Sitting of 7 August 1883

MINUTES.
SUPPLY—considered in Committee —Resolutions [August 6] reported.
PUBLIC BILLS—Resolutions in Committee—Local Government Board (Scotland) [Salaries]; Parliamentary Elections (Corrupt and Illegal Practices) [Expenses]*.
Ordered — First Reading — Superannuation* [285]; Tramways, &c. (Ireland) [286].
First Reading—Indian Marine* [284].
Second Reading—National Debt [182]; Corrupt Practices (Suspension of Elections) [281].
Committee—Report—Third Reading—Cruelty to Animals Acts Amendment (re-comm.) [118], and passed.
Considered as amended—Third Reading—Diseases Prevention (Metropolis) [279]; Labourers (Ireland)* [240], and passed.
Withdrawn—Parliamentary Elections (Closing of public Houses)* [102]; Cathedral Statutes* [235].

QUESTIONS.

  PETROLEUM ACTS—STORAGE OF PETROLEUM IN THE METROPOLITAN AREA.
  SIR EDWARD WATKINasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he is aware that the stock of petroleum oil in the Metropolitan Area has increased, since his attention was directed to the subject, by 37,856 barrels, the total now being 373,541 barrels, equal to 14,941,640 gallons; and that at St. Leonard's Wharf the increase of stock has been 14,042 barrels; and, whether the Bill introduced into the House of Lords has had the approval of the Metropolitan Board of Works.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT, in reply, said, he had very little doubt that the quantities stated by the hon. Baronet were correct. With reference to the other part of the Question, he had to say that the Metropolitan Board of Works were appearing before the Committee of the House of Lords to state their views on the Bill before their Lordships.

  POOR LAW (IRELAND) — OLDCASTLE UNION (MEATH) — SUSPENSION OF THE MEDICAL OFFICER.
  MR. HEALYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland,
  1838
  Whether it is the fact that the medical officer of the Oldcastle Union, county Meath, was suspended by a majority of 17 to 6, because of a number of serious charges; whether a sworn inquiry was held, and the doctor admitted on oath the existence of a number of the abuses complained of; whether the Local Government Board, notwithstanding, removed the suspension, and confirmed the doctor in office; whether the Guardians thereupon, by a majority of 17 to 6, declared that they had no confidence whatever in the medical officer, and that he should be called upon to resign by the Local Government Board; and, whether it is intended to allow this Gentleman to retain his post in the face of the protest of the Guardians?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, the medical officer was suspended upon grounds which, in the opinion of the Local Government Board, did not justify that step. A sworn inquiry has been held into the charges made against him, the two first of which were very trivial. The third was, that he had acted disrespectfully to the Guardians, in employing, as an infirmary attendant, a woman whom they had directed should be placed in the ward for women of bad character. It appears that this woman had been specially trained to attend midwifery cases; and it was in this way, and for that reason, the doctor employed her. He swore that, in doing so, he meant no disrespect to the Guardians, and the Inspector is of opinion that he was actuated by motives of humanity. The Local Government Board consider that, in employing this woman in the infirmary, he committed an error of judgment; but they think that the case is sufficiently met by an expression of their opinion that he had done wrong, and that the facts elicited did not afford sufficient grounds for the dismissal of an officer who had served efficiently for over 33 years. The Board also consider that, in this case, there was a misuse of the power of suspension which is given to. Guardians, to enable them to deal with cases of emergency or gross misconduct, pending inquiry and action by the Local Government Board. It is true that the Guardians have, since the inquiry, requested the Local Government Board to call on the medical officer to resign; but the Board are not prepared to do so, merely in consequence of

  1839
  the facts elicited at the recent inquiry, although they are willing to give due weight to any further complaint which may be made with respect to transactions not already investigated and disposed of.
  MR. HEALYasked, would not this medical officer now come under the operation of the new Superannuation Bill, as one of the persons to whom the Guardians would be compelled to give a pension, although they had resolved upon dismissing him by 17 votes to 6?
  MR. TREVELYAN, in reply, said, that he would, if the reasons urged for giving him a pension were approved by the Local Government Board. It would be a gross injustice to deprive an officer of 33 years' standing of a pension on the grounds stated.

  THE MAGISTRACY—LANGUAGE OF A SITTING MAGISTRATE AT SEDGLEY.
  MR. P. A. TAYLORasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether it is true, as reported in the "Midland Echo" of the 17th July, that at the Sedgley Police Court on the 16th July, one of the sitting magistrates addressed a woman, who was charged with neglecting to send her child to school, in these words—
  "If I was your husband, and you persisted in throwing my hard-earned money away, I should give you the strap;"
  and, again—
  "I tell you, a woman like you deserves the strap;"
  and, if such language was used, what steps he proposes to take in the matter?
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT, in reply, said, that he had received a communication from the clerk to the magistrate in question, to the effect that these remarks were intended to be taken in a humorous sense, and were not meant seriously. It would, perhaps, be well, however, to avoid such joking on the Bench, if it were at all likely to be taken seriously.

  EMIGRATION—STATE-AIDED EMIGRATION TO IRISHMEN IN NEW SOUTH WALES.
  MR. HEALYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If he has seen the statement that three magistrates at Sydney, New South Wales, Messrs. Dalton, Casey, and Burke, have
  1840
  been dismissed from the Commission of the Peace for having joined in the presentation of an address to the Member for New Ross; if he can state whether any money has been spent in the Government Emigration Scheme to send Irishmen to New South Wales; and, whether it is intended to grant any further money for this purpose?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, the only part of this Question which deals with matters within the cognizance of the Irish Government is that relating to assisted emigration; and, as regards that, in reply, I have to say that some grants have been made to assist emigrants to New South Wales; but, up to the present, only one person so assisted appears to have sailed for that Colony. Persons who have been recommended for the grant, and who obtained free or assisted passages from the Agents General of New South Wales, or any other Colony, within a reasonable time, will, according to the present intention of the Emigration Committee and Local Government Board, obtain the grant.
  MR. HEALY: I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the Government will warn intending assisted emigrants of the character of the Government of New South Wales, of the insult offered to local Irishmen, and the insult offered to the Irish National Representatives?
  [No reply.]

  ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY—SUB-CONSTABLES CLIFFORD AND EGAN.
  MR. O'BRIENasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether the suspension of Sub-constable Clifford, of Loughill, has been removed; and, if so, whether the charge against Constable Egan, of supplying to a man named Fitzgerald the police ammunition discovered by Sub - constable Clifford near Fitzgerald's house, will remain uninvestigated?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, the suspension of Sub-Constable Clifford has been removed. I have already explained that the main ground of his suspension had reference to his detaining some articles of value which had been lent to him. No charge has been preferred against Constable Egan of having supplied police ammunition to Fitzgerald; and his officers have stated, in the most positive

  1841
  manner, that they know of no ground for such an allegation. If the hon. Member is in possession of any information leading to a different conclusion, and will furnish it to me, with his authority for it, I will investigate it. At present, as I stated in reply to a former Question, I see no ground for inquiry.
  MR. O'BRIEN: Is it not the fact that ammunition was found—to some extent primâ facie evidence that Constable Egan was surreptitiously supplying the Emergency men with ammunition; and is that state of facts to be dismissed, merely because the officer who was responsible for the original statement, that there was no foundation for the allegation, now confirms that statement?
  [No reply.]
  MR. O'BRIEN: I beg to give Notice of a further Question on this subject.

  STATE OF IRELAND—PROTECTION OF VACANT FARMS.
  MR. O'BRIENasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Why three policemen are stationed on the evicted farm of Thomas Walsh, at Lockabeg, county Limerick; from what source they are paid; and, whether any outrage has been committed in the neighbourhood within the past six months to justify their retention?
  MR. TREVELYANSir, the police are stationed on the farm in question for the protection of the caretaker, for which purpose their presence is considered necessary. They are not a charge on the locality, but are paid from the same source as other Members of the county force. No outrages have been committed within six months, the presence of the police having probably prevented them.
  MR. O'BRIEN: Has any outrage taken place for 12 months?
  MR. TREVELYAN: I am only informed with regard to six months.

  POST OFFICE (TELEGRAPH DEPARTMENT)—FEMALE TELEGRAPHISTS.
  MR. STEWART MACLIVERasked the Postmaster General, If he is aware that a new portion of duty has been assigned to the female telegraphists at the Chief Office (from 1 p.m. to 9 p.m.), contrary to the assurance given to the House, that under no circumstances would females be employed after 8 p.m.;
  1842
  and, whether this alteration, if continued, will not prove detrimental to the service by deterring eligible young women from entering it?
  MR. FAWCETT: Sir, I am not aware that I have ever given such an assurance as my hon. Friend (Mr. Stewart Macliver) states—namely, that under no circumstances would females be employed after 8 p.m. It has been the practice for many years past, during two or three months of the summer, to keep a few female telegraphists upon duty up to 9 p.m., to meet pressure of business in the busy season. It rarely happens that more than 12 female telegraphists out of a force of 600 are required to perform this duty; indeed, that is the number at present so employed, and I do not think it will be found to be detrimental to the Service.

  POOR LAW (IRELAND) — BELFAST UNION WORKHOUSE — ERECTION OF DETACHED DWELLING HOUSE FOR THE MASTER.
  MR. BIGGARasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If the Local Government Board for Ireland have approved of the proposal of the Belfast Board of Guardians to erect a detached house for the accommodation of the Workhouse Master's family, at a cost (as alleged by Mr. M'Connell, one of the Guardians) of £1,000; if it be true that, in the month of June 1876, a resolution was adopted by the Belfast Guardians prohibiting all children or other members of any officers' families from residing within the Workhouse in future, and that said resolution has 11 never been rescinded; if it be correct that the present master, when entering on his duties, brought his wife and family with him into the Workhouse without any permission from the Guardians; and, if he would give any undertaking that the creation of increased taxation, providing residences for the wives and families of public officials in Ireland, will be discontinued?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, the Local Government Board have riot approved of any proposal of the kind. The Guardians have at present under consideration a much more moderate one—namely, the propriety of expending about £400 for the purpose of building apartments for the Master. In June, 1876, the Guardians ordered that all

  1843
  children of the Master over 7 years of age should leave the workhouse, and they also ordered the removal of the relatives of certain other officers. That order was not a general resolution, prohibiting in future the residence in the workhouse of all children of officers. In June, 1881, the attention of the Guardians was directed by the Local Government Board Inspector to the circumstance that there was no resolution on the books authorizing the Master's wife and family to reside in the workhouse; and thereupon the Guardians unanimously allowed the residence there of the Master's wife and all children under 13. The Local Government Board will take care that no undue taxation is put upon the Unions for the purpose of providing residences for the families of workhouse officers.

  EGYPT (RE-ORGANIZATION) — CORRESPONDENCE WITH FOREIGN POWERS—FURTHER PAPERS.
  MR. BOURKEasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether he will lay before Parliament any Despatches which have passed between Her Majesty's Government and Foreign Powers upon the re-organisation of Egypt?
  LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE: My right hon. Friend will find in the Correspondence recently presented to Parliament (Egypt, No. 14) the communications which, as I have already stated in this House, have been received from the Governments of Russia and Italy, in reply to Lord Granville's Circular of the 3rd January last. These Papers also include a Note from the French Government on the subject of the house tax in Egypt. No other communications have been received.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEasked if the noble Lord would lay on the Table any Papers relating to the progress of the re-organization in Egypt later than May 3rd, which were, he thought, the latest given as yet?
  LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE, in reply, said, that he had made up a Blue Book, headed "Egypt (Reorganization)"—that was as regarded what had happened since the Blue Book issued at the beginning of the Session, and it had been laid on the Table a few days ago. He thought it was Egypt, No. 13.
  MR. BOURKEasked whether any answers had been received from Foreign Governments to Lord Granville's despatch on the Suez Canal, which was sent some months ago?
  LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE, in reply, said, that two replies had been received to the Circular despatch, which was the last Paper presented last year, and was in the Blue Book of 1882. Those two replies were from Russia and from Italy, and were the only replies received from Foreign Governments.

  EGYPT (MILITARY EXPEDITION) — SUPPLY OF MULES FOR THE INDIAN CONTINGENT.
  MR. SALTasked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether any complaints have been made with respect to the non-payment of the purchase money for mules, or other requisites, ordered for the use of the Indian Contingent during the recent Egyptian campaign?
  MR. J. K. CROSS: Yes, Sir; a complaint has been made by Mr. Stringer, who failed in a contract he entered into for the supply of certain mules. The case was referred to arbitration, and it is against the decision of the arbitrators that Mr. Stringer has appealed. The appeal has been forwarded to the Government of India.

  EGYPT (RE-ORGANIZATION) — TREATMENT OF PRISONERS.
  SIR WILFRID LAWSONasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether his attention has been called to the following statement published from a correspondent in "The Standard" of August 3rd:—
  "I hear from Zagazig that the notorious Mudis Feria Pasha, after refusing to give any information, or in any other way to help the English Authorities, has left the place in charge of the Vice Governor. More than seventy men have been lying in irons in the prison since January. No spark of humanity appears to exist in the breasts of the Turko-Circassians to whom we have handed over the Government of Egypt;"
  and, whether there is any foundation for the statement?
  LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE: Sir, the attention of Sir Edward Malet will be called to the statement referred to by my hon. Friend; but he must be aware, from the Correspondence already presented to Parliament, of the efforts

  1845
  which have made to procure a speedy gaol delivery. I may add, that this statement, as to the treatment of the prisoners at Zagazig, is not in accordance with the information supplied by Lord Dufferin, and reported in his despatch of the 25th of April, which has been laid before Parliament (Egypt, No. 13, p. 64).

  ECCLESIASTICAL COURTS—REPORT OF THE ROYAL COMMISSION.
  MR. BERESFORD HOPEasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he can state when the Report of the Royal Commission on Ecclesiastical Courts will be made public?
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Sir, I answered this Question the other day. I am told that the Report will probably be sent in on Friday next, when, of course, it will have to go to the Queen, and it will be presented as soon afterwards as possible.

  CRIMINAL LAW (IRELAND)—CASE OF T. W. NALLY.
  MR. HEALYasked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, In how many cases is he aware that a similar course of keeping back prisoners from amongst their comrades in the dock has been practised by the Crown as in that of Mr. T. W. Nally at Castlebar; for what reason was Mr. Nally detained in his cell while his co-accused were brought up in Court; and by whose instructions was this done?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER): Sir, I am quite unable to say in how many cases trials have been postponed in the absence of some of the persons charged; but it is frequently done, I believe; and, on this occasion, the learned Judge who presided saw no occasion for complaint, or for ordering the presence of Mr. Nally. I do not feel at liberty to state the reason why he was not brought up in Court; but it was not that which, in a former Question, was suggested by the hon. Member. I believe it was the same Crown Solicitor who applied that the other prisoners should be put forward in this case. I have already stated that there was nothing whatever illegal in that course.

  TURKEY IN ASIA—THE EUPHRATES AND TIGRIS STEAM NAVIGATION COMPANY.
  MR. ARTHUR ARNOLDasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to claim compensation from the Porte on account of the hindrance which has been recently suffered by owners of vessels of the Tigris and Euphrates Company in the exercise of their rights of navigation upon those rivers?
  LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICESir, as I stated yesterday, the terms of the arrangement in connection with the recent proceedings on the Tigris are still under discussion; and it would not, in the opinion of my noble Friend the Secretary of State, be in keeping with public policy to make any further statement at present.

  GIBRALTAR—CUSTOMS DUTIES.
  CAPTAIN AYLMERasked, Whether the Customs Duties at Gibraltar produce a revenue in excess of expenditure; whether the Government have in contemplation an increase in the Duties charged on coal and other imports from the United Kingdom; and, whether the greater part of these imports are not, so imported for supply of shipping, and for the use of the troops stationed there?
  MR. EVELYN ASHLEY: Sir, there are no Customs duties at Gibraltar properly so called, it being a free port. The Revenue is not more than enough to defray the present public expenditure. In fact, a slight deficit is feared. It is not intended to place duties on coal or other imports from England now admitted free; but the charges on wines, beer, spirits, and tobacco landed will be slightly raised, with a view to insure the future equilibrium of the finances. Most of the articles named are undoubtedly consumed by the shipping and garrison; but their price will be very slightly raised in consequence of these changes.

  MADAGASCAR—PROCEEDINGS OF THE FRENCH AT TAMATAVE—INSULT TO THE BRITISH FLAG.
  MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, If he can give the House any further information from Madagascar

  1847
  regarding the insult to the British Flag at Tamatave?
  LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICESir, we have as yet no further information than that already make known to the House.
  MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT: May I ask the noble Lord if any despatches have been received contradicting the statements that have been reported?
  LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE: No; the despatches which have been expected for some time have not yet arrived. As I explained the other day, in answer to another Question, there was a probability of some delay owing to the quarantine regulations which interrupt the ordinary channels of communication.

  COMMISSIONERS OF IRISH LIGHTS—SALARIES OF LIGHTHOUSE KEEPERS.
  MR. BIGGARasked the President of the Board of Trade, If it is the case that keepers of Irish lighthouses are paid on a lower scale than persons in similar employment in England; and, if so, can he give any reason for the difference?
  MR. CHAMBERLAIN, in reply, said, the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) must have been misinformed if he thought that keepers of Irish lighthouses were paid on a lower scale than persons in similar employment in England. The scale of pay was the same under the three Lighthouse Boards.

  BURIAL ACTS—LEGISLATION.
  MR. RICHARDasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether, in view of the difficulties experienced by local authorities in providing new cemeteries, he would next Session introduce a Bill for needed alterations in the existing Burial Acts?
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Sir, there is no one more conscious than I am of the difficulties of attempting to deal with this question, or more anxious to have a settlement of it. Those difficulties come before me every day. I hope, after the debate we had on the Bill introduced by my hon. Friend, that something in the course of next Session will be done to bring about a settlement of a question which, as everybody feels, is now in a most unsatisfactory state.
  1848
  I will carefully consider the matter during the Recess, and will see how far the Government can endeavour to deal with it.

  ARMY—RE-APPOINTMENTS—LIEUTENANT HON. A. F. G. HAY.
  COLONEL ALEXANDERasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether it is true that Lieutenant the honourable Archibald Fitzroy George Hay, of the 1st Battalion Black Watch, retired on temporary half-pay shortly before the embarkation of the battalion for active service in Egypt; and, whether, on restoration to full pay a few months ago, he was placed above three subalterns who had served throughout the campaign; and, if so, whether he can assign any reason for the exceptional favour shown to this officer? The hon. and gallant Member added: I must express my deep regret at the form in which this Notice appears on the Paper of the House, for which I am entirely responsible, and for which I recognize that I am very much to blame. I do not impute that Lieutenant Hay went on half-pay to avoid foreign service; on the contrary, I know that such was not the case. I would merely ask why, when he was restored to full pay, he was placed above other officers who had served through the campaign?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: Sir, for purposes of exchange and re-appointment from half-pay, lieutenants on the lowest rate of pay are regarded as a distinct class. Consequently, on a lieutenant who went to half-pay from the higher rate of pay—as is the case with Lieutenant Hay, who went on half-pay in Juno of last year—being re-appointed to his regiment, he would come in below all on the higher rate, and above all on the lowest rate. No exceptional favour has been shown to Lieutenant Hay.

  SUPPLY—CIVIL SERVICE SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES.
  In reply to Mr. SCLATER-BOOTH,
  MR. COURTNEYsaid, that no more Supplementary Estimates for the Civil Service would be presented this year, with the exception of a small Estimate in connection with the Duke of Wellington's Statue.

  EGYPT—ARMY OF OCCUPATION—PRESBYTERIAN CHAPLAINS.
  MR. BUCHANANasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether he will state the number of Presbyterian Chaplains attached to the Forces in Egypt; where they are stationed; and, whether, considering that three of the regiments mainly consist of Scottish soldiers, he will, in view of the outbreak of cholera, increase the number of Presbyterian Chaplains?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: Sir, there are two Presbyterian Chaplains in Egypt, at Cairo and Alexandria respectively. The General Officer commanding has asked for the services of a third, and one leaves to-day for Egypt in answer to his request.

  SOUTH AFRICA—ZULULAND.
  MR. O'KELLYasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether Her Majesty's Government has information showing that many white men openly instigated Zibebu to attack Cetewayo; whether a Mr. Calenbrander, a well-known agent of Zibebu, was allowed to organize an armed party of white men in Natal, and lead them into Zululand under the pretence of hunting; whether Sir Henry Bulwer refused this pretended hunting party permission to purchase 2,000 rounds of ammunition, but afterwards granted them permission to take 1,000 cartridges into Zululand; whether his attention has been called to an article which appeared in the "Natal Times" of April 11th, published at Maritzburg, showing that the interference of white men was already organized; whether any precautions were taken to prevent the invasion of Zululand by white adventurers, and to preserve the peace between the Chiefs; and, whether, in view of the results of the policy adopted by the Government of dividing Zululand into a number of independent divisions, Her Majesty's Government will consider the advisability of allowing the Zulu nation to be reconstituted under one King in order to put an end to the existing anarchy?
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, I will answer the Question by referring to the paragraphs contained in it; and with regard to the first three, I find no official information on the point to which they refer, and no answer can be given except a
  1850
  general answer, which is to the effect indicated more or less in the Question itself—that is to say, that there is no doubt that Europeans have been mixed up in these affairs, and have rather stimulated them in certain cases. With regard to the fourth paragraph, there is a statement of the kind that the hon. Gentleman indicates. With respect to the fifth paragraph, it is not possible for Her Majesty's Government to prevent the intervention of White men carried on, not in a military way, nor with any external signs of organization, but by their passing individually into the country. That we are not able to stop. With regard to the last paragraph, though I fully recognize the excellent intention with which it is conceived, I confess that it is our impression that although we might be very glad to see Zululand perfectly united, and, therefore, should readily allow the Zulu Nation to be reconstituted, yet it is probable that any premature action on our part in the selection of a particular person might only be a cause of additional discord and division.
  MR. O'KELLYfurther asked, whether Her Majesty's Government would take the same steps to prevent White adventurers from bringing arms and ammunition into the country as they had done to prevent the Zulus from obtaining arms?
  MR. GLADSTONE: I am not sufficiently cognizant of the facts; and I could not, without reference to my hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, undertake to say what are the supplies of arms carried into Zululand at present, and by what method they are introduced.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he intends to go on to-night with the Local Government Board (Scotland) Bill? Although it had been understood yesterday that the Bill would not be taken last night, he found that a Resolution had been passed.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT, in reply, said, he could not help expressing his surprise at the hon. Member's want of acquaintance with the Forms of the House. The Resolution taken last night

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  was but a purely formal proceeding. He believed that even if the Government desired to take the Bill to-night, it would be impossible to do so.

  PARLIAMENT—PRIVATE ESTATE BILLS.
  MR. ARTHUR ARNOLDasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether his attention has been called to the increase of Private Bills dealing with settled land, as to the provisions of which the House has no information or Report; and, whether, having regard to the public interests involved in these transactions, he is prepared to advise the House that in future Sessions it would be desirable to refer all Private Estate Bills to a Select Committee?
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, this Question of my hon. Friend is one of considerable interest. In nothing is the overwork of this House more manifest than in the way in which measures of the nature and importance of the Bills to which my hon. Friend refers have been allowed to pass through, and obtain our definitive sanction, without our bestowing upon them an amount of attention at all proportionate to the great importance of their provisions. I am afraid, Sir, that I cannot look with any confidence to the adoption of the remedy proposed by my hon. Friend with respect to referring these Bills to a Select Committee; because what I am afraid will happen will be this—that it will be the duty, according to usage, of such a Select Committee to view the Bills mainly in the light of their being opposed or unopposed. Now, these Bills would be practically unopposed, because the parties concerned and immediately affected would be all agreed in promoting them. I am afraid, therefore, that reference to a Committee would not secure the full investigation of the Bills, or the consideration, on their provisions, of how far they deviate from what may be considered the established rule of legislation with regard to land. I think this is a matter in which we ought to look to the aid of the House of Lords, for these Bills are made the subject in the House of Lords of a regular reference to Judges. From that source we possibly may obtain some assistance which will be a guide to the House of Commons, and which, at any rate, will secure our giving due attention to these
  1852
  important measures. Probably the attention of my noble and learned Friend the Lord Chancellor has been called to the subject, and I am sure he will be ready to consider whether anything can be done in that direction.
  MR. RAIKES: Does the right hon. Gentleman know, as a matter of fact, that there has been an increase in the number of Private Estate Bills; and, whether they are considerable in number?
  MR. GLADSTONE: I am not cognizant either of the fact how far they have increased of late years, or as to their number.

  PARLIAMENT — PUBLIC BUSINESS — RIVERS CONSERVANCY AND FLOODS PREVENTION BILL, &c.
  COLONEL ALEXANDER (for Viscount HINCHINGBROOK)asked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether he will give any assurance that the Rivers Conservancy and Floods Prevention Bill will be introduced and pressed forward by the Government at au early period of next Session?
  MR. RYLANDSasked whether the Government would not, next Session, consider the propriety of conferring upon County Boards the powers of Sealing with the question, and so postpone the Bill until after the discussion of the scheme of Local Government in the Counties?
  MR. DODSON: Sir, as I have had charge of this Bill in several Sessions, my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has asked me to answer the Question. It would be rash to anticipate the demands upon our time which may arise next Session; but those, both in the House and out of it, who are interested in this question, may rest assured that I regret, as deeply as any Member of the House, not being able to proceed with the Bill, and the Government remain as anxious as ever to pass it. If the Bill has not been put forward more this Session, it was only because it has already passed the House of Lords, it has been read more than once a second time in this House, and it has passed through a Select Committee, both in this and in the other House; and, under those circumstances, we did not think it worth while to press its earlier stages, unless we saw our opportunity of obtaining the judgment of the House on the Bill

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  in its final stages. This we have, unfortunately, not had an opportunity of doing this Session. With regard to the Question of my hon. Friend (Mr. Rylands), we are not insensible of the advantages there might be in conferring this power on County Boards; but, at the same time, my hon. Friend will see that rivers by no means fall within the limits of a county—in fact, they often form the boundary between counties; and, therefore, the two matters are not necessarily connected.

  LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART—THE BRITISH MUSEUM—RESEARCHES AT SIPPARA.
  MR. W. H. SMITHasked the First Lord of the Treasury, If Her Majesty's Government will exert their influence with the Sublime Porte to obtain permission for the agents of the British Museum to continue the researches at Sipparà, the ancient Sepharraim, from which most valuable records relating to ancient history have already been obtained, and are deposited in the British Museum? The right hon. Gentleman said, he would point out that hitherto the representatives of the Museum had been unsuccessful; and he trusted the urgency of the representations made by the Government would be successful.
  MR. GLADSTONE, in reply, said, he quite agreed with that view; and he hoped the Government would be successful as to the purpose to which the right hon. Gentleman referred.

  INDIA—POLICY OF THE MARQUESS OF RIPON.
  MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether he will give facilities for a discussion upon Lord Ripon's proposed changes in the Criminal Law of India?
  MR. GLADSTONE, in reply, said, he was afraid, if the Question meant that the Government were to postpone any Business that was now immediately before the House, for the sake of giving time for the discussion of that subject, he must reply in the negative. They were now reaching a period of the Session when the Legislative Business of the Government would begin to decline; and the hon. Member might find an opportunity himself for his Motion.

  PARLIAMENT—BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE—BANKRUPTCY BILL, PETROLEUM BILL, &c.
  MR. RITCHIEasked, Whether the Bankruptcy Bill would be taken on Friday next; and, if not, when it would be taken; and also, looking at the late period of the Session, whether the Government proposed to proceed with the Petroleum Bill this Session?
  MR. GLADSTONE, in reply, said, he was not aware whether his right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Chamberlain) had yet completed the inquiries he was to make, as to the state of opinion and the view of the House, on which would depend their disposition to go forward with those clauses in the Bankruptcy Bill that were most likely to create difficulty. He would endeavour, to-morrow, at 12 o'clock, to put himself in a position to answer the Question; and with regard to the Petroleum Bill, he must refer the hon. Member to his hon. Friend the Representative of the Home Department.
  MR. HIBBERTsaid, by way of explanation, that, as to the Petroleum Bill, it was now before the House of Lords, and had been referred to a Select Committee. He was unable to say whether it would be proceeded with this Session.

  SOUTH AFRICA — THE TRANSVAAL — BECHUANALAND AND GRIQUALAND.
  MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he had one or two Questions which he wished to ask his hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, and of which he had given private Notice, respecting an important telegram which was read yesterday, and which his hon. Friend said he had just received. He begged to ask the hon. Gentleman whether he would lay that telegram on the Table; whether he (Mr. W. E. Forster) was right in supposing that that was a telegram which had arrived at the Cape on the 13th July, and had been forwarded here by letter; and, also, whether he was right in believing that there had been telegraphic communication between this country and the Cape for the last two or three weeks at least; and, whether there had been any information confirming that telegram, and especially regarding a very important statement, which he should be

  1855
  glad to believe was true—that Mankoroane and the other Chiefs were really making head against the people who had robbed them of their land? Also, whether he knew if the person from whom this news originally came was or was not in official employment?
  MR. EVELYN ASHLEY: Sir, if I had known, before I came down to the House, that I was to be asked these Questions, I would have taken care to bring the despatch and telegram with me. The telegram in question was received on the 13th of July at Cape-town, and was sent on here on the 16th, mail day, in a despatch from the officer administering the Government. The telegram came from the Civil Commissioner at Kimberley, and he gave in the telegram information which he had received from a Mr. Rose. Whether Mr. Rose is an official or not I must leave it for the House to decide. He is a Member of the Legislative Assembly of Capetown, and at present he is engaged on a Government Commission, in drawing a boundary line between Bechuanaland and Griqualand West. As to the telegraph being open or not, I am not able to answer that Question. I believe that it was so; but I should be afraid to say it has been during the whole of the time since the 13th of July. We have received no corroboration of the information contained in the telegram.
  MR. W. E. FORSTERgave Notice that on Thursday, to give time for communicating with the authorities at the Cape, he should ask his hon. Friend, whether the Government had received any information in confirmation especially of the successful efforts of Mankoroane?

  EGYPT—PROGRESS OF RE-ORGANIZATION—STATEMENT OF THE EARL OF DUFFERIN.

    MINISTERIAL STATEMENT.
    MR. GLADSTONE: I stated yesterday, Sir, that I had had a communication from Lord Dufferin, which was somewhat of a formal character; and, as I thought that Lord Dufferin had a better cognizance of the actual progress that had been made in Egypt than anyone else, I asked him to give me, in a very few words, a note of the progress which he conceives to have
    1856
    been attained with respect to several of the most interesting questions in the re-organization of the country. With respect to the Army, he considers that work to be almost completed, and in quite a satisfactory condition with reference to the plan on which it is devised. With respect to the Constabulary, that is not so forward. The Constabulary proper is re-organized; but, with respect to the police, there is still a good deal to be done, though a good deal has been accomplished. With regard to the Judiciary, be believes that a fair body of Judges, presumably competent, have been secured; but it has been found necessary to translate the Judicial Code into Arabic, and that has caused some delay. With respect to the Legislative Bodies, Lord Dufferin is not now aware how far nominations have been made with regard to a portion of them that are to be nominated; but all the arrangements with reference to the elective body have been made, and have been published. With respect to irrigation, a plan has been made by Mr. Moncrieff, the engineer for the irrigation of the Delta, and Lord Dufferin believes that that is favourably regarded by the Government; but no positive decision has been taken in respect to it. And, lastly, with respect to the taxation of foreigners, a plan had likewise been submitted for the attaining of that very important matter. These are the points on which I asked Lord Dufferin to give me such information as he could.
    SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: With regard to the plan for the taxation of foreigners, can the right hon. Gentleman say what he means by "plan?" has a plan been submitted to the Egyptian Government, or the Foreign Governments?
    MR. SCLATER-BOOTH: I should also like to ask whether Lord Dufferin is to be entrusted with the duty of watching the development of the plans to which the right hon. Gentleman has referred?
    SIR WILFRID LAWSON: Will Lord Dufferin's statement be laid on the Table?
    MR. GLADSTONE: Certainly not. I have mentioned that this information is conveyed in a private letter; and it is the best information which Lord Dufferin can give. What he says with respect to

    1857
    the taxation of foreigners is stated very briefly; but what, I apprehend, he means is merely that the question is in its first stage. I conceive the plan cannot be carried out without the cognizance of foreign countries.
    SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: On Thursday I will put a Question with regard both to that and as to the difficulties which have arisen in the administration of justice where foreigners are concerned. In regard to that, I will ask whether those difficulties have been or are in the course of being dealt with?
    MR. BOURNEalso gave Notice that on Thursday, on the Vote for Major Baring's salary, he would call attention to the whole subject, as the points mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman formed only an infinitesimal part of the great subject connected with the administration of Egypt.
    Subsequently,
    MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTasked whether Lord Dufferin's letter contained any reference to the Debt of the Egyptian Fellaheen, which, he understood, amounted to £30,000,000?
    MR. GLADSTONE: No, Sir.
    MR. RAIKES: A question, Sir, arises out of the statement of the right hon. Gentleman; and I therefore wish to ask if you will inform the House whether the Rule, which requires that any official document cited by a Minister in debate shall be laid before the House, does not apply to communications addressed by official personages to Members in this House, to be used by them for purposes of informing the House in reply to Questions?
    MR. GLADSTONE: Before the Question is answered, perhaps you will allow me, Sir, to make a little more clear what I thought I had made sufficiently clear before, as to what my answer was with respect to Lord Dufferin. Before Lord Dufferin left London I desired to see him, to inform myself as well as I could, from conversation, on the points which he has given me roughly in a private letter. But Lord Dufferin unfortunately had left, and therefore I sent after hint; and, informally, he said in a private letter what he would have given me in conversation; and I am afraid the question will arise whether it is lawful to have conversations with officials for the purpose of obtaining
    1858
    information, inasmuch as conversations cannot be laid upon the Table.
    [Mr. SPEAKER did not reply to the Question of the right hon. Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Raikes)].

    PEACE PRESERVATION (IRELAND) ACT, 1881—ARMS' LICENCES.
    MR. O'SULLIVANasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If it is a fact that at the Limerick Assizes last month a person named Heffernan pleaded guilty to a charge of firing a revolver at a party on the public road near the city of Limerick; and, if so, to further ask if the authorities still continue to allow this man to carry arms?
    MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, Heffernan pleaded guilty to firing a shot, but not with intent to kill. He was returned for trial; but the Judge directed the jury to acquit him, saying it was a case that should not have come before them. It is considered necessary for Heffernan to carry arms for his protection, and accordingly he has been allowed to retain his licence.

    INLAND REVENUE — DISPARITY OF AMOUNT PAYABLE FOR GROCERS' SPIRIT LICENCES IN SCOTLAND AND IRELAND.
    MR. O'SULLIVANasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Whether it is true that some spirit grocers' licences are issued in Scotland as low as four pounds four shillings per annum, while in Ireland the lowest spirit grocers' licence is nine pounds eighteen shillings and five pence per annum; and, if so, will the Government take any steps to redress this remarkable inequality between the two Countries?
    MR. COURTNEY: Sir, I have ascertained that this disparity does exist. It has been explained to me that the class of traders differs considerably in the two countries. The subject appears to require further investigation, and I am not sure that we ought to level up, and not to level down.

    SUPPLY—CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES—THE SUEZ CANAL DIRECTORS' VOTE.
    MR. BOURKEsaid, that, as Thursday next was to be devoted to the consideration of the Vote connected with Egypt, he wished to know whether the

    1859
    Vote for the Suez Canal Directors would be taken at the close of the other Vote, or in the ordinary course?
    MR. COURTNEY, in reply, said, he thought the most convenient course would be to take the two questions together; therefore, the Vote for the Suez Canal Directors would be taken after the Egyptian Vote.

  ORDERS OF THE DAY.
    NATIONAL DEBT BILL.— [BILL 182.]
    (The Chairman of Ways and Means, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. Courtney.)
    NATIONAL DEBT BILL.— [BILL 182.]

