Sitting of 29 November 1888

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—Committee—Report—Patents, Designs, and Trade Marks [348].
Third Reading—Land Purchase (Ireland) [385]; Land Charges Registration and Searches * [356], and passed.
Withdrawn—Weights and Measures* [321]; Excise Duties (Local Purposes) * [204].

QUESTIONS.

  LAW AND JUSTICE—RIGHT TO APPEAR—HAMMERSMITH POLICE COURT.
  MR. BRADLAUGHasked the President of the Local Government Board, Whether, on November 22, at the Hammersmith Police Court, on the hearing of a summons against one Meyer, for an alleged offence under the Vaccination Law, Mr. Paget, the sitting magistrate, refused to allow J. W. Proudman to appear for the defendant, on the ground that Mr. Proudman was not a solicitor, though Mr. Proudman was stated to be a person authorized by Meyer to appear for him on such hearing?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS): I am informed by the magistrate that the defendant appeared in person to answer the summons, and the magistrate heard all that he had to urge in his own behalf. The defendant did not desire to call the other person, who was present as a witness, and the magistrate refused to allow him to interfere in the case. The magistrate seems to me to have acted rightly under the circumstances.

  CRIMINAL LAW AND PROCEDURE (IRELAND) ACT, 1887—ARREST OF JOHN HICKEY, WITHOUT WARRANT, AT KILCROHANE, CO. CORK.
  MR. GILHOOLYasked Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland, Whether it is a fact that John Hickey, residing at Kilcrohane, County Cork, was arrested without a warrant by Constable Timmins, when returning to his home on October 16, was detained in custody until the afternoon of the next day, and was then conveyed to the Durrus Petty Sessions; whether Mr. Bird, a local landlord and J.P., stated, without any application from the Crown, that the charge against Hickey should be dealt with under the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act, and further remanded Hickey, and required sureties for his appearance; whether, when Hickey appeared to answer the charge at the Durrus Petty Sessions Court, District Inspector Crane, at whose suit he was charged, failed to put in an appearance; whether he will state
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  by what statute Hickey was arrested and detained in custody under the circumstances; and, whether the Government will recoup Hickey to the amount he has paid counsel for appearance at the Durrus Petty Sessions?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR), in reply, said, the case referred to was still sub judice, having been adjourned to the 12th of December. It would, therefore, not be proper to enter into details. He might, however, say that Mr. Bird did not make any suggestions as to the statute under which the accused was dealt with. The case is to be tried under the ordinary law. The adjournment took place through the non-attendance of the local magistrates. The police, in making the arrest, acted under the Common Law.
  THE LORD MAYOR OF DUBLIN (Mr. SEXTON): May I ask whether an ordinary Justice, not a Resident Magistrate, has the power to declare that a prosecution which has begun under the ordinary law shall be continued and proceeded with under the Coercion Act?
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN): No, Sir.

  ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY—EXTRA POLICE FORCE IN THE QUEEN'S COUNTY.
  MR. LALORasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If it is a fact that an extra police force is employed in the Queen's County; and, whether, in view of the fact that the Judges of Assizes have frequently congratulated the county on its freedom from exceptional crime, and that, at the county at large Sessions, held at Maryborough on November 17, the magistrates and cesspayers unanimously rejected the application for a presentment for extra police, he will direct the removal of the extra police force from Queen's County?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR): It is the case that there is an extra police force of 13 men employed in the Queen's County. This force is not there on account of any prevalence of crime; but is necessary over and above the free quota of police assigned to the county for the ordinary discharge of police duties. In 1882, the

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  extra force in this county numbered 40 men. It has since been reduced, from time to time, to its existing number. No further reduction is at present practicable.

  THE TRUCK ACTS—DEDUCTION FROM WAGES, BALBRIGGAN.
  MR. CLANCYasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether the Inspector of Factories for the Dublin District has had brought to his notice deductions from the wages of employés of Messrs. Smyth and Co. (Limited), Balbriggan, resulting in a strike which has now lasted six weeks; and, whether any proceedings have been taken against the employers under the Truck Acts; and, if not, what course the Government intend to take in the matter?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS): No proceedings have been taken. The question of the legality of such deductions as the firm in question gave notice of is now under the consideration of the Law Officers of the Crown.

  COMMISSIONERS OF INLAND REVENUE—REMOVAL OF AN OFFICER.
  MR. HAYDENasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether, during the past 12 months, the Commissioners of Inland Revenue have punished, by removal, an officer of Inland Revenue, although he had not neglected his official duties, nor broken any Departmental Regulation; whether such officer was granted any inquiry or explanation as to the grounds upon which he was removed; and, whether this is in accordance with the practice of the Commissioners?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN): It is the fact that an officer of the Inland Revenue Service has been removed from one locality to another; but the removal was not a punishment, inasmuch as the officer was sent to a post quite as good as that from which he was taken. No explanation of the reasons for his removal was given. I must uphold the right of the Government to move officers of the Revenue Service from one place to another without reason assigned, provided such removal does not entail any loss either of
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  present pay or future prospects. No such loss was involved in the present case.

  THE MAGISTRACY (IRELAND)-CLARE-MORRIS, CO. MAYO—MR. LONG-BOURNE.
  MR. J. F. X. O'BRIENasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether his attention has been called to the conduct of Mr. Longbourne, R.M., in a case of trespass at the suit of Edward Cuffe against P. J. Gordon, Martin Prendergast, and Patrick Donnellan, heard at Petty Sessions, Claremorris, County Mayo, on the 22nd instant, at the commencement of which Mr. Longbourne refused to allow the case to be proceeded with, and called Head Constable Murray to the Bench; whether it is correctly reported that Mr. Longbourne declared from the Bench that the lands were "the scene of an intended eviction," and that there should be a prosecution under the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act against the defendants, and that when Mr. Gordon protested in open Court against this treatment, orders were given to the police to have him removed from the Court; whether he is aware that Mr. Longbourne is prevented by illness from attending regularly at the Petty Sessions; and, whether Mr. Longbourne had any authority for preventing the complainant from proceeding with the case of trespass, and for developing it into a Crimes Act prosecution?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR): From a full Report which I have received it appears that this Question does not accurately represent the facts; but the case being still sub judice, I am unable to enter into the details of the charges to be tried. I may, however, observe that Gordon was ordered to leave the Court for deliberately insulting the Bench after the case had been adjourned; but it was not necessary for the police to remove him. The Resident Magistrate has never been prevented by illness from attending Petty Sessions, which he attends regularly, except when prevented through more important duties. In the course of the case the evidence showed that the charge before the Court did not represent the true character of the case; and the magistrates adjourned

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  it, with the view of having the real offence properly brought forward.

  INDIA—NATIVE STATES-HYDERABAD.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNORasked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether he can give any further information as to the manner in which the Viceroy has dealt with certain actions of Colonel Marshall in connection with the Hyderabad scandal; whether it is the case, as stated by The Deccan Times of October 4, that—
  "The Viceroy, though condemning the connection brought about by the private secretary (Colonel Marshall) between the Hyderabad Government and his relative, Mr. Watten, has accepted Colonel Marshall's explanation of the financial position to which public attention was recently drawn;"
  whether he will inform the House what Colonel Marshall's explanation was; and, whether he will state what steps have been taken to re-imburse the Nizam's Treasury of the large sum of money which has been lost to it?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Sir JOHN GORST): The matters referred to in the Question are, as I stated in August last, such as it is the function of the Viceroy and Government of India to deal with. No Report of any such circumstances as are alluded to in the Question has been made by the Government of India to the Secretary of State.

  CRIMINAL LAW—CONVICTION OF GEORGE TAYLOR FOR POACHING.
  MR. ANDERSONasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been drawn to the conviction of George Taylor, a bricklayer, for poaching in Her Majesty's preserves and killing two pheasants, for which offence he was awarded by the Windsor magistrates three months' imprisonment with hard labour, and at the expiration of the time ordered to find sureties not to repeat the offence for 12 months; whether the Government will direct this extreme punishment to be partially remitted; and, if not, will the Government state what were the circumstances, beyond one previous conviction for trespass in pursuit of game, which called for so severe a punishment?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS): I have received a Report from the Clerk to the Justices on this case. The magistrates considered it a serious case of poaching armed at night. They also observed that the prisoner had committed three other offences—namely, killing game on Sunday, killing game without a certificate, and having a gun without a licence. The requirement as to finding sureties seems to be imperative under the Statute. Should the prisoner be unable to find sureties at the expiration of his sentence, I will then consider whether the circumstances of the case justify me in advising any remission.

  SCOTLAND—COURT OF SESSION AND SHERIFF COURTS.
  MR. FRASER-MACKINTOSHasked the Lord Advocate, Whether he is aware that summonses, so numerous as to attract general attention in the Parliament House, have recently been taken out in the Court of Session, at the instance of Lady Gordon Cathcart, against crofters in the Islands of Benbecula, South Uist, and Barra; whether, in many cases, the amounts sued for in name of rents and arrears are under £50; and, whether, having regard to the institution of local Sheriff Courts within counties in Scotland, intended to protect poor persons summoned thereto who might appear in person, or employ a procurator for a few shillings to answer for them, in place of being called hundreds of miles from their homes, and put to the expense of employing counsel and agents, he will, before next Session, consider as to the advisability of introducing a Bill excluding prosecutions for ordinary debts in the Supreme Courts of Scotland for sums under £100 sterling?
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. P. B. ROBERTSON): Thirty-four such summonses have been taken out. Of these 13 are for sums above, and 21 for sums below, £50, the average amount being a little under £50. The power of the Court of Session to withhold costs, or to give costs only on the scale of the inferior Courts, is generally found to prevent litigants resorting to its jurisdiction with cases which ought properly to go to local tribunals. The proposal to exclude from the Court of Session actions for ordinary debts under £100

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  seems to me to be uncalled for and inexpedient.

  CRIMINAL LAW AND PROCEDURE (IRELAND) ACT, 1887—ARREST OF POUR FARMERS IN KERRY.
  MR. FLYNNasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If he has seen the Reports in The Cork Examiner and Herald of the 22nd instant, to the effect that four farmers named John and Daniel Scannell, John Cahill, and Humphrey Moynihan were arrested on the 21st instant, taken before Mr. M'Dermott, R.M., at Rathmore, County Kerry, and remanded for eight days to Tralee Gaol, bail being refused, and that the District Inspector R.I.C. stated that they would be brought up this day week in Tralee, and a further remand would be then applied for, and the trial would probably take place on December 13; whether, in view of the fact that these men are of respectable character, he can state why they were not proceeded against by way of summonses instead of being summarily arrested; and, why bail was refused in all these cases, they being able to give bail to a substantial amount?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR): I regret that I cannot go into the details of the charges against these men, the matter being still sub judice. The District Inspector, however, did not say that he would oppose bail on the second remand. As a matter of fact, the accused are being admitted to bail to come up for trial.
  MR. FLYNN: What charge has been made against these men? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the practice is growing up in this district of arresting men without any warrant or specific charge, and confining them in gaol without mentioning the charge against them?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am not aware that an illegal practice is growing up in this or any other district.
  MR. FLYNNsaid, that was no answer to his Question.
  THE LORD MAYOR OF DUBLIN (Mr. SEXTON): We want to know what the charge is. Surely the right hon. Gentleman can inform us what it is?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The hon. Member must give Notice of any further Question.

  ARMY CONTRACTS (ORDNANCE DEPARTMENT)—MANUFACTURE OF BAYONETS AT ENFIELD.
  MR. BRADLAUGHasked the Secretary of State for War, If he will state the number of men actually employed in the bayonet department at Enfield during the last fortnight, distinguishing the nationalities of the men, and showing the amount actually earned and paid to such workmen; and, if such amount varies, stating the lowest amount paid to any workman?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. E. STANHOPE): The number of men employed at Enfield exclusively on bayonet work during each of the last two weeks was 136, and they were all either British or Irish. Their earnings for last week averaged £1 6s. 6d., and the lowest amount received by any man was 2s. 11 d. for piecework. Besides the men referred to above, others are employed in polishing the bayonets; but they have other duties, and their wages cannot be properly discriminated.
  MR. BRADLAUGHasked, whether the right hon. Gentleman had seen in the papers that great excitement prevailed at Enfield, where a meeting was held on the previous night? Fears were expressed that English workmen were being superseded by men of other nationalities. Could the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that there was no ground for this apprehension?
  MR. E. STANHOPEsaid, that there never had been the smallest idea of having men of foreign nationality, unless it was absolutely necessary for the Public Service; the subject had never been even suggested. The excitement, he thought, was fostered by the local Liberal Association, and had arisen out of the knowledge that certain German workmen had been employed by Messrs. Wilkinson, contractors for sword bayonets. It was absolutely untrue that English labour was being displaced to make room for foreign labour. It was true, however, that certain German workmen were brought over by Messrs. Wilkinson for the purpose of teaching English workmen

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  how to carry out a certain particular class of work; but these men had been employed only because they were unable to get the necessary skilled workmen in England. When the English workmen had been taught the Germans would go back to Germany. In a recent case a small contract was given to an English firm; and it was found, in practice, that they were not able to complete the contract in England, and that the swords were manufactured at Solingen.

  LAW AND POLICE—ARREST OF LUNATICS.
  MR. BRADLAUGHasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been called to the case of Walter Thompson, who on June 4 last was charged in custody before the Gravesend magistrates with being drunk and disorderly, and who, after evidence given by the police which raised grave doubt as to Thompson's sanity, was remanded in custody as an ordinary prisoner; whether he was raving and violent, and received severe injury whilst in the cells, and, after having been visited on June 5 by a magistrate, was removed to Banning Heath Lunatic Asylum, where death ensued on June 18; whether, under 48 & 49 Vict. c. 52, ss. 2 and 3, Thompson might on June 4 have been placed in the care of the master of the Gravesend Workhouse, who has accommodation for lunatics; and, whether, to avoid the risk of lunatics being again confined in police cells without proper care, the Government will issue a Circular to magistrates' clerks drawing attention to the statute?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS): My attention has been called to the case of Walter Thompson, who died in Banning Heath Lunatic Asylum on June 18 last. The Report of the Justices on the case shows that, from the statements of the police sergeant made when the case came before the Justices as to Thompson's conduct since he had been in custody, it was thought by the Bench that he had been suffering from delirium tremens; but inasmuch as he answered questions that were put to him with the object of ascertaining his state of mind quite rationally, and gave the correct address of a man from whom he was expecting employment, he was remanded, with
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  directions that his statements should be investigated, and that he should be visited by the police surgeon. He fell down accidentally in the cell and cut his head; but I do not gather that he was raving and violent. He was visited regularly by the police surgeon, who was not able to pronounce him insane till June 7, when he was removed to the asylum. The Justices had no power, under the statute quoted, to send him to the workhouse on June 4, as they then considered him sane. I have no reason to believe that magistrates act in ignorance of the law in these cases; and I do not think there is sufficient ground for issuing a Circular to magistrates' clerks calling attention to the statute referred to.

  METROPOLITAN POLICE—AUDIT OF ACCOUNTS.
  MR. HENRY H. FOWLERasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether the accounts of the Receiver General of the Metropolitan Police are independently audited; and, if so, by whom?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS), in reply, said, that the accounts were audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General of the Exchequer.
  MR. HENRY H. FOWLERasked, whether the right hon. Gentleman would lay the Report on the Table?
  MR. MATTHEWSsaid, he would make inquiry.
  MR. HENRY H. FOWLERbelieved that it would be found that the accounts were audited technically by the gentleman mentioned, but not literally. They were not laid before the Public Accounts Committee.
  MR. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Sir Charles Warren was in conflict with the Receiver General—
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

  CRIMINAL LAW (IRELAND)—DUTIES OF THE POLICE.
  MR. LANEasked Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland, Whether it is the duty of every police officer to take every step in his power to discover the guilty party when a case of murder or homicide occurs in his district; whether

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  it is the duty of the representatives of the Crown at a Coroner's inquest to produce any available evidence as to the cause of the death of the deceased; and, whether there are any exceptions to the General Rules for the guidance of such officers that would justify their refusing to perform such duties; and, if so, what are the exceptions?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR), in reply, said, the answer to the first and second paragraphs of the Question was in the affirmative, and to the third in the negative.
  MR. LANE: May I ask whether, considering the reply to the first two paragraphs of my Question, he will order an investigation into the conduct of Inspector Creagh, of Midleton, and of Inspector Seymour, who have both declined to perform their duties at the inquest recently held into the murder of Patrick Ahern; and whether he will order these two officers, who have neglected to perform their duties, to be suspended until after the investigation?
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, no evidence had come before them that these officers had neglected their duty.
  MR. LANEasked, whether the right hon. Gentleman had seen the Cork papers containing full reports of this inquest, and copies of which he (Mr. Lane) now held in his hand, that these officers stated positively that they declined to perform these duties? If the right hon. Gentleman did not believe what he (Mr. Lane) said, perhaps he would believe what he read in the papers.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I believe what the hon. Gentleman says; but what I do not believe is what the Cork papers say.
  MR. LANE: Does the right hon. Gentleman not believe the shorthand Report of the inquest which appeared from day to day for 13 days, and which could have been contradicted by the police officers themselves if untrue?
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, he understood the evidence was not in accordance with what, as he gathered from the hon. Gentleman, appeared in the Cork papers. The papers did not always report accurately.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: The evidence in this case was taken by
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  deposition. Has the right hon. Gentleman had the deposition before him; and will he endeavour to obtain the depositions of these Inspectors, in order to see whether or not they have declined to do their duty in the manner stated by my hon. Friend (Mr. Lane)?
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, he must ask for Notice of any further Questions. He did not think, from the information which had been laid before him, that even a primâ facie case had been made out.
  MR. LANE: Will the right hon. Gentleman lay on the Table of the House a copy of the Report made by the Government reporter who was present at the inquest? If he does not believe the report in the Cork papers, surely he will believe his own reporter.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I was not aware that there was a Government reporter present.

  IMPERIAL AND COLONIAL DEFENCES—SINGAPORE.
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether his attention has been called to a recent speech of the Governor of the Straits Settlements to his Council, when he used these words—
  "The defences of Singapore yet remain, I am concerned to have to report, in an incomplete state. The War Office has, I learn, been unable to furnish the remaining portion of the armament, owing to the heavy guns supplied by the manufacturers for the forts not having stood the severe tests now required. Some months will, therefore, elapse before those guns are received in the Colony;"
  whether this is an accurate statement of facts; and, whether Papers will be furnished to the House explaining the circumstances?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. E. STANHOPE): I am sorry to say that it is quite true that the heavier armament for Singapore has not yet been furnished. All the remainder has gone out except some quick-firing guns, which go next month. The 9·2-inch breech-loading guns for Singapore were among those whose liners were condemned this year after the failure in the liners that then occurred. They are now being re-lined as rapidly as possible, and are expected to be ready in February. The two 10-inch guns will be rather later.
  MR. CAMPBELL BANNERMAN: Were the guns made at Woolwich?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: I am almost certain, speaking without Notice of the Question, that they were.

  TRADES AND MANUFACTURES—THE NAIL AND SMALL CHAINMAKERS.
  MR. FENWICKasked the President of the Board of Trade, Whether, having regard to the recent report of the Labour Correspondent of the Board of Trade on the condition of the nail makers and small chainmakers in South Staffordshire and East Worcestershire, the Government intend to introduce legislation next Session dealing with the subject; whether his attention has been called to the statement in the Report, that—
  "The result of the small domestic workshop system is, undoubtedly, the root of many if not all the evils from which the nail workers suffer;"
  if so, what course the Government intend to take in reference to those workshops; and, whether it is the intention of the Government to deal with the question of female labour in those districts?
  THE PRESIDENT (Sir MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH), in reply, said, this was a matter that came within the scope of the Home Secretary's Department rather than his own, and he had directed a copy of the Report to be sent to his right hon. Friend, calling his special attention to the suggestions contained in the Report, and asking him to consider them. The subject was one which was full of difficulty, and he hoped that any persons with local knowledge of these industries would communicate their views as to the suggestions made in the Report.
  MR. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAMasked, whether the right hon. Gentleman would institute an inquiry?
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, this question had already been the subject of more than one inquiry.
  MR. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAMasked, whether the House was to understand that there was to be no legislation on this subject?
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH: Certainly not.
  MR. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAMsaid, he would move the Adjournment of
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  the House to-morrow in order to discuss the subject.

