Sitting of 21 June 1889

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

  NORWICH CORPORATION BILL.
  Ordered, That, in the case of the Norwich Corporation Bill, Standing Orders 84, 214, 215, and 239 be suspended, and that the Bill be now taken into consideration, provided amended prints shall have been previously deposited.
  Bill considered.
  Ordered, That Standing Orders 223 and 243 be suspended, and that the Bill be now read the third time.—(Mr. Herbert Gardner.)
  MR. S. HOARE: As one of the Members for the City of Norwich, I am anxious to say a word or two in regard to this Bill, affecting, as it does, the sanitary conditions and general wellbeing of the city which I have the honour to represent. The Bill meets with the unanimous support of the citizens of Norwich; but it is right I should say that at a large meeting of the inhabitants a desire was expressed that an Amendment should be introduced dealing with the somewhat peculiar franchise under which the Guardians are now elected. My hon. Friend, the senior Member for the city, and I have endeavoured to introduce this Amendment, but we have found that by the Rules of this House it was impracticable.
  Bill read the third time, and passed.

  NEW WRIT.
  For the County of Fife (Western Division), v. the Hon. Robert Preston Bruce, Manor of Northstead.—(Mr. Arnold Morley.)
QUESTIONS.

  IRELAND—FAIR RENTS.
  MR. BLANE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that the Land Commission have issued a list of only 129 cases for fixing fair rents on lands in the Unions of Dungannon, Armagh, and Clogher, the hearing to be in Dungannon, leaving several hundreds of cases without immediate prospect of hearing, though the tenants are being sued for arrears of unfixed rent; and will the Government take into their consideration the reported block in the Land Courts?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): The Land Commissioners report that the list of cases to be heard at Dungannon comprises the usual number of cases included in one list, and which can be conveniently listed at one time. So soon as the Assistant Commissioners, to whom it has been issued and who are continuously occupied, have finished the cases contained in it, a further list for the same or the adjoining district will be issued to them.

  IRISH NATIONAL SCHOOL TEACHERS.
  MR. BLANE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state the conditions under which Irish National teachers are permitted to attend the annual examinations for promotion to second class; if he is aware that many candidates for admission to the examinations who have never received unfavourable reports have been informed through their district inspectors that they will not be allowed to attend; and, if he will recommend that such teachers be permitted to attend the forthcoming July examinations?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: A similar question was replied to on the 4th of June by my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General, and it is fully reported in Hansard.

  INDIAN FAMINE RELIEF WORKS.
  MR. BRADLAUGH: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India (1) whether the Secretary of State's attention has been called to the fact that in the Budget Estimate of Expenditure for 1889–90, issued at Calcutta on 27th March, 1889, and since laid before this House, the provision made for expenditure to be incurred in famine relief works during 1889–90 in the whole Empire is only Rx.20,500; (2) whether he will state whence the funds are to be obtained which will be needed to carry out the policy of protection against famine suffering and famine deaths, to which the Government of India, with the sanction of the Home authorities, is pledged—namely, that no effort and no expenditure are to be spared to save life and to relieve distress, seeing that in page 32 of a Paper recently laid upon the Table of this House ("Memorandum on some of the results of Indian Administration," &c.) it is stated, regarding the Famine Insurance Fund of Rx.1,500,000 per annum raised annually since 1878, "no surplus at present exists"; (3) and, whether, with a view to the more satisfactory discussion of the Indian Budget, he will prepare a Return showing the precise purposes to which the Famine Insurance Fund has been applied in each year since the tax was imposed?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Sir J. GORST,): (1) The provision for expenditure in 1889-90 on famine relief is correctly stated in the question. There is a further provision of Rx. 80,000 for relief works. (2). Further expenditure for relief of famine would be met (a) from surplus revenue; (b) from surplus cash balances; or if, contrary to all anticipation, such should become necessary (c) from borrowing. (3). The accounts laid before Parliament already show the purposes to which the Famine Insurance Fund has been already applied; and, if moved for, shall be summarized in such a Return as that suggested.

  THE ISLAND OF MARÉ-CASE OF THE REV. JOHN JONES.
  MR. JOHNSTON: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the French

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  Government have awarded any compensation to the Rev. John Jones, of the London Missionary Society, late of Maré, one of the Loyalty Islands, for the loss of his property in that island consequent upon his expulsion by the French Authorities?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir JAMES FERGUSSON,): The French Government have not undertaken to make any compensation for his expulsion or its consequences. They undertook to make inquiry as to the alleged appropriation of property belonging to the London Missionary Society or to Mr. Jones.

  MESSRS. DE LA RUE'S CONTRACT.
  MR. BRUNNER: I hog to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether the now contract with Messrs. Do la Rue for the supply of adhesive stamps, postcards, newspaper wrappers, and envelopes has yet been completed; and, if so, whether he has any objection to lay a Copy of the same upon the Table of the House; and, whether it is a fact that the post of engraver to the Board of Inland Revenue is now vacant; and, if so, whether, in view of the evidence given before the Select Committee on Revenue Estimates last year, it is intended to make any new appointment to that office?
  A LORD OF THE TREASURY (Sir H. MAXWELL,): The terms of the new contract with Messrs. De La Rue have been practically settled with the exception of some matters of detail which are now under the consideration of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue, the Postmaster General, and the Treasury. The Commissioners of Inland Revenue recently reported a vacancy in the office of engraver owing to the lamented death of the late eminent holder of that office, and the matter is now receiving the consideration of the Treasury.
  MR. BRUNNER: The question of policy to which my question is directed is whether it is intended to make any new appointment?
  SIR H. MAXWELL: The subject is under the consideration of the Treasury, but no decision has yet been come to.

  BONA FIDE TRAVELLERS IN IRELAND.
  MR. JOHNSTON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if his attention has been called to the following observations of Mr. Justice Murphy, at the last Kilkenny Assizes, in sentencing a prisoner to 18 months' imprisonment for a brutal assault on two young children:—
  "A very absurd interpretation was put upon that clause by some magistrates. A crowd of fellows, like a flock of crows, went into a public house three miles away from where they slept the night before, and they were then held to be bonâ fide travellers. When they got into the public house they got as drunk as they liked. … Those fellows were no more bonâ fide travellers than the prisoner would be after going from where he now was to where he would consign him for some time. The interpretation which some magistrates put upon the bonâ fide clause was simply absurd. The assault which the prisoner committed on these children was a brutal and a savage one. … The only excuse the prisoner had was that he was in a famishing condition for drink. No term could be too strong to apply to the prisoner's conduct, it was savage, wanton, and reek less, and he would sentence him to 18 months' imprisonment with hard labour;"
  and, whether the attention of Irish magistrates will be called to the Judge's declaration of the Law?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: We have no power to give instructions to magistrates on points of law; but I have no doubt the publicity he desires to give to the ruling of the learned Judge will be obtained by the fact of my hon. Friend having put the question to me in this House.

  LONDON THOROUGHFARES—ESSEX STREET, STRAND.
  MR. DE LISLE: I beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works whether he will consider the advisability of widening and altering Essex Street, Strand, now a cul de sac, so as to make Essex Street a thoroughfare running directly to and from, and at right angles to, the main south entrance of the Law Courts and the Temple Landing Stage, thus joining the Strand and the Thames Embankment midway between Blackfriars Bridge and Westminster Bridge, for the further relief of congested traffic, and to enhance the dignity and beauty of the Law Courts, as set forth in a work entitled "The Majesty of London?"
  THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (Mr. PLUNKET,): I have no control over nor, in fact, anything to do with the approaches to the Law Courts. I have no authority to make new streets or subways, and if T had the authority I have not the funds.

  THE SIDFORD POST OFFICE.
  MR. BRADLAUGH: I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether ho is aware that the District Post Office, Sidford, near Sidmouth, of which Mrs. Symons, deceased, was postmistress, has been conducted for many years without complaint; whether for several years past the active duties of postmistress have, during the failing health of Mrs. Symons, been really performed by Miss Susan Mitchell, the sister and copartner of Mrs. Symons; whether, on the death of Mrs. Symons, the post office has, without cause assigned, been removed to another part of the village, although Miss Mitchell was able and willing to continue to conduct the post office; and, whether he can state the reasons for this course?
  THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (Mr. RAIKES,): The facts relating to the Sidford Post Office are, I understand, as alleged by the hon. Member. The appointment has been made upon the nomination of the Lords of the Treasury, with whom, and not with the Postmaster General, rests the selection of persons for offices of this class.
  MR. BRADLAUGH: Do not the facts which the right hon. Gentleman has stated render it a hard case that this lady should be deprived of what has been practically her livelihood for the last few years, seeing that she has performed her duties properly?
  MR. RAIKES: My only function, in a case of this sort, is to ascertain whether the person nominated is a proper person.

  IRELAND-IRISH DETECTIVES IN SCOTLAND.
  DR. CAMERON: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether his attention has been called to the case of Mr. Kelly, commission agent, Westport, Ireland, who is alleged to have been "shadowed" by Irish detectives during a business visit to Glasgow and
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  Edinburgh extending from 22nd May to 31st May; whether it is true, as stated, that these Irish detectives followed Mr. Kelly from Greenock to Glasgow, put up at the same hotel with him, tracked him to the house of a Glasgow merchant, who had invited him to pass the night there, and hovered about offices of merchants with whom lie was transacting business; that when, through the interference of one of the merchants, they were confronted with Mr. Kelly, they stated that if he would detail to them his movements in Scotland they would not trouble him so much, and excused themselves by saying that they were just performing the duty assigned to them; whether the men referred to were really detectives as they stated; and, if so, by what warrant or what authority they interfered with Mr. Kelly's movements in Scotland, and especially under what authority known to Scottish law they obtruded the fact of their presence and alleged business on the merchants with whom Mr. Kelly was transacting business, in a manner calculated injuriously to affect his credit?
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. P. B. ROBERTSON,): I am informed that, from the 22nd to the 24th May, the movements of Mr. Kelly in Glasgow and the neighbourhood were watched by Irish detectives. The detectives did not put up at the same hotel, nor did they track him to the house of a Glasgow merchant. On the 24th May a merchant with whom Mr. Kelly was dealing and with whom one of the detectives was acquainted proposed to introduce, and did introduce, the detectives to Mr. Kelly. No question was asked by the detectives of Mr. Kelly, but Mr. Kelly mentioned that he was on a business visit and was going to Edinburgh and other places; and thereupon the detectives ceased from watching his movements. Nothing was done by the detectives which required any special warrant or authority to be obtained in Scotland.
  DR. CAMERON: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman say that Mr. Kelly's movements were not watched on more than one occasion?
  MR. J. P. B. ROBERTSON: I do not know the particulars, but I have stated that his movements were watched on the days I mentioned.
  MR. SEXTON: Upon what grounds were the police entitled to follow this gentleman in Scotland when he was engaged there in the pursuit of his own lawful business? Did the police possess a warrant?
  MR. J. P. B. ROBERTSON: The question upon what grounds the detectives acted is one which it does not fall within my province to answer. As to the second, I may say that no warrant was required.
  DR. CAMERON: I beg to give notice that upon the earliest opportunity I will call attention to the administration of justice in Scotland by the English and Irish Authorities.
  MR. SEXTON: If the right hon. Gentleman is unable to answer my question, to what Department may I look for an answer?
  MR. J. P. B. ROBERTSON: I stated that I believe the police engaged were Irish detectives; and I should suppose that this sufficiently indicated to the right hon. Gentleman the Department of Government concerned.
  MR. SEXTON: Is the Chief Secretary for Ireland able to say whether it was by his authority that these detectives followed this Irish gentleman to Scotland?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I think that is a question which ought to be put down upon the Paper. I believe that this gentleman was imprisoned under Mr. Forster's Act as a suspect.
  MR. SEXTON: Eight years ago.

  THE LIGHT RAILWAY BILL.
  MR. JOHNSTON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has received a memorial, adopted at a public meeting, in Ardglass, County Down, on the 12th June, in favour of including a railway from Downpatrick to Ardglass in the Light Railway Bill recently introduced; whether the Second Report of the Royal Commission on Irish Public Works, dealing with railway extension in Ireland, specified this railway as the first of those to which the Commissioners recommended that assistance should be given; and whether, considering the great utility such railway would be in developing one of the most important fishing industries in Ireland, and its general benefit to the United Kingdom, he will favourably consider the claim of
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  this short line, which can be constructed at a small cost, to be included in the Bill before the House?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The memorial mentioned has been received. It is also the case that the proposed railway is No. 1 on the list of lines specified by the Royal Commission as those to which they advised assistance should be given. I would, however, point out to my hon. Friend that the present proposals of the Government with regard to light railways have no reference to any particular scheme. Every case, however, coming within the scope of the Bill will receive careful consideration at the proper time.

  THE PONSONBY EVICTIONS.
  DR. KENNY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that, at the evictions which took place on the 18th instant at Gurtroe, near Youghal, county Cork, Colonel Caddell ordered the police to break by force, and against the protest of the owner, Canon Keller, into the chapel grounds at Gurtroe, and that the police, in obeying the order, broke the railings surrounding grounds, and refused to leave when requested to do to by Canon Keller; and when he and Mr. Lane, M.P., asked for the names of the members of the police force who had broken into grounds, the officer in charge refused to give them; whether Captain Plunkett, when applied to by Canon Keller to remove the police from the grounds, his private property, refused to comply with the request; whether the conduct on the part of those in charge of the police was sanctioned by the Irish Government; whether there is any legal warrant for the police to so break into private premises in which no illegal act was being at the time committed; and whether he will inquire into the matter, and give such order as will in future prevent the occurrence of such proceedings?
  MR. SEXTON: I wish also to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether ho is aware that on Tuesday last, the police engaged in the Ponsonby Estate clearances broke into the grounds of the Catholic Church, the property of the parish priest, against his will, expelled people who were there by his leave, and remained there after he directed them to withdraw; that when the

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  parish priest, the Very Rev. Canon Keller, accompanied by Mr. Lane, the Member for the Division, went to where Captain Plunkett, the person in chief control, was standing on the high road, and made a representation to him as to the action of the police, he replied, "Go about your business," and thereupon gave an order which the police executed by pushing Canon Keller and Mr. Lane violently for some distance along the public road, and that a person named Crockett, who had been allowed inside the lines, insulted a young girl, daughter of a widow, an evicted tenant, by asking her to kiss him; whether this insult was also offered to her by Colonel Caddell, R.M., who told her that she must have been kissing the police, the girl having been arrested in her mother's house at the time of the eviction, and kept in custody without any friend to protect her; why Crockett was admitted within the cordon; and, what was his business there?
  Mr. A. J. BALFOUR: The Constabulary Authorities report that in connection with the evictions mentioned a disorderly mob had assembled inside the chapel and chapel yard, having been apparently brought together by the ringing of the chapel bell, used as a signal for that purpose. The mob assailed the police and all concerned in the execution of the law with the most filthy language, offering every obstruction to the Sheriff and his party. Canon Keller took no steps whatever to restrain this unlawful assembly. He was joined in a short time by the hon. Member for East Cork (Mr. Lane). The police were directed to disperse the unlawful assembly, and in doing so had to climb over the railings. Canon Keller was requested to remove this disorderly mob, but did not do so. If he had done so the police would have been withdrawn from the chapel yard.
  Mr. SEXTON: Is it the fact that at the time of the attack on the people these persons were assembled in private grounds, and that they did nothing but cheer? If that is so, were the police justified in breaking into a private enclosure against the will of the owner, and in expelling the persons found there? With regard to the assault on ' Canon Keller and Mr. Lane I have received a telegram from my hon. Friend the Member for East Cork (Mr. Lane),
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  in which he states that he and Canon Keller were assaulted and violently pushed along the public road, that Canon Keller protested against the illegality of the police remaining in the chapel grounds, and the danger which might ensue of a collision with the people. As to the assault offered to the young girl, by the man named Crockett, the right hon. Gentleman has passed over that matter altogether. Is it true Colonel Caddell, pointing to something on the girl's breast, said she must have been kissing a policeman inside—meaning something worse? I want to know by whose authority this insult was levelled against this poor girl?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The police have no knowledge whatever of the alleged action of Mr. Crockett, and Colonel Caddell entirely denies that any such language was used by him. I am given to understand that the girl in question and her sister used filthy and obscene language in reference to the police; but I have no information in regard to the matter beyond that which I have already given.
  MR. SEXTON: As the right hon. Gentleman has not only denied the assault, but has added a gross and offensive imputation against the girl, who is the daughter of honest and respectable parents, I wish to know if he will authorize an inquiry into the truth of her statement. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that the matter will not be allowed to rest where it is without a searching inquiry.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: So far as imputations are concerned it hardly becomes the right hon. Gentleman to make any charge against me. I have simply answered the questions put to me. I said that the police have no knowledge of the alleged action of Mr. Crockett, and I must remind the right hon. Gentleman that when he put the question yesterday I told him that I might not be able to give a complete answer to day.
  MR. SEXTON: I will repeat the question on Monday, and I will then ask what steps the right hon. Gentleman proposes to take in order to do justice to this insulted girl.

  METAL FUSES.
  MR. CUNINGHAME GRAHAM: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if it is the

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  case that all the fuses (metal) made at Woolwich and Elswick are made from the plan invented by Mr. Jobson, of Newcastle-on-Tyne; and, if so, whether any compensation has been made to Mr. Jobson for the use of his invention?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. E. STANHOPE,): No, Sir. It is not the case. The claims of Mr. Jobson have been repeatedly brought before successive Secretaries of State, who, after referring the question to the Ordnance Council, have decided that they are inadmissible.

  THE SWISS LABOUR CONFERENCE.
  MR. CUNINGHAME GRAHAM: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if the instructions furnished to the British Delegate at the Swiss Labour Conference preclude him from entering into any discussion as to the limitation of hours of adult labour; and, if he will lay Copy of Instructions upon the Table?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: Sir, the British delegates have not yet been nominated, but Her Majesty's Government have accepted the invitation to the Conference on certain conditions, one of which is that the British Government cannot discuss any limitation of adult male labour, or the imposition of any restrictions on production. It would not be convenient to lay the instructions on the Table.
  MR. C. GRAHAM: Has any other Power objected to discuss the reduction of the hours of labour?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: I must ask for notice of the question.
  MR. J. MORLEY: Are we really to understand that Her Majesty's Government have instructed their delegates not to enter on any discussion of adult male labour?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: No delegates have been appointed, but the Swiss Government have been informed that Her Majesty's Government cannot discuss the question of restricting the hours of adult male labour.
  MR. J. MORLEY: Then I beg to give notice that on the earliest opportunity, even, if necessary, by moving the adjournment of the House, I shall draw attention to this extraordinary instruction.

  IRELAND—THE LAND COMMISSION.
  MR. MACARTNEY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the letter of Colonel Jesse Lloyd which appeared in the Times of the 10th instant, and whether it is a fact as stated in that letter, that the Sub-Commissioners are bound by nothing, and that private instructions are sent to them from headquarters directing the reductions which are to be made, and that since January last they have been instructed to give reductions averaging all round about 33 per cent; whether it is a fact that the recent decisions of the Sub-Commissioners show by far the highest percentage of reductions yet given; whether it is true that the Poor Law valuation is disregarded in fixing judicial rents; whether the statements in Colonel Lloyd's letter as to costs awarded in case of appeal and as regards the taxation of costs are correct, and if he can state what the rules and practice of the Land Commission are in this matter; whether it is a fact that 25,000 appeals are pending in the Court of the Land Commission; and of those appeals what percentage do the appeals bear to the cases heard in the Sub-Commission Courts and the County Courts respectively?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The Land Commissioners report that it is not the fact that the Assistant Commissioners are bound by nothing. They are bound in every case which comes before them to inspect the holdings, to mark out the boundaries and classifications of land in the holdings on the Ordnance map. They are also bound, on a form drawn up by the Chief Commissioners, to set out in detail every circumstance of the holding which can affect the question of the judicial rent. A copy of the Report so filled up can be obtained by either party on payment of a fee of one shilling. There is no foundation whatever for the statement that private instructions are sent to the Sub-Commissions from head-quarters directing the reductions which are to be made. Neither is it the fact that since January they have been instructed to give reductions averaging 33 per cent. The

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  amount of judicial rent to be fixed is a matter altogether for the discretion of the Assistant Commissioners forming each Sub-Commission. No suggestion even has ever been made to them on this subject by the Chief Commissioners. It is not a fact that the recent decisions of the Sub-Commissions show by far the highest percentage of reduction yet given. A statement as to the Poor Law valuation is always required, but that valuation is so uneven that, in the Commissioners' opinion, it rarely affords a guide to the present value of land. The statements as to the circumstances under which a landlord becomes liable for costs of appeals brought by him are correct, but it should also be stated that under the same circumstances the tenant appealing becomes similarly liable to costs. The rule is as follows:—When the landlord appeals, if the judicial rent be affirmed, tenant entitled to costs; if the judicial rent be reduced, tenant entitled to costs; if the judicial rent be increased, but former rent not restored, each party abides his own costs; if the former rent be restored, tenant pays costs. When the tenant appeals, if the judicial rent be affirmed, landlord entitled to costs; if the judicial rent be increased, landlord entitled to costs; if the judicial rent be reduced, each party abides his own costs. When landlord and tenant both appeal, save in special cases, each party abides his own costs. The statement as to the taxation of costs is not correct. The several items of charge in such bills of costs are as a rule fixed charges, varying in proportion to the amount of the judicial rent. The bills are in the first instance sent to the officer of the Commission to settle, but, if either party is dissatisfied, he can require to have the bill taxed in his presence on notice. It is not the fact that 25,000 appeals are pending. There are 6,277 appeals pending from the decisions of the Assistant Commissioners, and 1,012 from those of the County Courts. The appeals so pending from the decisions of the Assistant Commissioners and County Courts are 5·1 per cent and 8·4 per cent respectively of the cases heard by the respective tribunals, allowing for appeals already heard.