      SECOND READING.
      Order for Second Reading read.
      THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS): I rise, Sir, to move that the National Debt Bill be now read a second time; and, considering how many weeks have passed since I made a Statement with reference to the Debt, and also considering the great interest that is taken in this subject, perhaps it will be convenient to the House that I should now say a few words by way of explanation and information on the subject of the Bill. There are, I observe, several Amendments to the second reading proposed in different quarters of the House. One hon. Member thinks the measure premature; another thinks we ought to have less taxation on articles of consumption; another that there ought to be less taxation on land and property and it is also suggested that, instead of reducing expenditure, it would be expedient to increase it, in order to give aid to local authorities. All these Amendments are aimed at the reduction of the National Debt; and the effect of these divergent and inconsistent lines of objection will be that when you, Sir, at the proper time put the Question that the words, "That the Bi11 be now read a second time," stand part of the Question, all who are in any way opposed to the Bill will vote "No" to that Motion. Therefore, it is necessary that I should, in the first instance, explain, with the view of meeting such a variety of opposition, what the Bill really proposes. And I will, first of all, state what the Bill does not do. Practically, the Bill does not propose to alter the charge for the Debt now established by a per-
      1860
      manent law. I must qualify that, however, by saying that it does propose to reduce the charge by £60,000 a-year; but that is a very small and almost accidental matter. The Bill, then, does not propose to alter the aggregate charge for the Debt. What the Bill does, in general terms, may be stated to be this—that in view of the Terminable Annuities which have been created at various times, all running out in 1885, it proposes to substitute for them other Terminable Annuities, with, as I hope to show, a somewhat improved action. But, except in that respect, the Bill, so far as the charge for the Debt goes, makes no change whatever. Let me state what is the present state of the law governing the annual charge for the Debt. Under an Act which was passed on the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman opposite the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote) in 1875, £28,000,000 is permanently appropriated as the annual charge for the Debt, that £28,000,000 containing not only the interest on the Debt, but also the amount which Parliament decided as proper to be appropriated for paying off or reducing the Debt. In addition to the permanent charge of £28,000,000, there is a temporary charge of £800,000 a-year, ending in 1885, to meet part of the cost of the preparations at the time of the Russo-Turkish War, and the cost of the Cape War. There are also a few small charges, which I need not enumerate now, amounting to £203,000 a-year, raising the whole charge for the Debt to £29,003,000. This is, however, irrespective of the charge for the Debt raised either for the purchase of the Suez Canal Shares or for Local Loans, as to which the receipts more than meet the charge. We need not mix up these with the charge of £29,003,000. That charge may be conveniently divided into four heads. In the first instance, there is the charge for the interest and management of the Funded and the Unfunded Debt, amounting to £21,464,000 a-year. Then come the certain Terminable Annuities, ending in 1885, which, including the £800,000 a-year I have just mentioned, amount to £6,061,000. In the third place, come the Life and other Annuities, which extend beyond 1885, amounting to £1,242,000; and the balance of the £29,003,000 con-

      1861
      stitutes what is known as the New Sinking Fund set up by the right hon. Gentleman in the year 1875, and its amount for the present year is £237,000. I will ask the House to follow me while I describe shortly what will happen in 1885–6. First, the £800,000 a-year charge, set up in connection with the Russo-Turkish War, and the War in South Africa, will come to an end, and to that extent the taxpayer will get relief. In the second place, the other Terminable Annuities I have described will fall in; and, unless Parliament should otherwise provide, the New Sinking Fund, by the operation of the law which makes the charge of £28,000,000 permanent, will, instead of being £237,000 a-year, rise to £5,498,000. Now, in our opinion, the time has come when we should anticipate that serious increase of the New Sinking Fund, and that we should re-construct a sufficient amount of Terminable Annuities, leaving the New Sinking Fund at about the amount originally intended. In our opinion, also, it would be unwise to leave this operation to the last moment. My right hon. Friend (Mr. Gladstone) proposed, two years ago, to carry out a plan anticipating, in the same way, the change which must take place in 1885. Unfortunately, the pressure of other Business left no time in 1881 for the discussion of this plan; but we ought not to lose the present opportunity. If it is necessary to give one among many reasons for immediate action, it is that the accumulation of Stock in the hands of the National Debt Commissioners is now larger than it was in 1881, so that a wider measure may be adopted, and one of a more permanent kind. The present Bill, then, in the first place, as I said before, makes no alteration in the charge on the taxpayer, except so far as it authorizes us to pay off, out of the balances, £1,000,000 of the 12,000,000 which was borrowed in connection with the annual grant of £500,000 a-year to India on account of the Afghan War, and so reduces the permanent charge by £60,000 a-year. That being the only effect of the Bill on the taxpayer, its main operation is to create fresh Annuities in the place of those that will fall in next year but one. We shall cancel, in the first instance, about £70,000,000 of Stocks held by the Court of Chancery and
      1862
      by the National Debt Commissioners—namely, of the former £40,000,000, and of the latter a little over £30,000,000; and, besides the Annuities representing these £70,000,000, we shall constitute a small Annuity equivalent to the two last years' payment of the present £5,135,000 Annuities expiring in 1885. We do not intend to leave the Sinking Fund at the small amount at which it is this year; but, as contemplated by the right hon. Gentleman, who was its author, at something more than £800,000 a-year. I will now give the House the exact result of these operations in figures—that is to say, the items making up the whole charge for the National Debt in the year after the new state of things will have come fully in force. In 1886–7, the interest of the Funded and Unfunded Debt, and the charges connected with it, will amount to £19,185,000, as compared with £21,446,000 now; the New Terminable Annuities will amount to £6,957,000; the Life and other Annuities of the same character are estimated at £1,167,000; and the balance going to the New Sinking Fund will be £835,000, the total being £28,144,000, as compared with £29,003,000, the total permanent charge at the present time. The New Terminable Annuities, amounting in all to £6,957,000, will be as follows: — The £40,000,000 of Stock standing to the credit of the Chancery suitors will he converted into a 20 years' Annuity of £2,674,000; somewhat over £30,000,000 of Stock standing to the credit of the Savings Banks with the National Debt Commissioners will be converted into three Annuities of £1,200,000 each, for 5, 10, and 15 years, the total being £3,600,000 a-year; and the two remaining years of £5,135,000 Annuity will be converted into a 20 years' Annuity of £683,000. I pass over small details as to the latter conversion, for, as the House knows, the series of Annuities, making in all £5,135,000 a-year, does not all fall due at the same time of the year; but a single Annuity of £683,000 a-year will be their equivalent. I ought, however, to explain the peculiar and novel method we propose to adopt in dealing with the Savings Bank Stocks. I said that we proposed to divide the Annuity, the result of the cancellation of something over £30,000,000 of Savings Bank Stock, into three separate Annui-

      1863
      ties of £1,200,000 each for 5, 10, and 15 years respectively. What we propose is, that as each Annuity runs out there shall be substituted for it a fresh Annuity, which, including the interest on the Stock cancelled, should produce the same charge upon the £28,000,000 a-year. Accordingly, after five years, when the first £1,200,000 Annuity fell in, £22,500,000 more Stock standing to the credit of the National Debt Commissioners in connection with the Savings Banks would be cancelled; after 10 years, another £22,500,000; and after 15 years, another £22,500,000; but after 20 years the amount requiring to be cancelled would be increased to £35,200,000; so that the operation in the first 20 years would result in the cancellation of £133,000,000 of Stock, besides the £40,000,000 of Stock standing to the credit of the Court of Chancery. These figures verify the general Statement I made in moving the Budget—that there would be a cancellation of £173,000,000 of Stock through two operations on the Stock standing to the credit either of the National Debt Commissioners, or of the Court of Chancery. Upon this point, however, it has been asked, why pledge Parliament for 20 years? My answer is, that the Charge of £28,000,000 a-year for the service of the Debt is a permanent charge; and t is, in my opinion, far better, under those circumstances, to make arrangements within that charge for a moderate fixed period, than to be continually coming to Parliament for fresh powers on the subject. In this connection, let me remind the House that the taxpayer is on the eve of receiving no small relief in addition to the £60,000 a-year provided by the Bill. As I said, in the year 1885, the War Annuity of £800,000 falls in; and in 1887, what I may call the last Annuity payment to India of £500,000 for the Afghan War falls in, making a total of £1,300,000. On the other hand, there will be a slight increase in the charge for Local Loan Sinking Funds of £200,000, and this, perhaps, should be set off against the relief of £1,300,000 a-year; but the taxpayer will be relieved to the extent of something like £1,100,000 a-year in connection with Annuity payments between 1885 to 1887. Should that not be sufficient; should a great war derange our finances, it will be in the power of Parliament to
      1864
      revise the charge of £28,000,000 a-year; and, in that extreme event, the amount of Stock to be cancelled after each five years would be diminished. But if those things do not happen, if Parliament retains, as I trust it will long retain, this charge of £28,000,000 a-year, we had better provide permanently for the method in which it will be applied. This leads naturally to the question, how much Debt will be actually paid off by the method which we propose in 20 years? I have already explained to the House that the cancellation of the Chancery Stock and of the Savings Bank Stock will extend to £173,000,000. It is necessary, however, to bear in mind the difference between cancellation and redemption, because redemption is the measure of reduction. The £40,000,000 of Chancery Stock will be entirely redeemed in 20 years. Of the £133,000,000 of Savings Bank Stock cancelled, £73,000,000 will be redeemed. There is on the Table a Paper which shows the exact amount which the new 20 years' Annuity, in substitution of the two years' instalments, will pay off; in round numbers it is £10,000,000. Then there are the two other operations, of which we must not lose sight. I have reminded the House of two items in the total of £28,000,000, each of which has the effect of making a considerable impression on the National Debt. The first is the amount of Life and other Annuities, the second is the New Sinking Fund. The operation of the Life and other Annuities will be to pay off about £23,500,000 of Debt. The New Sinking Fund, in the same way, will pay off £26,800,000 of Debt. Thus, altogether, the amount of Debt paid off by means of the five operations—the cancellation of the Chancery Stock, the successive cancellations of Savings Bank Stock, the substitution of a 20 years' Annuity for those which expire in 1885, the operation of the Life and other small Annuities, and the New Sinking Fund, will be £173,300,000 within 20 years; and in this calculation I have not included the operation of the Old Sinking Fund, because no one can make a reasonable estimate as to how far the Old Sinking Fund—that is to say, the annual surplus of Revenue over Expenditure—will operate. In all these calculations, I have taken Consols at par. If the Funds rise again above par, of course there will be some small

      1865
      diminution of the £173,300,000; but, if the Funds fall, that sum will be increased. It is safe, I think, on the whole, to base our calculations upon Consols at par; and the House will see that on that assumption we shall be able in 20 years to pay off Debt to the extent of £173,300,000. It has been suggested that, in estimating that the National Debt Commissioners will have at their disposal in five, 10, 15, and 20 years, a sufficiency of Stock for these successive conversions into Annuities, we may have made an extravagant estimate. As a matter of fact, we have made a very careful estimate, and one very much within the mark. The suggestion has come from a financial journal of great authority, and therefore I think I ought to answer it. I will state to the House a few figures to show how careful we have been in making this estimate. During the last 10 years the payments made by the Savings Banks to the National Debt Commissioners have amounted roughly to £22,600,000; the payments made by the Commissioners to the Savings Banks have amounted to £18,600,000. The improvement from year to year in the Savings Banks deposits has thus enabled them to pay the proper interest to their depositors, and also to remit to the Commissioners for investment no less than £4,000,000. I may say that in this respect the progress in the latter half of the 10 years has been greater than in the earlier half. In making a calculation of what will be the probable assets of the National Debt Commissioners on Savings Banks accounts during the next 20 years, we have here assumed that the £400,000 a-year will be increased to £550,000—that is to say, that on the average £550,000 a-year will be the difference between the payments from the Savings Banks to the Commissioners and from the Commissioners to the Savings Banks; and on that basis the excess of Stock in the hands of the Commissioners beyond what they will have to find for the proposed cancellation of Stock to form the new Annuities will, at the end of the 20 years, be no less than £72,000,000. Even if we had assumed that the National Debt Commissioners, instead of receiving from the Savings Banks £400,000 a-year, had received nothing, there still would be an enormous margin at the end of 20 years, so I think that the estimate may
      1866
      be taken as perfectly safe. Now, Sir, having thus described what the Bill proposes to do, let me say a word or two about the Amendments which have been placed on the Paper.
      MR. W. H. SMITH: Will the right hon. Gentleman state what the amount of the Chancery Funds now in hand is?
      THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS): It is stated in the Treasury Minute at something over £60,000,000 a few months ago; but I have not got the exact figures for to-day. Now, with respect to the Amendments, the noble Lord the Member for Middlesex (Lord George Hamilton) proposes a Resolution, the effect of which will be not to hold out any prospect of relief to the taxpayer, but to prepare us for additional expenditure, in the shape of grants in aid of local institutions. The only criticism I would now pass upon the Resolution of the noble Lord is, that he speaks of the decrease of the Revenue from Excise. But the Revenue from Excise for the last two years has not been decreasing; at the worst, it is merely stationary. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson) takes a very different view to that of the noble Lord. He also proposes an Amendment to the second reading of the Bill; but his Amendment is based upon the proposition that we ought, at the present time, to do something in the way of relieving the consumer from taxation on certain articles of consumption. He does not propose to leave things as they are, and spend more money; but he proposes to reduce the receipt side of the account by taking away a certain amount now received in taxation. There was, until lately, another Amendment on the Paper to the same effect, standing in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands), and I remember the murmurs which arose from the other side when Notice was given of it. "Reduce the taxes on the consumer? You should reduce the taxes on property." My hon. Friend the Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) takes an entirely different line of argument. He says the present generation has paid enough, and he, on this account, would reduce the amount of taxation. I have never been able to understand precisely what, in arguments of this kind, is meant by the "present generation," because the generation in which we live consists of

      1867
      persons of all ages. It is impossible to say that all the persons now living are of any one generation, or that taxes now paid fall alike on the old and the young, in this sense. All these Amendments, however, combine in proposing that the present reduction of Debt shall not continue. I trust, however, that it will not be so; for it would be, in my opinion, an unwise thing if we were to break down the system of providing for a substantial diminution of the Debt. Let me ask the House to compare the present charge for the National Debt with the charge of not many years ago. I will take the three years 1857–8, 1858–9, and 1859–60. If hon. Gentlemen will turn to the statistics of those years, they will find, first of all, that the wealth and the trade of the country since that time has, if not doubled, at least increased by something like two-thirds; they will find the population of the country has increased by one-third; they will find that the wages enjoyed by the working classes, whether agricultural or manufacturing, were far less than now—probably not two-thirds of the present purchasing power.
      MR. MITCHELL HENRY: To what country does the right hon. Gentleman refer?
      THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS): I am speaking of the whole of the United Kingdom; and I have taken the averages for the whole Kingdom. What was the amount which we were setting aside at that time in connection with the Debt, and what is the amount which we propose to set aside in connection with the Debt this year? The permanent charge this year for the Debt, with the amount representing temporary additions, and the interest on money raised for Local Loans, is £29,700,000. The receipts from investments are £1,200,000, so that the net charge for the Debt this year is £28,500,000. In 1886–7 the permanent charge for the Debt will be, under this Bill, £28,000,000, the charge in respect of temporary additions will be £100,000, and the interest on the amount raised for Local Loans £900,000, giving a total of £29,000,000. The receipts from investments will amount to about £1,000,000, so that the not charge will be, at the outside, £28,000,000. But, in 1857–8, the net charge was £28,500,000; in the following year,
      1868
      1858–9, it was £28,300,000; and in 1859–60, it was £28,500,000. Now, I appeal to the House, with these facts before it, whether we should be justified in setting aside less for the payment of the Debt than we did in the period from 1857 to 1860? There is one great example in this respect, which this country and this House should bear in mind—I mean the example of the United States. Does the House know how much of their Debt was paid off by the United States last year? The amount was £25,000,000 sterling. And during the last 17 years, from June, 1866, to June, 1883, we have these remarkable results—In June, 1866, the Debt of the United States was £537,000,000; in June, 1883, it is £310,000,000. In June, 1866, the interest on the Debt was £29,200,000 a-year; in June, 1883, it is £10,100,000 a-year. So that the Debt in that time has been reduced by 42 per cent, and the interest by 65 per cent. I would call special attention to this reduction of interest. In 1866, the rate of interest was, on the average, 5½ per cent; the interest paid to-day is 3½ per cent—a reduction of 2 per cent. And I will undertake to say, without fear of contradiction, that that reduction of interest from 5½ to 3½ per cent is mainly the result of the unremitting efforts which the Government of the United States have made to reduce their Debt. And if that reduction in the rate of interest from 5½ to 3½ per cent paid by the Government of the United States on their Debt has been the consequence of paying off Debt, may we not look forward to a similar result in this country? Lot me remind the House that per cent upon a Debt of £700,000,000 means a charge of £1,750,000 a-year; and a diminution of charge in this manner is not like a casual surplus of income over expenditure, but is the permanent effect of a deliberate policy. I contend that if this Bill should by some misfortune be rejected, it would be evidence to the country and to the financial world that we are indifferent to paying off the Debt; and, on the other hand, I say that, if this Bill is carried, we shall be within a measurable distance of dealing with the rate of interest on our Debt; and that is the point of view from which I ask the House to look upon my proposal. The rejection of the Bill, if it is followed by an inroad upon

      1869
      the £28,000,000 a-year set aside by my right hon. Friend opposite for the payment of Debt, may possibly produce some temporary relief from taxation. But the adoption of the Bill will, to my mind, be the first step towards the permanent relief of the taxpayers from a portion of the charge for former wars. The taxpayer should, undoubtedly, have the benefit of any reduction in the rate of interest; and on his behalf, therefore, I ask the House to pass the second reading of the Bill.
      Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer.)
      Sir STAFFORD NORTHCOTE and Mr. MITCHELL HENRY rising together, Mr. SPEAKER called upon the former.
      MR. MITCHELL HENRY, before resuming his seat, said, that he had an Amendment standing first on the Paper, which he had kept alive for the last four months; and he would now, as a point of Order, ask for the ruling of the Chair on the point whether, as that was the case, he was not entitled to the possession of the House; and whether, if he gave precedence to the right hon. Baronet opposite the Leader of the Opposition, his doing so should not be regarded as a matter of courtesy, and not as a matter of right?
      MR. SPEAKERsaid, the hon. Member (Mr. Mitchell Henry) had no positive right to precedence in consequence of his Notice of Amendment being first on the Paper. The right hon. Gentleman (Sir Stafford Northcote) rose; and he felt it his duty to call upon him. In doing so he did not deprive the hon. Member of any right whatever. It rested entirely with the Chair to call upon the Member who should first address the House.
      SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: I apprehend, from my experience of debates, that the ruling, Sir, which you have now given is the same as has been given on several occasions. But I can assure the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Mitchell Henry) that, as a matter of courtesy, I should be very unwilling to interfere, if I thought I was interfering, with his freedom in bringing forward the Amendment. I will, however, stand but a very short time between the hon. Member and the House; but the few observations which I intend to make are
      1870
      of a very general character, and would be very inappropriate to the particular question which the hon. Gentleman wishes to raise. Therefore, I think it would be a very inconvenient course to pursue to introduce them on the Amendment. My reason for rising thus early in the debate is because it seems to me that there has been a great deal of misunderstanding among the public, and even, to some extent, among hon. Members of this House, with regard to the nature of this Bill and the exact effect of the proposal and the course which some hon. Gentlemen may wish to take with regard to it. The observations of the right hon. Gentleman opposite the Chancellor of the Exchequer have, however, I am bound to say, very greatly cleared away the doubts and misunderstandings to which I have referred. The right hon. Gentleman has given a most able and clear account of the position in which our National Debt arrangements stand; and he has shown very clearly what the effect of this Bill will be, if it is adopted, and what it will not do. I only wish, as far as that part of his speech goes, to confirm the view he has laid before the House. The Bill does not propose to carry the charge which we now bear for the payment of interest and redemption of the Debt beyond the amount at which it now stands, and has stood for some time. I, of course, put aside the £800,000, which stands upon a different footing. But ever since 1877, I think, we have voted at the rate of £28,000,000 a-year for the purpose of paying the interest of the Debt, and devoting the balance to its redemption by a New Sinking Fund. It is not intended to add to that £28,000,000, or to extend the limit of time, because, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer truly said, the money is made payable by an Act of Parliament which is of a permanent character, and remains in force until Parliament may decide otherwise. That being so, what we have to deal with now is, not whether we ought, or ought not, to make any greater exertions towards the payment of the Debt, as some people suppose, or reduce the exertions we are actually making. The question is, whether we shall adopt a certain change in the machinery under which we act. I do not know that it goes so far as a change in the machinery; because, to a certain extent, we employ

      1871
      a system of Terminable Annuities now, and it is proposed we shall carry on Terminable Annuities hereafter. There is, however, a certain proposal made which, I think, is of a novel character, and which deserves consideration; but it is one which does not affect the general system on which we proceed, or the amount we have to pay. That being so, this remark, at all events, is obvious—that this is not a case in which we are specially bound to proceed at the present moment with any alteration in the system now in force. Whether we pass this Bill, or do not pass it; whether we adopt this machinery, or do not adopt it, the matter remains safeguarded by the former Act of Parliament, which has been enforced and put into use, and it cannot be changed until the existing Act of Parliament is repealed or altered. It may be a question whether it is, or is not, convenient to bring forward this proposed change at the present time; but the matter is certainly not of that absolutely urgent character that we are bound to deal with it at once; and if the House should be of opinion that we require more time for the consideration of the principles and right details of this scheme than can conveniently be given to it at this period of the Session, having regard to the great pressure of Business, and to the fact that the House is already melting away, before it has got through one-third of the programme of the Session, I can see no inconvenience that can result from the postponement of this measure. At all events, in dealing with a subject of this kind, it is always better to wait rather than hastily to plunge into an unsatisfactory arrangement which cannot hold water in the long run. I say this, notwithstanding the fact that the right hon. Gentleman has held out the most gloomy anticipations to the House in the event of our rejecting this Bill upon the present occasion. The right hon. Gentleman says that, if this Bill were lost, we should be aiming a heavy blow at the principle of paying off the National Debt, and that the consequences would be most disastrous. But, in my opinion, it would be equally disastrous if, without due consideration, we were to adopt a system of an artificial and of a complicated character, in order to find that, after all, that system was one that would not work. With regard to the principle of
      1872
      paying off the National Debt, I must venture to point out that, although I entirely agree with the principles which have been laid down by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and which are, for the time, in favour with the Government, those principles are not to be taken so absolutely and certainly for granted, as being applicable in all circumstances, as the right hon. Gentleman seems to think that they should be, because there have been, in former times, many very high financial authorities—including the Prime Minister himself, as to whom I would refer to his Budget of 1853—holding very various theories with regard to the systematic exertions requisite to be made for the purpose of paying off the Debt. I must remind the right hon. Gentleman that the principles upon which, in former times, our Predecessors—and, indeed, upon which some of those who are still with us—proceeded with regard to the payment of the National Debt were expressed in the phrase that, I think, was used by the late Mr. Joseph Hume, that there were many ways of employing our money that would be more profitable than buying Consols at 90 or 94. By that phrase Mr. Hume meant that our system of taxation was still of such a character that it would be of greater advantage to the country at large that changes should be effected in that system, in order to give relief to our industries, than that so much of the National Debt should be paid off by special exertions. Our Predecessors, acting upon that view, proceeded to reduce taxes in such a way as to render it impossible to pay off the Debt. And, indeed, the Prime Minister himself, when his ideas had arrived at maturity, and when he was in the zenith of his fame as a financier, had declined to avail himself of the opportunity that was afforded him of taking effective steps towards paying off the National Debt. In bringing in his first great Budget of 1853, there was a great question raised with regard to the abolition of the Income Tax; and the right hon. Gentleman himself made a proposal which pointed to this—that it should be in the power of Parliament, seven years from that time, to take advantage of the falling in of the £5,000,000 of Long Annuities in order to get rid of the Income Tax. In 1860, when these Annuities did fall in, the right hon. Gentleman had an opportunity

      1873
      not to take off the Income Tax, which had then gone too far to be abolished, but to do that which is now proposed to be done—namely, keeping the charge on the Debt at the figure at which it stood, and applying it further in consequence of the falling in of the Long Annuities. The right hon. Gentleman, however, made no proposal of that kind. He said they ought to take advantage of that great opportunity, in order to give some general relief to the industries of the country in the way of the remission of taxation. I do not question that, in taking that course, the right hon. Gentleman was acting wisely; but I desire to point out that in adopting that course, the right hon. Gentleman was actuated by a desire to do what was best generally for the country in the circumstances, rather than by that of paying off the National Debt. I merely refer to this fact for the purpose of showing that the principle of paying off the National Debt is not applicable to every state of circumstances. Let us consider for a moment what are the circumstances of the present time. The Chancellor of the Exchequer referred just now to what was being done in the United States in the way of paying off the National Debt; but, as was well pointed out, on a former occasion, by the hon. Member for Preston (Mr. Ecroyd), who takes a very great interest in financial matters, the United States are paying off their National Debt by means of protective duties. The right hon. Gentleman in 1860 adopted exactly the opposite course, because, instead of keeping on protective duties for the sake of getting a large Revenue and paying off the National Debt, he disregarded the Debt, but took off the duties. I have referred to these matters, because when we have doctrines like those to which I have referred laid down to us ex cathedrâ, we should exercise our own judgment with regard to them. Even with regard to the present proposal, the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer himself affords a striking instance of a great change of opinion in a short time. I remember that, when I made a proposal by which a certain portion of the Debt should be extinguished in 1904, the right hon. Gentleman said that we had no right to bind our successors. The right hon. Gentleman added that I was endeavouring to
      1874
      get credit for a proposal that involved no present sacrifice or cost to the Government or the country at the time. That assertion is true of the present proposal, but it was not true of the proposal I then made; because I called upon Parliament to make an immediate sacrifice by raising the charge from £27,200,000 to £28,000,000, whereas we are now asked to make no sacrifice whatever. We are simply asked to adopt a certain piece of machinery in order to effect a desired object, and which may be a very good piece of machinery for the purpose; but when we are desirous of testing its principle, we ought to be allowed to do so, and it should not be charged against us that we are endeavouring to throw cold water upon the principle of paying off the Debt. I admitted, at the time I made that proposal, that Parliament would have the power at any time of revising the scheme—as, indeed, the right hon. Gentleman now admits that Parliament would have the power of revising the present proposal. But it did appear to me that the year 1885 would be a moment at which it would be natural to take the whole state of our financial arrangements into consideration, and to consider with ourselves what was the proper view to take of our National Debt arrangements. It would, however, I venture to say, be perfectly legitimate before 1885 to take into consideration the whole question, and in connection with it the whole circumstances of our financial position, and no more important subject could be laid before Parliament. Sir, I do not myself adopt the Amendments, or, indeed, approve of some of them, which I see placed upon the Paper. I am very reluctant, indeed, to give countenance to any inroad upon the scheme and arrangements which we have made, and which are already in existence, for the purpose of paying off the National Debt. But I say that this particular arrangement which you are going to make may possibly not strengthen, but weaken, the arrangement which we have at present in force. There is one object, at all events, in which I must be interested—the maintenance of my own child, the New Sinking Fund. The right hon. Gentleman and others say that this measure is in the nature of a guard to the New Sinking Fund. The right hon. Gentleman, who was not at all favourable to it, now

      1875
      seems to take quite a parental interest in it, or, at all events, the interest of a step-mother. It is by no means certain that the New Sinking Fund is quite as safe as the right hon. Gentleman seems to have been led to think. It is obvious that it is a Fund which will increase and will challenge attention, and it is one upon which the efforts of those who wish to reduce taxation and the expense of our National Debt arrangements are likely to fasten; and therefore it is that I am very jealous indeed of this arrangement, because I cannot help thinking that the fund which hears that name is not likely to be altogether so safe as it might be. As far as I understand—I do not know whether I am right—the present scheme goes beyond the scheme of 1881, introduced by the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister. The proposal of the right hon. Gentleman was one which was limited to the creation of Annuities which would suffice to redeem a fixed amount of the Chancery Funds. The amount fixed was £30,000,000, which was to be taken from the funds of the National Debt Commissioners. But this proposal goes beyond that, because it introduces a sort of rolling Annuity, which is to go on increasing every period of five years. It will go on increasing. It is not simply that when a certain sum has been redeemed by the effect of an Annuity lasting for 15 years, a now Annuity of the same amount is to be set on foot to redeem a like amount; but the new Annuity is to be larger than the old Annuity by the amount of the interest on Stock cancelled. Therefore, each Annuity will be larger than its predecessor. It is also obvious that this scheme will make a very serious demand upon the National Debt Commissioners. The right hon. Gentleman says that, at the present time, there is a great amount of Stock in their hands; and not only so, but that, from calculations made, there are likely to be more and more deposits in the hands of the Trustees of Savings Banks, and that there is no fear that we shall not always have a sufficient amount of funds there to be able to carry on this operation. That may be so; but it is a delicate work, when you have to calculate upon the large amounts which are coming in from the depositors in the Savings Banks for 20, or 30, or even a larger number of years. I think we
      1876
      ought carefully to examine how far that statement will hold water; but it is not a matter which we can discuss upon the second reading of this Bill, though it may be at a subsequent stage. Then, the use proposed to be made of the National Debt Commissioners seems to me to require great care. The first idea of a Terminable Annuity is a very simple one; it is to convert a Perpetual Annuity into a Terminable Annuity for a larger amount to last a shorter time, in such a way that, at the end of the period, exactly the amount which has been taken out has been replaced—neither more nor less. That is rather difficult to calculate, and is subject to disturbance of a character which might lead to inconvenient results. I know there is a clause in the Bill dealing with that point. But the whole proceeding is of an artificial character. At first sight, nothing could appear easier than to go into the market and say—"I offer you this Annuity to last for so many years. How much Stock will you give me for it?" Or—"I wish to cancel so much Stock; how much by way of Annuity can you give me for it?" But the fact is, you cannot get these Terminable Annuities taken; therefore, you have to go a roundabout way, and have recourse to the National Debt Commissioners, over whom the Chancellor of the Exchequer exercises almost unbounded power, and tell them they must take your Terminable Annuity in exchange for the Perpetual Annuity, and then you have to make a calculation as to the price at which that transaction can be effected without either cheating the depositor in the Savings Bank or the public. That is a delicate matter, which has rendered necessary the introduction of a clause which arranges the amount of the Annuity from time to time. Then the National Debt Commissioners and the Trustees of Savings Banks have to separate from each other that which is repayment of principle from that which is interest, and then reinvest the principle. But how can they do that, except by buying Stock in the market? At present, all your purchases of Stock are made through the National Debt Commissioners. Why cannot you go yourselves and do it, without the intervention of those Commissioners? Would it not be simpler and better to do so? But that is what the New Sinking Fund did, as it was applied in

      1877
      the direct purchase of any kind of Debt which it might be desirable to buy up—it might be Exchequer Bills, or any other kind of Debt; it was equally for the relief of the public. Then, again, as to this operation of the National Debt Commissioners proceeds, in process of time and in a short time, the price of Consols rises so as to make the investment less profitable. But the National Debt Commissioners, as guardians of the Savings Banks, will be anxious to make the best interest, and will not be very pleased to take Consols at a high price, when they have other means of applying their funds. They may lend to public Bodies, and can make a better interest than Consols give; but that will interfere with your operations, because they turn upon the investment and re-investment of funds by the Commissioners. I have noticed these things not as wishing to express, or expressing, any conclusive opinion against the scheme which we have before us. To a very great extent I agree that the substitution of Terminable Annuities must form a part of any scheme for the redemption of the National Debt; but I doubt very much whether the present scheme is the best, or whether it is not open to the objection of being "too clever by half." It is looking too far ahead to establish this system—though I am not obstinately opposed to it—and the point which weighs with my mind is that I think there is a disposition to press this matter forward at a time when it will not be as fully and carefully considered as it ought to be. I regret that it should be pressed forward in that way, and I think it would be better if the scheme were allowed to stand over for further consideration. It has developed already in the hands of the present Government during the past two years—being considerably in advance of the scheme of 1881, and, perhaps, by 1885, we might find something better still. I think, therefore, it would be a very desirable thing that we should have more time to consider it. I do not deny that there is always an opportunity for Parliament to alter a scheme which it may have hastily adopted, and which does not work well; but any alteration of that kind would, in my opinion, do more harm than to postpone consideration of the question till another Session. Undoubtedly, the scheme is one of the highest importance, and I
      1878
      hope will receive the very full consideration of the House.
      MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, my right hon. Friend opposite (Sir Stafford Northcote) has done me the honour of making me the hero of a large part of his argument, by making references for a purpose which I do not think was politic, and in a manner which I conceive to be wholly inaccurate. My right hon. Friend, however, has not told us what vote he intends to give on the present occasion. Now, interesting as any argument may be which the right hon. Gentleman offers us on a financial question, such as the one under notice, a statement as to the vote he intends to give would have been to me, at least, of still greater interest, and it would have been so on this account—that on a former and a recent day I said, in respect to this Bill, that our belief was that it had the assent of a very large majority of the House in principle. It was on that account that we were going to take the judgment of the House upon it; but I then signified that it was a measure in respect to which it was impossible for us, unless we were substantially correct in the opinion we had formed, to think of forcing it on the acceptance of the House. As many other votes will go with the vote of the right hon. Gentleman, it is to me a matter of great regret, and no small amount of marvelling, that he should have made a lengthened series of remarks on this Bill without conveying that intimation. To those remarks I listened with great anxiety, in order to find out in what way he was going to vote; but the right hon. Gentleman went first one way and then the other, and, between this way and that way, I was never able to arrive at the point either of an affirmative, or of a negative vote. That, to me, is a great defect in a financial speech, for it was desirable that, in matters of this kind and gravity, we should know our own minds. The judgment of the House this evening, however, will, I hope, enable us to form an adequate conclusion as to whether we were correct or not in believing that this Bill expresses the very general sentiment of the House. We must still look to obtaining light upon that conclusion, though the light does not come from the quarter which I hoped would have supplied it to me and to us in considerable abundance. The right hon. Gentleman thinks fit to say that my

      1879
      doctrines and practices with respect to the reduction of the National Debt have been very different at different times; and he quoted my laxness in former days against my strictness at the present day, seeking to use my authority against myself in support of more lax doctrines. If the right hon. Gentleman were correct in his facts, I should still lament that practice. It appears to me that financial purism and financial rigour are not things so common that they can afford to be despised, but that they ought to be held in respect; and I think that those who are most of all bound to hold them in respect are persons who have been responsible for managing the finances of the Kingdom. While independent Members commit a very minor offence even in holding less strict and less prudent opinions on this subject, it is much to be lamented when a Gentleman of great authority and knowledge seeks to lower what I may call the tone of opinion in respect of the cardinal and fundamental principle of good finance—namely, a steady effort for the repayment of Debt. Therefore, even if it were true that I had given countenance on a former or remote occasion to lax views of the obligations of Parliament, it would have been bad policy on the part of the right hon. Gentleman to quote them against me now. He ought rather to have been anxious to draw a veil over such errors and infirmities, or, if he had referred to them at all, he should have welcomed me as a returning prodigal, and said that he was glad to find, at length, that I had arrived at a doctrine of such strictness as was likely to meet the wants of the country. Besides offending against the not unreasonable principles I have laid down, the right hon. Gentleman has entirely misunderstood me. He says that in 1853 I held out to Parliament that they would have an opportunity, in 1860, of repealing the Income Tax by means of the falling in of the Long Annuities. What is the fact?—that, in 1853, the whole question was whether there should be any Income Tax at all. The right hon. Gentleman was not in Parliament at the time, and, therefore, knows nothing, except historically, of the circumstances in which we stood. He has forgotten that, at that time, Mr. Disraeli, the Leader of his Party, proposed a plan for dealing with the Income Tax,
      1880
      which, in the opinion of Mr. Pitt and Sir Robert Peel, and in the opinion of myself, not worthy to be named by the side of either of them, was considered utterly ruinous, and destructive of the Income Tax—namely, the establishment of different rates of duty for the different Schedules. Mr. Disraeli, who was then Chancellor of the Exchequer, had engaged himself to a payment of 7d. on Schedule A, and 3d. on Schedule D. At the time Mr. Disraeli did that, he commanded, to my great surprise, the acquiescence of the Party called the Conservative Party, and he had, as he very well knew, the assent and approval as well of a very large proportion of the Liberal Party. What I did upon that occasion was to make a desperate effort to save the Income Tax. A proposal of that kind was, in my opinion, ruinous to the Income Tax; and, therefore, in order to save £6,000,000 to the Exchequer, even if I had been actually sacrificing £2,000,000 falling in by Annuities, it would have been worth while sacrificing those £2,000,000. How can the right hon. Gentleman quote me, when I was making this desperate effort in the face of opposition, as having given, in these circumstances, a deliberate opinion that the Annuities might justifiably be sacrificed for the purpose of giving ordinary relief from taxation? I was obliged to do everything in my power, to seek resources in every quarter, for the purpose of inducing Parliament not to sanction the change, but to pass the old Income Tax on its old basis; and, in spite of the leaning of many Liberal Members to what we thought a destructive plan, we did succeed in saving the Income Tax. Yet now the right hon. Gentleman comes forward with his petty criticisms—["Oh, oh!"]—on the methods we adopted. It is petty criticism to say I pointed out, in circumstances like those, the fact that £2,000,000 of Annuities would fall in seven years after, and that Parliament would then have the option, if it thought fit, to fill up part of the deficiency. I never committed myself as to what the right judgment of Parliament would be. Again, the right hon. Gentleman says that, in 1860, I availed myself of the falling in of £2,000,000 of Annuities for the purpose of giving protective duties. I deny that. This is not the first time that question has been debated. The right

      1881
      hon. Gentleman, in one of his Budgets, made that statement before. I confess I thought the right hon. Gentleman would have been satisfied with a former explanation upon it. He made that statement in one of his Budget speeches. I rose, and stated that the statement was totally incorrect; but it was impossible at the moment to go back and show that it was so. On a subsequent occasion, however, I did show that it was incorrect, and the right hon. Gentleman got up, and candidly confessed that he was wrong; and I am a little surprised now at the revival of a statement which he himself abandoned. I showed that, in the mind of a very large portion, what Parliament did, in 1860, was undoubtedly to remit a certain tax; and, after putting on one side the remission of that tax, he imposed a very much larger amount of taxes. That confession was made by the right hon. Gentleman, though he had for the moment been led into making such a statement. I shall now dismiss all those uninteresting references to myself, and come to what is to be said on the question before the House. If I understood aright, the main argument of the right hon. Gentleman adverse to the Bill of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer was this—that not 1883, but 1885, would be the proper year for considering this matter—that that was the time to consider whether or not Parliament ought to continue to appropriate a large sum for the purpose of the annual payment of the Debt. No doubt, it is a very important question, whether Parliament should regulate these operations for the payment of the Debt from year to year, or whether, by a decision taken one year, it ought to bind future years—perhaps for a long period of time. The right hon. Gentleman now seems to lean to the doctrine that he will not allow us to deal in 1883 with financial matters, which, he says, can stand over to 1885. I am going to quote the right hon. Gentleman against himself, but in a totally different manner from that in which he quoted me. He quoted my supposed present laxity with my former strictness; and I am going to quote his present strictness against his former laxity. If 1883 is an unfit year to dispose of legislation of 1885, with respect to finance, certainly 1875 was a much more unfit year; and yet the
      1882
      right hon. Gentleman, in 1875, bound the Parliament up to 1885 to apply £28,000,000 to the payment and reduction of the National Debt. What does the right hon. Gentleman mean by the argument that we should postpone till 1885 dealing with this matter? What does he mean by saying that, in 1883, we ought not to bind Parliament for two years? He has completely changed his opinion since he proposed his own Sinking Fund. He has tied the hands of Parliament for 10 years, and now he says—"I will not allow you to tie the hands of Parliament for two." [Mr. R N. FOWLER dissented.] The hon. Member for the City of London comes to the rescue, and shakes his head. But the fact remains. In 1875 the right hon. Gentleman spoke of a great windfall in 1885. He said they would have a great temptation in that year, and the wise thing in 1875 was to provide against that temptation. Now, that is all that my right hon. Friend does. He strengthens the safeguards taken in 1875 against the temptation of 1885, and he does that in 1883. At that time I was one who objected to the course taken by the right hon. Gentleman, on the ground that we had three times over attempted to set up a Sinking Fund by positive legislative provisions, and on each of these occasions the provision had failed. I expected that hon. Gentlemen would come forward with plausible arguments to sap and undermine this provision. I own that I did not anticipate that amongst those who seemed inclined to undermine the provision would be the author of the provision himself. We have now said we believe his plan to be ineffectual; but we are here to maintain and fortify his plan. The right hon. Gentleman says his plan—his Sinking Fund—is in danger. We agree in that opinion; and, because it is in danger, we want to introduce into the law additional provisions, which will tend to fortify it. It is rather singular, under these circumstances, to find the right hon. Gentleman denouncing and criticizing our proposal, and apparently disinclined to give his support to those who are carrying out his proposal. There is no doubt the Bill of my right hon. Friend is one not of very proud pretensions. It does not make large appropriations of public money de novo, or any appropriation at

      1883
      all for the purpose of effecting a reduction of the National Debt. We are content to appear on this occasion as auxiliaries of the Sinking Fund of the right hon. Gentleman—we are endeavouring to strengthen the defences of that Sinking Fund. As that Sinking Fund stands now, the mere alteration of one word in an Act of Parliament may cut it down to zero. My right hon. Friend proposes to build up and fence round the system of Terminable Annuities, so that it cannot be affected by the alteration of one word in an Act of Parliament. The question is, whether or not the right hon. Gentleman will join in preventing us from endeavouring to supply, perhaps, a sufficient defence for that which is recommended as an excellent provision for securing the reduction of the National Debt. Some time or other, we shall know whether the right hon. Gentleman intends to vote for or against this Bill. I hope, in his reference to mothers and stepmothers, he will recollect that there have been occasions, although they have been rare, in which the mother and the step-mother have changed places. We have heard of mothers feeding on their own children. That was, I believe, in the siege of Jerusalem at the time of Titus. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not perform a similar operation on the present occasion; when he has no such pressure or palliation to offer in excuse. Whether we are to be regarded as mothers or step-mothers, we are endeavouring, as well as we can, to supply the part of mothers; and, in our endeavours, we think we are entitled to call upon every Member of this House to support us in our poor and feeble efforts. But there is one person in particular whom we are entitled to call upon for support, and that is the right hon. Gentleman opposite. I ask the right hon. Gentleman this—I will not say that the rejection or loss of the Bill means that Parliament does not intend to prosecute, with firm purpose, the reduction of the National Debt. That would be an overstatement to put it so high; but I will say this—and the right hon. Gentleman knows that it is true—that the rejection of this Bill is a step in that direction. I ask him what he thinks will be the effect, suppose this Bill were rejected by a majority of this House? Suppose there was a minority such as to show us
      1884
      that, considering the character and the time of the year, we could not go forward with it, does he believe that those interests in this country which are conversant with transactions in money, and which are set upon the passing of this Bill, not from any Party motive, but because they consider the financial interests of the country bound up with steady efforts to pay the National Debt—does not the right hon. Gentleman know, as well as I know, that they would regard the rejection of this Bill, and the failure of this Bill, as a blow, perhaps not a fatal one, but as a real blow aimed at that system? It is known that what we are asking is to keep in certain operation that machinery by which, heretofore, and by which alone, the reduction of the Debt has been effected; and £140,000,000 or £150,000,000 has been paid off since the Debt reached its maximum about the year 1815. Since the war, during the past 60 or 70 years, £150,000,000 have been swept away, and that was done through the Terminable Annuities. Take away the Terminable Annuities from the history of the last 60 or 70 years, and you will have had no reduction of the National Debt. During that time, it must be borne in mind that £150,000,000 represents the net result, because we have largely added to the Debt, partly through loans for the Crimean and other Wars, which have amounted to about £100,000,000, and our proposal is that, acting upon the lines and opinion of the right hon. Gentleman in 1875, it is better not to wait for the moment of the windfall, but allocate the money beforehand. Our proposal is, that we should keep alive, by reviving the mechanism and organization, that system of Terminable Annuities under which, practically, alone any impression can be made upon the National Debt. We are walking in the train of the right hon. Gentleman. We are not asking for new measures to be taken. We are founding ourselves upon the Act of 1875. The right hon. Gentleman seems to waver in his allegiance to it. I hope we shall succeed in relieving his fainting spirit, and bring him up to the firm determination to uphold this Act. I am reminded that £160,000,000 is the amount paid off by Terminable Annuities. That that system should be trifled with by persons of great authority is perilous