  EAST AFRICAN SLAVE TRADE—SEIZURE AND RELEASE OF SLAVES ON THE ZANZIBAR COAST.
  MR. A. E. PEASEasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether Her Majesty's Government have received any confirmation of the announcement in The Times of November 17, to the following effect:—
  "The Belgian steamer Brabo, taking 100 slaves intended for the Congo, was boarded off the Zanzibar coast to-day (November 16) by a party from H.M.S. Griffon, and two slaves were taken from her who swore that they had been forcibly kidnapped. She was then allowed to proceed. Had she been arrested, the primâ facie evidence against her was very strong. There is a great scandal about this incident, especially as all the arrangements were made through a former Belgian Consul;"
  if so, whether the labourers who were not taken off the vessel were slaves, who had been transferred from their masters to the persons who hired them for transport to the Congo; whether it was the duty of the commander of H.M.S. Griffon to arrest the vessel, in order that she might be adjudicated upon in Belgium, according to the terms of Slave Trade Treaties with that country; and, whether Her Majesty's Government intend to take any steps in the matter?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Sir JAMES FERGUSSON): Information has been received by telegraph that Her Majesty's ship Griffon boarded the Belgian steamer Brabo, carrying a cargo of contract labourers engaged on behalf of the Congo Free States, and took out of her two men who declared that they had been embarked against their will. The ship then proceeded on her voyage. No further details are known; but the ship was not liable to capture under the Treaty as being engaged in the traffic of slaves, or being fitted out for purposes of slave-trading. The Belgian Minister has communicated copies of the labour contracts, which contain every requisite provision against compulsion. Accordingly, instructions have been sent that the two men shall be handed over to the Belgian Consul.
  MR. A. E. PEASEasked the right hon. Gentleman if he could inform the House how many slaves a vessel might

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  have on board in order to come under the designation of being a ship carrying slaves?
  SIR JAMES FERGUSSONreplied that no limit had been, or could be, stated. A vessel engaged in slave trading within the terms of the Treaty would be condemned; but there was no ground for supposing the Brabo so engaged in any sense.

  LAW AND JUSTICE (IRELAND)—CONSTABLE EDWARD SWINDELL, &c., MIDLETON, CORK.
  MR. LANEasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether Constable Edward Swindell, against whom a verdict of wilful murder has been found by a Coroner's Jury in Midleton, has been placed under arrest; whether it is correctly reported that, at the inquest, District Inspector Creagh, of Midleton, swore that he did not consider it any part of his duty as a police officer to take any steps to discover who killed Patrick Ahern, and that District Inspector Seymour, representing the Crown, stated that he would not produce any evidence as to how Ahern came by his death; and, whether, under these circumstances, he will give the Crown Prosecutor for the district special instructions to take the necessary steps to have Swindell brought to trial at the next Cork Assizes?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR): The constable has been placed under arrest upon the Coroner's warrant. The District Inspector did not swear that he did not consider it part of his duty to take steps to discover who killed Ahern. When these officers made inquiries from persons in Midleton they were met with a flat refusal to give information. The whole case will be laid before the Attorney General, who will give such directions as the case warrants.
  MR. LANEinquired whether the Inspector did not refuse to parade the men the next morning for the purpose of identification?
  MR. A. J. BALFOURasked the hon. Gentleman to give Notice of the Question.
  MR. W. O'BRIENasked whether or not every one of the persons examined against the police at
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  the inquest had not since been served with summonses under the Crimes Act?
  MR. COMMINSasked, if it was usual to consult the Attorney General before proceeding in such cases?
  MR. W. O'BRIENsaid, he must press the right hon. Gentleman for an answer to the important Question he had put—namely, whether every one of the witnesses who gave damaging evidence at the inquest against the police, and convicted one of them of murder, had not since been served with summonses under the Crimes Act?
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, the hon. Gentleman must be aware he knew nothing about the matter. If the hon. Gentleman would give Notice of the Question he would, of course, make the requisite inquiries.
  MR. CONYBEAREasked the right hon. Gentleman, if he would undertake that the Law Officers of the Crown would not enter a nolle prosequi, as was done in the case of the boy O'Hanlon, who was murdered by the police at Youghal?
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Commins) was under a misapprehension. He did not say he was going to consult the Attorney General. This was a matter in which the Attorney General had absolute discretion, and, of course, he would not interfere.

  NAVY—COASTGUARD STATION ON BERE ISLAND.
  MR. GILHOOLYasked the First Lord of the Admiralty, Whether preliminaries for the erection of a Coastguard Station on Bere Island commenced some years ago; and, if so, what is the cause of the delay in its erection?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. FORWOOD)(who replied)said, he had nothing to add to the answer given by the First Lord of the Admiralty to the hon. Member in September, 1887. The present Coastguard Station on Bere Island was held on lease, and its transfer to another locality had not yet been definitely settled, no agreement having been come to with regard to a new site.

  EMPLOYEES' LIABILITY FOR INJURIES TO WORKMEN BILL—CLAUSE 3.
  MR. BROADHURSTasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he is correctly reported in The Times of Tuesday last to have stated, in reply to a deputation with regard to Clause 3 of the Employers' Liability for Injuries to Workmen Bill, that he proposed to abide by the clause, and use what influence he had "in the House of Commons to carry it into effect?" The hon. Gentleman also asked whether it was true, as stated in The Daily News of that day, that the Home Secretary was determined to stand by Clause 3 of the Bill; and whether he intended to make certain alterations in Committee?
  MR. AINSLIEasked if representations had been made to the Home Secretary by hon. Members on both sides expressive of their readiness to support him in carrying the Bill through the House in the form in which it was now presented?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS): I stated, in reply to the deputation referred to, that I proposed to abide by Clause 3 of the Bill, and would ask the House of Commons to adopt it. I have placed upon the Paper Amendments to that clause to carry out a pledge which I gave to the Standing Committee. I have received representations from both sides of the House to persevere with the Bill; and I hope that thus the passage of the Bill may be made easier.

  IRISH LAND COMMISSION—ADJUSTMENT OF JUDICIAL RENTS, 1888.
  MR. M'CARTANasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether he will grant a Return showing the particulars of the prices of the stock and articles of produce on which the temporary adjustment of the judicial rents for 1888 is based?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR), in reply, said, he had consulted with the Land Commissioners; and, in their opinion, the giving of such a Return would not be advisable.

  METROPOLITAN POLICE COURTS—NON-ATTENDANCE OF MAGISTRATE AT DALSTON POLICE COURT.
  MR. PICKERSGILLasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been called to the fact that there was no magistrate in attendance at Dalston Police Court on Tuesday last for several hours after the time appointed for the commencement of business; to what cause was this due; whether a similar irregularity occurred only a fortnight ago; and, whether, in order to avoid great public inconvenience and loss, he will take such measures as will secure the punctual attendance of the magistrate at this Court?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS): I am informed by the Chief Magistrate that Mr. Horace Smith, the magistrate at Dalston Police Court, was suddenly taken ill and confined to his bed for several hours. He telegraphed to a magistrate to take his place, and the required assistance was supplied after some unavoidable delay. A similar irregularity occurred on the 15th instant. This arose from an unfortunate misunderstanding among the magistrates responsible for the service of the Court. The non-attendance of a magistrate was thus in each case due to an accident. I hope it may be found possible, under existing arrangements, to make provision for the proper service of this Court. If it is not possible, I must consider what new arrangements can be made.

  CONTAGIOUS DISEASES (ANIMALS) ACTS—PLEURO-PNEUMONIA IN NORFOLK.
  MR. GURDON(for Sir EDWARD BIRKBECK) (Norfolk, E.)asked the Vice Chamberlain, Whether the attention of the Privy Council has been called to five outbreaks of pleuro-pneumonia in the County of Norfolk during the present month; whether four of these outbreaks originated in store cattle recently imported from Ireland; and, whether he will at once order further precautionary measures to be taken with regard to the removal of cattle landed from Ireland?
  THE VICE CHAMBERLAIN (Viscount LEWISHAM): Six

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  outbreaks of pleuro-pneumonia have been reported during this month in the County of Norfolk, and in four the Inspector states the animals were bought on Norwich Hill, and that they were Irish. The Chief Travelling Inspector has been engaged since Monday in making inquiries in Norfolk; but has not yet been able to ascertain when the cattle were exported from Ireland, or what markets they had been in previously to their arrival at Norwich. Owing to the very stringent measures which have been adopted by the Irish Government for extirpating the disease, Ireland is more free from pleuro-pneumonia than Great Britain.

  CRIMINAL STATISTICS—CHILDREN UNDER 14.
  MR. HENRY H. FOWLERasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, What is the number of children under the age of 14 years now undergoing sentences of imprisonment in Great Britain?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS): I could only obtain the exact figures asked for by means of a Circular to all the prisons, and by an examination of every commitment; but perhaps the Return given in Appendix 8 of the last Report of the Prison Commissioners will be sufficient for the purposes of the right hon. Gentleman. It shows that on the 31st of March, 1888, there were in prison 223 prisoners between 12 and 16. Of these a small proportion would be awaiting trial, and the number under 14 would probably be less than 100.
  MR. HENRY H. FOWLERasked, if in case of imprisonment of young children the Home Secretary personally investigated the causes for which they had been incarcerated?
  MR. MATTHEWS: Yes.

  COAL MINES, &c. REGULATION ACT, 1887—RULES IN SOUTH WALES COLLIERIES.
  MR. W. ABRAHAMasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether, in the Glamorganshire, Carmarthenshire, and Brecon shire Collieries included in Mr. Inspector Robson's District of South Wales, the old Special Rules for collieries under the Mines Regulation Act,
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  1872, are still in force; if so, why; and, if not, what are the Special Rules now applicable to those collieries since the passing of the Coal Mines, &c. Regulation Act, 1887; and, how soon may it be expected that the New Rules will be finally settled and established; and, when established, will he order that they should be translated into the Welsh language and posted up at the collieries with the English Rules?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS): The old Special Rules under the Act of 1872 are no longer by law in force in the collieries referred to; because, after the passing of the Coal Mines, &c. Regulation Act of 1887, new Special Rules were submitted by the owners under Section 52 of that Act, and, by the lapse of 40 days without objection, they were, under the Statute, established as the Special Rules for those collieries. Since then I have proposed to the owners certain Amendments of those new Special Rules, The proposed Amendments were objected to by the owners, and, consequently, two arbitrations have taken place. The award in one case is now ready, and in the other nearly so. As soon as the necessary arrangements for payment of the costs are completed with the Treasury Solicitor, the award now ready—that is, for East Glamoganshire—will be published. The Government have met the cost of a Welsh abstract of the Coal Mines Act, including the General Rules; and it appears to me that the cost of translating the Special Rules should be met by the owners, by whom they are proposed.

  SOUTH PACIFIC ISLANDS—SAMOA.
  MR. MUNRO FERGUSONasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, If the attention of Her Majesty's Government has been called to recent occurrences in Samoa; and, if it is the intention of the Three Guaranteeing Powers to take measures for the restoration of order in those Islands?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Sir JAMES FERGUSSON): Her Majesty's Government have been informed of the occurrence of civil war in Samoa. They have observed an attitude of neutrality in regard to it; and Her Majesty's Consul would, according to his instructions, abstain from intervention except for the

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  protection of British life and property. I am not able to state at present what means the Treaty Powers may be disposed to adopt for the restoration of order in those Islands, which Her Majesty's Government are most anxious to promote.

  PRISONS (SCOTLAND)—TREATMENT OF AN INFANT IN GLASGOW PRISON.
  MR. PROVANDasked the Lord Advocate, If his attention has been drawn to the report in The North British Daily Mail of Monday last, that an infant 10 months old, which was taken to Duke Street Prison, in Glasgow, on Wednesday the 21st instant, with its mother, Mrs. M'Kenzie, who was sentenced to a term of imprisonment, had been stripped, bathed in cold water, and put into prison clothes; and, if true, under what Rule was this infant so treated?
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. P. B. ROBERTSON): The child was not bathed in cold water, but in warm water, the temperature being about 100 degrees. The child was supplied with the clothing provided under Instruction 541, Scale 5, of the Rules for prisons in Scotland. These clothes are prison clothes only in the sense of being the property of the Prison Commissioners, and are such as are ordinarily worn by children of the working class.

  LANDLORD AND TENANT (IRELAND)—DECREES FOR RENT.
  MR. M'CARTANasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether he is aware that, on the hearing of a process of ejectment for non-payment of rent, at the suit of the Drapers' Company, against John Bradley, at Magherafelt, before Mr. Neligan, Q.C., in January last, it was held by the Judge that he had no power to extend the payment of instalments beyond one year, and that this decision was afterwards reversed on appeal, whereupon Mr. Neligan, Q.C., extended the instalments over four years, making the first instalment payable in November, 1888; whether over 100 processes of ejectment entered by the same landlords at the same Sessions were adjourned pending the result of the appeal in Bradley's case; whether decrees
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  were, notwithstanding, obtained against these tenants, and notices of eviction served on 73 of them in May last; whether decrees for possession were granted against 41 of them at Draperstown Petty Sessions on the 20th instant; whether, at the last Sessions held before Mr. Noligan, at Magherafelt, the Judge declined to follow the ruling of the Supreme Court, when applied to on behalf of about 100 tenants on the same estate, and ejectment decrees without extension of time for payment of arrears were accordingly granted against them; whether he is aware the Drapers' Company have refused to settle with these tenants unless they sign agreements to hold subject to or purchase on the basis of the old rents, notwithstanding that in cases where fair rents were fixed on the estate there was an average reduction of 20 per cent; and, whether he will consider the propriety of introducing a Bill to make it compulsory that such extension of time for payment of arrears of rent shall be granted as the tenant shall reasonably require to enable him to pay the same?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR)replied to the first paragraph in the affirmative, and to the second in the negative. In 33 cases further time was given to pay by instalments within a period of 12 months. Decrees were taken in the usual course by the plaintiff's solicitor. The Recorder did not refuse to follow the decision of the Supreme Court. On the contrary, he followed it the last Session. He (Mr. A. J. Balfour) had no information as to the matter of the sixth paragraph. The existing law provided for all cases coming under the last paragraph.
  MR. FLYNNasked, whether the right hon. Gentleman was aware that County Court Judge Waters had declared that the clause dealing with arrears in the Act of last year was a perfect farce, and useless to the tenants of Ireland?
  [No reply.]

  POOR LAW—REMOVAL OF SCOTCH AND IRISH PAUPER LUNATICS.
  MR. ALLISONasked the President of the Local Government Board, Whether it is the case that the provisions of 8 & 9 Vict.

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  c. 117, and 10 & 11 Vict. c. 33, in reference to the removal of Scotch and Irish paupers to their place of settlement in their own country, do not apply to pauper lunatics; and, if so, whether he will consider the propriety of amending the law in this respect, either by a clause in the Lunacy Bill, to be re-introduced next Session, or in some other way?
  THE PRESIDENT (Mr. RITCHIE): The view which I believe is generally held is that the statutory provisions relating to the removal of paupers to Scotland and Ireland do not extend to authorize the removal of pauper lunatics whose condition is such as to require that they should be sent to a lunatic asylum. In the case of pauper lunatics who have no settlement in England, the cost of maintenance in an asylum is a charge on the county, and not upon the particular union. I cannot undertake to propose any alteration of the law which would extend the powers as to the removal of paupers.

  LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART-GRANTS TO THE NATIONAL GALLERY.
  SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, If an opportunity will be given to the House of expressing an opinion on the matter before the Government commits itself to the renewal of large grants to the National Gallery for the purchase of pictures, contrary to the arrangement that the grant for the Blenheim pictures should first be made good?
  DR. FARQUHARSONinquired, whether the arrangement referred to by his hon. Friend was communicated to the National Gallery authorities before the purchase of the Blenheim pictures under the deliberate authority of the House of Commons?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN): I gather that that was not done, and that it was not communicated to the authorities of the National Gallery before the purchase was made. In reply to the former Question, there is no proposal for the renewal of large grants to the National Gallery for the purchase of pictures. It was a part of the understanding, at the time when the usual annual grant of
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  £10,000 was suspended until the sum spent upon the Blenheim pictures had been made good, that during the suspension of the grant the Treasury would consider any proposals which the Trustees of the Gallery might make for the acquisition, under exceptionally advantageous circumstances, of works important to complete the representative character of the collection. Several proposals for such purchases have been made by the Trustees; but in no instance—though admitting the case of the Trustees to be strong—have the Treasury regarded it as so overwhelmingly strong as to justify a special grant and a Supplemental Estimate. But the controversies which have arisen between the Trustees and the Treasury have convinced me that the present arrangement is unsatisfactory; and therefore, regarding the Treasury as pledged to some relaxation of the suspension of the Vote, I have agreed to £5,000 being put down in next year's Estimates for the purchase of pictures. Of course, this concession will be subject to the approval of Parliament when the Estimate comes on. I must remind the House that, of the £87,000 given for the Blenheim pictures, £40,000 have been made good by the suspension of the annual grant for four years.

  JAMAICA—EXPENDITURE ON RAILWAYS.
  SIR GEORGE BADEN-POWELLasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether he can state the total amount of outstanding loans raised for the purchase and construction of railways in Jamaica; whether the Colonial Government of Jamaica has entered into negotiation for the sale of the Government Railways in Jamaica to an American Syndicate; and, if so, what are the terms offered by such Syndicate; and, whether the Secretary of State has yet come to any decision in the matter?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Baron HENRY DE WORMS): The total amount raised for purchase and re-construction of railways in Jamaica is £800,300. The amount provided for by Sinking Fund and otherwise is £140,327, leaving a net liability of £659,973 at the end of 1887. An offer has been

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  made by an American Syndicate, as reported by the Governor in a despatch received on the 27th instant. This offer has not yet been considered by Her Majesty's Government, and they are not at present prepared to give the particulars.

  FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS ACT—APPLICATION IN DUBLIN.
  SIR THOMAS ESMONDEasked the President of the Board of Trade, Who is responsible for the carrying out of the provisions of the Workshops Regulation Act in Dublin; whether complaints have reached him that in many houses the Rules of the Act are not complied with; that the workshops are overcrowded, and the employés forced to work overtime; and whether he will take steps to ensure a more searching inspection of the Dublin workshops and factories in future?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS): I am informed by the Chief Inspector of Factories, whose duty it is to see that the provisions of the Factory Act are carried out in Dublin, that very few complaints have been made to the resident inspector in Dublin, and in each case they have been most fully investigated. Prosecutions have followed when young persons or females were employed beyond the legal hours. Careful regulations have been made and insisted upon as to the proper cubic space for each person employed. If the hon. Baronet will bring to my notice any violation of the law, full inquiry will be made.
  THE LORD MAYOR OF DUBLIN (Mr. SEXTON)asked the right hon. Gentleman to call the Inspector's attention to the fact that numerous complaints had been made in the public Press, especially in regard to girls employed in workshops?
  MR. MATTHEWSpromised that due attention would be given to the hon. Gentleman's statement.

  BURIAL ACT, 1880—PARISH OF LAMESLEY, GATESHEAD.
  MR. BURTasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he has seen in The Newcastle Daily Leader, of November 19, a copy of the following letter, addressed to George Felton, by the Rev. R. W.
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  Snape, Vicar of Lamesley, Gateshead, in reply to a notice of a burial under the Burial Act of 1880:—
  "Lamesley Vicarage, Gateshead-on-Tyne, "October 30, 1888.
  "George Felton.—As, by 'The Burial Laws Amendment Act, 1880,' the funeral which you propose to hold in Lamesley Churchyard on Thursday, November 1, is required to take place between the hours of 10 a.m. and 3 p.m., I hereby give you notice that your burial party must be at the entrance gate of the churchyard not later than a quarter before 3. If you come after that time the interment could not be completed by 3. Not upon any consideration whatever will I allow you, or any person belonging to you, to enter my churchyard for the purpose of burial, either at 3 or after 3 o'clock. The sexton has instructions to receive from you the usual fee of eight shillings (8s.) before beginning to make the grave.
  "R. W. SNAPE, Vicar of Lamesley.
  "George Felton, Allerdean;"
  whether the vicar was required by law to give, or was justified in giving, such a notice; and, whether he acted legally in insisting on the payment of a fee before the opening of a grave for the burial of a parishioner?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS): Yes, Sir; I have seen the letter in question. The law does not require such notice to be given as was sent by the vicar; but I am not aware that such notice is illegal. There is nothing in the Statute as to the manner in which the fee is to be collected. It is a question of Ecclesiastical Law, whether the vicar acted legally in insisting on the payment of the fee before the opening of the grave; and I must decline to give an opinion on that point. It is one over which I have no jurisdiction. The Statute says that he shall be entitled to the same fee as if the burial had taken place with the service of the Church of England.
  MR. BURTasked, whether the right hon. Gentleman was aware that a Select Committee in 1882 inquired into the subject of burial fees, and reported that clergymen were not entitled by law to exact them beforehand?
  MR. MATTHEWS: I am quite aware that a Report was made to that effect.

