Sitting of 24 May 1887

Preamble
The House met at Two of the clock.
MINUTES.
Provisional Order Bill—Ordered—First Reading—Local Government (Ireland) (Killiney and Ballybrack) ✶ [275].
PEIVATE BILLS.
Ordered, That Standing Orders 39 and 129 be suspended, and that the time for depositing Petitions against Private Bills, or against any Bill to confirm any Provisional Order, or Provisional Certificate, and for depositing duplicates of any Documents relating to any Bill to confirm any Provisional Order, or Provisional Certificate, be extended to Monday 6th June.—(The Chairman of Ways and Means.)
QUESTIONS.

  THE MAGISTRACY—NONCONFORMIST MAGISTRATES IN FLINTSHIRE.
  MR. S. SMITHasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he is aware that there are over 30 Nonconformists in Flintshire legally qualified to hold the Commission of the Peace; and why none of those are appointed, seeing that two-thirds of the population of the county are Nonconformists?
  THE SECRETARY of STATE (Mr. Matthews): I am not aware that the facts are as suggested by the hon. Gentleman. The
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  information I have is to the contrary effect, as I have already twice stated to the House.

  BURMAH—LICENSING AND REGULATION OF IMMORALITY.
  MR. ATKINSONasked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether it is true that arrangements are made, under the charge of high officials, in the British Service in Burmah, by which prostitution is licensed and regulated for British soldiers there?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY of STATE (Sir John Gorst): The fullest information respecting the matters referred to by the hon. Member was laid before the House of Commons on February 28 last, in a Return moved for by the hon. Member for Shoreditch. The Secretary of State cannot accept as correct the description of the arrangements given in the Question.

  HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE—APPEALS IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS.
  MR. BRADLAUGHasked Mr. Attorney General, How many cases, which have been heard on appeal to the House of Lords, are now awaiting judgment, and the several periods in each case which have respectively elapsed since the hearing; and whether he can state the cause of the delay?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir Richard Webster): In reply to the hon. Member, I have to state that 11 appeals which have been heard in the House of Lords are now awaiting judgment, one of which was heard in April and two in the autumn of last year, and the remaining eight during the sittings in the present year. I am not able to speak as to the cause of the delay in delivering judgment beyond the fact that, from personal knowledge, I can state that in many of the cases very difficult questions of law arise.

  BURMAH (UPPER)—THE RUBY MINES.
  MR. BRADLAUGHasked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether any Contract or Memorandum relating to the Burmah Ruby Mines has been signed by any person on behalf of the Government; and if so, the date of and parties to such Memorandum or Contract; whether the representatives of Mr. Streeter are the only persons connected with, the jewellery

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  trade who had been permitted by the Government to visit the Ruby Mines prior to such Memorandum or Contract; whether other persons applied for like permission and on what grounds; and, whether such permission was refused by the Government, and on what grounds?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Sir John Gorst): The terms under which the Ruby Mines are to be worked are still under the consideration of the Government; but a Memorandum has been signed on behalf of the Local Authorities in Burmah, indicating the terms which they would recommend the Government of India to offer, and this document has been communicated to Messrs. Streeter. It is not official, and does not bind the Government of India. Mr. Streeter went to the Ruby Mines with the Expeditionary Force in November last, and no expenditure was incurred for his protection. Other persons subsequently applied for leave to visit the mines, and were not permitted to do so, on the ground that it would involve either risking their lives, or throwing a considerable expense on the Revenues of India in providing for their protection.
  MR. BRADLAUGHasked, whether any document had been signed by Mr. Streeter; whether the hon. and learned Gentleman could state the names of the other persons who had applied for permission; and whether there was any record in writing on the subject?
  SIR JOHN GORSTsaid, he had no information of any document having been signed by Mr. Streeter. With respect to the names of other persons, there was only one—which he had forgotten—and he had not the paper at hand.
  MR. BRADLAUGHasked whether the name was Ongar?
  SIR JOHN GORSTsaid, he believed that was the name. There were no official documents.
  MR. BRADLAUGHasked, if the hon. and learned Gentleman would try to find out whether there were other names?
  SIR JOHN GORSTreplied, that he had no doubt that during the Recess the Government's knowledge of the Ruby Mines would be more complete, and he should be happy at a later period to answer any further Question.
  MR. BRADLAUGHsaid, he would put another Question after the Recess.

  EMIGRATION (IRELAND)—REFUSAL OF THE AUTHORITIES AT NEW YORK TO ALLOW EMIGRANTS TO LAND.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNOR(for Mr. T. M. Healy)asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Have the Government any information as to the refusal of the American Authorities to allow 14 families, emigrated from County Mayo by Robert Vesey Stoney, esquire, J.P., D.L., of Rossturk, to be landed in New York yesterday, on the ground that they were paupers; and, will any precautions be taken to prevent landlords emigrating pauper families without making any provision for them on their arrival in America?
  THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER SECRETARY (Colonel King-Harman)(who replied) said: As no Notice was given of the Question, I have been unable to make the necessary inquiries.
  Mr. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, the Question would be repeated on the 6th of June.

  IRELAND—THE EXECUTIVE AND MR. PATRICK EGAN.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNOR(for Mr. T. M. Healy)asked the Parliamentary Under Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether he has since received the letter addressed to him on 28th April by Mr. Patrick Egan; and, if so, what reply has been given?
  THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER SECRETARY (Colonel King-Haeman): Yes, Sir; such a letter, bearing date April 28, has been received by me. Mr. Egan has been informed that it is impossible to make any conditions whatever with regard to his returning to Ireland.

MOTIONS.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) PROVISIONAL ORDER (KILLINEY AND BALLYBRACK) BILL.
  On Motion of Colonel King-Harman, Bill to confirm a Provisional Order of the Local Government Board for Ireland constituting the Township of Killiney and Bally brack an Urban

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  Sanitary District, ordered to be brought in by Colonel King-Harman and Mr. Balfour.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 275.]

  ADJOURNMENT OF THE HOUSE.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House, at its rising, do adjourn till Monday the 6th day of June next."—(Mr. W. H. Smith.)

  AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS (SCOTLAND).—OBSERVATIONS.
  DR. CLARK, who had given Notice to move—
  "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying her Majesty to appoint a Royal Commission to inquire into the condition of shepherds, ploughmen, farm servants, cottars, and other agricultural labourers of Scotland, especially in reference to the system of service, hours of labour, housing, and the physical and moral results of the Bothy system;"
  said, at the outset he would like to call attention to the decisions given on Saturday by the Crofters Commission on the cases brought before it from the estates of Lord Macdonald and Colonel Eraser, in Skye. The Commissioners gave decisions in upwards of 200 cases, 113 of which were on the estate of Lord Macdonald, and in their case the rent was reduced from £856 to £525, or about 30 per cent. These 113 tenants were £1,831 in arrear, of which two-thirds were wiped off. On the estate of Colonel Eraser, comprising seven townships, 98 decisions were given, and the rent was reduced from £769 to £444. The arrears were about £2,000, of which over £1,300 was wiped off. On Lord Macdonald's estate the 113 tenants had their rents reduced on an average from £7 10 s. to £4 12.s. and on Colonel Fraser's estate the 98 tenants, who before paid on an average £7 8s. each, now paid only £4 10s. Even if they got the land for nothing they could not live on it. He would ask, was it possible for a man to live comfortably on a farm the rent of which was, on an average, only £4 11 s.? These decisions would do little to alleviate the condition of those poor people, or lessen the difficulties of the Crofter Question. They would certainly have £3, 10 s. more to spend on themselves; but that would do little. Indeed, it was in view of this that in the discussions on the Crofters Act he and his Friends pointed out that what these men needed was more land. That this House and the Government had refused to give them. There was a clause in the
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  Crofters Act permitting the Fishery Board to lend money to start the fishermen; and the Government had offered to advance money, on certain conditions, to help them to carry on their industry as fishermen. In January a Circular was issued by the Secretary for Scotland, laying down the conditions on which the men should get these loans. He would remind hon. Members that the fishermen had fallen into poverty because the herrings and other fish no longer came into the inland lochs, and the fishermen had to go out 50 or 60 miles to sea to catch them, and they required heavier and better boats for that purpose; the kelp trade was played out, and there was no labour for the people. Now, even though their rents had been reduced, and their arrears of rent reduced from £4,000 to £1,200 on Saturday last, these men were absolutely poor. They have no money and no credit, yet, before they could get the advance from the Government to help them to buy a boat and nets, they must be able to contribute from £80 to £100. Taking the average cost of a sea-going boat at £350 for boat and nets, would crofters, who were paying £4 10s. of rent, cottars, who were paying no rent—crofters and cottars who were in arrears and in debt to everybody who had given them credit—would they ever be able to start as fishermen if they had first to raise £80 or £100? It was said that four or five men were required to man each boat, and that they might each raise £30; but, with no furniture and no credit, they were unable to raise even that amount. The Government by their Circular were keeping the promise to the ear by the offer of money and breaking it to the hope by the conditions which were laid down. He thought the other conditions in the Circular gave the Government a sufficient security without any such condition as this advance of £80 or £100. In the first place, they had the mortgage on the boats and gear. Then, if the boat was insured, and if it was lost, the Government would get the insurance money. These poor crofters could not give them more; they could not meet the conditions imposed for a loan of money. There had been plenty of applications, but not a single penny had been lent, because none of the crofters were able to advance the money; and so long as that con-

