was, perhaps, one rather of sentiment. Almost immediately after presenting the Petition which he had that day presented to the House, he had received a telegram to the effect that the Petition was to have been presented by his noble Friend Lord Napier, who was unable to be present owing to the inquiry now being conducted into the case of the crofters in Skye; and, therefore, it was put into his hands. He would refer to it for one moment. In addition to the signatures of the Provosts and of ex-Provosts of Edinburgh and Glasgow, it contained those of at least two-thirds of the Sheriffs of Scotland, of whose important position in the country the House was well aware, and also of all the Professors of Law and History in Scotland with the exception of throe, the want of whose signatures was to be accounted for by unavoidable accident. He, therefore, thought the Petition was entitled to great weight. He wished to thank the noble and learned Earl for having taken up the subject, for he agreed that it was far better that a Bill of this sort should be in the hands of the Government of the day. He certainly hoped the noble and learned Earl would favourably consider the three points he had mentioned—namely, first, as regarded interference with the Union Roll; secondly, as regarded the primary reference to the Court of Session; and, thirdly, as to the unnecessary complication proposed as regarded the form of proof for future successors to Scotch Peerages.
  Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly.
  Moved, "That the Bill be committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Friday the 4th of May next."—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  THE EARL OF GALLOWAYappealed to the noble and learned Lord to postpone the Committee until after Whitsuntide. He had had a communication from the Faculty of Advocates on the subject, who wished to have time to consider the Bill, and they would not be able to do so until after the conclusion of their present Whitsuntide Holidays.
  THE DUKE OF RICHMOND AND GORDONsaid, he objected to the postponement of the Committee. He had also had a communication from the Faculty of Advocates, and he thought there would be sufficient time for them to consider the Bill.
  LORD BALFOURsaid, he wished to point out, as an additional reason for not deferring the Committee stage of the Bill, that the Chairman of the late Committee would be engaged in his judicial duties and would be unable to be present.
  In reply to Lord MONCREIFF,
  THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, that the Bill had been introduced into the House as far back as the 26th of February last, and then, according to desire, an unusually long time was arranged to elapse before the second reading to secure the presence of the noble Lord the Lord Justice Clerk; during that period the Faculty of Advocates had met and having discharged their duties in Edinburgh had dispersed. There was, therefore, abundance of opportunity for them, if they wished to make any suggestions on the subject of the measure, to do so; but it had not been done. Under these circumstances, he could not consent to the postponement.
  THE EARL OF GALLOWAYsaid, that he made the suggestion for the convenience of the noble and learned Lord (Lord Moncreiff), and was perfectly willing to withdraw it, as the object did not appear to be attained.
  THE MARQUESS OF HUNTLYsaid, that the Faculty of Advocates had only themselves to thank if they had not sufficient time to consider the measure. If they did not discharge their functions, he thought it was their own fault.
  Motion agreed to.

REPRESENTATIVE PEERS (SCOTLAND) ELECTION PROCEDURE BILL.—(No. 6.)
(The Earl of Galloway.)
REPRESENTATIVE PEERS (SCOTLAND) ELECTION PROCEDURE BILL.—(No. 6.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Beading read.
  Moved "That the Bill be now read 2*."—(The Marl of Galloway.)
  LORD BALFOURsaid, it was a somewhat unusual course to take on the same day—the second reading of two Bills on the same subject, but on different lines;
  1962
  and he thought it would be a more convenient course, if they were to postpone the second reading of this Bill of the noble Earl's (the Earl of Galloway) for a month or two, so as to give noble Lords an opportunity of considering in Committee the Bill which had already been read a second time, and if any Peer was not satisfied with it, he could move Amendments to it in Committee.
  LORD MONCRIEFFsaid, it was not out of the ordinary practice to have two Bills on the same lines read a second time on the same day; and he thought it would rather jar on the general feeling, either to throw out this Bill, or postpone the second reading. He was sure that no bad result would accrue from doing so.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, he had no desire to throw any difficulty in the way of adopting any course that seemed most desirable to the House; but he took it for granted that if the Bill was read a second time, the noble Earl would not fix an earlier date for the Committee than that which had been fixed for the other Bill—namely. March 4.
  THE DUKE OF RICHMOND AND GORDONsaid, he thought the noble Earl (the Earl of Galloway) would do well not to press the second reading of his Bill at the present time, as it would be extremely inconvenient to have two Bills upon the same subject before them, and, besides, he would have an opportunity of proposing any Amendments he desired on the Bill of the Lord Chancellor. If the Bills were the same, one was unnecessary; if they were different, their Lordships would be undoing what they had just done.
  THE MARQUESS OF HUNTLYsaid, it was only due to the noble Earl (the Earl of Galloway) that the Bill should be read a second time on that occasion, seeing that the noble Earl drew it up last Session; but when it had been read a second time, he would suggest that it should not be put down for Committee until after the Whitsuntide Holidays.
  THE MARQUESS OF LOTHIANsaid, he entirely agreed with what had fallen from the noble Duke (the Duke of Richmond and Gordon), and he was surprised that the second reading had not been withdrawn, as he was convinced, under the circumstances, that it would be extremely inconvenient to have two Bills on parallel lines; therefore, if the Bill