  DANGEROUS RESERVOIRS.
  COLONEL NOLAN: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board if there are several districts in Great Britain and Ireland in which there would be considerable danger to life if the artificial dams which restrain reservoirs, lakes, or rivers were to burst; if the Local Government Board are in possession of any information as to the areas of some of such districts; and, if so, has he any objection to furnish a Return on the subject; and, in case the Local Government Board are unprovided with such information, is it the duty of any local body to be in possession of statistics on the subject; and, if so, would he specify what local bodies should satisfy themselves on this head?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. LONG,): The Local Government Board have no definite information on the subject of this question, but there can, I think, be no doubt that there are in England artificial dams which restrain reservoirs, lakes, or rivers, and which, assuming that they were to burst, would be attended with danger to life. The Board are not in possession of any information as to the areas which, in the event of such burstings, would be affected. No doubt the areas which would be so affected would necessarily depend very much on the circumstances at the particular time, as, for instance, whether the rivers were in flood or otherwise. I cannot say that it is the duty of any local body to be in possession of statistics on the subject, but, of course, it devolves on the Local Authority in whom the reservoir may be vested to take such measures as may be requisite for securing its stability. I may observe, with respect to reservoirs provided by Local Authorities under the Public Health Act, that notice has to be given in the local newspapers of any proposal to construct reservoirs with a capacity exceeding 100,000 gallons, and, in the event of objection, the works cannot be proceeded with until after local inquiry by the Local Government Board. I may also draw attention to the provisions contained in the Waterworks Clauses Act of 1863, which have almost invariably been incorporated in

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  local Acts passed since that date for the construction of reservoirs, either by Municipal Authorities or by water companies. Sections 3 and 4 of that Act are as follow:—
  "III.—Whenever any person interested complains to two Justices that any reservoir constructed by the undertakers is in a dangerous state such Justices shall forthwith make inquiry into the truth of the complaint; or two Justices, on their own view, and without complaint by any person, may proceed under the present provisions as if a complaint had been so made to them. IV.—If, on any such inquiry, the Justices are satisfied that the complaint is well founded, and that the reservoir is in a dangerous state, and that the danger is so imminent as not to admit of delay in removing the cause of complaint, they shall order such person as they think fit to enter on the property of the undertakers and to lower the water in the reservoir, and to execute and do all such works and things as the Justices think requisite and proper for removing the cause of complaint."
  There are also provisions for the Justices requiring the necessary works to be done when they are satisfied that there is cause for complaint, although the reservoir is not in an imminently dangerous state.
  COLONEL NOLAN: Am I to understand that there is no Local Authority or public officer who has any information as to the districts supplied?
  MR. LONG: That is so. There is no public body which possesses the information.

  THE INDIA OFFICE AND THE RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE COMMISSION ON CIVIL ESTABLISHMENTS.
  MR. HANBURY: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether the Bill and the Treasury Minute to carry into effect the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Civil Establishments will apply to the India Office, the charge for which falls upon the Indian Revenue, as well as to those Departments the charge for which is borne by this country?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH,): The Public Service Commission has not extended its inquiry to the India Office. But under the Act fur the better government of India, 1858, the India Office is bound, as regards admissions to the service, to conform to the Orders in Council, and, as regards compensation, superannuation, or retiring allowances, to conform to the Acts of
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  Parliament which, for the time being, regulate such matters in the other public offices. Any action, therefore, which may be taken in consequence of the Commission's Report will to this extent affect the India Office.

  BREWERIES IN INDIA.
  MR. CAINE: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India, what is the number of breweries in India, the aggregate amount brewed by them, and the total amount of Excise Duty paid by them; (2) what is the average alcoholic strength of the malt liquor brewed by Indian brewers; and (3), what is the average alcoholic strength of toddy in the Bombay Presidency?
  SIR J. GORST: There are 19 breweries brewing 4,860,282 gallons. No Excise Duty is levied, but the imposition of one is under consideration. (2) Is not known to the Secretary of State. (3) Is reported by the Bombay Excise Report of 1886-7 to be as strong as London porter.

  THE CASE OF THE DESERTER THOMPSON.
  MR. HENEAGE: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty who is responsible for the blunders, commencing with the long imprisonment of William Thompson, arrested, by mistake, as a deserter from the Navy, and culminating in the attachment of Captain Woodward, and his being taken, under charge of a Sheriff's officer, to Winchester Gaol, whilst in command of the Receiving Ship of Her Majesty's Fleet at Portmouth; and whether Captain Woodward was on board Her Majesty's ship when his arrest was demanded by a Civil Authority; and, if so, by whose order he surrendered himself to the Sheriff's officer?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Lord G. HAMILTON,): The primary cause of the mistake was the false statements made by Thompson, which, coupled with his resemblance to the actual deserter, misled the Police and Naval Authorities into the belief that he was a deserter. Captain Woodward is not exempt from arrest by a Civil Authority, and did not require any order to surrender himself to the Sheriff, who was authorized by a

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  decision of the High Court to make his arrest.
  MR. HENEAGE: My question referred not so much to Thompson as to Captain Woodward. Is it not the case that ho was only acting on the orders of his superiors, and for that got himself into trouble?
  LORD G. HAMILTON: It is a very complicated question. Captain Woodward no doubt got orders before he received the writ from the Queen's Bench, and it was owing to some doubt as to the way in which he should carry them out that he acted as he did.

  CRAWLING CABS.
  MR. HENEAGE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the great obstruction, danger, and inconvenience caused by the long lines of "crawling cabs" in the most densely-crowded thoroughfares of the Metropolis; and, whether he will take some steps to cause the abatement of this nuisance, by increasing the number of convenient cab-stands, and by a stricter enforcement of the regulations respecting empty cabs?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. H. MATTHEWS,): My attention has been called to this subject. The number of cab-stands has been con siderably increased in the last four years. There is now, exclusive of the City and of railway stations, room on the cab-stands for more than half the total number of vehicles that have licenses; and if you take into account the number of cabs accommodated at railway stations and in the City, the number engaged or making their way to cab-stands, the number laid up or brought out only at night, it may fairly be said that there is cab-stand space enough for all the cabs actually awaiting hire at any time of the clay. The police do put the law against crawling in force as far as they can, but it is not easy to rebut the cabman's usual excuse that he has just put down a fare and is going to a cabstand; and I doubt whether very frequent prosecutions for crawling would be encouraged by the Magistrates or approved by the public. So long as the convenience of the public leads them to hire a passing cab instead of sending to a cab-stand, it will be difficult to put a
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  stop altogether to the practice of crawling. I have, however, called the attention of the police to the right hon. Gentleman's complaint.
  MR. BARTLEY: May I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that more cab-stands to accommodate three or four more cabs on each would be more convenient?
  MR. LABOUCHERE: And may I suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that the best way of dealing with the difficulty would be to do away with the law forbidding crawling, which is an excellent and most useful thing?

  POSTCARDS.
  MR. TOWNSEND: I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether representations have reached him urging the adoption of postcards similar to those in almost universal use on the Continent, which, by being made of cheap and light material, would cost and weigh less, and by being larger than our own lessen the danger of loss in transit; whether, as it is stated in the Report of the Select Committee referred to in answer to a former question on the subject of postcards, that the late Mr. De la Rue, the contractor, on 1st May, 1888, said … "our prices on certain lines are excessive, I refer to postcards more particularly," … and that these prices have since been considerably reduced; also, as it is stated in the same Report, that the Post Office Department is "not administered with any view to an ultimate profit to the State," he can now concede to the public the sale of postcards at their stamp value, allowing any loss there from to be met by a portion of the large surplus derived from other paying postal sources; and whether he is aware that private firms are now selling postcards cheaper and better than can be bought at the Post Offices?
  MR. RAIKES: The majority of representations made to me, and amongst them I must include one from my hon. Friend himself on the 11th of April last, have been in favour of the adoption of a single stout card rather than of the adoption of the kind of card which he now indicates, and I hope that before long we may see the light thin card abandoned altogether. With regard to the second paragraph of the question, so far as it relates to the administration

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  of the Post Office, I must point out that the quotation from the Report of the Select Committee of this House made by the hon. Member appears to me from the context to bear a meaning precisely opposite to the meaning which the hon. Member attaches to it. He is aware that all the half-penny business of the Post Office is conducted at a loss, and I do not think Parliament is prepared to augment that loss by selling cards at the stamp value. I am aware that private firms for advertising purposes sell post cards at less than the actual cost, but I am not aware that such cards are better than those which can be bought at post offices.

  VENEZUELA.
  MR. WATT: I beg to ask the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs whether the Government have received advice of serious disturbances in Venezuela, accompanied with threats to massacre the British residents at La Guayra; whether the Government have received information that the President and three Ministers (representing the Guzman Blanco faction) have tendered their resignations, and that the latter have been accepted; and, whether any steps have been taken to insure the protection of British lives and property at Caracas and La Guayra?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: We heard by the last mail that the President of Venezuela had resigned his office, but that he had on the same day withdrawn his resignation in response to popular wishes. We have not heard of any disturbances or of any danger to British residents.

  PORTSMOUTH BARRACKS.
  COLONEL COTTON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the Report of the Board on the sanitary condition of the Royal Clarence and the Gun Wharf Barracks at Portsmouth has been published; and, if so, whether he will lay it upon the Table of the House?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: The barracks in question are not occupied. My hon. and gallant Friend can see the Report, but I do not think it is necessary to lay it on the Table.

  IRELAND—MR. D. KILBRIDE, M.P.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR: I beg to ask Mr. Solicitor General
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  for Ireland whether it is a fact that, although Mr. Denis Kilbride, one of the Members for Kerry, was sentenced at one o'clock on 4th April last, at Killarney, to a term of imprisonment, he was not transferred from Killarney Police Barrack to Kilkenny Prison until the following day; and, whether this delay will pratically add an additional day to the period of his imprisonment?
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN,): I am informed that the Prisons Board have decided that under all the circumstances of the case the sentence should count from the 4th of April. The Governor of the Prison has been informed of this decision and will act accordingly.

  THE ARMAGH COLLISION.
  MR. SEXTON: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether it is the case that on the Great Northern of Ireland Line of Railway, on which occurred the recent collision, causing the loss of 77 lives and serious injury to over 100 persons, the servants generally have to work from 14 to 18 hours per day, and in some cases men are on duty for a spell of from 18 to 20 hours without relief, and that the stationmaster at Belfast comes on duty at 6.15 a.m., and does not leave off till midnight, and the porters there come on at 6.15 a.m. and do not leave till 10 p.m.; whether it is the fact that the two men who acted as guards on the excursion train that met with the fatal disaster were untried men, shunters at Newry Station, and had no knowledge of the line or of the duties of a guard, and that one of them, Moorhead, had been on duty 16 hours the previous day, and also from four o'clock that morning, and that his wages were 11s. per week; and whether he, considering what has occurred, will this Session endeavour to pass a Bill to so far regulate the employment of railway servants as to secure that their duties may be performed efficiently, and with a due regard to the safety of the lives of passengers.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Sir M. Hicks BEACH,): From the Return recently presented to Parliament, it appears that in the month of March, 1888, 208 engine-drivers and firemen were

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  employed on the Great Northern of Ireland Railway, and that there were 693 instances in which these men were employed for 14 hours and upwards in a day, and eight instances in which signalmen were so employed. There were two instances in the same month in which engine-drivers or firemen had been employed for 18 hours and upwards. I have no information as to the hours of service of the stationmaster and porters at Belfast. With reference to the guards of the excursion train which was recently in collision I can say nothing. It would not be proper for me to express any opinion as to the direct or indirect causes of the disaster until I have received the Report of the officer appointed to inquire into the accident, and during the legal proceedings now pending. As regards legislation, I must refer the right hon. Gentleman to the answer which I gave on the 18th inst. to the hon. Member for North-East Northamptonshire. It is probable that any Bill which may be introduced will deal with other subjects besides that of automatic brakes.
  MR. SEXTON: Will the right hon. Gentleman undertake in the proposed Bill that railway servants shall not be worked beyond the maximum number of hours?
  SIR M. H. BEACH: I cannot give such an undertaking. It is questionable whether any legislation on that subject is possible.

  THE SEAMEN'S STRIKE.
  MR. BROADHURST: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether his attention has been called to the action of the shipowners of the northern seaports in organizing imported foreign and incompetent home labour for the purpose of manning their vessels during the seamen's strike; and whether the Board of Trade has power to interfere in the case of vessels proceeding to sea having on board insufficient or incompetent crews; if not whether this subject will have his early attention?
  MR. MUNRO FERGUSON: I beg also to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the officer representing the Board of Trade at Leith, who grants certificates to seamen, is nominated by the Marine Board, a body controlled by the shipowners; whether he is aware
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  that the seamen have no direct representation on that Board; and whether he will consider the desirability of securing to the men such representation, or removing this officer from the control of the shipowners?
  SIR M. H. BEACH: The Board of Trade have no power to interfere in the case of vessels proceeding to sea having on board insufficient or incompetent crews. In regard to the question of the hon. Member for Leith (Mr. Munro Ferguson), I may say that all officers of the local Marine Boards are nominated by the local Marine Boards. There are on each local Marine Board six members elected by the shipowners, and four members nominated by the Board of Trade, and the Mayor or Provost and such Stipendary Magistrate or Magistrates as the Board of Trade appoints. I am taking steps, when the time for which present nominated members have been appointed expires, to appoint some representatives of seamen on those Boards. At the present moment I am seeking for such a representative at Leith and London, where there are vacancies amongst the four members to be nominated by the Board of Trade.

  THE CASE OF LOUIS DEIMHOLTZ.
  MR. C. GRAHAM: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has received a memorial on June 17, also resolutions and petitions as under, in favour of the relief of Louis Deimholtz, of the International Club, 40, Berners Street? Petitions:—Pimlico Radical Club, East London Branch S. L., Hammersmith Branch S. L., North-east Bethnal Green Club, St. George's Branch S. L., Borough of Hackney Club, Borough of Shoreditch Club, Borough of Strand Club; Resolutions at Meetings:—Borough of Battersea Club, Norwich S. L., Glasgow S. L., Yarmouth S. L., Mitcham S. L., Cornwall S. L., Hammersmith S. L., Clerkenwell Green?
  MR. MATTHEWS: I have not received petitions from the St. George's Branch Socialist League or the Borough of Strand Club, or resolutions from Glasgow, Yarmouth, Cornwall, or Hammersmith. The other petitions and resolutions referred to have been duly received.

  PUBLIC BUSINESS.
  MR. H. GARDNER: Will the First Lord of the Treasury kindly say at what time he proposes to take the Tithe Bill on Monday? As there is likely to be considerable discussion, would it not be possible to put the Bill down as the first Order?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: I am afraid that it will not be possible to put it down as the first Order. We propose to take first the Board of Agriculture Bill, and then to take the Second Reading of the Irish Drainage Bills.
  MR. D. CRAWFORD: What are the intentions of the Government in regard to the Committee Stage of the two Scottish Bills?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: It is intended to proceed with the Committee Stage of the Scotch Universities Bill on Tuesday, and we propose to take some other small Bills through the Committee Stage before going on with the Scotch Local Government Bill. When that Bill is reached it will be for the convenience of the House that it should be proceeded with from day to day.
  SIR G. CAMPBELL: I wish to ask about the course of business for to day. Yesterday the First Lord of the Treasury declared that the course of business would be, first, the Army Estimates, then the Post Office Sites Bill, and finally, Class III. of the Civil Service Estimates. On the Paper of this morning, Classes V. and VI. are put down instead of Class III., and now we find that Classes III., V., and VI. were all to be taken. It was not fair to bring these important classes on without due notice.
  MR. W. H. SMITH: By an unfortunate printer's error, for which I hold in my pocket a most humble apology, Class III. was omitted from the Blue Paper. I gave Notice that Class III. would be taken, however, and I hope that, under the circumstances, no objection will be taken.
  MR. BRADLAUGH: I wish to ask your ruling, Mr. Speaker, on this point. As Class III. is not on the Paper can it be taken this evening?
  Mr. SPEAKER: Public notice was given that Class III. would be taken, and I have to set that against the printer's omission.
  MR. BRADLAUGH: The Votes printed upon Blue Paper form the Notice sent to Members, and I understood you to rule, Sir, on a previous occasion that unless the Votes were printed on the Paper of the day they could not be taken. The ruling was in answer to an objection raised by the hon. Member for the College Division of Glasgow (Dr. Cameron).
  MR. SPEAKER: But in this case public Notice was given, and it is for the House to decide whether Class III. shall be proceeded with or not.
  MR. W. H. SMITH: Perhaps I may be allowed to say that the time has now arrived when the public business may be commenced at a quarter past three. Very little private business remains to be disposed of, and I propose that we shall proceed with public business at a quarter past three on Monday next.

  WAYS AND MEANS [18TH JUNE].
  Resolution reported;
  "That towards making good the Supply granted to Her Majesty for the Service of the year ending on the 31st day of March 1890, the sum of £26,473,944 be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom."
  Resolution agreed to.
  Bill ordered to be brought in by Mr. Courtney, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Mr. Jackson.

  CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 3) BILL,
  "To apply a sum, out of the Consolidated Fund, to the Service of the year ending on the thirty-first day of March, one thousand eight hundred and ninety."
  Presented accordingly, and read the first time.
  To be read a second time this day, at Two of the clock.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  SUPPLY.
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee).