      1885
      to the highest interests of the country. The system embodied in the Bill is amply commended to us by experience, and, speaking generally, it enjoys the confidence of the public. Gentlemen here and there may be disposed to impair and destroy it; but any tampering with the allegiance of Parliament will be sure to produce injurious results. It is a good principle in politics to resist the beginning of evil, and if the principle be good in matters of general politics it is of essential value in finance. It is through financial difficulty and discredit first in small measure and amount, that nations have been led down the path of ruin. They have tampered with the difficulty because it was small, saying—"It will not be understood as a repudiation of the sound principle of the payment of Debt." Let there be no misgiving or belief that we are moving in that direction. Do not let us wait until public evils have grown into vast dimensions. Let us plant our foot, and resist the beginning and approach of anything that would tend to lower the high standard of public credit in England. By maintaining that system we shall follow in the steps of all great and sound financial authorities in the country, especially Sir Robert Peel. There was nothing more than this, except, perhaps, the frankness of his adhesion to Free Trade when he perceived its soundness, that lay so near the root of Sir Robert Peel's high reputation; and I trust that the House will not be induced by any criticisms, however plausible, on details to allow themselves to be drawn off from this great cardinal principle of the Bill, and of public policy. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition said that my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer has gone beyond former proposals, which, in dealing with Terminable Annuities, have, as far as I know, undoubtedly contemplated a certain limit. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has been bolder in this one point—that he has provided for a self-working system to continue in operation until Parliament shall interfere; but he has distinctly conformed to the Act of 1875, which has no limit to its operation; and if objection were taken on this ground only, it ought, probably, to carry along with it the limitation of the Act of 1875. I do not say we shall find
      1886
      it necessary to make that point an article of life or death to this Bill; let that be understood in any further discussion. At this period of the Session, it is material to the comfort of the House collectively, and the welfare of its Members individually, that a great deal of time should not be spent in unnecessary discussion on the measure. The Government wish the Bill to be discussed; but they wish it to be understood, at the same time, that they will not push their views to an extremity if, by abating them somewhat, they can facilitate the passing of a useful measure, and one, at the same time, conformable to their opinions. The Government have promised not to introduce or push legislation which threatens to extend enormously the length of the Session; and I hope it will be thought that, in speaking as I have done, I am acting in a fair and equitable spirit. I trust that the House will show a disposition to meet the Government in the same spirit, by not declining to examine the question before us; but I am satisfied that the more they do so, the more they will find that they will be committing a serious error, and taking the first step in a wrong direction, were they to intercept the effort made by my right hon. Friend to procure the passing of this Bill.
      MR. MITCHELL HENRY, in rising to move the following Amendment:—
      "That the National Debt having been reduced during the last three years by £20,500,000, the present generation of British taxpayers, who have contributed to that result, are entitled to some relief from their burdens; considering also the backward state of Ireland, and the miserable condition of a large part of its population, it would be in the highest degree impolitic and unjust to re-create, partly at their cost, terminable annuities calculated only to relieve posterity of taxation in the year 1905,"
      said, he had to complain that, although it was exactly four months since the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Childers) had introduced his Budget, yet it was not until now, on the 7th of August, when many hon. Members had left town, that the House was called upon to discuss this important question, and to consider the Bill founded upon the recommendations of the Budget. So far, the discussion had merely resolved into a contest between the two Front Benches as to which of them had done most for the taxpayers, or had deviated most from

      1887
      their professions; but, in his opinion, all such discussions were as nothing, and did not affect the interests of the taxpayers in the Bill. His Amendment was framed solely with regard to their interests, for he did not believe, although the Prime Minister had said that they were in favour of it, that they understood the Bill; and he felt convinced that it had been adroitly postponed till the last days of the Session in order to avoid the possibility of a debate or of any real discussion taking place. Personally, he favoured, as much as anyone, the reduction of the Debt which had been put upon us by the folly or the patriotism of our ancestors, as people chose to consider it, provided the country was in a position to bear the extra cost of the reduction; but as the question touched those who had to pay, it was entirely a question of how much and by what means. There was only one mode of paying off debt, and that was by putting our hands in our pockets and producing the cash. To get rid of £3 of annual claim for interest, the taxpayer must put his hand into his pocket and take out £100 and pay it away. What taxpayer, except a rich man, would care to perform such an operation? He denied that the Debt was a mortgage, based, as it was sometimes said, upon the realized property and upon the industrial income of the country; because the man who held Stock could only demand interest; and he protested against the idea that those who opposed rapid and enormous reduction of the Debt were in favour of repudiation, or were unwilling to fulfil their obligations. There was no obligation to redeem the debt, except according to convenience and in consonance with the moral sense of the community; and it was the State itself, and not the creditor, who had anything whatever to say to the question. The peculiar terms in which the fundholder spoke of his investment gave rise to much misapprehension. A Frenchman would logically say that he held £30 a year of Renate; but an Englishman says he holds £1,000 in the Funds, whereas he only holds a perpetual annuity of £30, and cannot claim to be paid the principal at any time. What they had to ask, therefore, was this—What, at this moment, was the real pressure of the Debt on the nation, and what efforts had they made to reduce the
      1888
      corpus of the Debt? Now, the exact amount of Unproductive Debt on the 31st March last was £723,768,087 4s. 6d. (Parliamentary Return, 291 — 1883.) The Productive Debt — such as Local Loans, Suez Canal, and Telegraph Shares, &c.—are not Debt proper, but are, in fact, national investments, and produce profits, not loss, to the nation, and they need not row be considered.
      Adopting, therefore, the figures he had quoted as the true amount of Debt, he denied that, as some great financiers said, the people of this country had made no considerable effort to reduce the National Debt, for in the last 20 years they had paid off no less a sum than £100,000,000 of Debt; and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his Budget Speech, which was the most controversial he ever heard, contrasting Conservative finance of six years with three years of Liberal finance, showed that the Liberals had paid off nearly double what the Conservatives had paid. During those nine years £39,000,000 was paid off the Debt. Independently of that, the country had been engaged in many wars, such as the Afghan War, the Zulu War, and the Egyptian War; but instead of throwing this burden on posterity as was formerly the case, either in whole or in part, they had called on the taxpayers to pay at once. The taxpayer had thus had to pay £23,000,000 for war in addition to the £39,000,000, making in all £62,000,000 extra taxation in nine years. It was not, however, so much on behalf of English and Scotch taxpayers that he appealed, but rather for the Irish. Out of the £62,000,000 paid off in the last nine years, a ninth part had fallen upon Ireland, so that, during that period, the Government had abstracted from that unfortunate country, which had known nothing but suffering, misery, and famine nearly all that time, about £7,000,000 extra and gratuitous taxation to pay off a Debt borrowed at 3 per cent. The money would have been worth to the Irish people 5, 10, or perhaps 15 per cent, if only devoted, as they would wish it to be devoted, to the development of the internal resources of the country. It would, in fact, have been worth to them as high a percentage as even the Suez Canal Shares were expected to bring in. Again, in estimating the real pressure

      1889
      of the burden of the Debt on the resources of the nation, it should be remembered that we borrowed at 3 per cent, whereas the National Debts of other nations stood at a larger interest. To make a fair comparison we must calculate our Debt on a 5 per cent basis, when it would be found to be a burden of only £425,000,000, or little more than one-third of the annual income of the country. The Bill before the House was really in favour of, and desired by, the great capitalists and bankers, and of all those who desired that the Funds should attain an abnormal value; but it was asked for by no other classes of society. It was in no way in favour of the small investor.
      As to the £6,000,000 of Terminable Annuities, about which so much had been said, and which were to fall in in 1885, where did that money come from? It had emanated from the extra taxation of the people, and from nowhere else; while our expenditure on wars, during the past few years, had all been met from the same source. He would further ask—what had the people been promised at the time the present Government came into power? They were promised at the General Election what he now asked for them—a free breakfast table. Where were the professions in favour of the poor and temperate man, and of those who had few luxuries? Where were their hopes of the abolition of the Tea and Coffee Duties? They were all gone—swept away by this scheme for the glory of high finance, and for the increased value of the Funds in favour of the rich investor. Again, he defied anybody who was not an expert to understand all the distinctions between Long Annuities and Short Annuities and Terminable Annuities. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had played with these expressions in a manner which reminded him (Mr. Mitchell Henry) of a juggler in the street who skilfully threw golden balls in the air. The spectator stood gaping at the skill with which the conjuror threw first one and then several more, keeping them all in the air in constant succession, without allowing one to touch the other; but when the spectator got home he found that somebody in the crowd had taken the opportunity to pick his pocket. That was precisely what the Chancellor of the Exchequer was doing. While
      1890
      amusing the country with his financial manipulations, he had so juggled with these Sinking Funds that the people altogether forgot that, at the same time, he was picking their pockets of £6,000,000 a-year. It was not, as many supposed, a sum of £6,000,000 of a windfall which was to be skilfully invested when it fell in in the year 1885; but the taxpayer was to go on producing another £6,000,000 every successive year for 20 years to come, and all that time he was not even to be allowed the benefit of the interest of the cancelled Stocks. Now, what was the real object sought to be attained? Nothing more nor less than to hood-wink the people into providing money for purposes unintelligible to them. If the £28,000,000 for interest and redemption secured by the Act of 1875 was allowed to go on it would eventually produce exactly the same effects as the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposed to produce by his very remarkable financing; but that scheme had the disadvantage of being plain and intelligible to the people, who were reminded every year of the extra taxation they were paying for the purpose of reducing Debt. The less hocus-pocus there was in matters of finance the better it would be. In his opinion it was a grossly immoral practice for the Government to wrap up their financial proposals and formulate them in an Act of Parliament in such a way that they could not be understood by the people. In his view that was the surest way to breed financial deceit in other matters, and a sure way besides to make the poor man, when he found how he was done, to rise up against the rich man. The people were entitled to know what taxation they were submitting to, and they had a right to know what was done with the taxation; and, moreover, to demand that any surplus should be applied in the most judicious and paying way.
      The Chancellor of the Exchequer, however, in Office and out of Office were two different persons, as plainly appeared from his speech in opposition to the Budget of 1875, of which he would venture to quote two extracts. In criticizing the proposals of the right hon. Baronet the Member for North Devon, in 1875, the present Chancellor of the Exchequer said this—

      1891
      "The plan required that in 1885 and 1886, when the Terminable Annuities fell in, the Chancellor of the Exchequer should not apply any part of it to the relief of taxation under this permanent Act. He must apply the whole to the reduction of Debt, and would be debarred from doing what Mr. Gladstone did in 1860, use the £2,000,000 of Terminable Annuities to effect great financial reforms. Surely it was better to deal with their surplus from year to year as it arose, and to leave the year 1885 to be dealt with as 1860 and 1861 had been dealt with by the right hon. Member for Greenwich."—(3 Hansard, [224] 1538.)
      Again—
      "An argument which had great weight with Members of the House was that the proposed Terminable Annuities would, by a sort of hocus-pocus, delude the public, and that the best way would be to apply any money which might come in directly to the reduction of the Debt by the purchase of Stock."
      So much for consistent finance; and now about the relief of taxation. Tea, almost the one luxury which modern civilization had brought to the doors of the poor, was raised in value to nearly double, or at least to 75 per cent over its proper price, in consequence of the duty it had to pay. Did they suppose that the poor, who bought their tea in pennyworths and two pennyworths, would not feel aggrieved when they came to understand that the price was so increased, and that they were to continue to bear this heavy weight, in spite of all the professions of a free breakfast table, simply in order that the price of Consols might be raised, and great financiers have desirable investments for their funds? Instead of devoting this £6,000,000 to paying off some of the National Debt, he would advise the Government to devote it to the purpose of sweeping away a class of duties, which were nothing more or less than a disgrace to the country, and necessitated the keeping up of an army of Custom House officers. We collected something less than £4,000 a-year upon plums, and £4,700 a-year upon prunes. Figs were taxed to the amount of £34,000; and the other day the Custom House officials confiscated some small boxes of bon-bons containing chocolate, which some lady friends of his were bringing over with them from Paris. He would suggest the sweeping away of the duty on tea, which amounted to nearly £4,000,000 a-year; and, in doing so, would pause to ask where was the honesty of preaching the doctrine of
      1892
      temperance, and, at the same time, retaining a high duty upon the only temperance beverage which the majority of the people drank, and which, in the greater part of Ireland, was the one luxury the poor had learned to use of late years? He would advise, also, the repeal of the duty upon coffee, cocoa, currants, raisins, and upon carriages, which would be as great a boon to persons of small income in this country as it was in Ireland. If these duties were remitted, the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have disposed of £5,299,000 of his surplus, and would still have £700,000 which he might convert into Annuities for 20 years. If, however, the right hon. Gentleman should happen to think that that was not a sufficient sum for conversion into Annuities, he had only to alter his Spirit Duty and tax alcohol at the rate of ½d. per alcoholic degree, and he would find he would get all the revenue he wanted, without imposing an unequal burden on the beverages of the poor.
      He would now turn to the latter part of his Amendment, and lay before the House the case of Ireland, with which it dealt. The National Debt, then, had been reduced, during the past 20 years, by a sum of £100,000,000. Now, it was a vital question to ask, where did the money come from which enabled successive Chancellors of the Exchequer so largely to reduce the National Debt? His answer would, probably, startle the House. It came out of the extra taxation placed upon the Irish people of late years, and from no other source. That was a bold and broad assertion; but he would proceed to prove it, and would entreat the House to listen to the story. In 1847 they had the Irish Famine, which swept away 1,500,000 of the Irish people. That Famine was partially relieved by contributions from all the civilized countries of the world, and England, in its private and individual capacity, contributed very largely to the relief. The Government of England, moreover, lent the Irish people, for the purpose of dealing with the prevailing distress and keeping the population alive, £4,500,000 sterling; that £4,500,000 sterling being secured upon local Irish taxes. In the year 1851, Ireland was still, of course, in a critical condition, and a Committee of the House of Lords, after inquiring into the state

      1893
      of the country, recommended that the Debt of £4,500,000, which had been commuted for an Annuity of £260,000, should be remitted, on the ground that the calamity of the Famine was national in its character. In 1853 the present Prime Minister (Mr. Gladstone) was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and, having a surplus, he proposed to take off a number of taxes from the English people, and to effect some of those financial reforms which had done so much good to this country. With regard to Ireland, the right hon. Gentleman said that he had considered the Report of the Lords' Committee, and he agreed with the recommendation that they should make a clean sweep of the Debt incurred for the Famine, which, at that date, had been reduced to about £4,000,000, involving an annual payment by Ireland of £245,000 a-year; but he added that he thought the time had come when the Income Tax should be imposed on Ireland. Sir Robert Peel had always refused to do this, because, he said, money was drained rapidly enough from Ireland as it was, and there was left only a small amount of property among the people. But the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Gladstone) thought differently. He said that he would not only impose the Income Tax on the Irish people, but he would increase the Spirit Duties by 8d. a-gallon, calculating that the Income Tax would produce £460,000 a-year, and the increase of the Spirit Duties £198,000, making a total of £658,000 a-year of new Irish taxation. He said he would set against that the £250,000 a-year which the Irish people had to pay for the Famine Debt, and in that way he would gain a sum of £413,000 a-year. The Irish Members, of course, objected, and then the right hon. Gentleman said—
      "I admit the taxation that we propose will be higher; but let hon. Gentlemen bear in mind that the Income Tax is only temporary; and, if we look at the time the tax will extend, Ireland will receive in the long run a larger remission than if the Annuity were continued."
      The Irish Members protested against that argument, and were joined by one English Member, a great financial authority, and himself previously in Office as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Sir Francis Baring, father of the present Lord Northbrook, had honesty and independence enough to stand up and
      1894
      earnestly protest against the relief from taxation which England was about to receive at the expense of the poverty-stricken people of Ireland. Sir Francis Baring's words ought to be quoted and remembered. He said—
      "The relief given to Great Britain by the immediate operation of the Budget of that year would be £1,443,000, and the taxes imposed new and peculiar to Great Britain £403,000, making the amount less to be paid by England £1,040,000. He submitted, for the fair consideration of his fellow-countrymen, whether it was quite fair, when they would be immediately receiving a relief of £1,040,000, to place a new Income Tax on Ireland and a whole amount of additional taxation of £413,000?"—(3 Hansard, [126] 732.)
      Well, that was not the only way that England found herself able, at the expense of Ireland, to reduce her National Debt. When the Chancellor of the Exchequer discovered that he got money by this process, he was not slow to do it again, and in the very next year (1854) the Spirit Duty on Irish whisky was again raised by the right hon. Gentleman by 8d., making the duty 4s. a-gallon; in 1855 it was raised by 2s. 2d. a-gallon, making it 6s. 2d. per gallon; in 1858 it was raised to 8s., this time by Mr. Disraeli, for where money was to be squeezed out of the Irish orange Whig and Tory were convertible terms; and the very next year the Spirit Duties of England, Ireland, and Scotland were equalized by Mr. Gladstone, who was again in Office, and made 10 s. per gallon. He believed that so rapid an advance of taxation was unparalleled. Hon. Members might say that additional duty was put on Irish spirits in order to discourage intemperance in Ireland; but that was all stuff and rubbish. Additional duty was put on whisky because the Government wanted to get more money out of it. The general result of the operations that were carried on with regard to Irish financial matters was that, while in 1851 Ireland paid only £4,000,000 in taxes, it now had to bear a taxation of between £7,000,000 and £8,000,000 sterling annually. He (Mr. Mitchell Henry) had written several letters on this subject, and his statement regarding the £8,000,000 was questioned by his hon. Friend the late Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren), who pointed out that he (Mr. Mitchell Henry) was in error in stating that sum, inasmuch as £1,000,000 of it was borne by Scotch

      1895
      distillers. Up to that time, he (Mr. Mitchell Henry) was too innocent of the ways of Scotch distillers to be aware of the fact; but he believed their practice was to buy Irish whisky, place it in bend in Dublin for a time, and then take it over to Scotland, smoke it, and sell it as Scotch whisky; and in that way they bore a part of the taxation of Ireland. Taking it, then, at £7,000,000 only, they would find that if they multiplied the £3,000,000 a-year—extra taxation—which they had placed on Ireland since 1853, by the 30 years which had since elapsed, it would come to £90,000,000, or within £10,000,000 of the £100,000,000, by which the National Debt had been reduced. Let it be borne in mind also that the extra taxation was levied on a smaller number of people now than ever inhabited Ireland during the whole of the present century. The English Government had actually raised the taxation of the Irish people from 9s. 6d. per head in 1853 to £1 6s. 2d. per head at the present moment. The taxation of the English people had been reduced, and that of the Irish people increased, and what did the Chancellor of the Exchequer now propose? He proposed to continue that abominable injustice, of which no explanation had ever been given. Were the Irish people better able to pay £7,000,000 a-year in imperial taxes now than they were to pay £4,000,000 in 1851? Well, if it was proposed that the Irish people should continue to pay these taxes, the least they might have was a voice in the disposition of the money. If they were to continue to pay their share of the £6,000,000 a-year of extra taxation, which they would have to do under this system of Terminable Annuities, and as they would have to under the Act of 1875, surely they ought to have a right to say what they thought should be done with their share of the surplus of £6,000,000 that would accrue in 1885, and which was, according to the proportion of their taxation, £750,000 a-year. They had. petitioned the House, and they claimed that the money should be capitalized, and be devoted to the development of the resources of the country—to drainage, to making railways and harbours, and to the reclamation of land, which would enable them to cherish some hope of alleviating the great strain of unjust and excessive taxation which was now
      1896
      imposed upon them. In India railways were being made to avert famine, and increase prosperity. Why could not the same be done for Ireland? A. more just claim than he had just put forward had never been presented to the House of Commons; and, in so presenting it, he would ask such hon. Members as were present to consider why it was that the policy of successive Governments in Ireland had failed, why it was that, at the present moment, there was in the breasts of the Irish people deeper feelings of hatred against the English than ever existed since the days of Cromwell. Could they wonder that there should be such hatred of England, when there was so much cause for it? They persisted in linking the fortunes of the Irish people financially with their own, caring nothing for their poverty. They took the results of the hard work of the Irish people to pay off immense sums of National Debt, and persistently and obstinately refused to develop the resources of the country, so that they could the more easily bear their burdens. The whole financial arrangements of this country as regarded Ireland was wrong, iniquitous, and unsuccessful. He believed that the poverty of the Irish people was principally due to the burdens laid upon them by an excessive financial drain, and this was the principal source of the hatred and disaffection that prevailed. What Chancellor of the Exchequer, no matter to what Party he might belong, when he made out his annual Budget, ever condescended to cast his eye across the Channel and consider the effect it would have in Ireland? None; he only thought of what English financiers desired, and of the views of great capitalists. Never a thought was cast on the miseries that so-called brilliant proposals would inflict upon Ireland; but he (Mr. Mitchell Henry) would warn them that, until they endeavoured to separate the financial interests of Ireland from the financial interests of England, they would never have a tranquil Ireland, and never a United Kingdom. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving the Amendment of which he had given Notice.
      MR. MARUMseconded the Amendment.
      Amendment proposed,
      To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words

      1897
      "the National Debt having been reduced during the last three years by £20,500,000, the present generation of British taxpayers, who have contributed to that result, are entitled to some relief from their burdens; considering also the backward state of Ireland, and the miserable condition of a large part of its population, it would be in the highest degree impolitic and unjust to re-create, partly at their cost, terminable annuities calculated only to relieve posterity of taxation in the year 1905,"—(Mr. Mitchell Henry,)
      —instead thereof.
      Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
      MR. ANDERSON, who had the following Amendment on the Paper:—
      "That, in the opinion of this House, as the present taxpayers have been so patiently bearing an excessive burden of taxation, looking forward to relief through the expiry of the terminable annuities in 1885, it is inexpedient 'to deprive them of that well-earned relief by continuing the taxation beyond the term of its natural cessation, instead of using it for reducing the Duties on tea, coffee, and fruit, or in some other way for the immediate benefit of the taxpayer,"
      said, that, after the extremely able speech to which they had listened from the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry), there was not a great deal for him to say. The hon. Member had taken part of his (Mr. Anderson's) Amendment as well as his own; and he had defended that part of it with very great ability, as well as the portion relating to Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had made two statements in the course of his speech that he would take exception to. The right hon. Gentleman said that, if the House refused to sanction the Bill, it would be a proof that England, or the Parliament of England, was indifferent to the principle of paying off our Debt. Well, he (Mr. Anderson) denied that entirely. It would prove nothing of the kind.
      THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS): I did not say it would be a proof. I said it would be said so.
      MR. ANDERSONsaid, that, if it were so said, it would be said most untruly, and there could be no ground for such an assertion. It would not mean that Parliament would be indifferent now to pay off the Debt, any more than it had been during the last 30 or 40 years; but that they considered that they could
      1898
      turn their money to better account in some other way. That was the policy they had been pursuing for many years past. They had been paying their Debt very fairly; but they had not been paying it when they had an opportunity of putting the money to better account by relieving the taxation. The other statement to which he took exception was the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer's reference to America, as if the action of that country in this respect was something which they ought to copy. A great deal of nonsense had been talked about America on this point. The Americans paid their Debt simply because they were driven to it, because of the exertions of the Protectionist Party there, and because of the existence of hostile tariffs from which they derived large sums of money. They taxed all imports to such an extent that they did not know what to do with the money that they got, and so they paid their Debt with it; and, at the present time, there was much dread among the Protectionists as to what was to follow when the Debt was paid. The Protectionist Party would have no excuse to raise a Protective Tariff any longer, and they would have to go in for Free Trade, of which they had a very great dread. Then the United States had no great Army or Navy to spend large sums upon, and that also made a great difference. In this country, on the other hand, we had a large Army and Navy; and if we spent our money upon them, we could not so easily spend it in reducing the Debt. The Americans, in fact, were doing no more than we were doing. Parliament now was only acting on the same lines and the same policy as they had acted on for many years past, and that was that they paid their Debt as they went along. They were not adding to their Debt. Moreover, in 20 years they had reduced it by £100,000,000, which was a very fair amount of reduction. If their forefathers had acted on the same principle, they would not have had that enormous Debt to pay; but they went in for a high foreign policy, which cost a great deal of money, and they left us to pay the bill. The policy now was, however, that the generation that spent the money ought to make a point of paying it. The right hon. Gentleman said he did not know what a generation was. A generation was generally held to be

      1899
      30 years, and the Americans expected to be able to pay all their Debt off in 30 years. Our forefathers did not do that; but left a Debt which we had been paying off at a rate greater than he saw any particular occasion for. We had been paying £3,000,000 a-year since 1873 more than we had been paying previously. Why did we do that? In view of the relief that was to come to us in 1885. But of that relief the Chancellor of the Exchequer now proposed to rob us. Why, he asked, should the people, who had been paying extra taxation so long, in order to get relief in 1885, forego it entirely for the benefit of a further away generation? Why should we go on paying £6,000,000 a-year after 1885, which we did not need to pay at all? The hon. Member for Galway had pointed out the exact duties of which he (Mr. Anderson) would like to be relieved. He saw no good reason for the proposal of the Government, if they could turn their money to better account, as he submitted they could, in another way, by relieving the people of £4,000,000 a-year duty on tea, £700,000 on dried fruit, and £250,000 on coffee. A large amount of relief could be secured on these three items; while there were smaller matters, such as the duty on silver plate, the duty on marine insurances, and a great many other things, which were improperly levied and ought to be swept away or reduced, and which the opportunity of 1885 ought to be taken to reduce. The Chancellor of the Exchequer told them that the Excise Duties were rising again. In his Budget Speech, he told them that the increased sobriety of the people was having a very sensible effect upon the Excise Duties; and if the sobriety increased, no doubt the effect would be still greater in future years. In that respect, the country was in a sort of transition state. They had also been, and were spending a great deal of money on education. That was gradually making the people more sober; and it was having an immediate effect upon the Revenue. It told upon the Revenue adversely first; but, in future years, it would tell in another way—upon the pauperism and crime of the country—and future generations would get back in reduced cost of these what the present generation had spent upon education. But, meantime, when 1885 came,
      1900
      the Chancellor of the Exchequer might find his Excise Duties not yield so much as he expected; and then he would, no doubt, be glad to have had some of these dropped Terminable Annuities to help him with his Budget. This country had been paying its Debt fast enough of late years, and he did not wish to give up paying it off to a reasonable extent. But, when they derived these great sums from the necessities of the people, there ought to be some modification of taxation, if not abolition of the taxation, before they began to be so very anxious about paying the Debt. The fact was that they were enriching the rich and doing nothing for the poor. The main object of this scheme was to tie up the industry of this country more completely to the payment of the National Debt; whereas, in his opinion, the Debt should be paid by the property of the country. The Debt finance ought to be something entirely apart from the general finance; and there ought, he contended, to be special property taxes alone devoted to the payment of the interest and the reduction of the National Debt. He objected to the scheme as one which nobody who did not go into it closely could understand. The industrial population could not possibly understand it in the least; and they would feel, when they found out that these £6,000,000 a-year of Terminable Annuities were to be thrown upon their shoulders again for an indefinite period, without any hope of any relief—they would feel that they had been deceived in the matter by a policy of finance which they did not, and could not, possibly understand. He should heartily support his hon. Friend's Amendment, which almost made his own unnecessary.
      MR. J. G. HUBBARDsaid, he hoped it would not be thought that in placing on the Paper the Notice of Motion which stood in his name, and in asking the House to express its opinion upon it, he had been prompted by any feeling of hostility to Her Majesty's Government, or to the Finance Minister; but, after careful consideration, he had come to the conclusion that, considering the magnitude and perplexity of this subject, it would be impossible adequately to discuss it at present, and that, therefore, the Government would do well to postpone the consideration of the Bill until next Session. He maintained that there was not a

      1901
      single point that could be obtained by passing the Bill now that would not be equally attained by passing the measure at the beginning of next Session. In regard to the main proposition, no one could be more thoroughly convinced than he was, that it was the duty of the country to make a determined effort to reduce its Debt; but, before we determined to fix and perpetuate a particular scheme for accomplishing that purpose, we ought to be sure that that scheme would be the best and the most practicable which could be devised. In these respects, he ventured to impugn the scheme now presented to the House. To his mind, it was by no means the best that could be devised; and he held, besides, that it was impracticable. The question was, what was the sum which this country ought to devote annually to the reduction of the Debt? Having determined that, we ought next to settle whether it should be an increasing, a permanent, or a decreasing sum. Then we ought to consider how perpetuity could be given to the scheme. On a retrospect of the last seven years he found that the average net reduction of the Debt was £4,700,000, and that the highest amount of reduction in any one year was £6,900,000. The conclusion he had arrived at, from calculations he had made upon the subject, was that £7,000,000, being 1 per cent on the present entire amount of the National Debt, was an adequate and a sufficient amount to appropriate annually fur the reduction of the Debt. That amount ought, in his judgment, to be permanent—that was to say, a system should be devised which would make the application of £7,000,000 yearly a certainty in our financial arrangements, and neither to be diminished nor increased. This was, in a few words, the view he took of the duty of this country with regard to the National Debt. The Chancellor of the Exchequer started from the same platform as he did, inasmuch as the right hon. Gentleman proposed to appropriate about £7,000,000 by investing in the form of Permanent Annuities such an amount of Stock for the first year or two as would eventuate in the production of that sum annually to be applied to the reduction of Debt. But, not satisfied with doing that, the right hon. Gentleman wanted to supplement the amount by further reductions of Stock
      1902
      into Terminable Annuities. Thus the sum would be brought up in 20 years to £14,000,000, and in 30 years to £17,000,000, and so on, to be taken from the taxpayers of this country. This process would go on at an accelerated pace until the patience of the taxpayers was exhausted and the scheme came to a violent collapse. He held that that scheme was impracticable, unworkable, and essentially wrong in principle, and that it would bear most harshly and unjustly on the taxpayer. Let it be remembered that the Debt could only be reduced by taxation. £7,000,000 sterling per annum meant an Income Tax of 3½d., and if the Chancellor of the Exchequer's scheme of expansion were carried out, in 30 years they would be making a reduction equivalent to more than the whole of the present Income Tax. No system could ever work safely and successfully which was not homogeneous. Now, the scheme of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was complex. It was made up of two principles absolutely distinct and diverse—the system of Terminable Annuities on the one side, and of fixed Debt on the other. One or other of these systems was superfluous. In. his (Mr. Hubbard's) opinion, Terminable Annuities were the preferable course, as being by far the most clear and effective scheme. He sincerely protested against the modern system of unhealthy sensational schemes of finance, which had been introduced, no doubt, by the eloquence of the Prime Minister; and every Financial Minister who followed him seemed to think it was necessary to have a picturesque and sensational Budget. But Downing Street was not Drury Lane. Downing Street had nothing to do with eloquence and picturesqueness, and what they wanted in finance was quietness and caution. It was all nonsense to talk of redeeming the Debt by a Sinking Fund. Nothing would redeem the Debt but taxation. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said he did not want this generation to pay more than the last. The figures were correct; but what did they mean? The right hon. Gentleman asked them to pay the same amount, although in the interval £100,000,000 of Stock had been cancelled. Was no allowance to be made for this? The right hon. Gentleman was like the Russian General who continued to draw rations for the dead men. He brought

      1903
      up phantoms of creditors, and made the country believe that it was as deeply indebted as it was 20 years ago. That was really tasking their credulity too much. It was, in fact, an attempt to deceive the nation. It was a mistake to connect the redemption of Debt with the reduction of the charge for it. If they forced up the price of the Funds they would make re-purchases less desirable. No good could result from raising the price unless a fresh loan were in view. If we were not going to borrow, then it was evident that the high price of the Funds while the reduction of the National Debt was in progress, so far from being an advantage to the country or the Exchequer, would be exactly the reverse. There was, moreover, no advantage in resorting unnecessarily to the Chancery Funds. They would be necessary to the scheme for the reduction of Debt; and the conversion of Perpetual into Terminable Annuities would complicate and confuse the Chancery Accounts. The Resolution of which the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) had given Notice was so much to his mind that he had determined to support it; but, as the hon. Member had retired from the front of the battle, he (Mr. Hubbard) had put on the Paper an Amendment to the effect that the Bill was not entitled to the acceptance of the House, and that at this time of the Session it could not be adequately discussed. Postponement was the more desirable, seeing that the withdrawal of the Bill for one year could not in any way embarrass the Government or disturb the finances of the country. He ventured to ask the House to give a distinct declaration in favour of one or other of the two schemes—whether they would pay off £7,000,000 a-year, or adopt a scheme by which they would increase that sum up to £17,000,000 within 30 years. The latter was really the proposition of the Chancellor of the Exchequer; and he ventured to think such an important question ought not to be hastily affirmed on the 7th of August, when there were many previous occasions on which the subject could have been discussed had the Government been inclined.
      MR. ILLINGWORTHsaid, the question was one of great importance, and the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer must feel that the
      1904
      manner in which the present Bill was brought forward was attended with some inconvenience, and that some consideration was required for such a proposal as the present, especially when the real question at issue was, whether they should keep up taxation at £6,000,000 a-year beyond the requirements of the country. The discussion, so far, only showed that there was no infallibility or constancy on either Front Bench. He, however, did not complain of right hon. Gentlemen changing their minds; but he thought it afforded some justification to independent Members like himself exercising their own judgment on such a scheme as the one now proposed. He thought they ought to hold before the people this fact—that, in reality, it was an extraction from the pockets of the taxpayers in exact proportion to the amount that it was proposed to reduce the National Debt. He did not look upon it as a matter of high moral consideration; we discharged every moral duty if we provided the necessary 3 per cent for the payment of the interest upon it, and its reduction was a question of prudence and expediency, and governed by the question how far the taxpayer was able to bear the additional taxation. Although the scheme might be very ingenious and possibly the best, the proposed reduction meant the extraction of a sum from the pockets of the people in exact proportion to the amount of reduction. The case of America had been made much of; and, though the Chancellor of the Exchequer did not know what a generation was, it was the present generation of Americans who were responsible for the great war, and they had rightly taken upon themselves the obligation of paying their Debt. But we were not responsible for the creation of our own Debt, for it was incurred more than 70 years ago; and he did not reproach any Government for not reducing it more quickly, while he affirmed that the Prime Minister had made good use of his great opportunities. If it could be proved to the great majority of the taxpayers that it was better worth their while to pay 3 per cent on the amount of the Debt, and make from 5 to 7½ per cent with the money in their business, than it was to pay off the capital of the Debt, it was desirable that they should be allowed to do so. Although he did not agree that Ireland

      1905
      was unequally taxed, he could not help feeling that there was much force in the observations of the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry); and he thought the present impoverished condition of the people of that country furnished a strong argument in favour of relieving them from unnecessary taxation. The people of this country had some faith in the free breakfast table; but he observed, with regret, that the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) had not only removed his Notice on that subject from the Paper, but had removed himself from the House. Had he not taken that course, he (Mr. Illingworth) would have supported him. The present Prime Minister had made his great reputation by relieving industry and commerce from the burdensome taxation which hampered them; and he believed that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer also would create for himself a lasting renown if he would devote himself to assailing our system of Customs and Excise instead of spending his energies in endeavouring to reduce hastily the National Debt. What he (Mr. Illingworth) desired to see was this country made the free port of the world; but when that happened, if it ever did, the Chancellor of the Exchequer would have to fall back on a more scientific method of taxation than that which now prevailed. he was an advocate of direct taxation, and his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer would, no doubt, say that if they accepted the Amendment, they would confine indirect taxes to alcoholic drinks and tobacco, and the total abstainers would escape; but, so far from regarding that as an objection, he would go further, and save the cost of collecting the Customs and Excise, which was about £3,000,000 a-year. That was a most extravagant cost, compared with the cost of collecting the same amount of local rates and direct taxes. It was sometimes urged that the taxation of spirits and tobacco was exacted on moral grounds. He doubted that statement; but, if it were so, it must be highly impolitic to tax ordinary tea 75 per cent on its value, when it was well known that it was one of the most successful competitors of alcoholic drinks. Such a tax was manifestly indefensible. For his part, he would have been glad if the opposition to the Bill could have
      1906
      been manifested sooner, so that the right hon. Gentleman could have deferred the consideration of the Bill for another year, so as to give the Chancellor of the Exchequer an opportunity of devising some more scientific plan; and his only fear was that, by pressing this matter forward instead of promoting the reduction of burdensome taxation, he was tying his hands behind his back, and postponing the abolition of Customs and Excise to a very remote period indeed.
      MR. ECROYDsaid, he supposed they were all agreed that it was a national duty, in times of peace and prosperity, to reduce the Debt; but the question before the House seemed to him to be not so much the reduction of the National Debt, as the rapidity of the process, the particular sacrifices to be made, and the manner in which the reduction was to be effected. Those, however, were grave questions; and to his mind the House of Commons, on the 7th of August, was not in a position to undertake the solution of them. If his right hon. Friend the Member for the City (Mr. Hubbard) had had an opportunity of submitting his Amendment to the House, he (Mr. Ecroyd) should certainly have felt it his duty to support him; but as his right hon. Friend could not now move it he should support the Amendment of the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Mitchell Henry). At the same time, he yielded to no man in his desire to see a steady, determined effort made to reduce the National Debt. Any special step, however, might be extremely wise at one moment, and extremely unwise at another. When the country formed the definite resolve to burden itself with the system of Terminable Annuities, our industries were expanding, and showing an amount of vitality and energy which had never been surpassed; but, at the present moment, all our great industries, whether agriculture or manufactures, were in an extremely despondent and stagnant condition; and the people were not in a position to bear any avoidable strain and burden. As matters stood, it was perfectly possible that, if this subject could be fully debated, it might appear unwarrantable, at the present moment, to impose a heavier burden than necessary upon the industries of the country; but, on the contrary, it might be

      1907
      better to relieve those industries than to make an investment which would return interest only at the rate of 3 per cent. Those industries were the great sources of the national wealth, and they ought to be fostered as much as possible. No benefit derived from the reduction of the Debt could be comparable to that which would be derived from the restoration of industrial prosperity. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had put before them the example of the United States with regard to the reduction of Debt; but the right hon. Gentleman entirely forgot to tell them that the United States accomplished that by placing enormous protective duties on imports, whilst this country had adopted a very different policy. He (Mr. Ecroyd) would like to know whether the right hon. Gentleman intended to imply that the United States had taken the wiser course? He thought, on the contrary, that we had, upon the whole, taken the wiser step, though he had no doubt this country would benefit very greatly by imposing a moderate amount of taxation upon certain imported luxuries and manufactures, and upon some other articles. He did not, however, advise a senseless system of enormous protective duties upon almost all commodities, such as the United States practised. In conclusion, he desired to guard himself from giving the least support to any Amendment which should have for its purpose the denial of the pressing duty of reducing the National Debt in prosperous times. He was one who would support to the utmost what he believed to be a safe and fair course to endeavour to reduce the National Debt; but he thought that the question as to whether it ought to be done by the precise methods, and to the full extent proposed in the Bill, was a very important one, and demanded such a complete, deliberate, and full discussion as could not be entered upon at that late period of the Session.
      MR. W. FOWLERsaid, he most cordially supported the proposals of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer as embodied in the Bill. The enormous increase in the wealth of this country during the last 20 and 30 years made it incumbent upon us to diminish the amount of our National
      1908
      Debt. It was sometimes said that the taxation of the country was still so very heavy upon the labouring classes that we could not afford to pay off Debt as we had been doing. If the matter were carefully examined, however, it would be found that the proportion of taxation was nothing like so great on us as it was on our forefathers. The taxation of the necessaries of life was made another ground of opposition to the Bill. With regard to tea and coffee, he would admit that they were necessaries, and he should like to see the duties on them lowered as soon as his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer found himself in a position to lower them. But the case was different with regard to beer, spirits, and tobacco, which he must decline to consider as necessaries of life, though by the consumption of the latter article by some hon. Members he was half inclined to think he was mistaken. It might also be necessary to those who had but few of the luxuries of life, and for that reason he would vote for the reduction of the duty in times of prosperity; while, with regard to tea and coffee, he thought the duty should be reduced whenever it was possible. He would not deny tobacco to persons of any class of the community; but beer and spirits he regarded as superfluities, which he did not regret to see taxed, and as being, in fact, the greatest curse of the country. It was said that we had nothing to do with the exertions made by our forefathers in bearing taxation; but, at all events, we had to meet the interest on our Debt, and the simple question was, whether we ought not to take every opportunity of reducing the capital on which we paid interest? He looked forward to the time when our Debt would only bear 2½ per cent interest; indeed, he believed we were within a measurable distance of borrowing at 2½ per cent, if a great scheme such as this were carried out; but he thought it would be better to confine it to a 20 years' operation, instead of letting these Annuities go on for ever, or until stopped by Parliament, and he would commend that idea to the consideration of the right hon. Gentleman. He would admit that great difficulty surrounded Terminable Annuities; indeed, he regarded the whole system as a kind of Parliamentary hocus pocus. Here was a certain sum of money which