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  dition was laid down, the men of Skye and the Western Highlands would be unable to obtain loans. Unless they intended to do something for these men, they had better tell them at once they could not lend them the money, and that they had better emigrate or do something else, because the condition of things was getting worse and worse every year; and he asked, if nothing could be done for them as farmers, could not something be done for thorn as fishermen? He was not in favour of giving public money to special classes, but this was a most exceptional case. The people were fast sinking into poverty in the congested districts; while sportsmen owned hundreds of square miles of land for amusement. The big farms did not pay now, and the Duke of Sutherland on his estate was giving over the big farms to increase the Duke of Westminster's sporting land. The Duke of Westminster, by confiscating the property of the London people at the end of their leases, was able to pay for more land, while the unfortunate crofters could not get land nor pay for it. As to the working of the Commission, 200 decisions had been given in Sutherland and the North-East district, 213 in Skye, and probably 400 more would be given during the remainder of this month, so that they had about 800 cases decided up to the present time. But there were several thousand more applications, and others were coming in every day, and he estimated that there would be 7,000 or 8,000 cases that would have to be adjudicated on. Unless something was done, therefore, in this direction to assist the Commissioners and to meet the reasonable demands of the crofters, they would soon have a condition of things that would again call for the intervention of gunboats and marines. There were cases of hardship now pending, and unless the Government took some steps in the matter many more poor crofters, in his own county and elsewhere, would be cruelly cleared out of their holdings in the course of a very short time. He urged the Government to fully apply the clauses of the Crofters Act, which, he said, they were not doing, and advised them to grant a sum of money for the appointment of valuers and assessors in the different counties for the purpose of valuing the land and giving evidence on the point, a course which, at comparatively small expense,
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  would obviate the great waste of time that now took place under the present course of dealing with the difficulty. Last year only £200 was voted for this purpose, and it was proposed in the present year to expend the magnificent sum of £419! That sum was totally inadequate to the work. He did not at first like the Commission, for they had not got a single representative of the Crofters on it. They had a Sheriff as its legal head, and although the Sheriff had acted so far judicially and wisely, and considered the interests of both landlords and tenants, he did not value land. Of the other two Commissioners—one was a factor and the other was a big farmer. The factor and the big farmer would do their duty and act fairly between the parties; but they must remember that the crofters did not like the factors, and that between the big farmers and the crofters there was as much love as between the Protestant boys of Belfast and the Nationalist Catholics. In his humble judgment, the only and proper way in which these thousands of cases could be considered in time would be to appoint in the different counties valuers and assessors, as was provided for under the Act, and these gentlemen could value the land and come to the Court and give evidence, and so save the Commissioners occupying so much of their time in tramping over the bogs in going to examine the crofts concerned in the many cases before them. He hoped something would be done, and this was, in his opinion, the best way to expedite the work of the Commission. He also thought the measure which had been introduced in the other House would help them. Turning to another subject, he desired to say a word in regard to the ploughmen and agricultural labourers in the North of Scotland; he would press on the Government the desirability of looking at the conditions under which. they worked and lived. He learned that in Kincardineshire and other adjoining counties ploughmen's associations were being formed everywhere. Their grievance was that they were fed in the farmhouse and lodged worse than horses were stalled or dogs were kennelled. In fact, they were stalled with the horses in the lofts over the stables, and there were plenty of openings between the stable and the bothy, so that the man could see the horses, and the smell of

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  the stable was always very prevalent in the bothy. The physical and moral degradation of such a system was very great indeed. He predicted that, under the influence of the Education Act, men would not much longer consent to pig together as they were now expected to do. As an instance of the evil of the bothy system, he would state that in Caithness-shire, where the bothy system prevailed, the rate of illegitimacy was 14 per cent of births, while in the adjoining county of Sutherland it was only 10 per cent. He attributed the extra 4 per cent in Caithness-shire to the custom of pigging young men and boys together in these bothies. He appealed to the Government not to wait until the ricks were burning before they appointed a Commission to inquire into this matter.
  MR. ANDERSONsaid, he wished to call attention to another part of the Crofters Question, which, to his mind, was as important as that brought forward by his hon. Friend—namely, to those who had not the advantage and benefit of the Crofters Act. He would refer to the crofters in Morayshire and Nairn, where the Crofters Act did not apply, while it was in operation across the bounds of the county in Inverness-shire. In Inverness-shire the crofters who had gone before the Commission were entitled to the adjustment of their rents to a fair standard, and the reductions in those rents by the Commission amounted to 30, 40, and in some instances 50 per cent, while the crofters in the contiguous county were excluded from the operations and the benefits of the Act. This was naturally a very fruitful source of dissatisfaction to the crofters of the border.
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The hon. Member is out of Order. He is now anticipating the discussion of one, if not two Bills, which are before the House, one of which proposes, if I remember aright, to extend the benefits of the Crofters Act to Highland counties adjoining the actual declared crofting counties, and the other Bill is of a similar nature. The hon. Member is clearly anticipating the discussion on both Bills.
  Mr. ANDERSONsaid, he presumed he should be in Order in calling attention to a particular case with respect to which he got an answer from the hon.
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  and learned Solicitor General for Scotland (Mr. J. P. B. Robertson) on Monday. The case he wished to bring under the notice of the House was that of Alexander Taylor, a crofter of Lake of Moy, Morayshire, who had been induced to sign a document under which he would have to give up his holding, and be evicted from a house built 50 years before by his ancestors, and from a farm which had been enclosed and reclaimed by himself and his ancestors, whoso labour had given it its present value. That man's case was but an illustration of the condition in which those tenants stood in that part of Scotland. They were wholly and entirely at the mercy of the lairds in consequence of the present state of the law. He (Mr. Anderson) wished to ask the Government whether they intended to introduce a measure this Session to give powers to enable persons to obtain small patches of land compulsorily, which were so much wanted in the North of Scotland, and mentioned a case which had come under his notice, where a shopkeeper on being obliged to leave his premises could not get a piece of land on which to erect other premises, although the proprietor owned hundreds of thousands of acres?

PRISONS (ENGLAND AND WALES)— CONTRACTS FOR MAT MAKING.

  OBSERVATIONS.
  MR. QUILTERsaid, he was desirous of calling attention to certain advertisements which had appeared in the newspapers at the instance of the prison authorities offering to contract for the supply of large quantities of mats made by prison labour in the Bristol, Leeds, Cardiff, Chelmsford, and other prisons. Such contracts entered into on the part of the prison authorities were calculated to keep a great number of honest and industrious persons out of work, and were entirely opposed to the spirit of the assurances which had been frequently given by the Government that every effort should be made to reduce the amount of mat-making in prisons, which competed most unfairly with outside labour. It was one of the greatest anomalies of our system of government that a Public Department was allowed to compete in the open mar-

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  ket with manufacturers and industrious artizans for the supply of articles which were the result of labour in our prisons, which were supported and paid for by the taxpayers of the country. In these circumstances, he asked the hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Stuart-Wortley) to give him assurance that these proposed contracts should not be entered into by the Prison Department until he and other hon. Members had had an opportunity of bringing the subject under the notice of the House.

SCOTLAND—ACTION OF THE CROFTER COMMISSION.

  OBSERVATIONS.
  MR. WALLACEsaid, he wished to raise his humble voice to emphasize the peculiar facts connected with the results of the recent deliverances of the Crofter Commission. He did not think these points were sufficiently appreciated, even after the speech of the hon. Member for Caithness (Dr. Clark). The reductions that had been made in rents by that Commission were even more significant than those connected with the fixing of judicial rents in Ireland. The reduction percentages were much higher in Scotland than in Ireland, reaching, as they did, to 30, 40, and even 50 per cent, which showed how great the injury was that had been inflicted upon the crofters. He did not think the meaning of the reduction of 50 per cent was sufficiently realized. Suppose there had been a reduction of 50 per cent, what did that mean? It meant an injury to the tenant much higher than an injury of 50 per cent. It represented 100 per cent. A tenant, say, was charged £100 a-year rent; it was then discovered by the Commission that the rent ought to be reduced to £50. That was a reduction of 50 per cent, so far as the landlord was concerned; but what did it mean with respect to the injury that has been all along done to the tenant? It meant that he had been all along paying £50 of unjust charge, so that he had been charged 100 per cent more than he ought to have been charged; £50 on £50 was the same as £100 on £100. [Ministerial laughter.] It required elementary instruction of that kind to bring the matter properly
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  home to the minds of hon. Members opposite. He thought it ought to be impressed on the minds of hon. Members opposite that there were sufferings in connection with the tenancies in the Western Islands of Scotland that were even more deplorable, in many respects, than the sufferings of the tenants of Ireland. There were numbers of people in Scotland who had been proved by the statistics placed before them by the Crofter Commission to have been charged 100 per cent in excess of what they ought to have been paying, and in some cases even more than 120 per cent.
  MR. ESSLEMONTsaid, that being a Scotch debate, perhaps it had been rather dull. Scotch affairs did not evoke much enthusiasm. He would not seek to retract one word which had been said on behalf of the Highlands of Scotland; but he demurred somewhat to the complaint of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Elgin and Nairn (Mr. Anderson), who said that they had no Representative of the Scotch Department in the House. He regretted as much as the hon. and learned Member that they had not the Secretary for Scotland in that House. It was a circumstance over which they had no control; but they had in that House a very eminent Member of the Government (Mr. J. B. P. Robertson), who represented a Scotch county constituency, and whose abilities were known throughout Scotland. As this was the time for complaints, he (Mr. Esslemont) would, while he supported the complaints of his hon. Friends, make his own complaint, for the difficulties which existed in the Highlands existed equally in East Aberdeenshire. They had a fishing population there, and they had the cottagers, and the hon. and learned Solicitor General knew of the unsatisfactory condition of their houses, and of the tenure in many places on the East Coast of Scotland, and particularly in Aberdeenshire. There they had the depression of trade, and the consequent depression of fishing, and they had there all the difficulties which the fishermen had in the West of Scotland. The other day he suggested that the Fishery Board and the Scotch Department generally should make specific inquiries into the complaints which, from time to time, came before them. They should by-and-bye have to discuss the extension