  ARMY ESTIMATES.
  (1.) £79,300, Half Pay.
  COLONEL NOLAN: I wish upon this Vote to call attention to a singular anomaly in our military administration. It would appear that an artillery officer may

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  go on manning the batteries, and drawing full pay, or they can retire on half pay, but the extraordinary part of the case is, that if an officer goes on half pay his promotion is more rapid than if he remains on full pay. He gets promoted over the heads of the men who remain with the batteries on full pay. It is certainly a singular anomaly that an officer should be promoted more rapidly if he elects to do nothing, than if he continues to go on with his work. I believe that the Secretary for War is not responsible for the initiation of this state of things, but simply for encouraging it by continuing to go on with it. I am afraid that by establishing a bad precedent of this kind we only succeed in introducing others equally bad in its train.
  SIR G. TREVELYAN: On this Vote I have to put a question to the Secretary of State. Early this year the right hon. Gentleman promised us a statement on the subject of the reduction of the generals' list, and the appointment of generals for specific belligerent duties. I have no doubt the right hon. Gentleman has undertaken this great reform with an earnest desire to carry it through, and that any delay that has taken place, or may take place hereafter, is not his fault; but I think the Committee would be greatly to blame if they allowed this opportunity to go by without some statement being made as to what has been done. I therefore beg to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he can make such a statement?
  SIR E. B. HAMLEY: I do hope that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War will see fit to make some statement as to the plan for the revision of the general officers' list.
  SIR W. BARTTELOT: I join in the appeal made by the right hon. Baronet opposite, and my hon. and gallant Friend, and I think it would be to the interest not only of the Committee but of those who are about to enter the Service, and especially of those who are now in the Service, that we should have some definite and distinct statement from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of of State for War on this subject. There are many cases, and many known cases, in which men have been passed
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  over in favour of others, although the services have been equally great, if not greater, than those of the men who obtained the promotion. There is a desire in the Army to know on what principle the selection is to be made, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will be able to give us some information on this most important question.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. E. STANHOPE,): I am sorry to be obliged to answer the appeals which have been made to me in the sense in which I must answer them. I have done my best to put forward a scheme, but it is very full of details. If it were not full of details it would be quite impossible to do justice to the claims of the distinguished officers who will be affected by it. It has taken a very long time to prepare the documents in the matter, and I am sorry to say I have not yet obtained the approval of the Treasury. That being so, I should not be justified in stating the details to the House, because it would look like trying to force the hands of the Treasury. I must ask the House to wait a little longer, and I hope that I shall be able to make a statement on the scheme before the close of the Session. I think the House understands the general principle on which the scheme is to be founded—namely, that of making appointments to general officers' posts by means of selection. That is the main principle, and I regret that I cannot enter into further details.
  GENERAL FRASER: I earnestly hope that this change will not be carried out by Warrant, and that an early opportunity will be given for a full discussion on this most important subject. Purchase in the Army was abolished by Warrant, not by Parliament. I was concerned to hear, some few weeks back, the short speech of the right hon. Baronet on the opposite Bench. I feel that there is a great want of knowledge of the true state of the case. The abolition of purchase in the Army has never been carried out—in so far that the country is to-day deeply in debt to the officers who entered under the old purchase system. An immense number of officers have large sums of money out in the hands of the Government, never to be touched again—some £4,500, some £3,000, and

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  other large sums—regulation money, which they were ordered to give formerly for their commissions; and now they are threatened with being passed over when the aim and object of their lives has been to do their duty, and, in time, to rise to the position which they have been promised. I will give but one instance, out of many, to prove the injustice of the present state of matters. Colonel Mussenden has served for 37 years. He was never absent from the Crimean Campaign; was present at the battles of Alma, Inkermann, Tokenaya; rode in the Light Cavalry charge at Balaclava (where he had his horse shot under him); the affair of Bulganar, Mackenzie's Farm, and Siege of Sebas-topol; also the Indian Mutiny, campaigning in the intense heat, being present at the capture of Kotal, and he returned to England and commanded his regiment, the 8th Hussars, making it most efficient—of which regiment I have the honour to be full colonel. Again, he went to India in command of his regiment—the Government having the purchase money which he had paid for his steps—on the march to the Afghanistan Campaign, when the newfangled four years' rule turned him out, so he did not obtain the C.B., which the officer who succeeded him obtained. He was appointed Inspector of Yeomanry in England, proving his efficiency, for five years; then he ran up to the top of the colonels list; but he has been passed over by a very charming gentleman from the Horse Guards—a guardsman, for the last 19 years mostly on the staff—Major General Lord W. F. Seymour—who has served for 35 years, and whose war services are the Baltic Expedition and the Egyptian Expedition of 1882.
  COLONEL BLUNDELL: Under the old system there was an immense field of choice, whatever its faults were in other ways. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Edinburgh (Mr. Childers) introduced a system under which all general appointments at home were to be held by generals, thereby unintentionally greatly narrowing the field of choice. In making the change proposed, which I think is a right one for the rule, power should be given to the Commander-in-Chief to promote officers who, like Colonel
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  Mussingden, have served under the old system, and been engaged in some of the chief actions of the Crimean War and Indian Mutiny, without reference to particular appointments. My gallant Friend the Member for Lambeth spoke of Lord W. Seymour in rather a disparaging sense. He served in the Baltic as a boy, in Egypt, at Portsmouth, Aldershot, and I do not know where else, and he is, I know, a thoroughly good soldier.
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE WAR OFFICE (Mr. BRODRICK,): I do not think my hon. and gallant Friend who has just spoken has quite appreciated the force of my right hon. Friend's pledge, that he will make a statement to the House When he does so there will be opportunity for discussion, and perhaps it will not be wise to forestall that discussion by any partial statement on either side.
  MR. CHILDERS: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he will postpone this Vote until he can make his statement, so that we may have an opportunity of discussing that statement?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: If the Vote is taken, I will postpone the Report of it so as to keep open an opportunity for discussion.
  MR. CHILDERS: I think that is a fair offer.
  Vote agreed to.
  (2.) £1,186,600, Retired Pay, &c.
  MR. CHILDERS: I conclude that the promise of the right hon. Gentleman will extend to this Vote also.
  SIR W. BARTTELOT,: I have a case I wish to bring before the Committee, which I am sorry indeed to be obliged to do. It is the case of Lieutenant General Robert White, now honorary colonel of the 21st Hussars. He was one of the old purchase officers, and £4,500 of his money has been retained, as was always the case when an officer as Colonel was placed on half-pay. He was one of those who looked forward to becoming full Colonel of a cavalry regiment. 'The pay for the cavalry having been reduced from £1,300 to £1,000 to make it the same as the infantry, it was agreed that all these Colonels should receive that amount. You must remember that Lord Cardwell—then Mr. Cardwell, the Secretary for

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  War—distinctly stated that no man should be placed in a worse position in consequence of abolition of purchase. General White received from the Military Secretary at the Horse Guards a statement that he was 20th on the list, and at the same time my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Lambeth (General Fraser) received a statement that he was 21st on the list. He accepted the new terms, but found out his mistake, and after a great deal of trouble has been placed on the old footing, and now receives his £1,000 a year. General officers wore offered under the new Warrant a certain amount of increased pay, the pay of a general officer at that time being £1 5s. a day if not employed. General White, having received this information from the Horse Guards, considered what would be the best course to pursue, and went as most military men would do, to the agents to inquire what chance he would have of getting promotion. They told him that he would have no chance of getting a regiment for 16 years if he was the 20th on the list. That being so, he thought he had better accept the proposals made to him. He was abroad at the time, but after he had accepted he made stringent inquiries, and then he found that the statement of the Military Secretary—through inadvertence, perhaps, though, certainly, it was a careless statement to make—was wrong. He found that eight out of the 19 preceding him on the list were not to be promoted. Four had already been passed over, and the other four were passed over subsequently. He was, therefore, really the 12th on the list, and instead of having to wait 16 years, he got a regiment in three and a half years. When a mistake of that kind is made, I am sure the only thing to do is to remedy it, in view, especially, of the gallant services of this distinguished officer. He led the squadron of direction of the 17th Lancers at Balaclava; he had a horse killed under him, and was himself wounded. He also served with distinction through the Indian Mutiny, and has done his duty wherever placed, and I think his claims deserve serious consideration. A letter from General White to his wife at the time when the offer was made shows that he would not have accepted that offer if he had not absolutely
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  believed the statement of the Military Secretary. The hon. and learned Member for Inverness (Mr. Finlay), having been consulted on the point, expressed the opinion that, under the circumstances, General White would be entitled in any ordinary case of contract to rescind the contract on the ground that the facts had been misrepresented. I am sure that view of the case will commend itself to the Committee and to both my right hon. Friends. The Authorities at the War Office are of opinion that General White should obtain the £1,000 a year; and I hope the Chancellor of the Exchequer will see his way, under all the circumstances, to grant his request.
  MR. E. STANHOPE: I am sorry that my hon. and gallant Friend has thought it necessary to bring this case on for discussion to-day, and in particular because I am afraid I cannot accept the statement he has made to the Committee as being an accurate representation of the case of General White. At the same time, I do not consider it necessary to go into the matter, because the case is the subject of communication between the Treasury and myself, and I believe that the communications will come to a conclusion before long. Until they have done so, I shall not feel myself justified in making a statement on the subject.
  GENERAL FRASER: The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War says he is in communication with the Treasury, and cannot therefore answer; but I would point out that he has been for seven or eight years in communication with the Treasury.
  MAJOR-GENERAL GOLDSWORTHY: I hope that the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State will be able to give these cases his benevolent consideration.
  MR. CAUSTON: I desire to draw the attention of the Committee to the case of the Quartermasters, who have a very great grievance with regard to their retired pay. They have, besides, many other grievances, and I would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War that he should grant a Committee to consider the questions connected with the status and retirement of Army Quartermasters. The right hon. Gentleman knows, and his predecessors

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  know, that the Quartermaster has for years past had great grievances. I had my attention drawn to the subject when I first had the honour of representing Colchester in Parliament. When I ceased to represent that constituency the case of the Quartermasters was advocated by the late Colonel Duncan, whose loss is so much regretted in this House. They lost an able champion when Colonel Duncan died, and unfortunately, now, they think they have very few friends either in this House, among the senior officers, or at the War Office. In regard to the question of retired pay, their grievance is that when they are compelled to retire after the longest service £200 a year is the full amount of pension, whereas there are other officers who have also risen from the ranks and who become Coast brigade majors, who are allowed to retire on full pay. Then, again, the Quartermasters have a grievance in regard to their rank. At the time the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Edinburgh (Mr. Childers) was Secretary for War they were granted the rank of captain during service with the retired rank of major, but under the new Warrant that privilege has been taken away. I wish to point out that the question of rank affects the pensions of widows, and I want, if I can, to persuade the right hon. Gentleman to grant a Public Committee to inquire generally into the grievances of these officers. A similar Committee has been granted in the case of the Medical Department. It is desired that the Committee should not be a departmental one. Unfortunately, the Quartermasters think that there is a prejudice against them at the War Office, and they ask for a Public Committee, in order that their grievances may be thoroughly considered. I trust that they will receive a promise from the right hon. Gentleman that they will not be treated differently from other officers simply because they have risen from the ranks.
  MR. BRODRICK: The hon. Member has entered the House since the beginning of this Parliament, and I think he is not aware that the case of the Quartermasters was specially considered by the Leader of the House soon after the Government came into office. A Warrant was then issued
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  by which considerable advantages were given to Quartermasters, and that Warrant is only two-and-a-half years old now. Every one of the questions which the hon. Member has alluded to were carefully and closely considered. A long correspondence took place between the War Office and the Treasury, and the settlement was taken as fair and satisfactory. Under these circumstances, I hope the hon. Member will see that, even if there is some discontent, it is undesirable that we should re-try the matter. I think that the sort of appeal which the hon. Gentleman has made is not one that the Committee can listen to, having regard to the extensive concessions which were made so very short a time ago. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that both under the last Government and the present the case was carefully considered by the Military Authorities as well as the Authorities at the War Office.
  MR. CAUSTON: I have no desire to raise any protracted debate, but I think it is right that I should correct the hon. Gentleman. I re-entered the House of Commons last year, and immediately after my return I had communications with Quartermasters in all parts of the Empire, who expressed their regret that their grievances had not been properly met. In 1887 Colonel Duncan, speaking in this House upon the matter, said—
  "I am sorry to say that the Quartermasters have been treated differently from any other officers who have been promoted from the ranks, and that they have been placed at a great disadvantage."
  I can assure the hon. Gentleman that I am not speaking on behalf of an isolated quartermaster, but in the name, and at the request, of Quartermasters serving in all parts of the world—in India, Malta, and elsewhere. I think it would be most unfortunate if the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues were to be left under the impression that satisfaction exists among the Quartermasters at the concessions conferred by the Warrant. On the contrary, I believe that great dissatisfaction prevails.
  COLONEL NOLAN: Not only are the Quartermasters a very deserving body of men, but the country gets very good value for the money expended upon them, and if it is desirable for the War Office to display any liberality at all it

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  ought to be in the case of these officers. At the same time, I wish to point out that this question of retired pay is a growing one. It amounts now to a sum of £1,186,000. I believe that something has been done to keep it down, but still more ought to be done, and every information ought to be given to the House of Commons. It is important, I think, that the average age of the officers retired ought to appear on the Estimates. Upon page 100 of the Votes the ages are entered, and I think there ought also to be a Return of the number retired compulsorily, together with the number retired voluntarily. Some persons are of opinion that to retire men at the age of 44 only makes a difference in the pay. That is an entire mistake, because they are immediately promoted to superior positions if they are practically efficient, and the result is that they receive a largely increased sum. £1,186,000 paid in the shape of retired pay is a very large sum, and will justify the constant attention and watchfulness of the House of Commons. The retired pay of the Medical Department is included in this Vote. I will give an instance of the way in which, in connection with that Department, the system of retired pay is worked. There was an officer who drew £450 a year as surgeon major-general, and for that he had certain duties to perform. He was 45 years of age, and the War Office retired him and gave him an extra pension for doing nothing. They gave him £500 a year, or an addition of £50 to retire and do absolutely nothing.
  MR. E. STANHOPE: I think that the hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Causton) was fully justified in drawing the attention of the Committee to the case of the Quartermasters, but I can assure him that the matter has been gone into most carefully; and as to the remarks of the hon. and gallant Gentleman, the question of medical officers is one to which I have paid special attention.
  MR. ROUND: I am aware that the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Causton), when he represented Colchester, exerted himself on behalf of the Army Quartermasters, and those serving in the Eastern District fully appreciated his efforts. But during his temporary retirement from this House,
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  a Royal Warrant has been issued by the Government with the express view of remedying the grievances of this branch of the military profession. I believe the concessions made to their claims were appreciated by the Quartermasters, but I would submit that if, under this Vote, there is a further just claim to consideration—and I believe there is such—that it should not be lost sight of by the War Office. I venture to ask the Secretary of State for War to give his personal attention to the point; we recognise that the Quartermasters are a most deserving class, and I think that the House of Commons ought not to be satisfied till full justice has been done to them.
  SIR G. CAMPBELL: The fault of the Vote is on the side of liberality, and I entirely agree with the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Colonel Nolan) that the way in which men are retired and pensioned in the prime of life is most unsatisfactory, and I should like to know whether anything has been done to induce such officers to serve in the Militia and Volunteers. The existing system of commuting pensions is bad. When will the new rules, which have been promised, be issued? The retired pay of officers has increased largely this year, and it is likely to increase still more largely. If I thought that the country got anything from the services of the large number of officers retired in connection with the auxiliary forces, I would not grudge the money, but the only information we get from the Government is that they are doing all in their power to utilize their services. I should be glad to learn whether anything is being done to utilize the services of those officers who are retired in the prime of life. My own impression is that a large number of the officers who are retired in the prime of life would be glad to be kept in the service of the country. In regard to the commutation of pensions, I have always been of opinion that it is undesirable to allow pensions to be commuted for a lump sum. I do not think that it is fair to the State. We lose the services of capable and efficient men, and so far as they are concerned they in vest the money in joint stock companies and lose it. A complaint is then made that no provision has been made for them in their old age. I should like to

  437
  know what is being done in this respect.
  MR. BRODRICK: It is not correct to say that the commutation of pensions has ever been encouraged by the War Office, the scale of commutation offered being below the actuarial calculation, and arrangements have been made to prevent officers liable to be recalled to service from commuting the whole of their pensions. Attempts have been made to induce officers retired early to serve in the Militia and Volunteers; but no great success has been achieved. The full effect of the Warrant of 1887 has not yet been felt in the Army, but when it is the age of retiring will be considerably raised.
  MR. CHILDERS: I wish to say nothing to anticipate the discussion which must take place when the Secretary of State makes his proposal, and the whole subject comes on for consideration. But the House may be interested in having the facts as to the early retirement of officers. In 1880, when I became Secretary of State for War, I found that under the regulations then in force just half the officers in the Army would be retired at 40 years of age. I attacked this abuse, immediately, and a new warrant was issued under which the normal charge for these pensions was reduced from £1,340,000 to £1,000,000 a year. The normal charge was again reduced in 1886 by the Warrant for which my right hon. Friend Mr. Campbell-Bannerman was really responsible, and I have no doubt that the Secretary of State for War in his new Warrant will again reduce it. The evil arises from the Royal Warrant which followed the Royal Commission which sat in 1875 or 1876. There are now very few officers retired at 40 years of age, though too many are retired between 40 and 46. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will be able still further to cure that evil.
  SIR G. CAMPBELL: I hope the right hon. Gentleman will be able to explain why it is that the retired pay has been increased in the present year by the large sum of £33,000? We have received no explanation of that fact, although it appears on the face of the Estimates.
  MR. CHILDERS: I can explain it in a single word. The total amount of retired pay would have increased this year
  438
  about £80,000, but for the Warrant of 1881, which reduced the increase to £30,000. The normal, under the change of system of purchase, is not yet reached.
  SIR G. CAMPBELL: I am glad to hear that this runaway horse is likely to be pulled up. In regard to the commutation of pensions I am certainly surprised that there should be an excess this year over what it was the year before. I am sorry the Government are not able to tell us that these retired officers are not inclined to join the auxiliary forces of the country.
  Vote agreed to.
  (3.) £129,700, Widows' Pensions, &c.
  (4.) £12,900, Pensions for Wounds.
  (5.) £31,000, Chelsea and Kilmainham Hospitals.
  COLONEL NOLAN: I should like to know what is the principle on which men are admitted to these institutions, and how long the men are allowed to remain in them? I am afraid that matters have been allowed to run in a certain groove, and that although certain persons derive great benefit, some old soldiers have the greatest difficulty in obtaining admission.
  MR. BRODRICK: There are three classes of men eligible for admission—namely, men who have lost a limb, men wounded, or who have other disabilities due to service in the field; men incapable from other causes, but in receipt of permanent pensions; and men required for the service of the hospitals within certain limits. Every application is carefully considered by the Board of Governors in respect of length and value of service, and the best men are taken in.
  MR. HANBURY: I think we have a right to complain that the whole of the expenditure is not properly stated upon the Vote. In the Admiralty Vote there is a distinct statement of what the whole expense is.
  Vote agreed to.
  (6.) £1,377,400, Out-Pensions.
  MR. CHILDERS: I should like to know whether the maximum under this Vote has yet been reached. Of course in a few years it must steadily fall off.
  MR. BRODRICK: It is believed that the Vote has reached its maximum this year, though it may yet go slightly

  439
  upwards in consequence of the very large number of discharges during the year. The position of the Vote has been very much influenced by the pensions to men who were broken down in health by the operations in Egypt. The number of men who are even now breaking down through their health being impaired by those operations is very considerable. The right hon. Gentleman will know that a large diminution in the Vote is anticipated in consequence of the operation of the short service system after the year 1890.
  Vote agreed to.
  (7.) £177,600, Superannuation Allowances.
  COLONEL NOLAN: May I ask if the Secretary for War is in a position to give any information as to the Report of the Committee upon these allowances?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: I have not yet seen the Report.
  COLONEL NOLAN: It has been presented to the House.
  MR. E. STANHOPE: I am sorry to say that I have not seen it.
  Vote agreed to.
  (8.) £43,200, Retired Allowances, &c., to Officers of the Militia, Yeomanry, and Volunteer Forces.
  MR. H. COSSHAM: When the Volunteer Force was first established we had an impression that it was to cost the country very little. I see, however, that the charge is growing every year. It is, therefore, incumbent on us to see what benefit we derive from the outlay. I am very doubtful whether we receive full value for our money.
  MR. E. STANHOPE: My opinion is that we certainly receive full value for the money expended. I am glad to be able to inform the hon. Member that the charges are greatly diminishing and are now at a maximum.
  Vote agreed to.
  (9.) £100, Ordnance Factories.
  COLONEL NOLAN: May I ask whether any way is being made at the Ordnance Factory in reference to the construction of the wire gun, of which we have heard such wonderful accounts? It is said to be capable of firing a shot 12½ miles, a performance truly wonder-
  440
  ful. Is the Factory at the present moment resting on its oars?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: I had a conversation with the Director of the Factory a short time ago, and he told me that he had great confidence in the manufacture of wire guns. Experiments are being made at the present moment.
  Vote agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That a sum, not exceeding £258,800, be granted to Her Majesty to defray the Charge for the Salaries and Miscellaneous Charges of the War Office, which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1890."
  MR. MONTAGU: I have given notice of my intention to move the reduction of this Vote, and my object in doing so is to ascertain from the Secretary for War if he can justify the action of the War Office in refusing to re-admit the public to the riverside promenade near to the Tower of London. Two years ago I presented a petition from about 5,000 of my constituents praying that the Tower Gardens and the promenade might be thrown open to the public. Access to the Tower Gardens was granted, and it has proved to be a very great boon to the inhabitants of the east of London. The Secretary of State for War has admitted that, although many thousands of people have frequented the gardens, no cases of disorder have been reported. I wish to know why the right hon. Gentleman could not go a step further and re-admit the people to the riverside promenade, which they had access to before the Crimean War. At the time of the war the promenade was used for landing stores, but I believe that very few barges ever approach the frontage now for that purpose, and if they did it would be easy to land their cargoes before 10 o'clock in the morning when the public could be admitted. I fear that the real reason why the public are kept away from the promenade is that a few privileged persons, in order that they may appropriate the promenade to their own enjoyment, desires to exclude the public. There is, however, every accommodation for the residents in the Tower in other parts of the grounds. I believe that already some 200 or 300 people who

  441
  know how to get permission have passes which enable them to go through the promenade, while the general public are excluded. No disadvantage would be experienced by extending the privilege already granted. The space covered by the Tower Gardens is about two acres, of which about two-thirds are absorbed for plants. The riverside promenade covers nearly an equal space, and as there are no flower-beds, the accommodation for the public is exceedingly good. I may say that the average number of people attending the Tower Gardens daily is about 3,000. The promenade is the very best place to view the new Tower Bridge which is now being erected, and it will prove a short cut for any one crossing the bridge for the purpose of going west.
  MR. HANBURY: I should like to know what guarantee the Secretary of State for War has that the small arms in the hands of our troops are in an efficient condition and have been thoroughly tested. Only a day or two ago in the course of a military tournament in which some Yeomanry connected with the Middlesex and Warwickshire regiments were taking part two swords snapped in two, though they were being used by experienced swordsmen. They broke, I am informed, at the first cut, when slicing at the head. I ask the right hon. Gentleman, therefore, what guarantee he has that these small arms are in a satisfactory condition? It is a very important question, and I hope he will be able to give some information upon it. I also desire to ask the right hon. Gentleman what power he has under the Warrant of 1887 to reduce the forage allowance to officers? He has, no doubt, power to vary the allowance, but it is contended by officers who have communicated with me that he has no power to reduce it—any reduction in one species of forage being replaced by an increase in another. For instance, if 2 lbs. of oats are taken away, 4 lbs. of hay are substituted. The War Office have no power to vary the allowance in any other sense.
  MR. STANHOPE: I will answer first the question of the hon. Member for Whitechapel (Mr. Montagu). I have made inquiries with regard to the Tower Walk with a view of seeing whether it can be thrown open to the public, but Government stores are landed there, and
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  though it is true that certain persons who obtain permission are allowed to use it as a thoroughfare, that is very different to having women and children loitering about where they might be exposed to danger. Upon the whole, I find that the convenience of the public service will not allow of the views of the hon. Member for Whitechapel being accepted. With regard to the swords, what occurred at the military tournament was as the hon. Member for Preston (Mr. Hanbury) has stated in the case of Yeomanry swords. Of course these, like all others, ought to be thoroughly tested and sound, but the work of practically renewing all the arms of the Army has been such that it has not yet been possible to carry it out with regard to the Yeomanry. This, however, I trust, will before long be accomplished. As to the guarantee that the swords in the hands of the Army are satisfactory, I have placed the duty of thoroughly testing them upon the shoulders of the Commander-in-Chief and the military officers under his command, who are to satisfy themselves as to the soundness of the weapons. This, I think, is the most satisfactory guarantee that could be obtained, as military men themselves would be the first to suffer if their swords proved defective in an engagement. As to the officers' forage, the point raised by the hon. Member for Preston is a novel one, and I will look into it.
  MR. MONTAGU: I should like to explain to the right hon. Gentleman that the Authorities did object to the admission of the public to the Tower Gardens until it was found that they were orderly, and the permission was consequently continued. I believe that a similar course may be taken with regard to the riverside promenade with the same result. In the case of the Tower Gardens there was a deep moat, which it was said would be dangerous if women and children were allowed to go there, but all that has been necessary has been to put up a railing. The public were admitted to this promenade in former times and no accident occurred. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will make further inquiry into the matter. There are very few open spaces in or near this neighbourhood. The people have to go to Victoria Park before they can find