  EDUCATION DEPATMENT—SCHOOL BOARD ELECTIONS.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNORasked the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, Whether it is a fact that, at the Slea-

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  ford Street Polling Station, in the West Lambeth Division, during the School Board Election on Monday, several hundred persons who presented themselves between the hours of 6 and 8 o'clock in the evening were prevented from recording their votes owing to the insufficient accommodation provided; whether some of the electors who were unable to record their votes arrived at the polling station before 7 o'clock; and, whether this practical disfranchisement of a large number of duly qualified electors will render the election invalid?
  THE VICE PRESIDENT (Sir WILLIAM HART DYKE), in reply, said, he was not aware of the facts alleged; but the Education Department was not responsible for the conduct of the School Board Elections. The only way to test the validity of an election was by legal proceedings taken in order to test the right of those elected to serve on the Board.

  LAW AND JUSTICE (IRELAND)—THOMAS MORONEY, A PRISONER FOR CONTEMPT.
  MR. BRADLAUGHasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether the Government will take any steps to facilitate the release of Thomas Moroney, now imprisoned for contempt of court, having in view the fact that Thomas Moroney has now been imprisoned for more than one year and ten months, and that the Queen's Bench Division of the High Court of Justice in England has on more than one occasion strongly pronounced against indefinite imprisonment for contempt?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR): The hon. Gentleman will probably agree with me that it would be in the highest degree inexpedient, even if it were possible, for the Executive to interfere with the action of a Court of Law. I cannot admit the propriety of the epithet "indefinite" in the last line. Moroney can bring his imprisonment to a termination whenever he pleases.
  MR. BRADLAUGH: In consequence of that answer I beg to give Notice that I shall, at the conclusions of the Questions, ask leave to move the adjournment of the House.

  AUSTRALIA—QUEENS LAN D-APPOINTMENT OF GOVERNOR.
  MR. PRITCHARD MORGANasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether the Government will, before another appointment of Governor of Queensland is made, make inquiries, or otherwise ascertain from the Cabinet of Queensland or the Agent General for the Colony, whether the appointment would be acceptable?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Baron HENRY DE WORMS): As I have explained on previous occasions, Her Majesty's Government do not feel able to take the course suggested, involving, as it would, a serious Constitutional change, in the expediency of which they do not concur.

  POST OFFICE—EXTRA DUTY.
  SIR JOHN PULESTONasked the Postmaster General, If any estimate has been formed whether, under existing circumstances, the amount of extra duty to be performed in the Post Office Savings Bank during the next five or six months will be largely in excess of that performed in past years; whether his attention has been drawn to the remarks of the Royal Commission on the subject—namely, that—
  "The average amount of extra hours of 360 of the staff of the Savings Bank Department since the 31st of December last are five hours per day per man;"
  and, whether he is making any arrangement by which a large proportion of the work can be performed other than by means of extra duty; and, if so, whether he is in a position to state the nature of the arrangements, and the date on which they will come into operation?
  THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (Mr. RAIKES): Judging from the Returns which I have had before me of the rapid increase in the work of the Post Office Savings Bank, there is no doubt that there will be alarge augmentation of business in the period referred to by the hon. Member, and it is estimated that there will be a proportionate increase of extra duty unless it is otherwise provided for. My attention has been given to the remarks of the Royal Commission on the subject. The matter is receiving my earnest attention

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  and that of the Treasury, and I am in hopes that a decision may be arrived at soon.

  METROPOLITAN POLICE—THE NEW CHIEF COMMISSIONER.
  MR. P. STANHOPEasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, By whom the announcement of the appointment of the new Commissioner of Police was communicated to some of the newspapers; and, whether it was forwarded to all the newspapers and News Agencies through the usual channel; and, if not, why an exception was made in this instance?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS): The appointment of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police was formally completed at a late hour on Tuesday evening, and was, I believe, generally known in the Lobby that night. I have no reason to suppose that any exception was made to the usual course in making the matter known to the Press.

  CRIMINAL LAW—THE EDLINGHAM BURGLARY—TRIAL AND CONVICTION.
  SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLasked Mr. Attorney General, Whether the prosecution of the men who have now been convicted of the Edlingham burglary was conducted or watched by himself, or by the Director of Criminal Prosecutions; whether the law of England admits of evidence being led and a case tried out when the prisoners plead guilty; and, if so, whether, having regard to the peculiar circumstances of this case and its great public interest, the prosecution pressed that the trial should go on or acquiesced in stopping at the plea of guilty, and so avoiding any judicial inquiry; whether the prosecution, in fact, compromised the case by accepting the plea of guilty of burglary only, and did not lead evidence to show that the persons who committed the burglary committed still graver offences, as shown at the former trial, when Branaghan and Murphy were convicted of the more heinous offences; and, whether any steps can be taken to prevent a similar avoidance of a judicial inquiry in such cases?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir RICHARD WEBSTER):
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  The prosecution of the men in question was conducted by the Director of Criminal Prosecutions and by counsel nominated by me. The law of England does not permit of a case being tried out when a plea of guilty is persisted in. I believe that Branaghan and Murphy were convicted of burglary and of shooting with intent to murder. There was no sufficient evidence, either from the confession or otherwise, to justify the charge of shooting with intent to murder being pressed. The punishment inflicted would have been the same in both cases.
  SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLasked, whether the Attorney General was aware that evidence was given before the magistrate as to shooting with intent to murder?
  SIR RICHARD WEBSTER: Of course, I cannot tell what information was communicated to the hon. Gentleman; but neither in the confession, nor from the evidence submitted to the Public Prosecutor, was there sufficient evidence of shooting with intent to murder.
  MR. T. M. HEALYasked, whether the hon. and learned Gentleman had any objection to lay on the Table the information which was in the hands of the Public Prosecutor as to this case? because he would have observed that these men were allowed to plead guilty of a minor offence.
  SIR RICHARD WEBSTER: The hon. and learned Gentleman is entirely misinformed. In the first place, he suggested—I am sure quite unintentionally—that the plea of guilty to the minor offence was put in by arrangement with the Public Prosecutor. That is entirely without foundation. Until the trial, the Public Prosecutor did not know what plea the prisoners would plead. A special plea was put in by Mr. Digby Seymour, who defended. With regard to the other matter, the previous prisoners were tried and convicted of both offences.
  MR. T. M. HEALYasked, whether the hon. and learned Gentleman could state whether the police who gave evidence in the former case, as to shooting with intent to murder, were produced in this case?
  SIR RICHARD WEBSTER: The evidence as to shooting with intent to murder depended, not so much upon the

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  police evidence, as upon the evidence of persons in the house, and also upon circumstantial evidence which was not forthcoming. The learned Judge expressed the opinion that the conduct of counsel for the prosecution in not pressing the charge of shooting with intent to murder was perfectly right.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE—THE EMPLOYERS' LIABILITY FOR INJURIES TO WORKMEN BILL.
  MR. BROADHURSTasked the First Lord of the Treassury, Whether he will re-consider the statement which he made on Tuesday relating to the Business of the House, by which the Employers' Liability for Injuries to Workmen Bill is not likely to be taken till the end of the Session; and, whether he will, having regard to the importance of the measure, and the definite pledge he gave to the House on the 22nd instant, take the Bill immediately after the conclusion of the Land Purchase (Ireland) Bill?
  THE FIRST LORD (Mr. W. H. SMITH): The arrangement I desire to make is that this Bill should be taken on Friday next week. I hope the Irish Estimates will not last more than four days.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE—THE DRAINAGE (IRELAND) BILLS.
  COLONEL NOLANasked the First Lord of the Treasury, in view of his statement that all Railway and Harbour Bills for Ireland connected with the late Royal Commission must be postponed until the House has decided on the Drainage Bills, Whether he would name an early day on which the sense of the House might be taken on these Drainage Bills?
  THE FIRST LORD (Mr. W. H. SMITH): The hon. and gallant Gentleman has failed to notice that these Bills were withdrawn last week. Therefore, they are at an end so far as the present Session is concerned.
  COLONEL NOLAN: Are we to understand, then, that all important works in Ireland are to be indefinitely postponed?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: I do not know that that is the question. The Government were most anxious to bring forward these Bills, but they met with
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  opposition; and it was not possible, under the circumstances of the Session, to press them in the course of the present Session, and therefore they have been withdrawn.
  COLONEL NOLAN: Has the right hon. Gentleman ever given a single day for the second reading of any one of these Bills?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: It would be exceedingly inconvenient that we should get into a wrangle. These Bills have been discussed at considerable length.
  COLONEL NOLAN: No, no; only on the first reading.
  MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, he had repeatedly stated that an adequate discussion of these Bills must be in Committee, and that when they came back from the Committee an opportunity would be afforded for their discussion in the House. Hon. Gentlemen did not agree with that view, and therefore there was no option but to withdraw the Bills.
  MR. CONYBEARE: Are we to understand that on no occasion are we to have the opportunity for an adequate discussion of the principle of a Bill on the second reading?
  DR. TANNER: As a matter of fact, have these Bills ever been brought forward before 12 o'clock at night?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: Yes, they were.
  DR. TANNER: On what date?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order! order!

  EGYPT—SUAKIN—REINFORCEMENTS OF BRITISH TROOPS-THE COST.
  MR. DILLONasked the First Lord of the Treasury, From what source it is proposed to defray the cost of sending British troops to Suakin?
  THE FIRST LORD (Mr. W. H. SMITH): So far as the Government are aware, the cost of the moving of the troops from Cairo to Suakin will be extremely small. The Egyptian Government finds the transport, and I am not really aware that any other expense will be incurred.
  MR. DILLON: It is widely rumoured that this operation will lead to a very great expenditure. Am I to understand from the answer of the right hon. Gentleman that the Government have not yet decided who is to bear the contingent expenses which may result?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: I wish to be perfectly frank with the hon. Gentleman and the House. He appears to think there is something in reserve, and something mysterious which is kept back. There is nothing of the kind. A battalion—a few troops—are being moved from Cairo to Suakin, and will be moved back again from Suakin to Cairo. No serious or important movement on the part of Her Majesty's Government is contemplated.
  MR. DILLON: The right hon. Gentleman has not answered my question. The troops may be moved from Cairo to Suakin and back again; but what if they are beaten and defeated? Will the right hon. Gentleman answer the plain question, who is to bear the cost of this expedition; whether it be a small expedition; or whether, as stated in The Times, it is to be practically a re-conquest of the Soudan?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: I have stated to the House what the expedition is. It is to move a few troops who are in garrison in Egypt from Cairo to Suakin, and as soon as the operations there are completed to move them back again. [Cries of "What operations?"] The operations are confined exclusively to the defence of Suakin from the attacks to which it is now subject.
  An hon. MEMBER: Who pays the piper?
  MR. JOHN MORLEY: Two or three days ago, in answer to a Question of mine, I understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that to-day he would make a statement. [Mr. W. H. SMITH: NO.] I asked him whether he would lay Papers on the Table before we had a discussion? He then said he would make a statement; and that statement has now reduced itself to the very simple proposition apparently that the troops are to go from Cairo to Suakin, and then from Suakin to Cairo. Is that the statement which he promised to make?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: I am not aware that I did promise to make a statement. The right hon. Gentleman asked me if there would be any objection to produce Papers, and I said there would be no objection if there were any Papers. Certainly, there will be no objection to give the House full information if it is desired as to the removal of the battalion
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  from Cairo to Suakin and from Suakin to Cairo. That is the whole matter.
  MR. JOHN MORLEY: The Papers which I think the House and the country will be anxious to have are the Papers relating to those communications which passed between the British and Egyptian Governments, of which the right hon. Gentleman has informed us.
  MR. W. H. SMITH: If the right hon. Gentleman wishes to have them, and will ask the Question on Monday, I will tell him whether I can produce them.
  MR. DILLON: I wish to ask whether, in view of the statement the right hon. Gentleman has now made, which conflicts with general rumour abroad, he can definitely state on Monday whether the Government will give an undertaking that the troops will not go beyond a certain radius outside the walls of Suakin?
  MR. LABOUCHERE: May I ask whether the cost of this operation or movement is to be included in the specific sum per annum which Egypt pays for the English troops that are in Egypt, or whether it is to be an extra?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: If the hon. Gentleman wishes me to be exactly precise, and will ask me on Monday, I will give him the precise information; but whether it will cost a few pounds more or less I am not able to say. I have told the House that Egypt bears the whole cost of transport to and fro, and I really do not know what other expense there can be.
  MR. BUCHANAN: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether it is intended to reinforce the Army of Occupation in Egypt in consequence of the dispatch of British troops to Suakin.
  MR. W. H. SMITH: No, Sir. It is not in the opinion of the responsible officers in Egypt necessary to reinforce the Army of Occupation there.

  CHURCH OF ENGLAND—RETIREMENT OF AGED AND INFIRM BISHOPS—LEGISLATION.
  MR. HOWORTHasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether, in view of the fact that three Bishops in England and Wales are over 80 years of age, and two others are over 77 years of age, and in view also of the increased duties imposed upon Bishops, and the

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  consequent demand for an increase of the Episcopate, the Government propose to introduce a Bill at an early date for the superannuation and retirement of Prelates and other ecclesiastical dignitaries when no longer able to perform their duties?
  MR. JOHNSTON: Before the right hon. Gentleman answers that Question, may I be permitted to ask whether the age of the right rev. Prelates in question appreciably exceeds that of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone), concerning whose vigour and vitality there can be no doubt?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!
  THE FIRST LORD (Mr. W. H. SMITH): I do not think my hon. Friend who asked the last question will expect an answer to it. With regard to the Question on the Paper, I believe that my hon. Friend is within the mark in his statement as to the ages of some of the members of the Episcopal Bench; but I am informed that the most aged of the Bishops is also the most active in the discharge of his duties, and retains the full possession of every mental faculty. An Act was passed some years ago (the 32 & 33 Vict., c. 3) providing for the superannuation and retirement of Prelates and other dignitaries of the Church when no longer able to discharge their duties.

  PRIVILEGE—ATTACHMENT OF A MEMBER (MR. GENT-DAVIS).
  MR. T. M. HEALYasked the First Lord of the Treasury, What steps he intends to recommend the House to take with regard to the communication from one of Her Majesty's Judges affecting the character of one of its Members? My Question has particular reference to the passage in the letter of Mr. Justice North read yesterday to the House, charging the hon. Member for Kennington (Mr. Gent-Davis) with appropriating to his own use, and neglecting to pay into Court, a large sum of money received by him in a fiduciary character.
  THE FIRST LORD (Mr. W. H. SMITH): I have considered the Question which the hon. and learned Member put on the Paper, and I do not see that it would be my duty to ask the House to take any
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  action in the matter. I am not in possession of any information which would justify me in taking that course. I wish to remind the House and the hon. and learned Gentleman that I should take a very serious responsibility upon myself if I were to proceed, even on the statement of the learned Judge, to ask the House to pronounce a judgment upon the financial transactions, or even the fiduciary relations of an hon. Member of this House.
  MR. CONYBEAYRE: Can the right hon. Gentleman give any information as to the probable date of the release of the hon. Member; and whether it is true, as reported, that the sum required to be paid by the order of the Court was found by the Tory Party, and paid into Court yesterday?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: I have no information whatever on the subject. It appears to me to be no part of my duty to answer questions of that kind.
  MR. E. ROBERTSON: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, before coining to the conclusion he has just announced, he consulted the precedents on the subject, in particular those referred to in Sir Erskine May's book on The Practice of Parliament, in which it is shown that, among the causes for which expulsion of Members has been decreed in this House, are those of having been guilty of forgery, perjury, frauds, and breaches of trust; and, whether this case does not come within, at least, the primâ facie description of frauds or breaches of trust.
  MR. W. H. SMITH: With all respect to the hon. and learned Member, I think it is unreasonable that I should be called upon to answer a question of that kind without any Notice whatever. It is most undesirable that the person holding my position in the House should act hastily or rashly in any question affecting the honour and character of any Member of this House.
  MR. E. ROBERTSON: I beg to give Notice that to-morrow I shall ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has consulted—["Order!"]
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Unless action is taken by the Government in the meantime, I beg to give Notice that on Tuesday I shall move—
  "That Mr. Speaker do issue his Warrant to the Clerk of the Crown to make out a writ for

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  the election of a Member to serve in the present Parliament for the Division of Kennington, in room of R. Gent-Davis, esq., who, since his election, has been found guilty by a Judge of Her Majesty's High Court of appropriating to his own use, and neglecting to pay into Court, a large sum of money which was received by him in a fiduciary character."

  EXCISE DUTIES (LOCAL PURPOSES) BILL—THE VAN AND WHEEL TAX.
  MR. CAUSTONasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, with regard to the announcement made last evening by the First Lord of the Treasury in relation to the proposed Van and Wheel Tax, Whether, considering the great loss and inconvenience already suffered by those upon whom the tax would have fallen, he could not now state definitely that the proposal was not merely postponed until next Session, but absolutely withdrawn without any intention on the part of the Government to re-introduce a similar measure?
  MR. HERMON-HODGEinquired whether the withdrawal of the Bill would involve the abolition of the proposed tax upon race and pleasure horses?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN): I think I may inform the hon. Member opposite that, through the great pressure of business which there has been, and through the loss during last week of the day which was intended for the field-day to which the hon. Member had looked forward, it has become perfectly impossible for the Government to hope to carry this Bill—which includes, of course, the tax upon race-horses—through its various stages during the present Session. Under the circumstances, the Bill is withdrawn. With regard to the future, I should look upon the best course to be pursued to be this. Before the Government can deal definitely with a subject of this kind next Session, the County Councils will have been established; and it appears to me that the Government may then take the opinion of the County Councils and local representatives as to what means may be taken to reinforce local taxation by £700,000 which the ratepayers lose by the unfortunate fact that it has not been possible for us to pass the Bill.
  MR. FIRTHasked, whether the Government would consider the
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  effect of the abandonment of the Bill upon the London County Council, whose finances would be completely disorganized; and whether they would introduce some measure to relieve the County Council from this embarrassment, as otherwise a fresh tax would have to be imposed in accordance with the provisions of the Local Government Act?
  THE FIRST LORD (Mr. W. H. SMITH): The hon. Member must know that it is impossible to proceed with any fresh measures of this kind this Session.

  SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE (EXEMPTION OF THE COMMITTEES OF SUPPLY AND WAYS AND MEANS FROM THE STANDING ORDER).
  SIR JOSEPH M'KENNA, with reference to the Motion in the name of the First Lord of the Treasury for suspending the 12 o'clock rule, asked, Whether it was intended that no new opposed Vote should be taken after that hour, and the power only taken advantage of to conclude debate on the Vote then under consideration?
  THE FIRST LORD (Mr. W. H. SMITH)said, that, undoubtedly, the Government did not intend to tie their hands, for if they were to take no Opposed Business after midnight they should accomplish very little by asking the House to suspend the 12 o'clock Rule. Clearly the Government "could not ask the House to continue the Committee of Supply longer than the general sense of the Committee would warrant. He believed the House was anxious to make progress at that period of the Session with Supply; and it would be a very great misfortune if they were prevented from going on with Votes, practically unopposed, after 12, or even after 1 o'clock. He thought the feeling of the Committee would be that all Parties in the House should co-operate as cordially as they could, with all the differences that must exist between different sides, in affording facilities for the transaction of Public Business.
  MR. JOHN MORLEYasked if the Government would guarantee that, in the event of the Motion for suspending the Rule being agreed to, no Votes would be taken after 12 o'clock except such as were practically unopposed?
  MR. W. H. SMITHrepeated his answer, pointing out that to undertake that no opposed Vote should be taken after 12 o'clock at night would be equivalent to surrendering all the advantages gained.
  MR. LABOUCHEREgave Notice that, in consequence of the unsatisfactory answer of the right hon. Gentleman he would oppose the Motion.

  LAND PURCHASE (IRELAND) BILL.
  MR. HENRY H. FOWLERasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Why the Land Purchase (Ireland) Bill, to which six clauses had been added in Committee and on Report, had not been reprinted before the House was asked to read it a third time.
  THE FIRST LORD (Mr. W. H. SMITH)in reply, said, he was really not responsible for the Bill not being printed. There was no expression of opinion on the part of the House that it was desirable to reprint it, and he gave no direction on the subject. The Amendments which had been accepted were very well known; but, nevertheless, had there been an expression of desire that the Bill should be reprinted, undoubtedly the Government would have made every exertion to have it done.
  MR. HENRY H. FOWLERasked the Speaker on whom the authority rested to decide whether a Bill which had been altered on the Report stage should be re-printed.
  MR. SPEAKER: The House itself would decide when a Bill should be reprinted.
  MR. HENRY H. FOWLER, supposing the case where there was no direction by the House, and as it was clearly the general rule of the House, asked on what official then the authority rested?
  MR. SPEAKER: It could then be done on Motion.