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  of the Crofters Act to the other counties of Scotland, and the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Scotland was aware that in Aberdeen they had a larger number of crofters than in any other county. What he asked was, that before that discussion came on the complaints of the fishermen in regard to the boat question, and the complaints in regard to the Land Question, should receive from the Scotch Office that attention and inquiry which he knew they deserved. They had not yet had Her Majesty's gunboat on the East Coast; but that was not because they had not suffered. But they were a courageous and long-suffering people; and he hoped the Government, while they would not pay less attention to the Highlands, would pay more to them. He should be failing in his duty if he did not point out that the complaints were by no means confined to the Highlands of Scotland—that there was suffering on the East Coast. There was much domestic legislation sorely needed. He hoped, in the meantime, the complaints would be investigated which he had had the sorrow to lodge in the Scotch Office; and he commended that inquiry to the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Scotland.
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL foe SCOTLAND (Mr. J. P. B. Robertson): The observations of the hon. Member for East Aberdeenshire (Mr. Esslemont) have touched a number of social questions which affect the constituency which he so assiduously represents. I need make no general protestation on behalf of the Scotch Department that questions relating to fishermen as well as to agricultural labourers must always bulk largely with those who have the responsibility of administering the affairs of Scotland. We fortunately have Representatives in this House who are perfectly able to enforce on the Government and on Parliament the views of their constituents, and I do not think I should be far wrong in saying that, with regard to the social legislation, we should welcome any suggestions which are made to us from any quarter of the House. The hon. and learned Member for Elgin and Nairn (Mr. Anderson) has addressed the House on a variety of topics, upon which I shall not dwell for any time. He has introduced to the House two cases of
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  individual or personal grievance, regarding one of which he has informed the House that an explanation has been given him from this Bench, the accuracy of which he is not in a position to impeach. If that explanation be well founded, as we have every reason to believe it is, that subject ought to vanish, and I hope has vanished, from occupying the time of the House. The other case is one regarding which I have no information, but if the hon. and learned Member thinks he has a substantial grievance, he has the means of calling the attention of Her Majesty's Government to it in the ordinary manner. The hon. and learned Member for Elgin has added as a supplement to these somewhat personal observations about two of his constituents a general appeal to the Government to initiate legislation enabling persons to acquire land by compulsory powers. I need hardly say that this is too large a subject to enter upon at the present time, and this would be a most improper occasion for me to enter upon it. I pass to the more important remarks of the hon. Member for Caithness (Dr. Clark), because they relate to a specific and definite subject—the administration of the Crofters Act. There is one remark with which I think the House will generally sympathize. The Crofters Act was passed little more than a year ago, and we have not yet had a year's experience of its administration to show its merits or defects. I think I may appeal to hon. Gentlemen whether all Parties ought not to give the Crofters Act fair play and fair trial; and I am bound to say that I deeply regret that on this occasion the hon. Member's sense of duty should have compelled him to make remarks disparaging to the Commission itself.
  Dr. CLARKsaid, he was not aware that he did.
  Mr. J. P. B. ROBERTSON: The hon. Member said—"We do not like the Commission," and he proceeded to give his reasons for that dislike—[Dr. R. McDonald: Hear, hear!]—and I see his observation is sympathized in by another crofter Representative. He proceeded to give his reasons for that dislike. That Commission was only appointed last year, under an Act passed in the last Session of the previous Parliament, and I venture to think that any-

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  one interested in those parts of the country would forget something of what is due to the prospects of the population if he were to shake the confidence of his constituents in those who administer the Act. The action of the Government has been animated by motives of a totally opposite character. The present Government were not parties to the passing of the Act.
  Dr. CLARKsaid, he wished to correct a misapprehension of the hon. and learned Gentleman. He (Dr. Clark) had stated distinctly what he thought—that the learned gentleman the Sheriff at the head of the Commission had acted very impartially and judicially, and had considered the interests both of the landlords and the tenants. He eulogized the Sheriff's conduct as far as he possibly could, and he also stated that the other two Commissioners had acted in the same way. He entirely repudiated that he had disparaged these officials, but had pointed out the class to which the crofters had a prejudice. He would not personally do so.
  Mr. J. P. B. ROBERTSON: The hon. Member has not overstated what he said, but at the same time he did emphasize the point that he did not like the Commissioners.
  DR. CLARKsaid, he begged the hon. and learned Gentleman's pardon, he simply spoke of the prejudice—the class dislike—and that they loved each other as the Protestant boys love the Irish Nationalists. He only spoke of the antagonism between the big farming class and the crofting class.
  MR. J. P. B. ROBERTSON: I think that is not the best means of inspiring confidence in the persons whoso qualifications are so characterized. I think the hon. Gentleman will find that he added, "We do not like the Commissioners." The hon. Gentleman went further, because he criticized the result of the Crofter Commission down to the present day in a way which was hardly fair. He said, in the first place, that they had an enormous number of applications, and that not much progress had been made, and that in regard to the Fishery Clauses we must regard the terms required for advances as prohibitory. Now, the clauses relating to rents and the clauses relating to fisheries constitute practically the bulk of the Bill, and if I were a friend of the
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  successful administration of the Act, I should hardly point out that the Act was not working smoothly or successfully in its two main purposes. I have, however, a word to say in regard to each of these matters, and I do think that the dispassionate opinion of the House will discover no ground for despondency as to the work of the Crofters Act. In the first place, as regards the Land Clauses, the Commission has certainly not been able to get much more than abreast of the applications which are coming in, and for a very good reason. They have proceeded with some caution, because the powers entrusted to them were of the most novel description. They desired that they should have a sufficient number of cases to enable them to generalize and form rules and opinions as to the methods by which they should dispose of the various classes of cases which came before them, and accordingly, I think, they have acted rightly in hearing a great number of cases before deciding upon any. There is another point to be observed as to the rate of progress. The Crofter Commission began its operations in October last year. Much of the work of the Commission involves the peripatetic process of going about and examining the country, and making themselves acquainted with the circumstances of the district and even of the individual holdings. The winter days were short, and necessarily the part of the year which has elapsed since October is not the most favourable for making progress with a work of that kind. I may be allowed, on behalf of the Scotch Department, who necessarily are bro light into contact with the Commission, to say that there is now good reason for hoping that once the Commissioners break ground, and see their way through the various classes of cases, they will proceed with a firmness, precision, and rapidity which they could not have done if they had decided a number of cases as they came in, and pronounced what might be called hasty decisions. The other branch of the Act which the hon. Gentleman criticized, and the working of which he did not seem to consider very satisfactory, was that regarding the fishing loans. The importance of that question the Government are quite alive to. I should like to mention, for the information of the House, that the hon. Member is not quite accurate in saying