  443
  any such open space, and the permission to use this promenade would be a great boon. So far as the Government stores are concerned they can be landed at a more convenient time. I shall certainly move the reduction of the Vote by the sum of £100 by way of protest, unless I receive a more satisfactory assurance from the right hon. Gentleman.
  MR. E. STANHOPE: I can give no other assurance. With regard to the swords I may add that when I spoke of the swords of the Yeomanry I had no information as to what swords were used.
  THE CHAIRMAN: Does the hon. Member for Whitechapel move the reduction of the Vote?
  MR. MONTAGU: Yes, by the sum of £100.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Item A, Salaries, &c., be reduced by £100, part of the Salary of the Secretary of State for War."—(Mr. Montagu.)
  MR. J. ROWLANDS: I feel bound to snpport the appeal of my hon. Friend the Member for White-chapel for the opening of this riverside promenade to the people. I think the appeal ha has made is a very just one indeed. The space was at the service of the public until a comparatively recent period, and as far as I have heard, when the public had the free use of the promenade they never abused the privilege. I know of no part of London where every inch of open space that can possibly be made available can be more advantageously secured. It is a very congested district, and there are very few playgrounds for the children. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will reconsider his decision even now, and grant this much required boon.
  COLONEL NOLAN: I think the hon. Member for Whitechapel is quite right in urging this matter, and I do not think the Secretary for War has given a satisfactory reason for refusing the appeal. The landing of stores is not on such a scale as to prevent the walk being thrown open to the public. The store arms which are landed there arrive in boxes. There are not many landed there now, as they have been superseded by other stores. I think it right, therefore, that pressure should be brought to bear upon the Government.
  MR. BRYCE: I must confirm what has been said by the hon. Member for Whitechapel as to the importance of rendering as many open spaces as possible, in such a neighbour-hood as that of the Tower, available to the public. I cannot help thinking that if the War Office would take a little trouble in this matter they would find no inconvenience in throwing this promenade open to the public. I have always had serious doubts whether really too much is not made of the Tower for military purposes, and whether it should not be handed over altogether for the use of the public. But apart from that, the need for an open space in this part of London is very much felt by the public, and I think the hon. Member for Whitechapel will be justified in pressing the question upon the attention of the House in the most practical form open to him.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 118; Noes 168.—(Div. List No. 148.)
  Original Question again proposed.
  MR. HANBURY: I should like to ask for a little more information as to what is meant by transferring the testing of small arms to the Military Authorities. Under the old system we knew that the Civil Department were responsible, but now it seems there is some danger that we shall not know where the responsibility lies, whether with the Civil or Military Department. I understand that my right hon. Friend has forbidden the weapons to be tested in the regiments themselves, and that the officers who used to apply their own tests are not to be permitted to do so any longer. But I am told that the testing is still carried out by the Civil and not the Military Authorities. That being so I feel obliged to ask for further information. How is the duty of testing the swords vested in the Military Authorities?
  MR. STANHOPE: There is an inspector who has a staff, and their duty is to inspect all the swords at regular intervals. All the swords in the hands of the troops have to be inspected by this staff.
  MR. HANBURY: Who is to provide the test?
  MR. STANHOPE: The Military Authorities.
  MR. H. H. FOWLER:: I desire to call attention to the recent public action of the Adjutant General of the Forces. I want to do so in no Party spirit, but from a Parliamentary and Constitutional point of view. I think that both sides of the House will agree in accepting two principles which ought to be adhered to in the working of our Constitutional system. The first principle is that the permanent servants of the Crown, in whatever department they may be placed, should abstain absolutely from all interference in Party politics. I need not point out the wisdom of such a rule. We have had it discussed lately, and have heard it defended with great ability from the Treasury Bench One of the distinguishing characteristics of the English Service, and that which places it at the head of the Civil Services of the world, is its absolute severance from Party politics. We have a class of highly trained officials who serve both sides in politics with loyalty and who possess the confidence of the House, and I maintain that no greater calamity can arise than to introduce Party politics into that service. As an illustration, I would ask the House what would be the shock of surprise which would run through the House and the country generally if Sir Reginald Welby or Sir Algernon West were to go out on a political campaign and attack the principles or opinions of the Chancellors of the Exchequer under whom they have or might be called upon to serve under? It is almost an insult to those distinguished men to suppose for a moment that they could be capable of such conduct. The other principle is, that however strongly this rule should be enforced with reference to the ordinary permanent civil servants of the Crown, its enforcement is of even greater importance in the case of the military and naval servants of the Crown. We may differ in this House in Party politics in matters affecting expenditure and the administration of the Army and Navy, but hitherto the Army and Navy have possessed the fullest confidence of both sides. One reason for that is their absolute abstention from all interference in Party politics. I need hardly point out that the Queen's Regulations, so far as the Army is
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  concerned—I do not know whether there is a similar regulation in the Navy—absolutely prohibits any officer on service taking part in political demonstrations. I do not wish to insinuate that military or naval men, or civil servants, are to have no politics at all; but the point is, that so long as they are serving the Crown in the capacity of public servants one of the conditions of their appointment is that they shall abstain from Party politics. Of course they have the remedy in their own hands. Any distinguished officer or distinguished civil servant who wishes to take part in politics can, by sending in his resignation, restore to himself absolute freedom. The criticism I wish to make in regard to the Adjutant General is that he has violated these great principles which apply to him as one of the permanent heads of the Army just as much as to anyone else. I will only trouble the House with quotations from two speeches of Lord Wolseley. The speech to which I attach the most importance is a speech not appertaining at all to Party politics, but appertaining to Constitutional politics. The noble Lord is reported to have said at Birmingham, on 25th of January last—
  "For the last 50 or 60 years we have gone about the world preaching that there was no Constitution like the British, and we have forced that Constitution and its Parliamentary system, very often against their will, upon the various Dependencies of the Crown. In many cases we have certainly done wrong.'
  I am not aware of any case in which the Government of thus country has forced responsible government upon any of our Colonies or any of our Dependencies against the wish of the inhabitants of those Colonies or Dependencies. I have always been under the impression that Downing Street has been rather deaf in the first instance to the demands of our Colonies and Dependencies for self-government, at all events in many cases. The noble Lord went on to say he hoped before we began to try to cram this Constitution down the throats of any Dependencies, we should at least go through the form of bringing its meaning home to some of the leading people of those Dependencies.
  "Let them," he said, "spend some instructive evenings in the House of Commons. Let them choose specially one of those bright and breezy evenings when affairs are conducted in that gentlemanly manner for which the pro-

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  ceedings of this House have become so famous. If, after that, gentlemen from the Antipodes shall desire our Constitution, by all means let them have it, but do not let us go swaggering about the world telling everybody that our Constitution is by far the best."
  Now, I hold that the second in command of the British Army, a man occupying the responsible position of Adjutant General of the Forces, is bound to be loyal to the whole Constitutional Government of this country. He is bound to be loyal to the Sovereign as a Constitutional Monarch; and whether our system be right or wrong it is the system of the British Constitution, the system under which we all live, of which we are all so proud, that the power in this country rests with the Parliament, and that this Parliament and this House of Commons, which I may say is not spoken of with very great respect by the noble Lord, does control, and ought to control, and I hope ever will control, both the Civil and the Military Forces of the country. If these remarks had been made by an ordinary speaker or an ordinary civilian not much importance would have been attached to them; but remembering our whole Constitutional history, and what has been the outcome of all our struggles—the supremacy of the Civil over the Military power, a principle which is represented by the Secretary of State for War responsible to the House of Commons—I think we are bound to take some notice of this speech. The other point of the speech to which I desire to call attention is that in which the noble Lord referred to all the great nations of the world, certainly of Europe, having adopted a system of Universal military service which he said is bound to make their people stronger and healthier than they were before, and physically superior in every way to us. The noble Lord entered into an elaborate and careful defence of the system of conscription, and advocated the application of that system to this country. I am one of those who think that the present military conscription which prevails on the Continent of Europe is the curse of that Continent. I believe it is not the effect but the cause of those rumours of wars of which we hoar so much; and we can conceive no greater calamity happening to us as Englishmen—to the moral, social, commercial, and military life of this country—than the introduction into this country of the system
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  of universal conscription. Then I must give the House one citation from Lord Wolseley, which surpasses my understanding.
  "Whenever in future you read an article describing the horrible and abominable system of universal military service"
  I adopt the words. I believe the system is horrible and abominable—
  I trust you will not condemn it as merely a system invented to provide those great armies with men, but will look upon it as the very highest order of mental and physical education that has ever been devised by man."
  Now, I do not think there is a Minister or ex-Minister of Education present; but the statement that the system of military conscription in Europe is the "highest order of mental and physical education that has ever been devised by man," is one of the most extraordinary propositions any public man ever put before any public audience in this country; but when that proposition comes from the Adjutant General of the Forces, when it is stated in that broad unqualified manner in the very centre of a manufacturing and pining industry, to an audience of working people, we are entitled to ask whether that is a statement with which Her Majesty's Government have any sympathy, whether they approve of it, and whether the Adjutant General, in expressing this view of the system of universal conscription, has in the remotest degree the sanction of Her Majesty's present advisers in making such a recommendation to his countrymen? These are the two points upon which, on Constitutional and Parliamentary grounds, I have felt it necessary to deplore the public action of the Adjutant General. There is no mention of Party politics here, but merely a view expressed of our Parliamentary system of Government, and our system of a voluntary Army; but on a subsequent. occasion the Adjutant General boldly dashed into Party politics, and thought it consistent with his position and his duty to describe men who for many years were the trusted advisers of the Crown—men under whom he had held office, men on whose advice the Sovereign had conferred upon him honours and distinctions, men under whom hem may again be called upon to serve—as
  "Political schemers longing for office, and who would willingly see the United Kingdom

  449
  torn into pieces, if only they could flourish again in Downing Street."
  These may be fair remarks from apolitical opponent in the House of Commons. If hon. or right hon. Gentleman chose to say that their opponents are political schemers influenced only by the most degraded personal motives, and that they have no political opinions that they consistently hold—all that is fair political fighting with which I find no fault. But it is a condition of holding the office of Adjutant General to the Forces that he, at least, should abstain from remarks of this description, that he should remember that his position forbids him from holding up to public reprobation—I will not mention Members of this House—statesmen like Lord Spencer, and Lord Granville, Lord Rosebery, and Lord Herschell. I say it is not right or proper, not to use any stronger word, that any civil or military servant of the State should indulge in Party attacks of a personal character. I will say no more upon that point. It is a regrettable incident. I am aware that the Secretary of State for War has made, on behalf of Lord Wolseley, a very singular form of apology, if apology it can be called. In these two speeches I humbly submit to the House the limits which properly confines the public action of any military or civil servant of the Crown have been transgressed. I ask the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for War two questions. Whether Her Majesty's Government adhere to the principle which has been defined, I think, by themselves, and accepted on both sides, that permanent servants of the State should not enter into public Party controversies, and that the Queen's Regulations as to the abstention of officers from Party politics should be maintained? I would also ask whether the recommendation, the advocacy of this accursed system of military conscription, which Lord Wolseley put before the working classes in the Midlands, meets in any degree with the sanction or approval of Her Majesty's Government?
  COLONEL BLUNDELL: I have myself heard Lord Wolseley say at a public meeting that he had no Party politics, and it may be that the form in which an unpractised speaker in an unprepared speech puts his remarks may lead his hearers to
  450
  suppose that which is said of a system is applied to individuals. I would ask hon. Members to read Cardinal Manning's Essay on Education, in which he shows that the Party system does not give the subject fair play, and I conceive that what Lord Wolseley wished to convey was the belief, which I think is shared by most military and naval officers, that the present system of Party does not give the subject fair play. I do not say we can do without it. I know the difficulties. While, undoubtedly, it is not right that a servant of the Crown should speak politically, it would be wrong for an Adjutant General of the Forces to allow the country to be under an entire misconception as to what he really thought with reference to military matters. I may remind the House of what occurred years ago. Reformers in the House used constantly to refer to 1834, when the Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel were in the same Government, and when the Estimates wore kept low; and they maintained that when those two great men came together, then the Estimates were correct. But in 1847 there was published the celebrated letter from the Duke of Wellington to Sir John Burgoyne, in which he stated that the defence of the country was in a deplorable state, and that ho had never been allowed to get what ho wanted. Until that time the people believed that the Duke of Wellington had got all he wanted. What would have been said of him for keeping silent for so long if any accident had happened? Recent changes have placed more responsibility upon the Military Authorities at the War Office. I am not justifying political references; but undoubtedly the country ought to know the opinion of military officers on whom they rely on military matters. With regard to conscription, that is an academical subject, and likely to remain so in those islands. We shall never have conscription. The object of Lord Wolseley's speech was, I conceive, to express his military opinion; but it is to be deplored that his expressions were understood as being directed against any political Party.
  MR. STANHOPE: I am rather surprised, after Lord Wolseley's letter and my own statements in the House, that the right hon. Gentleman opposite should have thought it his duty to

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  again call attention to this subject. But if he thinks it necessary to bring the matter forward of course I have no right to complain. He asks me, first, whether I agree with two propositions he puts forward. With regard to what the right hon. Gentleman has said about the part an officer might take in Party politics, I think the right hon. Gentleman has gone a little beyond the justice of the case. It it were absolutely true that no officer could take any part in Party politics, it would then be impossible for any officer to have a seat in the House of Commons. That is not, I am sure, the intention of the right hon. Gentleman or the House. But I do think that the Queen's Regulations apply to both officers and men, and ought to be rigidly observed by all of whatever station. As regards the other proposition of the right hon. Gentleman—that permanent servants of the Crown, of whom the Adjutant General is one, ought to take no part whatever in Party politics. I give it entire assent. It is a clear and indisputed proposition and one it is desirable the House should accept unanimously; it lays down a rule of conduct for all permanent servants of the Crown. In the particular case to which the right hon. Gentleman referred in passages he did not think it necessary to quote. Lord Wolseley explained that he did not intend his remarks to have any personal application, and in using the language he did my noble Friend probably intended, and do what he has done on more than one occasion, and I regret it, rather to attack those in power whether from the one side or the other on the ground of what he called the Party system, which he contended had been injurious to the Army. But I am quite sure it was not my noble Friend's intention to make the personal attack of which he is accused, his remarks were intended to have a general character, as on other occasions. With regard to the second speech at Birmingham, to which the right hon. Gentleman referred, that is clearly not of a Party character at all. There is no element of a Party character in it. As to the first passage in the first speech to which the right hon. Gentleman called attention, it seams to me to be rather innocent chaff against the House of Commons, as it is not an attack upon it as an abstract institution; chaff to
  452
  which we are sometimes liable in our mode of conducting business. In the second passage my noble Friend defended conscription in this country. Now, I confess I have always held the opinion that no permanent servant of the Crown should discuss in public questions relating to the Department with which he is connected. But in this case, I have no doubt my noble Friend thought he was putting forward a purely abstract proposition, which he might, therefore, with perfect innocence and fairness bring to the attention of the country. My noble Friend never mentioned to me or the Government his intention to mention that subject. Upon that question the opinion of the Government is exactly what it has always been, and he entirely adopted the language which the right hon. Gentleman has used in condemnation of a system which, I believe, has been a curse to foreign countries, and I hope it will never be adopted in ours.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: Something was said at the commencement of the sitting about not going on beyond five, but it is now a quarter past. I do not know whether it is intended to keep to that. I have an important point to raise.
  MR. STANHOPE: I think it will be more convenient to finish the Vote before proceeding with any other business.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: I am always ready to assist in the speedy disposition of business. As to the present discussion I have been rather amused at the two speeches which have just been made from the other side of the House.
  MR. J. ROWLANDS: If I may interrupt for a moment on a point of order, is there an intention to take the Post Office Sites Bill this afternoon?
  THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order! That is a question quite out of order.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of War has thrown over the conscription views of Lord Wolseley; and certainly any Ministry that adopts those views is not likely to retain a majority very long in this country. The hon. and gallant Member opposite told us that Lord Wolseley's speech was entirely unprepared. How does be know that? For my part I have only heard one speech of Lord Wolseley's, which was delivered

  453
  n the House of Lords, and that speech was read rather than spoken; and the speech of the same noble Lord which is now in question also appears to have been deliberately prepared. The Secretary of State for War said it was not a Party speech, but only a little mild chaff at the House of Commons. Lord Wolseley, however, is an arrant Conservative, and reserved his chaff for the Liberals in the House of Commons, and his speech is an outrageous attack on those who have devoted themselves to the interests of the country in this House. In fact, it was so deliberate and so impertinent, that the right hon. Gentleman himself threw Lord Wolseley over as a Jonah; and when a question was put in the House on that matter the right hon. Gentleman replied that he could not justify the noble Lord in what he had said. The right hon. Gentleman would have done better if he had stuck to that answer on the present occasion. And now, turning to my Amendment, I would say, in the first place, we have a Secretary of State for War who gets £5,000 a year. On previous occasions I have moved that any Minister who received £5,000 should have his salary reduced by £3,000. In Germany the Minister for War gets £1,800 a year, a house and forage for eight horses, he is a military man, and these military gentlemen seem to want to ride on eight horses. But the right hon. Gentleman is not military and does not require eight horses. Putting those eight horses at £500 a year that raises the German War Minister's salary to £2,300. I merely call attention to these facts to excuse myself for not moving a reduction of the right hon. Gentleman's salary, for I am afraid if I did not offer some explanation it might be supposed that I was actuated by personal motives in moving reductions in the salaries of the First Lord of the Treasury and others and not to that of the Secretary for War. My proposition on a former occasion was defeated, by all the Ministers and ex-Ministers rushing frantically into the Lobby in support of these high salaries; and, therefore, the principle has been recognized for this Session that certain Cabinet Ministers are to receive £3,000 a year more than some of their colleagues on the same bench. However, looking down the list I find the
  454
  salary of the Commander-in-Chief. I notice the hon. Member for Dundee has put down an Amendment to disallow the whole salary of the Commander-in-Chief; but the hon. Member is not in his place and probably does not intend to move his Amendment, and even if he did, I do not know that I should support it. The Duke of Cambridge is not a bad Commander-in-Chief. He is certainly a far better and safer Commander-in-Chief than Lord Wolseley could possibly be if he were to be promoted, owing to his attacks on the Liberals. But however excellent a Commander-in-Chief may be, he may be paid too highly. The maximum salary of the Commander-in-Chief ought to be £4,500. The present holder of the office is stated to receive £6,632 on account of his being a colonel of some regiment before that maximum was established; but he receives a large permanent allowance from the country, and ought to be satisfied with that £4,500. In Germany the Emperor is nominally Commander-in-Chief, but the Chief of the Staff is similar in position to our Commander-in Chief. The Duke of Cambridge is not a superior Commander-in-Chief to Field-Marshal von Moltke, Chief of the Staff in Germany, who receives £1,500 per annum, a house, and forage for six horses. Allowing £40 for each horse, that would make £240 a year in addition to the £1,500; therefore, our Commander in Chief gets more than double what is regarded as an adequate salary for Field-Marshal von Moltke, who is practically Commander-in Chief in Germany. Under those circumstances I think it is desirable that the Duke of Cambridge's salary should be reduced by £2,132. That would reduce his salary to the normal standard of £4,500, which has been laid down as adequate and fitting. All our Commanders have salaries much in excess of those given to German or French officers in equivalent positions. I beg, therefore, to move that Vote A be reduced by £2,132, being part of the salary of the Commander-in-Chief.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  That Item A, Salaries, &c., be reduced by £2,132, part of the salary of the Commander-in-Chief.—(Mr. Labouchere.)
  MR. STANHOPE: The hon. Gentleman must forgive me if I characterize