  CRIMINAL LAW AND PROCEDURE (IRELAND) ACT, 1887—SERVICE OF CRIMINAL PROCESS.
  MR. FORREST FULTONasked, Whether the Executive Government in Ireland possessed any power or authority whatever to regulate
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  and control the time or manner of service of criminal process either in this country or in Ireland, as recently suggested by the hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. Sexton); and, if so, from what source was so dangerous a dispensing power derived.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR): I am not very learned in these legal matters; but I believe the Attorney General, who is responsible for the administration of the Criminal Law, has power to regulate the time of service of legal process.
  THE LORD MAYOR OF DUBLIN (Mr. SEXTON)asked, if it was not the case that all persons executing process in Ireland were not under the control and supervision of the Executive?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: No, Sir.

  CRIMINAL LAW AND PROCEDURE (IRELAND) ACT, 1887—TRIAL OF MR. E. WALSH.
  MR. T. M. HEALYasked the Solicitor General for Ireland, with reference to an answer he had given on Tuesday last as to the trial of Mr. Walsh, of Wexford, Whether that gentleman had been tried on Wednesday before the same Resident Magistrate whose previous conviction of Mr. Walsh on another charge had been quashed; and what steps the hon. and learned Gentleman had taken to prevent the second trial taking place before this same gentleman, who had now passed sentence of five months' imprisonment?
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN), in reply, said, he did not give a promise. He said that there was no reason to assume that the magistrates were not perfectly competent to try this case because the Superior Court had differed from them in the former case on a difficult point of law. Not that, probably, the magistrates themselves would prefer that the Court should be differently constituted; and he would have inquiries made, and endeavour that it should be so arranged, if it were practicable. His answer was sent over to Ireland, and, he presumed, that as a change was not made, it was found impracticable, probably because there was not sufficient time.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Who arranges the constitution of these Courts, and is there any rota?
  MR. MADDEN: They are arranged by the Divisional Magistrates. I believe no exact rota exists.

MOTION.

  PARLIAMENT—THE NEW RULES OF PROCEDTTRE,1882—RULE 2(ADJOURNMENT OF THE HOUSE).
  LAW AND JUSTICE (IRELAND)—THOMAS MORONEY, A PRISONER FOR CONTEMPT.
  MR. BRADLAUGH, Member for the Borough of Northampton, rose in his place, and asked leave to move the Adjournment of the House, for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance—namely, the continued indefinite imprisonment of Thomas Moroney for a criminal offence—namely, (the Contempt of Court), to the actual serious injury of his health, and possible peril of his life; but the pleasure of the House not having been signified,
  MR. SPEAKERcalled on those Members who supported the Motion to rise in their places, and not less than 40 Members having accordingly risen:—
  MR. BRADLAUGHsaid, he quite agreed that the Government should not be asked to interfere with criminal proceedings except for very good cause. But he contended that such cause did not exist here, and asked the attention of hon. Members, because their adverse judgment might be a sentence of death to this unfortunate man, and he begged them not to depend on the usual sources of information at the end of a debate, but to hear the matter themselves. On the 14th of January, 1887, Thomas Moroney was summoned to show cause why he should not be adjudicated a bankrupt, and on that account was sworn and examined, and answered the questions put to him to the satisfaction of the presiding judge, and was then made bankrupt on the 28th of January. At the first sitting under that bankruptcy Moroney was put into the box to be sworn; but he refused to be sworn and examined. His advocate then stated the grounds of his refusal as follows:—That he was in no real sense of the word a bankrupt, and that he had been made a bankrupt in his capacity of shopkeeper by reason of a debt due in his capacity of tenant-farmer.
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  He stated that the action brought against him in this Court was a vile and infamous attempt to crush him as a tenant-farmer and shopkeeper, and therefore he refused to be examined and sworn. Now he (Mr. Bradlaugh) was not going to justify Mr. Moroney's refusal to be sworn and examined; he admitted that legally the man was wrong, but Moroney claimed that he was morally right, and on this he should venture to suggest that at least Moroney might honestly think so. Proceedings were taken against Moroney to recover a sum of £85, which represented one year's rent, including the hanging gale, of 20 acres of land. At that time, and also when the petition for adjudication in bankruptcy was presented, Moroney had on his land and in his shop goods and chattels far exceeding the whole amount of the landlord's claim; and he suggested to the House that the object of the proceedings was not to recover the debt due to the petitioning creditor and to secure the proper distribution of Moroney's assets, but to obtain information as to other tenants, neither debtors or creditors of the bankrupt, but who happened to owe rent with which Mr. Moroney was unconnected. The intent, he contended, was to use Moroney as an informer against his co-tenants as to what disposition they might have made of any of their means, which the landlord desired to trace and recover. He contended that the House ought not to make itself a party to an offensive proceeding of this kind. The endeavour to examine Moroney was really an endeavour to examine into the Plan of Campaign. But the taking part in the Plan of Campaign was alleged by the Government to be an offence under the Coercion Act, 1887, and therefore an inquiry might have been held before a magistrate under the special powers given by the first section of that Act; and if Moroney so examined had refused to answer he undoubtedly might have been imprisoned, but for how long? This House had decided by incorporating in the Coercion Act Section 13 of the Petty Sessions Ireland Act, 1851, that the whole imprisonment for refusing to answer should not exceed one month. So that in an inquiry into a murder, the refractory witness could only be imprisoned for one month. If Moroney had been brought up under the Crimes Act and had refused to

  531
  answer questions, the sentence could not have exceeded one month; but the unfortunate man had already been in prison for 23 months, and might stay there for his whole life, for refusing to answer questions in the bankruptcy proceedings—questions which, he submitted, ought to have been put under the Crimes Act. He was not asking the Executive to interfere between a plaintiff and defendant, but in a criminal ease. The man, for the legal crime of refusing to answer, had been punished in excess already, and the indefiniteness of the punishment had shaken his mind and imperilled his health. If the hon. and learned Attorney General (Sir Richard Webster) doubted his statement that contempt of Court was a criminal offence, he could quote authorities to support his contention. In re Pollard (5 Moore's Privy Council Cases, N. S. 111) the judgment was distinct that contempt of court was a criminal offence. He might say that, in a judgment of a recent date, delivered by Mr. Justice Mathew, and reported in 21 Q.B.D., 238, the Judge said—
  "It should be borne in mind that a contempt of Court is a criminal offence."
  He quite admitted that Moroney was legally wrong, but he claimed that the man was morally right in refusing to turn informer against the poor tenants of the O'Grady estate. He was a tenant on an estate where, in his judgment, the rents were unfair, and he united with tenants poorer and less able than himself to make any defence for the purpose of procuring a reduction of rent. The adjudications of the Land Courts had upheld his view as to the unfair rent. He was made bankrupt to extort from him information as to the combination; he refused to give it. The fact that he did not make away with his goods, and that his business had been ruined by the proceedings taken against him, was evidence of his honesty. He must, of course, take the consequences of bankruptcy, and for not obeying the order of the Court he ought to be punished; but the sentence should have been a definite one, and not disproportionate to the offence committed. Mr. Justice Mathew had laid it down that where an act done was due to a mistaken view of the rights of the offender, the punishment, where punishment was deemed necessary, should be for a definite period, and should not be too
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  severe. Now, in the present case the punishment was for an indefinite period, and was far too severe. The Returns laid on the Table of the House showed that this man's mind had already suffered from the nearly two years' imprisonment and the uncertainty as to when release would come. Thomas Moroney's bodily and mental health had been shaken, as the hon. Member for South Cork (Dr. Kenny) would tell the House on his responsibility as a medical man. His health—his mental health—was giving way, which meant that he was being driven to insanity; and those who were governing in Ireland must very seriously consider their responsibility as to the ultimate effect the imprisonment might have upon him. Mr. Justice Mathew said that a commitment until the offender consented to give evidence would not, in his judgment, be a proper order to make; and, further, that it would not be right for a Judge sitting in a Criminal Court, and compelled to sentence a prisoner, to direct that the imprisonment should continue until some condition, however reasonable that condition might be, should be complied with; the prisoner, when he had undergone his imprisonment, being entitled to an unconditional release. Moreover, an Irish Judge had also said that committal for contempt ought neither to be indefinite nor too severe. A former Member of the House (Mr. Edward Dwyer Gray), in a trial for murder, committed what the Court held to be a gross contempt, and he was fined and sentenced to three months' imprisonment by Mr. Justice Lawson, one of the Judges of the Supreme Court in Ireland. On a gentleman like Mr. Gray three months' imprisonment pressed heavily; his health was soon somewhat affected by confinement. He never apologized, never purged his contempt, never made any submission; but Mr. Justice Lawson—with that real generosity which went with justice in this country, and which it was to be hoped would go with the administration of the law in Ireland also before very long—released Mr. Gray at the end of six weeks. Were the Government more considerate to the strong than to the weak? [Cries of "No."] It looked as if they were. He would appeal to the sense of humanity on behalf of a man whom he alleged to be in a condition in which he required

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  the treatment of an asylum rather than that of a prison, where he was being driven daily more and more into a state of madness. He thought it would be admitted that he had some justification for interrupting the ordinary deliberations of the House with that Motion; and he called upon hon. Gentlemen opposite, who would have to answer to their constituents for their action towards the Irish people, not to refuse the appeal which he now made on behalf of a man who, whatever his legal offence, certainly did not deserve a sentence of death, and still less of slow and lingering death by mental torture.
  DR. KENNYsaid, he rose with pleasure—if he could use the word pleasure in such a connection—to second the Motion. He would try to imitate the hon. Gentleman the Mover of the Motion in the moderation of his language, but if he were to follow the inclination of his own breast, his language would not be very moderate. He had occasion to visit his friend—and he was proud to call Moroney his friend—on several occasions. He did not attempt to make a medical examination of him, for he had no authority to do so, but he could not shut his eyes to patent facts which came under his observation. He saw Moroney six months ago, and visited him again a fortnight since, and he was shocked to see the change in his appearance. In the interval he showed unmistakable signs of physical suffering from the confinement. His excitability of temperament and demeanour indicated that he was in the gravest danger, and that he might pass that line—which was not so broad, and which might be easily overstepped—between the full possession of mental faculties and that unfortunate condition worse than death. He would go so far as to say he defied any Board, medical or otherwise, to find Mr. Moroney an insane man in any sense of the word; but he equally defied them to say that he was not in a condition in which that unfortunate mental condition might not supervene. Mr. Moroney was under the impression that he was being subjected to a system of official persecution of an irritating character, which could not fail to produce disastrous results to his mental condition. Moreover, they had two Returns lately presented before the House in which his health was referred
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  to by the medical officer of the prison as "mentally unsatisfactory." He know that the Report had given Mr. Moronoy so much pain that he now refused to receive and accept the ministrations of the medical officer of the prison. He (Dr. Kenny) deeply regretted—as he regretted having to say elsewhere—to have to say in that House he was compelled to find grave fault with Dr. Carte, the medical officer of the prison, that on seeing Mr. Moroney's condition to be unsatisfactory he did not urge upon the Executive, as was his duty as a man and physician, the immediate liberation of this unfortunate man. He more deeply regretted still that the medical officer had not reported to the proper authorities and compelled them to grant such relaxations of the present rule in Moroney's case as would tend to counteract the evil effects of this long imprisonment. It was clear from the prison rules that the Visiting Committee—es-specially if asked by the medical officer—would have the power to grant an extension of the time allowed for exercise to any prisoner who was a first-class misdemeanant, as Moroney was. The medical officer, however, had not thought well to do so. This poor gentleman's (Moroney's) exercise for 22 months had been confined to two hours per diem. To a man who had been used to a constant outdoor existence, as Moroney had, the mere idea of confinement was irksome and irritating in the extreme. Not alone had the medical officer not asked them to extend the time of exercise in this case, but he had allowed this to go on. Under ordinary circumstances, Moroney was allowed two hours' exercise a-day, one in the forenoon and one in the afternoon; but the prison officials had reversed the whole of that condition, and they gave him exercise when they pleased. If he (Dr. Kenny) called in to see him for the quarter of an hour allowed, that was illegally subtracted from Moroney's exercise, and was refused to be made good to him. He did not want to say there was official persecution, but Moroney was under that impression, and he (Dr. Kenny) would mention two circumstances. The medical officer's report made Moroney to be in a mentally unsatisfactory condition—what was the meaning of that? It meant that he was, to a certain extent, irresponsible for his acts. By

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  the law, if offenders were held to be so irresponsible, they were not put in a position where they might do those acts again, but care was taken they should not do injury to others. Acting on that idea, the Governor removed the cord from Moroney's window under the idea, according to Dr. Carte's report, that he might not injure himself. But while the prison officials took that view on one side, they did not hesitate to sentence him to bread and water and deprivation of privileges on the other side. No more grossly inconsistent treatment or course of action could be adopted by any responsible Body. On that day fortnight, when he visited him, he (Dr. Kenny) was rudely assailed by a warder rejoicing in the name of James Carey, who made a statement that he (Dr. Kenny) was medically examining Moroney, which was a thing he had not the slightest intention of doing. After that visit a report was made by the warder that Moroney had used abusive language to him, and he was summoned before the Visiting Justices the next week. He did not know how that meeting came to be held, but three members of the Visiting Committee had informed him they got no notice whatever that such investigation was to be made. Moroney was sentenced to seven days' deprivation of privileges—meaning, exercise, &c.—and condemned to 48 hours' bread and water for addressing the warder as a tyrant. Moroney did not use the expression in his presence, but on the day of his visit the warder was so rude towards him (Dr. Kenny) that Moroney became exceedingly irritated by it, and no one could blame him for it. The Visiting Justices, however, afraid of their own action, suspended that sentence in order to allow them to get an answer from the Prisons Board. When the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. A. J. Balfour) came to reply to that debate he asked the right hon. Gentleman to give no quibbling answer such as that they had no power to deal with Judge Boyd. Judge Boyd was a creature of the Executive. They made and they could unmake him. Did they mean to say that a hint from the Government would not produce a relaxation of the sentence? Judge Boyd pronounced this sentence to aid them in their course of policy. He prostituted
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  the seat of Justice to carry out the policy of the Government. Why not ask him to undo an act which brought shame upon them?
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I rise to a point of Order. Is it in Order for a Member of this House to state regarding one of the Judges of the Superior Courts in Ireland, that he has prostituted the seat of Justice to assist the Government to carry out their policy?
  THE LORD MAYOR OF DUBLIN (Mr. SEXTON): On the Question of Order, Sir, I desire to ask is not the salary of a Judge annually voted by this House; and, cannot, therefore, his conduct properly be brought under our consideration?
  MR. SPEAKERsaid, the term "Prostitute the seat of Justice" was clearly an improper and un-Parliamentary expression, and he asked the hon. Member to withdraw it.
  An hon. MEMBER: Free speech!
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!
  DR. KENNYsaid, if he had used any un-Parliamentary expression he withdrew it. He desired to know why Moroney's assets were not realized and applied to the discharge of any debts which might be justly due from him. In conclusion, he begged to second the Motion.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Mr. Bradlaugh.)
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR)said, there was one phrase which dropped constantly from both speakers in this debate, but principally from the hon. Member who moved the Adjournment of the House, and it would imply that, in his opinion, the Government were responsible for what had occurred. That was not the view which was taken by the Government. The hon. Member alleged that Mr. Moroney was treated differently from the late Mr. Dwyer Gray, and asked how that difference of treatment was to be accounted for unless the Government were prepared to adopt harsh measures against the weak and not against the strong. He was unable to perceive in what part of the Executive Government the hon. Member had found the slightest colour for a charge of that kind. On the other hand, he

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  had heard the opposite allegation constantly urged against the Government. It had been constantly said that the Government proceeded against Members of Parliament in excessive numbers, and that they did not hesitate to take action against the leaders of a certain section of public opinion in Ireland. That was inconsistent with the charge of meanness and cowardice now brought against the Government. Both hon. Gentlemen had referred to Moroney's treatment in prison. He had all the privileges of a first-class misdemeanant, and if he had been illegally deprived of them he had his remedy at law. In point of fact, Moroney had been treated like all other misdemeanants. In the course of his imprisonment of about 22 months he had been punished by an alteration of diet on three days only, and even the most delicate constitution would not yield to that. He would not deny that he may have suffered from the term of his imprisonment, but not by the severity of his punishment. The hon. Member said the Government were responsible for what had occurred. He had consulted the two legal advisers of the Government on that Bench, and also the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary (Mr. Matthews), and they were of opinion that if this case had occurred in England there would be no power in the Executive, under any circumstances, to interfere in any manner with the imprisonment of a person confined under the circumstances which attended the imprisonment of Mr. Moroney; so that if there were an inequality in this case as between England and Ireland, the inequality, like most inequalities connected with prison treatment, was in favour of Irish prisons. He did not, however, commit himself to any proposition upon that point. If it were in the power of the Lord Lieutenant to deal with this case on adequate medical grounds being shown, of course any medical report would receive exactly the same weight in the case of Thomas Moroney as in the case of any other prisoner in Ireland. With regard to the circumstances in which this imprisonment originally took place, the hon. Member for Northampton dwelt upon the circumstances of the O'Grady estate. He did not propose to go at length into that subject, which was not germane to the
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  present discussion; but it was only fair to state that the allegation that The O'Grady made no concessions to his tenants was totally without foundation. The rental of the estate was £2,142 in 1845, and it was £1,616 at the present time. After the passing of the Act of 1881 an independent valuer was appointed, and under his advice the rent was reduced to £1,616. Moreover, The O'Grady had in bad years made a further reduction of 15 per cent on judicial and of 25 per cent on other rents. The rents thus reduced and doubly reduced were cheerfully paid by the tenants till the Plan of Campaign was started on the estate. Moroney, he was informed, was one of the trustees under the Plan.
  MR. BRADLAUGHsaid, he had no personal knowledge on the subject, but he was authorized to contradict the statement that Moroney was a trustee.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, whether Moroney was a trustee or not, or even one of the leaders, was not perhaps very material to the question before the House, The facts which affected the case were that he was adjudged a bankrupt, and was brought before the Bankruptcy Court. When before the Court he refused to take the oath required by law to be taken when a bankrupt was asked to declare his assets. And what was the ground of his refusal to take the oath? Those whose only information came from the hon. Member for Northampton would be led to believe that Moroney refused to take the oath because improper questions were going to be asked him, which, upon his part, it would be a breach of faith if he answered them completely. Nothing of the sort. The ground put forward by his solicitor for the refusal was that the bankruptcy was not a valid nor a proper bankruptcy. But the case was carried before the Court of Appeal, which decided that Moroney had been legally and properly adjudicated a bankrupt. Under what circumstances did Moroney refuse to take the oath? Everybody who read the proceedings would be persuaded that even if Moroney had not been committed for an actual refusal to do that which the law said he should do, he nevertheless ought to have been committed for the specific offence of improper behaviour in Court. The account of the proceedings was very interesting.