      1909
      they had to pay, and they were afraid to trust themselves. The right hon. Gentleman said—"If we get this Bill passed, you cannot alter it; whereas, if we leave the matter to the chance vote of the House of Commons, we cannot trust the House. We shall have the hon. Member for Galway and other hon. Members trying to get taxation taken off." It seemed to him rather strange that Parliament was so much afraid of itself that it could not trust itself to do this thing. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer said he had no confidence in Members of the House, he was ready to take the right hon. Gentleman at his word and vote for the Bill. But he thought that if the Chancellor of the Exchequer bought the Stock every year instead of getting the National Debt Commissioners to buy it, the result would be exactly the same. Whoever bought the Stock it mattered not. If they bought Stock they reduced the Debt. If they did not buy Stock they did not reduce the Debt. But as this was a question of machinery and detail, he would vote for the Bill. While he regretted the continuance of some of the taxes, he thought, on the whole, it was highly expedient, for the credit of the nation, that we should go on paying off the Debt; and, although there were a number of taxes which required reforming, yet it would be a very retrograde step to relax our efforts, and pay off less of the National Debt than we had been in the habit of doing.
      SIR JOSEPH M'KENNAsaid, the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer issued, on the 21st of last month, a Memorandum or Minute, which he intended as an argument in favour of passing this Bill. He (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) had carefully examined the document, and could not accept its conclusion—that they ought to pass the Bill. He took no exception to the mere statements in the Memorandum; but, if he accepted every one of them without reserve, it did not follow that the Bill was a good Bill; or, even if it were a good Bill, that that was the proper time, on the 7th of August, 1883, to ask Parliament to adopt it. The Bill intended to deal with a fund which would commence to accrue two years hence, of the capital value of £150,000,000 or £160,000,000 sterling—accruing thenceforth at the rate of upwards of
      1910
      £5,000,000 sterling a-year; and he should say, if there were no other objection in his power to urge, save the lateness of the period of the Session they had arrived at, before any discussion of the subject in either House of Parliament, it appeared to him (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) to be an objection strong enough in its nature to induce the Government to withdraw the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister had stated, a few nights since, that, if he had found there were many objections in various quarters of the House, he would withdraw the Bill; but he now made light of the objections, or the number of the objections then on the Paper, and pressed on the Bill. There was no possible urgency in the matter. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer prepared his recommendatory Memorandum at his leasure, and deliberately—it, therefore, required deliberate reply. The object of the document—indeed, its only object—was to make out a case to show that, whoever else was free to oppose the Bill, the right hon. Baronet who led the Opposition (Sir Stafford Northcote) was not, but was irretrievably committed by his Act of 1875 to this Bill, which the Memorandum contended was an inevitable sequel to that Act. He (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) did not take that view of the case so far as the right hon. Baronet was concerned; but, if it were even so, and that he was committed to the principle of the Bill, that was no argument in its favour from the Treasury Bench. When the Bill of 1875 was passed, nothing was clearer than that the House did not accept it as the basis of perpetual legislation. It would be very instructive for the Members of Her Majesty's Government to read the debate of 1875—the moral of it was, to his (Sir Joseph. M'Kenna's) mind, that, when out of Office, they did not scruple to assail the policy of which now they were anxious to avail themselves. The Preamble of the present Bill treated the word "permanent" as if it were of the same import in the Act of 1875 as the word "perpetual." No such force was ascribed to the word by the right hon. Baronet when he introduced his Bill in 1875. What did the word permanent mean? It signified a quality of endurance, through some course of events, or over some space of time, sufficient to negative the idea that

      1911
      the arrangement so qualified was merely pro hâc vice, or temporary. In that sense the arrangement under the Act of 1875 had been permanent, and was permanent then; but that fact afforded no earthly reason why the Government which happened to be in Office two years before the further permanence could be reasonably questioned should desire to convert the permanence into a perpetuity disavowed by the framers of the Act of 1875, and bitterly opposed by the present Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer at that time. The attempt to deal, then, with this question in the sense of the Bill of 1883, with an income Tax saddled on the people of the United Kingdom—for he (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) was not speaking for Ireland alone—was, in his view of the case, a positive breach of faith. It was, of course, a greater breach of faith with Ireland than with Great Britain, for reasons he would adduce; but still he put the case as one of breach of faith with the whole people of the United Kingdom. These were the right hon. Gentleman's words on the 18th April, 1853—
      "We wish, in the first place, to put an end to the uncertainty respecting the Income Tax. We think it unfortunate that political circumstances have for the last two or three years led to a state of doubt in regard to the continuance of the tax, and have even begotten by degrees a feeling on the part of the public that the country is about to be entrapped unawares into its perpetuation. …. There is a certain class of transactions with regard to which the uncertainty about the Income Tax operates most unfavourably, such as the Terminable Annuities for example. It is very desirable that certainty should be restored on account of these transactions, and also on grounds more enlarged and general. I think it also most desirable that effectual measures should be taken to mark this tax as a temporary tax. By this I do not mean merely or chiefly that I would commit the Government to an abstract opinion to be acted on in future years. My own opinion is decidedly against the perpetuity of the tax as a permanent ordinary portion of our finances."—(3 Hansard, [125] 1384–5.)
      There could be nothing clearer from this than that the right hon. Gentleman was pledged to the abolition, unless circumstances rendered it impossible to get rid of the Income Tax. But these were very faint indications indeed in comparison to what was to be found further on in the report of the same speech. The right hon. Gentleman asked the question—
      1912
      "How are we to attain a rational prospect of being able to part with the Income Tax in 1860?"
      And then the right hon. Gentleman went on to say—
      "The country, after so many announcements that have been made to it from time to time that the Income Tax was to be parted with, has become, doubtless, incredulous on the subject, and may, perhaps, conceive that we are aiming at a fictitious and undeserved popularity when we seek to show that, together with our remissions of indirect taxation, we can enable the House to surrender the Income Tax; but the statements shall be put plainly before the Committee—the Committee and the country can form their own judgment on them."
      The right hon. Gentleman then proceeded to show how he would be able to redeem his engagement to get rid of the Income Tax in 1860; he recapitulated the sources from which he calculated an increased Revenue—namely, legacy duty, spirits, and licences, making a total of £2,549,000. Attention should be paid to the right hon. Gentleman's words—
      "Making a total of £2,549,000 towards the fund which we must provide in order to put Parliament in a position, if it should so think fit, to part with the Income Tax."—(Ibid., 1419–20.)
      But all that money would not go half way to get rid of the Income Tax, which was set down in the right hon. Gentleman's speech as about £6,000,000. Therefore, the question that bore on the discussion of the Bill now before the House was—what was the other great source from which he was to make up £6,000,000? [The hon. Member then proceeded to read copious extracts from the same speech, showing that it was to come chiefly out of the resources which he expected in 1860 from the expiration of Terminable Annuities in that year.] Resuming, he said he had not made these citations from the speech of the right hon. Gentleman in 1853 to upbraid him with his failure to carry his promises into effect in 1860. He made the best explanation he could in 1860 as to how he failed to realize the hopes held out in 1853. This answer and excuse might be summed up in the phrase force majeure; but having such an excuse in 1860 did not hold good in 1883, and would not hold good in 1885. His obligations to carry out his avowed policy in respect to the Income Tax were not discharged by his inability to realize

      1913
      them in 1860. They were simply postponed till circumstances would enable the policy to be fulfilled, and there was every prospect that in 1885 Parliament would be free to abolish the Income Tax, and yet to continue to apply towards the reduction of the National Debt from £2,000,000 to £3,000,000 a-year. It was the most astounding of all assumptions that the right hon. Gentleman could get rid of his engagements of 1853, because the right hon. Baronet (Sir Stafford Northcote), happening to be Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1875, brought in and carried a Bill bitterly opposed by the present Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer, which took no account one way or other of the present Prime Minister's engagements to the country; and yet not a vestige of other reason or suggestion was there for the introduction of the Bill, which ignored in toto the object to which 30 years ago, when the country was considerably heavier in Debt, he had consecrated the Annuities which were to expire in 1860. Why should not the right hon. Gentleman the present Prime Minister, even after such a lapse of time, when he would have the power to do so, fulfil in 1885, if he would be then in power, his engagements of 1853? Had Ireland no claim for remission of taxation? He (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) could scarcely summon patience sufficiently to go into her cruel case. So far as Ireland was concerned, the financial policy of the Government for the last 30 years had been one long series of injustice and exactions, occasionally assuaged by doles from the Funds of the Disestablished Church or the reduction of rents, many of which, it was confidently maintained, could and would have been cheerfully paid by solvent tenants, if the legislation of 1853 had not exhausted the community of its means, and forced some of the most active and intelligent of the tenant class to exhaust the fertility of the soil—as they had heard the other day had happened in Egypt—or to descend to the rank of labourers, or to emigrate. There had never been a proposal made to Parliament more in oblivion of engagements than in the case of introducing this Bill. No matter what doubt there might be as to the date at which the Prime Minister would be bound to effect the abolition, there could be no doubt as to what was the occasion
      1914
      whenever it arose, in 1860 or later, on the occurrence of which he would be bound to submit the abolition of the Income Tax to the consideration of Parliament. The occasion did not, in fact, arise in 1860, nor had circumstances concurred from that year to the present in such force as they did then in prospect of 1885. But, at the end of the Session of 1883, they forced on a Bill to deprive themselves in advance of the power to keep faith with the country, and sought to render perpetual a measure passed in 1875, on which they poured out the vials of their wrath when it was before Parliament. He put it to both right hon. Gentlemen, who opposed this legislation in 1875, to withdraw the present Bill until they had time to reconcile the House and the country to that remarkable change of front of which they had made no sign until a fortnight ago, when the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer issued his famous Minute. On the grounds he had stated, and on the special ground that the Bill before the House was one which would, if it became law, throw difficulties in the way of obtaining redress for the injustice inflicted on Ireland by the legislation of 1853, he would give the Bill his most uncompromising opposition.
      SIR JOHN LUBBOCKsaid, he supported the Bill. There were only two ways of getting rid of the National Debt. One was by repudiating it, which the honesty of hon. Members would not allow them to adopt; and the other was by paying it off. With respect to the statement of the hon. Gentleman who had spoken last (Sir Joseph M'Kenna), as to the alleged hardship of calling upon Ireland to contribute to the Income Tax, he had only to observe that she had not been called upon to do so until England and Scotland had for many years been subjected to it; besides which, Ireland was still exempt from several imposts which the other portions of the United Kingdom had to pay. No doubt, there were parts of Ireland which were in a state of great misery; but, taking the country as a whole, there had been a great improvement in its material prosperity, as shown by the Income Tax Returns. In proof of that assertion, he would advert to the circumstance that the assessment to the Income Tax in Ireland, which was only £26,000,000 in 1870,

      1915
      had now increased to no less a sum than £36,000,000.
      SIR JOSEPH M'KENNApointed out that there was a technical error in the system of the Returns.
      SIR JOHN LUBBOCKsaid, it had been argued that this was a Bill in the interest of bankers. In fact, however, it was contrary to the interest of bankers, as one effect of it must be that the rate of interest on the National Debt would be diminished. It was their interest that the price of Consols should be as low as possible; and the probable effect of this Bill would be to increase the price of Consols. He was glad that, even at that late period of the Session, Her Majesty's Government had determined to persevere with the Bill; and he must say that he was surprised at the opposition it had met with. The hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) asked the House to declare that the "present generation of British taxpayers are entitled to some relief from their burdens;" but they were the Representatives of the taxpayers, and, of course, could do what seemed to them wisest. His belief was that they, the taxpayers, would most effectively relieve themselves of their burdens by paying them off. The hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson) talked of the excessive burden of taxation; but that, again, if it were true, would be a strong reason against additional expenditure, but not, surely, against the repayment of Debt. He (Sir John Lubbock) should have expected that this Bill would have received the hearty support of the Front Opposition Bench, and that they would have felt it desirable to settle in advance what should be our policy with reference to the Annuities expiring in 1885. To leave the question open would surely be very undesirable. The policy of this Bill was the same in substance as that of the Act passed by the right hon. Baronet the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote) in 1875; and he (Sir John Lubbock) was therefore surprised to find the right hon. Gentleman was not able to support it. The Act of the right hon. Gentleman provided that—
      "For the payment of the annual charge on account of the National Debt, there shall be issued for every subsequent year—that was, subsequent to 1877—the sum of £28,000,000;"
      and it went on to provide that such portion of this annual charge as was not
      1916
      required for interest should be devoted to the redemption of principal. That Act was passed by the Government of which the noble Lord the Member for Middlesex (Lord George Hamilton) was a Member; and he (Sir John Lubbock) had, therefore, read the noble Lord's Amendment to the present Bill with surprise, for it was, in reality, a Resolution in favour of the repeal of the Act of 1875. This Bill, indeed, dealt specially with Terminable Annuities; but on that subject the right hon. Baronet opposite (Sir Stafford Northcote) expressly said—
      "The difficulty in regard to Terminable Annuities arose when the Annuities ceased. A large sum was then thrown on our hands, and there was a natural temptation to apply it to some other purpose than the extinction of the Debt. He trusted Parliament would maintain the payment of the really moderate amount of £28,000,000 a-year for the discharge of Debt."—(3 Hansard, [224] 1532.)
      The right hon. Baronet continued—
      "In the present year we were reducing the Debt by some £3,700,000. Why? Not in order that the Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1885 might have a good surplus, but for the national benefit, because we thought it a good thing for the country that at a time of peace and prosperity it should make a steady effort to reduce Debt."—(Ibid., 1534.)
      Perhaps it would be said that the circumstances were now different; but the right hon. Gentleman very properly and prudently explained in the same speech under what conditions he thought his proposals would require reconsideration. "There were," he said, "undoubtedly two limitations to the Government proposal. One was, if a time should arrive when it would be impossible, with advantage, to get Stock; the other was, if a time came when our circumstances were greatly altered, and we were called on to make far greater exertions than at present." Neither of these two events, however, had happened, and the right hon. Gentleman was bound, in all consistency, to support the present proposals; and if they went to a Division, he (Sir John Lubbock) should expect to find the right hon. Gentleman in the same Lobby with the Government. Those who were unfavourable to the reduction of Debt often asked, why should we pay off Debt which costs us so little in interest? But though the nominal rate was only 3 per cent, if we calculated the whole expense to the State, the cost of raising the funds, and other incidental consequences, the real rate could not be put at less than

      1917
      3½ per cent. Now, that was scarcely more than the usual rate of interest on mercantile bills; it was not much loss than the rate at which the large railways and municipalities could borrow; it was more than the average rate paid to depositors in banks; and it was much above the rate paid by land. He would not occupy the time of the House by enlarging on the very strong argument derived from the consumption of coal, which had been urged with so much force by Mill, Jevons, the Prime Minister himself, and other great economical authorities. No doubt, our coal would last a long time, though the difficulty of winning it would gradually increase; but that did not affect the fact that we were annually consuming a large amount of national capital, and that, as Professor Tyndall put it, "the very life-blood of the country was flowing away." We treated all this as income; we should call any landowner improvident who cut down his timber and spent the proceeds annually. Yet that was just what we were doing, for what were our coal supplies but ancient forests preserved for our use by the munificence of Nature? As a nation we owed much of our prosperity to our commerce, and our relations with other countries were very extended. That fact made our position one of great delicacy. It increased the chance of war and the danger of war, and in any great struggle we should suffer from indirect results, which would probably be far more weakening than the actual expenditure or loss of life. Commercial competition, too, was very severe, and a slight turn of the scales might divert a very large proportion of our trade. History, in fact, taught us lessons we should be foolish to neglect. While the country had increased immensely in wealth and population, the amount devoted to the service of the Debt in 1860 was £28,600,000, and the present amount was £28,300,000. In the meantime our wealth had made great strides. If we compare 1870 with last year, our shipping had increased from 5,700,000 tons to 7,000,000 tons; our exports and imports had risen from £547,000,000 to £720,000,000; the annual value of gross estimated rental assessed to the poor rate from £126,000,000 to £165,000,000, and our assessment to the Income Tax had risen from £445,000,000 to £585,000,000,
      1918
      showing the enormous increase of £140,000,000. Although the amount devoted to the service of the Debt was very much the same as it was, the pressure on our people was much less. The agricultural interest was suffering. But that was an additional reason for this Bill. If, notwithstanding eight unpropitious seasons, we had on the whole made considerable accumulations, we might reasonably hope to do still better hereafter. Paying off Debt would enable us to reduce the interest on the remainder, and thus effect a still further saving. If this Bill were allowed to operate we might in a few years reduce the interest on the Debt by something very near ½ per cent. No doubt, the greater amount of the taxes was raised from income; but the death duties—the legacy and succession duties—amounting to over £7,000,000, might be said to be deductions from capital, and ought surely not to be used as income. When local authorities borrowed we insisted on the Debt being repaid within 50 years, and what was good for them must be wise for the country also. For his own part, he should have been glad if larger sums had been applied to the reduction of Debt, for while he agreed with those who said there was no moral duty upon them to do so, yet that course was one which gave the country great moral strength, and added weight to its voice in the Councils of Europe and the world at large. But the Bill simply proposed to maintain the limit of £28,000,000, which was surely a very moderate provision for a purpose which, he believed, had the general assent of the country. His complaint of the Bill was that it did not go far enough. He should like to see £10,000,000 devoted to the reduction of Debt. Adam Smith, when our National Income was only £10,000,000, proposed to raise it to £15,000,000, and devote £6,000,000 yearly in reduction of Debt. Sir George Cornewall Lewis was of opinion, many years ago, that £5,000,000 was little to allot to the repayment of Debt, and Viscount Sherbrooke thought we should impose a 1s. Income Tax, and devote the proceeds to the reduction of Debt. He trusted, therefore, the Bill would have the support of the House, and that the result of the Division might be to encourage the Government to persevere with it, so that they might feel that if they had not

      1919
      got all they could have wished, they would at least be making a substantial provision for the reduction of Debt, and we should transmit to our children a burden less heavy than that which we had ourselves inherited.
      MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, he desired as much as the hon. Barenet opposite (Sir John Lubbock) to see the Debt reduced; but he desired to see it reduced in a manner which, while it was consistent with the credit, should be conducive to the prosperity of the country. He must confess he could see no reason for the introduction of the measure; because provision was made by a law, which was in force until it was repealed, and which was as effectual as any provision of the Bill, for the continued and persistent reduction of the Debt, by the allocation of a sum of money which was not altered or increased. By the measure before the House, they were asked to enter into the consideration of a mere arrangement of figures. Consols and Three per Cents were saleable in the market; they were convertible securities known and recognized; but Terminable Annuities were absolutely unsaleable in the market. What did the Chancellor of the Exchequer seek to arrive at? He sought, by converting the one into the other, to produce an account which seemed to imply an annual charge, behind which he expected the taxpayer would not go, so that he was not to find out that he was paying from £7,000,000 up to £17,000,000 a-year in reduction of Debt. But public discussion would surely expose any "hocus pocus" of that kind. He (Mr. W. H. Smith) understood one method only of paying off Debt, and that was of applying to that purpose the surplus over the annual expenditure. He preferred to do that in a straightforward and simple manner, and by the method which the hon. Baronet opposite would pursue in relation to his own private affairs. The same rules should be applied to public as to private business, and no man would encumber himself with securities that were inconvertible, or seek to deceive himself or his family as to his annual expenditure, including a considerable sum for the reduction of debt. He held that he was amply justified in asking the House to postpone the consideration of this measure until that period when it could be more tho-
      1920
      roughly discussed. In the Bill now before the House there was one expression on which he laid some stress, and that was that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had to produce in the Terminable Annuity the equivalent value of the Perpetual Annuity from which he converted it. But what was the equivalent value? The value of a thing was what it would fetch. But he was convinced that the value of a Terminable Annuity of this character, paying the same rate of interest as the Perpetual Annuity, would be considerably less than that of the Perpetual Annuity which was converted. In other words, if the Chancellor of the Exchequer went into the market, and asked bankers to take Terminable Annuities, they would require a higher rate of interest on the money invested than they would ask for on Perpetual Annuities. Therefore, if the Court of Chancery were to require an equivalent value, the Chancellor of the Exchequer must pay a higher price than he had to do now. The right hon. Gentleman, it must also be borne in mind, was a trustee; he was bound to care for the interest of his clients, and he was not justified in running any risks. It was not at all sufficient to say that there had been no risk. In the conditions of our trade, he was bound to take precautions against future contingencies, by adhering to rules, which would exclude the possibility of doubt in the mind of any man. Neither was it sufficient to say that the Chancellor of the Exchequer pledged himself to himself; that the Terminable Annuities wore to be held by the National Debt Commissioners, or by the Court of Chancery, by direction of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and would be dealt with as Parliament decided. He saw no additional security in that scheme; and while he agreed with the hon. Baronet opposite that it was the duty of the Government, when the circumstances of the country admitted of it, to pay off the Debt, he saw no advantage in the provisions the House was now asked to sanction. The Chancellor of the Ex. chequer was a banker, and had to answer on demand for £85,000,000 of money deposited in the Savings Banks; but he differed from other bankers, inasmuch as he was a banker without any specie reserve of any kind whatever. His reserve consisted entirely of Consols and these

      1921
      Terminable Annuities. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer said there had been an average annual increase in the deposits in the hands of the National Debt Commissioners from the Savings Banks, for the last 10 years, of 1;100,000. Well, looking at the prosperity of the country during the last 10 years, he should say that he thought that increase ought to be very suggestive to the right hon. Gentleman, and point out to him that there was not that vast elasticity in the Savings Banks business. The prosperity which the country had enjoyed for so many years could not be expected to continue for ever. It was not impossible that there might be a demand in excess of what was paid in; and he must confess he had always felt a certain degree of uneasiness that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was liable to be called on at any moment, and without notice, for £85,000,000. Our financial system was a marvellous one. It was an excessively economical one; but it must not be assumed that the prosperity of the country would continue without a check. No doubt, there had been a large expansion of trade during the last few years; but now, wherever he went, he heard the same story—that the business transacted was large, and that the amounts passing from hand to hand were considerable, but the profits were small, and he was told they were decreasing. In the City he heard of stagnation, resulting front the fact that the profits during the last few years were inconsiderable. There was another consideration which entered into all these financial operations. At present there was a large property wholly unsaleable; a large quantity of land was unsaleable in Ireland and also in England. It might be that the depression was only temporary; 'but the immediate effect was greatly to reduce the means of a very large number of persons, and to diminish their powers of giving employment, and so to interfere with trade. Going further, he heard that the shipbuilding trade was threatened with stagnation, that shipbuilding had been overdone, that the tonnage was in excess of the requirements of the country. He was told, moreover, that house property, in common with other things, was depreciating in value, and that the only compensating circumstance in connection with these unpleasant indications was
      1922
      that at present there was good employment for the working classes. But it should he remembered that employment depended largely on the profits of trade, and when those profits fell below a certain point the employment would cease. Then the men who were the least satisfactory workers would be discharged, and in course of time the pressure would come upon the country which was expressed in the Budget by a decrease in the Excise and the Income Tax returns, and a reduction of the deposits in the Savings Banks. Therefore, he thought it would be a matter of very grave risk indeed to part with securities which were easily convertible, and to change them for something which would remain locked up in the box of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, simply for the sake of the "hocus-pocus" spoken of by the hon. Member for Cambridge (Mr. W. Fowler), and which merely amounted to a system of changing certain figures in account, without making a single additional charge upon the income and resources of the year in order to reduce Debt. It would give rise to a certain amount of doubt and uncertainty as to whether the resources would be forthcoming when the demand was made upon them. The circulation was placed upon a gold standard, and it was capable of depreciation from a fall in the value of property. The circumstances and conditions of the circulation, therefore, rendered it of the highest importance that the confidence which existed at present in the financial system should be maintained. He believed that the change from a convertible into an inconvertible security was one that was full of danger and destructive of confidence, and that it would prove injurious to commerce. He did not in the slightest degree think the evil had yet come upon us; but prudence, judgment, and caution would suggest the necessity of taking steps which would avert the possibility of doubt and danger. As he had already said, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was carrying on a vast trade without a reserve of any kind, and the least the right hon. Gentleman could do was to maintain the securities he held in the most readily convertible form, and in one which would command the confidence of the people. He agreed that we ought to do everything we could in times of prosperity to pay off the

      1923
      Debt and discharge the obligations of the country; but he could not believe it was necessary to pass a measure which added nothing whatever to the security for the payment of Debt, but which merely supplied a series of financial puzzles and arrangements known thoroughly and intimately to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, but which were intended to cover a system which ought to be perfectly open and plain.
      MR. R. BIDDULPH MARTINsaid, he was unable to accept the doctrine which had just been enunciated by the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. W. H. Smith). The right hon. Gentleman began by saying it was a very common doctrine that Public Business ought to be conducted exactly upon the same footing as private business, and then he reproved the Chancellor of the Exchequer for doing what any commercial man would do. Debt ought to be paid off, as was proposed, upon a fixed plan, and he (Mr. R. B. Martin) ventured to think that the fixed method proposed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer was the proper way in which we should pay off our National Debt. No Government was, in his opinion, justified in establishing Perpetual Annuities, and burdening the country for an everlasting term of years. We ought, at least, to discharge our liabilities at the same rate of interest as that on which we borrowed money. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had stated that if the House passed the Bill, we should come within a measureable distance of the reduction of the interest upon the National Debt. The absorption of so much Stock to replace what belonged to the suitors in Chancery must, in a very short time, send up the price of Consols to such a figure as would enable the right hon. Gentleman to reduce the interest. He would like to know the amount which the right hon. Gentleman thought he could purchase, without absorbing all the floating Stock in the market, so as to begin the operation of reducing the interest? If he could absorb some £30,000,000, he might begin. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer were to institute a 3 per cent Stock, iredeemable for 30 years, and then, ipso facto, to become a 2½ per cent Stock, he would have no difficulty in placing it in the market. The right hon. Gentleman had pointed out that a
      1924
      ¼ per cent on the Debt would amount to £1,750,000. Therefore, ½ per cent would amount to £3,500,000, a sum which would have a very important effect upon the Budget. With reference to the remarks of the hon. Member for Youghal (Sir Joseph M'Kenna), he hoped this scheme for the reduction of the National Debt, which, in his opinion, commended itself to the goodwill of the country in general, would not be mixed up with any sentimental consideration for any particular portion of the United Kingdom, however badly it might be thought that taxation pressed there.
      SIR GABRIEL GOLDNEYsaid, he did not regard the question as a Party one, because both sides of the House were agreed, up to a certain point, that the reduction of the National Debt was, in one form or other, a desirable object which they all ought to endeavour to obtain; and they were further agreed—for an Act of Parliament had been passed to the effect—that £28,000,000 a-year should be set apart for the purpose. The question was, what was the best application of the £5,000,000 or £6,000,000 which would fall in in 1885? He must say, boldly and fairly, that the proposition of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as far as he was able to judge, was the right one. In the first place, he proposed to cancel a portion of two sums, neither of which was likely to be called upon, and to carry still further a process which had been adopted for a great many years by both Governments—namely, the system of Terminable Annuities. When the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith) said that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was a banker who might be called upon at any time, at two or three days' notice, for the whole of these millions in the Chancery Fund, he must remind the right hon. Gentleman that the State was answerable for that money, and that the Court of Chancery ought to be very well content to have this security. [Mr. W. H. SMITH said, that there were also the Savings Banks Funds.] He would deal with the Chancery Funds first. He believed those Funds amounted to something like £61,000,000, of which the Chancellor of the Exchequer proposeed to take £40,000,000 and to cancel the sum in 20 years. But, as he had said,

      1925
      the State was answerable for the money, and the Court of Chancery ought to be quite content with the security; and it seemed to him to be a very simple process for cancelling the Debt. With regard to the Savings Banks Annuities, some hon. Members were opposed to Terminable Annuities in any shape. But hardly a fortnight ago, when they were engaged in considering the Agricultural Holdings (England) Bill, it was suggested that they should create Terminable Annuities, and he believed it was proposed to bring up a clause to give the House the advantage of considering that question. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had shown that the amount of the Savings Banks Funds had been increasing from time to time, until it amounted to £4,000,000, and by a process of Terminable Annuities since 1874, when the National Debt amounted to £776,000,000, it had been reduced to £712,000,000. With that example before them, he thought they would agree that it was a wise policy to endeavour to further apply the same system of cancelling the Debt. The Prime Minister had said that if the House objected to the new process of Annuities for 5, 10, and 15 years, he did not wish to make it a vital point of the Bill, but that it was a matter for Committee. What, therefore, the House had to determine now was, whether the principle was a right one, and that they should take the same process for reducing the National Debt? No person had the temerity to propose that the Bill of 1875 should be repealed. They were to deal with the £28,000,000 as fixed by Statute for the interest upon the Debt and for its reduction. Looking at the general accord with which the proposal had been received, and the fact that, as a nation, they ought, like other countries, to do everything they could to reduce their Debt on behalf of the public, then they ought to agree to the second reading of the Bill. If there was any fear of the country getting into a worse state of commercial prosperity, what could give greater stability than showing that the Debt had been reduced when they were in a better position? If commerce was not going on well; if the shipbuilding trade was going down, and other trades were not prospering, at all events they could show that they had wisely agreed to adopt the same policy which they had
      1926
      adopted during the last nine years under the Administration of his right hon. Friend below him (Sir Stafford North-cote), with a view still further to reduce the Debt.
      THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS): Sir, I think the House will expect me to say a few words, after the very interesting debate we have had on this subject. And, first of all, with reference to what has fallen from the hon. Baronet opposite (Sir Gabriel Goldney), I may at once say, in answer to his appeal, and also to the appeal made, as I understand, by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote) and other hon. Members who sit on that side of the House, to whom my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has given a short reply, that I do not consider as at all being of the essence of our plan the perpetual rolling-up of the Annuities after each term of five years, and I shall be quite prepared, between the present time and the Bill going into Committee, to consider after how many years that rolling-up might cease. I should be sorry, at this moment, to say at what date that arrangement ought to terminate; but I think it is reasonable that that part of the Bill should not be perpetual, and therefore I will propose an Amendment in the clause, which will provide that that system, of what is called "rolling up" the Annuities, shall only last for a certain number of years, so that Parliament shall be in a position to deal, after a certain time, not only with the £40,000,000 Chancery Funds—the conversion of which into Annuities is not perpetual and need have no rolling operation, but would come to an end in 20 years—but also with the cancellation of the Savings Banks Stocks. I hope the House will now see that the main objection that has been taken, as far as I understand it, to our proposal by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote) has now been fairly met. I also thank my hon. and learned Friend behind me (Mr. Biddulph Martin) for the suggestion he has made; but I cannot say—indeed, it would be very rash to say—how many millions of Stock we think we can take off the market in a limited time, or to what extent we ought to make use of that provision of the law under which, if notice be given

      1927
      to only a proportion of Stockholders, they must submit either to a lower interest or receive the capital value of their Stock. I think the House will be satisfied when I say that that point has been for a long time in the mind, not only of myself, but of others who are concerned. And now I come to the Amendment moved by my hon. Friend the Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry). My hon. Friend boldly demands that, instead of the proposal we have made to the House, we should determine, to use his own words, at once to wipe away the whole £4,000,000 of duty on tea, besides those on cocoa, currants, dried fruits, and other articles, amounting altogether to £5,300,000. Of course, I cannot accept that Amendment, and I hope that the body of the House will not accept it; because it means neither more nor less than the stoppage of paying off Debt. My hon. Friend has gone into a long discussion as to the relative taxation of Ireland and Great Britain, and he has introduced, I am bound to say, one or two new facts into that very old controversy. That controversy was gone into some years ago before a Committee which was moved for by the late General Dunne, and on which sat the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote), Viscount Sherbrooke, and many other financial authorities; and, certainly, the results arrived at by that Committee were not at all such as to justify the extreme view taken by my hon. Friend. My hon. Friend went very minutely into the relative taxation of Ireland compared with that of other parts of the Empire; but he quite left out of view the relative expenditure of one kind and another in Ireland. My hon. Friend said one thing to which I am bound to take exception. He used these words—"That no Chancellor of the Exchequer ever looks across the Channel." Now, I have only had the opportunity of making one Financial Statement to the House, and my proposal was one of an extremely simple character, confined almost entirely to a remission of a temporary increase of Income Tax and one or two small changes already entertained by Parliament. Nothing could have been less ambitious than that Budget; but I repudiate altogether the idea that a Chancellor of the Exchequer is not bound, when it is in his power to
      1928
      make considerable changes, to consider the taxation of Ireland. quite as much as the relative taxation of Great Britian. Certainly, I shall not be governed by the very narrow views attributed to my Office. My hon. Friend was supported by the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson), who took practically the same view—namely, that we should remove what are known as the "Breakfast Table Duties," and who also laid down the doctrine that the money applied to the payment of principal and interest of Debt should be money raised in a special way from acquired property, to be set aside for that purpose. I do not think that that would be a safe principle of finance, and I trust that the House will not be prepared to accept it. Next, my right hon. Friend the Member for the City of London (Mr. Hubbard) made it one of the charges against the present policy that I had used different language in 1875, and implied that I had said something then which compelled me, in common consistency, to repeal the Act of 1875. But on other occasions we are also being told that Governments should not use their majorities to upset the acts of their Predecessors, and that a certain continuity in policy as between successive Governments is a characteristic of English practice. But I am bound to say that while I did not approve, in all its detail, of the Sinking Fund plan of 1875, I did not object in principle to the proposal of the late Government. My objection was to the preference of a Sinking Fund, which might become inconveniently large, over an extension of Terminable Annuities. But to-night my right hon. Friend's main grievance is that it will be hard on some classes of the people to reduce the interest on the National Debt; and with this doctrine I can have no sympathy. He was followed by the hon. Member for Bradford (Mr. Illingworth), who went even farther than the hen. Member for Galway, because he proposed to take off all duties on articles of consumption, and to substitute increased duties on property in order to make good the amount. Now, the proposal of the present Bill does not touch taxation at all, it only deals with funds actually in existence; and a proposal to abolish all taxation on articles of consumption and substitute increased duties on property seems so very wide of the question, that

      1929
      I hope my hon. Friend will excuse me from discussing it. As to the remark of the hon. Member for Youghal (Sir Joseph M'Kenna), that if the Income Tax were removed from Ireland it might he removed from England and Scotland, "and so much the better," I may reply that if you are to have no Income Tax there will be £10,000,000 to make up; and this, also, it is a little foreign to discuss now. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith) has made a speech which, for courage, I think never was surpassed. He sits next to the right hon. Baronet the Member for North Devon, and the only method he proposes for paying off the Debt is to apply to it the surplus of Income over Expenditure—in other words, to fall back on the old Sinking Fund and the policy of 1829. Nothing, in his opinion, is worse or more dangerous than the plan of Terminable Annuities, which he called on us to abandon; but he made an attack upon the Terminable Annuities, and called upon the Government to give up the dangerous system of Terminable Annuities.
      MR. W. H. SMITH: What I said was that the measure of my right hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote) would render this Bill absolutely unnecessary.
      THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS): But the maintenance of Terminable Annuities was part of the policy of his right hon. Friend (Sir Stafford Northcote); and his speech was an appeal to us to give up what he called the dangerous method of Terminable Annuities, which, he said, only complicated the Public Accounts. I would appeal, however, from the right hon. Gentleman to the experience of all those, except himself, who have been concerned in the management of the financial affairs of this country for the last 20 years, whether it is possible to secure the application of a considerable Sinking Fund for the payment of Debt to a large extent, except through the operation of Terminable Annuities? I will not enter upon the question which the right hon. Gentleman discussed at great length, whether bankers hold sufficient reserves, because I do not see what it has to do with the present Bill. We do not deal with anything in the hands of bankers, but with funds in
      1930
      the hands of Public Departments; and whether these are Perpetual or Terminable Annuities cannot affect bankers. I hope the House, having the matter fully before it, will now, after the declaration I have made, as to the changes in one clause, agree to read the Bill a second time.
      LORD GEORGE HAMILTON, who rose amid cries of "Divide!" said, he was sorry to obtrude himself upon the attention of the House, and to postpone the Division which many hon. Members seemed anxious to have; but he had an Amendment which had been for some time on the Paper which raised questions of the utmost importance, and which, he thought, ought to be kept in the view of the House, before they arrived at any decision on the second reading of the Bill. The Amendment related to the subject of local taxation, and his own excuse for raising the question was that his hon. Friend the Member for South Devon (Sir Massey Lopes), who had made the subject his special study, had had a Notice on the Paper for some time, as an Amendment to the Motion of the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands), on the same question. But, for reasons best known to the hon. Member for Burnley himself, the hon. Member's Motion was withdrawn at the last moment; therefore, the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for South Devon had also fallen to the ground, which he regretted, because he thought he should have been better able to speak upon that Amendment than he would upon the Resolution now before the House. The Amendment which he (Lord George Hamilton) had himself placed upon the Paper was as follows:—
      "That, considering the Government are pledged to give relief in some shape or other to local burdens, and that the Revenue derived from Excise is annually decreasing, it is impolitic for this House to hastily pledge itself to proposals which may hereafter necessitate either an increase of taxation or a postponement of the promised relief to the ratepayers."
      He thought that nobody would deny that it was more than probable that within the next20 or 30 years, if this Bill became law, and if it was in no way repealed, it might be necessary to impose additional taxation, or indefinitely to postpone the promised relief which the Government had undertaken to give to the ratepayers.