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  that the terms have proved to be prohibitory, because, in point of fact, there is evidence in the proceedings which took place before the Commission that the population were alive to the advantages of these clauses, and would take advantage of them. I am informed that down, not to date, but to a considerable time ago, 1,400 forms of application had been applied for from fishery towns, and 183 applications had been sent in. That does not show that in the judgment of those who are primarily concerned—whatever their political advisers may consider—these clauses are likely to be inoperative. I should add, regarding the Fishery Board, whose duty it is to superintend the working of this branch of the Act, that they necessarily proceeded with some caution. It was necessary that they should find out how many applicants there were to be, in order to see how far the limited amount of money at their disposal would go, and also to exercise great caution in finding out whether there was any ground for supposing that the security was not sufficient to cover the advance of public money, and also that the boats which are to be built would be such as would conduce to the further prosperity of the fisheries of Scotland by being efficient and good boats for a storm. There was one other point of detail to which the hon. Member referred—that in regard to the appointment of values. Under the Act it did not fall to the Government, but to the Commission, to appoint valuers, and, accordingly, it is entirely in the judgment of the Commission to say at what time they should require assistance of that kind, and when grants are required for that purpose. It is the duty of the Government not to cut in and interfere with the action of the Commissioners, but rather to expedite their operations. In this matter the Government are not at variance with the judgment of the Commissioners. I was very glad to hear the hon. Member mention, with incidental approval, a Bill which has been introduced and passed, I believe, through the House of Lords, and I was very happy to gather that those for whom the hon. Member for Caithness is spokesman approved of its provisions, and I hope we may rely on their active assistance in carrying the Bill through this House. The judgment of the Go-
  1044
  vernment entirely coincides with the view that that Bill is a proper complement of the legislation of last year. There is another point somewhat detached from the subject of the crofting population—the condition of ploughmen in Scotland. It would be impossible to enter into a subject of that magnitude at the present time, but I think the hon. Member who referred to this matter would leave the House under a somewhat gloomy and mistaken view of the condition of Scotland, if I were not to mention that the present system is to a very large extent being superseded and replaced in many parts of the country. The subject of dwellings for the working classes is one which of late years has excited very great attention; and more especially—to their credit should it be said—among the proprietors in Scotland, and the housing of ploughmen, as well as other classes of labourers, is, I believe, receiving very great amelioration from the exertions of those to whom I refer. I think I have touched upon all the questions mentioned by the hon. Members in this discussion.
  DR. B. McDONALDsaid, he had the misfortune not to be in the House during the whole discussion. The question as to the fishing boats was of great importance. He had no reason to complain of the tone of the remarks of the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Scotland (Mr. J. P. B. Robertson), and he assured the hon. and learned Gentleman that the terms on which loans were granted for building boats were not satisfactory. He had received scores of letters from fishermen in the North complaining of the terms offered by the Government with regard to the purchase of fishing boats, and stating they were perfectly useless, as it was impossible for the fishermen on the West Coast to collect the money to pay for them. £350 had been mentioned as the sum required for a fishing boat; but, from information which he had received, he thought that the sum was too low an estimate, and would not be sufficient to buy a boat and gear. He thought that the Fishery Board had no right to ask such onerous terms, as they insisted on the boats being insured to their full value—thus giving them full and ample security if anything should happen to the boats—and they were thus secure of their money. With re-

  1045
  gard to depreciation, it must be remembered that one-eighth of the money was paid year by year. On the whole, therefore, he thought that the Fishery Board were driving too hard a bargain with these people. As the hon. and learned Solicitor General had stated that the Government would welcome any suggestion, he (Dr. McDonald) would recommend that they should offer the boats to the fishermen for a very small sum paid down, and so enable them to prosper. He freely told the hon. and learned Solicitor General that he did not like the Commission. The crofter Members were not allowed to have any say in the matter, for the Government did not give them on the Commission one man in whom the crofters had confidence. That the Commission had, however, done better than he expected, he freely admitted; but it was doing its work very slowly, and it was time that the Government brought pressure to bear on the Commission to appoint valuers so that their work might be facilitated. A great deal of the work was done by gentlemen who got £800 a-year, which could well be done by paid valuers, who could be got for £200 a-year.

THE MAGISTRACY (ENGLAND AND WALES)—APPOINTMENT OF MAGISTRATES IN FLINTSHIRE.

  OBSERVATIONS.
  MR. SAMUEL SMITHsaid, that he desired to call attention to a subject of much interest to his constituents—namely, the constitution of the magistracy in Flintshire. The question had been brought before the notice of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Matthews) by means of Questions by hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway. He had not himself taken part in these Questions until that day, being in hopes that the grievance would be removed. But his hopes were now very faint, and he thought it was his duty to impress upon the House the great injustice under which the Nonconformists of Flintshire laboured. It ought to be known that in this county two-thirds of the population were Protestant Nonconformists. The magistracy of Flintshire numbered between 80 and 100 gentlemen. He believed there was not a single Nonconformist on the Bench in
  1046
  Flintshire. This caused, as it seemed to him, very grievous injustice. The appointments in Flintshire had been made, he might say, almost entirely in the interests of the Conservative Party. Most of the magistrates in Flintshire belonged to that Party. There were a few Liberals, mostly Churchmen, and one or two Catholics; but so far as he knew, there was not a single magistrate sitting on the Bench in Flintshire who belonged to the religious denomination of the great mass of the constituency. This state of things was one which, at this age of the world, was perfectly intolerable. They had hoped that by means of friendly private negotiations they might get over this difficulty; but they had come to the conclusion that there was nothing for them to do but to lay the matter before the public and the House of Commons, until at last the mere sense of shame, if nothing else, would lead to justice being done. He had asked the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary whether there were about 30 gentlemen in Flintshire who possessed the requisite qualification, and the right hon. Gentleman had informed him that this was not the case. Now, he (Mr. Samuel Smith) had taken much pains to ascertain how many Protestant Nonconformists of Flintshire possessed the legal qualifications, and he was quite within the mark when he said there were 30 such men that could be easily found. He might be told that some of these gentlemen did not possess the social qualifications. He admitted that some of them did not hold the highest position in society; but there were, no doubt, a fair number who possessed both the educational and social as well as the legal qualifications. If the appointments were made by the Lord Lieutenant, looking at this matter with fair and unprejudiced eyes, there could not be any difficulty in discovering several highly estimable persons who might be put upon the Bench with great satisfaction to the mass of the population of Flintshire. Again, the bulk of the people were Welsh speaking, while the present magistrates, almost without exception, were English speaking, and were totally unacquainted with anything of the Welsh language. Interpreters—often men of a very incompetent kind—were employed, and he believed that in consequence there were cases decided in

  1047
  which the magistrates were improperly informed as to the facts, and injustice was done. There ought to be an adequate representation on the Bench of the Protestant Nonconformists, and especially of those who were able to speak the Welsh language. The existing state of things was producing want of sympathy between the people of Flintshire and the administration of the law. He wished to see the law strengthened, and it could be so only in so far as it was based on the confidence and affections of the people; but those who were responsible in this matter in that part of Wales were doing their best to bring about a breach between the people and the administration of the law. The system of excluding the great mass of the community from their proper share in the administration of justice was not truly conservative, or conducive to the real interests of the country. He hoped that the Government would, in some way or other, put pressure on the Lord Lieutenant, the Queen's Representative in Flintshire, in order to see that this glaring injustice was remedied. If it was not remedied, he believed there would be never-ceasing agitation, increasing disaffection, and want of confidence in the administration of the law. He did not wish to see in Wales a repetition of the scenes that had taken place in some parts of Ireland; but this system of excluding representatives of the great mass of the people from the administration of justice was certain to bring it about. His only object in bringing that question forward was to promote good feeling among all classes of the community, and to remove all just ground of complaint.
  MR. OSBORNE MORGANsaid, the people of Wales must be exceedingly grateful, and he (Mr. Osborne Morgan) begged to ex-press his thanks to his hon. Friend for bringing that matter forward, because such a state of things as now existed in Flintshire did not exist in any other county of England or Wales. Although the great majority of its inhabitants were Nonconformists, yet there was not a single Nonconformist magistrate on the Bench. Question after Question had been put to his hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State to the Home Department (Mr. Stuart-Wortley), and he was bound to say that the answers of
  1048
  the Under Secretary upon the question had been most unsatisfactory. His hon. Friend had pointed out that there were 30 Nonconformist gentlemen in Flintshire who possessed the necessary qualification for appointment to the magistracy. The hon. Member for the county of Flint (Mr. Samuel Smith), and also the hon. Member for the Borough of Flint (Mr. John Roberts), themselves possessed the necessary qualifications for the magistracy, and both of them, he believed, acted as magistrates in neighbouring counties, but yet the Lord Lieutenant of Flintshire had not thought fit to put either of them or any other Nonconformist on the Bench. Was that the result of accident? The Welsh people had hitherto been among the most loyal and law-abiding subjects of the Queen; but he doubted whether there was not a strong spirit of discontent and disaffection springing up in many parts of Wales, and he was bound to say that Lords Lieutenant who acted in the way which the Lord Lieutenant for Flintshire did were greatly responsible for that state of things.

LAW AND JUSTICE (IRELAND)—THE BARBAVILLA PRISONERS.