  539
  Judge Boyd requested the bankrupt to take the oath, but he declined to do so.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Read it consecutively; read it all.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, among other incidents in the trial he observed that Moroney stood up in the witness-box and, holding out his hands, quoted a stanza of patriotic poetry. [Cries of "Read it."] No; hon. members who wished to read it could read it for themselves. There were doubtless occasions when it was proper to read patriotic poetry, but to do so in a Court of Justice as a response to a request to take an oath was neither respectful to the Judge nor conducive to the proper conduct of legal proceedings. He admitted, however, that if that had been the only offence the Judge would have been very ill-advised to inflict any serious term of inprisonment. That brought him to the fundamental distinction between the case of Moroney and every other case which had been quoted, which had been wholly lost sight of in the speeches of the Mover and Seconder. Mr. Justice Mathew—not Matthews, as the hon. Member improperly pronounced it—had been quoted. He would read a passage from his judgment. [The right hon. Gentleman then looked for the passage among his papers, but without success.] He would not interrupt the course of his argument by looking for a passage which no doubt would be quoted later in the debate, and which was not really material to the case, because it would be noted that other Judges besides Mr. Justice Mathew had been of the same opinion. The one case relied upon by the hon. Member for Northampton was the case of a woman named Davis, who insisted upon taking and retaking forcible possession of certain premises. The Court, in order to protect the person to whom these premises belonged, committed the woman Davis for contempt, and they continued to commit her from time to time, because she absolutely declined to give any undertaking that she would refrain from repeating the offence. A period arrived at which the Court ceased to continue the committal, and it was on the fact that the Court refused to continue the commitment that the hon. Member for Northampton based his contention. Now, what were the words in which the Lord Chief Justice
  540
  of England assented to this woman being no longer committed for contempt? Were they words which bore out the contention of the hon. Member for Northampton that there was a limit, and ought to be a limit, after which committal for contempt should cease? He would read to the House what the Lord Chief Justice said—
  "I assent to the proposed order—that is for release—and I do so distinctly on the ground that it is assented to on behalf of the plaintiff in the action as affording him adequate protection. When the Court has given its decision, and the person against whom the Court has decided defies the Court, ignores its decision, and persists in persecuting the person complaining, however reluctant the Court may he, it has, in my opinion, no choice but to enforce its judgment by the imprisonment of the contumacious person."
  It was, therefore, as clear as daylight, from the charge given by the Lord Chief Justice of England, that had it rested simply with the Court—had the Court simply to consider the fact that they were defied by a continuous course of action—they would not have let the woman Davis out; and it was solely because the plaintiff agreed to allow this woman to be lot out that the Lord Chief Justice assented to that course being taken.
  MR. BRADLAUGH: That is not the charge, but the judgment.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, he had not the same wide experience as the hon. Gentleman, and it was possible that he had made a slip. But it would be sufficient if he accurately and clearly gave the substance. Now, the fundamental distinction which lay at the bottom of all these judgments for contempt of Court had been stated by the Judges over and over again. If there were a continuous defiance of a Court of Law, which it was in the power of the prisoner at any moment to cease making, so long as the defiance lasted the imprisonment lasted. To go back to the case of Moroney, it was not a question of 20 months' imprisonment for refusing to take the oath at the time he was first brought to the Court, but he had been put in prison until he purged his contempt by taking the oath which it was in his power to take at any moment. Whether, therefore, Judge Boyd was well or ill advised, whether the Lord Chief Justice, who endorsed the doctrine on which

  541
  Judge Boyd acted, was right or wrong, was not his business. It was clear that the case of a prisoner who might get out directly he chose to obey the law was wholly different from that of a man committed to prison for a long and indefinite term for an offence which he has committed and cannot go back upon. In the first case it was merely a method of securing obedience to the law; in the other it was the exercise of the punitive power of the Judge. He would say no more on that particular point, because it was perfectly clear that the whole argument of the hon. Member for Northampton fell to the ground if once the distinction were grasped between the punitive action of the Judge and the action to which he referred. He had explained to the House that, in the opinion of those best qualified to advise, in England there would be no power in the Government to interfere at all. He had also stated that if law and precedent were different in Ireland, if there were a power in the Lord Lieutenant to deal with a prisoner in these circumstances as he would deal with a prisoner in other circumstances, the release of the prisoner would be ordered. Leaving, therefore, the specific case of Moroney, he would ask the House to bear in mind one or two general considerations which ought not to be absent from their minds in voting on this question. The House ought to enter on discussions of this kind with the utmost circumspection and caution. As he understood the Motion, those who voted for it would interpret it as a reflection upon the conduct of the Judge in his ordinary duty. [Cries of "No!"] It was capable of no other interpretation whatever. Now, the constitutional method—and he believed the only constitutional method—of dealing with the conduct of Judges was by a Resolution of both Houses of Parliament. That had some effect; nothing short of that had any effect. Suppose this Motion, instead of being for the Adjournment of the House, was a specific. Resolution condemning the action of Judge Boyd. Why, Judge Boyd would be bound to regard it as so much waste paper. If ever that House were to control the action of the Judges on the Bench, there was an end to the independent administration of justice in England. But the case was even stronger than he had put it. They
  542
  were asked to vote, not for a Resolution condemning the action of Judge Boyd, but for a Resolution that the House should adjourn, a very different proposition, which each man was capable of interpreting in his own way. This was a good illustration of the extreme inconvenience of this mode of raising a question. An hon. Member might vote for this Motion because he objected to Judge Boyd or to the Chief Secretary. Others might vote for it because they would like to see the House adjourned. The Motion was so drawn that it was capable of being voted for from very different reasons. It was also capable of being voted against for many reasons. He did not believe that there was anybody on that side of the House who thought there was any impropriety in the action of the Government, nor did he think that anybody on that side of the House desired to interfere with judicial procedure. Still any hon. Member might vote against the Motion because he did not wish to stop the business of the House. This showed the inconvenience of attacking the Executive Government by Motions for Adjournment, which, if carried, the country would be at a loss to interpret. But he had a stronger reason for requesting the House not to vote for this Motion. The Motion was not really a reflection upon the Executive at all, but upon Judge Boyd. But Judge Boyd would not be injured if the Motion were carried, but the House itself. The House would pass a Resolution which, in the opinion of the Mover, would be a condemnation of the Judge.
  MR. BRADLAUGHsaid, he intended it to reflect upon the Executive.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, from the speech of the hon. Gentleman, anybody would suppose it to be a Motion against the Judge. But the Judge would treat, and would be bound to treat, the Resolution, if carried, with absolute contempt; and the House of Commons could get nothing but discredit and dishonour by a Resolution of this kind attacking the Judicial Bench. He hoped, therefore, that the House would hesitate before it committed itself to a course which before now had brought discredit upon its promoters and in the future might bring discredit upon it again. So far as the Executive was concerned, he could only repeat that if it were a question

  543
  in which the Executive had the power which they possessed in the case of ordinary prisoners, they would exercise that power, if, after a medical investigation, it was proved that the prisoner's health was suffering from the confinement.
  MR. BEADLAUGHsaid, he wished to explain that he had not said one solitary word against the Judge. He certainly had not intended to, and his impression was that he had not done so.
  SIR CHARLES RUSSELLsaid, he wished to say a few words on the subject. He would not, in the course of the arguments which he intended to address to the House, make any attack upon the Judge or the Executive Government in Ireland, He must say the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary misrepresented the scope and the object of the Motion, which did not complain expressly or impliedly of the Judge. There was no stigma cast on Mr. Justice Boyd by this Motion. They were resorting to the ordinary expedient of moving the Adjournment of the House to discuss a matter of definite and urgent importance—namely, the long continued imprisonment of the man Moroney under circumstances which had caused serious peril to his health, and might endanger his life. Therefore, those who voted for this Motion might relieve themselves from all notion that in supporting it they were casting a stigma either on the conduct of the Executive or the Judge. The right hon. Gentleman, while he said that he did not propose to discuss the facts of the case, had nevertheless given his version of the case. He agreed to a certain extent that the facts were not directly germane to the question, but as they had been referred to, and in a way which did not fit in certainly with the account of the facts which he had seen stated, and apparently authentically stated, he should like to remind the House what those facts were. The man Moroney was one of a number of tenants upon the O'Grady estate. He combined with the other tenants to demand an abatement of rent, which the landlord considered unreasonable. Landlords generally did consider such demands unreasonable. ["Oh, oh!"] Well, the tenants made the demand, and it might be that their demand was unreasonable. He did not know, and he should not stop to consider the matter.
  544
  Moroney, being a man of means and position, took a foremost part in the matter. He owed a certain amount of rent, and being a foremost man, his landlord proceeded to take action against him to recover one year's rent, including the ordinary hanging gale, and he did that for the obvious purpose of striking at the combination of which Moroney was one of the leading men. Now Moroney was not in any proper sense a bankrupt or insolvent, and he left upon his farm sufficient property to answer for the amount of rent under process. But, notwithstanding these facts, his landlord proceeded to make him a bankrupt with the purpose—and he understood that it was avowed—of using the machinery of the Court of Bankruptcy not merely to get at the facts as regarded that particular man, but at the facts relating to the action of the other tenants, and Moroney, for that reason and on that ground, refused to be sworn. He should assume that Judge Boyd in the Bankruptcy Court was justified in requiring the witness to be sworn, and he should assume that Moroney committed contempt of Court in refusing to be sworn. He should not suggest one word of blame against Judge Boyd; but it must not be assumed, on the other hand, that he endorsed his course of action. What he did he was authorized to do, but was not compelled to do by the Irish Statute under which he acted. He might have committed Moroney for a definite period, and then again called upon him to be sworn. He should say, in the first place, this—that it was against modern precedent, it was against the tendency of recent changes in the law and recent expressions of judicial opinion, to commit any man for a contempt of Court to prison for an indefinite period. Moroney by his single act committed a contempt of Court, and for nothing more and nothing less Judge Boyd was justified in punishing him. He should cite distinguished authority of living Judges, and also the opinion of one of the greatest jurists who had adorned the Bench, Mr. Justice Wills. Let him just remind the House of the history of this subject. This old law of committal by Courts of Justice for contempt was an anomaly in our law, and was not consistent in the wide way in which it was exercised with modern notions about the limited jurisdiction and the responsibility of Judges.

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  There were undoubtedly days, Dot so long ago either, when in the case of contempt which concerned the rights of private individuals the Court of Chancery treated as contempt and the Court punished private injury done to the prejudice of a litigant. There were scandalous cases which would not be tolerated in the present day—cases of long years of imprisonment—but the law had altered that. There was the Act of 1869—he meant the Debtors Act—which limited the period of imprisonment in such cases to 12 months, and in the case of County Court Judges there was a further restriction of the power, blow stood judicial authority upon the point? As the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Bradlaugh) had pointed out, the decision of Mr. Justice Mathew was not seriously impugned by Lord Coleridge, and Mr. Justice Mathew said—
  "The commitment until the defendant consents to give evidence would not, in my judgment, he a proper order to make."
  He (Sir Charles Russell) wanted to know what was this unless it be that very thing. How long was this wretched man to be kept in prison? He had already been very close upon two years in gaol. Was he to be kept there two years more or five years more? Was there no Statute of Limitations? High as was the authority of Mr. Justice Mathew, he would cite an authority higher than his. He thought if hon. Gentlemen had been aware of the opinion of Mr. Justice Wills they would hardly have allowed the right hon. Gentleman to make that very wild statement of their views. He would refer to the case of Fernandez, which came for review before the Court presided over by Chief Justice Earle. The case was on all fours with the present one, and Mr. Justice Wills pointed out, as also Chief Justice Earle, that the only remedy was an appeal to the Crown in the nature of an appeal for mercy. This proceeding was in the nature of an appeal for mercy; and, as they all knew, the action of the Crown meant the initiative and action of the Executive In the case just referred to, he was reminded that the committal was six months only. He admitted that it had not been the custom of the Executive to interfere with commitments for contempt which consisted in disobebience to
  546
  orders in matters concerning private property—as, for instance, the return of money or the execution of deeds of conveyance; but he did not admit that in such cases the Executive had not the right to interfere, because it had been laid down upon the highest authority, adopted again and again by the Judges, that contempt of Court was nothing less than crime, punishable by fine or imprisonment. In the cases of the class he referred to, the Executive had, he maintained, the absolute right to interfere, although he admitted they would only be justified in interfering in extreme cases. Was it to be said that when there was a criminal in gaol under the care and guardianship of the Crown, that there was any limitation of the power of the Crown to open the prison doors and set him free? His argument was that contempt was a crime, and that it was treated as a crime, and it followed that the Crown, by the exercise of its prerogative, to which there was no limitation, could open the prison doors to any person so charged. He did not want in any way to weaken the appeal which was made to the House to put pressure upon the Executive, and he had not said a word to suggest that originally the Executive was in any way responsible. There was in this case no continuing necessity for the purpose of public justice or for the assertion of any private right that Moroney should now be examined. Now that the attention of the Executive had been called to the case; now that it was clear that this man's health was injured and that his life might be endangered; when it was reported that the balance of his reason was disturbed, he affirmed that the Executive might well listen to the appeal that was made to them. It needed no voice from the grave to tell them that if the Executive would but express the faintest opinion—after consulting Judge Boyd, which he did not think was necessary, although it might be courteous—that this man had suffered enough; that his punishment had been totted to the last figure; and that there was no reason why he should be imprisoned until he was finally bereft of reason, there would be no difficulty in effecting his release from prison.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, he wished to add, by way of explanation, that he believed, rightly or wrongly, the Executive

  547
  had not the power to deal with the length of this man's imprisonment; it was open to doubt whether they could release him as they could an ordinary prisoner; but he had stated, and he would repeat, that if they had the power it should be exercised.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir RICHARD WEBSTER)said, that his hon. and learned Friend (Sir Charles Russell) in his opening remarks disclaimed any intention of attacking Judge Boyd, but, in spite of the disclaimer of his hon. and learned Friend, his observations amounted to an attack upon Judge Boyd for having pronounced a wrong sentence. He would, however, meet his hon. and learned Friend on his own ground. He was sorry that his hon. and learned Friend had not quoted Mr. Justice Wills at length, for in the case of Fernandez, Mr. Justice Wills simply referred to the fact that there might be an appeal to the Crown in a case of a punitive sentence; and no single authority had been cited to show that the Executive could interfere to release a man who was in prison in circumstances similar to those of Moroney. It was possible that in Ireland in such a case the Executive might have power to interfere with a man's imprisonment on account of the condition of his health; but in England, unless a Judge who had made an order of commitment, made an order of discharge, no Executive officer had any power to order the release of a man imprisoned as Moroney was. If an attempt were made to release Moroney by writ of habeas corpus or any other process, the production by the gaoler of the order of the Judge committing the man to prison would be a conclusive answer to any such attempt. Neither the Home Secretary nor any other person had the slightest right to make an order of discharge. The analogy from the Debtors Act failed altogether.
  SIR CHARLES RUSSELLsaid he had quoted it as an instance of the tendency of modern legislation.
  SIR RICHARD WEBSTERsaid that it was no instance. But how did the matter stand? This was an attack on the Judge or on the Executive. The imprisonment of this man was ordered under the section of the Statute, and the conditions of imprisonment and of release were clearly defined by the Statute. It said—
  548
  "If any person shall refuse to be sworn, or shall refuse to answer any lawful question put by the Court, or shall not fully answer such question, it shall be lawful to the Court by warrant to commit such person to such prison as such Court shall think fit, there to remain without bail until he or she shall submit himself or herself to such Court to be sworn and full answers make to the satisfaction of such Court to all such lawful questions."
  The sentence in this case was not a punitive sentence. The man was committed to prison only until he purged his contempt, and he had in his own hands the power to unlock the prison door. The Act relating to imprisonment for debt had no bearing whatever upon proceedings in bankruptcy or imprisonment for contempt. No one could assert that the Government had anything to do, directly or indirectly, with the length of the sentence. And, indeed, it depended upon the prisoner himself even more than the learned Judge. The hon. and learned Member for South Hackney could not, and did not, suggest that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had anything to do with the sentence, or that the Government had anything to do with lengthening it; nor did he suggest that Judge Boyd was wrong in sending this man to prison for contempt. Neither the Government nor the learned Judge had anything to do with the length of the sentence. The Judge merely acted in accordance with the Statute, and it would be a lamentable thing for this country if it were supposed that the Executive could interfere with the Judges and cut down their sentences. No one could assert it to be desirable that the Executive should interfere, directly or indirectly, with sentences of this kind. If this man's health required his release, that was a matter which ought to be carefully considered; but this Motion could only be taken either as an attempt to undermine the authority of the Judge, whose conduct could not justly be impeached, or to insinuate misconduct on the part of the Executive, which had nothing to do with the matter.
  MR. HALDANEsaid, the right hon. and learned Attorney General had absolutely and entirely missed the point of the Motion made on the Opposition side of the House. They did not attack the conduct of any Judge. What they asserted and insisted

  549
  on was that there was something wrong in the state of the law that allowed this man to be kept in prison, and that it was the duty of the Government to take such steps as should remedy what they conceived to be a great injustice. It was said that no Resolution of this House could bring about the release of this man. He subscribed to the principle that Judges should be left independent of any Resolutions of the House of Commons. But if the Government assented to this Motion it would be an intimation that they would be favourable to a Bill being introduced for this man's release. There were two ways in which it was possible for the Government to give effect to the wish of the House in this matter. In the first place, if it was true—and it had been shown beyond all question that it was true—that contempt of Court was a criminal offence, then it seemed to him that the clemency of the Crown in the form of a pardon might be well extended to the man Moroney. Why should the Executive not interfere in this matter? A pardon from the Crown would in all probability release the man from prison. If the Government submitted to the House a Bill for an alteration of the law for the purpose of releasing Moroney, it would certainly receive every support from that side of the House. If this man had been tried at the Old Bailey for contempt of Court he would have been sentenced at the most to 12 months' imprisonment. Yet in this case, where the offence was a small one, Moroney was imprisoned for an indefinite period. The law on the subject of contempt of Court required amendment, and in 1883 Lord Selborne introduced a measure with this object. Mr. Justice Mathew, in the recent case of Mrs. Davies, pointed out that it was against the policy of the law that a person should be kept in prison indefinitely for contempt of Court. This was a criminal offence which a Judge had power to deal with summarily, but which was also triable by indictment, and since if tried by indictment the person guilty of contempt would be sentenced to a definite and moderate term of imprisonment, it was not right that he should, under the summary process, be kept in prison indefinitely. He thought the time had come when some restriction ought to be put on the power of Judges who might be irritated with the conduct of some
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  person brought before him, and who might order that person to be imprisoned for an indefinite period. If contempt of Court was an offence against the law, it ought to be tried in the ordinary way. They made no attack on the conduct of any Judge of the land. They simply asked the Government to assist them in amending the law in the shortest possible manner, or to exercise the clemency of the Crown by releasing this prisoner.
  SIR HENRY JAMESsaid, that if the object of those who made the Motion were to effect an alteration in the law, that purpose would not be carried out immediately by adjourning the House. He was glad to hear from his hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Hackney (Sir Charles Russell) that there was no suggestion that there had been any error or fault in the Judge who had made the order of commitment. It must be assumed that the order had been well made; for there was a remedy for the subject who had been committed by a wrong order by writ of habeas corpus. He would ask the House to consider the case, supposing it were one of a fraudulent bankrupt who had no honourable motives. Suppose the Court knew that he had large property somewhere, about which he would give no information. What course was the Court to take? The Court was bound to toll him that he must give an account of his property; or that if he refused to obey the Court, he should remain in prison until he did—a thing which could be done at any moment. Therefore the case must be assumed, whatever the motives of the man in refusing to answer the question, to be a defiance of the law, and hon. Members should take care that through their dealings with the action of a Court of Justice the law should not be set at defiance. His hon. and learned Friend had pointed to the fact that the man Moroney had remained in prison 22 months. But he need not have remained 22 hours, because he could at any time obey the order of the Court and cease to set it at defiance. He was not prepared on the moment to express a confident opinion on the question whether the Executive had the right to recommend the Crown in this case to remit the sentence. He did not know how a sentence could be remitted which was for the purpose of asserting that a

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  man should do a certain thing, and that when he had done it he should be free from custody. But if the sentence were for a positive period, then there would be powers within the Executive to remit the sentence. As to the remitting of a sentence that was not positive, they were on very delicate ground. If it were declared that the Crown had such power, the Court would be prevented from carrying out its decree that a specific performance should be carried into effect; and that was a condition in which the Executive and Parliament ought to be very careful how they interfered. If it were true that there was any ground for the suggestion that the man was bereft of reason—that this conduct resulted, not from contumacy, but from gross eccentricities of character, it was a matter which ought to be considered to the fullest extent.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have promised that we will carefully consider this matter, and we have been doing so for days.
  SIR HENRY JAMESsaid, he would suggest to the Government that the most generous consideration should be given to such arguments. By so doing no one would be condemned; the original sentence would not be pronounced wrong or the Executive unduly dilatory.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid, that with any of the propositions of the right hon. and learned Gentleman who had just sat down he would not quarrel. The Chief Secretary for Ireland had stated that the Executive were under no responsibility or liability in this matter, and that, therefore, the Motion must be an attack upon the learned Judge. He (Mr. T. M. Healy) thought it a most remarkable thing that the Chief Secretary, who was unable to answer any of the questions as to Moroney's health, was, at the same time, fully armed to answer the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Bradlaugh) on the details of the O'Grady estate.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am well acquainted with the details of the Plan of Campaign estates. Moroney's case has been under the consideration of the Lords Justices for the past six days.
  MR. T. M. HEALYasked why, if that were so, an answer had not been given to the Question of his hon. Friend. He held in his hand the Return of Prisoners for Contempt of Court, dated
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  April 13, 1888, and in that he found the case of Thomas Moroney referred to in the following words:—"Physical condition good; mental condition indifferent." This was eight months ago, and the Government had been in possession of the doctor's report all that time. From the Chief Secretary's reference to the man's behaviour in Court, it was evident that he had been aware of his eccentricities from the first. In prison precautions were taken against the possibility of Moroney committing suicide, and he had been deprived of those things to which a sane prisoner was entitled; and, while they did this, they punished him, as if he were a sane man for a breach of prison discipline. Where the responsibility of the Executive began was, that they had received the doctor's report and had done nothing for eight months afterwards. He had visited the man a fortnight ago, and he hardly knew him; his hair was grey, and his features and frame emaciated. It had been stated that the man when in custody could at any time have purged his contempt. But no attempt had been made to take him before the Court; he had had no opportunity of purging his contempt; but for the Motion brought forward he might have rotted in prison. What could Moroney do? Notice would have to be given to the Court, not by anyone friendly to Moroney, but by the petitioning creditors. He would make no observation on the conduct of the Judge. He would admit that the Judge had no other option than to commit Moroney in the first instance. But there were other landlords besides The O'Grady who had tried bankruptcy proceedings; they were tried by Mr. Brooke on the Coolgreany estate. Moroney had cattle and stock on his farms enough to satisfy the landlord's claim five times over; and the landlord could have seized them, but he would not. That showed that this bankruptcy proceeding was a bogus and sham proceeding. Moroney did not owe a shilling to any man in the world except his landlord. When a Judge was aware that proceedings were taken in his Court—not for a genuine purpose of bankruptcy, but for the purpose of subjecting a man to a kind of inquisition, he should not favour such a course. What was the action of the other bankruptcy Judge—Judge Millar—when a