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  his proposal as a little ungenerous. The illustrious Duke has been Commander-in-Chief for many years; he has been in the service of his country for more than 52 years; and I must say it seems to me most ungenerous after this long career—not I hope yet approaching its close—that a proposal of this description should be brought forward. The hon. Member will not deny the important services which the Duke of Cambridge has rendered to the country; and as to the contrast that he has drawn between the salaries paid to the Commander-in-Chief in this and in other countries that is a legitimate criticism so far as it goes in regard to subsequent holders of the office, and one which has been recognised by the War Office in fixing the maximum amount in future. But the Duke of Cambridge still retains the salary given under the previous system, and I cannot help thinking that it would be an invidious and unjust thing now to cut down the salary of His Royal Highness in the way proposed by the hon. Member for Northampton.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 108; Noes 211. (Div. List, No. 149.)
  Original Question again proposed.
  MR. HANBURY: Sir, I have a Motion on the Paper to reduce the salary of the Director of Contracts by the sum of £100. In moving it I have no personal motive whatever with regard to the Director of Contracts. I am not sure I would know him if I saw him. No doubt I will be told that it is the system which is at fault. In one sense I do attack the system, because I am strongly of opinion that we must have in future a great deal more of open competition in our public contracts than we have had in the past. It is the practice of every other foreign country that the Army contracts shall be put to open competition. But in this country we know nothing whatever as to those contracts. We have no return of how many are put to open competition and how many to limited competition, nor do we know anything of the prices, and whether the lowest or highest tender is accepted. The Auditor and Controller General has lately, on behalf of the public and on behalf of Parliament, tried to control to a certain extent the strange and remarkable way in which the War Office has been dealing with
  456
  these contracts. He has more than once mentioned cases where the Director of Contracts, having run a certain article at a high price, and having the next year obtained it at a lower price, the War Office has allowed it to go to the Contractor for the preceding year, who had made the contract at a much higher price. The Controller General complained of this over and over again, but he has been driven out of the field by the action of the War Office, and can have no guarantee whatever that the contracts are carried out in the way they ought to be. Then, again, persons who tender receive no information as to whether the accepted tender is lower or higher than their own. These are elementary facts—the A B C of the matter. The system of limited competition means putting a few favoured firms upon the Contractors' list, which is as bad a system as possibly can be. It acts in two ways. It puts immense powers into the hands of the Director of Contracts, and, if he is not purity itself, any one can see the opportunities for jobbery and bribery which are afforded by such a system. Not only does it act as a temptation to the Director of Contracts, but by having a limited number of firms you get a regular ring. Even though there is competition among them, they contrive to share the contracts between them. The reply of the War Office and Admiralty to all this was the old remedy of a Departmental inquiry, which only hushes the matter—which never lets us know anything of the evidence or the Report. But in these Departmental inquiries who do you think were the judges? Why the two men whose positions are attacked—the Director of Contracts in the War Office and the Director of Contracts in the Navy. These are the two men who made the inquiry. Of whom did they make the inquiry? Did they make inquiry of all kinds of firms—contracting and non-contracting—to ascertain their views as to the limited system? Nothing of the sort. They chose about 112 contractors—men who take contracts from the War Office at the present moment. Of course, what answer could they expect except that they objected to open competition. And such reasons as they gave are the most ridiculous ever submitted to a public Department. One reason was that

  457
  deterioration of the supplies must follow. Well, I do not think we could get worse under the open system than we have obtained under the limited system of competition, this hole-and-corner system. Then we are told there would be constant rejections. If the supplies were not good of course they would be rejected. Then we are told that it would lead to an increase of correspondence and litigation, though I do not see why there should be litigation because things are rejected which are bad. Then it is suggested that the request to publish information with reference to the contracts is merely to satisfy idle curiosity. The people of this country have a right to have their curiosity, idle or otherwise, satisfied in this matter. But there are people other than the 112 selected contractors who did give an opinion. The Trades' Council of Birmingham, in the interests of the work people, gave an opinion unanimously against the present system, and regarded open competition as absolutely necessary. The Association of Chambers of Commerce expressed themselves unanimously against the present system; and the Chambers of Commerce throughout the country, of which I find 44 were consulted, also declare against it. Of those 44, 20, in which the contractors were strongest, were against it, but with a small majority, while the other 24, belonging to large districts like Liverpool, Sheffield, and some other great provincial trading towns, declared without a single dissentient voice that the whole system ought to be open to competition, and that the hole-and-corner method ought to be done away with. Well, Sir, that is the first objection I put before the Committee. The next objection is that even if we were to have open competition in the future; if the Government persists in giving out the contracts on the enormous scale on which they are now offered, the result must necessarily be to shut out competition and to leave matters in the hands of a few millionaire contractors. We ought to have the contracts given out in such a way that the smaller tradesmen will be able to tender for them, and in that case they would be more taken up in the provinces of this country, as well as Scotland and Ireland, than is the case at the present moment. I will take one contract as a
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  specimen of what is happening—the contract for the disused clothing of the Army, and I will only deal with the transactions which take place under the Director of Contracts. We know that there is a large quantity of disused clothing from the British Army and the military prisons; and I put it to the Committee, will it be believed that the quantity is so enormous that there are as many as 350 different descriptions of articles, one of these alone—blue tweed trousers—including as many as 420,000 items? Under the terms of the contract, except in the case of great coats, no one can send in a tender except for the whole lot. Is it not monstrous that the disused clothing of the Army should be sold in this way? Even if the clothing were ready to hand it would be monstrous, but what happens is that these things are actually sold three years ahead. Last June, in spite of the protest which I made, a contract was entered into at the instance of the Director of Contracts for the sale of the disused clothing of the Army three years in advance—that is to say, that things which had not even been issued to the Army were sold in advance on speculation as disused articles. Well, we know what the result of such a state of things must be, especially where, as in this case, the tenders are not open to general competition. I am not quite sure what happened last year, although I am told there was then no open competition; but to be quite sure I will state what happened in 1885, when I know that the tenders for even this large contract were not issued publicly, only three firms being selected to send in tenders. If the Director of Contracts is only a man of ordinary common sense I cannot conceive how such a system can be allowed to continue. Well, then, what is the result? Why, we know what the result is, because certain things are used in the Army and also in the Navy, and in the Navy a totally different system prevails, the Admiralty adopting an entirely different method of disposing of the cast-off clothing, at least as far as the Marines are concerned, for I do not know what is done with regard to the sailors' things. The cast-off clothing of the Marines is sold by public auction at Deptford, and the result is, that while the disused trousers of the Army, sold three years in advance, only fetched under the con-

  459
  tract system 9d. each pair, the trousers sold by auction at Deptford fetched 6s. 6d.; the red Jersey tunics of the Army sold at 6½d., while those sold at Deptford fetched 1s. 2d. and 1s. 11d.; Army leggings fetched 3d. by contract, and at Deptford the price for similar articles was 8d. I know that these figures are founded on fact, because I put them in the shape of a question to my Friend the Financial Secretary last year, and he stated that my figures were correct; but the answer given to these charges is that it does not appear that the things sold at Deptford have been so much worn as those sold by contract from the Army. Very well, we will now see to what extent the things were worn. I have received a number of letters on the subject, and most of them have come from my own constituents, so that in what I am about to quote I shall not be going very far afield. I will not trouble the Committee with the whole of them, but will select some from those who know and write to me personally. One letter says:—
  "In reference to sale of Army stores I enclose you a catalogue which you may not have seen. I went about a set of uniforms for a band in my parish. The conclusion that my churchwarden and I came to was that the clothes had never been used at all. A tunic of the very best Melton, such as one's tailor would certainly not supply for less than about four guineas, was had, with all the rest of the equipment, for about 10s. 6d., and the dealer, of course, got one half of that."
  From another correspondent I have a letter in which he says:—
  "DEAR SIR,—The enclosed bill, if it could speak, would inform you that the 17 Lancer uniforms were made for a company subsequently ordered to Egypt or India (to be accurate I forget which). They were never so much as distributed to the men, but sold as old stores. When they arrived in Preston they had not a soil upon them, inside or out, but were, as the vendors had stated above, quite new and had never been on."
  Now, I have here the bill for these things. It has the heading "Bought of John Langdon and Sons, Army Contractors." The items are: "17 Lancer uniforms at 10s. 6d.; 1 pair of trousers at 4s.; 17 forage caps at 1s. 11d." It will thus be seen that I do not depend on the people who get these things from the contractor; I go to the contractor himself who bought these things under his contract with the Director of Contracts. Well, what else do I find? I
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  have a circular here from a firm at Norwich, "Messrs. Harmer and Co., Government Contractors." In this circular, speaking of the supply of disused overcoats of the British Army, they say:—"Out of the many thousands we receive some come to hand not much the worse for wear," and in their price list they have these figures:—
  "Grey infantry coat 4s. 6d.; ditto, 5s. 6d.; ditto 7s. 6d.; ditto, with cape, 6s. 6d.; ditto, 8s.; blue artillery coats, 7s. 6d. ditto, 8s. 6d.; blue cavalry and artillery coats with sleeves (lined thick serge), large and full, 6s. 6d.; ditto, 7s. 6d.; ditto, 8s. 6d."
  Those are the prices for the clothing. Now, let us take the leggings. In Staffordshire a lot of these leggings were purchased for the volunteers at 9s. per dozen pairs from the contractor. I have here a letter from a man who sends me the advertisement with regard to the leggings. The writer says:—
  "The enclosed is from last Saturday's Staffordshire Advertiser. Two years ago we thought of organizing a transport detachment. Captain Harper, since resigned and gone to Australia, attended a sale at Woolwich to buy waggons and harness. It happened that no waggons were sold, but plenty of harness was, and it was all secured by contractors owing to its being sold by weight at so much a ton.
  That is the way in which they sell these things.
  "Captain H. afterwards purchased what was required from the contractor. Wooden water bottles were being sold in large quantities, and Captain H. was informed that they were cut up for firewood. There was something similar about cavalry saddles, which I do not exactly remember. A number of buff leather pouches were sold, of which Captain H. purchased one lot of 2,000 for about £4, or ½d. each; 1,600 of these are now being worn by our 800 men, and are perfectly good."
  It does not seem as if Mr. Nepean were quite an ideal Director of Contracts. Such is the way in which business is transacted in the War Office, and, mind you, at a time when we hear so much about Volunteer equipment. These things are being sold for a mere song, and the Volunteers are not allowed to tender for them. Again, tak the case of the sponge contract. In 1881, certain sponges for the Army were put up for competition, and they fetched 2s. 3d. and 9d. In 1882, sponges were put up without competition at all, and they fetched 11d. and 6d., and at the reduced price the contract was actually given for six years. Not only that, but last year we were

  461
  told that the contract had been renewed at the same price, I should like to know for how many years it has been renewed. Furthermore, if there is one rule which ought to be laid down in connection with these contracts, it is that we should buy from the manufacturers, and not from middlemen. I will show how the Director of Contracts carries out his own rule. Take the case of socks and comforters, and things of that kind. Will it be believed that everyone of these things is bought from middlemen? I want to know where the middleman gets his profit, and where anyone else does, because I know that quite recently the man who makes the socks, and I believe the comforters, sent in two offers, one to the War Office, and the other to the middleman. The prices in both cases were exactly the same. The War Office rejected the direct tender, and gave the contract to the middleman. Where is the middleman to get his profit? He gets it somewhere, perhaps we shall be told where. I am told how some of it, at all events, is made. My informant, who is prepared to give his name, says that for years past the socks have been notoriously adulterated by the addition of water to the extent of eight ounces to every 2lb. 12 oz. of heavy goods. Although Mr. Nepean's attention has been called to the fact, we cannot learn that any action has been taken in the matter. That, probably, is where the middleman's profit comes in. So little control does the Director of Contracts exercise in having the work done by the manufacturers, that he has been having some of the work done in French prisons. He did not know it, perhaps. Well, he ought to have known it, and ought to have taken steps to prevent it. It has come to the knowledge of the Sweating Committee that many of the accoutrements for the Army have been manufactured in French prisons, and the men who have got accoutrements thus made have since been given large orders by the War Office, and are making pelisses for the British Army at the present moment. If there is one crying evil in connection with the supply of accoutrements for the British Army, it is that it has been dependent BO largely upon the abominable sweating system. If anyone in the country ought to see that sweating is not encouraged it is the War Office and the Admiralty
  462
  and the Government Departments generally. It is true that now Mr. Nepean has laid down certain rules; but he ought to have laid them down years ago. He is not, however, very careful that these rules are always observed. One rule is that the workmen shall receive a fixed sum for the work done, but I should like to know whether the rule is being observed at the present time; how far Mr. Nepean really does exercise any check in the factories where work is being done. Another very proper direction is that the work shall be done in the factories and not given out to sub-contractors. But the rule is not universal. Mr. Nepean, strange to say, is not only Director of Contracts for the Army, but he has control of the contracts for the clothing of the police and Post Office servants, and in the eases of these contracts there is no stipulation that the goods should be manufactured in the factories and not given out to sub-contractors. Take another case. Finding that the sword and bayonet trade of this country had almost died out through a system of contracting which offered no encouragement to English manufacturers generally to compete, the Secretary of State for War did a very wise thing. The right hon. Gentleman was anxious that the trade should be revived, and very properly so, because if there are things which certainly ought to be manufactured in this country they are the swords and bayonets with which we will in case of war have to fight, and upon which the lives of our men will depend. The Secretary of State was even willing to pay a higher price for the goods in consideration of the fact that their manufacture remained in this country. But he had his sapient Director of Contracts at his back. One would have thought Mr. Nepean would have introduced a penalty in case any swords or bayonets were made out of England, but there was absolutely nothing of the sort, No precautions were taken to prevent the articles being made elsewhere, and there is evidence that if they were not actually finished in Germany one half of the work was done in that country. There is a good deal going on that the Director of Contracts says he does not know of, but which he ought to know of. Last year, a firm was struck off the list of

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  contractors pretty much at my instigation, for furnishing the British Army with accoutrements which, if we were now at war, might lead to a great disaster. You would have thought every possible precaution would have been taken that neither those men, nor anyone in any way connected with them, should tender for articles for the British Army for many years to come. But what has happened? Why, this very firm, under another name—and you have only to go to the Postal Directory to see that they are the same people—this firm, of Palmer and Ross, has received orders for the supply of Volunteer equipment. Surely one might have expected that the Volunteers would have been put on their guard. Then, again, I should like to know how many servants of Messrs. Ross and Company have been put on the list of Government contractors. A large contract has been given to a certain Colonel. I do not like these Colonel staking contracts, especially when they have no factories of their own. I can understand a Colonel who can fight, but not a manufacturing or a sweating Colonel. There was a contract given to a Colonel Slade for 1,000 valises. This patriotic Colonel—gallant and patriotic gentleman indeed!—directly risked the lives of our soldiers by putting the whole of this contract into the hands of this very firm of Ross and Company, and it is admitted it was carried out by this firm within a very few months after the time when they were struck off the list of Government contractors. That is a scandalous thing. Why did not Mr. Nepean insert in the contract a proviso that nothing of the sort should be done? It is said that Mr. Nepean did not know that the contract was put into the hands of this firm, but it was his duty to know. In putting out these contracts there should be a fair field and no favour. There ought to be fair competition, and it should not be possible even to suggest that the ideas of men who tender inventions to the War Office are borrowed or, rather, stolen by officials of the War Office. I am sorry to say, however, that in this case something very like that has happened. This Colonel Slade was not only a Colonel without a factory, but at the very time this contract was given him, he was in the War Office and a member of a most
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  important Committee, the Small Arms Committee. I say it is a scandalous thing that contracts should be given out without competition to people who have no factories of their own. But this charge, bad as it is, does not end there. I have heard from an officer in Canada, who writes to me that he submitted the very equipment for which Colonel Slade has obtained this contract some six years ago before the Equipment Committee. It was commended, and this officer offered it to the country as a free gift. I do not know whether at that actual time Colonel Slade was a member of the Equipment Committee, because when I asked the right hon. Gentleman, the Secretary for War, a question on the subject, I did not get the answer I expected. Within a short time after this patent equipment was submitted to the Equipment Committee, Colonel Slade was a member of that Committee and must have had an opportunity of seeing it.
  MR. E. STANHOPE: I have stated most distinctly and as plainly as I can, that Colonel Slade was not then a member of the Equipment Committee.
  MR. HANBURY: The right hon. Gentleman knows that very shortly afterwards, and for a long time, Colonel Slade was on that Equipment Committee.
  MR. E. STANHOPE: He was a member long before this and had ceased to be a member of it.
  MR. HANBURY: When was he a Member of it?
  MR. STANHOPE: In 1886.
  MR. HANBURY: According to this Canadian officer this patent equipment was submitted in 1882, and if Colonel Slade ceased to be a member of the Committee in 1886 then I am absolutely correct in my facts. I should like to ask my right hon. Friend whether it is not a fact that the man who was president of the Equipment Committee at the time that this valise equipment was submitted to it has since written to this officer to say that the patent of Colonel Slade's is practically a theft and is exactly the same as the equipment from Canada. Colonel Slade and Colonel Wallace are partners, and a contract for 1,000 valises has been given to the one and a contract for 16,000 to the other. Colonel Slade has admitted this in the Times in a letter replying to me, and I

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  have documents in my possession putting it beyond doubt that he was interested equally with Colonel Wallace in this large contract. How is this contract to be carried out by these Colonels? We are told they have a factory of their own. That, again, is a sham. How have they got it? In the first place even the wood benches were sent from Messrs. Ross; the leather and canvas were all brought from those discarded contractors; many of the workmen came from Messrs. Ross who were employed in making up those things; and the foreman who had charge of the whole came from Messrs. Ross. Indeed, a large portion of the work was actually done by Messrs. Ross until I called attention to the fact; and even the tools were borrowed from Messrs. Ross. The rejections which were sent from Woolwich were taken away in Messrs. Ross's carts; and these facts show what a farce it is for these two patriotic Colonels to take this contract. A man doing bonâ fide work does not jump from one district to another, but in the present case, within the past week Colonel Slade has changed his factory, going a little nearer to Messrs. Ross and Co. There is a further objection to the War Office being dodged and defeated by these officers. The great danger with all these accoutrements is that they will be passed into the Government stores in an ineffective condition. Bad things will be passed in as good. The articles made by Colonel Slade and Colonel Wallace, or rather by Messrs. Ross, are being sent to Woolwich, viewers are working there at the present time, who formerly were in the service of Messrs. Ross. What guarantee has the War Office, then, that bad articles will not be passed in—that rotten leather and hides will not be accepted? There has been no change in the system except this, that the men who deserve to be promoted have been kept down, and the men who have done the mischief been promoted. In connection with these valises I must say it is a marvellous thing that Mr. Nepean should have given the order to Colonel Slade at all. Here is the cartridge box supplied by him [exhibiting article to the Committee], which is about the most clumsy thing of the kind I ever had in my hand. It is made of buff
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  leather, and will, therefore, require pipe-claying. The soldier will be able to pipe-clay it in time of peace, but when he goes to war ho will be unable to procure pipe-clay, and the thing will dry and crack, and become useless. It is to enable the soldier to carry 70 rounds of ammunition, but it will be necessary for the soldier to go out of action six times in order to fire these 70 rounds. The cartridges are liable to fall out, and at least two will catch the rain. The Committee may be told that Colonel Slade and the other contractors get no money from the contract. That may be so, but the contracts are obtained for another reason. If they do not obtain money from the War Office they do from other sources, from the Volunteers, for instance; but even to be put on the list of contractors is a great advantage to these men. These are important matters of administration which I have thought it desirable to bring before the Committee; and I ask my right hon. Friend that in future, whatever may be the merits or the demerits of the present Director of Contracts, at any rate the House of Commons shall be afforded an opportunity of keeping a little stricter watch over these contracts than it has up to the present. In order to keep a check both on the contractors and the Director of Contracts in future, will the right hon. Gentleman do two things? Will he lay down as an imperative rule that the Director of Contracts shall not interfere with the viewing of the articles for which he has contracted? It is absolutely essential in the public interest that the man who gives out the contract shall not have the opportunity of favouring the contractor by superseding the viewers. One other remedy I would suggest. The Government has taken the wise step with regard to some of their Departments in punishing men who disclose public information. Will they next Session bring in a Bill to punish severely contractors who send in the viewers who let in the bad goods? If they are prepared to do this it will not be necessary to criticize the negligent, and worse than negligent system, which has prevailed in the past, nor to discuss the conduct of Mr. Nepean and the contractors. I hope I shall be saved the necessity of taking a Vote on this matter by receiving a full and complete explanation. Unless I receive that I