      1931
      Perhaps the House would allow him to lay before them, very shortly, the figures on which he based his statement. The Chancellor of the Exchequer very cautiously alluded to one of the statements contained in this Amendment "that the Revenue derived from Excise was annually decreasing." That statement was perfectly correct. Although the Excise had not decreased during the past year or two, nevertheless, the Revenue derived from alcoholic liquors was annually decreasing. Hon. Members had had placed in their hands, during the last few days, a statistical abstract for the last 15 years, and he had taken out some figures from that abstract which were quite unimpeachable. He would take two periods of three years. First, the three years ending 1880, which formed a period of great depression, when the consumption was unusually low, and he would compare the average consumption during these three years with the corresponding period of three years ending 1883, which was a period of comparative prosperity. The Customs Returns, under the head of Spirits, for the first three years, showed an average of £5,180,000, as against an average of £4,340,000 in the three years ending 1883. That was a decrease of £840,000. Under the head of Wine, for the first three years the amount was £1,470,000; but it was only £1,340,000 on the last period of three years, showing a diminution of £130,000. The figures showed another remarkable fact — namely, that the amount paid for licences was almost identical during the two periods; but instead of there having been an increased consumption, owing to the increased population and increased prosperity, the amount consumed had been actually less than in any year during the last 10 years. He thought that nobody who looked at the great strides which were being made by the Temperance Movement now going on would deny that, in subsequent years, the Revenue derived from alcholic liquors would rather tend to diminish than to increase. The Excise and Custom Duties, under the head of Alcoholic Liquors, formed two - thirds of the total Revenue coming from that source; and yet, during the past three years, they had fallen off by more than £1,000,000 as compared with the previous three years; and that fact formed strong presumptive
      1932
      evidence that the diminution would probably continue. He had no wish to weary the House with figures; but there was a certain aspect of the question which had not yet been presented, and, no doubt, he was placed at a disadvantage in attempting to bring on such a question at that period of the Session. It was not his fault, however, that he was compelled to lay before the House now certain facts, and a certain view of the question, which would undoubtedly have been listened to with much greater interest early in the year. Taking the Expenditure of the year 1873 for the Army, Navy, and Civil Services, other than that for the collection of Revenue, he found that it amounted to £35,800,000; whereas, in 1883, it amounted to £45,300,000. Therefore, these two facts were clear, that the cost of the Army, Navy, and Civil Services, not connected with the collection of Revenue, was increasing and must increase. As the price of labour increased, so must the cost of the Navy and Army; and side by side, therefore, with a falling Revenue, especially as far as the main staple and support of the Revenue was concerned, they had an increasing Expenditure. Arid what was the state of local taxation? A number of deputations had waited at various times upon the Prime Minister; and invariably the answer to such deputations, on the part of whatever Government was in Office, had been that Her Majesty's Ministers were anxious to give some relief, if possible, but that the Ways and Means were wanting. On the last occasion of a deputation waiting upon the Prime Minister, the right hon. Gentleman said he could not give a remission without imposing new taxes. The Prime Minister had more than once stated that the rates really fell upon labour; and when last year his hon. Friend the Member for South Leicestershire (Mr. Pell) brought forward a Motion in respect to local taxation, an Amendment was moved to that Motion by the hon. Member for South Northumberland (Mr. Albert Grey), which Amendment was accepted by the Government as the principle upon which they proposed hereafter to deal with local taxation. The Amendment amounted to a declaration that the relief should be by the transfer to the local authorities of a certain amount of control over particular taxes. Of course,

      1933
      if they transferred a certain portion of taxes now paid to the Imperial Exchequer by the local authorities, they must necessarily diminish the Imperial Income; and it was self-evident that if they absorbed for an indefinite period so large a sum as £28,000,000, and, at the same time, had the prospect of a falling Revenue and an increasing Expenditure, no remission of taxation to the ratepayers was likely to take place for some years to come. The House had had figures placed before them which, no doubt, were rather startling in their magnitude. The Chancellor of the Exchequer informed them that if the Bill passed into law, under its operation a reduction of Debt would take place amounting to something like £120,000,000 in the next 20 years. The sum to be reduced by this operation would be £173,000,000; but, of that sum, £53,000,000 would not be entirely wiped off until some years subsequently. Now, the fact was—and whether this Bill passed or not it was perfectly immaterial—that £120,000,000 or more would be wiped off during the next 20 years; and it would be entirely duo to the Bill which was introduced and passed into law by his right hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote). Under that Bill £28,000,000 would not only be applied to the reduction, or rather to the service, of the Debt, which now stood at £700,000,000, but, applying that sum of £28,000,000 to the service of the Debt, the Debt itself would cease to exist in 47 years. It was, therefore, just as true for him to assert that if the Bill of his right hon. Friend had not been interfered with, in 50 years there would be no permanent Debt at all, as it would be to assert that under the operation of this Bill £120,000,000 would be paid off during the next 20 years. Hon. Gentlemen were evidently voting upon this Bill in ignorance of the real facts. If, in three years, the National Debt were less than £700,000,000, they would have applicable to the services of that Debt £28,000,000 a-year, which was 4 per cent interest; but, as they were paying only 3 per cent interest, they would have a Sinking Fund of I per cent. But the question would naturally arise, whether anybody would suppose that this country would consent to vote a sum of £28,000,000 annually to the service of
      1934
      the Debt, when it knew that in 50 years the Debt would be paid off? In point of fact, nobody was paying off their Debt so fast as this country, except the United States. There was no analogy, however, between this country and the United States, because it was well known that one of the main objects of a certain Party in the United States in making so large an annual reduction of Debt was to keep up the Protective Duties at present imposed, for, if there was no Debt which could be taken off, those duties would have to be reduced. At the present moment we were reducing our Debt at at enormous rate; and, whether this Bill passed into law or not, it would make no difference in the reduction of the Debt. In point of fact, the passing of the Bill would, in his opinion, rather retard the reduction of the Debt than otherwise. There were two sentences, one of which fell from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the other from the Prime Minister, with which he thought everyone would agree. The Chancellor of the Exchequer pointed out that it was unwise to postpone the operation until the last moment, and he used that as an argument for introducing the Bill now; but that was exactly the reason why they were opposing the Bill that night. The Bill had been postponed until they had reached the fag-end of the Session, when it could not be adequately considered. The Prime Minister capped that excellent sentiment by another—that it was their duty to resist the beginning of evil. With that we agree, and we contend that having given the whole time of the House to the Government, to enable them to accelerate the transmission of Public Business, we ought not now to have hustled down our throats a Bill of the utmost importance which had been lying for so many months upon the Notice Paper. The Prime Minister said the vast financial interests of the country were at stake, and that they would receive a great shock if this Bill were postponed until next Session. He did not believe one word of it. He did not believe if the Bill were postponed until next Session that Consuls would fluctuate one farthing. But if it were the case, then what a reflection it was upon the Government so far as their conduct of Public Business was concerned. Was it not their duty, if that enormous finan-

      1935
      cial evil was at stake, to have brought forward the Bill at a time when it could be properly discussed? So far from these financial evils being at stake, it was only a fortnight ago that the Prime Minister, when asked what it was proposed to do in regard to the Bill, said that it was proposed to put it down to-night for discussion, in order to ascertain what the views of the House were in regard to it. But now it appeared to be of such paramount importance that they must pass it, or some great financial interests were to receive a severe shock. The principle the Bill proposed to assert was the application of Terminable Annuities for the reduction of the Debt. He would make a statement which he challenged anybody on the Treasury Bench to deny—namely, that if they postponed the Bill until next year, and brought in exactly the same scheme as they did now, in 20 years they would bring £5,000,000 more to the reduction of Debt than they could do this year. The reason for that was obvious. The proposal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer was to substitute for Annuities terminable in 1885, other Terminable Annuities for a longer period. The value of the Terminable Annuities which ceased in 1885 would be £5,000,000 less next year; and, therefore, the Government would have Annuities to the extent of £340,000 available to add to the new Terminable Annuities. That was a mathematical certainty there could be no dispute about.
      THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS)said, the noble Lord did not appear to observe that this was as broad as it was long, for the Annuities would run a year later, unless they were made for 19 instead of 20 years.
      LORD GEORGE HAMILTONbegged the right hon. Gentleman's pardon; that had nothing to do with it, and he adhered to the statement he had made. The amount, instead of being £10,000,000 next year, would be £5,000,000; and if they were to set up 20 years' Annuities next year they would be able to redeem £5,000,000 for half the sum they could now redeem £10,000,000, and if they did not interfere with the Terminable Annuities now existing, the Chancellor of the Exchequer next year would have £5,000,000 less Debt to reduce. Therefore, it seemed to him (Lord George
      1936
      Hamilton) that every argument pointed against the hasty adoption of the Bill. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said there would be a remission of taxation in the years 1886 and 1887 of something like £1,300,000; but the remission to the taxpayers would consist of a return to them of a sum raised for a certain purpose and for a specific object, and when the time for realizing that temporary purpose and specific object had terminated, as a matter of course the taxation would be removed. It was a cardinal maxim of finance that wherever exceptional efforts were made to reduce Debt, the taxation imposed to meet these exceptional efforts should not continue; but, where it was only raised for a temporary purpose, then that it should cease when the purpose was accomplished. There seemed to him to be another serious objection to the attempt to force this Bill through the House that night. It had hitherto been the practice, no matter what might be the personal views of Members of the House, always to respect any statement arrived at after full discussion, which was supported by the majority of the House. Now, would anybody pretend that if the Government forced this measure through Parliament during the present Session, any such respect could be paid to this Bill? For his own part, and he was expressing the opinion of others with whom he had conversed, he thought the House would be justified hereafter in endeavouring to oppose the arrangement which, without adequate discussion, they had been forced to adopt at the fag-end of the Session. There was another and, to his mind, a still stronger objection. He thought that nobody could deny that, in the course of a very few years, a great re-adjustment of taxation, or an entire re-modelling of our financial system, must become necessary. If the consumption of alcoholic liquors went on decreasing to the extent it had decreased of late years, they might anticipate the greatest difficulty in making both ends meet. Great financial reforms had been carried on by Mr. Pitt, Sir Robert Peel, and the present Prime Minister; and, in carrying them out, great difficulty had always been found at the beginning of a financial reform in retaining an equilibrium between Income and Expenditure. The difficulty was to balance the Expendi-

      1937
      ture and the Revenue for the first two or three years of the so-called great reforms; because, in the first years, the taxes were less productive, and the taxes which might be imposed instead did not make up the deficiency. So nicely adjusted at the present moment were our Taxation and our Revenue, that when the Prime Minister made the gift of £5,000,000 to India, and distributed it over six years, the small annual payment of £500,000 had almost in every subsequent year necessitated additional taxation. Consequently, he considered it more than probable that if we chose to tie our hands, as it was proposed to-night, by assenting to a Bill the operation of which was almost indefinite, we might prevent some great financial scheme or other in the course of a few years from taking effect. His hon. Friend the Member for Chippenham (Sir Gabriel Goldney) expressed what he (Lord George Hamilton) thought was the general feeling of the House, when he said that if this principle of reducing Debt by Terminable Annuities was unpalatable to the House, then the Government ought to be prepared to introduce some other system in lieu of this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had himself admitted so much. [Mr. MUNDELLA: NO.] The right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council said "No;" but the right hon. Gentleman was not present, and he (Lord George Hamilton) bad heard the statement made. The House had been assured that the Government were quite ready to consider the objections which had been raised to these Annuities. Then, if they were quite ready to make alterations, and if these Annuities were not to roll up, then it seemed to him that they were laying down an unfortunate principle, when they declared that £28,000,000 should be placed at the service of the State for the reduction of Debt.
      THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS)said, that what he had stated was, that he was willing to limit to a certain number of years the "rolling up" arrangement which, under the Bill, would be perpetual.
      LORD GEORGE HAMILTONsaid, he was obliged for the explanation, and he was bound to say that he had somewhat misunderstood the original remark
      1938
      of the right hon. Gentleman. He would not detain the House with further remarks. The Prime Minister had held out a great inducement to them to vote for the Bill, that it would place a solid obstacle against the repeal of the Bill of his right hon. Friend the Member for North Devon; but it must be borne in mind that up to the present moment not a word had been said about repudiating that Bill. He sincerely hoped the considerations he had mentioned would have some weight with the House in arriving at a decision upon the present measure.
      MR. R. N. FOWLERsaid, he wished to say a few words in support of the Amendment of his right hon. Friend and Colleague (Mr. Hubbard). The Prime Minister had, in a very eloquent speech, argued that those who opposed the Bill were, in effect, opposing the scheme for the reduction of the National Debt introduced by the right hon. Baronet the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote) some years ago. That seemed to him (Mr. R. N. Fowler) an entire misconception. They were not opposed to the policy inaugurated by the right hon. Baronet eight years ago; they were all agreed as to the desirability of reducing the Debt, although, undoubtedly, there was a difference of opinion as to the way in which that reduction ought to be effected. It was true that the right hon. Baronet introduced the policy, the effect of which must be the reduction of the National Debt, and which had been referred to by previous speakers as being now the law of the land; but the Bill, although in one sense it embodied that policy, tied the hands of future Chancellors of the Exchequer as to the way in which it was to be carried out. The question was, whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1893 should apply the funds in his hands to the reduction of Debt by means of Terminable Annuities, or whether it might not be more advantageous to buy Consols? His right hon. Friend the Member for North Devon had pointed out that before then we might be involved in a great war. Everyone knew that that meant a great fall in the Funds. Suppose then Consols went down to 90 or 85, would it not be desirable that the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the day should be able to purchase Consols in

      1939
      the market at that price, rather than that the scheme of Terminable Annuities should be carried out as proposed by the Bill? It was because he did not wish to bind the future Chancellor of the Exchequer; because he wished that 10 years hence he should be able to act in whatever way he thought best for the interest of the country, that he should vote for the Amendment of his right hon. Colleague.
      SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTESir, I will not detain the House for more than a few moments in explaining the vote I am about to give. My feeling is that the discussion we have had to-night has been a useful one, inasmuch as it has cleared our minds on several points, and has, among other things, produced on the mind of the Government an impression that it is necessary to qualify the proposals made. The suggestion which came from the Prime Minister, and which was supported by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, is, undoubtedly, an improvement upon the original plan of Her Majesty's Government; but, Sir, it does seem to me that, at this time of the Session, it is impossible to give this question full and fair consideration. I see no necessity at all, even from the point of view of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, for passing the Bill in the present year. I think, if we do enter upon the Committee stage, we shall have a good deal of discussion, and that it will take us some time to settle the details of the measure. For these reasons, I think it necessary to vote against the second reading; but, in so doing, I wish to say that, although the Division will be taken upon the Amendment of the hon. Member for Galway, I cannot undertake to say that I support that Amendment. I shall take the course of giving a negative vote upon the Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question;" but not with the slightest hesitation as to the propriety of continuing our efforts for the reduction of the National Debt, or with any idea of going back one inch from the position I have taken up in previous years. I regard this as a necessary measure, but one which, in its present form, is open to objection; and it is because I do not think we can, at this period of the Session, fairly and properly discuss all the questions arising
      1940
      from it, that I shall give my vote against the second reading of the Bill.
      Question put.
      The House divided:—Ayes 149; Noes 95: Majority 54.

      AYES.

      Acland, Sir T. D.

      Fitzwilliam, hon. C W. W.

      Acland, C. T. D.

      Agnew, W.

      Flower, C.

      Ainsworth, D.

      Foljambe, C. G. S.

      Allen, H. G.

      Forster, rt. hon. W. E.

      Armitage, B.

      Gabbett, D. F.

      Armitstead, G.

      Gladstone, rt. hn. W. E.

      Arnold, A.

      Gladstone, H. J.

      Asher, A.

      Gladstone, W. H.

      Ashley, hon. E. M.

      Goldney, Sir G.

      Balfour, Sir G.

      Gordon, Sir A.

      Balfour, rt. hon. J. B.

      Gourley, E. T.

      Barclay, J. W.

      Grant, A.

      Bass, H.

      Grant, D.

      Brand, H. R.

      Gordon, R. T.

      Brassey, Sir T.

      Hardcastle, J. A.

      Brett, R. B.

      Hartington, Marq. of

      Briggs, W. E.

      Hastings, G. W.

      Bright, rt. hon. J.

      Hayter, Sir A. D.

      Bright, J. (Manchester)

      Henderson, F.

      Broadhurst, H.

      Heneage, E.

      Brogden, A.

      Hibbert, J. T.

      Bruce, rt. hon. Lord C.

      Hollond, J. R.

      Bruce, hon. R. P.

      Holms, J.

      Bryce, J.

      Hopwood, C. H.

      Buchanan, T. R.

      Ince, H. B.

      Buszard, M. C.

      Inderwick, F. A.

      Buxton, F. W.

      James, Sir H.

      Buxton, S. C.

      James, C.

      Caine, W. S.

      James, W. H.

      Cameron, C.

      Jardine, R.

      Campbell, Sir G.

      Jenkins, D. J.

      Campbell-Bannerman, H.

      Jones-Parry, L.

      Lawson, Sir W.

      Carington, hon. R.

      Leake, R.

      Causton, R. K.

      Leatham, E. A.

      Chamberlain, rt. hn. J.

      Leatham, W. H.

      Cheetham, J. F.

      Lee, H.

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

      Lefevre, right hon. G. J. S.

      Clarke, J. C.

      Cohen, A.

      Lloyd, M.

      Collings, J.

      Lubbock, Sir J.

      Cotes, C. C.

      Lyons, R. D.

      Courtauld, G.

      M'Coan, J. C.

      Courtney, L. H.

      Mackie, R. B.

      Cowper, hon. H. F.

      Macliver, P. S.

      Cropper, J.

      M'Minnies, J. G.

      Cross, J. K.

      Mappin, F. T.

      Davey, H.

      Martin, R. B.

      Dilke, rt. hn. Sir C. W.

      Maskelyne, M. N. H Story.

      Dodds, J.

      Dodson, rt. hon. J. G.

      Milbank, Sir F. A.

      Duff, R. W.

      Monk, C. J.

      Earp, T.

      Morgan, rt. hon. G. O.

      Edwards, P.

      Morley, A.

      Errington, G.

      Morley, J.

      Farquharson, Dr. R.

      Morley, S.

      Fawcett, rt. hon. H.

      Mundella, rt. hon. A. J.

      Ffolkes, Sir W. H. B.

      Noel, E.

      Findlater, W.

      O'Shaughnessy, R.

      Firth, J. F. B.

      Otway, Sir A. J.

      Fitzmaurice, Lord E. G. P.

      Paget, T. T.

      Palmer, J. H.

      Parker, C. S.

      Thomasson, J. P.

      Pease, A.

      Tracy, hon. F. S. A. Hanbury-

      Peddie, J. D.

      Playfair, rt. hn. Sir L.

      Trevelyan, rt. hn. G. O.

      Porter, rt. hon. A. M.

      Vivian, A. P.

      Powell, W. R. H.

      Waugh, E.

      Ramsay, J.

      Whitbread, S.

      Rathbone, W.

      Williams, S. C. E.

      Roberts, J.

      Williamson, S.

      Roe, T.

      Wilson, C. H.

      Russell, G. W. E.

      Wodehouse, E. R.

      Shaw, T.

      Shield, H.

      TELLERS.

      Smith, Lt.-Col. G.

      Grosvenor, right hon.

      Stanley, hon. E. L.

      Lord R.

      Stanton, W. J.

      Kensington, right hon.

      Summers, W.

      Lord

      Tavistock, Marquess of

      Main Question put, and agreed to.

    LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (SCOTLAND) [SALARIES].

      RESOLUTION.
      Order for Committee read.
      Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
      SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFsaid, he must appeal to the Prime Minister upon this matter. Yesterday he received from the right hon. Gentleman a distinct promise that the Local Government Board (Scotland) Bill should not be touched then. On the strength of that promise, he left the House; but he found that, late last night, a Resolution was passed, of which no Notice had been given, fixing to-day for the preliminary Committee on the question. When he mentioned the matter earlier in the present Sitting, he received an answer from the Secretary of State for the Home Department, in the right hon. Gentleman's usual style, informing him that he did not understand the Forms of the House. With regard to that, all he knew was that, on the strength of the Prime Minister's promise, he left the House last night, and, therefore, did not oppose the Resolution that was brought forward. But that Resolution had advanced the Bill a stage, inasmuch as if it had been brought forward to-night for to-morrow, that stage would have been delayed a day; and he would, therefore, now appeal to the Prime Minister to carry out the distinct pledge he gave, and not to press this Motion.
      MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he had nothing to say to the hon. Member as to the Forms of the House; but the carrying of this Resolution was an absolute necessity, as a money clause in the Bill. The promise he had given referred to the Bill itself, and not to this Resolution.
      SIR R. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, there was a point in connection with this matter upon which he thought some information ought to be given. The other day he asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department for some detailed estimate of the charges

      1943
      which this Bill would entail on the country, and he was told that there would be nothing, as he understood, except the salary of the President himself, and that that charge would be provided by the salaries of officers in the other Boards, which would supply all he would want. He did not think that was at all a satisfactory state of things, and he should have supposed that before this money question was settled the Government would have furnished some estimate of what would be the cost. He would remind the Government that if they appointed an Officer with £2,000 or 1,500 a-year, whatever his powers might be to take away the salaries of other Officers in Scotland, he would not be able to provide a staff unless an Act of Parliament gave him power to do so. They were now on the money stage of this Bill, and he understood that no estimate had been made except for £2,000, which would have to be paid to the Officer proposed; while for his staff and for other matters there would have to be economies in the arrangements of the different Boards in Edinburgh. He should like a little more information before this Vote was passed, because it would be impossible for this Officer to destroy the Boards he would find in Scotland, and appropriate the salaries of their Officers to pay his own staff, without coming to Parliament for authority to do so. Therefore, before this scheme was entered upon, the House was entitled to some definite information as to what Offices were to be done away with, and how the new staff was to be obtained. The right hon. Gentleman had stated the other day that the President would require an office in Edinburgh and an office in London. If that was so, he would require a staff of clerks. And the House would like to know where he was to get authority to suppress officers in the existing Boards, and appropriate them to himself; which of the Boards he was going to suppress; and whether he would come to Parliament next year for an Act for this purpose? If that was to be done, it would be much better that the matter should stand over to another Session, in order that the House might have the matter fairly before them, and that, before they established this Office, they should know definitely what the expense to the country would be. In his opinion, this would be a
      1944
      useless, an expensive, and an anomalous Board.
      SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, he was afraid he could not give the right hon. Gentleman any more satisfactory information than he had given the other day, nor did he think it necessary for the progress of the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman had stated that this would be an anomalous Institution, which was to have an expensive staff. As to the anomaly of the Institution, that, he thought, was rather a question for the second reading of the Bill, which had been decided by the House a few days ago; and he did not think the right hon. Gentleman had recorded his vote against the second reading establishing this anomalous Institution. As to the expensiveness, he did not think that was as all likely to be the case; and it was not the intention of the Government that the Office should have an expensive staff. There were many Offices which did good work without an expensive staff. Some hon. Members opposite, who voted against the second reading, were of-opinion that the whole thing would be better done by the Lord Advocate himself; but then the Lord Advocate had no expensive staff at all; and why they should suppose that the duties, which they said were so admirably discharged by the Lord Advocate, could not be done by the Lord Advocate plus the Minister to be created by this Bill, unless he had an expensive staff, he really could not understand. The new Minister would require some assistance, and that was referred to in the Bill; but he had mentioned the other day that that assistance might be obtained without any additional charge to the country by economies on a review of the existing Boards of Scotland. The right hon. Gentleman said the Government were going to suppress these Boards, and that they could not do that without Parliamentary authority. First of all, it was not the intention of the Government to suppress these Boards; but where there were a number of Boards, as there were in Edinburgh, it was possible that they might be efficiently worked by a staff which was less expensive than that which already existed; and the question to be considered, when it was decided what should be done in the way of economies, would be whether it would be necessary

      1945
      or not to come to Parliament for authority. If it was necessary, of course they would come to Parliament for authority to deal with the matter; but why should it be necessary to wait for that in order to take the steps which had been agreed upon by the House the other day? Surely it was more wise and reasonable that, when a Public Office was to be created, it should first be seen how far it was necessary to give assistance to the Office so created, and also to see in what way economies might best be effected in the existing Offices. That seemed to him to be a very sensible plan, and a straightforward proposition, which would satisfy the House that there was no reason to go into a consideration of this matter before they proceeded with the present Resolution.
      MR. GORSTsaid, the right hon. Gentleman opposite had spoken a considerable time, and he (Mr. Gorst) was certain the House had derived no information. He thought they had a right to complain now, as they had on Saturday, when the Bill was read a second time, that the Government, however large a majority they had, had no business to read Bills of this kind in the House of Commons without giving that information to the Representatives of the people which they were entitled to ask for and to receive. The right hon. Gentleman boasted of the House having read the Bill a second time; but the Government ought to be ashamed of the way in which the Bill was read a second time. Before that was done, hon. Members had asked a simple question—and they meant to ask some questions at every stage of the Bill—as to how much this new organization in Scotland was to cost the country? That was a simple question, which he thought ought to be answered; and when the Government came down and proposed schemes for the administration of the country, the duty was thrown upon hon. Members of watching Public Expenditure, and they were entitled to ask how much such schemes would cost. He believed the proceeding in connection with this Bill was entirely unprecedented, and that nothing like it had been seen in the history of the country. Alterations in the personnel of the Government had grown out of public necessities. We began with a Secretary of State; but, as the business grew, fresh Departments
      1946
      were constituted by necessity, and Heads were found for them; but, in this case, the Government had reversed that process. They were, first of all, going to find a Head, with a salary, and then, at some future time, some work would be found for him, and subordinates and offices would be provided. He protested against that proposal as a reversal of the proper course. The Secretary of State for the Home Department spoke of the Lord Advocate, and observed that the right hon. and learned Gentleman could do the work perfectly well. That was exactly what some hon. Members thought on Saturday; but exactly what the Secretary of State for the Home Department would not allow the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate to say, although he was ready and anxious to speak. He (Mr. Gorst) thought the House had a right to hear what the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate had to say before they read the Bill a second time. Now, they were asked to provide this salary; but he protested that he would not assent to that until he knew what the expense would be. All the Government did was to pitchfork into the House a Bill to give employment to a Gentleman who was to be called President of the Local Government Board of Scotland; and when the Representatives of the people asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, whose special duty it was to inform the House on these subjects, what this new arrangement was to cost, and how much additional cost was to be thrown upon the taxpayers, he maintained a gloomy and obstinate silence. He must protest at that stage; and he hoped other Members would protest at every stage, and offer all resistance to the progress of the Bill, unless the Government stated what the scheme was to cost.
      MR. DALRYMPLEsaid, he would not follow the example of the hon. and learned Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst) in delivering what had been described as a second reading speech; but would keep strictly to the subject of the salary. As in other respects, so in this—the whole question of this now Minister and Department for Scotland had clearly not been thought out. There had been no calculation made of the expense which the Department was to cost; and although he would not go so far as to say that never in the

      1947
      history of the country had there been such a case, he would say that he doubted whether, within recent memory, there had been a proposal made for granting money without some estimate of the expense to be involved. He did not know what class of persons were to be gratified by this thing being done on the cheap, and he did not think it would reconcile those who particularly disliked the creation of this Department to find that it was to be done in a cheap manner. The Secretary of State for the Homo Department said there was to be some assistance given to the new President of the Local Government Board in Scotland; but what did that mean? It might mean a clerk, or a shorthand writer, or a charwoman. The term "charwoman" was not known in Scotland; but assistance might mean almost anything. He remembered that when Lord Rosebery was appointed to the Home Office, it was said that he was to give some assistance to the Secretary of State. That was a different thing altogether; but it was equally wide-fined. On the last occasion of discussing this Bill, when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South-West Lancashire (Sir R. Assheton Cross) asked a question as to the expense of this new Department, he received an answer which was certainly calculated to make people in Scotland think twice before they assented to this Bill—that was to say, if he (Mr. Dalrymple) knew anything of the feeling of the people in Scotland—for it was stated that it was proposed that this new functionary should scrape money together from the existing Boards in Edinburgh, and so pay for his staff. It took some time, when people had once given their confidence to Her Majesty's Government, to shake that confidence; but it seemed to him that if the people of Scotland once comprehended that the assistance to be given to this new Office was to be paid for by economies in the existing Boards, the proposal of the Government would not be so popular as it now appeared to be. He wished to know whether, when the right hon. Gentleman the President of this Local Government Board had made his investigation, he had to report to Parliament? If not, how was the Treasury to determine how the officers of the Board should be paid? If a saving could
      1948
      not be effected in the manner contemplated by the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir William Harcourt), where was the money to come from? If it was to come from the Treasury, the House ought to have some calculation of the amount which was to be asked. There was no mention made as to whom the officers of the second class were to be. Indeed, it was altogether a scheme of the most inchoate and unsatisfactory character; and, as the House professed to take charge of the Expenditure of the country, they were entitled to a little more information as to the expenditure which it was likely would be incurred by this new creation. He believed the right hon. Gentleman opposite was extremely sanguine, if he thought any saving could be effected in Scotland. It had often been said that it was an extremely hard case, that savings which were effected out of such Departments as the Register House, Edinburgh, were not expended in Scotland, but were brought into the Treasury; and while the hardship was felt by many of them, it seemed a particularly unfortunate circumstance that further economies were to be made, if possible, in Scotland, out of which salaries for an undefined and fantastic Department were to be provided. It was very unsatisfactory that they should be asked to pass this Resolution, when they were completely in the dark so far as the expenditure contemplated under the Bill was concerned.
      MR. GIBSONsaid, there was some substance in the objections which had been taken to proceeding further with this Bill. The right hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir William Harcourt), or the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate (Mr. J. B. Balfour), should either now, or at some early date, give the House the information sought. They were asked by the Resolution to assent to the salaries of the President, Secretaries, and other officers of the Local Government Board for Scotland. Now, they were entitled to some information, he did not say of a very minute character, but of a rough description, as to what was in the minds of the Government when they asked for the salaries of the Secretaries and other officers of the new Board. The Government ought to tell hon. Members whether the salaries in question would amount to £2,000, or £3,000, or £4,000, or £5,000 sterling

      1949
      a-year; they ought to take the Committee generally into their confidence. The Secretary of State for the Home Department said the other day, and again to-night, that there might be some saving effected out of what he called a consolidation of Offices. He (Mr. Gibson) affirmed, in the presence of the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate, who, he presumed, was not doomed to perpetual silence, that there was not one syllable or line in the Bill which would enable him to consolidate or re-organize a single Office mentioned in the Schedule of the Bill; and that it would be necessary if, in the new Office, the services of a single officer in any one Department in Scotland were utilized, to come again to Parliament to get Parliamentary sanction for the purpose. He affirmed that in this Bill there was not one line to warrant the person the Government were going to appoint to walk into a single Office in Scotland to lessen or re-organize the staff of that Office, and say—"I will take this, or that, or the other officer, and use him in the new Office." Now, that was a fair and clear statement; and if the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate controverted it, he (Mr. Gibson) would ask him to point to a line of the Bill which would enable him to save the services even of a charwoman in Scotland. There was another point to be considered. At what time, before the passing of the Bill, were they to be told who the President of the Board was to be? It was not usual to create an Office without giving some information, or some indication, as to who the new official would be. He would give an illustration. At the time the Irish Church was Disestablished there were three appointments made of three very eminent persons. They were not named in the Bill originally, they were not named in the second reading; but on the Committee stage of the Bill they were named, and they were put in. That was a distinct precedent for confidence being reposed in Parliament. Other precedents there were in the cases of the Irish Land Act of 1881, and of the Arrears Act of last year. Under the Land Act of 1881 there were three Commissioners to be appointed with supreme power; they were officials whom it was intended to invest with far greater jurisdiction, patronage, and
      1950
      authority than was to be given to the President of the new Board. Neither on the introduction of the Bill, nor on the second reading, were they told who the three Commissioners wore to be; but on the Committee stage the Prime Minister informed the House who the Commissioners were to be; and in doing so the right hon. Gentleman said he was following Constitutional precedent. Last year, in the case of the appointment of Viscount Monck, the Prime Minister did not volunteer the name of the new Land Commissioner until the last moment. He (Mr. Gibson) remembered perfectly well that the right hon. Gentleman was pressed by hon. Member after hon. Member—himself (Mr. Gibson) amongst the number—to state who was to be the new Commissioner, and he said be "would name him tomorrow;" but, finally, under the pressure of questions, the right hon. Gentleman said that the person who it was intended by the Government should fill the place was Viscount Monck. It had been assumed that the Government had in their mind who the President was to be, and what his duties were to be. If, in addition to not knowing what duties would be performed by the new official, they did not know who the President would be, he (Mr. Gibson) failed to see the slightest justification for the Bill.
      THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS)rose to continue the discussion.
      MR. GIBSON: I asked the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Lord Advocate to reply.
      THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS)said, that with the greatest deference to the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Gibson), he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) felt bound to say he was entirely mistaken as to the matter of precedent to which he had referred. It was very customary, when a Royal Commission was being constituted by Statute, to ask before the third reading, or at some convenient stage while the Bill was passing through Parliament, that the Commissioners should be named. Sometimes they were actually named in the Bill; sometimes they were not named in the Bill, but Parliament was informed who they were likely to be. But there never was an instance, where an additional Minister

      1951
      was to be appointed under an Act of Parliament, of that Minister being named either in the Bill or when the Bill was passing through the House. What was the difference between a Commissioner and a Minister? A Commissioner did not hold a political Office, and he was not liable to go out of Office when a change of Government occurred. He held Office either until a certain work was done, or for a certain number of years. But whoever might be appointed by Her Majesty, when this Bill passed, would be a Member of Her Majesty's Government, and would be liable to leave Office the very next day after his appointment. He would, therefore, stand on a totally different position to a Commissioner or a Judge; and to name the first of such Ministers in the Bill constituting the Officer would be most anomalous.
      SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, he did not think that it was necessary to press any further the point which had been raised by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Childers), because they could all form a pretty good idea of who the person was who was to be selected, although it was by no means so easy to ascertain what were the duties he would be called upon to perform. He (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) did not wish to discuss that question further; and he merely rose for the purpose of asking the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate for some answer to the question put by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson). The Secretary of State for the Home Department had laid great stress upon the fact that it was the intention of Her Majesty's Government to re-organize certain Offices in Edinburgh, and that material would be derived from that re-organization for framing the staff whose salaries they were now called upon to vote. The question his right hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Gibson) had asked the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate was, how it was possible that that result could be attained, and whether there were any powers in the Bill under which that suggestion could be carried out? It appeared to him that they were asked to vote money in a manner it which it ought not to be voted, and that the staff was to be formed under powers which
      1952
      did not exist. Was that a position in which it was fair to place the House? He hoped that the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate would deal with this point, and that, in doing so, he would give the House such necessary information as to the duties of the new Minister and the new Department as the House had a right to demand.
      THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALFOUR)said, his right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sir William Harcourt) did not state, and the Government did not assert, that in the Bill, as it stood now, there was any provision made for amalgamating any of the Boards which now existed in Edinburgh. Undoubtedly, it would be one of the duties of the Minister who would be appointed under the Bill to review the whole situation and position of the different Boards, and to form an opinion as to whether any of those Boards could, with advantage to the Public Service, be re-organized or amalgamated. If it was found fitting that any of them should be re-organized or amalgamated, no doubt application would be made to Parliament for the necessary powers. He might point out that without any re-organization it would undoubtedly be within the competency of an official, such as it was proposed to appoint by the Bill, to review the existing staffs of the different Boards. If it appeared that minor changes could be made in the existing staffs without re-organization or amalgamation in the larger sense, and without Parliamentary sanction or authority, he supposed there would be no difficulty whatever in making them. Resort to Parliament would only be had in case it proved to be necessary.
      SIR R. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department (Sir William Harcourt) had stated that he (Sir R. Assheton Cross) had not voted against the Bill. That was the case; but the right hon. Gentleman must know perfectly well that he spoke against the measure on Friday, and that in consequence of the "Count-out" on Friday evening, the Bill was put down for Saturday. He had, however, no notion that it was coming on on Saturday, and he therefore left town.
      Question put, and agreed to.
      MATTER considered in Committee.
      (In the Committee.)
      Motion made, and Question proposed,
      "That it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, of the Salaries of the President, Secretaries, and other Officers of the Local Government Board for Scotland, which may become payable under any Act of the present Session for constituting such Board."
      SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFsaid, he would move, as an Amendment, to leave out the word "Salaries," and to insert the word "Salary" in its place. He made the proposal in order to incur the disdain of the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir William Harcourt). He was accustomed to the disdain of that right hon. Gentleman, and rather liked it. He should subsequently move to leave out the words "Secretaries and other Officers." At present, any number of officials might be appointed; in fact, the Committee were now asked to vote away money completely in the dark.
      Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "Salaries," in order to insert the word "Salary."—(Sir H. Drummond Wolf)
      Question proposed, "That the word 'Salaries' stand part of the Question."
      MR. GORSTsaid, he hoped the Government would inform the Committee even now, at the eleventh hour, whether there were to be "Secretaries and other Officers." The Committee, very properly, desired to know what officials there were to be in this new Department.
      SIR R. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, he would ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Lord Advocate, whether he had ever advised the Government that the Boards at present existing in Scotland might safely be amalgamated, or have their staffs reduced; or whether, in his opinion, they might be safely reduced; and, also, whether he was of opinion that the Bill would work for the benefit of Scotland, and would not lower the dignity of the Office which he now held?
      THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALEOUR), in reply, said, that such experience of public affairs as he had had induced him to believe that that was hardly a proper question to ask. He
      1954
      had always understood that communications between Members of a Government in regard to such matters were strictly confidential.
      SIR JOHN HAYsaid, he thought the Committee ought to know that, although a silent support on the part of many Representatives on that side of the House had been given to the Bill, as bad been stated by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and as many hon. Members had found out on reference to the Notice Paper, there were a very large number of Amendments. The greater part of those were to be moved by hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House, who themselves had not yet spoken on the question. Nearly two pages of those Amendments were to be moved by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Kirkcaldy (Sir George Campbell) and the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Kincardineshire (Sir George Balfour). It was necessary that many of those Amendments should be put forward; and, no doubt, some of them, if accepted, would entirely alter the character of the Bill. [Cries of "Order!" and "Question!")
      THE CHAIRMAN: The right hon. and gallant Baronet is not in Order in referring to Amendments to be proposed in Committee which are not yet before us.
      SIR JOHN HAYsaid, of course, he should not presume to argue further on that point; but, as it was known that considerable changes were suggested, to which he could not further allude, with reference to the character of the officers who were to be appointed, he thought it desirable that they should have some information as to the amount the Government calculated they were likely to spend on the new Department. At present, they were called upon in Committee, blindfold, he might say, to support a proposal for creating Offices for which there was no employment, and to give clerks to assist the eminent person who was to preside over the Board without salaries. At any rate, it was proposed to pay salaries out of money which had not been voted, and which it was not at present proposed to vote by Parliament.
      SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFsaid, he must complain of the studied discourtesy with which the right hon. Gen-

      1955
      tleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department treated every appeal. Certainly, if the right hon. Gentleman wished to get the Bill through quickly, he was not going the right way to work about it. He should confer with the noble Lord the Member for Flintshire (Lord Richard Grosvenor) with regard to these appointments, and ascertain, if possible, what Secretaries were to be employed. If the noble Lord informed him that there were to be none appointed except those who could be scraped up from the existing Boards, then he should like to ask why they were to have these salaries for Secretaries? If there were to be no Secretaries, it was an absurdity to vote the salaries. To settle the matter, would not the right hon. Gentleman agree to his (Sir H. Drummond Wolff's) Amendment, to the effect that there should only be a salary for the President, who was the only official mentioned in the Bill?
      SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, he did not rise for the purpose of treating the hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir H. Drummond Wolff) with the disdain which he seemed to expect; but, at the same time, he could not agree to his Amendment. At that hour in the morning (1.25), he was indisposed to say the same thing over and over again; and he would, therefore, say that he had no other answer to give than that he had already offered, in spite of the hon. Gentleman's threat to appeal to the noble Lord the Member for Flintshire (Lord Richard Grosvenor). The hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Mr. Gorst) had said—"You have almost put in the Bill what you are going to give to the Secretaries." [Mr. GORST: I never said anything of the kind.] They could not do more than they had done in the Bill, as they had to suit the pleasure of the dragon of the Treasury, who kept guard over the national purse. From his experience of the Treasury, there was no one so slow to part with public money for any purpose as the hon. Gentleman the Financial Secretary to that Department (Mr. Courtney). The reply always made, when the Secretary was appealed to, was that nothing could be given of which the Treasury did not approve. In his (Sir William Harcourt's) opinion, there was no circumstance more fitting for an economical guar-
      1956
      dianship and protection of the Imperial Funds than in connection with such a proposal as this, where a new Office was proposed without definite knowledge as to what would be finally required from it.
      MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTsaid, he would point out that the security the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir William Harcourt) had just referred to was a perfectly worthless one; because, notwithstanding the severe character of the guardianship of the present Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Courtney), the Budget for the year had been larger than it had ever been before. He (Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett) did not, therefore, think there was much security that the salaries paid under this Bill would not be enormous. They were called upon to vote salaries for Secretaries who were not yet described, much less appointed. They did not know what the Offices would be, or what functions their holders would be called upon to discharge, or how many of them would be appointed, and yet they were told they must adopt this proposal without inquiry. To his mind, this was a sham measure, introduced late in the Session to enable Her Majesty's Ministers to go to the Scotch people, and tell them they had done something for them. The Government did not know what they were going to do, and yet they had the assurance to call upon them to vote these salaries.
      Question put.
      A Division being challenged,
      THE CHAIRMANnamed as Tellers for the Ayes, Lord Richard Grosvenor and Lord Kensington; for the Noes, Mr. Arthur O'Connor and Sir H. Drummond Wolff.
      SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFF: No, no; I did not challenge a Division.
      MR. GORST: I can support my hon. Friend in that. He did not challenge a Division.
      MR. O'SULLIVAN: The hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff) moved the Amendment.
      THE CHAIRMAN: Will the hon. Member for Queen's County (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) name a Teller?
      MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR: Mr. O'Brien.
      The Committee divided:—Ayes 135; Noes 11: Majority 124.

      NOES.

      Ashmead-Bartlett, E.

      O'Donnell, F. H.

      Aylmer, Capt. J. E. F.

      O'Sullivan, W. H.

      Biggar, J. G.

      Scott, M. D.

      Burghley, Lord

      Sullivan, T. D.

      Fowler, R. N.

      Harrington, T.

      TELLERS.

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

      O'Brien, W.

      O'Connor, A.

      Original Question put, and agreed to.
      Resolved, That it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, of the Salaries of the President, Secretaries, and other Officers of the Local Government Board for Scotland, which may become payable under any Act of the present Session for constituting such Board.
      Resolution to be reported To-morrow.

    DISEASES PREVENTION (METROPOLIS)BILL.— [BILL 279.]
    (Sir Charles W. Dilke, Secretary Sir William Harcourt.)
    DISEASES PREVENTION (METROPOLIS)BILL.— [BILL 279.]

      CONSIDERATION.
      Order for Consideration, as amended, read.
      Bill, as amended, considered.
      MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, he did not wish to delay the Bill; but it would be interesting to the House to know, on a question of this importance to the Metropolis, whether the Metropolitan Asylums Board were desirous of undertaking the duty which it was proposed they should undertake under the Bill. There was no compulsion upon them to do so; but, of course, the duty was an important one. It was to be hoped that they would readily cooperate with the other local authorities in taking what measures were necessary under the Bill, and, in other directions, for the stay of the disease, if we should be, unhappily, visited with cholera.
      SIR CHARLES W. DILKEsaid, he was to have an interview on Thursday morning with the representatives—in fact, the Committee—of the Metropolitan Asylums Board, and at that meeting, no doubt, they would be able to agree on a scheme; or, at all events, lay the foundation for a scheme, by which the local authorities—the Vestries and District Boards of the Metropolis—could take measures to prevent the spread of cholera if it should come. Up to the present time, the Government had only

      1959
      had an unofficial communication with the Asylums Board. Some Members of the Board had seen a draft copy of the Bill, and had interested themselves in the matter; but, as yet, no official communication had passed between them and the Government in regard to it.
      Bill read the third time, and passed.

    STOLEN GOODS BILL [Lords].
    (Sir William Harcourt.)
    STOLEN GOODS BILL [Lords].

      [BILL 258.] SECOND READING.
      Order for Second Reading read.
      Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Second Reading of the Bill be deferred till Thursday next"—(Secretary Sir Willam Harcourt.)
      SIR R. ASSHETON CROSSasked the Government whether it was really intended to proceed with this Bill?
      SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTreplied in the affirmative.
      Question put, and agreed to.
      Second Reading deferred till Thursday.

    CORRUPT PRACTICES (SUSPENSION OF ELECTIONS) BILL.
    (Mr. Attorney General, Mr. Solicitor General.)
    CORRUPT PRACTICES (SUSPENSION OF ELECTIONS) BILL.