  553
  man named M'Carthy and others were committed? They had not been in gaol more than two or three months when Judge Millar ordered their release, and Judge Millar was as good a Conservative as Judge Boyd. Therefore, if any attack was made upon Judge Boyd, it was made by the action of his official colleague. The House, then, should not treat this matter as if it was dealing with the case of an ordinary bankrupt. They ought to deal with it as from the start—an abuse of the process of the Court, and, for Ms (Mr. T. M. Healy's) part, he declared that if he were in Moroney's place—and certainly he would have no desire to commit a contempt of the Court over which Judge Boyd presided—he would do exactly the same thing. If proceedings were levelled against him for the purpose of making him betray his comrades, the poorer men with whom he had been working, when he had plenty of means to meet the claim, it would have been a point of honour with him to face the consequences. Nobody, and especially a member of the Executive or a member of the Judiciary, could be ignorant of what was the mind of Parliament on this matter. In the Session of 1883 a Bill was brought into the House of Lords, and passed without a Division, limiting the term of punishment for contempt to imprisonment for three months. Moroney had received more than seven times that punishment, which Lord Selborne, who was the father of the Act he referred to, thought was sufficient. That Bill of Lord Selborne's had no doubt been introduced with the concurrence of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bury, whose treatment, he must say, of questions connected with Ireland had always contrasted favourably with that of his Colleagues. With regard to the power of the Executive to interfere, it should be remembered that the Bankruptcy Judge was not a Judge of the Superior Court. His salary was voted by that House year after year. Here they had a statutory tribunal, and the position was wholly different from the case of a Judge of the Superior Court. It was an inhuman thing that with this Report on Moroney's health staring them in the face no action had been taken on it for eight months. He wished to tell the Government that that report had had one important and unhappy
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  effect, and that was an effect upon Moroney himself. It would have been a more humane thing if Dr. Carte, instead of baldly and nakedly putting the statement he had done in the Blue Book about Moroney's health, had made a confidential statement to the Government. Which of them in the course of 23 months' confinement, and brooding over this brutal statement that the mental condition was unsatisfactory, would not be affected by it? Even if the man's head was indifferent at the time, Dr. Carte, instead of baldly stating it in the Blue Book, should have communicated it long before to the Government. He charged Dr. Carte with a very grave dereliction in this matter. Either he made a prior Report to the Government or he did not. If he did not make a prior Return, but waited for this Return, then he said Dr. Carte misconceived his duty; but if he did make a report to the Government then the Government had knowledge of Moroney's health, and were equally responsible. Therefore, instead of saying that Motion was an attack on the Government, he regarded it as a Motion directed to the Executive, and that they should punish a man whom they themselves declared was in a mental condition which was unsatisfactory—that they should punish him on bread and water, and treat him as a man in full possession of his mental faculties, was a gross misuse of their powers. If this had been the case of an Englishman or a fraudulent bankrupt he would have been released long ago. It was because this was a political imprisonment that this man was detained. If it were the case of a twopence-half-penny bankrupt, or of some landlord who would not pay his debt, the man would long since have been released under a report of this kind, and it was a shame and a scandal that with the report staring them in the face for the last eight months, they continued inflicting punishment on this man when his health was indifferent, and that, instead of giving him additional time for exercise they should have arraigned him, as they did the other day, before three magistrates, and sentenced him to a further period of bread and water. He declared it was a monstrous thing, and would not have happened in any other country, and would only be done in Ireland for political purposes. He

  555
  contended this was a Motion directed against the Executive, against the prison officials, and against the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary; and it could have no other aim or object. The prison rules were being construed against this unfortunate man. He (Mr. T. M. Healy) visited him the other day, and asked him upon what grounds he had been put on bread and water. Before Moroney could reply the Governor interfered, saying that he would not allow him to be asked anything with regard to the sentence, the Court which passed it, or the grounds of such sentence. He (Mr. T. M. Healy) brought the prison rules, and asked the Governor to be good enough to refer him to any rule which forbade such; but he refused to do so, saying he declined to be cross-examined. "I decline," he said, "to give you any information. I am acting upon my instructions." He (Mr. T. M. Healy) told the Governor he should persist in asking this question; and he again put the query to Moroney, who was at once trundled out of the visitors' room. He denounced such a course of procedure as being contrary to the prison rules. The Governor was bound to act on the rules. If he acted on private instructions or private letters, such as the right hon. Gentleman was going to address to the Land Purchase Commissioners—if he was going to act on Executive communications—he was grossly neglecting and betraying his duty. What was the power resident in the Governor to prevent this first-class misdemeanant being asked with regard to his treatment in prison? What was the power to prevent Moroney from having the visits of his friends, to which he was entitled? Why was that visit cut short when a question was being asked on the matter, which was not prohibited by the prison rules He declared that the prison rules were being broken in regard to this man. The Government regarded him as a political prisoner, and they treated him accordingly. They could show him nothing in the prison rules which entitled them to violate the Statute regarding this man, which enabled him to have a visit for a certain period each day. Now, they said if this man was in ill health they would have it inquired into; but they would only say that when the Adjournment of the House was moved. And when they
  556
  attacked the hon. Member for Northampton for moving the Adjournment, he would ask them what other opportunity had they of calling attention to the matter? Finally, let him tell the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary that in his days of nature—in the days when he sat below the Gangway on the other side of the House—he was not slow to use such a method himself—he had moved the Adjournment of the House about the Kilmainham Treaty. Now, however, hon. Members were guilty of a criminal act in moving the Adjournment because prisoners were not released.
  MR. HENRY H. FOWLERsaid, he must protest against the Constitutional position laid down by the Attorney General (Sir Richard Webster) and the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Bury (Sir Henry James), who applied to all persons exercising judicial authority in this country the great Constitutional privileges conferred on the Judges of the Supreme Court since the time of the Revolution of 1688—namely, absolute irresponsibility to Parliament and to the Executive. In the case of a Judge of the Bankruptcy Court, a Stipendiary Magistrate, or others of an inferior class, it was unnecessary to move by means of an Address to the Crown in order to remove their authority.
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN)said that the Irish Bankruptcy Act constituting this Court provided for a Judge's removal by an Address to the Throne from both Houses of Parliament.
  MR. HENRY H. FOWLERsaid that this was not his point. The test was that if the salary of the Judge was paid out of the Consolidated Fund Parliament had no right to interfere; but it had a right to review the conduct of any officer of the Crown whose stipend was voted in Committee of that House; and before he knew of the Motion which had been made he intended himself to move in Committee a reduction of the salary of Judge Boyd. He also protested against the doctrine that the Crown had no right to interfere in a sentence of that kind. This was the crux of the case. Admitting the propriety and legality of the question put and the impropriety and illegality

  557
  of the refusal to answer it, he submitted to the House that Moroney had been sufficiently punished by 23 months' imprisonment, and that it was now the duty of the Executive Government to interfere. The doctrine of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Bury was that if the Government were satisfied that they had power in the event of that man's health being imperilled, they should interfere. The condition as to his health should be rejected altogether. The Attorney General had laid it down positively that the Crown had no power to interfere, and that contention had met with the approval of the right hon. and learned Member for Bury. But the opinion of Mr. Justice Wills, which had already been referred to, was in opposition to that view, and it had been approved of by Chief Justice Earle in the same case. He said, "We are not a Court of Appeal from the Court of Assize. If the party is dissatisfied, or thinks he is aggrieved, he may apply to the Sovereign, and the Sovereign may give him redress." Hon. Members on that side of the House were appealing to the Sovereign through the Irish Executive to exercise the prerogative of mercy. He should go into the Lobby on that ground alone, and he trusted that hon. Members on both sides of the House would do so likewise, under the firm conviction that this man had suffered sufficiently.
  SIR HENRY JAMESsaid, his right hon. Friend had entirely misunderstood him. He had endeavoured to express to the House his view that where the punishment was a fixed term and punitive, the judgment of Mr. Justice Wills and Chief Justice Earle was correct, and the Crown had the power of interference; his doubt was whether, in the absence of any precedent to that effect, where the judgment was merely in order that a thing should be done, and where the moment the thing was done the man was released, the same power existed as in the case of a punitive sentence.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes 159; Noes 195: Majority 36.—(Div. List, No. 316.)

SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE.
  OBSERVATIONS.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH)said, he did not propose to proceed with the Motion for the suspension for the rest of the Session of the midnight Rule, and the half-past five Rule on Wednesdays, so far as Supply and Ways and Means were concerned, in the hope that they might during the evening or to-morrow arrive at some understanding which met the general convenience and good feeling of the House.
ORDER OF THE DAY.
  LAND PURCHASE (IRELAND) BILL.
  (Mr. Arthur Balfour, Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland, Mr. Secretary Matthews.)
  LAND PURCHASE (IRELAND) BILL.

    [BILL 385.] THIRD READING.
    Order for Third Reading read.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."
    DR. CLARK, on rising to move that the Bill be read a third time that day three months, said that he was totally opposed to the principle of the Bill; he thought it one of the worst measures ever brought before the House. Large tracts of land were originally given in consideration of certain services. These services were replaced by a tax which Parliament, when but a Trades Union of Landlords, had abolished. It was now proposed by this Bill to constitute a new class of freeholders, who also would render neither service nor tax. The discussions upon the Bill had disclosed the false pretences upon which the original Act was obtained, and these pretences could no longer be advanced. It was urged that the money was to be applied in the disturbed districts; but as a matter of fact it had been spent principally in the quiet districts. Under the Bill they would have one man purchasing more than one farm, and another system of landlordism would be developed and, as was the case in France, the new landlords would be very much worse than those they had replaced. The Bill attempted, by aside

    559
    wind, to undo the legislation of 1881, and would create a new system of land tenure in Ireland. In establishing a new set of owners, equity demanded that the value of Irish land should not be determined by the exercise of duress. Before anything was done, the Irish landlords should be placed on the same footing as Scotch and English landlords, who did not possess the exemptions and privileges of the Irish owners. The value of Irish land should be determined by its burdens. Just now the value was fictitious; it had been created by legislation, and was not the natural value. But even if all the burdens that ought to be borne by the Irish landlords were borne by them, he should still object to the Bill before the House, because he was as much opposed to a peasant owner of five acres as he was to a Peer owner of 500 acres. He contended that it would be wrong and unjust to lead the poor Irish peasant into the trap of buying the thing called economic rent, because it would be inevitably taken from him by taxation. In conclusion, he opposed that measure because the system established under it was neither a just nor an enduring one, and he would be no party to misleading the Irish peasant into spending his money to purchase a thing which would be inevitably taken from him. He begged to move that the Bill be read a third time that day three months.
    Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day three months."—(Dr. Clark.)
    Question proposed, "That the word 'now ' stand part of the Question."
    Notice taken that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,
    MR. COMMINSsaid, he opposed the third reading for two reasons. The first was that the Bill would do nothing whatever to remedy the evils complained of in Ireland, and the second was that it would produce an evil on its own account by tending to prevent the accumulation of capital, and to perpetuate, in an impersonal way, rack-renting, arrears, and evictions. The effect of the measure would be to convert the tenant into an in cumbered proprietor, who would not be relieved
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    in the smallest degree from the present pressure of rent and arrears. The poor rate, the improvement rate, the county cess, and the other imposts now wholly or in part borne by the landlord, which would now fall on the purchasing tenant, would make the instalments about 17½ per cent over the old rent. It would be most useful information if the Government would furnish particulars of the burdens on the land which the purchasers would have to discharge. The purchasing tenants would be more rack-rented than before, and evictions would follow to such an extent that the occupiers would find the State more merciless than their former landlords.
    MR. CONYBEAREsaid, he held that the security was worthless; but, apart from that, on principle, the Bill was not entitled to their approval. The Party opposite alleged that they had a mandate to uphold the Union; but he had never heard it alleged that they had a mandate to carry out a scheme of purchase at the cost of the British taxpayer. The necessity of an independent valuation as the basis of purchase transactions had been insisted upon by the right hon. Member for West Birmingham (Mr. J. Chamberlain), who ought to have been present to reiterate the views he urged in opposition to the Land Bill of the Leader of the Opposition. It had been admitted in the case of Lord Dillon's estate that the rents of the holdings could not be made out of the land, and yet these rents might be made the bases of purchase transactions. Such bargains could not satisfy the rack-rented tenants, and, therefore, could not lead to the pacification of the country. But the tenants could not be free agents while the country was under coercion and eviction for arrears was used as the engine of compulsory purchase. Instead of allowing the landlords to walk off with the whole of the money at once, they should be content to take the instalments as they were received by the Government, upon whom would rest the cost of collection. This was the most socialistic measure that had ever been attempted to be passed. It was in direct opposition to the principle of land nationalization, and would reproduce all the evils of the present system of landlordism, and for these reasons he should vote against it.
    SIR WILFRID LAWSONsaid, he did not quite agree with the statement that had been made that this Bill was being passed almost without discussion, though it was quite true that the discussion had been all on one side. They had spent nine days over the Bill, and he thought those days had been well spent, for they had cleared the air and explained to the country the real nature of this land purchase policy. It was quite clear that there would never again be a Liberal land purchase policy. The debate on the second reading had been a most excellent one. The leader of the Irish Party made the speech of a statesman, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Sir William Harcourt) made the speech of a first-rate debater, and the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill) made the speech of a first-rate political acrobat. The late Sir Stafford Northcote once quoted an old saying that the only way to govern the Irish was to go among them with a thick stick in one hand and a heavy purse in the other. This was a very accurate description of the present policy of the Government—a mixture of coercion and corruption. In other words—doses of coercion followed by drafts of money. The policy of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian and his supporters, however, was neither to bully nor to bribe, but to let the Irish people govern themselves, and, therefore, they opposed this Bill for this, among other reasons, that it was rejected by the 85 Nationalist members of Ireland, and only supported by the 15 landlordist Members. This debate was certainly in one respect unprecedented—it was the first occasion on which Irish Members had ever been known to refuse to receive money for their country. But this he regarded as a grand tribute to the policy of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone). Irish Members said they wanted justice, not alms. It was also a tribute to the democracy of this country, because it proved that the Irish people knew that the English democracy were willing to give them that justice that was once called the miracle worker. It was absurd to represent this Bill as intended for the benefit of the tenants. It was a "Landlords' Gratification Bill," to enable them, out of the pockets of the
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    British taxpayer, to get more than the market price of their property. The Conservative Party had fallen a little in his (Sir Wilfrid Lawson's) esteem during the last 10 days. He had considered that if they were good at anything they were good at electioneering, but they had taken a step which would ruin them for ever with the constituencies inputting this policy before the country. It might be said that this was only a modification of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian's scheme which they supported, but that scheme was part of a great policy of pacification. Many things, however, had occurred since then. The opinion of the country on this matter had been made known, and the Liberal Party would not fall into the trap again. The noble Lord the Member for South Paddington recently said we were living under a brutal system and in a brutish manner. That was quite true. The policy of the Government in Ireland was to treat the people like brutes. He (Sir Wilfrid Lawson) agreed with Mr. Michael Davitt that it was an extraordinary thing to say "we will settle the land question before we give them Home Rule." Those who believed in Home Rule ought in consistency to leave this question to be dealt with by an Irish Parliament. But though he said this, it must not be supposed that he did not pity the Irish landlords. He pitied everybody who was in a false position, and the landlords both in England and Ireland had been in a false position. Hitherto they had been a species of petty princes, legislators, and magistrates, and masters of the people. But the time had now gone by owing to two causes—the fall in prices and the rise in democracy. He would rather vote for a Bill unblushingly brought in to relieve landlords than for a measure sush as this, which violated every principle of political economy. He wanted to do justice to the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington. There was no one in this country who talked such a mixture of sense and nonsense. The noble Lord said the other night, "Remember that we are going on with this sort of thing for three years more." That was a serious thing for everybody. It was a serious thing for the noble Lord; it was difficult for him for three years to go on running

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    with the aristocratic hare and hunting with the democratic hounds. It was a serious thing for Ireland. Well might his hon. Friends from Ireland look with dismay to three years of coercion, of arbitrary arrests and imprisonments, of the breaking up of meetings, and the kidnapping of Members. But it was a serious thing for the Liberal Party also, because Lord Salisbury and the sympathizing statesmen who sat on the Bench below had made up their minds to stop all progress for the next three years. But the Liberal Party had counted the cost; they had put their hand to the plough, and they would not look back. The Liberal Party were at this moment more true to their principles than ever before, and they intended to go steadily on until the time of this tyranny was past and such annoying questions were over as they had just spent nine nights upon, questions with which that House was not competent to cope, but which would be left to the voice of the Irish people and the votes of an Irish Parliament.
    COLONEL SAUNDERSONsaid, he had listened with considerable attention to the speech of the hon. Baronet. He looked upon the hon. Baronet as an interesting specimen—a Radical and at the same time a landlord. He listened with great curiosity to hear whether the hon. Baronet would inform the House how he dealt with his tenants. He would like to know whether the hon. Baronet ever asked for his rent? [Sir WILFRID LAWSON: They pay it well.] He would like to know whether, if the hon. Baronet's tenants refused to pay, they were left in undisturbed occupancy of their holdings, whether the hon. Baronet dealt with them in that philanthropic manner in which Irish landlords were expected to deal with theirs, and whether if a tenant refused to pay the hon. Baronet said to him, "You are doing perfectly right. Do not pay." If he did that he should look upon the hon. Baronet as taking a logical stand. He found, however, that Radical landlords were just as fond of their rent as Irish landlords undoubtedly were. And now he ventured to entreat the indulgence of the House for a few moments, in order to vindicate his accuracy as a true prophet. The House would remember when, on a former occasion,
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    the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) cited an instance of a certain Mary Colleton, to prove how hard and unjust Irish landlords were on their tenants in pressing for arrears, he said that an able and assiduous friend had informed him about all the details. He ventured to warn the right hon. Gentleman against that able and assiduous friend.
    MR. DILLONrose to Order. He said that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian was not now in his place, and he asked whether the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite was in Order in referring to a particular debate which had taken place a short time ago.
    MR. SPEAKER: The hon. and gallant Gentleman is referring to a debate on the first reading of this same Bill.
    COLONEL SAUNDERSONsaid, he was perfectly aware that this was a very disagreeable question to hon. Members opposite. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian referred to this case to prove that Irish landlords made use of arrears to grind down their tenants and prevent them from availing themselves of the concessions made by that House. He ventured to say at the time that the right hon. Gentleman ought to take great care how he lent an ear to those tales of able and assiduous friends. There was an air of unreality—he might say of romance—about it. The right hon. Gentleman said at the time he knew nothing about the case, but he had since learnt all the details, and hon. Gentlemen opposite who knew so much about Ireland would probably contradict him if he were wrong. The right hon. Gentleman first of all said that it was the case of Mary Colleton. The fact was it was the case of a man not a woman; and it was hard even for the right hon. Gentleman to turn an Irishman into an Irishwoman. Instead of Mary it happened to be Michael. That was mistake number one. Then the right hon. Gentleman said that on the estate in question there were 2,000 tenants. It happened that there were 1,200, a difference of 800. That was in the right hon. Gentleman's eyes a "trifling difference." Then the right hon. Gentleman went on to say that there were only 200 tenants with fair rents fixed on the Shirley estate—every one knew that was the estate spoken of.