  1963
  was not withdrawn, he trusted that the House would reject it entirely.
  THE EARL OF GALLOWAYsaid, he did not wish to inconvenience their Lordships; but the course he suggested was not without precedent. Just before the Easter Recess, two Bills on the same subject had been read a second time in the House of Commons on the same night. He would point out that his Bill was ordered to be printed on the 10th of July last year. He had duties to attend to in Scotland up to the middle of August, and he had the Bill put down for a day in that month, thinking it would be accepted practically without amendment. Meantime, there were a number of Amendments put on the Paper; and he was simply studying their Lordships' convenience by withdrawing the Bill last Session, on the understanding that he would re-introduce it at the earliest opportunity this Session. He asked their Lordships to act on the recommendation of the noble and learned Earl (the Lord Chancellor), and allow the Bill to be read a second time that night, in which case he would undertake not to bring it on before the Committee before the 29th of May.
  THE LORD CHANCELLORsaid, it would be a convenient course if the noble Earl would withdraw the Bill. But, at the same time, he wished personally to take the course which was most courteous towards the noble Earl. He thought that, without compromising the principle their Lordships had affirmed, he might be at liberty to indulge the desire of the noble Earl if he pressed for a second reading of the Bill.
  On Question? their Lordships divided:—Contents 20; Not-Contents 31: Majority 11.

  CONTENTS.

  Selborne, E. (L. Chancellor.)

  Hopetoun, L. (E. Hopetoun.)

  Ailsa, M.

  Meldrum, L. (M. Huntly.) [Teller.]

  Moncreiff, L.

  Denbigh, E.

  Stewart of Garlies, L. (E. Galloway.) [Teller.]

  Sidmouth, V.

  Strathallan, V.

  Vaux of Harrowden, L.

  Blantyre, L.

  Watson, L.

  Brabourne, L.

  Wentworth, L.

  Clements, L. (E. Leitrim.)

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

  Congleton, L.

  Zouche of Haryngworth, L.

  Dunsany, L.

  Ellenborough, L.

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  NOT-CONTENTS.

  Bedford, D.

  Elphinstone, L.

  Richmond, D.

  Fitzgerald, L.

  Westminster D.

  Foxford, L. (E. Limerick.]

  Belmore, E. [Teller.]

  Hartismere, L. [L. Henniker.]

  Doncaster, E. [D. Buceleuch and Queensberry.]

  Hothfield, L.

  Inchiquin, L.

  Lathom, E.

  Ker, L. (M. Lothian.] [Teller.]

  Mar and Kellie, E.

  Redesdale, E.

  Kinnaird, L.

  Monson, L.

  Cranbrook, V.

  Ormonde, L. [M. Ormonde.]

  Balfour of Burleigh, L.

  Reay, L.

  Belper, L.

  Romilly, L.

  Blachford, L.

  Saltoun, L.

  Carrington, L.

  Sudeley, L.

  Coleridge, L.

  Thurlow, L.

  Douglas, L. (E. Home.]

  Wrottesley, L.

PARLIAMENT SCOTCH BUSINESS.

  QUESTION.
  THE EARL OF MINTOasked Her Majesty's Ministers, Whether, after they shall have concluded their deliberation on the subject of the re-arrangement of Business connected with Scotland, it is their intention to make a communication to this House, as has been promised, in respect of the other House of Parliament; and whether a Notice of such intention would, be placed on the Notice Paper?
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY, in reply, said, that whenever the Government had decided upon the course to be taken in this matter, they would, of course, desire that their Lordships' House should have the information they had to give with regard to it as well as the other House. He did not think, however, it was a matter on which it was usual to place a Notice on the Paper; but he had no doubt an opportunity would soon be afforded noble Lords for making any observations on the occasion of its being brought forward, and they would then be glad to hear anything that any noble Lord desired to say. A statement on the subject would probably be made on Tuesday next.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) PROVISIONAL ORDERS (NO. 2) BILL [H.L.] (NO. 27.) A Bill to confirm Provisional Orders of the Local Government Board for Ireland relating to the towns of Carlo w and Listowel, and to the Newtownards Gas Undertaking: And
  TRAMWAYS (IRELAND) PROVISIONAL ORDER (EXTENSION OF TIME) BILL [H.L.] (NO. 28.) A Bill to confirm a Provisional Order made by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in Council under the Tramways (Ireland) Act, 1860, extending the time for the completion of the Dublin and Blessington Steam Tramways:
  Were presented by The LORD PRESIDENT; read 1a; and referred to the Examiners.
  House adjourned at Seven o'clock, to Thursday next, a quarter past Ten o'clock.