      [BILL 281.] SECOND READING.
      Order for Second Reading read.
      THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES), in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, that it had not been printed; therefore, if there was any objection taken to the second reading he should postpone the stage. He did not, however, think there was likely to be any opposition, as the measure was the same as that passed in the last two Sessions of Parliament. Its object was to prevent Writs issuing in regard to suspended boroughs during the Recess. He trusted the House would allow him to take the second reading.
      Motion made, and Question, "That the Bill be now read a second time,"—(Mr. Attorney General,) — put, and agreed to.
      Bill read a second time, and committed for Thursday.

    CRUELTY TO ANIMALS ACTS AMENDMENT (re-committed) BILL.— [BILL 118.]
    (Mr. Anderson, Sir Frederick Milbank, Mr. Samuel Morley, Mr. Jacob Bright, Mr. Passmore Edwards, Mr. Buchanan.)
    CRUELTY TO ANIMALS ACTS AMENDMENT (re-committed) BILL.— [BILL 118.]

      COMMITTEE. [Progress 4th August.]
      Bill considered in Committee.
      (In the Committee.)
      MR. MONKsaid, he had placed some Amendments on the Paper to the Bill, and he should like to ask the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson) if he would accept them? If the hon. Member did not intend to do so, he (Mr. Monk) would make some observations in regard to them. He would call attention, in the first place, to the proposed name of the Bill. In the first line of Clause 5 the measure was described as the Cruelty to Animals Prevention Acts Amendment Bill. As the Bill now stood, its object was merely to prevent pigeon-shooting; but he (Mr. Monk) could hardly think that the hon. Gentleman who brought it forward as a Bill for the Amendment of the Cruelty to Animals Acts would object to include in it cruelty to other animals besides pigeons. Otherwise, it would be desirable to change this name to the Cruelty to Pigeons Prevention Act. He intended to move an Amendment to that effect, and he supposed the hon. Member for Glasgow would accept it. It was not necessary for him to take up the time of the Committee by going at length into the subject; and he would, therefore, simply ask the hon. Member whether he would consent to change the name of the Bill as he suggested?
      MR. ANDERSONsaid, that, in reply to his hon. Friend (Mr. Monk), and other hon. Members who had Amendments to the Bill on the Paper, he should like to make an appeal to them not to proceed with their proposals. When the Bill passed the second reading, he had given a pledge that it should be confined strictly to trap-shooting. To that pledge he wished to adhere. That promise had been made to the right hon. and learned Gentleman on the Front Bench opposite (Mr. Gibson), and to other hon. Members, and he wished to adhere strictly to it. He must, therefore, refuse, so far as he was concerned, to accept the Amendment mentioned by the hon. Member

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      for Gloucester (Mr. Monk), even although he sympathized with its object, and, under other circumstances, should be extremely glad to widen the scope of the measure. The reason for the refusal was the pledge he had given, and the fear that at that late period of the Session, if they extended the operation of the Bill, its progress would be materially endangered in "another place." He would appeal to hon. Members who were favourably disposed towards the Bill not to move any Amendments at all, for fear of destroying the chance of the Bill in the House of Lords. Some of the Amendments were, perhaps, hostile. For instance, there was that to be moved by the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Tottenham), which provided for the shooting of pigeons from traps in places specially licensed for the purpose. The hon. Member had not, seemingly, sufficiently considered the nature of his proposal, because that would involve such an invidious class distinction, that it would be a thing which the Committee would hardly be inclined to agree to. As to changing the name of the Bill, it did not appear to him that the name was of much consequence. The Bill was, practically, an amendment of the Cruelty to Animals Acts. Therefore, he should be inclined to adhere to the title as it stood.
      Clause 1 agreed to.
      Clause 2 (Penalties for shooting birds liberated from traps or otherwise).
      MR. MONKsaid, he had an Amendment, in page 1, line 13, to leave out the word "place," and insert "inclosure," and further Amendments in line 14, consequential, for the purpose of carrying out the object which he would now state. His desire was to put an end to the objectionable system of coursing and hunting trapped hares and rabbits. ["Oh, oh!"] Well, hon. Gentlemen might cry "Oh, oh!" but it seemed to him that it was hardly just to have one law with regard to cruelty to pigeons, and another with regard to cruelty to hares and rabbits. He had no doubt many hon. Members of the Committee were aware that a vast number of hares and rabbits were netted or trapped every year, and sent to inclosures constructed for the purpose of coursing. From those inclosures the hares were driven down a narrow passage in the
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      shape of a funnel by men stationed there for that purpose, and ultimately forced through it. At the end of the funnel was a person with two greyhounds in a slip. As soon as the unfortunate hare passed through the funnel the dogs were slipped after it, and the coursing match, as the sporting phrase went, took place. It seemed to him to be in the highest degree absurd to suppose that the House of Commons would pass a Bill for preventing what was alleged to be cruelty in shooting trapped birds, and, at the same time, refuse to protect unfortunate hares and rabbits, which were kept in confinement simply for the sake of being run down by dogs and cruelly done to death. He need hardly say that the practice to which he was calling attention was very different from coursing in the open. That might be real sport, and, no doubt, it had been considered sport for centuries in this country; but it was quite a novel practice to net hundreds of hares, as they were now netted in Norfolk and Suffolk, and sent up in vast quantities to these inclosures, there to be coursed by dogs. It was all very well for the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson) to say that he did not wish to alter a word or line of the Bill, and that he considered it a Bill for extending the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act. The Bill was nothing of the sort. It had no reference whatever to baiting bulls, dog-fighting, and cock-fighting, which formed the subject-matter of the original Act. That Act had nothing whatever to do with pigeon-shooting, its object being to prevent cruelty to animals, whether tame or wild. Therefore, he could not understand how the hon. Member could refuse to accept his Amendment. ["Oh, oh!"] Would any hon. Member, who, by inarticulate sounds, was expressing dissent from what he had said, rise in his place and state that he considered the coursing of these unfortunate hares and rabbits, which were kept in confinement for lengthened periods, was legitimate sport, and should not be dealt with by Parliament? Would any hon. Member say he did not consider that cruelty? If anyone did, then he (Mr. Monk) could not agree with him. The Amendment he now proposed was the first of a series intended to put a stop to this cruel kind of coursing.

      1963
      Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 13, leave out "place," and insert "inclosure."—(Mr. Monk.)
      Question proposed, "That the word proposed to be loft out stand part of the Clause."
      SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, that if the hon. Member (Mr. Monk) was in favour of this Bill, as he (Sir William Harcourt) believed he was, he trusted that he would not press his Amendment. No doubt, there were cruelties of other descriptions, besides those at which the Bill was aimed, which might be properly considered; but if this particular measure was to be dealt with this Session, it was impossible to amend it. As everybody perfectly understood, the Bill was proposed with a limited object, and with that object a large majority of hon. Members of the House had expressed their sympathy by their votes. He trusted the hon. Member would not persist in his Amendment, unless he wished to bring about the defeat of the Bill.
      Question put, and negatived.
      MR. TOTTENHAMsaid, he had an Amendment on the Paper, in line 14, after "elsewhere," to insert "except as hereinafter provided;" and, later on, another Amendment to insert the following Proviso:—
      "Provided, nevertheless, That bird shooting from traps shall be permitted in places specially licensed for the purpose, under the supervision of an official to be appointed by the Secretary of State for the Home Department; the salary of such official to be fixed by the Secretary of State, and to be paid out of the funds of the club, or other establishment so licensed. Any conviction for cruelty under this Act, or default in payment of such salary by the person to whom the licence is issued, to cause forfeiture of licence."
      He did not desire to move those Amendments, after the expression of opinion which they had heard in the House on the last Amendment. Indeed, it would be useless for him to persevere.
      LORD BURGHLEYsaid, he had an Amendment to propose which was not on the Paper. He had not been able to get it printed that night; but what he wished to call the attention of the Committee to was the fact that the Bill was for the more effectual prevention of cruelty to animals. Hon. Members would, therefore, agree with him that the
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      cruelty in the case of pigeons did not consist in merely shooting them, but in cruelties practised upon the birds shot at. He had, therefore, drawn up an Amendment for the consideration of the Committee which would deal with the cruelties, without interfering with the shooting. It was in these words. In page 1, line 14, to leave out from the word "elsewhere" down to the Word "or," in line 15, and to insert—
      "Liberate or be privy to the liberation from any trap or other contrivance, or from the hand, of any mained or injured bird for the purpose of being shot at."
      He believed the Amendment would strongly appeal to the feelings of the Committee, and he trusted it would be adopted.
      Amendment proposed,
      In page 1, line 14, to leave out all the words after "elsewhere" down to "or," in line 15, in order to insert "liberate or be privy to the liberation from any trap, or other contrivance, or from the hand, of any maimed or injured bird for the purpose of being shot at." — (Lord Burghley.)
      Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
      MR. ANDERSONsaid, as he had refused to accept an Amendment which would have the effect of extending the scope of the Bill, he was equally unable to agree to any limitation; and he should, therefore, oppose the Amendment.
      Question put, and agreed to.
      Clause agreed to.
      Clause 3 agreed to.
      House resumed.
      Bill reported, without Amendment.
      Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."—(Mr. Anderson.)
      MR. TOTTENHAMsaid, that, looking at the way in which the Bill had been taken on Saturday night last, against the opinion of the majority of hon. Members, he did not think it right to assent to the third reading being taken at that Sitting.
      MR. WARTONsaid, he must oppose the Motion of the hon. Member for Glasgow (Mr. Anderson), on the ground that the previous stages of the Bill had

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      been hurried on in such a way as to deprive hon. Members who took an interest in the subject, and were opposed to the Bill in its present form, from expressing their opinions upon it.
      Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," in order to insert the words "upon Thursday," — (Mr. Warton,)—instead thereof.
      Question, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question," put, and agreed to.
      Main Question put, and agreed to.
      Bill read the third time, and passed.

    MOTIONS.
      TRAMWAYS, &c. (IRELAND) BILL.

        LEAVE. FIRST READING.
        MR. TREVELYAN, in moving for leave to bring in a Bill for promoting the extension of Tramway communication in Ireland, and for assisting Emigration, and for extending certain provisions of "The Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881," to the case of Public Companies, said, that, as a considerable number of hon. Members had been good enough to stay in the House until that late hour, he would explain the Bill fully, and yet in a few minutes. The Bill contained several subjects which, at first sight, appeared to be heterogeneous, but which had this, common to all of them — that the Government believed they would all conduce to a permanent belief in justice and to the advancement of the prosperity of Ireland. With the object of attaining these ends, the Government were compelled to ask the House to confirm certain new principles, and to run the risk of disbursing public money for objects never disbursed for before. The Bill was in three parts, of which the first, and much the largest in hulk, and involving by far the largest pecuniary considerations, referred to the extension of steam tramways in Ireland. Some months ago a certain number of Members of Parliament laid before the Prime Minister several proposals with regard to developing the resources of Ireland; and, after careful consideration of what experience and theory had shown the Government to be the limits of State action in the matter, it was decided to do something—and, he thought,
        1966
        something tangible — to complete the communications of the country. That being determined upon, the next question was, to what class of communication State assistance should be afforded. Ireland was not provided with railways as some countries were; but the whole machinery for promoting railways was so familiar, and railways were so profitable, that it was probable that almost as many railways as would answer for some time to come had already been made in Ireland. Besides that, there were a considerable number of Irish railways constructed by means of Government money. About £1,000,000 sterling had been lent for Irish railways, as against nothing in England and Scotland; and the rate of interest had recently been reduced from 5 per cent, in some cases, to 4 per cent in all. Canals were hardly to be thought of—they could not be constructed in those parts of the country which the Government wished to most benefit; while in parts of the country in which they could be more favourably constructed—such as Galway or Mayo—the experience of the Government had not been such as to encourage such construction. The high roads of Ireland might be said to be exceptionally good; but high roads were a practical bar to commercial prosperity in districts where the only means of drawing goods was by cattle driven 30 or 40 miles. In the West of Ireland, the amount of traffic was not such as to justify the most sanguine Railway Company in running branch railways; but there was a class of communication which had hitherto only received partial development, but which was singularly likely to be applicable to Ireland. The cost of steam tramways was very much less than that of railways. The cost of rolling stock was very much less, and the speed was less; but the speed had already been and could be made greater. It was already practical enough for the purpose of country districts, which hitherto had only know ordinary horse draught. Steam tramways followed the high roads, and connected thinly-peopled districts with the great railway systems. They were not immeasurably and immensely inferior to railways, and they would tend to connect places where it would be quite impossible to make railways. He did not mean to say that all these results were certain; but the experience of steam tramways, on the

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        whole, led practically to the belief that these results were exceedingly likely. It was believed that steam tramways were beginning to be appreciated in Ireland, and only required a little more encouragement to set a good many schemes on foot. And that encouragement the Government had determined to give, and their scheme would be contained in about 15 clauses. He was informed that there were many districts in which, if the local authorities consented, tramways would be made. Whether the local authority was the ideal authority or not he was not prepared to argue. At the present moment, the county funds were disbursed by the Grand Jury, and he was told that if the law allowed the Grand Juries to step forward, and equip the country, that would be accepted; but that power did not exist by law, and the Government, therefore, taking the county authority as it found it, simply proposed to empower Grand Juries to attract shareholders by means of a guarantee from the county rate of a portion of the interest of the barony through which the line ran. Rate of interest was not the correct description. Whatever would attract money best would be left to the operations of the open market; but the Government proposed to go further than that, and in order to give encouragement to the local authorities and confidence to the baronies of the State, according to this scheme, would support and back up the baronies with a guarantee of half the interest, so long as that interest did not exceed 4 per cent on the whole of the capital. To the extent of 2 per cent on the entire capital the Government intended to advise the taxpayers to contribute to providing tramway accommodation for Ireland. This part of the scheme was quite a new idea. As far as he was aware, it was only known at present in India, in the British Dominions; but the Government thought it was an obligation worth undertaking for the purpose of testifying their goodwill to Ireland, and starting certain districts on a course upon which they could not start by themselves. This guarantee would apply to the whole of Ireland. That was the outline of the scheme; but it was obvious that there were several interests which would have to be carefully guarded against. In the first place, there were the cesspayers of the baronies, Nothing would be more unjust
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        than that Grand Juries should be able to place a crushing tax on any one person; and the existing Tramway Law, which the Government proposed to follow, lent itself to the protection of the cesspayer. It contained several provisions for that purpose. In the first place, the Grand Jury would hear everyone; and on each Grand Jury there would be one or two persons from each barony—though he did not lay great stress upon that point. In the second place, any ratepayer would be able to traverse the presentment at the Assizes; and if the presentment was objected to, and if the preliminary notices had not been duly served, or if there were any other illegality, the Judge would disallow it. In the third place, the Privy Council would investigate the case and hear everybody interested; and that was, he thought, as good a tribunal as could be devised. In the fourth place, if there was any dissatisfaction with a Grand Jury, then, by a Petition to the Privy Council, the Order of the Council only being provisional, and requiring to be confirmed by Act of Parliament, it would be open to any person to oppose it, as if it were a Bill. The danger of a Grand Jury exercising tyranny appeared to be nil. Their resolution had no force; it was simply a recommendation; it was only provisional until Parliament should confirm it, and Parliament alone could impose any tax. The next interest was that of the taxpayer. He might suffer by the guaranteeing of a scheme which did not contain the element of solvency; but no scheme would be guaranteed unless it was shared in equal part by the local body, which might be presumed to be conversant with the local wants. At any rate, the local body had every reason not to guarantee a scheme which was likely to become bankrupt; and local bodies in Ireland, he was told, were not accused of recklessness in spending money. However anxious a local body might be to get money, it would have to show 1d. for every 1d. from the Government; and before the Grand Jury recommended a Tramway Company, the scheme must be approved of by the engineers of the Local Government Board. Then there was the danger of a great rush of schemes. It was possible that there might be a great rush of schemes, especially if it was believed to be a ease of first come first served,

        1969
        In order that there might not be an unlimited burden put upon the Treasury by the 9th clause, the amount which, under this Bill, the Treasury might guarantee was £40,000 a-year in all—that was to say, 2 per cent on a capital of £2,000,000 sterling; and the Government hoped that £2,000,000 might be the extent to which, under this measure, communications in Ireland would be made. Then there was one other cause of apprehension, and that was, perhaps, the most difficult point to be dealt with. There could be no doubt that if Stock of 4 per cent was guaranteed, half by the Treasury and half by the local authority, that would call forth twice as much money as in the case of a Company. The danger was that a Company would be formed to get desirable Stock at 4 percent, which would sell at between 110 and 114; and then, when the line was constructed, the projectors would find it very convenient to withdraw their interest and not work the tramway. In that case, the barony and the Treasury would have to pay the guarantee, and would get nothing in return for it, except a tramway which did not run. This contingency was provided against thus. If a Company made a default, either by not keeping the line in repair, or failing to pay working expenses, and so could not keep the line open after a certain time, the property would be transferred ipso facto to the Grand Jury, who would then work the line for the guaranteeing persons. He would not now enter more fully into details, all of which had been carefully considered. Baronies which joined in the guarantee would be represented on the Directorate. [Mr. HEALY: How?] By Directors. [Mr. HEALY: Who will elect them?] Presumably, the cesspayers. If a barony could secure money on more favourable terms, the guarantee might be only for a very limited time. Then there were certain defects in the Tramway Law which this Bill proposed to remedy—notably, that enactment which forbade a line to be taken beyond a limit of 30 feet from the centre of the road. If it was a question of going round a hill, tramways under the Bill would have the power to run round just as if they were practically along the line of the road. Finally, so far as tramways were concerned, instead of restricting the speed to 10 miles in the open country,
        1970
        and six miles in town and villages, it was proposed to raise the speed to 12 miles in the open country, and leave the limit at six miles in towns and villages; but the Government would not be indisposed to consider an Amendment for raising the speed still further. If the Bill did not immediately cover with tramways that part of Ireland which the Government were most anxious to see developed, at least it would proceed steadily to open out the country; and that, they hoped, would give a great deal of labour where labour was much wanted; and that it would be of service to the congested districts he had no doubt. All were agreed that these districts existed, and the only difference of opinion was as to the best mode of remedying the existing state of things. All were of opinion that there were fewer people in some of these places; and while some hon. Members thought that the redundant population in some parts should go to other parts of Ireland, other hon. Members thought they would be better off in Canada and Australia.
        MR. MITCHELL HENRYasked if that was all there was about the tramways?
        MR. TREVELYANreplied that, practically, that was all. In the opinion of the Government the success of the emigration scheme had been such as to induce them not to let the machinery cease until more had been done. He would not, however, now argue that point; he was only asking leave to introduce this Bill; but when he considered the number of people there were to emigrate, but who could not emigrate without assistance, he could not help asking Parliament to add another £100,000 to that granted last year. That money had been employed in giving relief in certain districts which were helpless and prostrate. The Bill proposed to give another £100,000 for emigration, and the money would have to be used very carefully and judiciously. He hoped to say more on this head on the second reading, for he was informed that this sum represented the extreme limit of what was forthcoming.
        MR. HEALYasked from what fund the money was to be provided?
        MR. TREVELYANsaid, it was to come from the Church Fund. There were a number of gentlemen who were disappointed with the slow effect of the Purchase Clauses of the Land Act, and

        1971
        at the absence of any philanthropic Companies and regulations for the purpose of encouraging and assisting the peasant proprietary. He did not now deny that the Purchase Clauses had acted slowly; and if the present were a debate on the Land Act, or the occasion were otherwise fitting, he could give reasons for this. The Government proposed, under the 26th section of the Land Act, to permit Companies, on satisfying the Land Commission that it was their object to buy for the purpose of re-selling to the tenants, to purchase from the landlord, on the same terms as occupying tenants were now allowed to purchase—that was to say, by putting down one-fourth of the purchase money and leaving three - fourths on mortgage. [Mr. GIBSON asked what was meant by a Company?] An individual was not meant. The idea at present was that it should be a Company, and a Company which intended to re-sell—that, in fact, re-selling should be an absolute condition in the matter. One of the great difficulties in the way of the operation of the Purchase Clauses was that individual tenants had to deal with landlords who might not want to sell. In the course of this year, only three small estates of 45 farms in all had been purchased by the Land Commission, the amount paid for them being some £15,000. [Mr. PARNELL: By the Land Commission?] Yes, by the Land Commission; and that represented the extent of those operations in the direction of purchasing holdings. It was hoped that the Bill would give a real impulse to the sale of land in Ireland. He had done his best to describe the measure in outline, and he earnestly hoped that hon. Members would allow it to be printed.
        Motion made, and Question proposed,
        "That leave be given to bring in a Bill for promoting the extension of Tramway communication in Ireland, and for assisting Emigration, and for extending certain provisions The Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881,' to the case of Public Companies."—(Mr. Trevelyan.)
        MR. PARNELLsaid, he did not wish, at that hour, to go into the merits of the Bill proposed by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. Trevelyan). He would only say that he trusted that the tramway scheme would be as successful as the right hon. Gentleman hoped. There was no doubt that, in many parts of Ireland, main
        1972
        lines of tramways might be made with considerable advantage, to supply the place of lines of railway which the country, on account of its poverty, would not be able to support. He must reserve a fuller expression of opinion until they reached the future stages of the measure. With regard to the baronial guarantees, at present it appeared to him that the proposition to share the responsibility between the baronies and the Government was a fair one, and would remove some of the objection which was felt in 1880 to the proposal made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster), under which the whole of the guarantee was to be given by the local authority. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland would not be too sanguine as to the amount of employment likely to be given by the construction of these tramways. They all knew that the construction of tramways on common roads afforded, to only a limited extent, employment for the labour in the locality. The works were not nearly as heavy as those on railroads, and they did not involve the same permanent construction—in fact, the amount of money spent on labour on tramways would be very small in proportion to the amount expended on labour in the case of railroads. He thought he should be making a correct estimate in saying that probably four-fifths of the cost of these tramways would go into the pockets of English iron-masters, English builders, and locomotive engineers. Probably the amount spent on actual labour would not exceed one-fifth of the total cost. He desired, however, to pass to another portion of the scheme of the right hon. Gentleman. He was very much disappointed to find that the right hon. Gentleman had not determined to leave the very vexed question of emigration alone, at all events, for the present Session. He could not imagine a more injudicious course than that which had been adopted by the Government. They were now very near the close of the Session, and the throwing down of another bone of contention between those who believed in emigration and those who did not could not but result in a very prolonged discussion when the Bill reached its later stages. He was sorry, therefore, the Government did not make up their minds to give a trial to some other mode of re-

        1973
        lieving the congestion which undoubtedly did exist in several districts in the West of Ireland. He regretted that the Government should have resolved to persevere in the course they commenced in 1881, and which they continued in 1882. He was also surprised and disappointed that the Government intended to take this money out of the Irish Church Fund. Until this session the Irish Government had considered themselves bound to consult, at least, the wishes of the Irish Representatives in regard to the disposal of that Fund. It was an Irish Fund, raised and paid out of Irish land in the occupation of tenants; it was a Fund in regard to which he and his hon. Friends had hoped, up to the introduction of the Relief of Distress Bill, in pursuance of which £50,000 of the Church Fund was allocated, that the Government would continue the practice of consulting the Irish Members. These continual calls upon the Irish Church Fund were nothing more nor less than the Government putting their hands into the pockets of the Irish people and stealing from them that which really belonged to them. If he interpreted the speech of the right hon. Gentleman correctly, there was only about £100,000 left.
        MR. TREVELYANsaid, that what he stated was, that the £100,000 was the last sum the Government could see its way to spend.
        MR. PARNELLsaid, he was glad to hear that was so. But he could not help expressing surprise that the Government should seek to extract this £100,000 from the Church Fund for the very obnoxious purpose of emigration. When he (Mr. Parnell) spoke of emigration as being an obnoxious purpose, he desired to the fullest extent to acknowledge the bona fides, the ability, and the desire to do good which had distinguished the gentlemen, some of whom were Members of that House, who had connected themselves with Mr. Tuke's scheme of emigration. He believed these gentlemen were sincerely desirous of benefiting the population in the congested districts of Ireland; and he was only sorry they did not devote their talents and ability to the development of a scheme of a different and more promising character, and one more in accordance with the sentiments of the Irish people. Undoubtedly, the emigration which had been conducted under Mr. Tuke's observation had
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        abounded in those features which had distinguished emigration in times gone by. But then he (Mr. Parnell) and his hon. Friends would be able to prove, by unimpeachable testimony, when the Bill reached another stage, that Mr. Tuke's Committee had failed in doing that which they imagined they were doing. He would be able to prove that in many districts of Ireland the farmers, or the occupiers of land, were not emigrated, but that it was the small tradesmen, the shoemakers, or the tailors of the small villages and towns, and the labourers who had no land, who were taking advantage of the emigration funds. He did not mean to say that farmers had not emigrated in some districts; but he should be able to show that, in cases where the farmers had taken advantage of the fund, the object which Mr. Tuke and his Committee hoped to attain—namely, the bringing about of a reasonable and judicious consolidation of holdings, had not been attained; that, in many instances, the emigrants had not surrendered possession of their holdings to their landlords; that they had either locked them up, or left them with some person in charge, or else that they had handed over possession to some friend or neighbour to look after them until they saw how they were likely to get on in the country to which they had emigrated. He would be able to show that, although people were leaving the congested districts, many farms were left vacant, and nothing was being done to consolidate holdings. In fact, they were simply repeating the errors of 1847 and 1848. They were clearing tracts of land, but were not consolidating farms into holdings of a suitable size for cultivation. These, and other matters of importance, he and his hon. Friends would be able to lay before the House on a subsequent stage of the Bill; and he believed they would be able to prove, on the highest testimony, the statements he had made. They would be able to show also that the condition of the emigrants was not satisfactory; that those who had been able to find friends and relatives became a burden and a drag upon them; that others of them had obtained employment for which they were unsuited; and that they were likely, in consequence, to lose that employment, and to become a permanent charge on the poor rates of the

        1975
        country to which they had been sent. He believed the sum of £5 per head was miserably small, and inadequate for enabling the emigrant to settle comfortably and prosperously in his new home. He now turned for a moment to the last portion of the Bill—that which dealt with the amendment of the Purchase Clauses, There was no doubt that some of the Purchase Clauses of the Land Act of 1881 had signally failed to work. He regretted that the right hon. Gentleman had not gone further, and given those of them who believed that migration or re-settlement of the population was possible in the West of Ireland a chance of showing the efficacy of such a scheme, by dividing this grant of £100,000, which he now proposed to take from the Church Fund, between the two operations of emigration and re-settlement, or migration. Surely, if the Government insisted, at that period of the Session, in forcing an Emigration Act upon the unwilling Irish Members, they could not expect to get one-tenth of the Representatives of Irish constituencies to vote with them. Surely, on the other hand, if the Irish Members were able to place before the House plenty of calculations based upon the experience of men who had had an opportunity of practically forming a sound judgment on this question in Ireland, they might then have a chance, at least, of proving this winter, once and for all, whether it was possible that anything could be done for the purpose of solving this difficult problem in the West of Ireland, by removing and re-settling a certain portion of the population on lands which were purchasable and available for the purposes in question. Several gentlemen had devoted considerable time and attention to this question. Surveys had been made in the counties of Mayo and Galway by engineers of skill and experience, and they had shown, most conclusively, that the re-settlement or migration of portions of this population was practicable. Capital to any extent could be obtained, both in Ireland and England, and America, and Australia; but what they asked the Government was this, and he thought it was a fair claim to put before the House in view of this demand for money out of the Irish Church Fund, to allocate, for the purpose of trying this experiment, a small portion of that which was asked for the
        1976
        purpose of emigration. The matter then would, once for all, be finally set at rest, and it would then be seen whether it was possible to remove or re-settle any of the tenants in these congested districts. If the Government followed that suggestion, they would be doing very much to obviate the prejudice against the Government and the House of Commons, which a great many people entertained in consequence of this enforced emigration. He trusted that before the Bill reached the Committee stage, the Government would have seen the reasonableness of the claim the Irish Members made, and would be prepared to allocate a moderate sum of money for the purpose of trying this experiment under such conditions as they might consider safe and necessary in order to prevent jobbery.
        MR. GIBSONsaid, it would be obviously out of place, at that stage of the Bill, and at that hour of the morning, to criticize the very interesting statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, which obviously challenged discussion in some of the principles which were involved. He (Mr. Gibson) did not clearly understand whether the tramways were to be made wherever local exigencies suggested they might be required, or whether they were to be constructed in any particular Province. He should like to know whether they were to be general wherever required? [Mr. TREVELYAN: They may be constructed wherever required.] He was not sure that there might not be difficulties connected with the rights of railways under existing Acts, and that they would not challenge and jealously investigate the operation of steam tramways, which were hardly distinguishable from railways. With regard to the emigration provisions, he would only make one observation. This proposal for emigration was, to his mind, petty legislation, and they could not magnify it into anything big; whereas the tramway transaction was a big one. Those who knew the history of Irish emigration would know very well that what was done in this Bill would go a very little way towards improving the condition of the people of Ireland. They should never lose sight, in considering the question of Irish emigration, of this fact—that the Irish people, by voluntary effort

        1977
        and by their own money, did a great deal towards removing themselves to other countries more capable of finding them employment. [Mr. T. D. SULLIVAN: Evicted people.] With reference to the Purchase Clauses, he would make this suggestion as to what was proposed by the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell). As he listened to the statement of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, he (Mr. Gibson) apprehended, as he thought, the hon. Member's point; and he was not sure that those who looked to migration might not find the best and soundest means of bringing their theory to the test under the Purchase Clauses of this Bill. Under the Purchase Clauses. as he had heard described by the Chief Secretary for Ireland, he understood that it would be recognized that Companies, or aggregations of individuals, might be formed for the purchase of land. He did not know whether there would be any check upon the nationality of these Companies—that was to say, whether there would be anything to prevent them from being American, or Australian, or English; but, at any rate, Companies of individuals might be formed who would be given the same advance that tenants could obtain at present under the Purchase Clauses of the Land Act, and would be able to purchase estates under conditions that the land was parcelled out and sold to tenants. There was nothing to prevent people who believed in the migration theory, as opposed to emigration, to go to the State—and they would not be bound by a limit of £1,000 or £2,000, but could make operations as extensive as they pleased—and say "We desire to avail ourselves by this money of the Land Act. Here is a Company formed for the purpose of availing ourselves of the new provision, and purchasing, it may be, in Meath, or Westmeath, or wherever you like, wherever you say the districts are not populated, properties, with three-fourths of the money of the State, and parcelling them out into small portions to people who desire to migrate rather than emigrate." This amendment of the Land Act he regarded as of importance, because it brought to an immediate, prompt, and practical test that statement about migration made by some of the Irish Members. Those who believed in migration could adopt the machinery which was now placed at their dis-
        1978
        posal. There appeared from the statement to be nothing in the Bill to prevent them. The hon. Member for the City of Cork himself had reserved his right to consider the Bill in detail when it was presented for second reading; and he (Mr. Gibson) trusted that when it was put down for that stage it would be put down when there could be something like a fair debate upon it, notwithstanding the late period of the Session, which he very much regretted. He must express his great regret that a Bill of this magnitude and of this great importance, which dealt with principles in a way which was most exceptional, and which challenged criticism on the first glance, and would necessarily excite wide discussion, was not brought on at a period of the Session when it could have been more fully and carefully considered. It was very much to be regretted that it was not brought on at a time in the Session when it could be discussed not only by hon. Members from Ireland, but by Representatives of Scotch and English constituencies who took some interest in this question. It was a matter of disappointment to him that there would be no opportunity for obtaining a fair and careful expression of public opinion with regard to the measure. They would be face to face with the second reading almost before the provisions of the Bill had circulated through the Press of the country, and before the mature public mind of the country could be brought to a careful investigation of it. He did not know whether the Chief Secretary for Ireland could tell them when he expected to take the second reading. They could not expect such a measure to become law without a good deal of mutual forbearance and concession, and something like a disposition to meet difficulties in a conciliatory way. It would be a convenience if some indication could be given to the House as to when the second reading of the Bill was likely to be taken.
        MR. CHAMBERLAINsaid, that, on behalf of the Government, he could cordially join in the regret expressed by the right hon. and learned Gentleman who had just spoken (Mr. Gibson) that it had been impossible for the Government to bring in the Bill at an earlier period of the Session. He quite agreed that it was a very important measure and

        1979
        deserved full discussion; and he only regretted that, in common with other important measures, it had been impossible to give that time which they should have liked to have devoted to its discussion. He also agreed with the right hon. and learned Gentleman that, at that period of the Session, it would be quite impossible to look forward hopefully to being able to make progress with the measure, if it did not generally commend itself to hon. Members in all quarters of the House. He trusted it would be received in the spirit in which it was introduced. He would appeal to the Irish Members to bear in mind the great sacrifices the Government had been obliged to make of their economic principles in proposing such a scheme. [Laughter from the Irish Members.] Unquestionably, the Government had had to make large sacrifices of their economic principles before they could propose such a measure as this. [Mr. O'DONNELL: As you did in reference to the Suez Canal.] Nothing of the kind had ever been proposed for England; and it was because the Government recognized, as fully as hon. Gentlemen opposite, the special circumstances with which they had to deal in Ireland, that they had laid aside everything like pedantry in dealing with this matter, and had honestly endeavoured to meet the difficulties to be faced in proposing, in a case of this kind, to make grants from the Imperial Exchequer for public works in Ireland. No such grant had ever been proposed in connection with public works in England. He had always recognized that, in dealing with a poor country such as Ireland, where commerce and enterprize had been for a long time at a very low ebb, it would be absurd to apply the principles which had been found to apply to this country. The Government, at all events, had recognized that fact in bringing forward the Bill; and he hoped that the spirit in which they had introduced it would meet with appreciation on the part of hon. Gentlemen opposite, as he had every reason to believe would be the case, after the speech they had just listened to from the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell). The only serious part of that criticism with which the hon. Member received the Bill were the remarks he had made as to the conduct of the Government in throwing down a bone of contention between those who were in
        1980
        favour of migration and those who were in favour of emigration. As he understood the hon. Gentleman, he did not contend that emigration was necessarily bad. What the hon. Member said was that he and his Friends preferred what they called migration. He (Mr. Chamberlain) thought he was right in saying that, in one debate on the Land Act of 1881, the hon. Member went so far as to say, for himself and his Friends, that the state of certain districts in Ireland was such that he, for one, had come to the opinion that some scheme of emigration would be worth trying. That statement, of course, did not exclude his present preference for a different scheme; but it included emigration as one of the means by which the difficulties of the present condition of Ireland might be removed.
        MR. PARNELL: What I said was, that if the Government brought forward any scheme by which these families could be placed in suitable homesteads in Canada or the United States, I should not oppose the Bill.
        MR. CHAMBERLAINsaid, he recollected that that was what the hon. Member had said; and, therefore, any objection the hon. Member would have to offer would not be to emigration as such, but probably to the details of the scheme they proposed, which they admitted to be a matter for fair discussion. The hon. Member had gone a little further, because he had objected to their taking what he very properly called an Irish Fund against the opinions of the Irish people. He (Mr. Chamberlain) did not put his own opinion against that of the hon. Member on the question of what might be the opinion of the majority of the Irish people; but, at least, they had evidence that a considerable number of the Irish people regarded with favour emigration as one of the means of relieving distress. ["No, no!"] Hon. Members said that was not so; but he repeated that there was a considerable proportion of the Irish people who took this view. Emigration was not forced upon anyone. No one need leave the country unless they liked to do so. [An hon. MEMBER: They are starved into doing it.] When they found there were so many persons in Ireland ready to emigrate if they would only give them such limited assistance as the Bill proposed, they had a right to assume

        1981
        that those people considered it a great boon. The hon. Member for the City of Cork said—"Why do not you meet us in this matter, and give us half this sum to enable us to test our experiment of migration?" Well, in reply to that, he had to say that he did not think at that stage the matter was one upon which the Government could form a fair judgment. All they had said on the subject hitherto was, that they had not yet had any practical scheme of what was called migration put before them, and that, as far as they had been able to examine the suggestions which had been submitted to them, they certainly seemed to them to be wanting in the qualities which might be supposed to lead to success. If the hon. Member for the City of Cork and his Friends would give them some further information to show that some small advance, such as he suggested, might be applied to the purpose of this experiment with a fair chance of success, all he could say was that he thought it would be a matter for the fair and full consideration of the Government. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) had said their scheme for the formation of Companies for the purchase and re-sale of land gave an opportunity for that experiment. No doubt, it went a long way in that direction; but he did not think it would enable them to go as far as the hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of Cork seemed desirous of going; because, as he (Mr. Chamberlain) understood it, the Companies would have to buy land, and would expect from the purchasing tenants a portion of the purchase money. In the scheme of migration he had heard suggested in that House, it was proposed that the tenants should be placed on land they were expected to improve, which was not now in a state of cultivation; and, in the second place, it was alleged that the position of these tenants was such that they could not find any portion of the purchase money. That was the distinction between the scheme of the hon. Member for the City of Cork and the scheme that would alone be possible under the provisions of the Bill. He had said enough to show the spirit in which this measure had been introduced; and, on the Motion before them, he did not think the House would desire any
        1982
        fuller discussion. He hoped hon. Members would wait to see the exact details of the Bill, and that they would approach its further consideration in Committee in a spirit that would lead to a satisfactory issue.
        MR. WHITBREADsaid, he rose to reply to the charges made against those gentlemen who had, happily, been actively engaged in the scheme of emigration—that was to say, the charge that the scheme had broken down. He did not suppose that, in dealing with a large number of emigrants, they would have been completely successful in every case; but he thought that, in the enormous preponderance of cases, they had done real good, and he believed they would be able to show that the result of the scheme, on the whole, had been to afford a better chance of living to those people who remained in Ireland. One word with reference to the question of emigration versus migration. He did not wish hon. Members opposite to suppose that when Mr. Tuke's Committee started their work they had any predilection for sending Irishmen out of their country; they had before their eyes those districts in Ireland in which it was impossible for the people to live. The House had never had placed before it any tangible scheme of migration. He should listen with the deepest interest to any scheme of migration which had, on the face of it, some indication that it would work. But the Committee found, from information in their possession, that there was no probability of that being the case. On the other hand, they had experience of emigration, and they knew that this would work in a satisfactory manner. They chose that course, then, because they did not believe that migration was possible. If the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Parnell) would put forward a satisfactory scheme of migration, he (Mr. Whitbread), for one, would welcome it: For his part, he would not send a single Irishman out of the country; he would much prefer that they should remain there, if it were possible to get a living. What they wanted, then, was a tangible scheme which would, on the face of it, lead to a successful result. He trusted hon. Gentlemen opposite would not seriously throw opposition in the way of the continuance of a work, which, from all the information he had received, had, at all events, benefited the

        1983
        large majority of those who had gone out. No doubt, there were individual cases of failure; but, on the whole, there could be no doubt that their efforts had been satisfactory.
        MR. HEALYsaid, he was glad that the hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Whitbread), speaking as he did for a section of the Party by whom he was surrounded, had expressed his willingness to accept a system of migration. A tone and temper like that of the hon. Gentleman was quite new in the case of those with whom he was associated. With regard to tramways, he (Mr. Healy) would point out that the scheme was not new. The Italian State had taken up a scheme of tramways guaranteeing 4 per cent, and he hoped the English Government would do the same, because he thought it was likely to lead to good results. But there was a defect in the proposal before the House. The whole scheme of the Government depended on the assent of the Grand Juries; and, that being the case, it could not be completed with the rapidity and in the efficient manner which the Government expected; because it must be remembered that the Grand Juries did not always want to promote the good of the country. By allowing the Grand Jury system to continue to exist, the Government were, to some extent, rendering the new scheme nugatory. He was glad to hear the statesmanlike tone of the remarks of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin, and he considered he had furnished the Government with an idea which they might develop. The right hon. and learned Member said that the Government could use the 24th section of the Land Act in a satisfactory way for the purpose of migration; but how could they do that by means of the Bill as it at present stood? They could not do it without the addition of some supplementary provisions. He also said that some encouragement should be given to the Tramway Companies. The Government gave Steamship Companies a-head to take people across the Atlantic. Why, then, should they not give Tramway Companies money for taking people from Connemara to Meath? The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Chamberlain) had made a mistake that it was
        1984
        quite natural he should fall into. He (Mr. Healy) pointed out that no reclamation ever had been, or would be, effected by planting a man on 20 or 30 acres of beg, and telling him to reclaim it. That could only be effected when a man had a little piece of good land as a nucleus to start from; the contrary idea was purely illusory, and could not be carried out. Now, with regard to the system of emigration, the English people never could be got to do anything right, but that they immediately tried to do something wrong; if they gave a present, they always accompanied it with a poison. What would be thought of the Irish people if they were to start some scheme of this kind, and force it down the throats of Englishmen? The worst of the matter was, that Englishmen were always so cock-sure of the result of their legislation for Ireland. There were two or three Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench who had been to Dublin Castle, and had seen the Liffey, and whose only sources of information were the Resident Magistrates and the Police, whose business it was to keep the country in a state of ferment, in order to provide themselves with jobs. Those Gentlemen knew absolutely nothing of the actual requirements of Ireland; nevertheless, their views were allowed to be carried out, while no notice whatever was taken of the opinion of Irish Members who were born in the country, lived in the country, and had the good of the country at heart. It was impossible that this scheme should succeed in the hands of these Gentlemen. He would point out that the scheme was being forced upon the country against the will of the Irish National Party, and, as they contended, against the wish of the great majority of the people of Ireland; and then, as the "most unkindest cut of all," the Irish people were asked to pay for it out of their own pockets. If the English Government insisted upon this scheme, they should in all decency pay for it themselves. If England wanted to see Irishmen emigrated, and turned out of their country, there were plenty of other ways by which it could be done. For instance, they could send down a policeman, and tell a man that he was going to be arrested; he would then leave the country. That was a means of assisting emigration that had been

        1985
        much in use during the last two or three years. For these reasons, he said that the English Government should pay this money out of their own Exchequer, and that they should leave to the Irish people whatever money remained of the Irish Church Fund for the purposes of the Irish experiment of migration. If the Irish Church Fund was to be used, let it be applied in the way in which the great majority of the Irish Representatives desired. He believed that, if English Gentlemen would consider the position taken up by Irish Members on this subject of migration and the application of the Irish Church Fund, they would find it to be a reasonable one; and if the Government would consider the desirability of allowing the migration scheme to go forward, he believed they would find the way smoothed for the scheme of emigration.
        COLONEL NOLANsaid, he regarded that portion of the Bill which dealt with the scheme of tramways as extremely good. He thought that Her Majesty's Government were to be congratulated on the principle, but that they were wrong in going against the opinion expressed by the whole of the Irish people that the money for emigration should not be taken from the Irish Church Fund. As he was anxious that the Bill should pass, he would now offer no opposition to the Government on the question of emigration; but, at the same time, he contended that the cost should be defrayed from the Imperial Exchequer. It was, in his opinion, unreasonable that the Irish Church Fund should be applied to any purpose not approved by the Irish people, but should be applied for the benefit of Ireland by the development of its resources. He trusted the Government would withdraw the objectionable provision.
        MR. O'DONNELLsaid, he believed that, even if the portion of the Bill which related to tramways proved a complete failure, the Emigration Clauses would be carried out to the utmost. With regard to the question of tramways, it struck him as remarkable that the Government, which had expressed so keen a desire to establish local autonomy in Ireland, was, apparently, about to give a new lease of life to the Grand Jury system. If that system were now to be solemnly recognized, and set forth by them, the conclusion likely to be drawn
        1986
        was that the Irish people need not look forward to any speedy amendment of the system of local government. He would not spend any time in discussing the Bill as stated in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. He did not believe that such a scheme for the development of the resources of Ireland could result in anything but failure, except under the superintendence of a Government responsible to the people of Ireland.
        Question put, and agreed to.
        Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. TREVELYAN, Mr. CHAMBERLAIN, Mr. ATTORNEY GENERAL for IRELAND, and Mr. COURTNEY.
        Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 286.]