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  hall have to carry this reduction to a division.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Item A, Salaries, &c., be reduced by £100, part of the Salary of the Director of Contracts."—(Mr. Hanbury.)
  MR. E. STANHOPE: It is unnecessary on the part of my hon. Friend to deprecate the notion that he is making an attack on me personally or on the Director of Contracts. For the last two years all the scourings of the public offices, every "tout" in every factory, has been quoted or brought to the hon. Member for the purpose of making attacks on me. I do not complain of it so far as the public interest is concerned. If the hon. Member likes to make personal attacks, all I have to say is, that I have lived through a good many of them, and if I and my hon. Friend remain Members of the House in the years to come, I shall probably have to live through very many more such attacks. The hon Gentleman says that he will be exceedingly glad to furnish me with all the facts he has quoted in order that I may look into them, but he did not communicate one of them before he began his attack, so that I might look into the facts and give that explanation to the House which is desirable.
  MR. HANBURY: Nearly every case I have referred to has arisen out of question and answer in the House.
  MR. E. STANHOPE: That is not the case. It is perfectly clear, however, that the main attack in this matter is made not so much on myself as on the Director of Contracts; and if I fail to give an explanation on every point of the attack made on that official, it must be understood that it is only because I am not able to carry in my head all the facts pertaining to every one of these contracts. Therefore, it must not be held that I am not able to give, had I the opportunity of looking into the facts, a complete answer to every point raised. Who is Mr. Nepean? He is one of the most able and devoted public servants in this country. What has been his position? Mr. Nepean has had his conduct inquired into by inquiry after inquiry. It has been investigated by Sir James Fitzstephen's inquiry, by Lord Morley's Committee, and by the Judge Advocate General. From every one of those inquiries, which
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  examined his conduct in minutest detail, Mr. Nepean has come without a single word being said against him. All those under whom he has served, who include right hon. Gentlemen opposite, myself, and every one who has of late years held the office of Secretary of State for War, agree that Mr. Nepean is thoroughly above any suspicion such as the hon. Member has ventured to cast upon him, and that the attack made by the hon. Member is one which merits the most complete condemnation that can be given to it. I hope the Committee will forgive me for speaking warmly about the matter; but we have just been speaking about the position of public servants. They cannot defend themselves, and the only place where they have a chance of being defended is in this House. The hon. Member has said he made no attack, but the charge he put forward was nothing more or less than one of corruption on the part of the contractors.
  MR. HANBURY: No.
  MR. E. STANHOPE: Well, what the hon. Gentleman has said is an attack upon the contractors as far as it goes, and simply amounts to neither more nor less than a charge of corruption. Under these circumstances, I think the Committee will understand that if I speak with some warmth on the subject it is because I have good grounds for so doing. I now come to the discussion of the details of the charges brought by the hon. Gentleman against Mr. Nepean and others. The hon. Member began by complaining that I had excluded the Comptroller and Auditor General from examining into certain matters; but I would ask, does the Committee really want the Comptroller and Auditor General to exercise any influence on the administration of a public department? The only matter which I prevented the Comptroller and Auditor General from examining into was when he attempted to interfere with the administration of the Department. For instance, the other day the Comptroller and Auditor General actually complained of the reserve of grain at Malta. If ever there was a matter on which a Government Department must take responsibility and exercise its own judgment in view of possible contingencies, surely it is such a question as the reserve of grain at Malta. The hon. Member also complained that the prices at which tenders were accepted

  469
  were not made public. There was a Committee to inquire into that, and the Department has consulted Chambers of Commerce and every one whose opinion is worth having, and the great preponderance of opinion has been conclusive that it would be very undesirable indeed that the prices should be made public. The hon. Member then contended that all competition should be open. That question was inquired into very closely by Lord Morley's Committee, and having examined the matter in full detail, the Committee reported—
  COLONEL NOLAN: Not unanimously.
  MR. E. STANHOPE: I am aware that the hon. and gallant Member expressed his individual dissent from that Report; but the majority of the Committee came to the conclusion, as any sensible man would have done—I beg the hon. and gallant Member's pardon, and withdraw that expression—as I thought most men who heard the evidence would have done, that it was impossible to proceed solely upon a system of open competition, but that the War Office must have in many instances limited competition. Sweating is one of the greatest difficulties the Government Departments have to contend against, and we must so allot our contracts as to take care that sweating shall not be promoted. That we have endeavoured to do to the utmost of our power, and I believe the securities we have taken will prevent any work from the War Office being put out on sweating contracts. Many of the articles we have to order are of a very special character, such as few firms in the country are capable of producing—for instance, big guns. We have to see also that there is a reasonable certainty that the things ordered will be delivered at the time and of the quality stipulated for. It is utterly impossible for us to accept without qualification the principle of open contract; but, so far as I myself am concerned, I shall endeavour to accept that principle to the utmost of my power. The disused clothes contract raises a question of very great difficulty. We had put that matter out to contract the other day, and we found there were hardly any persons who would tender for the work the contractor is expected to do. The contractor has to gather up from all the different barracks and stations throughout the world bits of
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  clothing and accoutrements which have been discarded by the troops. On the other hand, do the Committee think it would be desirable to break the contract up with regard to the different articles, and so have to deal with a host of contractors coming into different depôt and barrack towns to carry away the disused goods? In our opinion, we shall get just as much money and more advantage by putting it out to one contractor. I believe the present system of selling disused clothing is a most advantageous one to the country. The hon. Member has quoted to the Committee the case of a sponge contract obtained in 1881 and 1882, and then continued for six years. That was not for the sale but for the purchase of sponges. But what were the prices? The rates in 1881 were 2s. 3d., and in 1882 they were 11d. and 6d. The Department thought the latter terms so exceedingly favourable that they took a contract for six years. My hon. Friend has suggested that certain stocks were filled with water.
  MR. HANBURY: I said loaded with water.
  MR. E. STANHOPE: Well, my hon. Friend suggested that certain socks were increased in weight through being loaded with water. I altogether deny that. The hon. Member then dealt with the case of Messrs. Ross. But before the hon. Member brought forward his Motion, I had struck Messrs. Ross off the list of contractors for the War Office, and given notice to the other Departments that I had done so. Since then I have never in any way employed Messrs. Ross. The hon. Member said the Volunteers had gone to Messrs. Ross because I had not given the Volunteers notice that Messrs. Ross had been struck off the list of contractors. I should have thought that between my hon. Friend and myself every Volunteer in the country must have known that Messrs. Ross were no longer contractors to the War Office. I do not think either the hon. Member or the House understand the extraordinary difficulties that exist in the way of the War Office in getting valises. I have had very seriously to consider whether we should not ourselves have to manufacture those leather goods in manufactories of our own, although I hate increasing Government factories. I will now

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  deal with the last case put forward by the hon. Gentleman. The hon. Member has tried to transfer to this House the little quarrel he had with Colonel Slade in the columns of the Times. I have no desire to interfere in that very petty quarrel, as far as I am concerned. Colonel Slade ceased to be a member of the Equipment Committee long before the valises in question were submitted to it. The hon. Member complained that Colonel Slade was still a member of the Small Arms Committee, which had nothing whatever to do with the Equipment Committee. The hon. Member contended that because Colonel Slade had recommended a valise which the Military Authorities thought a very good one, therefore he was not to be allowed to serve afterwards in any public capacity. Now, Sir, Colonel Slade has written to the Times that he has not received any profit whatever for the supply of the valises.
  MR. HANBURY: He said his own contract—the first thousand.
  MR. STANHOPE: For his own contract. The contract has now been authorized to Colonel Wallace through Colonel Slade. And I am bound to say that when we gave out these contracts there was very grave doubt whether we would be able to supply the Army at all with this very useful valise, which we desired to obtain at as early a date as possible. My hon. Friend, in concluding, urged that the Director of Contracts should not do any viewing; but no doubt he has sometimes to look and ascertain whether the goods supplied by the contractors are such as should enter the Service. The hon. Member also says that there should be means of punishing the contractors and viewers when necessary. I quite agree that contractors who behave in a fraudulent manner should be punished, and they are punished very severely indeed by being struck off the list of Government contractors, and losing all the trade that would come to them. There is a further punishment, which is very often inflicted on the contractor—namely, the return of all the goods upon his hands, and he has to get rid of them as best he can. I think I have dealt with all the points raised by the hon. Member, and I hope the House will now pass this Vote reserving any further questions,
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  after this protracted discussion, until Report.
  MR. HANBURY: The sponges bought by competition were 11d. and 6d. Those bought in the next year, without competition, were 2s. 3d. and 9d.
  MR. E. STANHOPE: I decline altogether to accept those amounts.
  COLONEL NOLAN: I do not think we should hurry through a Vote of this amount, much as we should like to meet the right hon. Gentleman. This Vote refers to contracts for clothing and accoutrements to a large amount, and I do not think the Secretary of State would be desirous that we should take the chance of dealing with these matters on Report. There is one point we must discuss—the system of putting contracts to open competition; and the Motion to reduce the salary of the Director of Contracts by £100 does not reflect upon him personally in the slightest degree, but is directed to the present system of giving contracts.
  It being ten minutes to Seven of the clock, the Chairman left the Chair to make his report to the House.
  Resolutions to be reported upon Monday next; Committee also report Progress; to sit again this day.

  TELEGRAPHS (ISLE OF MAN) BILL.
  Read the third time, and passed.
  CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 3) BILL. (No. 273.)
  Read a second time, and committed for Monday.
  INDECENT ADVERTISEMENTS BILL [Lords].
  Read the first time; to be read a second time upon Tuesday next, and to be printed. [Bill 284.]
  UNIVERSITIES (SCOTLAND) [GRANT, &c.]
  Committee to consider of authorising a Grant out of the Consolidated Fund to the Scottish University Commissioners, to be applied for the purposes of the Universities under any Act of the present Session for the better Administration and Endowment of the Universities of Scotland: and also the payment, out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, of remuneration to the secretary, clerks, and officers appointed, and of all expenses incurred under the provisions of the said Act (Queen's recommendation signified), upon Monday next.

  SUPPLY.
  Order for Committee read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

  EVICTIONS IN IRELAND.
  MR. J. E. ELLIS: Mr. Speaker, in rising to move the Motion which stands in my name, I, with all sincerity, ask the indulgence of the House. The chances of the ballot have placed this matter in my hands; but, knowing how it affects the welfare of so many fellow-subjects, I should have hesitated to have proceeded with it were I not well aware that any imperfections on my part will be compensated for by the hon. Member for Scarborough (Mr. Rowntree), who will second the Motion, and by other hon. Members who will speak in support of it. The House has always shown itself ready and willing to discuss the matter of Irish evictions; and, recollecting that, I cannot help expressing regret that at this moment, save for the presence of the Chief Secretary and the Solicitor General for Ireland, the Ministerialist Benches are absolutely empty. The great Unionist Party are constantly assuring us that the House will give Irish questions a candid and earnest treatment, but, as a matter of fact, what we see to-night; empty Conservative Benches are the usual response when Irish subjects are brought forward. I was saying that this subject has always received the willing attention of the House of Commons. I might make good that observation by many references to past debates in the House, but I will only make one. On the 29th April, 1856, in the very middle of a debate which was then proceeding, attention was called to the evictions on the Pollak Estate, which resulted in the whole clearance of that great fertile triangle between Athenry, Ballinasloe, and Portumna. In the debate which was proceeding, the fate of the then Government was challenged; but the leaders of both sides of the House, Lord Palmerston and Mr. Disraeli, expressed themselves perfectly satisfied with the conduct of the Irish Members who called attention to the evictions. Those statesmen acknowledged that the
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  subject was one which might wall be intruded on an occasion of that kind. At all times there are special causes for watchfulness in regard to these evictions. As has been pointed out by the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian, the House has made the power of ejectment so swift and cheap on the other side of the Channel that evictions have been excessive in number to a degree almost incredible. The Irish landlord, who has spent nothing to create the rental value of his property, has for many years had in his hands a power which is unknown on this side of the Channel, and which has never been asked for by the landlords of England, Scotland, and Wales, who, as we all know, have done so much to increase the rental value of their property. What use has been made of this power? During the first 12 months of the life of the present Government—from July 1st, 1886, to June 30th, 1887—there were 23,585 persons in Ireland turned out of house and home. It will be answered, no doubt, by the Chief Secretary that many of them were reinstated as caretakers; but the position of a caretaker is like that of a man who is struggling for life on a raft at sea. If his career be followed he will very shortly after be found disappearing in the back streets of a great city, either here or across the Atlantic. In 1888 the procedure was somewhat altered under the 7th section of the Land Act of 1887, which was a truly deadly weapon, forged by the Unionist majority of this House and made ample use of. No fewer than 10,752 tenants received notices under that clause during 1888, and that number were deprived, so far as that clause could deprive them, of their property in their holdings. My Resolution contains three declarations and one proposal. It puts humanity in the forefront. It asserts the just rights of property, points to the insufficiency of existing Land Acts, and asks for a competent, impartial, and conclusive arbitration or award between the two parties. I do not intend to dwell long upon the point of humanity. The country has been horrified many times at the stories of the brutality resorted to at evictions in Ireland. The country, too, is well aware of the distress of large numbers of the poor people who are evicted.

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  I will gladly concede, for the purpose of the debate, that all Members are equally desirous of putting an end to those painful scenes; and I will pass at once to what I confess is my main point, and that is what I conceive to be a defence of the just rights of property. It is in the interests of property I make this Motion; and the question I raise is, to whom does the property really belong? Property, I admit, is, and always must be, one of the elements of civilization, and the man who tampers with the rights of property is no friend to his country. On the other hand, the rights of property must be consistent with the rights of humanity, and any right which is not will be admitted by hon. Gentlemen opposite to be doomed in the present state of our civilization. Well, now, what is the case that is always presented in this matter? The Government and their supporters tell us that the persons who are evicted are men who are fraudulently withholding sums they have agreed to pay for the use of certain property. I shall present the matter thus, and I think it is a more correct description. We have in this Irish agrarian matter two parties struggling as to the amount of their respective shares in a certain kind of property of which they are joint owners; and the first thing the State has to do before it lends its aid to either side to, in any way, hurt the other, is to afford to both a perfectly competent and impartial and conclusive arbitrament as to their respective rights. Until that has been done the forces of the Crown ought not to be lent to either side. Let us see how this property which the landlords claim has been mainly created. The Member for South Huntingdonshire, to whose action in regard to certain evictions I am about to allude pretty closely, will not controvert the proposition that the rental value of the landed property in Ireland has been mainly created by the toil of the tenants. That has been laid down conclusively by the Devon, the Richmond, and the Bessborough Commissions. It was stated by Earl Cowper, the President of another Commission, in April, 1887, in his place in the House of Lords. The common use of the expression "dual ownership" admits the whole case. The Chief Secretary for Ireland is constantly telling us that the Act of 1881
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  was the greatest possible mistake; but it is admitted that there is a dual ownership in this property. I do not see the landlords' emergency man, the Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell), in his place; but even he will probably admit that the Land Act of 1881 created no rights for the tenants at all, but merely recognized the equitable rights he had before. Now, does this Act furnish us with any indication as to whether the landlords have been claiming too much of this property? Under that Act, up to August of last year, an aggregate rental of £3,851,891 has been reduced to £3,093,807, or a reduction of something like 20 per cent, during the seven years of the existence of the Land Courts; in other words, the Commissioners have officially declared that the landlords have been exacting £5 where they ought to have been exacting only £4. The earlier reductions in the rents were nothing to the later ones. The average reductions during the last two years have been 30 and 31 per cent., but there are many individual cases in which the reductions have amounted to 50, 60, and even 70 per cent of the rents charged. Therefore, judging from the decisions of Land Courts, it is quite clear that the landlords have been appropriating to themselves too large a share of this property. But further, I entirely and absolutely deny that in the majority of cases in which the people have been, or are being, evicted the people have made any agreement whatever to pay the rents sought to be exacted. The very essence of the validity of a contract is freedom to enter into it on both sides. In the words of the Report of the Bess-borough Commission, "freedom of contract in the case of the majority of the Irish tenants, large and small, does not exist." I think, then, I have given some good grounds for the opinion that the just rights of property are being grievously imperilled by recent events in Ireland, where there have been going on, under the guise of law, proceedings which amount to neither more nor less than confiscation of the rights of property. But in these matters actual facts are the strongest arguments. Hon. Members will have seen in the papers of the last few days mention of an estate in the south of Ireland of which during the last two or three years we have heard

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  a great deal. I refer to the Ponsonby estate in County Cork. The area of the estate is between 9,000 and 10,000 acres. The character of the soil is more or less good; perhaps it is not the very best, but still it is a very good average specimen of au agricultural estate situated on the old red sandstone and mountain limestone. I spent considerable time last week on the property, conversed with a large number of tenants, and, in fact, did my best to make myself thoroughly familiar with the nature of these Irish holdings. I will give a few facts and figures with regard to the persons who have been, and are being, evicted on this property. It will be admitted by those who know the facts that this landlord has spent nothing in improving the tenants' holdings. He has borrowed money, and improved his own demesne, but he has not done what an English landlord would do to help his tenants. Here and there he has granted a loan for drainage purposes; but, speaking broadly, the whole value of the holding has been created by the toil of the tenants. There is a man named James Mahony, whose valuation was £42, and rental £63 15s. The improvements he made on his holding cost £300. There is Catherine Mahony, a widow, whose rental was £66, and who, with her husband, spent £668 in improving the holding. There is John Flynn, whose valuation was £68 15s., and rental £97, and who spent in a very few years £300 in improvements. There is Peter M'Donough, whose rental was £64, and who, with his father, spent, upon an embankment to keep the tide off his land, £300. There is Callaghan Flavan, whose valuation was £66, rental £104, and who spent £500 in improvements. Maurice Doyle's valuation was £258, rental £370, cost of improvements £600. Martin Loughlin's rental was £93; cost of improvements, as certified by Land Court in 1882, £800; and William Forrest spent £793 in improvements. All these are cases, as the House will see, not of poverty-stricken tenants, but of persons who I am free to admit might, or probably could, pay the rents they were asked to pay. All the tenants hold over a £50 rent, and therefore the Chief Secretary will not be able to say, "Why not appeal under Clause 30 for a stay of eviction."
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  They all hold under forced leases. Directly the Act of 1870 was passed, the Irish landlords set themselves the task of creating leases with cunning covenants, which largely paralysed the operations of the Act. These tenants largely hold under leases at higher rents than they did previously, leases which are as usual so worded as to deprive them not only of many of the benefits of the Act of 1870 but of many of the benefits of the Act of 1881, and in that way to forestall any good or advantage the Legislature may possibly in the future convey to the Irish tenants. There has been going on, and there is going on this week, on the Ponsonby estate, what I do not hesitate to describe as sheer and downright robbery of property. I will not go through the history of the years 1887 and 1888, because it seems to me rather ancient history now; but at the end of January last, after some weeks or months of negotiations carried on on behalf of the landlord by Mr. Brunker, and on behalf of the tenants by Canon Keller, who I must confess has proved himself to be a most faithful friend of the tenants, this point was reached—that Canon Keller agreed to give for the property £104,000 at the end of January, and both the parties believed that they were at the end of a most unhappy struggle. Then there appeared on the scene the hon. Member for South Huntingdon (Mr. Smith Barry). He is, I believe, a landlord in the County of Cork who had his rents largely reduced in 1882 by the Land Courts. In the month of February last he announced at a dinner, or some meeting in Cork, that he could say that Mr. Ponsonby would never settle with his tenants. The attention of Mr. Brunker was at once drawn to this remark, and the reply sent by him was as follows:—
  18, Grafton Street, Dublin,
  Feb. 20th, 1889.
  "My dear Sir,—I do not lose a moment in setting myself and Mr. Ponsonby right with you as to the matter referred to in yours of yesterday. My attention was called to Mr. Smith Barry's remarks, and I immediately expressed to Mr. Ponsonby my annoyance that such untimely language should have been used. That language is in no way authorized by Mr. Ponsonby, otherwise I would first have been relieved of any part of these negotiations. This is one and about the least of the inconveniences arising from the long delay against which I have repeatedly protested. Unless I receive final instructions before the close of this week,