  OBSERVATIONS.
  MR. TUITEsaid, he wished to call the attention of the House to the condition of the prisoners who were convicted in this case, and to ask the Government to grant an impartial inquiry in their case, as had been given in the case of the prisoners Hebron and Brian Kilmartin. Mr. Justice Day had been sent to investigate the Belfast riots, and he urged that some impartial Judge should be sent to investigate the circumstances of this case. If he were not clearly convinced that the men now suffering penal servitude were completely innocent he would not trouble the House for one moment on the subject. All the Government were asked to do was to give an impartial inquiry into the case of these prisoners, such as was given into the case of Hebron, Eyan, and Kilmartin, and if that were done evidence would be produced to show the innocence of the men, and to show the perjured character of the testimony on. which they had been convicted. Constable Fitzgerald was ready to sub-

  1049
  stantiate the statement which he had already made that the informers in the case had between them concocted the evidence on which a packed jury in Green Street had convicted the prisoners. He again appealed to the Government not to be so steadfast in refusing the impartial inquiry he asked for, and for which he would continue to ask so long as he was a Member of the House. He was sorry that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. A. J. Balfour) had not thought fit to make it convenient to be present in the House; for he (Mr. Tuite) wished to call attention to the National Teachers' Bill. The Government had promised from time to time to deal with the position of those teachers, and successive Chief Secretaries had been interviewed on the subject. The reply given in each case had been to the effect that the position of the teachers would be immediately considered by the Government. The result up to the present had been that the teachers had received many promises, but nothing in the shape of substantial improvement in their position. Comparing the inferior position of the Irish teachers with that of the English and Scotch teachers, he said that all they wanted was to have the Irish teachers placed on the same footing as their brethren in England and Scotland. He asked, seeing that no facilities had been offered by the Government for the discussion of the Bill, whether they would give a promise that before the Session closed the case of the Irish teachers would be considered.
  THE UNDER SECRETARY of STATE foe the HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. Stuart-Wortley)said, he wished to interpose in the debate in order to answer the question raised by the hon. Member for South Suffolk (Mr. Quilter) as to the tenders for contracts of prison labour. The subject had been brought to his notice so late before coming down to the House that he had practically no opportunity of learning more than that the tenders had been invited. In the circumstances, he must not be taken to admit that in the contracts to be made there was any departure contemplated from pledges given to the House, or that there was any intention to increase to any extent the amount of mat-making labour done in the prisons.
  1050
  There had been a great decrease in the last nine years in the amount of mat-making labour. In the convict prisons mat-making had disappeared altogether, and in the local prisons the daily average number of prisoners employed on it had diminished in this period from close upon 3,000 to 1,681. He hoped that this fact indicated what the policy of the Department was. He assured the hon. Member that he would take care that no action was taken in respect of those tenders until after the first two days after the House had met again, and until there had thus been an opportunity of raising the subject in the form of a Question in the House or on the Estimates. In reference to the question raised by the hon. Member for Flintshire (Mr. S. Smith) and the right hon. Member for East Denbighshire (Mr. Osborne Morgan) as to the insufficient representation of the Nonconformist party on the magisterial Bench——
  MR. OSBORNE MORGAN: No representation at all.
  MR. STUART-WORTLEY: Well, an inadequate representation.
  MR. SAMUEL SMITH: None at all.
  MR. STUART-WORTLEY: Well, in saying that there was no representation at all it seemed to be assumed that there was a right to some representation. The mere fact that a man belonged to a particular religious denomination did not constitute a right or qualification for the Bench. Moreover, the law did not give the appointments to the House nor to the political departments of the Executive Government. The information they had received from the Lord Lieutenant, upon whom the responsibility rested, was to the effect that he was unable to find gentlemen possessing the necessary qualification to sit on the Bench. When he said qualification he understood him to mean not merely qualification by estate, but to include also qualifications with regard to social position, and in the matter of legal learning. He thought it was a wise arrangement which kept the appointment of magistrates a thing apart from the duties of the Administration; but even if it were advisable to alter the law, there were measures on the subject before the House which made discussion on such a subject at present out of Order. He did not see what the Government could do in the matter. If it was possible to put pressure on the

  1051
  Lord Lieutenant in the direction indicated, an opportunity had presented itself during the five years hon. Gentlemen opposite were in the enjoyment of power. It was surprising that they had made so little use of their opportunities in the matter complained of. The matter did not come within the province of the Department which he represented. The main facts on which the hon. Member rested his case were really disputed by those who were equally well able to judge of the question with himself. He (Mr. Stuart-Wortley) must protest against the idea that anything improper had been done, and deny that the matter was within the province of the Department to which he belonged.

  THE VACCINATION ACT—ACTION OF THE COMPULSORY LAW OF VACCINATION.—OBSERVATIONS.
  MR. PICTONsaid, that he wished to bring before the President of the Local Government Board and the Government generally a subject which was one of increasing importance—that was the growing friction which attended the working of the Vaccination Acts. He wanted to urge some reasons why the Government should give attention to the question and look into it under the new aspect which it wore now. Within a very few years there had been thousands of prosecutions under that Act, a great number of conscientious men had been imprisoned, and the goods of many honest and industrious men had been distrained. It should not be forgotten that the people who suffered under what they called persecution were, in almost all cases, men and women of good character, of industry, and of thrift, and of intelligence enough to form an opinion for themselves, and of firmness to stick to it. He thought such people were deserving of a good deal of consideration. They had, at any rate, experience to go by. A large number of them had seen their own children surfer from vaccination. ["Oh, oh!"] At all events, they had seen them suffer in a manner which they traced to the effects of the operation. They were fortified in this view by the opinions of a good many medical men, who not only did not deny, but urged that vaccination was frequently attended with considerable danger. The Government should not look on quietly and see prosecutions increasing by leaps
  1052
  and bounds, and also see the amount of suffering entailed, without trying to find out whether anything could be done to lessen the strain of the law. He had asked a Question the previous day with respect to a case of special hardship which had happened on the borders of his own constituency. He referred to the case of a Mr. King, who, in consequence of what had happened in his own family, had declined to have one of his own children vaccinated. A fine was inflicted. The child died on the 9th May last year; but it was not until the May of this year that the fine was enforced by distraint. The mode of carrying out the law had inspired such a bitter feeling in Leicester, that a sale of King's goods could not be carried out, and it was not surprising that some disorder arose. Besides that, it was said that the provisions of the law were not fully complied with, especially with regard to the time of selling the goods.
  MR. SPEAKERsaid, that he was sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman, but he must remind him that he was now speaking on a subject—the compulsory vaccination laws—in regard to which he had given Notice of a Motion on a future day.
  MR. PICTONsaid, that he begged pardon if he had transgressed the Rules of the House. He did not then desire to discuss the operation or the merits of the laws of compulsory vaccination. He was only asking that the Government should direct their attention to the increasing friction caused by the enforcement of the law of compulsory vaccination. The difficulty of enforcing the law was now rapidly increasing, and he trusted that the Government would not allow it to escape their attention, but would, if possible, take measures to terminate the existing state of things.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Ritchie)said, that after the Speaker's ruling the House would not expect him to enter at any length into the subject which the hon. Member had brought under the notice of the House. The object of the hon. Member had his sympathy, and he regretted that such action as the hon. Member referred to had to be taken for the purpose of seeing that the law was carried out. There were, no doubt, a considerable number of persons who had

  1053
  conscientious objections to their children being vaccinated, but many of the prosecutions arose, not on account of persons conscientiously refusing to comply with the law, but because certain associations urged people not to comply with the law. The Local Government Board had a duty to perform, and were bound to see that the Vaccination Acts were carried out, but at the same time they were desirous that this should be done without undue harshness. He could not say that there was any intention on the part of the Government to institute any general inquiry into the matter. He gave his personal attention to every case brought before him, and he always took care to see that the law was not unduly strained. More than that he could not say.
  MR. SWETENHAM&c.)had wished to say something at an earlier moment on the subject of justice in Flintshire, as he did not wish what had been already said by a right hon. and hon. Gentleman on the other side to pass unchallenged. No one had had a greater opportunity for the last 35 years than he had to see the way in which justice in that county was administered. He had the honour of knowing very well the Lord Lieutenant of Flintshire; and of seeing the extremely conscientious manner in which he made his appointments, and he ventured to think that there could be no greater justification of the conduct of the Lord Lieutenant than the remarks which fell from the hon. Gentleman the Member for Flintshire. The nature of the hon. Gentleman's complaint was that Nonconformists ought to be appointed, and in fact, that inquiries ought to be made into their political views. Now, that was the very thing which the Lord Lieutenant of Flintshire refused to do. The Lord Lieutenant said that a Lord Lieutenant, in order to win the admiration and the confidence of the country, ought not to look any way either to religion or politics, and he refused to do so. What he did look to, and rightly in his (Mr. Swetenham's) opinion, was that the gentleman he wished to appoint to the County Bench was both socially, educationally, and financially a desirable person. Therefore, he ventured to think that if the hon. Member for Flintshire had had as much experience as he had had, and the same opportunities of seeing the way justice was administered in Flintshire, he
  1054
  would have spared the House the remark which fell from him to-day—a remark which was calculated to bring justice into disrepute in the county. He thought it quite right to make these observations, and he should not have troubled the House with them if he had not thought it was absolutely necessary that someone knowing the facts of the case should rise in his place and say that which he knew, and be able to refute the arguments used. There was only one other observation he had to make. It had been said that there were no less than 30 gentlemen fully qualified for taking their seat on the Flintshire Bench. No one knew the facts better than he, and he ventured to say there were not anything like that number who were fit and qualified to take that important position. It was said that the hon. Member himself was not a magistrate. He (Mr. Swetenham) did not think the hon. Gentleman resided in Flintshire, but he was quite certain if he did reside there, and if he expressed the smallest wish to become a magistrate, and that wish was conveyed to the Lord Lieutenant, that officer would instantly recommend him for the position.
  COLONEL NOLANsaid, that the speech of the Member for Caithness (Dr. Clark) had raised several questions which were of interest in the West of Ireland. The hon. Member had referred to the want of the crofters for more land. This was also the case of tenants in the West of Ireland. Whatever the rent might be, the smaller tenants in the West of Ireland could not support themselves and families in decent comfort on their small holdings. Fortunately, with the exception of the coast, all over the West of Ireland there was an ample supply of grass land in each district which could be taken at a valuation and given to increase the holding of the small farmers. As a general rule proprietors would be extremely glad to sell the grass lands at a fair value, and the result would do more good than could be accomplished by any amount of legislation. There would be some objection on the part of the larger grass farmers, but that was a comparatively small difficulty. He should like to see an Amendment of the Purchase Clauses of the Land Act so as to enable the tenants to buy the land adjoining their holdings. This could easily be done if the

  1055
  Government were willing to advance the money at a reasonably low rate of interest. He would impress upon the Government the necessity of giving their most careful attention to this matter.
  MR. JOHN O'CONNORsaid, he wished once more to call the attention of the House to the grievances of the National School teachers of Ireland, a class that had been living on promises for many years. He wanted to know what the Chief Secretary had done towards satisfying the just demands of the teachers. So far as he (Mr. John O'Connor) could gather, he believed that although successive Chief Secretaries had admitted the grievances and promised to remedy them, nothing whatever had been done up to the present in fulfilment of those promises.

HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE (IRELAND)— THE COURT OF APPEAL—THE LORD CHANCELLOR OF IRELAND.

  OBSERVATIONS.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid, he quite sympathized with the claims of the National teachers, as put forward by his hon. Friends; but what he now rose for was to call the attention of the House to the difference in the constitution of the Court of Appeal in Ireland and in England. In England he understood the practice to be that a Lord Chancellor never sat in the Court of Appeal except to hear some interlocutory matter, or unless a Judge happened to be sick or absent from any cause whatever. So far as he could gather from the Judiciary Act, the constitution of the English and Irish Courts of Appeal were of a similar character. In England practically no political question came before the Court. At any rate, it was extremely rare for anything of a Party nature to come before the Court, and yet the English Lord Chancellor never sat in the Court of Appeal. If the English Lord Chancellor, who was always a political official and a Member of the Cabinet, was so scrupulous as to avoid the duties of the English Court of Appeal, what should be the feeling of the Irish Lord Chancellor in the matter, considering that they not only had political cases but agrarian cases—cases between landlord and tenant—coming before the Court of Appeal in Ireland Never within the present generation at
  1056
  least was an Irish Lord Chancellor, before the present one, an active politician and a Member of the Cabinet. Lord Ashbourne fought the case of the landlords during the debates on the Land Act of 1881 in that House with an ability that no one who witnessed the fight could mistake, and he saved millions of money to the landlords by his resistance to reform and changes in the Bill. He (Mr. T. M. Healy) did not object to Mr. Gibson's well-deserved promotion as Lord Ashbourne to the House of Lords and to a seat in the Cabinet; but, he asked, was it just or fair that Lord Ashbourne, after taking an active part in opposing the Land Act, should sit in the Court of Appeal and decide questions arising under that Act? Lord Ashbourne showed a proper sense of the incongruity of his position as a politician and a Judge in the registration appeals in 1885 when he declined to sit in the Court of Appeal, and why he did not act in a similar manner in regard to other cases in which Party feeling also rose was very strange. Take the case of Father Keller. Everybody knew that the arrest of Father Keller was dictated by political bias. The Official Assignee was forced by order to go on with the proceedings against him. A question arose upon habeas corpus as to whether the warrant of arrest was valid or not. That case agitated the entire population of Ireland, and if there ever was a case in which a political official of the Government should not have sat it was this case. It would have been much more fair and orderly if Lord Ashbourne had refrained from sitting in the Court of Appeal to hear the case. He was one of five members of the Court four of whom decided one way, while he decided the other. He did not say that his Lordship's law was not of the most perfect and classic character; but he thought he would better have preserved the respect and confidence of the people of Ireland for the Court of Appeal if he had not formed a member of that Court. The Lord Chancellor of Ireland had quite sufficient to attend to if he attended to minors and lunatics. He trusted, therefore, that he would in future follow the example of the English Lord Chancellor. He was very glad to hear the First Lord of the Treasury express his satisfaction at the release of the Rev. Bell Cox, an English clergyman. Now,

  1057
  he did not know what the Rev. Bell Cox was imprisoned for; but he was, at any rate, a convicted prisoner, convicted by a competent authority. Father Keller was not a convicted prisoner. He was not convicted for anything derogatory to religious practices, and he was merely committed by the Irish Bankruptcy Court for contempt, and now it turned out that the Irish Bankruptcy Court had no right to commit the rev. gentleman, and that the whole proceedings were illegal and bad from first to last. If so, all the previous matters depending upon that warrant, including the order given to charge the people at Youghal, resulting in the murder of O'Hanlon, were also illegally done by the Government. The Government, while they supplied tin bayonets to the soldiers who went to Egypt to fight the foes of England, always took care to supply the Irish police with the best cutlery. A Coroner's jury had returned a verdict of wilful murder against the policeman who had killed O'Hanlon and the officer who had given the order to charge. They heard a great deal about law and order, and respect for competent tribunals; but what had happened in this case? The officers of the Constabulary had refused to answer any question as to who had been guilty of this terrible crime, and the Government had backed them up. The Attorney General for Ireland was very strong upon the subject of contempt of Court, but this was in itself a case of contempt of the Coroner's Court. The Government refused even to prosecute Constable Ward and Mr. Somerville, who in the eyes of the law were murderers; they had been retired for a short time upon full pay, and then sent back to the Constabulary. It was not improbable that these men would get promotion, as Town Inspector Cameron and Town Inspector Carr had been promoted after they had rendered themselves obnoxious to the people. Was it likely that the people of Ireland could respect law and order when they saw that the Government itself paid no respect to law and order? The Government acted similarly in the case of District Inspector Milling, who had bludgeoned the people in Cork; and though a Bench of Magistrates returned that Inspector for trial the Government refused to prosecute. [Laughter.] Hon. Members opposite were accustomed to laugh when they heard that the heads
  1058
  of Irish Members were broken by the police.
  MR. ATKINSONrose to a point of Order, and asked whether the hon. and learned Member's remarks were relevant, because they appeared to him to be nonsense?
  MR. SPEAKER: There can be no point of Order with regard to irrelevancy upon a Motion for the adjournment of the debate.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I think I caught the word "nonsense." I do not know, Mr. Speaker, whether that word is in Order; if so, it will greatly enlarge the Parliamentary vocabulary.
  MR. SPEAKER: I understood the hon. Member (Mr. Atkinson) to rise to Order when the hon. and learned Member was speaking of hon. Members opposite in a manner that was certainly unusual in this House, and rather, I thought, deficient in the ordinary Parliamentary courtesies, and I thought he was going to refer to that part of the hon. and learned Member's remarks; but he did use the expression that the hon. and learned Member was speaking nonsense, which in itself was not a courteous expression; but I interpreted it to refer to irrelevancy, and said that it was not on a point of Order, as we are on a Question of adjournment.
  MR. ATKINSON: I will withdraw the word "nonsense," and will say that the remarks of the hon. and learned Member were "irrelevant."
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid, he was quite indifferent to what the hon. Member or any of his Party might think of his remarks. With regard to the cases of police who had been convicted of illegal conduct, if the Government did not choose to prosecute them, he did not, at all events, see why they should promote them.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL for IRELAND (Mr. Holmes)said, that as the hon. Member who had referred to the case of the Barbavilla prisoners had not introduced anything new into the discussion, he could only refer him to what he had said in reply to him on former occasions. The hon. and learned Member who last spoke began by referring to the constitution of the Court of Appeal in Ireland. He could only say that the Court of Appeal in Ireland was constituted according to the Judicature Act of