        SUPERANNUATION BILL.
        On Motion of Mr. HERBERT GLADSTONE, Bill to extend certain powers given by "The Superannuation Act Amendment Act, 1873," ordered to be brought in by Mr. HERBERT GLADSTONE and Mr. COURTNEY.
        Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 285.]

        PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS (CORRUPT AND ILLEGAL PRACTICES) [EXPENSES].
        Considered in Committee.
        (In the Committee.)
        Resolved, That it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, of the travelling and other Expenses of Election Judges hearing appeals from Election Commissioners, and of the Expenses of the reception and accommodation of such Judges, and of providing a proper court for them, which will become payable under the provisions of any Act of the present Session for the better prevention of Corrupt and Illegal Practices at Parliamentary Elections.
        Resolution to be reported To-morrow.
        House adjourned at a quarter before Four o'clock in the morning.

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—Second Reading—Parochial Charities (London) (168); Statute Law Revision and Civil Procedure * (177); Agricultural Holdings (England) (171).
Committee—Report—Railway Passenger Duty, &c.* (167).
Report—Irish Reproductive Loan Fund Act (1574) Amendment* (156).
Third Reading—Greenwich Hospital* (165), and passed.

OXFORD, AYLESBURY, AND METROPOLITAN RAILWAY BILL.

  MOTION FOR RE-COMMITMENT.
  LORD HENNIKER, in moving that the Bill be re-committed to the same Select Committee, said, he approached the question on two grounds—firstly, on public grounds; and, secondly, because the course taken in this case had no precedent in Parliamentary practice, and bore hardly on those concerned. It was not a very pleasant task to find any fault with a Committee of their Lordships' House, particularly as everyone would acknowledge that the work of Committees was so well done that it could hardly be improved. He might add that his noble Friend (the Earl of Haddington) had so much experience of

  1791
  business that any Committee would be safe in his hands as Chairman. He did not, therefore, approach the question in any way with a desire to find fault unnecessarily; but he would simply place the case as shortly as he could before the House, and leave their Lordships to decide what it was right to do. Their Lordships would be engaged on the second reading of the Agricultural Holdings Bill that night, and would be fully aware that in that measure they were dealing with a class which required special consideration just now. That had stimulated several Members of the House of Commons to object to excessive rates for artificial manures, and so on; and that House had decided to give special facilities to those who made objections as to rates—not only on artificial manures, but on other goods—to have the case considered by every Committee. A Standing Order had been passed which did not exist in their Lordships' House, where Petitioners had to appear in the ordinary way. Of course, what the House of Commons did had nothing, strictly speaking, to do with the procedure of their Lordships' House; but on public questions advantage was generally taken by their Lordships of outside opinions, and they were not usually unwilling to listen to any reasonable proposal. In this case the Manager of the Great Western Railway had stated that in no case where the traders in the district had appeared in opposition to a Bill, had Parliament sanctioned the rates which were now asked for, and not only so, but Parliament had rejected the classification proposed on the two occasions on which it had been asked for. So much for that part of the case. The facts were these. A certain number of farmers and traders petitioned against the Bill on the ground of excessive rates. There were 24 Petitioners, only one of whom had no interest, and did not reside in the district — a merchant of Gloucester — who would use the proposed line. They were all anxious to promote the line if the rates were fair. One day only was given for obtaining signatures to this Petition, so the number of Petitioners was not as large as it might have been. The time for presenting the Petition to the House did not admit of a longer delay. The Bill proceeded before the Committee, and certain evidence having been given, an interview
  1792
  was held with the promoters; the result of this interview was that the Petitioners decided to withdraw rather than jeopardize the making of the proposed line. Their counsel withdrew the opposition, and costs were then asked for by the promoters as against these Petitioners. The counsel for the promoters in asking for costs said he would retire at once if any farmer in any way interested in the district would come forward and say he wished bonâ fide to raise this question of manure or other rates. The counsel knew quite well that there were no witnesses there. A letter from Mr. Franklin, dated July 24, which he held in his hand, showed the reason why. Even Mr. Cripps, the promoters' counsel, was willing to say Mr. Franklin was an interested party for the promoters. The letter was as follows:—
  "When I was asked to sign the Petition against the rates and classification of goods as set out in the Bill, I considered the former excessive, and the latter to want reconstruction. The day I was summoned to the House to give evidence to the Committee, I met several landowners and parties interested in the line, and heard from them that the question of rates for manure and agricultural produce had been especially considered by them, and that it would be impossible to work a short line passing through an agricultural district at lower rates, and that if the rates were reduced it would be tantamount to throwing out the Bill. After hearing this, and that the classification of goods on all railways would, in all probability, be brought before Parliament for adjustment. I was induced not to oppose the Bill further. Being agent for several landowners whose property the proposed line passes through and near, I considered the advantages would be too great to offer factious opposition."
  He (Lord Henniker) thought that this letter proved the interest of the leading witness, Mr. Franklin, and the grounds on which the opposition was withdrawn. The counsel, too, said he would produce the witnesses if two days were allowed. This was declined. So the offer was made by one counsel, who must have known why the witnesses were not present; and then when the offer was made to produce them within a reasonable time it was refused; and yet, notwithstanding this, costs were awarded against the Petitioners. The question was entirely one of costs. The Bill had to be re-committed entirely, if re-committed at all; but his point was that costs had been granted in this case in a way which required reconsideration. Costs could only be granted when

  1793
  a Committee found the Preamble proved, and that the action of the Petitioners was vexations. The costs were in this case given on the ground that the Petitioners had not been interested in the proposed line. Technically, the Petitioners in question had pro formâ petitioned against the Preamble, but this only to give them the power to cross-examine the promoters' witnesses. The ground of no interest in the line was clearly one of locus standi; but the counsel for the promoters expressly waived any objection to the locus standi of the Petitioners. If the locus standi had been objected to and sustained on Preamble, the opposition would have been at an end, and no costs would have been given. Was it fair, therefore, to claim costs on a point of locus standi? And, he might add, was it competent to award costs on this ground? Was there any other ground to go on except a want of interest in the line? He thought not; for the right to appear against clauses was admitted by the waiver of the objection to locus standi. The Petition was strictly limited to rates; and as to the vexatious question, he wished to know how it could be said the Petition was vexatious? A body of farmers and traders might petition against high rates; their Petition might be unfounded, and so fail; but in Parliamentary experience there was no case like the present in which costs had been awarded against such Petitioners. The Manager of the Great Western Railway's (Mr. Grierson's) evidence alone was good ground on which to rest, and was pretty conclusive on that point. The case, then, was this—that costs had been awarded on a question of public interest in the face of the fact that costs had never been so awarded before by any Committee; in face of the fact that witnesses were somehow induced to be away when they were wanted, but would have appeared later if time had been given to summon them, when the objection on locus standi was taken at a later stage of the proceedings than it ought to have been; in face of the fact that this case set a precedent for Parliamentary practice in the future which was against all the Parliamentary wisdom of the past, and while the other House of Parliament gave every facility to those interested to deal with this question of rates in a satisfactory manner. He thought
  1794
  he had made out his case, and that it was not asking too much of the Committee to reconsider the question of costs. No doubt, the Committee acted to the best of their judgment at the time, but could hardly have known all the facts of the case. Of course, he might have gone more into detail, and there was much more to be said on the subject; but he had endeavoured to place the facts of the case as shortly and as clearly as he could before the House.
  Moved, "That the Bill be re-committed to the same Select Committee."—(The Lord Henniker.)
  THE EARL OF HADDINGTONsaid, he considered that the rates imposed were proper and reasonable; they were, in fact, similar to those proposed in several Bills during that Session. He had arrived at the conclusion to which the Committee came with some hesitation; but he could not feel much doubt after hearing the reason urged by those in favour of that conclusion. He had himself asked the noble Duke (the Duke of Buckingham) to point out some names among the Petitioners of persons interested in the Bill, and he could only name one.
  After a few remarks from the Earl of ROSSE,
  Motion (by leave of the House) withdrawn.

PAROCHIAL CHARITIES (LONDON) BILL.—(No. 168.)
(The Earl of Camperdown.)
PAROCHIAL CHARITIES (LONDON) BILL.—(No. 168.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWN, in moving that the Bill be now read the second time, said, the object of the Bill was to create a new body of management and a new administration for the Charities of London. For a long time the necessity of some reform in this matter had been felt, and the population of the City had declined from 131,000 in 1851 to 50,000 persons in 1881. The Charities were considerable both in number and amount, and were increasing in value every year. They existed for the benefit of different parishes in the City, and consisted in great part of house property in and near London. In 1865

  1795
  these Charities amounted in yearly value to £67,000; in 1880 they reached the sum of £117,000; and there was very little reason to doubt that with an active and energetic system of management they would amount to not less than £200,000 a-year. Many of the purposes for which they bad been originally given by benevolent donors were now extinct, and many had changed their character. There was a Royal Commission appointed to inquire into all the Charities. It was presided over by the noble Duke (the Duke of Northumberland). They reported in 1880, and since that time several Bills had been introduced into Parliament founded upon the Report, but not one had succeeded in passing through the House of Commons till this year. The present Bill had come up from the other House, where it had been discussed by a Select Committee. He would refer their Lordships for information on the subject to the Report of that Committee. The most important changes proposed by the Bill were to place the Charities in the hands of the Charity Commissioners, who would be able to proceed by inquiry into all matters without any previous application on the part of Trustees or other persons interested in the Charities. The Bill appointed two additional Charity Commissioners, the duration of whose appointment was not to extend beyond the end of the year 1889. These Commissioners were to form schemes for the application and management of the property—that part of it which was ecclesiastical being devoted to ecclesiastical purposes; and that part which was general being devoted to the establishment and maintenance of provident institutions and to the welfare generally of the poorer classes. Ample provision was also made to satisfy vested interests. In conclusion, it was, he thought, very desirable, in the interests of all concerned in that matter, that legislation upon it should not be longer delayed. The noble Earl then moved that the Bill be now read a second time.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Earl of Camperdown.)
  THE BISHOP OF LONDON, in supporting the measure, said, it aimed at providing a remedy for a state of things which ought not to be allowed to exist any longer. The City of London, as at
  1796
  present constituted, was comprised within one mile, and £104,500 was the amount of the charitable funds available. That sum could not be properly expended in charity in the City, where some of the parishes had no poor at all; and the Charities had been expended in various other matters, such as the redemption of tithes, and the giving of parish dinners in some cases. He trusted that their Lordships, even at that late period of the Session, would pass the Bill.
  Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Thursday next.

AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS (ENGLAND) BILL.—(No. 171.)
(The Lord President.)
AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS (ENGLAND) BILL.—(No. 171.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading read.
  LORD CARLINGFORD (LORD PRESIDENT of the COUNCIL)said, that in asking their Lordships to give a second reading to this Bill, he felt that his task was considerably shortened and simplified by the fact that the measure embodied, to a great extent, the form and the machinery of the existing Act of 1875 and as far as quantity was concerned, a large part—the largest part—of the Bill did not require explanation or justification from him. But although so much of the present Act, in point of machinery, was preserved, the Government desired to add one thing to that Act which it was admitted by almost universal consent to require, and that was the motive power which should set that machinery in motion. The essential portion of the Bill, the effect of which he would endeavour to state, was contained mainly in Clause 1. What he had called the motive power of the Bill was contained in that clause. That 1st clause declared that a tenant who had made on his holding any improvement, upon quitting his holding was to obtain compensation from his landlord; and. that right was given in the absence of contract, and in certain cases even in spite of contract, to the contrary, under the clause which came later in the Bill. Such compensation under the clause was to consist of such a

  1797
  sum of money as fairly represented the value of the improvement to an incoming tenant. In that clause, governed and restricted by the clauses which followed, they had the amount of the compulsory principle which the Bill contained, and they had that new standard of compensation, as compared with the existing Act, which they had adopted, and which dispensed with many complications of the Act of 1875, with the compensation periods, and the graduated diminution of the amount of compensation, and so on. And he might say that both of those principles—that of compulsion within certain defined limits, and that of value as the measure of compensation—possessed the sanction and recommendation of the Report of the Royal Commission on Agriculture. As to the principle of compulsion, he saw that his noble Friend on the Cross Benches (the Earl of Wemyss) had placed upon the Paper a very strong protest against it, and a very lofty declaration of that principle of freedom of contract which he appeared to put on a level with the Ten Commandments; while he seemed to think that the proposal of the Government struck at the very foundations of society. As to the measure of compensation, it would be remembered that the authors of the existing Act had felt a very considerable difficulty, and had changed their proposals several times during the passage of the Bill. In the end, however, they decided to adopt outlay as the measure of compensation with a certain artificial reduction, according to the term of years. Under that system, if the value came within the outlay, then the value became the maximum of the tenant's compensation; if it were greater, then the outlay was the measure of the maximum. That was a system which the Government were certainly not prepared to admit into the Bill. It adopted a standard of compensation of a thoroughly one-sided kind in favour of the landlord or incoming tenant, but not of the outgoing tenant. That system had not commended itself to the mind of the Government, nor to the opinion of the other House of Parliament. They believed that it was not a fair and rational standard to adopt, and that view was supported by some of the best and wisest advocates of the tenants. Mr. Clare Read, in a letter published the other day, described
  1798
  that system as one under which the landlord would say to the tenant—"Heads I win, tails you lose." It appeared to them that, if the tenant received less than his outlay when what he left behind him was of little value, as it might be, it was but reasonable that when he left behind him as the result of his skill and enterprise a value larger than the outlay, he should not be deprived of that advantage. The Government believed that the standard of value laid down in general terms in the Bill, to be applied in particular cases by competent experts, was the best, fairest, and simplest standard that could be adopted, and that it was a mode of compensation by far the most likely to stimulate and secure the industry of the tenant. But this was limited in the Bill by a Proviso, not proposed by the Government but introduced in Committee, that in fixing the amount of compensation nothing should be taken into account as part of the value produced by the tenant that was justly due to the inherent capabilities of the soil. As to the improvements referred to in the Bill, which were similar to those in the existing Act, they would be found in the Schedule, and were divided into three classes. The first class, contained in Part I., were those which might properly be considered landlord's improvements—namely, those for which it was usual and desirable that the landlord should supply the capital, and which effected permanent changes in the holding. Part II. referred only to drainage. This was a most important improvement, and one which might, they considered, be dealt with separately. They thought it desirable, if it could be brought about, that drainage should be executed by the landlord; but yet it was so important a matter, and in many cases so essential, that if not executed by the landlord, it was their opinion that it should be done by the tenant, and that the tenant in the last resort should be able to execute it and secure compensation for it when done. That was the view taken by the framers of the Bill. The 3rd Part included manures of all kinds, and all those works which produced an improvement of the soil, and were generally executed by the tenant. Then he came to the restrictions on the general enactment in Clause 1. Clause 2 excepted from the application of the Act all improvements executed before

  1799
  the passing of the Act, except those temporary tenants' improvements which came under Part III. The following clauses dealt with those executed after the Act. With respect to the landlord's improvements in Part I., the consent of the landlord was made essential. As to drainage, under Clause 4, the tenant would not be able to undertake the improvement and claim compensation at the time of quitting his holding, but was bound to give notice to the landlord, so as to give him an opportunity of executing the work himself. Then, if the landlord refused or failed to do this, the tenant was empowered to carry out the work himself, and establish a claim for compensation. As to improvements of temporary effect which, as a rule, could be made by the tenant only, and which it was so desirable that he should make, the Bill imposed no restriction. The Government felt that it was essential that the tenant should be certain of reaping the benefit of his outlay either in the produce of the farm during his tenancy, or in compensation for any remainder of an improvement which he might hand over either to the landlord or to his successor. It had not been thought necessary to draw any distinction between improvements of that kind executed before the commencement of the Act and those executed afterwards. In all other cases the tenant would have no claim for any improvement made before the commencement of the Act. He now came to the clauses which provided that, under certain conditions, agreements between the two parties providing compensation might take the place of the provisions of the Bill. In the case of the improvements mentioned in Parts I. and II. of the Schedule, compensation under any agreement might take the place of the general compensation provided by the Bill. But as to Part III., which dealt with tenants' improvements properly so called, the Bill enacted that agreements between the parties for compensation should be recognized, provided that such agreements were fair and reasonable, and not evasive or illusory. With respect to current tenancies, the Bill said that any existing agreement providing compensation for any specific improvement should hold good and should not be affected by the measure. One clause referred to various matters of set-off which the landlord might put forward against
  1800
  the tenant's claim. The clause dealing with the subject of notice to quit agreed with the existing Act, with this difference, that it did not make the year's notice to quit absolute, but left it open to the parties to set the clause aside by agreement and to retain the present half-year's notice. Part of the Bill dealt with the subject of distress. It provided that for the future distress should be limited to the amount of one year's rent. It protected to a large extent the live stock belonging to a stranger which might happen to be on the farm, and it protected absolutely agricultural and other machinery belonging to a third party. This limitation of the right of distress did not follow the recommendation of the Royal Commission on Agriculture, the recommendation of that Commission being that distress should be limited to the amount of two years' rent. The restriction in the Bill to one year, however, was in accord with the opinion of many landlords and tenants, with the provisions of a measure introduced in "another place" by an hon. Gentleman who was a high authority, and with the Report of a Committee presided over by Mr. Goschen. Their Lordships would see that the new legislation they proposed in the Bill was not of a large amount in point of quantity, but it was of great importance in point of quality. They believed that it would make, if adopted by Parliament, a great change. The existing Act, which was very carefully framed, and which formed a remarkable event in the history of their land legislation, especially as proceeding from a Conservative Government, at the same time was an Act which had not produced much direct effect upon the relations between landlord and tenant, so far as compensating the latter for his outlay and improvements was concerned. There was a great difference between that Act and the measure now before their Lordships, which the Government hoped and believed would not be a dead letter, but would work efficiently and provide security for tenant farmers in making those improvements which it was so greatly to the public interest that they should undertake. His noble Friend on the Cross Benches (the Earl of Wemyss) said he was—
  "Ready to promote a well-considered measure for the advancement of agriculture and the im-

  1801
  provement, so far as possible by legislation, of the relations of landlord and tenant;"
  but that he was not prepared to interfere with freedom of contract and destroy the foundations of society.
  THE EARL OF WEMYSS: Hear, hear!
  LORD CARLINGFORD (LORD PRESIDENT of the COUNCIL): What did the noble Earl mean by his well-considered measure? He was ready to support a Bill provided it were purely permissive, without the slightest element of compulsion. That was what the words meant if they meant anything. He did not think that, in the present circumstances, and with the experience they had now obtained, the noble Earl would be able to satisfy the House that such a measure, however well-considered, would do any good whatever, or have any effect; and he should like very much to see him endeavour to satisfy upon that point an audience of tenant farmers, say, for example, in the county of Haddington. He had great suspicion of the soundness of the application of a principle of that kind, when it was made solely and exclusively by one of the two parties whose relations it was to regulate, and when it was absolutely repudiated by the other. He readily admitted that in these matters the burden of proof lay on those who proposed to depart from freedom of contract; but he entirely denied that Parliament had ever so neglected its duty as to set up that principle as an absolute barrier, which was to leave them no liberty whatever to deal with the various cases that came before them upon their merits. Parliament had frequently interfered with the principle of freedom of contract. He himself was a colliery owner, and his freedom and his pocket in that capacity were far more seriously interfered with by existing legislation than his freedom or his interests as a landowner would be by the provisions of the present Bill. In ordinary times a tenant was not in a position in which he could readily make a sufficient agreement with his landlord for the purpose of protecting and securing his improvements. This was not a theory or a speculation; it was a matter of experience. But he was not anxious to defend the limited amount of compulsion which the Bill would introduce upon that ground. He would sooner defend it on the ground of public policy. At present, want of security
  1802
  either prevented the tenant from making those improvements which were so desirable, or exposed him to the risk of finding at the expiration of his tenancy that a considerable amount of his outlay was for ever lost to him, with all the heartburning and discontent that must follow. As a matter of public policy, believing that contracts adverse to the tenant's claim were distinctly impolitic, and were upon the same footing as contracts in restraint of trade, and that the absence of safe agreements, upon which the tenant could rely, was a very great public evil—on those grounds they proposed the principle contained in this Bill. They, in fact, proposed by this Bill to create a general custom, which should attach to all tenancies, unless the landlord and tenant bad agreed between themselves in some other way, for which the Bill left ample scope, provided that the agreement were not unfair or unreasonable. That was what they were bound to do if they were to do any good. They had ample experience on this subject, and they had had ample inquiry. They had had eight years' experience of a permissive measure, and they had the advantage of a most thorough and laborious inquiry made by the Commission presided over by the noble Duke opposite (the Duke of Richmond and Gordon) with such ability, patience, and public spirit; and what was the result of that experience and inquiry? At the time that the Act of 1875 was passed the opinion was strongly held that the permissive operation of that Act would give very little result in the matter of compensation for tenants' improvements. He was not surprised that the experiment of permissive legislation should have been made; it had been made, and they had now the great benefit of that experience, and the Royal Commission on Agriculture had had the benefit of it, and had given them the result of their inquiry, which result was probably known to their Lordships. They recommended that the principles of the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1875, should be made compulsory in all cases in which compensation was not otherwise provided for, and that it should depend upon the additional value given to the holding. In point of principle, the Bill before the House was substantially founded upon the recommendations of that Report. That experiment hav-

  1803
  ing been made, the fact being, as proved by all the evidence and Reports of' the Royal Commission, that for the most part, and in the greatest number of cases, nothing had come of it, and that the English tenant farmers did not possess by voluntary agreement with their landlords that security for their improvements which everyone admitted, and many so loudly proclaimed to be essential, he would like to ask their Lordships whether it would be possible for the present Government, or any other Government, to bring in au Agricultural Holdings Bill now which should rest exclusively on the permissive principle? That was the case he had to put, and he ventured to recommend the Bill to the acceptance of their Lordships. He thought it contained two very essential characteristics—namely, moderation and efficiency—which had recommended it more and more, as time went on, to the good opinion of both the great classes with which it had to deal; and he confidently trusted that the general approval of their Lordships would make it the law of the land.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Lord President.)
  THE EARL OF WEMYSS, in rising to move the following Amendment:—
  "That this House, while ready to promote a well-considered measure for the advancement of agriculture and the improvement, so far as possible by legislation, of the relations of landlord and tenant, is not prepared to give its sanction to a Bill which, in agricultural tenancies, forbids free contract in the future and breaks it in the east, thus destroying the foundation upon which alone agriculture, trade, and. commerce can securely rest,"
  said, he thought most of their Lordships would agree with him that it was of evil augury that the moving of the second reading of this Bill had been intrusted to an Irishman, and that it had been moved by his noble Friend, who, in the year 1870, as Mr. Chichester Fortescue, had introduced the first Irish Land Bill. He well remembered the speech in which his noble Friend had moved that Bill. No doubt, he very ably performed his part; but there was this peculiarity in what he had said on that occasion—when he referred to previous attempts at legislation in this direction, he used a refrain throughout his remarks to this effect—"But, Sir, we have made a great advance since
  1804
  then." He (the Earl of Wemyss) did not know whether it would be five or ten years hence when his noble Friend, or some other noble and heroic Lord, would come down to their Lordships' House to propose further legislation on the same lines, and, pointing to the present measure, would say, in the words of 1870—"But, my Lords, we have made a great advance since then." He did not propose to follow his noble Friend into all the details of the Bill. The noble Lord had said that he (the Earl of Wemyss) thought more highly of the principle of free contract than of the Ten Commandments. Well, he did think highly of the principle of free contract, and certainly more highly than, judging from the legislation of late, Her Majesty's Government and his noble Friend thought of the Decalogue. One Bill was a violation of the Tenth Commandment, by allowing men to covet their neighbours' goods; another Bill was a violation of the Ninth Commandment, by allowing a man to speak ill of his neighbour; and, finally, the principle of the Eighth Commandment had disappeared from the Bill, because the property of one man was to be taken from him and transferred to his neighbour. He knew that in asking the House to pass his Resolution he had a difficult task; but was that Resolution untrue? His conviction was, that every step which they took in this kind of legislation, so far from improving the relations between landlord and tenant, embittered and injured them; and he did not believe that there was any possibility of legislation of this kind improving agriculture, or the conditions under which landlord, and tenant were now standing in regard to each other. His noble Friend had made merry upon the first part of his Resolution; but that was only the padding of the Resolution, the whole substance of it was in the end. It was to the latter part of the Resolution to which he would call their Lordships' attention—namely,
  "That this House is not prepared to give its sanction to a Bill which, in agricultural tenancies, forbids free contract in the future and breaks it in the past, thus destroying the foundation upon which alone agriculture, trade, and commerce can securely rest."
  Now, was it or was it not true that the foundation of agriculture, trade, and commerce rested on free contract, and

  1805
  that throughout the civilized world all trading rested on free contract? The Government were asking the House to do away with freedom of contract in the most important commercial relation in the world. He would, therefore, be justified in asking them to pause and consider the question seriously—How was it brought about that the two great Parties in the State were agreed in suppressing freedom of trade in land? They must cross the Irish Channel if they would see how they got into their present position. The noble and learned Lord (Lord Fitzgerald) stated the other day that at one time all that Irish patriots asked for was compensation for improvements made with the consent of the landlords, and anything like the "three F's" was never thought of. Sir George Cornwall Lewis declared that all Ireland wanted was a Poor Law; and Mr. Cardwell, in 1860, only advocated the compensation he had referred to. In 1870, however, a great change came over the Government; a new dispensation commenced, and the Act of 1870 was introduced; while in 1881 all the confiscatory provisions were introduced in the Government Bill which in 1870 had been denounced as too preposterous to be mentioned. On what plea were the changes introduced in 1881?—the plea of justice and remedial legislation. There was a debate on the subject in that House the other night, and all the justice that appeared was the taking away of property from one man and giving it to another, and taking the hard-earned money of the loyal, well-affected, hard-working labourer and artizan, in the form of increased taxation, and giving it to the not over loyal tenants of Ireland. ["Oh!"] What else was the Arrears Bill?
  LORD CARLINGFORD (LORD PRESIDENT of the COUNCIL): The money came from the Irish Church Fund.
  THE EARL OF WEMYSS: Well, that was robbing the Church, which was worse still. He did not desire to use hard terms; but he wished they could take to heart the lines of Burns—
  "O wad some power the giftie gie us, To see ourselves as ithers see us!"
  He should like to give the House the opinion of an American divine, who stated that every muscle of him was Liberal, but over the Irish Land Act his Liberal notions got completely mixed.
  1806
  Could it be said that justice had been done by these measures, or that they had had any remedial effect? Was it not a fact that the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland went about protected in fear of his life, and every Cabinet Minister had at least one detective, and some two or three, surrounding their houses by night and day, while Ireland was in a state of disaffection and disloyalty such as, he believed, had not been known in the present generation? He was in Ireland immediately after the Election of 1879, when the country was in a comparatively peaceful state. He was in Ireland also after the remedial Bill of 1881 had passed, and he could speak to the state of the country during those two periods. After the remedial legislation he found "Boycotting" in full force — school boards, clothing clubs, even a short-horned bull was "Boycotted." The noble Duke (the Duke of Argyll) declared that next Session, if he had sufficiently recovered, he would tell the House what the consequences of the Irish Land Act were. The consequences were apparent everywhere, in the general demoralization which this land agitation had produced. It could be traced in speeches out of Parliament, at farmers' alliances, and in other matters connected with agriculture. They could trace it in Bills brought in by patriotic and public-spirited manure merchants and agricultural implement makers, who found Parliament by far the best and cheapest means of advertising their wares. And it could be traced in that Bill which they were then asked to read a second time. If they wanted further evidence, let them turn to an inquiry which was made recently in the House of Commons of the Government—namely, whether, having regard to the measures which had been passed dealing with agricultural improvements, the Government were prepared to consider the question of protecting the tenant's mineral and other rights from confiscation by the enforcement of fines on the transfer of leases, and so forth? The answer was that the question touched a matter of great importance, which it would be the duty of the Government to give attention to if it were brought forward in such manner as to make them believe they were called on to consider it. That simply meant that if a sufficient number of votes depended on it, a Commission would

  1807
  issue to inquire into these matters. There were two noble Lords, supporters of the Government, who, between them, owned the major part of London. He warned them to note the signs of the times, and to keep their political weather eye open. He was under the impression that freedom from State restriction and freedom of the individual in the management of his own affairs were the tradition and shibboleth of the Liberal Party. A Liberal writer in 1860 declared that there was nothing now left for the Liberals to do, and there was no grievance which any reasonable men could complain of; but that writer little knew that Liberalism could go back on all its traditions and all its policy. The Land Bills of 1870, 1881, and 1883 were milestones which marked the backward track in the legislation of the Liberal Party; and if their policy was that of Jack Cade, their dealings in respect to property were those of Dick Turpin. It was difficult, however, to say on which of the two great Parties rested the main portion of the responsility in this matter. No doubt, the Liberal Party were primarily responsible; but they were not alone to blame. The Conservative Party in the House of Lords, if they had fought against this backward policy at all, had only done so to knuckle down to it. The Royal Commission presided over by the Duke of Richmond, if words meant anything, reported in favour of intereference with contract. A friend had told him (the Earl of Wemyss) of an interview with the Earl of Beaconsfield at Hughenden. He was giving him the latest information with respect to public affairs, and began by referring to foreign matters, when he was suddenly interrupted by the exclamation of the noble Earl—"Oh, never mind about foreign affairs. Tell me what they are doing at home." The narrator proceeded to say that the Duke of Richmond's Commission had reported in favour of fixing rent, on which the Earl of Beaconsfield jumped from the sofa on which he sat and cried—"By God, if they have done that, the Government can carry any Land Bill they choose?"
  THE DUKE OF RICHMOND AND GORDON: I am sorry to interrupt; but when my noble Friend makes these assertions, and when I know exactly what did take place, I am bound not to let my noble Friend make an assertion
  1808
  which has no foundation in fact. What did take place was this. I am not ashamed to say it—and I think it is most natural that I should have done it—that before I submitted that preliminary Report relating to Ireland to my Colleagues, and before it was published, it was laid before Lord Beaconsfield, and it was published, after I had consulted him, with his sanction and approval.
  THE EARL OF WEMYSSsaid, he had no doubt that that was perfectly true; but it was equally true that the story he had related was told to him in the language which he had quoted to their Lordships, and that the person to whom those words were uttered told him the story. But, be that as it might, the present Prime Minister had always referred to the Report of the Richmond Commission as the justification for his legislation of 1881. But the question he would put to their Lordships was this—Would this Bill be for the benefit of agriculture? If every line of the present Bill had been in operation during the last 10 years, did they think the state of agriculture in this country would have been a whit more prosperous, or the land in better heart? Certainly not. It was notorious that it was due to the bad seasons, and not to the want of any legislation of that kind, that the farmers had been in the state which they all deplored for the last few years. There was one county in England — Lincolnshire—in which that system existed; and yet that county had suffered as much as any other in the Kingdom. All that kind of legislation was neither more nor less than a bid for the farmer's vote; and he was certain that if the votes had been the other way they would not have have that sort of legislation. It was comical to note—for everything in this world had its comic side—that, concurrently with that kind of legislation, a great part of the time of the other House of Parliament had been occupied in legislating against electoral corruption, and in passing an Act which branded as a criminal, and sent to prison, the man who gave a glass of beer to a voter; while Bills, such as that now before their Lordships, which were nothing but the wholesale bribery of the farming class, were called statesmanship, and remedial legislation. The fact was, his noble Friend who introduced the debate ought

  1809
  to have dressed himself as a herald, and cried—"Largesse, largesse, largesse, for the agricultural electors!" But would the agricultural electorate, when they came to look beyond their noses, thank their Lordships for that kind of legislation? He thought not. If Parliament was going to step in and enable a tenant to take compulsorily from the landlord compensation for his unexhausted improvements, did they not think that the labourer when he was enfranchised would not say—"It is all very well giving the farmer compensation for his unexhausted manures, but of what value would those manures be but for the hands and the sweat of the labourer who had spread them?" Would not the labourer be tempted to ask them to fix the rate of wages so as to give him the unexhausted value of his labour? Therefore, the farmer, looking at the possible consequences, would not be so grateful to their Lordships as might be supposed. They were, moreover, as in Ireland, shaking the confidence of the commercial classes by this sort of legislation. He feared he had undertaken a hopeless task in calling on their Lordships to resist such a measure as this; but he trusted there might be found a sufficient number to enter a protest against it. Were they quite sure that what they were doing would be popular with the farmers? Governments were too apt to listen to the noisy busy-bodies, to Chambers of Agriculture, and to Farmers' Alliance meetings, and to think that they represented the agricultural classes. That reminded him of the saying, that to listen to the grasshoppers they would suppose they were the only inhabitants of the field in which a herd of oxen were silently grazing. He held in his hand a letter from Mr. Charles Rann, a tenant-farmer, cultivating 500 acres of land on the most improved system, and who was a member of the Council of the Royal Agricultural Society. The writer said he entirely concurred in the noble Earl's strong objection in principle to the Government's Agricultural Holdings Bill; but he protested against the assumption, as unjust to the farmers, that the Bill was one of their seeking, which it assuredly was not; and he added that he had never met with one of that class who showed the slightest interest in the Measure, which was the offspring of the Chambers of Agriculture—not of the farming class
  1810
  —and was based on the grossest fallacy, and wrong in principle. He (the Earl of Wemyss) had thus cited the opinion of one of the best practical farmers in England to show that the Bill was not desired by the farming class. He had only this more to say, that he trusted a certain number of their Lordships might possibly be induced to raise their voice against that revolutionary kind of legislation. He said, advisedly, revolutionary, because, disguise it from themselves as they might, lay what flattering unction to their souls they might, they had ever since 1870 been passing through the throes of a social revolution. That revolution might not have been accompanied by the usual concomitants of revolution, bloodshed, and gunpowder, although in Ireland those concomitants certainly had not been wanting; but it had been going on through the certain and steady operation of Acts of Parliaments. He would ask their Lordships to enter their protest against measures of this kind—measures which were contrary to all preconceived notions of political economy; and he would ask them in particular to enter their protest against this Bill, which struck, in principle, at the very root of trade, commerce, industry, and national welfare, forbidding free contract in the future, breaking it in the past, and socialistically regulating the affairs of landlord and tenant. On these grounds he begged to move the Amendment of which he had given Notice.
  Amendment moved,
  To leave out all the words after ("That") for the purpose of inserting ("this House, while ready to promote a well-considered measure for the advancement of agriculture and the improvement, so far as possible by legislation, of the relations of landlord and tenant, is not prepared to give its sanction to a Bill which, in agricultural tenancies, forbids free contract in the future and breaks it in the past, thus destroying the foundation upon which alone agriculture, trade, and commerce can securely rest.")—(The Earl of Wemyss.)
  THE DUKE OF ARGYLLsaid, that the Bill which was now before their Lordships was a Bill which referred exclusively to England; and if it were not that it was about to be followed in a few days by another Bill of exactly the same character applying to Scotland, he should certainly not have trespassed upon the attention of their Lordships on the present occasion. But having in the House

  1811
  and elsewhere repeatedly asserted, in very strong terms, the desirability and policy of maintaining the principle of freedom of contract in regard to all such questions, he was desirous of explaining very shortly why he was not able to follow his noble Friend on the Cross Benches in the Resolution he had just moved. In the first place, he was unable to follow him on account of the terms of that Resolution. When he (the Duke of Argyll) first read it he confessed he was disappointed in his noble Friend. He thought his noble Friend was the Simon Pure of Free Trade. He thought his noble Friend was a sort of rock of adamant around which the excitement of political opinion on this subject might have surged in vain. He thought his noble Friend was a standard-bearer, in whose hands the standard of freedom of contract would never shake. What was his astonishment when he saw that their Lordships were asked by a solemn declaration to say whether they were willing to consider some legislative measure which might improve agriculture and the relations between landlord and tenant—
  THE EARL OF WEMYSS: As far as possible. I do not think it is possible at all.
  THE DUKE OF ARGYLL: Yes, as far as possible. He did not think his noble Friend got well out of the Question put to him by the Lord President of the Council—"What was the meaning of those words?" The answer of the noble Lord was that the words meant nothing; that they were mere padding.
  THE EARL OF WEMYSS: Hear, hear!
  THE DUKE OF ARGYLL: Well, he objected to swallow the padding of his noble Friend.
  THE EARL OF WEMYSS: I will leave them out if the noble Duke likes.
  THE DUKE OF ARGYLL: He wondered his noble Friend had shown the House of which he was a Member such want of respect as to ask them, upon so grave and important a subject, to vote the solemn declaration in his Resolution and then declare it was mere padding. Supposing a majority of their Lordships did so, and that the Bill was rejected, and that his noble Friend went to a great assembly of the people of the farming class and was asked, What did the
  1812
  House of Lords mean by voting a Resolution that there should be some interference with the relations of landlord and tenant, and that his only answer on behalf of this great historic Assembly was that it was mere padding, would such an explanation add to the credit of their Lordships' House? Another reason why he could not agree with his noble Friend's Resolution was that the description he had given of the Bill, open as the Bill might be to objection, was not a fair and accurate description. He stated this broadly—that he would not vote for the Resolution of his noble Friend whatever his opinion on the question of freedom of contract might be. His noble Friend hardly ever referred to the details of the Bill, or to its general character.
  THE EARL OF WEMYSS: It is the second reading.
  THE DUKE OF ARGYLL: He kept absolute silence on that point, and treated the Bill as if it were nothing but one series of clauses forbidding, invading, and overriding free contract. That was not a fair and just description of the Bill; and he must also say that his noble Friend the Lord President, who was sponsor to the Bill, hardly did justice to his own case when he dwelt on the interference which the Bill proposed to make with freedom of contract, because he failed to point out to the House that the very largest parts of the Bill—perhaps the most important parts of it—were those clauses which did not interfere with free contract, but which, on the contrary, wore intended to elicit and call forth contract where no contract existed. And that was the most important part in connection with the actual state of landed property in England. He recollected asking a noble Lord, the proprietor of a large estate of historical name, and whose Predecessor was one of the most eminent agriculturists that England had ever seen, what were the agreements he made with his tenants in regard to these circumstances, and he replied that he had no agreements with his tenants, but that it was mere custom, mere usage which directed the relations between himself and his tenants. That might be an advantageous system in some cases, but it was not, in his opinion, sound as a matter of business; and one of the most important reasons why he