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  I must withdraw from what I had hoped would be a successful and useful work, and this I have formally communicated. I still hope, however, that our labours will not have been in vain.—I remain, dear Sir, truly yours,
  J. E. BRUNKER.
  Rev. D. Canon Keller, P.P."
  The very next day Mr. Brunker wrote to say that he had heard from Mr. Ponsonby or his agent that all negotiations were at an end. During March and April certain correspondence appeared in the Cork papers respecting the part the hon. Member for South Huntingdon was playing in the matter. Mr. Townsend, the agent of the syndicate with which the hon. Member is associated, and of which he told his constituents he was chairman, admitted that he had told the hon. Member he was a "foolish man" for the course he was taking in the matter. The upshot of the matter is that when these tenants wore on the eve of completing a very satisfactory arrangement to both parties, the hon. Member for South Huntingdon by means of capital he had raised over here, and by means of the syndicate of which he is the head, put a stop to the negotiations in order that the estate might be cleared for the syndicate. Unless the hon. Member is able to put a very different complexion on the matter, it does seem to me an extraordinary thing for an English gentleman or an Irish gentleman to interfere in a matter of this kind for the purpose, which the hon. Member has avowed, of wreaking vengeance on tenants, or of "teaching them a lesson;" which is the expression used in the paper reporting the hon. Member's speech to his constituents. Some of the incidents of these evictions are remarkable, and will have to be further inquired into. The day before yesterday I received a letter from Canon Keller, in which he says:—
  ''At this place three young girls were arrested (who had been in the evicted house)—pure, innocent creatures. While under arrest Colonel Caddell and some of his police and also a strange gentleman, said to be a Times reporter, addressed those girls in licentious language."
  I want to know whether the forces of the Crown are to be employed in Ireland to draw a ring round these unhappy people that they shall be exposed to all sorts of insults without anyone being allowed to see what takes place? I think the country will require
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  a good deal of explanation on that point. I only wish the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary would go there himself, instead of taking his facts from Colonel Caddell and these police, who, I do not hesitate to say, furnish him with mendacious reports. As to the precise terms offered during these negotiations on either side I will not speak. The figures I am about to give speak volumes as to the rental of the holdings. I find that in four cases Griffith's valuation and the rental are respectively £42 and £63, £68 and £97, £66 and £104, £258 and £370, the total of the four being valuation £434, rental £634. The valuation includes the letting value of the improvements of the tenants, and, therefore, the rental certainly ought to be less than the valuation, unless the tenant is charged rental on his own improvements. I think, therefore, I have made good my contention as to the rights of property. I now pass to the third declaration of the Resolution, respecting the inefficiency of the Land Acts. If I wanted any proof of that assertion I should find it in the fact that there are, or have been, no less than seven Bills before this House, several of them proceeding from Gentlemen opposite, amending or extending the privileges conferred by the existing Irish Land Acts. Even the Government announced in the Queen's Speech their intention to deal with the matter. The reasons for this state of things are to be found in the state of the law, in the advantage the landlords take of that state of the law and in the imperfect character of the tribunals created by the Act of 1881. In reply to the question, "Why do not you appeal to the Courts?" I say there are a large number of specific exceptions to the Act of 1881, arising from pasturage, meadow land, from tenancies which have come into existence since the Act was passed, from leaseholders' covenants, and other incidents of tenure. Above all, there is the question of arrears. It appears from the returns of the Courts that of those who apply to have a fair rent fixed about 14 per cent are dismissed or struck out as being outside the Act of 1881. I dwell rather, however, upon the use made by the Irish landlords of the technicalities of the law. The law is difficult and expensive, and to a man who has not a long purse

  481
  it is a very difficult operation to secure justice. There was a curious case from the North of Ireland. A man named O'Neil had covenanted not to apply for compensation, and it was held by the Court that that covenant enabled the landlord to rent him upon his improvements. Why, I ask, should there be any distinction drawn between Ireland and Scotland in regard to arrears? Up to the 31st of December, 1888, no less than nearly 70 per cent of the arrears were wiped off as bad debts in Scotland. Why cannot we have such an operation carried out in Ireland? There is also the case of the hanging gale which needs to be dealt with. One of the tenants on the Ponsonby estate had paid a year's rent every one of the 30 odd years he was on the property, and had this hanging gale brought forward to aid in his evictions. Then take the case of new holdings since August, 1881. I have investigated a case of that kind in which a strengthening of fences by the tenant with the concurrence of the landlord's agent having brought about a slight alteration of boundary was held to have turned the holding into a new holding. The only way to get at the truth in these matters is to visit the country itself. There were some words spoken in this House by a Member to whom I well remember having listened to years ago from the Strangers' Gallery long before I was myself in this House, and who never spoke or wrote without saying or writing something worth noting. I refer to Sir George Cornewall Lewis. He said:—
  "To discover what the liberty of a people is one must live among them, and not look for it among the Statutes of the realm. The language of the written law may be that of liberty, but the situation of the poor may speak no language but that of slavery."
  And he added:—
  "There is too much of this contradiction in Ireland."
  That is as true in 1887 as it was in 1852. And now, in conclusion, I may be asked what I mean by the proposal with which my Resolution concludes. Well, I am a young Parliamentary hand; but I have learnt that while it lies with us on this side of the House to point out defects in the law, it is for those on the other side who control the votes of this House and the forces of the Crown to
  482
  remedy those defects. I do not mean to convey by the use of the word "arbitration" any sign of blenching or of weakness on the part of the Irish tenants. I do not moan that a Court should be set to work here and there, in an isolated manner; but that there should be some comprehensive scheme, under which you would be certain before sending the forces of the Crown to aid any landlord in evicting his tenants that that tenant has had a fair field and no favour, and that the rights of the matter had been fairly settled between the two. I now formally bog to move the Resolution which stands in my name, in the confidence that it indicates a policy which if it were adopted would bring peace and happiness to many an Irish heart, that it would remove a just reproach from the Government of that country, and tend to promote that social order which we all agree is essential to national prosperity.
  MR. ROWNTREE: In seconding this Resolution I am satisfied that there must be many hon. Members on the other side of the House who would be just as earnest as Members on these benches in their endeavours to remove a great injustice in Ireland if they had personal knowledge of the suffering which exists among the tenants, and not simply hearsay evidence as to the state of the country, and if Ireland had not so long been the battle-ground for the rise and fall of British Ministries. Every one must acknowledge that it is very difficult to legislate wisely and well for any class when we have personally but little knowledge of the class to whom the legislation will apply. This difficulty is surely amazingly increased when we come to deal with the tenants of Ireland. I think hon. Members who have looked into this matter must admit that the distance of space is nothing at all as compared with the great distance between the ordinary conditions of life in Ireland and England. We are continually judging of the standard of action in Ireland by a standard brought about by a wholly different condition of things in England. Occurrences in Ireland are continually regarded in this House as improbable and exagerated, although to the people of Ireland they are terribly real and of constant occurrence. I wish hon. Members had read a letter from Judge

  483
  Curran published in the Dublin Daily Express of Tuesday last, and which shows that the County Court Judge is now administering with extraordinary pains the business on the civil side of his Court in order that business may be kept down on the criminal side. It shows, too, that there is extreme difficulty in doing justice to the two parties under the existing law. It shows that the necessity of adding arrears to the present rent whenever a tenant comes for a stay of eviction is simply a means of increasing the rental which it is quite possible the tenant is at present barely able to meet. It goes on to say that under the present law, no matter how punctual the tenants may be in paying the accruing rent, the non-payment of one of the gales after the lapse of six months gives the landlord the right to the land without any equity of redemption. It shows also that at a Court held only the other day a tenant who applied for a stay of eviction had had to walk 40 miles to do so, although the proceedings might have been taken in a Court nearer the homes of the tenants. It shows, too, that the Judge was compelled to send the tenant back for an immediate instalment of rent, so that he had to go 84 miles on foot. It shows that in the majority of cases brought before him this session the balance of arrears has largely accrued during the bad years of the present decade, and that one year's rent, for the arrears in respect of which the tenant had to make his weary journey of 84 miles on foot, dated back to the famine years of 1843 and 1847. In the book published at the end of last year, by Judge O'Connor Morris, it is definitely stated that the Land Acts have been, in their general features, very imperfect, that they are too tentative, too complex, and far too costly in their administration. Many Members of the House seem to have forgotten the Constitutional principle that the voice of the people should be listened to in this House through the Representatives they have sent here, and hon. Members are asked to accept instead of the voice of the Irish people the police news of the Irish Executive. There are many hon. Members in this House who could give case after case, and illustration after illustration, confirming the views of these two
  484
  County Court Judges of Cork and Roscommon. They could refer to numbers of poor tenants who have been toiling all their lives to do the best for themselves and those who belong to them and who have found it nopeless to think of appealing to the Land Court because of the arrears. I think the strongest indication of the necessity for some remedy of the existing state of things between landlord and tenant is to be obtained, not from the tenants, but from the landlords. I had a conversation with a landlord, who said it would have been a terrible thing if all the tenants on his estate had gone into the Land Court and taken advantage of the Act of Parliament passed for their protection. The tenantry there are poor and ignorant, and the ownership of the seaweed, the turbary, and the mountain grazing is in the landlord.
  COLONEL SAUNDERSON: Will the hon. Member give the name of that estate?
  MR. SEXTON: The Kenmare estate.
  MR. ROWNTREE: No, it is not the Kenmare estate. I shall be happy to communicate the name of the estate to the hon. and gallant Member. I could give statements from my own knowledge as to the condition of things in Donegal which would show conclusively that the Land Act is no protection to individual tenants, and that their only salvation is in combination. When it is said that tenants threatened with eviction can apply for a stay of proceedings it should be borne in mind that the Judges have only felt themselves able to take a most restricted view of their powers in that respect. The Government—as was argued by the hon. Member for South Kilkenny before the Easter Recess—should give some attention to the question of the cost of the peculiar procedure under the Act of 1887, which amounts to £9 for the plaintiff, and £5 for the defendant, both of which the plaintiff has to pay. The attention of the Solicitor General for Ireland was drawn to this matter, and he promised to consider it, but on his return after Easter he said the Government did not see their way to altering the procedure. Still, he made no complaint that the facts bad been over-stated. I maintain that the tenants of Donegal are incapable of paying such costs. In yesterday's papers,

  485
  side by side with news dealing with Ascot races, which was set out in large type, I saw 10 lines of information which, though only printed in small type, appeared to me to be of great importance. It was stated that nine evictions had been carried out on the previous day in the Portumna district of the Clanricarde estate, and so secretly had the arrangements been made that what was about to take place was unknown in the neighbourhood. It was further stated, however, that two persons had been seriously injured, one with a bayonet thrust, and the other with the stroke of a rifle. Everyone knows the land war has been raging in that district for the last four years. I will not go into the controversial question as to the cause of this, but this much I think has been admitted and will not be disputed from any quarter of the House—namely, that the land agent, Mr. Joyce, had on the spot advertised a small reduction of rent when the great fall in prices came on. He admitted that the bad feeling which ensued arose in consequence of Lord Clanricarde's refusal to act on this advice. This war has been going on, I say, for four years, and if the tenants have not been paying rent for the past four years in Woodford they have been paying something which comes to very near the amount of a rent, in the shape of an enormous county cess, and an enormous poor rate. It is said that the Clanricarde tenants cannot be suffering from poverty and inability to pay their rents, as the money deposited locally in the savings banks has increased. Well, I am prepared to assert that there are not half-a-dozen tenants on the Clanricarde estate who have accounts in the Post Office Savings Bank, and in the only other bank at Woodford the deposits in the name of the Clanricarde tenants have decreased by one half during the past two years. It is true there has been a decided increase in the amount of the deposits in the Post Office Savings Bank at Woodford, but that is not at all to be wondered at, seeing that there are some 60 constables in the district drawing excellent pay and some 20 emergency men. I believe that not only do the surplus wages of these men go into the Post Office Bank, but that when the men are removed from one district to another they have the power—and they exercise
  486
  it—of transferring their account to the new district. There is a new state of things on that estate, as Father Costello, a priest who was not implicated in the previous transactions, is now at Woodford and must anxious to settle the existing disputes, while at Portumna the tenants, as is perfectly well known, have placed their case in Bishop Healy's hands, Bishop Healy being an ecclesiastic who takes a most Conservative side in this struggle, and has for years past been anxious to bring about a settlement. But in Woodford alone 36 tenants have already been put out, and 147 persons from that place have suffered imprisonment from one cause or another. Even if the Woodford tenants have sinned, as we have been told they have, they have at all events been punished to an extent that I should think would afford satisfaction to the most rigid disciplinarian. I have seen the letters which have passed on behalf of the tenants, and I am sure no one that sees them—not even hon. Gentlemen opposite—can think them other than moderate and reasonable. Apparently, however, the answer is the nine evictions I have spoken of. I ask hon. Members to consider whether this warfare is really to be pressed to the bitter end. A fortnight ago to-day I was in the house of one of the tenants under notice to quit, and in conversation with this tenant he told me the history of the tenancy of his family since his grandfather first settled there on the moors. It appears that this man, John McDermot, voted at one election for Captain Nolan, as he then was, and within a week an increase of rent was demanded of him by Lord Clanricarde's agent. And this was not a solitary case, for every one of the tenants on Lord Clanricarde's estate who were yearly tenants and voted for Captain Nolan at that election had their rents raised in consequence. The fine inflicted upon this tenantry for an act which, as orderly citizens, they were perfectly at liberty to perform, was an extremely heavy one. This house that I was in was such as would have done credit to any tenant in Ireland. Whilst I was talking to the tenant, the agent of Lord Clanricarde came into the yard with his guard of constables, and demanded possession from the tenant. It is hardly necessary

  487
  to say that when this happened some hot expressions fell from one of the inmates of the house, but one of the daughters at once used a quotation which is familiar to every Member of this House. She said, "We know well force is no remedy." Well, I want to submit this to the House. I believe the tenants there and in other parts of Ireland have learnt that lesson. I wish the English people had learnt it as well. If it is true that we have from the very force of public opinion in England acting on that condition of things in Ireland, happily disarmed the Irish peasantry of the old bad weapons which seemed alone their only miserable refuge in the past, it appears to me there is a very heavy additional responsibility resting on the Members of this House, and on all Englishmen at large. Are we to stand aside idle whilst these people are looking to us for better things, and for a new end—having to such a marvellous degree turned away from the wild revenge of the past, which threw so much discredit on them, and the condition of things which brought them to that pass having so much improved? Is there not urgent call on the House to endeavour to find some better remedy for the existing evils than evictions? There are many other facts which might be mentioned as showing the state of things existing in this part of Ireland. In conclusion, all I would say is this—there are about a hundred processes in some stage or other out against the Woodford tenants. There are some 87 processes fur eviction out against the Portumna tenants. Apparently a clearance campaign against the tenants has begun. Are the forces of the Crown to be lent to carry it out? There is scarcely a single person, save Lord Clanricarde's agent, who disputes that from the beginning of the struggle it has been the landlord living in London, and never going near his estates, who has been in the wrong, and that there is no justification for the refusal to make any concession. We had it from the Cowper Commission that for two years the rent could not be raised from the soil; the priests have been trying to bring about a settlement, and the magistrates and the police are looking forward with misgiving to the future. It is under these circumstances that we are led to-night to ask the Government whether, follow-
  488
  ing out the policy of the right hon. Gentleman who last held the office of Chief Secretary for Ireland, some stay cannot be put to these clearances, which must bring extreme suffering on those concerned, and affect public opinion throughout the country. When we are told that next year there is to be a great land scheme brought forward, is it too much to ask that these clearances should not be made now, and Irreparable damage done to people who certainly do not deserve such a terrible punishment?
  Amendment proposed,
  To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "in the interests of humanity and of the just rights of property, and inasmuch as the provisions of the present Land Acts are inadequate for the purpose, it is expedient that steps should be taken without delay to ensure such a competent, impartial, and conclusive arbitration between the two parties to the present agrarian struggle in Ireland as will diminish the necessity for evictions and the costly and humiliating employment of the Forces of the Crown thereat,"—(Mr. John Ellis)—
  instead thereof.
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  MR. SMITH BARRY: I should not have taken any part in the debate were it not for the personal attack made upon me by the hon. Member who moved the Resolution, an attack which calls upon me for some reply. I will not follow that hon. Member into the question whether the rental value of land has been created by the tenants or not, although I must, to a very considerable extent, traverse that statement, made as it is in a general way by the hon. Member. Neither will I follow him into the question whether the reductions of rent made by the Sub-Commissioners has been fair and just, or whether they are excessive, as I think I could show. But I would like to tell a story of a particular farm upon my own estate, the rent of which passed under the hands of the Sub-Commissioners some few months ago. It was purely a grass farm close to the town of Tipperary. It was fine grass land, had no tenants' improvements upon it of any kind, and so there were no complications in connection with the case. It was a farm of about 200 acres, held under lease from 1867 at a rent of

  489
  £464 a year. It was re-valued by the Land Commissioners last year, and the rent was reduced to £386, the result being that within three weeks of the reduction the tenant got for his interest in the farm £2,400, so that the incoming tenant had actually to pay a larger rent than the outgoing tenant. The hon. Member has gone very largely into the details of the Ponsonby estates and the rentals of the different tenants. I will not follow him into those details whether the rents of individual tenants are too high or too low. There has always been very strong reasons for believing that the rents upon that estate were, on the whole, fair and just. In the first place, the rents were fixed by valuation in 1872 by a well-known valuer, Mr. Harris, of Cork. They were at that time barely altered from the old rents existing upon the estate up to that time. Again, in 1881 there was a re-valuation by another well-known valuer, Colonel Heard, and the result was that there was a reduction of some 6 per cent. Then some 70 tenants went into the Land Court, and 30 of them received such very small reductions at the hands of the Sub-Commissioners that the rest, about 40, withdrew their notices and went on under the old rents. After that time Mr. Ponsonby again gave reductions in the year 1882, and, I think, 1885. In addition to that 20 per cent. on the non-judicial and 10 per cent on the judicial rents were the reductions offered when the Plan of Campaign was started. But Mr. Ponsonby told his agent at that time that he did not believe in all-round reductions because he thought the pressure might be greater upon some tenants than upon others, and that he might give further reductions in individual cases where he thought fit. Well, the Plan of Campaign was then instituted upon the estate. I will not follow the history of it until we come to the two months in the beginning of the present year when negotiations were carried on on behalf, Mr. Ponsonby on the one side, and the tenants on the other. The honourable Member has charged me with being responsible for the breakdown of these negotiations. He has stated, in the first place, that the offer made by Father Keller was £104,000 and that Mr. Ponsonby was prepared to take £110,000, and that consequently the only difference between the parties
  490
  was £6,000. Now, that is an absolute misconception. There was beyond this a sum of £18,800, representing charges for drainage, commutation of tithe rent-charges, and other Government charges in dispute, and which Mr. Ponsonby said the tenants should pay, and which Father Keller said Mr. Ponsonby should pay. So instead of there being only a difference of £6,000 there was really a difference of £24,000 between the parties.
  MR. J. E. ELLIS: I beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon for interrupting him, but he will admit this is an important point. Does ho mean to say that Mr. Brunker, who was Mr. Ponsonby's agent, did not admit that he would take £110,000, and that Father Keller offered, on the part of the tenants, £104,000?
  MR. SMITH BARRY: I admit that perfectly; but this sum of £18,800 was allocated to the land and should have been paid by the tenants, and not out of the pocket of Mr. Ponsonby.
  MR. J. E. ELLIS: Does the hon. Member mean that that was Mr. Brunker's statement?
  MR. SMITH BARRY: It was stated, and Mr. Brunker will not deny it.
  MR. J. E. ELLIS: But did Mr. Brunker make the statement?
  MR. SMITH BARRY: That was the statement. I do not know whether Mr. Brunker made it particularly, but Mr. Brunker was perfectly aware of the facts, and Mr. Brunker will not deny it. The point upon which the negotiations split was a difference of £24,000, not of £6,000, as stated by the hon. Member, and by Father Keller. I think it is scarcely necessary for me, after having made that statement, to follow the hon. Member into the charge that it was I who broke off the negotiations. The negotiations were practically broken off, because it was perfectly evident that no agreement could be come to between Father Keller on the one hand, and Mr. Ponsonby on the other, on account of the large sum in difference between them, at the time I made those remarks in Cork, which have not been correctly quoted by the hon. Member. I never said that Mr. Ponsonby would never settle with his tenants. Mr. Ponsonby has always been anxious to settle with his tenants. What I did say was