  1059
  1877; and for a very considerable period before that the Court of Chancery Appeal was constituted with the Lord Chancellor as one of its constituted members. The hon. and learned Member said that in Ireland the Lord Chancellor sat in the Court of Appeal, while in England he did not do so. It would be impossible, without a much larger staff, to manage the Court of Appeal unless the Lord Chancellor was a member of it; and it was on that basis that its constitution under the Act of 1877 was drawn out. It did not appear to be an extraordinary thing, when that Act was passed, that the Lord Chancellor should be placed at the head of the Court of Appeal. They had in the Court of Appeal in Ireland Lord Chancellors drawn from both sides of the House. They had two very distinguished and teen politicians from the Liberal side of the House—Lord O'Hagan and the late Mr. Hugh Law. In the same way, Lord Ashbourne had always acted as his Predecessors had done in presiding in that Court; and, as he gathered from the hon. and learned Member, he did not impute to Lord Ashbourne partiality in the mode in which he administered justice. At present the English Lord Chancellor did not sit in the Court of Appeal. For many years he had done so; but by reason of the appellate jurisdiction of the House of Lords his time was fully occupied, and t had been for many years not usual for him to do so, and why? Because he was presiding in the very highest Court of the Realm. If the case of Father Keller was brought to the House of Lords the Lord Chancellor would preside at the hearing. The hon. and learned Member then referred to the arrest of Father Keller, and asked why the Government should not make some inquiry into the circumstances connected with it, and make that inquiry with the view of seeing that some compensation should be given. What occurred in that case occurred very frequently in the various Courts, the only difference being that it was a rev. gentleman in that case, while in other cases the person committed would not be in Holy Orders. The Court of Bankruptcy made an order that had the effect of sending this rev. gentleman to prison. It came by appeal before the Queen's Bench, and that Court decided that the order was right;
  1060
  and it then came before the Court of Appeal, and that Court, by a majority of four Judges to one, decided that the order was wrong. The hon. and learned Member also refered to the case of an English clergyman, who was released by the Superior Courts. He (Mr. Holmes) was not aware that any demand for inquiry or compensation was made in that case, which was a precisely similar case to that of Father Keller.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: No; he was convicted in that case.
  MR. HOLMESwished further to point out that the Court of Appeal held that Father Keller should be released by reason of the warrant not being valid. They all admitted that the facts of the case as they transpired in the Bankruptcy Court were sufficient to justify the Judge in making the order to commit him to prison, but they held that the mode in which he made that order was bad. The point had been a technical one; although a proper order could have been made, as a matter of fact it had not been made. With reference to the proceedings at Youghal, in which a man, unfortunately, lost his life, it must be remembered that there was considerable excitement in Youghal; and at the time the police charged with their bayonets Father Keller was not arrested at all. It took place early in the morning after the lives of the police had been placed in danger. Although the stabbing of the man was an unfortunate circumstance, he denied that it was a criminal act. The matter was investigated before the Coroner's jury, and it was not a fact that Constabulary witnesses refused to answer any question, because it appeared from the depositions that all the questions asked were answered. He read the depositions most carefully, and beyond all doubt, any officer would be justified in ordering the charge. The man Ward would have been dismissed from the force if he had not carried it out, and the officer (Sub-Inspector Somerville) would have been guilty of a dereliction of duty if he had not ordered it. Having read the depositions he advised that no prosecution should be brought, as he had advised in the case of eight policemen who had, also, been found guilty of wilful murder by a Coroner's jury in Belfast. He was informed that according to the practice

  1061
  in England there was no precedent for a man being put on his trial on a Coroner's inquisition. He believed he would not be justified in the performance of his duty by directing a trial against those men in Youghal or against those men in Belfast. [Mr. T. M. HEALY: What happened?] The matter did not belong to his Department, but he heard the Chief Secretary for Ireland stating, in answer to a Question, that Sub-Inspector Somerville and Constable Ward were still in the force, and he did not see why they should not be. Then, in regard to the case of Sub-Inspector Milling, he was bound to clear the streets of Cork owing to the collection of a crowd in the streets at that late hour. And he did clear the streets, as the police would do under ordinary circumstances. Although the hon. Member for Mid Cork (Dr. Tanner) was knocked down, that was done in the ordinary course of clearing the streets, and on reading the depositions in that case he did what he had done again and again in other cases—directed that the Crown should not prosecute. These were the facts the hon. and learned Member had referred to. He had no knowledge that he was going to bring them forward, except what he said with respect to the Court of Appeal last night; but he had the facts in his recollection, and was, therefore, able to answer the questions which he had raised.

PARLIAMENT—BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE—UNSATISFACTORY STATE OF PUBLIC BUSINESS.

  OBSERVATIONS.
  MR. E. ROBERTSONsaid, he rose to make some observations on a subject which he wished could have been taken up by some Member of greater experience in the House than himself. He referred to the extraordinary situation in which the House found itself placed with regard to the general business of the country. The House had now been sitting four months, and during that time what had taken place? They had passed two clauses of the Coercion Bill for Ireland and the Bill to enable the Duke of Connaught to come home for the purpose of attending Her Majesty's Jubilee Celebrations. He did not know whether the First Lord of the Treasury considered this record of
  1062
  achievements as sufficient to justify the reward he had conferred upon the House in giving a somewhat extended Whitsuntide holiday; but he felt certain that the country at large were looking on with disapproval and with disappointment at the very small results that had attended the first four months of the present Session. He did not blame for a moment the line of conduct pursued by hon. Gentlemen from Ireland below the Gangway; he did not say as to any one of their Amendments that it was not reasonable in itself, or at all events arguable; and there could be no doubt of this—that all their Amendments had been argued with conspicuous ability if not at all times with success in the voting Lobby. But he could not shut his eyes to the fact that any Bill, however small it might be, could be so loaded with Amendments, each in itself reasonable, that the discussion, even the reasonable discussion, of these Amendments might in the aggregate amount to a state of things which would prevent any other business whatever being taken by the House. He did not blame hon. Members from Ireland for doing what they had conceived it to be their duty to do; but he did blame the Government for the position in which the House of Commons was placed. First of all, what was the prime cause of the condition into which they had been led? He insisted upon throwing the responsibility upon the Government, because they had committed themselves to a Bill which, in the view of the Opposition, was absolutely unnecessary and unjustified by the condition of Ireland—a Bill which everybody must have seen was ill-conceived and ill-considered, and which had been ill-defended and obstinately adhered to. The prime cause of the present position of the House was the unfortunate policy of the Government. Then he complained that the Government, having undertaken that policy, had not adopted the only means of carrying it through without injury to the Business of the House. He referred more particularly to the policy and conduct of the Government with reference to the closure, and he would remind the House that the Government had refused to accept the only effective form of closure which was offered to them by the great majority of the Liberal Party. They had insisted on overloading the closure with

  1063
  restrictions which had made it almost inapplicable. They had insisted on retaining the veto of the Chair; they had insisted on the presence of the 200 majority, and they had insisted on introducing considerations with regard to the rights of minorities and the fulness of discussion which were totally irrelevant to the question of the closure as a means of facilitating discussions in that House. The fact was, he supposed, the Government were troubled with the anticipations of a guilty political conscience. They remembered what they had been in the past, and they did not expect always to be in a majority. They had a shrewd suspicion of how the closure would be applied to them when they came to carry out in Opposition their habitual policy. This had foiled the application of the closure, which had bent in their hands. There had never been any closure during the dinner hour, and why? Because the Government could not get the necessary attendance, and because they refused to accept at the hands of the Opposition that absolute majority which alone would enable them to work this instrument, He would not refer to other examples that might be given of the failure of this instrument. This, however, he might allude to—that on several occasions they had been beaten by the application of the closure, because they insisted upon calling in the judgment of the Chair. His further objection to the conduct of the Government in the whole of this matter was that they had not been ashamed to make Party capital out of the situation which they themselves had created. If they were to apply to old maxims in questions of suspected guilt, who was to gain by the perpetuation of the present state of matters in this House, what must be the answer? Who gained by the present condition of this House? It was not the Government alone, but it was the alliance between the Government and the illegitimate Opposition. There was an illegitimate Opposition, which sat on this side of the House and voted with the other, and it was the alliance between the Government and the Opposition, and that alliance only, which gained by the continuation of the present state of things. If the Government were successful in passing through the summer discussing nothing but this
  1064
  Irish Coercion Bill, all the questions would be staved off on which there would be any possibility of dispute between the Government and the Liberal Unionists. He said, moreover, they were attempting to make Party capital out of the present situation by charging the Liberal Party with Obstruction. The secretaries of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. W. H. Smith), as he knew very well, scattered broadcast over the country insinuations of all kinds against the Liberal Party, until they were checked by questions put to the right hon. Gentleman in that House. For some weeks they had been silent, but apparently, in anticipation of the Whitsuntide Holidays, the secretaries were at it again. Perhaps the House would allow him to read the latest manifesto of one of the right hon. Gentleman's secretaries, which was in answer to a letter from a branch of the Primrose League. Speaking in the name of the right hon. Gentleman, the secretary said—
  "I trust that the growing indignation of the country will, even at the eleventh hour, warn those who are leading the minority in the House of the dangerous and unpatriotic course they are pursuing, and remind them that they, equally with Her Majesty's Government, are responsible that the time of Parliament shall not be wasted, and still more that the proceedings of the House shall not be brought into contempt."
  With the sentiments of that letter he had no fault to find. He was as anxious as any man on the other side of the House that the time of the House should not be wasted. He was anxious also that the proceedings of the House should not be brought into contempt or ridicule; nor was he going to presume to defend his Leaders. Some hon. Members on the Opposition side were not such slavish followers of Leaders as were hon. Gentlemen on the other side. He left his Leaders to defend themselves. For himself, he said that the charge in the letter against the Liberal Party was one which they repudiated. What he repudiated especially was that any responsibility whatever rested upon them for the present condition of things. The Leader of the House had the power and the responsibility, and if he chose to engage in measures which led to this result—that after four months the House had done next to nothing—then the responsibility of getting them out of that posi-