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    There wore on that estate 450 judicial rents fixed and 600 applications to have them fixed. Then, again, there was considerable hiatus in the right hon. Gentleman's story. The right hon Gentleman did not mention that in 12 cases Mr. Shirley offered to accept decrees for part of the arrears in order to enable his tenants to go in under the Act. That was a generous offer and ought not to have been forgotten. The right hon. Gentleman was only correct in two statements—namely, that the original rent in the case referred to was £3 17 s., and that the amount decided upon for a fair rent was £1 18 s. On the appeal, however, two valuers were sent down and they decided that the fair rent was £2 7s. Then the right hon. Gentleman said that the tenants sent a deputation to the agent and offered £8 8s. 6d., "the uttermost farthing." There again the able and assiduous friend deceived the candid mind of the right hon. Gentleman. The uttermost farthing was £12 1s. Mr. Shirley, the landlord, offered to reinstate this Michael Colleton in the farm if he would pay £8 8s. 6d., which had been offered instead of £12 1s., at a rent which the two valuers said was a fair rent, £2 7s.
    MR. DILLON: What is your authority?
    COLONEL SAUNDERSON: Mr. Shirley himself. [Laughter.] Hon. Gentlemen laughed, but he was perfectly certain the majority of the House and the country would accept that statement and the figures could be verified. Hon. Gentlemen could find out whether the figures were correct or not, and on a future occasion if the figures were incorrect they could show it to the House, He maintained that they were correct. So much for the dealings with "this unfortunate tenant" who paid £2 7s. rent for three acres and a house. Every effort was made by hon. Members opposite and right hon. Gentlemen their friends, who ought to know better, to vilify and hold up to public execration the class to which he belonged. Very few cases, however, had been specified, not more than one or two, but vague generalities had been employed and accusations hurled against a class without specific details by which inaccuracy or fraud might be detected. The landlords in Ireland might congratulate themselves on the way in which
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    they had come out of the inquisition in spite of the pertinacity and sagacity of hon. Gentlemen opposite. He thought the importance of that debate, so far as the line taken by hon. Gentlemen opposite was concerned, would be that it showed the character of the controversy in which the House was engaged. Hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway opposite had taken an entirely new line in that debate. He did not say it was an unjustifiable line. Far from it. They had taken, for the first time in their lives, the side of the British taxpayer. All their oratory had been devoted to showing that the British taxpayer in laying out that £5,000,000 in Ireland was laying it out on bad security. What a sudden change had taken place in the minds of hon. Gentlemen opposite! In 1886 it was proposed to lay out £150,000,000, yet no hon. Gentleman below the Gangway opposite, if he remembered rightly, rose in his place and said, "This is a bad security, and the British taxpayer will suffer." But now £5,000,000 were to be paid in Ireland to establish the class which they wanted so much in that country—the independent farmer class, which could look with contempt at the efforts of an organization which now existed in Ireland to restrain and interfere with their perfectly legal action. Hon. Gentlemen had not confined themselves to defending the British taxpayer. He should say, if they had done that alone, they had turned over a new leaf; but the hon. Member for East Mayo had said in the course of those debates that, "as an honest man he felt it to be his duty to state that, so long as the coercion policy of the Government was maintained in Ireland he intended to use that as a lever." What did that mean? It could only mean one thing, and that was that the Irish tenants who purchased their farms under that Act, if the coercion policy of the Government was maintained, ought to repudiate their just debts.
    MR. DILLONsaid, he never said anything of the sort, or anything that could bear that interpretation. What he had said was that, as an honest man, he felt bound to warn the British taxpayer that there was a great risk that in the future there might arise a party in Ireland who might advocate repudiation.
    COLONEL SAUNDERSONsaid, the hon. Member had made use of the word "lever." He was content to abide by the report of the debate. The hon. Member was referring to another part of his speech, and he quite remembered the passage to which the hon. Member was referring. [Cries of "Quote!"] He had quoted.
    MR. DILLONsaid, that neither in that House, nor in any other place, did he state that he intended to advise the Irish tenants to repudiate. He had stated that where the bargain was not a free one the tenant was not morally bound by the terms. He would simply say that he did contradict as to the use of the words attributed to him.
    COLONEL SAUNDERSONsaid, that, of course, he accepted the explanation of the hon. Gentleman, but he invited hon. Members to read the speech, and he most solemnly declared that the hon. Member had made use of the word "lever"—that he intended to use it as a "lever" so long as the coercive policy of the Government was continued, and he asked hon. Members to put their own interpretation upon it. For his part, he could only put one interpretation upon it, which he believed to be the natural interpretation. He left it to the judgment of the country. The hon. Member for East Mayo, in order to prove how successful his policy had been, had said in exultation, "Five thousand farms in Ireland are vacant to-day." "What did that mean? What a triumph! Five thousand farms; a desert growing weeds! That was the condition the Unionist Party in Ireland had always maintained Ireland would be in if the hon. Member and his friends were placed in supreme authority there. That boast justified every statement they had ever made—that they should ever consent to be ruled by men like him. Hon. Gentlemen opposite appeared to him to feel very sore at the mention of one estate upon which vacant farms had been taken. Ridicule and contempt had been thrown upon the tenants who had been placed in possession on the Coolgreaney estates. According to hon. Gentlemen opposite, those were bogus tenants. According to the interpretation of hon. Gentlemen opposite, a bogus tenant was a tenant who refused to abide by the law and authority of the National League. In that sense these were bogus tenants. In
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    order that the House might understand the conduct of the tenantry who once occupied those 5,000 vacant farms, and especially those on that estate, he hoped he might be allowed to give one instance. He would quote the case of John Doyle, and hon. Members opposite could correct him if he was inaccurate. He was a tenant on the Coolgreaney estate, and held 46 acres of land. In the year 1882, he paid £400 for the tenant-right of that farm. With great reluctance he had embarked in the Plan of Campaign. At first he refused, but ultimately he listened to what was called "advice," and joined the Plan of Campaign. Between the amount of rent which the Plan of Campaign permitted him to offer, and the amount which Mr. Brooke, the landlord, consented to accept there was only a sum of £5 17 s. The landlord refused to accept the sum fixed by the Plan of Campaign, and he was perfectly right. The Irish landlords absolutely refused to allow an organization like the National League or the Plan of Campaign to fix their rents, and he could only say, speaking for himself, that if the Plan of Campaign was put in operation upon his property, and a tenant offered him £1 or 1s. less because it was the rent fixed by the Plan of Campaign, he would break stones on the road before he would accept it. John Doyle happened to have cattle worth a considerable sum on his farm. Those, in order to save seizure, were driven off his farm on to one adjoining. There happened to be a distraint for rent upon that farm, and Doyle's cattle were seized and sold under the distress. He therefore lost his cattle and his £400, simply for a difference of £5 17 s., but he dared not offer 1s. more than the Plan of Campaign allowed. How he must have blessed the Plan of Campaign! Since then he had been living in a Campaign hut; but recently all the huts on that estate had been pulled down in order to prevent seizure for rent of the land on which they had been erected and the wood hid away. The wood, however, had been found and seized, and was now going back to repair the farms on which those gentlemen lived. He might give other cases, but he refrained. It was time that the House and the country should fully realize the nature of the transactions which at present were going on in Ireland under the Plan of Campaign

    569
    and between landlord and tenant. Who would contend that a man like John Doyle was a lucky or a fortunate man because he had joined the great army of 5,000 dispossessed tenants instead of paying his £5 17 s. and remaining where he was? He thought it very important that the House should realize what the action of the hon. Gentlemen opposite had been. There was something more lying in that statement of the hon. Member for East Mayo about those 5,000 evicted farms. He (Colonel Saunderson) was perfectly well aware, and hon. Members from Ireland would not deny that they had joined issue in fighting this Bill, because they were determined to see whether an evicted farm could or could not be taken. They said it could not. How did they prevent it? According to the right hon Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian they gave "advice." The advice they gave was advice which, he ventured to say, no English, Welsh, or Scotchman would permit to be given on this side of the St. George's Channel. According to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Mr. John Morley) they carried it on by esprit de corps. He did not know how they translated that here; but in Ireland it meant squeezing a man's soul out of his body. Were the House and the country deliberately going to accept that policy proposed by right hon. Gentlemen opposite, by allowing an organization to exist in Ireland which should be able to give those men bad advice, and forge round the neck of the Irish tenants a yoke which no one with any manhood in him would consent to bear? He (Colonel Saunderson) contended that this Bill had been opposed by hon. Gentlemen opposite for two reasons—first, because they knew perfectly well that every tenant who bought his farm under that Act would separate for ever from the organization to which they belonged; and, secondly, because they wished to take up before the people of this country a strictly Constitutional attitude. But he ventured to think that the English people were not so absolutely gullible as to swallow such a monstrous proposal as that. When the English people compared the speeches of hon. Gentlemen opposite, and found that in Ireland they used all their efforts to prevent the tenants from buying
    570
    their farms and so escaping from their yoke, while over here they simply mentioned that their object was to protect the pockets of the British taxpayer, the people of this country would find that there was no honesty or reality in that policy, and would reject the proposals of those hon. Members with contempt. He thought he had proved that in the case of Mary Cregan he was a true prophet. The hon. Member for East Mayo had also ventured on a prophecy. He said, "When these landlords get hold of the money they will go out of the country and leave it to us." Do not let the hon. Member believe that. He had not got rid of them yet. He remembered a prophecy that the hon. Member made in a speech in Ireland two years ago. He said, "In 18 months we shall have a Home Rule Government in Ireland." Far from that; in 18 months there was no Home Rule, and the hon. Member was himself in gaol. The prophecy of the hon. Member for East Mayo was just as incorrect as his prophecy would prove to be correct when he said that the Irish landlords intended to live in their own land, and to confront the hon. Member and his policy, and trust in the justice of their cause and the common sense of their countrymen until they saw Ireland a happy, peaceful, and prosperous country.
    MR. DILLONsaid, that the hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh (Colonel Saunderson) in the remarkable contribution to the debate which he had just made had stated that the Irish Members, who pretended an anxiety on behalf of the English taxpayers, were turning over a new leaf. It was true that the Irish Members, as was remarked by an hon. Baronet who represented a Northern constituency (Sir Wilfrid Lawson) could boast that for the first time in the history of Parlinment Irishmen had been found to repudiate a wasteful expenditure on Ireland. On behalf of the Irish tenantry they were prepared to repudiate this wasteful outlay, and to conduct the affairs of their country without diving into the pockets of the English taxpayers. The worst enemies of the landlords of Ireland would never bring such a charge against them, for during a long career they had consistently, and with an unbroken tradition, pursued the policy of

    571
    diving into the pockets of the English taxpayers. The much-abused tenants, who had been referred to by the Prime Minister under the simile of three men sitting upon two, had paid with great punctuality the money which had been advanced to them, while the landlords had been in the habit of stopping payment when they had disharged about a quarter of their obligations. He had never withdrawn in that House language he had used outside, and he repudiated the statement that he advized the tenants to use this money as a "lever" against the Government. He expressly stated in the speech referred to, as was reported in The Times, that he had never advised the tenants to reject or repudiate their obligations, and that he had felt bound to tell the tenants that they must discharge their debts under this Act. In the same speech he had warned the country that they were lending money on a rotten security, and that the time might come when a National Party would spring into existence with a programme of repudiation.
    COLONEL SAUNDERSONsaid, he repeated that the hon. Member said what he had stated. [Cries of Oh, oh!"] Look at the Report. [Cries of "Quote."] He challenged the hon. Member to contradict it.
    MR. DILLONsaid, the hon. and gallant Member wanted contradiction, and he should have it. He never stated in that House, nor in any other place, that he intended to recommend the Irish tenants to repudiate the contracts. He had stated that, as the contract was not a free one, they were not morally bound to adhere to it. [Ironical laughter.] He had failed to understand the hilarity of hon. Gentlemen opposite. He simply said that he contradicted the statement of the hon. and gallant Gentleman that he had ever said anything that bore the interpretation he puts on it.
    COLONEL SAUNDERSONsaid, he was sure the word "lever" would be found in the report, and he would leave it to the country to put a meaning on that word.
    MR. DILLONsaid, that as the hon. and gallant Member had refused to quote from the speech he would do so, from The Times report. What he said was—
    "The hour might possibly arrive when a National Party might spring into existence,
    572
    with a programme of repudiation of the liabilities, on the ground that they were forced on the people."
    COLONEL SAUNDERSONasked, would the hon. Gentleman read the passage in which the word "lever" occurred?
    MR. DILLON: That was the only passage referred to. He not only did not use the expression attributed to him, but stated that he never recommended the policy of repudiation, and never intended to do so. The hon. and gallant Member had challenged the hon. Baronet, and asked whether English landlords were not fond of their rents. But no standing army was required for English landlords to recover their rents; and it was a broad principle of comparison between English and Irish landlords to take the amount of armed force necessary in either case to exact the payment of rent. Irish Members were charged with being the root and cause of opposition to the payment of rent in Ireland. But long before the National League the conduct of the Irish landlords had necessitated the employment of 14,000 bayonets in Ireland to enforce proceedings between tenants and landlords. He maintained that no class had a moral right to exist in any country where standing armies, independent of the Representatives of the people, were required to maintain their privileges. There was this great distinction between English and Irish landlords, that the former had constantly been controlled in their action towards their tenants by the public opinion of the people among whom they lived, whereas the Irish landlords had the unlimited command of armed men, whose support was provided for without the imposition of any local taxes. The result was that the ordinary temptations of human nature were too strong for these men. The hon. and gallant Member had quoted the case of John Doyle, on the Brooke estate, in County Wexford, and referred to the enormous losses to which that man had been subjected in consequence of the policy recommended by the Irish Members. It was absurd to judge of these great movements by individual cases. But he would ask what did the hon. and gallant Member and others of his party do when thousands of those like John Doyle were thrown out on the roadside? The hon. and gallant Member knew

    573
    that by the action of men like John Doyle thousands of Irish tenants had been saved from starvation. If this had been the result of their action, all honour to men like John Doyle.
    COLONEL SAUNDERSONsaid, that he had never insinuated that the action of John Doyle deserved reprobation; he said that the shame was on those who incited him.
    MR. DILLONsaid, he was glad to have the hon. and gallant Member's admission that the man who refused to pay his rent was not deserving of blame. For his part he was sorry the advice had not been given 25 or 30 or 40 years ago. He was not surprised that the hon. and gallant Gentleman and his Friends should be intensely bitter against the Plan of Campaign. It was a proof that they had at last met their match, and, he hoped, their master. He could assure the hon. and gallant gentleman that it would take something more than his eloquence to make him ashamed of the action he had taken in the matter. The hon. and gallant Gentleman assumed his most military aspect when he said that the Irish landlords "would never allow these organizations to dictate to them what rents they were to receive; they would rather break stones on the roadside than allow it." Was the hon. and gallant Member's memory so short that he had forgotten the long list of landlords who had allowed him to dictate the terms of rent, and the long list of men who had gratefully accepted his cheque for rent? Would the hon. and gallant Gentleman be surprised to hear that his agent sat in the rent offices of Lord Westmeath, Lord Dillon, Lord De Freyne, and other great landlords, beside the landlords' agents, who gratefully accepted the Plan of Campaign receipts for the rents which he himself handed over? Would the hon. and gallant Gentleman be surprised to learn that he had received in the past, from the agents of these great landlords, Plan of Campaign receipts by the bundle, which had been cashed by his own cheque? He did not know that Lord Westmeath or Lord Dillon were yet breaking stones. On the contrary, they had more money in their pockets than they would have had under other circumstances. The hon. and gallant Gentleman lived in a part of the country where the Plan of Campaign was not in
    574
    force; but there the landlords had no need to give reductions. In the districts where the Plan of Campaign had been successful, the policy pursued by Lord Dillon, and many other great landlords, was a very much more prudent policy than that of breaking stones on the roadside. He could name a very long list of men the settling of whose rents he had had more to do with than probably had the agents; and he knew a great many cases in which the agents were dismissed by landlords, who admitted afterwards that they had been blinded by these men.
    COLONEL SAUNDERSON: Will the hon. Member give names?
    MR. DILLONwould certainly do so. Lord De Freyne dismissed his agent; and Mr. Murphy dismissed Mr. "Whipper" Lynch at his instance. The Marquess of Conyngham dismissed his agent on one estate because he found that the man had treated his tenants harshly. The hon. and gallant Gentleman would find, if he extended his investigations in Ireland, that he had adopted a policy which he could not possibly maintain, or, if he did, he would not get his brother landlords to follow him. The gallant Colonel Dopping had also been dismissed by the landlord, who had found that he had made Gweedore too hot for him. The hon. and gallant Gentleman had asked him how he proposed to keep farms where evictions had taken place vacant. The hon. and gallant Gentleman had better go over to Ireland and inquire. He had, from the beginning of the agitation, endeavoured to impress upon the minds of the people of Ireland that one of the greatest curses was the competition for farms from which the old owners had been unjustly evicted, and that it was no use agitating and talking if they could not get up a sufficiently strong combination to induce people to abstain from taking farms when, in the judgment of the neighbourhood, the tenants had been unjustly evicted from them. He had told the people that they would never get reasonable reductions until they did this. The consequence had been, that in the last eight years, during which this great emancipating movement had been going on, the most powerful weapon which they had had in their hands had been this—that for the first time in the history of Ireland the

    575
    landlords found an increasing difficulty in letting farms from which they had unjustly evicted their tenants. So deeply were the people convinced of the justice of this policy that it would be impossible for an Executive Government in Ireland to get these farms taken. This movement was a justifiable, reasonable, and fair movement; and in most of the districts of Ireland, where his influence was supposed to be at the highest, these farms had been kept vacant without violence or threats of any kind. It was absolutely impossible to get over that fact; and the people of Ireland were convinced more than ever that in order to work the Land Purchase Act with any hope of justice, the chief and only weapon they could look to was the weapon of abstaining from taking farms from which men had been unjustly evicted. The people of Ireland would undoubtedly use that weapon, and they could do so in perfect justice. He might state that in one case where the landlord put in a caretaker and proposed to sell the farm to him for 20 years' purchase, moral pressure was used to keep the farm vacant. It remained vacant for two years, and last week the evicted tenant was restored to his home on equitable terms, and the Emergency man had been got rid of, while the landlord had suffered. All this had been done without any violence whatever. He quoted that to show that it was a monstrous injustice and outrage for anyone, either in that House or out of it, to say that because he had always advocated, and always would continue to advocate, combination, among the tenantry in Ireland in order to keep empty farms from which tenants had been unjustly evicted, he therefore advocated a policy of outrage and intimidation. That was not true, and he should continue to advocate the combination which, he believed, the Irish people would not abandon.
    SIR EDWARD HAMLEYsaid, that if in a panic-striken land some persons were endeavouring to afford relief while others sought to frustrate these efforts, he thought they would not be using language too strong if they characterized such conduct as malignant and inhuman, nor would their verdict be the more indulgent because they were aware that these obstructors were acting for their own purposes, and
    576
    if they were to set up the plea that they were doing this in the interests of the sufferers that would only make the case more shocking. He supposed no rational man would dispute that the Government neither had, nor could have, any object except the good of the Irish people. That was the object which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian and his followers had set themselves to frustrate. There were men who did not know when they were beaten; and there might also be men who did not know when they had blundered. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian might be one of them; but one should think that some faint suspicion must be creeping even into his confident mind when he looked back on the recent debate, and especially when he reviewed the speeches of his immediate followers. To say that they were destitute of reality was to say nothing. They were destitute even of plausibility. They had been mere floods of phrases without a shadow of fact or of argument. But the failure of the followers was as nothing compared with the failure of their Leader. The right hon. Gentleman had long been renowned for ability to construct imposing edifices out of the slightest materials, to people them with men of straw, and to persuade his confiding followers that they were real castles inhabited by real people. But on the present occasion his wonted skill had deserted him. They had seen him engaged, indeed, in construction; but there had been no illusion; nobody had been deceived; they had seen throughout the process the straw, the tinsel, the sawdust, and the rags. They might ask what motive could have induced those prominent politicians to enter on such a course. The answer was plain enough—they were acting not from conviction, but from compulsion—the compulsion of the Irish alliance. They got a step further when they asked how it was that hon. Members for Ireland were opposed to a measure which was to benefit the Irish people; and there again they might be at no loss for a solution. If they had been, hon. Members opposite would themselves have furnished it. Those hon. Gentlemen could not endure that Ireland should receive even the smallest measure that would render it contented from a British Government. They would look