  1813
  supported this Bill was, that in future all the relations between landlord and tenat would, as far as possible, be reduced to written agreements, definite in their nature, and giving to both parties a clear view of their respective rights. Since his noble Friend (the Earl of Wemyss) had rested his whole case against the Bill on an abstract argument about free contract, he hoped the House would allow him to say a few words in reference to his view on that matter. In doing so he would respect the time of the House, remembering above all things that it was not a debating society, but a Legislative Assembly—an Assembly of practical men looking at things from a practical point of view. He asked them from that point of view to look back to the course of legislation during the past 50 or 60 years. At the beginning of the present century the Statute Book was incumbered with a multitude of laws directed in various ways to restrict and protect industrial production, and the relations between man and man on money and money's worth. It was the teaching of the great political economists of that time that all those laws were mistakes, and that in respect to these matters, in the purely economical business relations between man and man, self-interest was the most powerful of all motives, and a sufficient motive to which Parliament should trust for economical progress and success. Accordingly, during the last 60 years one after another of these laws had been repealed—the Laws of Apprenticeship, the Laws of Usury, and the laws dealing with all those items of the Tariff that were directed to the protection of particular industrial pursuits. And, contemporary with all these laws, there had been a long series of Acts bringing the law, for the first time, into relation with human affairs, such as Acts for the protection of life, of health, and of morals. Now, his noble Friend on the Cross Benches had twice or three times been in collision with this House on the application of the abstract principle of Free Trade to the question of legislation, and the majority of the House, or, at any rate, an equality of votes, were against him in the view he took. He (the Duke of Argyll) would not deny for a moment that this Bill was a Bill interfering with individual liberty in the purely economic sense. It was
  1814
  not a Bill for the protection of life, of health, or of morals. This was a Bill to protect purely industrial pursuits, and to regulate contracts between man and man, His noble Friend who was in charge of the Bill, in the course of his speech, said that the onus probandi must fall on those who recommended any interference with individual freedom in this particular direction. It was a tremendous onus. In the province of purely economic production, in the bargaining for money or money's worth between man and man, there was a tremendous reason against any interference with the law. Now, he would be the last man to say that in all points of value the relation between landlord and tenant was a purely commercial relation. They knew very well, especially in England, that was not so; it was a relation of long and ancient connection, of personal respect and traditional feeling; but as regarded legislation it had always been held to be a matter of business, and, in his opinion, it was most important that it should continue to be so. Then, he would ask this question—Was there any circumstance peculiar to the relation of landlord and tenant which justified and demanded, or called for and rendered expedient, a certain amount of interference with pure matters of business? He had always thought there was one circumstance, and that was this—the state of the Common Law in England in regard to the property and fixtures of the soil. So far as he knew, the relation between a landlord and tenant, between the owner and hirer of land, was the only business relation in which this happened—that the capital of one man at once became the property of another. That was the Common Law of property, and it rested on very good ground. But it did constitute an exceptional circumstance which justified some interference on the part of the Legislature. Now, what was the amount of interference which was justifiable? He would answer that question frankly. His opinion was this—and it was the same opinion as that expressed, he thought, in course of last year by his noble Friend (Lord Hartington) in a speech in Lancashire, when he said that, in his opinion, the presumption of the law in regard to property or capital invested in the soil ought to be reversed, that then the two parties, landlord and tenant,

  1815
  would be placed on an equal footing, and that beyond that there ought to be no interference with the principles of freedom of contract. He agreed in the opinion thus expressed by Lord Hartington, and he regretted that, under the influence of political position, the noble Lord should have been led to depart from that ground. But, that being his opinion, was he bound to follow it under all circumstances, and under all conditions? Was he not to look at what he called the political situation on this question? He was bound to do so. Every public man was bound to do so. It was all very well to express one's personal opinion; but if he found he could not carry it into effect, he was bound to look at the political side of the question, and see what was the next best thing that could be done. That was the spirit in which he looked at this Bill. What happened in regard to the Agricultural Holdings Bill? His noble Friend opposite would recollect that during the debates that took place upon that Bill he resisted then all the arguments that were advanced in favour of making the Act compulsory. It was now stated that that Act had been inefficient and ineffective. He held, however, that it had, on the contrary, had a very considerable effect, although that effect had not been direct. It had compelled a great many proprietors to make, for the first time, written contracts with their tenants. A great many statements that were made about the so-called failure of the Act were the grossest of fallacies. It was said—"Look how many persons, including the officers in charge of the Crown estates, contracted themselves out of the Act!" But why did those people contract themselves out of it? Simply because they had previously made better agreements with their tenants. It was not that they were unwilling to secure what the Act aimed at, but that they knew that they could obtain those advantages by better and more efficient means. It was not true that landlords contracted themselves out of the Act in order to cheat and overbear their tenants. In the evidence taken before the Royal Commission, there was conclusive evidence that in almost all the counties of England the tenants were unwilling to enter upon the Act of 1875. They disliked the machinery, but above all they disliked the novelty of the pro-
  1816
  ceeding, and they wished to go on in the old way. It seemed a strange thing that when an Act had failed, because nobody had wished to come under it, the cry should be raised to make it compulsory. There never was such an absurd argument used. New circumstances had arisen since then. There had been great agricultural distress; the tenants had felt themselves pinched in many quarters. Instead of looking to the seasons, which was the real cause of their misfortunes, or to the scale of their rents, the tenants had, as men in distress would always did—asked Parliament to do what was called "something" for them, and under the pressure of that feeling the leading, men of both Parties had committed themselves to some measure of this kind. Under these circumstances, he had only to ask himself this question, Was this a reasonable and moderate compromise in respect to this question of interference with private right? And he was bound to say, looking at the Report which the Government had of the Royal Commission, signed by the noble Duke opposite (the Duke of Richmond and Gordon) and by the noble Duke behind him (the Duke of Buccleuch), who represented so largo a mass of property in England and Scotland—looking at that Report, he was bound to say that he thought the Government had tried to embody in this Act as reasonable and fair conditions as perhaps it was possible for them to do. Under these circumstances, he accepted the general bearing of the Bill, and its general principle, as at least doing as much good and doing as little harm as any Bill of the kind ever did. With these feelings, he declined to vote with his noble Friend (the Earl of Wemyss), and he should vote for the second reading of the Bill. He should have some Amendments to propose in Committee, and he might as well say what the principal of them were. The Bill applied to existing contracts. That was a very strong measure. Even the Hares and Rabbits Bill, which referred to a matter of urgent and pressing importance—because there was no doubt the farmer could not grow crops if they were eaten up by rabbits—even that Bill was not allowed to apply to existing leases. Indirectly that Bill would have a great effect upon existing leases, because most of them would be unwilling to have one

  1817
  set of tenants with certain privileges on one side of the hedge, and another set of tenants on the other side without them. Most of them, therefore, by voluntary agreement, had decided to apply the principle of that Act to existing contracts. But the present Bill, unlike the Hares and Rabbits Bill, applied to existing leases. He would submit to the application of the Bill to existing leases except in certain cases. He was willing to apply it to all the existing leases which were silent on the subject. That was a very strong thing to do, because, after all, even although leases were silent upon this particular subject, both parties did know what their rights and privileges were before they came to Parliament. All he should ask the House to decide was this—that the Bill should not override specific contracts in existing leases which referred to this particular matter. The Bill said it should not apply to leases where there was any equivalent for compensation provided in the lease. But what it did not say was this, that it should not apply to leases where there was any specific written agreement or contract excluding such improvements as were mentioned in the Bill. Then, in the case of drainage, the Bill gave a power to the tenant to make unlimited demands on the landlord. The tenant under the Bill might claim for every field on his farm. He thought that was a very strong way of legislating between two business men; but he should not object to the provision where the existing lease provided that a certain sum should be laid out on drainage and no more, and the landlord should not be called on to carry out more than that bargain stipulated. There was one other Amendment which was important in principle, and which he hoped his noble Friend would admit, and that was in regard to the execution of drainage. He knew, from experience, that drainage executed by a tenant was generally rather scamped work. He drained for his own period of occupation and for nothing else. That period of occupation might be very short. He might put in stones, or bushes, or anything else, which was of no value, and at the end of the lease he might claim the full value of such improvements, while it was impossible to estimate the true value of the work without taking up the drains to see how they were constructed. One thing the Bill proposed
  1818
  to provide was, that the tenant should furnish a specification of the work; but, strange to say, by the terms of the Bill, the tenant having given that specification, need not abide by it. He could not believe that his noble Friend would resist the proposal that where the drainage was done by the tenant, it should be in the power of the landlord to employ Commissioners to inspect the work as it was carried out. These were the principal points on which he would ask the House to amend the Bill. He would not say they were the only points, but they were the chief ones, and he was sure they would receive such fair and candid consideration from his noble Friend in charge of the measure as he had attempted to give to the measure itself.
  THE DUKE OF RICHMOND AND GORDONsaid, that, as the author of the first enactment which dealt with tenant's improvements, and as having had the honour to preside for three years over a Royal Commission, which conducted a most exhaustive inquiry into all matters connected with agriculture, besides having been for many years engaged in agricultural pursuits, and having been in constant intercourse with all classes of the agricultural community, he thought that the House had a right to expect an opinion from him on the Bill before their Lordships. He could not help saying that he thought the conduct of the Government with regard to the time at which this measure had been brought before their Lordships' House was a matter open to considerable censure. A measure so largely affecting the landed property of this country, and so preeminently capable of being discussed by their Lordships, should have been brought up to that House at a period when it could have received a full, fair, and complete consideration. That it would receive a fair consideration he had not the smallest doubt; but he thought, judging from the appearance of the House, they could hardly expect to give it that full and complete consideration which they were justified in thinking they should have an opportunity of giving it; and he could not help thinking that the conduct of the Government in preferring the discussion of the Corrupt Practices Bill, which was a measure wholly and solely affecting the other House of Parliament—putting that before the measure then under con-

  1819
  sideration—was a proceeding which, as he had said before, was open to very considerable censure. They had, however, the Bill at last; and he would shortly express his opinion upon it. He desired to take a practical view of the measure without going into those lofty arguments which his noble Friend on the Cross Benches (the Earl of Wemyss) had imported into the discussion. With regard to the Agricultural Holdings Act of 1875, to which attention had been called, he knew that it used to be the fashion to describe it as a failure and a dead letter, and that it was a measure which had had no practical effect; but he agreed with his noble Friend that the evidence before the Royal Commission proved that in many cases it had been productive of considerable good. He recollected in one of those numerous speeches made by the Prime Minister in Mid Lothian he had described the measure as the most abortive piece of legislation it had ever been his good fortune to consider; and he had also stated that two eminent agriculturists with whom he had discussed the measure told him that they looked at the Act but had not read it, as they considered it useless. It had always remained a mystery to him (the Duke of Richmond and Gordon) how those gentlemen could have formed a conclusion as to the merits of the Bill before they had read it. His own impression was that neither of those gentlemen nor the Prime Minister had taken the trouble to read the Bill at that time. His noble Friend who introduced the Bill had described the Act of 1875 as one most carefully framed; he (the Duke of Richmond and Gordon) hoped that previously to the next Cabinet his noble Friend would remind the Prime Minister that he was wrong on that occasion, and that it was, at all events, a useful measure. He found that out of 63 clauses in the Bill now before the House no less than 35 were taken out of the Agricultural Holdings Act of 1875. At the time when he had had the honour of introducing that measure it would have been perfectly impossible to have brought in a compulsory measure, and he was bound to say that he regretted that it had now been found necessary and expedient to depart from the principle of freedom of contract. But he thought, as practical men, they must face the inevitable, and that it was desirable when the great bulk of the country were agreed
  1820
  that something of the kind was necessary that they should accept the principle of the Bill, and that was that the tenant was entitled to be repaid the money he had laid out in the cultivation of the soil, and that if he was not entitled to that by some agreement or compact with his landlord, then it was necessary that Parliament should step in and provide some means by which he should be so compensated. That was in the interests of landlords, tenants, and the whole community alike, because it would improve the condition of agriculture in the country, and induce the tenant to keep his land in high condition up to the very last hour of his lease; and that was one of the great advantages of this measure—the inducement to the tenant to farm as if his lease were never coming to an end. That principle was recognized in the Bill, and in the Report of the Royal Commission—and he wished to call their Lordships' attention to the constitution of the Commission, because it was a Commission composed of men of all classes of society, and of all political opinions—tenant farmers from Scotland, from England, and from Ireland, noble Lords Members of that House, and hon. Gentlemen Members of the other House of Parliament. The Commission was so composed, and numbered about 20 Members, and they came to a Report unanimously agreed to by every Member; and in that Report they said—
  "We are of opinion that, notwithstanding the beneficial effects of the Agricultural Holdings Act, there are many parts of Great Britain in which no such sufficient compensation for his unexhausted improvements is secured to the tenant. In many cases landlords have not offered and tenants have omitted to ask for the fair compensation which we believe it is the interest of both that the tenant should enjoy, and to which we think he is entitled. In some counties and districts this compensation is given by established customs; in some customs are insufficient or do not exist. Upon the most careful examination of the evidence before us, we have arrived at the conclusion that further legislative provision should be made for securing to tenants the compensation to which they are equitably entitled in respect of their outlay, and we recommend that the principles of the Agricultural Holdings Act relating to compensation should be made compulsory in all cases where compensation is not otherwise provided for."
  They came to that conclusion in consequence of the evidence brought before them. He found, therefore, that on the Commission they were unanimous in

  1821
  that recommendation; and he believed that, notwithstanding all that had been stated by his noble Friend on the Cross Benches, there was a practical unanimity in the country that something of the kind was necessary. He believed it was now the time to pass a just and moderate measure; and from his acquaintance with the farmers, he knew that they were the very last men in the world who would wish to have anything but a just and moderate measure. He did not think that they went at all with their self-elected leaders, who sought, under the guise of tenant right, to transfer the property of the landlord to the tenant, or had the slightest intention or desire to share in that responsibility of joint ownership, which was so often contended for by those who agitated on the subject. He believed that the tenantry of this country would be satisfied with a just and moderate measure; and he shared those feelings with them, and with those who had dealt with this question, both in the other House of Parliament and in their Lerdships' House, and utterly repudiated the ignoble motives that had been attributed to them by his noble Friend who sat on the Cross Benches. He had listened to his remarks, and really, during the greater part of his speech, he could not help thinking that he was sleeping, and that he had gone back some years, and that they were discussing an Irish Land Bill. The whole of the speech was directed to the mischief of the legislation with regard to Ireland. Then, again, he entirely declined to take his view of the state of agriculture in this country, and of the remedies necessary to be brought forward, from the mouth of an American divine. The noble Lord declared that the country was "now in the throes of a social revolution." He should be very sorry if it were so; but he did not think himself justified in taking so exaggerated a view of the subject. He had made use of language which was very unworthy of him; and he thought they had good cause of complaint of the way in which the noble Lord spoke of them in his letters. The noble Lord had reproduced a good deal of his last letter in his speech; but he observed that he had left out the remarks of which he complained. The noble Lord declared that, disguise the truth as they might under specious phrases—bury it no matter how deep under Agricultural Com-
  1822
  missioners' Reports—Liberals and Conservatives alike had cast principle and sound economic doctrine aside.
  THE EARL OF WEMYSS: Hear, hear!
  THE DUKE OF RICHMOND AND CORDONsaid, that, for his own part, he protested against such a statement. The noble Earl had no right to impute to any Members of the House, or the body of the House, that they were guilty of dishonourable conduct.
  THE EARL OF WEMYSS: I rise to Order. There is not anything in the words quoted by the noble Duke implying dishonourable conduct. What I referred to are sound principles of government and sound economic principles, and I am ready to repeat that these have, by both Parties, been cast aside.
  THE DUKE OF RICHMOND AND GORDONsaid, he must also repeat what he had said, and leis opinion that the words "specious phrases" implied dishonourable conduct.
  THE EARL OF WEMYSS: No, no!
  THE DUKE OF RICHMOND AND GORDON: Then the noble Lord went on in the same strain, declaring, in phraseology more distinct than elegant, that the two sides of the House were playing a game of grab for the farmers' votes. He denied that. Those who supported and those who introduced the Bill were sustaining those doctrines and principles which they believed to be just, fair, and proper, in the interests of the very large and important agricultural class of this country. He therefore repudiated altogether the statement of the noble Earl that they were playing at the game of grab for the farmers' votes. The noble Lord proceeded to say that they had had 10 years of agricultural depression, and asked the Commissioners to say in what way the Act would have prevented that depression. That showed that he could not have read the Report. At page 24 it was stated that—
  "All without distinction have been involved in a general calamity. It is important that it should be clearly understood so that undue stress may not be laid upon suggestions for legislative changes, which, whether expedient or not, have no direct or immediate connection with the distress of the present."
  The noble Earl asked whether the Bill would have prevented the distress. The Commissioners answered "No;" and every one with common sense would agree with them. He finished by asking

  1823
  the House to give their vote against the measure by supporting the Resolution which stood in his name; but instead of moving the rejection of the Bill, the noble Earl brought forward an Amendment which, even if passed, would still leave the Bill alive. If the whole argument of the noble Earl was not a sham, he was bound to move that the Bill be read a second time on that day six months; but, in place of that proposal, he had moved a Resolution which served as a peg on which to hang a very long, very eloquent, but, in some cases, not very correct speech. Whether the Bill went beyond what justice really required or not might be a fair subject for consideration in Committee; but he, for one, should extremely regret if, by any vote of their Lordships' House, the second reading were not carried. At the same time, he was quite certain that, if passed, the measure would have no effect whatever in a great number—perhaps the majority—of cases in the country. He believed, in the enormous majority of instances, things would go on just as before. They were, however, agreed as to the principles on which the Bill proceeded, and he looked at the measure as an honest attempt to settle a very difficult question, and one which, if not carefully dealt with, might entail very difficult and dangerous consequences at some future time. He was aware that it would be improper to deal with the question in detail at this stage; but he would suggest certain points in which he thought Amendments might with advantage be introduced. In Clause 7, line 15, he thought the words "Parts I. and II." should be left out. He could not understand why Parts I. and II. should be put in and Part III. left out. Part III. was the one of all to which the clause should apply. In Clause 2 some words should be introduced to limit the time before which compensation should not he claimed. A tenant might claim for liming done 40 years ago, and though probably no valuer would allow it, still the landlord should not be exposed to the annoyance of having the claim made. He proposed to fix the limit at eight years, just twice the time for which a landlord could claim compensation from his tenants for waste. With regard to the limitation of the Law of Distress, he wished to remind their Lordships that, although the Bill professed—
  1824
  and, he believed, honestly professed—a desire to confer benefit upon the tenant, benefit would not accrue to all classes of tenants. The persons whom it would benefit were the machine makers and the tradesmen; but the men who would suffer were the smaller tenants, because the landlord could not give them the same credit which he would otherwise give them if he had a longer period over which to distrain. The Bill would not promote the establishment of small holdings—one of the proposals in the Liberal programme. As regarded Clause 42, he should be glad of some explanation as to its meaning. It seemed to him to be perfectly unintelligible as it stood. With regard to items 22 and 23 of the First Schedule, he desired to say that he should move an Amendment in Committee, the object of which was to prevent a tenant laying out an enormous sum during the last year of his tenancy and then sending in a claim for compensation. In conclusion, he hoped sincerely that the Bill would only be amended in these points, and then pass into law. He trusted that by the passing of the Bill an end would be put to that very disastrous state of agitation which had been going on throughout the country, and that the relation of landlord and tenant would be, in the future, as in the past, of a lasting and enduring nature.
  LORD BRAMWELLsaid, he was surprised at the speech of the noble Duke (the Duke of Argyll), and did not see how the Resolution was at all incongruous with the noble Earl's (the Earl of Wemyss's) love of liberty of contract. Such a measure as this might well be introduced, in order that the law should be clear where the parties—the landlord and tenant—had not clearly expressed their intentions. There could be no doubt, however, that such a Bill was opposed to the principles of political economy; and he should like to ask their Lordships, therefore, to consider some of the consequences of passing it. Supposing an intending tenant agreed with the landlord as to the rent; they went over the farm and saw that such a field required draining, and the landlord agreed to drain it; then they saw that another field would not bear the expense of draining, and so it was agreed that it should not be drained. Accordingly, they put it in the lease that such a field should not be drained.

  1825
  The tenant entered upon the holding, and, with this Bill in his hand, he might say to the landlord—"Drain that field; if you do not, I will, and claim compensation." The tenant would thus break his undertaking; and if reproached for doing so, his reply would be—"I cannot do wrong. This is a law passed by an Assembly of English Gentlemen. The House of Peers has said I may do this if I like." He put it to their Lordships whether they were prepared to face such a consequence arising out of this Bill? Where was the necessity for the Bill? Were tenants oppressed in England, or placed in a position in which it was necessary that they should be protected by legislative enactment? Was there a land hunger here? That was not the case. It was the landlord now who sought the tenant. A gentleman in his neighbourhood some time ago said to him—"I have a tenant who has not paid rent for three years, and I am afraid he is going to give me notice to quit." Half the parish in which he lived was seeking a tenant. It was utterly impossible to say there was any such pressure upon the tenants as made it necessary to protect them by interfering with their freedom of contracting. They were told that they had excepted coal mines from the principle of freedom of contract. That was a different thing, because what was involved there was safety to life and limb. But they ought not, because one exception was made to a general rule, to say that it was right to make another exception. The argument of the noble Duke was that the case of the tenant farmer was different from that of anybody else, as he put his capital in the land. So he did; but he put it there upon terms and by agreement with his landlord, and it was his own folly if he made a bad agreement. A man who entered into a building lease might as well, at the end of the lease, claim compensation for improvement. All that need be done was to lay down a Schedule of Rules as to what should be the case when there was no express agreement to the contrary. One obnoxious result of the Bill would be that the landlord would be made a party to a law suit whenever it suited the tenant. The tenant might make a drain which might be no improvement. He would say it was, and there would be litigation immediately. Under the Bill
  1826
  the compensation was to be a fair and reasonable compensation; but on what principle was that to be adjusted, and who was to ascertain what was fair and reasonable? He said that was a Bill which was calculated to lead to litigation between landlord and tenant; and it seemed to him the hardest thing in the world that a man should not be at liberty to say to his tenant—"Tell me what you want; if I do not like it we do not agree; if I do, let us make some clear agreement." But the Bill said—"No; you shall not." What he should recommend, if that sort of legislation was right, was not that they should permit those agreements to be made and then treat them as a nullity, but that they should prohibit them. They heard in these discussions of indefeasible rights. There was one indefeasible right that existed now which their Lordships could neither give nor take away, and that was the right to call a man who broke his agreement a knave; and he believed it would be freely exercised when occasion arose. The fallacy which he thought had given rise to that Bill was to be found in nearly the last clause—the Prohibitory Clause—which spoke of any contract, or agreement, or covenant made by a tenant, by virtue of which he was deprived of his right to claim compensation. That treated it as though there was a right in the nature of things to compensation. He denied that. When a man entered into a contract he had no other right except that which the contract gave him. If they were to invalidate contracts, let them not do it by saying the contracts might be entered into, but might be broken; but by saying that they should not be entered into, and that there should be a penalty if they were entered into.
  THE EARL OF SUFFOLK AND BERKSHIREsaid, he believed that there was among the tenants of the West of England a strong feeling in favour of the Bill; at any rate, they had got into their heads the idea that there was something in the Bill worth having. He, therefore, hoped the noble Earl (the Earl of Wemyss) on the Cross Benches would not press his Amendment to a Division; if he did so, he himself should certainly vote against it.
  THE EARL OF CARNARVONsaid, he thought it was impossible to deny that the purport, if not the phraseology of his

  1827
  noble Friend's Amendment was open to objection. The first question he had been asked was whether there was any need for this legislation; and he felt bound to say that, for his part, he did not think there was any necessity for it. On the contrary, he was of opinion that such legislation was mischievous. What was the benefit to be derived from it? It certainly did not tend to relieve agricultural depression; nor would it have the effect of bringing fresh capital on to the land, though it would have the effect of giving leases to tenants who could not have had them on other terms. What the farmers really desired were better seasons and more capital, and, above all, a remission of the heavy burden of local taxation. He did not believe that in the minds of English tenants there was the smallest sense of insecurity in their holdings. The difficulty of the landlords at the present moment was to obtain tenants. The best law of landlord and tenant was that wise and orderly system which had prevailed in almost all those estates with which their Lordships had acquaintance—the law of mutual confidence. One of his greatest fears as to the result of this measure was that it might have the effect of converting that which had been, sometimes for generations or through centuries, the kindly relations of trust, confidence, and friendship between landlord and tenant into the hard and technical terms of written stipulation. He believed himself that confidence was far preferable to written law, and he thought this Bill sailed far too close to those dangerous precipices that trenched on freedom of contract. He did not deny that there might, in some cases, be a difficulty in obtaining contracts, and that there might be cases in which improvements were not duly compensated for; and if Parliament could by any law place this subject on a sounder and safer basis, no reasonably good landlord could complain. What was it, in reality, that Parliament desired to do? He apprehended that what they all desired and what the Bill purported to do was this—to give reasonable security to the landlord and reasonable security to the tenant—reasonable security to the landlord, because it did not, as he understood, interfere with the ownership of the landowner. Land had from time immemorial been bought and sold, and no distinction had
  1828
  been drawn or ought to be drawn between the sale of land or houses and the sale of any other property. He admitted that between a landlord and tenant there existed a sort of partnership, and that their interests were to some extent mixed up together; but there never had been a question of divided ownership, and if this Bill had the effect of creating an ownership of that kind he should be no party to it. With regard to the security of the tenant, he believed that this Bill purported to secure to him the money he put into the land which he used in the ordinary course of management of an agricultural farm—money expended in unexhausted improvements. He did not think the term "unexhausted improvements" was used in the Bill; he wished it had been, since it would then more distinctly put on record what the Bill meant. But who had the power of defining what improvement was? There was no tribunal in the Bill, and no machinery for defining it. It seemed perilous to leave such a question to be decided without definition. He would not object to umpires, and he invited the Government to give this point consideration. There was a third question which had been raised by persons who complained of the inconvenience to which a tenant was subjected in his liability to removal from his holding. If his noble and learned Friend (Lord Bramwell) was right, that was not a case that was likely to happen at present. But if it did happen, there was no reason why a landlord should not have power to exercise his rights of ownership; and liability to removal was an inconvenience which every tenant was subject to. There were three kinds of improvements dealt with by this Bill—namely, the improvements mentioned in Parts I., II., and III. of the Schedule. With regard to the first class of improvements, they were improvements of a large and permanent nature. He would take the liberty of saying that improvements of this nature made by the tenant were very few in number indeed; they were almost invariably made by the landlord, and he believed they would continue to be so made. As the noble Earl who spoke last (the Earl of Suffolk and Berkshire) said, they drew their conclusions from their experience in the past. For himself, he might say that during the many years he

  1829
  had been connected with land he could not recall any case of a large and permanent improvement having been effected by a tenant; and he would go further, and say he could not recall a single case in which there had been any practically serious difficulty between himself and his tenants. He said this not in any spirit of egotism, but merely to show how effective was the law of confidence and trust between landlord and tenant. Coming to the 2nd Part of the Schedule, he observed that the notice given by a tenant of his intention to commence drainage works might be only a month's notice. That he thought a very short term, for on a great many estates both the landlord and his agent might be absent at the time when the notice was given. The landlord ought to have more to say than he would be allowed to say by the Bill on the question whether the drainage works should be carried out or not. It should be remembered that there was some land which it was desirable to keep in a marshy condition, and that a great deal of drainage was badly done at first, and had to be done two or three times over. The last few wet seasons had created such a panic in the minds of a great many people on the subject of drainage that they were ready now to drain land which they would not have thought of draining some years ago. With regard to the question of awarding compensation for artificial manures, he would only observe that they ought not to overlook the interests of the incoming tenant. If on the land of an incoming tenant a great burden of expenses and obligations were preserved, a serious impediment would be created to the letting and taking of farms. Then with regard to the alteration which the Bill would make in the Law of Distress. A multitude of persons imagined that the law pressed with extraordinary severity upon the tenant, when, as a matter of fact, he derived a certain security from it; because when a landlord knew that there were assets belonging to a tenant in arrear upon which he could lay his hand he was likely to give his debtor time to recover himself. They should be careful lest, by altering the Law of Distress, they should encourage inconvenient ready-money transactions between a tenant and his creditors. In conclusion, he had to say that he should vote for
  1830
  the second reading of the measure, and should move Amendments in Committee.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYsaid, he accepted with pleasure the noble Earl's declaration of his intention to support the second reading of the Bill. On the whole, the Bill had met with so much favour and support on both sides of the House that it was unnecessary that he should trouble their Lordships with many observations. He recognized to the full that they ought not unnecessarily to interfere with the principle of free private contract; but it might be right to interfere with it in particular cases. The principal justification for interference in the present case was, to a great extent, an historical justification. It had unfortunately, for a long period of time, been the rule of law that any improvements effected by the tenant immediately became the property of the landlord. Men were so accustomed to that rule that it was excessively difficult to move them in another direction. General custom and practice could not be changed without the intervention of a direct Act of Parliament; and the present Bill had been introduced for the purpose of establishing throughout England that which was the custom in many parts of the country. The Schedules to which the noble Earl opposite had referred were more matters for consideration in Committee than for consideration on the Motion for the second reading of the Bill. A good deal had been said as to the Schedule, and with regard to the 1st Part of the Schedule they thought it would have very little operation, as it referred to the improvements to which the consent of the landlord had to be given. With regard to the drainage, it had been said that some parts of the country were over-drained, and he had no doubt that some parts would be over-drained. But, upon the whole, he thought they might fairly trust that the different parties concerned would know whether or not the land was to be improved by drainage; and he was bound to say he really did not think they would find tenants originating large drainage operations, because, unfortunately, there were very few tenants who had money enough to cultivate their land properly, without their undertaking large drainage operations. With regard to the other point—namely, that a good deal

  1831
  of drainage was very often of a temporary nature, that was a very cheap and useful operation; but as it lasted only a short time it was obvious that such operations would only entitle the tenant to proportionate compensation. With regard to the manures put upon the land by the tenant, there was, no doubt, a considerable difference of opinion, and there were some who thought that some of those manures were of a very evanescent character, and that the amount of compensation in respect of them ought to be small; but they would, in all cases where the farm was let, he paid for by the incoming tenant, and he believed that the valuer of the incoming tenant would be quite as sharp in matters of payment as the valuer of the outgoing tenant, and there were not likely to be any very unjust results on that particular point. But all the matters in the Bill were so essentially matters of detail that he felt he should do wrong by wearying their Lordships by entering into them at that stage. He entirely agreed with the noble Duke opposite (the Duke of Richmond and Gordon) that they must look at the measure as practical men; they could not look at it theoretically, and say that the agriculture of the country had gone on successfully on the whole, and the result had, on the whole, been satisfactory; but they must take the thing as they found it, and must look and see what were the feelings and views of the agricultural community. They were called upon as legislators to consider whether there was anything in the demands of agriculturists which ought to be fairly met; and. when they found that there were reasonable men throughout the country who were asking upon this matter for greater security for the improvements made by the tenant, when they had a Commission so well described by the noble Duke opposite as a Commission composed of men of all classes, reporting strongly in favour of a measure of this kind, and when they proposed a Bill only carrying into effect a principle already agreed upon, he thought they might, with a fair conscience, undertake to legislate on this matter.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I do not think the noble Earl who has just spoken has been very successful in defending that part of the Bill which relates to drainage, or in
  1832
  showing why drainage should be set aside and separated from other improvements in the Schedule, and why a special power should be given to the tenant to insist upon it. It seems to me that that particular provision has had its origin in the Government taking up the foolish catchword about drainage, which has been going about the country for some time. There is nothing in the reason of things why there should be a greater compulsory power of enforcing drainage than any other improvement. In criticizing the position which my noble Friend on the Cross Benches (the Earl of Wemyss) has taken up, I venture to assure him that I do so with no want of respect for the function he has assumed in this House, for I believe the particular position he assumes is likely to be of considerable benefit to this House; because a great deal of the strength of the House depends on there being in it a number of independent men connected with neither Party, and unembarrassed by their views. But the argument of the noble Earl I understand to be mainly this—that we are pursuing now precisely the same course that we pursued in respect to the Irish Land Bill, and that it will issue in the same disaster. Now, I cannot admit that there is any analogy between the two cases, or that there are in this Bill the objectionable features of the Irish legislation. I go as far in denouncing the Irish legislation as the noble Earl. For its denunciation no language would be too strong; but I think my noble Friend a little injures his cause by mistaking the precise form of objection. It was not because it was an interference with freedom of contract that we disapproved of the Irish legislation. We respect freedom of contract very highly; but I sympathize with the remark of the noble Earl opposite when he said that it was not on a level with the Ten Commandments. One of the most elementary principles of English law is that the law will not sanction contracts which are contrary to morality or the interests of trade. The course of civilization has always been to diminish interference with the freedom of contract; but I do not consider it on a level with the principles which we invoked in our objections to the Irish Land Act. That Act perpetrated wrong and robbery; it took one man's property and gave it to

  1833
  another, and I think we mistake and confuse thorn in treating these offences as of the same kind as an interference with freedom of contract. There is nothing in this Bill at all analogous to compensation for disturbance. This Bill undoubtedly interferes with freedom of contract; but I do not think that if we pass it, it will lead to any worse legislation on the subject. On the contrary, I am disposed rather to take the opposite view. I do not think that the fact of breaking this principle is attended with all the practical evils which the noble Earl associates with it. No doubt, it would be a very fine thing if we could always legislate on principle; but if we refuse to pass this Bill, the farmers of England, never having had the advantage of experiencing what its provisions are like, will think it to have some extreme merit, and that we are the persons who have taken its benefits from them. On the other hand, if we pass the Bill, they will have such experience of the results of interference with freedom of contract that they will not be apt to come to this House to ask for further measures of the same kind. That is the mode of action we shall have to adopt in much of our legislation; if people ask for an undesirable thing, if it is very bad and very dangerous, refuse it; but if not, give it them, in order that they may learn by experience not to ask for the same thing again. That I believe to be a wise proceeding in the present instance. I do not think this Bill will hurt the landlords very much. If we reject it, it will be entirely on landlords' grounds; but if it is passed, with some modification, I do not think that any just rights of the landlords will be affected. I do not mean that any landlord in this House wishes to take from the tenant that which he has invested in his improvements; and, therefore, the general aim which the Bill has in view is a right and just one, in giving the tenant that which, at all events theoretically, he may sometimes be deprived of now. On the other hand, although I do not believe the Bill will deprive the landlord of anything he may legitimately claim—saving the details which we shall discuss in Committee—I have a strong impression that it will produce a certain amount of inconvenience, to put it in no higher phrase, to the tenant. In the first place, the noble Earl who has just spoken talked of many of us being involuntary occupiers
  1834
  of land. I doubt whether that involuntary character will attach in the future, for I think we shall find that one of the first results of the Bill will be that a very large portion of the land will be taken in occupation by the owners. Another point upon which I think tenants are more sensitive is the height at which their rents stand. My belief is that, unless certain modifications are introduced into the Bill, the distinct effect of it will be, in all those parts of the country where rents have been below their commercial value, they will be raised to that commercial level. It will happen in this way. You provide that the tenant, when he leaves, is to have the increased value of the farm resulting from his improvements. When the valuer goes to examine it, and finds that the farm is worth from 5s. to 8s. an acre more than the actual rent, he says—"This is improvement;" it is let for 20 s., and is worth 28 s. He is told also that the tenant has made improvements, and he will say this 8s. comes from those improvements. I do not see by what possible process that argument can be refuted; and the consequence will be that when you have passed this Bill, as a protection the landlords will raise their rents up to the commercial point, so that the difference between the old rent and the commercial rent may not, when a vacancy occurs in the farm, be turned by the valuer into a fine upon themselves. That, I think, is a very serious point for the tenants to consider, and one which, in my opinion, will make the Bill not so acceptable as the noble Earl thinks. Then there is the question of small tenancies. We are told that the great object is to get men upon small holdings; but what will be the consequence? In the first instance, you struck out the provision which prevented the Bill applying to tenancies below two acres, and you enact that in respect of every tenancy below two acres the landlord will be liable to the possibility of litigation which the Bill carries with it. He will say it is not worth his while to fight a man with two acres, who will be a man of straw; and he will let his holding to a larger tenant, from whom, in the event of litigation, he may be able to recover his costs; so that you will directly discourage the system of allotments, and make it impossible for the labourers to obtain small portions of land, to whom they have hitherto been so great a

  1835
  benefit. But that is not all. There is this Law of Distress. What security can the small tenant give? He has hitherto relied on the Law of Distress for security, but that will be his security no longer.
  LORD CARLINGFORD (Lord PRESIDENT of the COUNCIL): The Bill does not abolish the Law of Distress.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: No; but it limits it to one year. That is a direct result of the Bill. There has been no point that I think has been more in the forefront of the Liberal programme in recent years than increased facilities for selling land. I think there is a fair chance that this Bill will stop the sale of land almost altogether, because a man will be incurring an unknown liability. It will be utterly impossible for him to know how much compensation is due to those who are tenants on the land, and he cannot, as now, calculate upon the rent and capitalize it; for he will also have to take into consideration that unknown quantity, the amount of the tenant's improvements, or claim for improvements, of which he knows nothing, and which it is perfectly impossible for him to measure. I am not prepared to take the responsibility of rejecting this measure; I am not prepared to allow it to be said that your Lordships, who are mainly landlords, desire to keep back that which is said to be a been to the tenant. I leave the responsibility of passing the Bill to Her Majesty's Government; but in estimating it I retain the opinion I expressed at an early period of the Session, that if the harm it does on the whole is little, the good it will do will be absolutely none.
  LORD ELLENBOROUGHsaid, he must enter his protest against the interference with the freedom of contract which the Bill proposed.
  THE EARL OF WEMYSSsaid, he was willing to omit the first part of his Resolution to which the noble Duke (the Duke of Argyll) objected—namely—
  "That this House, while ready to promote a well-considered measure for the advancement of agriculture, and the improvement, as far as possible by legislation, of the relations of landlord and tenant."
  Amendment (by leave of the House) withdrawn.
  Amendment moved,
  To leave out all the words after ("That") for the purpose of inserting ("this House is not
  1836
  prepared to give its sanction to a Bill which, in agricultural tenancies, forbids free contract in the future and breaks it in the past, thus destroying the foundation upon which alone agriculture, trade, and commerce can securely rest." —(The Earl of Wemyss.)
  On Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Motion?"
  Their Lordships divided:—Contents 55; Not-Contents 9: Majority 46.

  CONTENTS.

  Selborne, E. (L. Chancellor.)

  Carrington, L.

  Clinton, L.

  Crofton, L.

  Buckingham and Chandos, D.

  De Mauley, L.

  Egerton, L.

  Richmond, D.

  Emly, L.

  Somerset, D.

  Fitzgerald, L.

  Westminster, D.

  Gerard, L.

  Haldon, L.

  Northampton, M.

  Hopetoun, L. (E. Hopetoun.)

  Camperdown, E.

  Howth, L. (E. Howth.)

  Carnarvon, E.

  Kenmare, L. (E. Kenmare.)

  Derby, E.

  Devon, E.

  Lyttelton, L.

  Granville, E.

  Meldrum, L. (M. Huntly.)

  Kimberley, E.

  Morley, E.

  Methuen, L.

  Mount Cashell, E.

  Monson, L. [Teller.]

  Northbrook, E.

  Norton, L.

  Shaftesbury, E.

  Ramsay, L. (E. Dalhousie.)

  Suffolk and Berkshire, E.

  Reay, L.

  Sydney, E.

  Ribblesdale, L.

  Sandhurst, L.

  Gordon, V. (E. Aberdeen.)

  Skene, L. (E. Fife.)

  Somerton, L. (E. Normanton.)

  Hawarden, V.

  Strathspey, L. (E. Seafield.)

  Ashburton, L.

  Auckland, L.

  Sundridge, L. (D. Argyll.)

  Bagot, L.

  Balfour of Burleigh, L.

  Templemore, L.

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

  Thurlow, L.

  Tollemache, L.

  Carlingford, L.

  Wrottesley, L.

  Resolved in the affirmative; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Friday next.
  House adjourned at half past Nine o'clock, to Thursday next, a quarter past Four o'clock.