  1065
  tion rested not upon them but upon him. He wished to make this final charge against the Government—that they were using the state of things they themselves had created not merely as a means of attacking the Liberal Party, but as a means of disparaging this House and of exalting the other House of Parliament. Lord Salisbury could not make a speech without endeavouring to secure Party capital in this way. He was not surprised at anything Lord Salisbury might say. He was not surprised that even Tory Democrats might reveal their real character by such charges as these. They were Tories at heart and Democrats by necessity; but he was surprised that the Leader of that House, who was charged with the maintenance of the honour of the House, could sit silently under charges which were directed against the institution he was bound to protect, and which were based upon a state of things he was chiefly responsible for producing. As a Member of the Liberal Party, as a Member of that House, he declined to permit Her Majesty's Government to walk away with the advantages which they were so disingenuously claiming. He declined to submit patiently to charges which, so far as Members around him were concerned, were entirely unfounded. He insisted that it was the duty of the Government to find a way out of the imbroglio which they themselves had created. This was his practical conclusion. It was the duty of the Government so to manage Parliamentary Business for the rest of the Session that the House of Commons should be able, whether this Bill went on or whether it was dropped, to set itself to the discharge of those tremendous duties which had been imposed upon it, and to the safeguard of the great interests which had been committed to its care.
  SIR WILFRID LAWSONsaid, he must congratulate the Leader of the House on having moved the Resolution for Adjournment; it was about the best thing he had done since he had led the House. The adjournment would prevent them from doing a great deal of mischief for a couple of weeks. But still it was a most extraordinary Motion. They had for seven weeks, at the instance of the Government, been doing what was called "promoting law and
  1066
  order" in Ireland. They had been told that the policy of the Government was absolutely essential to keep things quiet in Ireland. The Chief Secretary had told them that they would neglect the most elementary duties of government if they were to defer for a single day to answer the appeal that came to them from Ireland—that things were going from bad to worse in that country, and that society was crumbling into its original atoms. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said they would be guilty of a great breach of trust if they did not restore the authority of the Queen in Ireland. The Chief Secretary for Ireland had told them that there were 850 gentlemen in Ireland suffering from Boycotting. Well, the Bill was brought in for them; it was not brought in to put down crime. They were told at first that it was; but that had gone to the winds, for everyone knew that there was no crime. Even The Times and the hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell) were out of work. But why did the Leader of the House, who had brought in this Bill to relieve the 850 Boycotted gentlemen, move this Resolution? He had had plenty of opportunity to carry out his policy. He had had the whole time of the House. He had had the closure, which he put into force night after night with so much ability and with so much agility. He had had the most loyal support of his Party, and he had had a contingent from the Liberal side. Ha (Sir Wilfrid Lawson) did not wish to use an offensive expression; but he must say of the latter that they were the most servile supporters any Government had ever had. Having all these advantages, in preventing society from crumbling into atoms in Ireland, what did the Leader of the House do at this time of crisis? He moved that the House do adjourn for a fortnight, and left Ireland to crumble into atoms. Everyone must see that the policy and proceedings of the Government were the very greatest sham. He was glad, however, for two reasons that the Adjournment had been moved—first, it would show to the people that the policy of the Government in regard to this Crimes Bill was a sham; and, secondly, because the Radicals would go to the country, and return, he hoped, in a fortnight like giants refreshed with new wine. Hon. Gentlemen opposite

  1067
  might be sure that they would return with increased determination to give the most persistent opposition in their power to what was the most unjust, unconstitutional, and uncalled-for measure ever introduced into a Legislative Assembly. He knew what was said of thorn in the Tory and other Presses—[An hon. MEMBER: The wine press.]—that they were assisting what was called Obstruction. It was their duty to practise what was called obstruction, but what he called Constitutional opposition. He cared little for the charges made, or for diatribes against them in the Press. He agreed with the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill) when he said that it was the duty of an Opposition to oppose; and the worse the policy the more incumbent was it upon them to oppose. What was done the previous night when some of the most important clauses were dropped or postponed was a justification of the opposition given to the Bill? He had the warmest and sincerest admiration for the Irish Members for the course they had taken. He did not see how anyone who valued patriotism or freedom could object to their course. They had before the House a measure which was nothing more nor less than a declaration of war made by the Government of this country on the Irish nation, and the Representatives of the immense majority of the Irish people would be cowards if for a moment they relaxed their opposition to that measure, and Liberal Members would be traitors to all Liberal principles if they did not support them. The House of Commons was a national assembly, and when any locality was attacked the nation would be called upon to come to the rescue of that locality. When the nation sent a majority to carry out a certain policy obstruction could not be justified. But this House of Commons never was sent to carry a Coercion Bill, and that was why he avowedly defended a policy of persistent opposition to that Bill. The right hon. Gentleman opposite pathetically said—"Do get on with this Bill. Let this Bill get through, and then we can get on with some very important measures we are anxious to pass." The right hon. Gentleman apparently wished the House to look upon him as a benevolent deity with his pocket bursting with Bills ready to scatter them abroad
  1068
  upon a grateful nation. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman believed in himself, but he (Sir Wilfrid Lawson) did not believe a word of what he said about these Bills. The Government were now in the happiest position a Government ever was in. They were getting through the whole Session without doing anything—just the position a Tory Government liked—and making people believe they wanted to do something. He rejoiced that the right hon. Gentleman was giving them a fortnight's holiday, because he believed that time was on their side in fighting this great battle, and that they would come back re-invigorated to give the right hon. Gentleman even more trouble then he had yet had on behalf of a policy which he (Sir Wilfrid Lawson) believed to be one of right and justice.
  MR. DILLONsaid, the defence made by the Irish Attorney General to the case brought forward by the hon. and learned Member for North Longford (Mr. T. M. Healy) was a most feeble one. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had endeavoured to make out a parallel and similarity between the action of the English Lord Chancellor and the Irish Lord Chancellor, whereas anybody who was acquainted with the condition of things in the two countries knew that by no possibility could such a parallel be made out. The Lord Chancellor in Ireland was a Lord Justice at the head of the Executive Government; he was, at all times, one of the chief advisers of the Executive, and actively engaged in carrying on the Executive Government. The present Lord Chancellor of Ireland was one of the pillars of the Government, and a man on whose advice they leaned. The case on which the Lord Chancellor recently sat was a case in which a section of the people believed that the whole of that transaction was part and parcel of a political policy carried out in consultation with the Irish Attorney General and the Executive officers in Ireland. He had reason to believe that there were good grounds for such an opinion. If that were the case, if the Lord Chancellor was at this moment one of the mainsprings of the Executive Government in Ireland, if he had any sense of decency he would not have taken his seat on the Bench where a case of that kind was to be heard, but would have left the trial to the four

  1069
  other Judges, who were perfectly competent to hear it, and who would have fully manned the Court of Appeal. The English Lord Chancellor was not in the habit of sitting on trials where political considerations were decided. This case of Father Keller had been brought forward in that House time after time, and no notice had been taken of it, but there could now be no doubt that a grave and serious wrong had been done this rev. gentleman. He was arrested in a case which he had nothing to do with, simply because it was suspected he would not answer these questions, and that there would be an opportunity of putting him into prison. The Judge of the Bankruptcy Court in Dublin was so eager to carry out the policy that he did not know how to draw up the warrant, which was incorrectly made out, and subsequently declared to be illegal, after Father Keller had been in gaol for eight weeks. He felt bound to protest against the treatment of the rev. gentleman by the authorities while in gaol. It had been most unnecessarily harsh and severe. He heard the First Lord of the Treasury express from that Bench the previous day his gratification at the release of another clergyman of a different religion, and he stated that all the Members of that House would be gratified to hear of the release of the Rev. Mr. Bell Cox. They were gratified that the gentleman was released from prison, for the Rev. Bell Cox was a good friend of theirs, and of the Irish cause; but was it not a strange thing that no English Minister, no, nor any Irish Minister, had indicated the slightest gratification that an Irish priest had been released? On the contrary, as far as they could gather from the manner of the Ministers, while they rejoiced to see an English clergyman released from prison—although condemned by the tribunals of his own Church—yet, when an Irish priest was released from illegal imprisonment—having been condemned by no tribunal—the Minister of Ireland found no cause of congratulation; but, as far as they could judge from his demeanour, rather the contrary. What was the treatment of the two gentlemen? He abstained from drawing any parallel between the cases until the Rev. Mr. Bell Cox was out of prison, in order that it could not be said that the Irish Members were anxious in any way that the indulgence properly granted to the
  1070
  rev. gentleman should be withdrawn. But now he wished to ask how it was that the Rev. Mr. Bell Cox had two carpeted rooms, and was as comfortable as he would be in his own home, while Father Keller was treated like a pickpocket? He considered that the treatment of Father Keller was calculated, and no doubt intended, to embitter the feelings of the Irish people. He asked that an inquiry should be granted into the whole case, and if necessary some compensation granted to Father Keller for the cruel sufferings to which he had been wrongfully subjected.
  Mr. W. REDMONDrising to address the House——
  THE FIRST LORD of the TREA-SURY (Mr. W. H. Smith)interposed, and appealed to the House to allow the Question to be put now. They must all feel that the Speaker and the officers of the House were greatly in need of some sort of relaxation. He wished to refrain from putting any pressure on hon. Members; but he appealed rather to their good feeling—not with regard to himself or his hon. Friends beside him—to permit the Adjournment to be now taken.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  House adjourned at a quarter after Six o'clock till Monday 6th of June.