    577
    on a contented Ireland with the feelings of Milton's evil hero, when, from his lurking place, he looked into Paradise. The scene he there beheld of repose, peace, and content—so different from what he wished to see—filled his heart with rage and despair. They knew what sort of an Ireland hon. Members opposite would wish to see—a desert of unlet farms, peopled by discontented and lawless inhabitants. They asked themselves what would be the effect of a contented Ireland on their great conspiracy, the Plan of Campaign, and they knew it would be destructive to it. Accordingly they opposed that measure. The Plan of Campaign had been condemned by legal authority as an unlawful conspiracy, but it had not been adequately denounced in that House. It was a system of roguery and robbery; it could only have been devised by rogues, advocated by rogues, put in practice by rogues, and excused by rogues. It had been enforced by a system of oppression the most cruel and abominable that ever existed in a civilized State. The announcement had been made from public platforms that those who did not join in this conspiracy would have their lives made unhappy. Did hon. Gentlemen consider what it was to have their lives made unhappy for not joining in a conspiracy? It was a sentiment so atrocious that the man who uttered it ought to be regarded as the enemy of the human race, like a pirate, and in the interests of society itself held up to public execration. It was for the privilege of nourishing such a system as this in its bosom that Ireland was to be deprived of its peace and prosperity. He could imagine no better disicipline for a Home Ruler, who was at once sagacious and honest, than to take his seat in the Gallery and listen to what the Representatives of his country had to say in the discussions on her fortunes. He thought that he would, perhaps, come to the conclusion that he would never be willing to intrust her destinies to such hands. The House had heard an hon. Member that evening contemplating a possibility of hon. Members opposite ever ruling their country. What proof, he would ask, had they over given that they possessed the power, he did not say to control the country, but even to foresee what the condition of Ireland would be if separate and alone? To start Ireland under such
    578
    conditions on a new career would tax the resources of the most experienced statesmen. Had the calm and luminous intelligence of the hon. Member for Mid Cork (Dr. Tanner) ever shed any light on the subject? [Cries of "Chair!" and "Order!"]
    MR. SPEAKER: I must remind the hon. and gallant Member that the Bill before us is one for lending an additional sum of money for the purchase of land in Ireland.
    SIR EDWARD HAMLEYsaid, he wished to call attention to the general course of the debate, for this reason—that the cause of the delay of Public Business was a matter which the people of the country were entitled to take note of. It was only by bringing it strongly to public attention that they could hope the public would ever take that line on the subject which it was hoped they would take, and see that the mandate given to their Representatives was carried out, charging them that if Parliament did not already possess the power to control its own proceedings it might furnish itself with those powers, and might fulfil the purpose of its existence, which was to manage the affairs of the Kingdom and the Empire.
    MR. T. M. HEALYsaid, he assured the hon. and gallant Member that he had never before been so convinced of the truth of the saying that the tongue was mightier than the sword. The hon. and gallant Gentleman had succeeded in making a speech most admirably adapted—in spite of the Speaker's call to Order—to any debate on Irish subjects that he had ever listened to during the last seven years. Although he had, unfortunately, been called to Order sometimes by the Chair, he had never felt so poignantly a call to Order as that which came upon the hon. and gallant Gentleman. He (Mr. T. M. Healy) thought that the Government, by permitting the incursion of the dialectic moss trooper into debate, could have been afforded but little satisfaction; because he had understood—before the hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh (Colonel Saunderson) and the last speaker intervened in the debate to give the House a new edition of the Battle of Dorking—that the Government were extremely anxious to have the Bill considered in a calm and peaceful manner. He had hoped that the

    579
    debate would have finished a long time ago, but as the hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh had been put up to make this extraordinary intrusion, and as the hon. and gallant Member for Birkenhead would never have been permitted by the Whip to intervene in the debate if they had not thought that there was some extraordinary exigency for him to speak, knowing what he did of the discipline of the Party opposite, he thought they could not have done so except at the direct suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury. He assured the House that the speeches of those hon. and gallant Gentlemen were altogether beyond the range of his poor capacity. The hon. and gallant Gentleman would believe that it was from no discourtesy to him, but simply from a lack of nimbleness on his part, that he was unable at this short notice to grasp the exact point of his address. He had now heard for the first time that the ragged Irish tenant was the most trustful and the most faithful payer of his instalments that could be found in any part of the Kingdom. It seemed that by the magic of property, which turned sand into gold, the Moonlighter of Kerry would be in future the eldest son of the Treasury Bench, and especially of the First Lord himself. He invited the economists of the House to investigate the history of the £1,250,000 which was formerly advanced to Irish landlords. Here was the account given by the Treasury draftsman—
    "Lent under 4 George IV. Amount advanced, £279,451; amount repaid £51,000. Lent under 3 & 4 William IV. Amount advanced, £900,000; amount repaid, nil."
    Such was the history of this said £1,250,000. The hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh and the military Gentleman charged the Irish Members with being rogues themselves, and with supporting every form of villainy which it was possible to invent, and the gallant General added that they had not yet been adequately denounced. Would the hon. and gallant General get up a crusade against the men who pocketed that £1,250,000? Those who advocated the cause of the poor ragged tenants were denounced as rogues by men who were drawing hundreds of pounds a-year from the British taxpayer.
    580
    For his own part, he was proud of his advocacy of the cause of the ragged tenants.
    [While the hon. and learned Gentleman was speaking, a Member on one of the back Benches below the Gangway called out, "Compton is in!"]
    MR. T. M. HEALYsaid, he hoped the hon. and gallant Gentleman would now think he was sufficiently answered. The hon. and gallant Gentleman wished there had been some Home Rulers in the Strangers' Gallery to listen to the speeches delivered on that side of the House; but he would now find that there were very good orators and very good listeners in the borough of Holborn. As he could no longer hope to attract the attention of the House, he would only ask some Member of the Government to tell them whether it was intended to prolong the term of the two Commissioners until the whole of the £5,000,000 was expended?
    [It was here announced that Mr. Bruce had been returned.]
    SIR EDWARD HAMLEY: I hope the hon. and learned Member will think he is sufficiently answered.
    MR. T. M. HEALYsaid, they had been waiting for 100 years, and they were not tired yet. He asked for information with regard to the future position of the Commissioners.
    MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, he thought he should, perhaps, best consult the convenience of the House if he abstained from dealing with many of the topics which had been raised in the somewhat discursive debate, and confined himself to endeavouring to meet the point raised by the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite. He agreed that the tenure of Office of the Land Commissioners and the Land Purchase Commissioners, dependent as it was merely on the provisions of a Continuance Bill, was not satisfactory, and he proposed next Session to bring in a Bill to place them on a more satisfactory footing. He hoped the hon. and learned Gentleman would be content with that general declaration on the subject.
    Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 202; Noes 141: Majority 61.

    AYES.

    Agg-Gardner, J. T.

    Fletcher, Sir H.

    Ainslie, W. G.

    Folkestone, right hon. Viscount

    Aird, J.

    Forwood, A. B.

    Allsopp, hon. G.

    Fowler, Sir R. N.

    Amherst, W. A. T.

    Gathorne-Hardy, hon. A. E.

    Anstruther, Colonel R. H. L.

    Gathorne-Hardy, hon. J. S.

    Anstruther, H. T.

    Gedge, S.

    Ashmead-Bartlett, E.

    Giles, A.

    Baden-Powell, Sir G. S.

    Gilliat, J. S.

    Balfour, rt. hon. A. J.

    Godson, A. F.

    Baring, Viscount

    Goldsmid, Sir J.

    Baring, T. C.

    Goldsworthy, Major General W. T.

    Barry, A. H. S.

    Gorst, Sir J. E.

    Bartley, G. C. T.

    Goschen, rt. hon. G. J.

    Barttelot, Sir W. B.

    Granby, Marquess of

    Bates, Sir E.

    Gray, C. W.

    Baumann, A. A.

    Grimston, Viscount

    Beach, right hon. Sir M. E. Hicks-

    Grotrian, F. B.

    Hall, A. W.

    Beadel, W. J.

    Hall, C.

    Biddulph, M.

    Halsey, T. F.

    Bigwood, J.

    Hamilton, right hon. Lord G. F.

    Bonsor, H. C. O.

    Hamilton, Lord E.

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

    Hamilton, Col. C. E.

    Brookfield, A. M.

    Hamley, Gen. Sir E. B.

    Burghley, Lord

    Hankey, F. A.

    Campbell, J. A.

    Hastings, G. W.

    Carmarthen, Marq. of

    Heath, A. R.

    Chamberlain, R.

    Herbert, hon. S.

    Charrington, S.

    Hermon-Hodge, R. T.

    Clarke, Sir E. G.

    Hervey, Lord F.

    Coghill, D. H.

    Hill, right hon. Lord A. W.

    Colomb, Sir J. C. R.

    Hoare, E. B.

    Compton, F.

    Hoare, S.

    Cooke, C. W. R.

    Hobhouse, H.

    Corbett, A. C.

    Holloway, G.

    Corbett, J.

    Houldsworth, Sir W. H.

    Corry, Sir J. P.

    Howorth, H. H.

    Cranborne, Viscount

    Hunt, F. S.

    Cross, H. S.

    Hunter, Sir W. G.

    Cross, W. H.

    Isaacs, L. H.

    Curzon, Viscount

    Isaacson, F. W.

    Darling, C. J.

    Jackson, W. L.

    Darling, M. T. S.

    James, rt. hon. Sir H.

    Davenport, H. T.

    Jarvis, A. W.

    De Lisle, E. J. L. M. P.

    Johnston, W.

    De Worms, Baron H.

    Kelly, J. R.

    Dimsdale, Baron R.

    Kennaway, Sir J. H.

    Dixon-Hartland, F. D.

    Kenrick, W.

    Dorington, Sir J. E.

    Kerans, F. H.

    Duncombe, A.

    King, H. S.

    Dyke, right hon. Sir W. H.

    Knatchbull-Hugessen, H. T.

    Ebrington, Viscount

    Knowles, L.

    Egerton, hon. A. de T.

    Lafone, A.

    Elliot, hon. A. R. D.

    Lambert, C.

    Ellis, Sir J. W.

    Laurie, Colonel R. P.

    Elton, C. I.

    Lawrence, W. F.

    Ewart, Sir W.

    Lea, T.

    Eyre, Colonel H.

    Lechmere, Sir E. A. H.

    Fergusson, right hon. Sir J.

    Legh, T. W.

    Field, Admiral E.

    Leighton, S.

    Fielden, T.

    Lewisham, right hon. Viscount

    Finlay, R. B.

    Fisher, W. H.

    Llewellyn, E. H.

    Fitzgerald, R. U. P.

    Fitz-Wygram, General Sir F. W.

    582

    Lowther, hon. W.

    Ross, A. H.

    Lowther, J. W.

    Round, J.

    Lubbock, Sir J.

    Boyden, T. B.

    Maclean, F. W.

    Russell, Sir G.

    Maclure, J. W.

    Russell, T. W.

    Madden, D. H.

    Salt, T.

    Makins, Colonel W. T.

    Sandys, Lt.-Col. T. M.

    Malcolm, Col. J. W.

    Saunderson, Col. E. J.

    Maple, J. B.

    Selwyn, Capt. C. W.

    Matthews, rt. hon. H.

    Shaw-Stewart, M. H.

    Mattinson, M. W.

    Sidebotham, J. W.

    Maxwell, Sir H. E.

    Sidebottom, W.

    Mayne, Admiral R. C.

    Sinclair, W. P.

    Milvain, T.

    Smith, right hon. W H.

    More, R. J.

    Spencer, J. E.

    Morrison, W.

    Stanhope, rt. hon. E.

    Moss, R.

    Talbot, J. G.

    Mount, W. G.

    Tapling, T. K.

    Mowbray, R. G. C.

    Temple, Sir R.

    Mulholland, H. L.

    Theobald, J.

    Muncaster, Lord

    Thorburn, W.

    Muutz, P. A.

    Tollemache, H. J.

    Murdoch, C. T.

    Tomlinson, W. E. M.

    Noble, W.

    Townsend, F.

    Norris, E. S.

    Vincent, C. E. H.

    Northcote, hon. Sir H. S.

    Waring, Colonel T.

    O'Neill, hon. E. T.

    Webster, Sir R. E.

    Parker, hon. F.

    Webster, R. G.

    Peily, Sir L.

    Whitley, E.

    Plunket, rt. hon. D. R.

    Whitmore, C. A.

    Powell, F. S.

    Wodehouse, E. E.

    Raikes, rt. hon. H. O.

    Wolmer, Viscount

    Rankin, J.

    Wood, N.

    Ridley, Sir M. W.

    Wortley, C. B. Stuart-

    Ritchie, rt. hn. C. T.

    Young, C. E. B.

    Robertson, Sir W. T.

    TELLERS. Douglas, A. Akers-Walrond, Col. W. H.

    Robertson, J. P. B.

    Robinson, B.

    Rollit, Sir A. K.

    NOES.

    Abraham, W. (Glam.)

    Conway, M.

    Abraham, W. (Limerick, W.)

    Conybeare, C. A. V.

    Acland, A. H. D.

    Corbet, W. J.

    Allison, E. A.

    Cossham, H.

    Anderson, C. H.

    Crawford, D.

    Asquith, H. H.

    Cremor, W. R.

    Austin, J.

    Crilly, D.

    Barbour, W. B.

    Deasy, J.

    Barran, J.

    Dillon, J.

    Blane, A.

    Ellis, J. E.

    Bolton, J. C.

    Ellis, T. E.

    Bolton, T. D.

    Esmonde, Sir T. H. G.

    Broadhurst, H.

    Esslemont, P.

    Brunner, J. T.

    Evans, F. H.

    Burt, T.

    Evershed, S.

    Byrne, G. M.

    Farquharson, Dr. R.

    Cameron, J. M.

    Fenwick, C.

    Campbell, Sir G.

    Ferguson, R. C. Munro-

    Campbell, H.

    Finucane, J.

    Campbell-Bannerman, right hon. H.

    Firth, J. F. B.

    Carew, J. L.

    Fitzgerald, J. G.

    Causton, R. K.

    Flower, C.

    Childers, right hon. H. C. E.

    Flynn, J. C.

    Clancy, J. J.

    Foljambe, C. G. S.

    Cobb, H. P.

    Forster, Sir C.

    Coleridge, hon. B.

    Foster, Sir W. B.

    Colman, J. J.

    Fowler, rt. hon. H. H.

    Commins, A.

    Fuller, G. P.

    Gardner, H.

    Gill, T. P.

    Gourley, E. T.

    583

    Harris, M.

    Pinkerton, J.

    Hayden, L. P.

    Plowden, Sir W. C.

    Hayne, G. Seale-

    Power, P. J.

    Healy, T. M.

    Power, R.

    Hunter, W. A.

    Provand, A. D.

    Illingworth, A.

    Randell, D.

    Jacoby, J. A.

    Reed, Sir E. J.

    James, hon. W. H.

    Roberts, J.

    Joicey, J.

    Robertson, E.

    Kilbride, D.

    Robinson, T.

    Labouchere, H.

    Roe, T.

    Lalor, R.

    Rowntree, J.

    Lane, W. J.

    Russell, Sir C.

    Lawson, Sir W.

    Sexton, T.

    Leahy, J.

    Sheehy, D.

    Leake, R.

    Sinclair, J.

    Leamy, E.

    Spencer, hon. C. R.

    Lefevre, right hon. G. J. S.

    Stack, J.

    M'Arthur, W. A.

    Stanhope, hon. P. J.

    M'Cartan, M.

    Stevenson, E. S.

    M'Ewan, W.

    Stewart, H.

    M'Lagan, P.

    Stuart, J.

    M'Laren, W. S. B.

    Sullivan, D.

    Mahony, P.

    Sullivan, T. D.

    Marjoribanks, rt. hon. E.

    Swinburne, Sir J.

    Molloy, B. C.

    Tanner, C. K.

    Montagu, S.

    Thomas, D. A.

    Morgan, rt. hon. G. O.

    Trevelyan, right hon. Sir G. O.

    Morgan, W. P.

    Tuite, J.

    Morley, rt. hon. J.

    Waddy, S. D.

    Morley, A.

    Warmington, C. M.

    Murphy, W. M.

    Watt, H.

    Nolan, J.

    Will, J. S.

    O'Brien, J. F. X.

    Williamson, J.

    O'Brien, P.

    Williamson, S.

    O'Brien, P. J.

    Wilson, H. J.

    O'Connor, J.

    Woodall, W.

    O'Gorman Mahon, The

    Woodhead, J.

    Oldroyd, M.

    Wright, O.

    Pickard, B.

    TELLERS

    Pickersgill, E. H.

    Clark, Dr. G. B.

    Picton, J. A.

    Dillwyn, L. L.

    Bill read the third time, and passed.

    Main Question put, and agreed to.

  PATENTS, DESIGNS, AND TRADE MARKS BILL [Lords].— [BILL 348.]
  (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach.)
  PATENTS, DESIGNS, AND TRADE MARKS BILL [Lords].— [BILL 348.]

    COMMITTEE.
    Bill considered in Committee.
    (In the Committee.)
    Clause 1 (Register of Patent Agents).
    THE LORD MAYOR OF DUBLIN (Mr. SEXTON)said, he saw an Amendment on the Paper in the name of the hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Henniker Heaton) as follows:—In Clause 1, page 1, leave out lines 19 to 24, inclusive, and insert—
    "(3.) Provided, that every person who proves to the satisfaction of the Board of Trade that, prior to the passing of this Act, he had been bonâ fide practising as a patent agent, or had been a principal assistant to a patent agent,
    584
    shall be entitled to be registered as a patent agent in pursuance of this Act."
    The Amendment was one affecting the interests of many persons, and he thought that, notwithstanding the absence of the hon. Member for Canterbury, the Amendment should be inserted in the Bill. He begged leave to move it himself.
    Amendment proposed,
    In page 1, leave out 19 to 24, inclusive, and insert—"(3.) Provided, that every person who proves to the satisfaction of the Board of Trade that, prior to the passing of this Act, he had been bonâ fide practising as a patent agent, or had been a principal assistant to a patent agent, shall be entitled to be registered as a patent agent in pursuance of this Act."—(Mr. Sexton.)
    Question proposed "That lines 19 to 24 stand part of the Clause."
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir RICHARD WEBSTER)said, he was prepared to assent to an Amendment of this kind, but thought this particular proposal far too wide. He objected to the words "or had been a principal assistant to a patent agent." According to the representations which had been made to the Board of Trade, while it would be well to license persons who had been bonâ fide practising as patent agents, it would be a mistake to license persons who had merely acted as patent agents' assistants. He would therefore suggest that the words to which he took exception should be omitted, when the Amendment would be perfectly acceptable. There might be considerable difficulty in finding out whether or not a man had been a "principal assistant." He would move to amend the Amendment by omitting the words "or had been a principal assistant to a patent agent."
    Amendment proposed to the proposed Amendment, in lines 4 and 5, to omit the words "or had been a principal assistant to a patent agent."—(Sir Richard Webster.)
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the proposed Amendment."
    MR. SEXTONsaid, he had been informed that there were some persons who had been patent agents who were now assisting patent agents without being their principal assistants. He would press the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General to insert

    585
    some such form of words as, "or have conducted the business of a patent agent."
    SIR RICHARD WEBSTERsaid, he had come in contact with a great many of these persons during the long period he had been connected with the question of patents, and it had been represented to him by them that the necessities of the case would be amply met by the insertion of the words he proposed.
    MR. SEXTON: I accept that assurance.
    Question put, and negatived.
    "Question, "That lines 19 and 24 stand part of the Clause," put, and negatived.
    Amendment, as amended, agreed to.
    Clauses 2 to 12, inclusive, agreed to.
    Clause 13 (S. 69, as to opposition to resignation).
    MR. HUNTERsaid, he should like to ask the Attorney General, whether he had considered the Amendments of the hon. Gentleman the Member for West Monmouth (Mr. Warmington) which stood on the Paper to this clause? The hon. Member was not in his place, but he might be anxious for the Amendments to be accepted.
    SIR RICHARD WEBSTERsaid, he had considered the Amendment referred to, and did not think that the hon. Member for West Monmouth, even if he wore present, would move the Amendments. The first Amendment proposed to put aside the function of the Board of Trade and replace it by the action of a Court, which would be unsatisfactory to the parties to these cases.
    DR. TANNERthought it desirable that the Committee should have some specific promise from the hon. and learned Gentleman in charge of the Bill as to the consideration of these Amendments on Report, in view of the fact that those hon. Gentlemen in whose names they stood were absent, and were, so to speak, taken unawares. There were certain hon. Gentlemen who usually sat beside him (Dr. Tanner) who, if they had known this Bill was coming on, would have been in their places to discuss it. He felt called upon to make this protest, not only on his own behalf, but on theirs as well. Several hon. Members had intimated to him that they desired
    586
    to see the Bill passed; but, as he naturally distrusted everything which came from the Government—
    THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order! There is no Motion before the House.
    DR. TANNER: I should like to have some explanation—
    THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order!
    DR. TANNER: Then I may have to move to report Progress.
    THE CHAIRMAN: The Question is that Clause 13 stand part of the Bill.
    DR. TANNERsaid, that before the clause was agreed to he should like to understand from Her Majesty's Government whether it was their intention to take the whole of this Bill at the present Sitting? If it were, he should certainly move to report Progress. He would have a definite understanding on this point. They were too much accustomed to the petty dogmatism of hon. Gentlemen opposite, and he thought they should insist upon a definite promise that if the Amendment standing in the names of private Members were passed over in the absence of those Members, at any rate on the Report stage, a certain amount of attention would be given to them by the Government.
    SIR RICHARD WEBSTERsaid, that of course, if hon. Members who were not present desired to move these Amendments on Report, attention would be given to their proposals. The question at stake was a purely technical one, having reference to certain notice which was to be given to enable trade marks to pass. The Bill was one requiring technical knowledge, but he had gone through all the clauses and found that there was nothing in the Amendments which it was necessary to adopt.
    Clause agreed to.
    MR. MURPHY: I beg to move the first Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for Monmouthshire.
    THE CHAIRMAN: It is too late now.
    Remaining Clauses agreed to.
    Bill reported, with an Amendment; as amended, to be considered upon Monday next.
    House adjourned at five minutes after Twelve o'clock.

Preamble
Their Lordships met for the despatch of Judicial Business only.
House adjourned at Four o'clock, till To-morrow, half past Ten o'clock.