  491
  that I was confident Mr. Ponsonby was not likely to surrender to the Plan of Campaign. I think that I may now pass on to the question of the charge against Mr. Townshend, and through Mr. Townshend against me that a company was formed for clearing the estate of tenants. There has never been the slightest wish to evict one single tenant from the estate, if the tenant would come to reasonable terms, if the tenants would accept the very reasonable offer made on behalf of Mr. Ponsonby. As to the statement that I said I was prepared to wreck vengeance on the tenants, I never made use of such an expression. I did say that if there was an estate where the question whether the Plan of Campaign—an acknowledged illegal conspiracy—was to be broken or not this was an estate upon which that question should be tried [Cries of "Try it" and "Order."] I should like before I sit down just to state to the House what were the offers that were made to the tenants on the Ponsonby estate since the negotiations were broken off or rather since the negotiations came to an end in the month of February last. I will take first the offers made to the judicial tenants whore the rent was £100 a year. On this estate there has been no rent paid for four years, so that the tenant's arrears come to £400. The offer made to the judicial tenants was that on their paying one year's rent of £100 and the interest on the arrears which would be calculated on £275, that is to say, deducting the judicial allowance on the last two years of 16 per cent and 8 per cent respectively, and thus reducing the £300 to £275; then instead of having to pay up the capital sum of the arrears they would be only required to pay interest on the moderate rate of 3 per cent on these reduced arrears. As an alternative to this they were offered the choice of purchase, and the sum demanded would then be calculated on a future rental reduced from £100 to £76 under the terms of Lord Ashbourne's Act. With regard to the non-judicial tenants, and taking a similar typical case where the rent was £100 and the arrears £400, if the tenant would agree to pay £80 down, that is one year's rent, minus 20 per cent offered at the time the Plan of Campaign was started, then he should be allowed to go on paying at that rate,
  492
  and his arrears should be computed at £240 instead of £300 as they would be if demanded in full, and similarly he would be allowed to pay interest at 3 per cent on these arrears instead of being required to pay the capital sum. But this was not all; there was a further clause in the offered agreement which ran thus:—
  "Should you consider it probable that you would obtain more advantageous terms from the Land Commission, and if you pay the sum of £80 before the date named,"
  a given time was fixed after the receipt of notice—I think a fortnight—
  "and now apply to have a fair rent fixed, the landlord will not require payment of the arrears due to the 25th March, 1889, if you pay 3 per cent thereon. He will also be prepared to regard any reduction which may be made in your rent as retrospective; and that the interest referred to will be calculated on the abated rent and not on the actual amount of arrears due."
  Now the real contest on the estate is, who is to value the rent of the farms? Mr. Ponsonby offered the tenants the opportunity of going into the Land Court in 1882, and some of them went into Court. [Cries of "No!"] Well, I do not think I am open to correction on that point; but those who were non-leaseholders had the opportunity and could have availed themselves of it, but the majority of them did not persist, but withdrew their notices because the reductions given were so small. After the Act of 1887 was passed, and leaseholders were admitted to the benefit of the Act of 1881, they again had the opportunity of going into Court. They issued notices, but they withdrew them again. They have now the opportunity again if they desire it, and are not satisfied with the offer of Mr. Ponsonby and those who act for him. If they are not satisfied with the terms, they can go into Court and have a fair rent fixed, those fair rents being made retrospective as well as prospective. Now I think that I have answered all the allegations against me in regard to my conduct in reference to the Ponsonby estate. These tenants can go into Court, their arrears can be settled on a generous basis, they can purchase their holdings on extremely easy terms, but we mean to insist that these rents shall be fixed by the proper legally constituted tribunal appointed by Parliament for the purpose, and not by means of an illegal conspiracy called the Plan of Campaign.
  MR. CLANCY: Should anyone in the House or in the country be surprised that the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken was kicked out of the representation of Cork, an explanation may be found in the speech we have just heard. He was Member for Cork for several years, and when he no longer represented principles such as he then professed, he transferred his energies to an English constituency, but he left behind him the lasting contempt of the Cork people. He has been forward in platform speeches, in references to Members of the Party to which I have the honour to be connected, as disturbers of law and order, but I charge against the hon. Member to-night that he is himself the real cause and fountain-head of all the disorder and all the crime committed in the county of Cork. There were parts of the speech of the hon. Member for the Rushcliffe Division that demanded a reply from the hon. Member, but no reply did he give; the hon. Gentleman diverged into another subject altogether, and left untouched the grave charges made by the hon. Member for the Rushcliffe Division. I take the liberty of repeating those charges. The principal charge is this—that this man, who has no connection with the Ponsonby property, who is as much an outsider in reference to that property as I or any Member of this House, with deliberation and malice aforethought stepped in between Mr. Ponsonby and his tenants and prevented a settlement of the dispute between them. This is not the first time he has been challenged in this House, and I now challenge him again to answer the charge of having put the Government of Ireland in motion in order to put down a public movement of a perfectly legitimate character in Ireland. Let me recall the charge made against him last year. The charge was that when a meeting was about to be held of the Ponsonby tenants to consider their position, a certain telegram was dispatched to Captain Sarsfield in Cork, asking him to get an information sworn saying that if the meeting were held it would be followed by disorder and crime. The charge which I now repeat is that this telegram was sent by the hon. Member or at his instance. And this is done by a gentleman having no connection with this estate, who is a mere outsider, a
  494
  planner and fomenter of disorder, who has the audacity to come down here and pose as a Member of the party of law and order in this country. I see the hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh laughs, but there is no contradiction of the statement I have just made, that by discreditable means and with discreditable motives the hon. Member for South Hunts sought to suppress a public meeting. This is not contradicted; it is only met with laughter. We have had to-night the usual landlord's defence, such as we have heard in Cork a hundred times; but the real charge made against the hon. Member for South Hunts has not been met, and I invite the Leader of the loyal minority in Ireland, now represented by three persons in this House, to answer the charges the hon. Member neglected to answer. The charge is, that Mr. Brunker, acting for Mr. Ponsonby—it is not denied that he did act as Mr. Ponsonby's agent throughout these negotiations—was prevented from arriving at a settlement by the hon. Member for South Hunts. Up to the beginning of the present year two attempts had been made for a settlement by purchase. At first the landlord demanded 23 years' purchase on the old unreduced rents. That was in the early days of coercion, before that weapon had broken in the hands of the Member for Manchester, and when it was thought the people of Ireland could be terrorized and intimitated into buying out the landlord's rack-rents at his own figure. Subsequently, in October, 1887, the landlord offered a reduction of 35 per cent, or 1½ year's rent, if the tenants would pay 17½ years' purchase. This was what three months of coercion did for the Ponsonby estate. Mr. Ponsonby reduced his demand under the influence of the Coercion Act from 23 years' purchase, on the old rents to l7½ years. Towards the end of last year Mr. Brunker, who acted as the trusted agent of Mr. Ponsonby until he resigned his agency disgusted, he representing the landlord while the Rev. Canon Keller represented the tenants, renewed the negotiations for purchase. For two months the parties corresponded in the most amicable spirit. Mr. Brunker started with a demand right and proper from his point of view as representing the

  495
  landlord for £127,000, but eventually he came down to £110,000. The highest offer the tenants under the Coercion Act could be induced to make was £104,000, so that the difference between the parties and the hon. Member for South Hunts cannot deny it was just £6,000, which, at 4 per cent, was a little less than £1 per tenant annually. Well, I say at that moment a point of agreement was almost reached when a certain Primrose League banquet or some other gathering of the same sort, some 60 or 70 strong, was held in the City of Cork. That is about the size of Unionist gatherings there—in a city of 110,000 inhabitants. At this Tory banquet and at the time when an agreement on the Ponsonby estate had been almost reached, Mr. Smith Barry—I do not know if it was the Member for South Hunts, the hon. Member can deny the identity if it was not—I assume it was the Member for South Hunts, announced that Mr. Ponsonby intended to repudiate the settlement and continue the fight.
  MR. SMITH BARRY: I have stated what I did say. I never made use of any such expression.
  MR. CLANCY: Of course, I must accept the hon. Gentleman's contradiction; I am not able to give the exact words, but I quote from a newspaper; the hon. Gentleman ought to believe the Cork Constitution. As in the case of a certain Dublin banquet, there were no reporters there, but perhaps special Castle stenographers cooked a Report. But it was stated on the authority of a newspaper that represents his Party, that Mr. Smith Barry—probably the Member for South Hunts—announced that Mr. Ponsonby intended to continue the fight, and I have a letter here from Mr. Brunker, the agent to Mr. Ponsonby, showing as clearly as a letter can, that Mr. Brunker was as much astonished at the announcement as was Canon Keller himself. In this letter Mr. Brunker expresses his surprise and regret, and acknowledges the kindly spirit in which Canon Keller in conversation and correspondence had carried on the negotiations, and sympathizes in the disappointment the rev. gentleman must feel at their efforts being in vain. If further proof is wanted there is explicit testimony as to the motive that actuated
  496
  this disturber of order and of friendly negotiations. At the very time when Mr. Townshend, the agent of Mr. Ponsonby, was still the owner of the estate, the hon. Member for South Hunts, speaking at Brompton, Huntingdon, stated to an audience some 60 strong, according to a local newspaper—about the strength of his Cork audience—that
  "The estate had lately been bought from the landlord by himself and a few friends, and they had bought it for the purpose of defeating the Plan of Campaign. They hoped to inflict such a lesson on those who had to their own great misfortune taken part in the Plan of Campaign as would, he hoped, deter tenants on other estates from embarking upon such unfortunate and criminal adventures."
  Now, I hope to hear no more language of this kind spoken. I hope there will be more talk of the Derelict Lands Trust Company, or of the Land Corporation, or of the Cork Land Defence League, or anything of organizations for the purpose of getting distressed landlords or ladies their rents. The openly avowed object of loyal combinations in Ireland is to wage war upon the tenants. The object of the tenants of Ireland, who have been taught lessons they will never forget, is to combine for their own protection. The hon. Member for South Hunts has gone over the familiar facts of the case, and he has misstated them as usual. I have not the least hesitation in saying that he has not given a correct statement regarding the Ponsonby estates. Colonel Herbert valued these estates and reduced the rents. Who is Colonel Herbert? Was he an impartial valuer—was he a tenant's valuer? On the contrary he was a landlord's valuer, paid by them, I suppose, pro ratâ. He was paid by results. There is no pretence whatever that the landlord has any more right than the tenant to judge his own case. Is the valuation of Colonel Herbert, who was appointed and paid by the landlord, to be accepted as the standard of rents on the Ponsonby estates? The thing is perfectly absurd. The hon. Member for South Hunts made a statement in Huntingdonshire that the tenants were at perfect liberty to enter the Courts. So they were, and so are the "spirits of the vasty deep," but will the spirits come when called? Mr. Ponsonby took care by evicting, not relieving, all the tenants before the

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  Act of 1887, that they should never have an opportunity of going into the Court. In face of this fact, which is perfectly notorious, we have the arch-exterminator and the arch-fomenter of disorder on the Ponsonby estate to-night trying to brazen out his position by misstatements of this case. I do not envy the position of the hon. Member for South Hunts. He has undertaken a gigantic task. There are 400 tenants on this estate; they are combined, and all the forces of the Government and of the landlords of Ireland will fail to break their combination, so long as there are recources in the Irish of America and Australia, by whom these tenants will be supported to a man. It is a gigantic task, evicting 400 tenants, their wives and children, putting them out on the roadside to perish rather than apply the principle of arbitration to this estate. But there is a more serious reason, and one more personal to the hon. Member. He owns estates in the County of Cork himself and in the County of Tipperary. The men of Tipperary, in the past, at all events, have given evidence that they know how to protect themselves. It occurs to me—and I call the attention of the hon. Member to this fact—that these tenants are acting very foolishly for themselves and for their class in continuing to provide the sinews of war to the hon. Gentleman to exterminate their brother tenants. If there is to be a combination of landlords who have no connection with this case, or the affairs with which they meddle—as is the case here—then there may he a combination of tenants under similar conditions. The Member for South Huntingdon has no connection with the Ponsonby estates; it is not his business; it is for the purpose of vengeance and war, as I have shown. I am reminded that at one time or another in the remote past there was some title like Lord Ballymore, and by some circuitous and subterranean channel he may be able to recover the title to the family again. But, I say, if there is to be a combination of landlords, who have no concern in this estate, out of pure malice, and for the purpose of war and vengeance upon the tenants, it may very well occur to the tenants of the hon. Member and such landlords, that they, too, are entitled to combine in the matter, whether their
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  combination be legal or not. ["Oh."] I hear some observations on the other side as if I ought to be ashamed of what I have said. ["No," and "Certainly not."] Hon. Members opposite seem to forget that acting by illegal means was for centuries the only method of redress open to the people of Ireland. They seem to forget that for centuries the practice of the Catholic religion was illegal in Ireland. The education of the children of Ireland in the faith of their fathers was illegal. The manufacture and export of Irish products was illegal. Why, it was said the other day that illegality was the very breath of us, and we are not ashamed of it. It is you who ought to be ashamed of it—you who imposed those infamous laws upon Ireland. Who denies that they were infamous? Does the solitary Catholic who sits for England (Mr. De Lisle) deny that the law which made the Mass illegal was an infamous law? Association with certain companions produces strange changes, and we might hear of the hon. Member for Mid Leicestershire declaring that the Mass should be again made illegal. If we are obliged to act by illegal means in this matter, on your heads will be the responsibility. One word regarding the question of arbitration. It is a notorious fact that for the last month or two the strongest efforts have been made by his Grace the Archbishop of Dublin to get the landlords of Ireland to consent to the adoption of this principle. What was said? Why; that we were hanging out the white flag, that the Plan of Campaign way broken, that the National League was being supplemented, and that the people of Ireland were being liberated, and were taking their own course. As far as I am concerned—I speak only for myself—I will never again make an offer of arbitration to any landlord in Ireland. If the landlords of Ireland want arbitration they will have to ask for it. We were not opposed to arbitration. We shall welcome it, but offer it we never will again to such men a Mr. Ponsonby or the hon. Member for South Hunts.
  COLONEL SAUNDERSON: I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian has been in the House during the last speech. I happened myself, in bygone

  499
  years, to support the right hon. Gentleman when he brought forward his Land Bill of 1870, and I remember that the right hon. Gentleman was exceedingly satisfied to have at least one Irish landlord on his side on that occasion. I remember the right hon. Gentleman's speeches then. I also remember the time when the right hon. Gentleman brought in his Bill for the disestablishment of the Irish Church. I remember, too, the speech in which the right hon. Gentleman brought in the further development of his Land Act of 1870—the Land Act of 1881. And what was the hope, and the just hope, which the right hon. Gentleman then candidly expressed? It was that those remedial Acts would be a final settlement of the Irish question. And what was the result? We learn from his ally and follower on the opposite side that all those remedial efforts on the right hon. Gentleman's part have resulted in forcing Members below the opposite Gangway to a course of illegal illegality—whatever that means. So far from conciliating the Irish people, every one of the concessions made by the right hon. Gentleman—some of which I have myself supported—were but steppingstones on which hon. Members opposite mounted to make fresh and more extreme demands. The hon. Member made a strange admission in his speech, for a practised lawyer. He absolutely denied that the £18,000 was to be added to the landlord's price, and immediately afterwards he said that the first demand of Mr. Ponsonby was exactly £18,000 more than was last demanded. He, therefore, admitted that this £18,000 came into the transaction, and that the final demand of Mr. Ponsonby was the original demand, minus the £18,000, and now he wants the House to believe that the demand was altogether £110,000, minus the £18,000.
  MR. CLANCY: What I stated was that Mr. Brunker started the demand for £127,000, and came eventually down to £110,000, and that the difference between Mr. Ponsonby's original demand and the offer of the tenants was exactly the 18 years' purchase.
  COLONEL SAUNDERSON: That is exactly what I said. I believe that the landlord who owns an estate has the right to make the bargain; but the hon.
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  and learned Member appears to think that Mr. Brunker had a right to go behind the landlord's back and make some private arrangement with Father Keller. The hon. and learned Gentleman seemed to contend that this offer of Mr. Brunker was a final offer.
  MR. CLANCY: I read Mr. Brunker's letter in which he said he hoped, as the result of further negotiations, to obtain a settlement of the matter.
  COLONEL SAUNDERSON: The hon. Gentleman seemed to me to contend that the offer was a final offer, and the contention of the hon. Member for South Hunts (Mr. Smith Barry) has not been shaken by that of the hon. and learned Gentleman. As to the speech of the hon. Gentleman who moved this Resolution, he appeared to be altogether ignorant about this £18,000; and every day I live the more I seem to realize what children hon. Members opposite are in the hands of their allies the Irish Members. I challenged the hon. Mover of the resolution to say whether or not this question of adding the £18,000 to the £110,000 was proposed by Father Keller. The hon. Gentleman made no allusion to it in his speech, and I conclude that the hon. Gentleman has shared the fate of many of his colleagues and was hoodwinked when he got over to Ireland.
  MR. J. E. ELLIS: I said Mr. Brunker and Father Keller only varied from one another by £6,000.
  COLONEL SAUNDERSON: The hon. Gentleman is mistaken. Well, the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite has said "What right has the hon. Member for South Hunts to meddle with property with which he has no personal concern?" My answer is that we Irish landlords conceive that we have a personal concern in every property of every landlord in Ireland. Surely hon. Gentlemen opposite will admit that this is perfectly reasonable. The Irish landlords stand or fall together. I want to show how weak-witted the "patriots" are. If the House declares that it is legal to rob one landlord, then it is legal to rob all landlords; and if the law refuses them power to secure their rents, then all landlords will fail to secure their rents. That is perfectly clear; and hon. Members opposite ought to be awake to the fact that Irish landlords and every man in the empire

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  who is in favour of that which supports law and order would—[Opposition cries of "Oh, oh."] If I were to advise any novice in the art of speaking who wanted to raise a laugh in this House, I should say he has nothing to do but say "law and order." Why, Sir, it is a joke, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Sir W. Harcourt), laughs at the very idea. A short time ago the hon. Member for East Cork (Mr. Lane) said that law and order sounded to him like the refrain of a comic song, and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby seems to agree with him. I say that every supporter of law and order in this country is gradually beginning to see that he must back up the Irish landlords in the fight we are undertaking. I want to point out that there is a larger issue at the present moment than simply the fight about one estate which is at stake. I am glad to find that hon. Members on the opposite side of the House agree with me on this point. This is not solely a question as to whether an Irish landlord knows too much for the other parties or not, it is a far greater and wider and deeper question than that. Hon. Gentlemen opposite have chosen the field on which to fight their battle, and they have of late been more candid than they were before; for now they do not conceal what their ultimate object is, nor how they intend to obtain it. They have fought us on what they have supposed to be our weakest point, and that undoubtedly is landlordism. I admit it. A landlord is not supposed to have many friends in a democratic country, and so hon. Members opposite have attacked various estates, which estates they have had the advantage of being able to choose for themselves. Having considerable—almost supreme—authority in certain parts of Ireland in the past—though I am happy to say that that is not the case at present—they have settled and arranged the estates as to where these various fights are to take place, and they have consequently set up the Plan of Campaign on those properties in order to concentrate the eyes of the Empire on the weakest point in the enemy's line of defence. In these cases they have forced the landlords either to give in or to evict. I say that if a landlord has one particle of British
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  pluck about him, he would break stones on the road sooner than give in to hon. Gentlemen opposite. With regard to the Ponsonby estates, I think it has been clearly shown that Mr. Ponsonby has not been an extortionate, harsh, or exterminating landlord. On the contrary, hon. Members opposite know well that until the Plan of Campaign was put in force on that estate, Mr. Ponsonby and his forefathers lived on perfectly amicable terms with the tenants; and that far from being an un improving landlord, in 16 years Mr. Ponsonby has spent £9,000 on the estate. The other estate on which hon. Members have fought this issue is the Luggacurran estate. I hope I may here be allowed to say a word in reference to the speech of the hon. Gentleman who seconded the Motion before the House. There is no doubt that he spoke to the subject to the best of his ability, but he certainly did not appear to understand much about Irish questions. I say, with all respect for the hon. Gentleman, that if he had consulted his friends below the Gangway, they would have set him right. The hon. Gentleman imagined that the Irish landlords were burdened with arrears that have been gradually accruing for 40 years. This, of course, is not the case, and this is the sort of slip hon. Members make who do not understand the subject on which they speak. Now, when the hon. Gentleman said the Lansdowne estate was one of the best estates in Ireland, and Lord Lansdowne one of the best landlords in Ireland, none of his friends cheered that remark. It was as to this estate that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. Gladstone) pointed out, in one of the speeches he recently delivered in the South of England, a fact of which I was previously in absolute ignorance. He said, in a place, the name of which I forget, but I think it ended in "mouth," that the real authors of the Plan of Campaign wore the Irish landlords. Now, I did not know that before. I always thought it was the hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway on the Opposition benches who were the authors of that movement. I do not pretend to quote the right hon. Gentleman with verbal accuracy, but merely give the gist of what he said.
  MR. GLADSTONE: The hon. and gallant Gentle-

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  man is mistaken. I said the real authors of the Plan of Campaign were the Government and the majority of the House of Commons.
  COLONEL SAUNDERSON: I at once accept the correction of the right hon. Gentleman, and I can only say that the report of his speech in the Times was inaccurate. It comes, however, to the same thing, that the landlords' representatives in this House, and in the Government, were the authors of the Plan of Campaign, and became the authors of that Plan because they rejected the Bill brought in by the hon. Gentleman, the Member for Cork (Mr. Parnell), whereby they forced the Plan of Campaign on the Irish tenants.
  MR. GLADSTONE: I said it was because they had rejected that Bill and all other proposals whatever. [Cries of "Order" from the Ministerial Benches.] I beg pardon, but I am reciting what I said. I did not assume that it would meet the hon. and gallant Gentleman's approval, which I should think very doubtful.
  COLONEL SAUNDERSON: The right hon. Gentleman has given an explanation of his speech by saying the Plan of Campaign was due to the action of the Government and this House in rejecting the Bill of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Cork, and all other proposals whatever. Now, I do not know what "whatever" means; but evidently the effect produced on one's mind by the speech of the right hon. Gentleman is that the main reason for the Plan of Campaign was the rejection of the Bill of the hon. Member for Cork. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman can deny this; and if that be so let us test the statement by the Luggacurran estate. That will be admitted to be a test estate, because two distinct emissaries were sent across the Atlantic to Canada to bring home to the Canadian people the barbarities of the Irish landlords in the person of their Governor General. Now, let us take the tenants on the Luggacurran estate, and see what is their position under Lord Lansdowne as compared with what it would have been under the Bill of the hon. Member for Cork. Lord Lansdowne offered to receive from his tenants as a settlement £917. If the Bill of the hon. Member for Cork had passed, the tenants would have had to pay £2,264. That is to say, they
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  were the better by £1,347 for the loss of the Bill, which loss, the right hon. Gentleman says, has forced the Plan of Campaign on the Irish people. Why did not the tenants on the Luggacurran estate pay their rent? Was it because they could not pay? Was it because the rents were excessive? I hear no assent from hon. Gentlemen opposite; probably they know what is coming. The hon. Member for South Kerry (Mr. Kilbride), who was a tenant on the Luggacurran estate—[An hon. MEMBER: And now in gaol.] Well, it is hard to know who is in gaol and who is not; but hon. Gentlemen must not complain if they go to Ireland with the deliberate intention of going to gaol. I wish to be fair, and therefore I quote what the hon. Member for South Kerry said on this point. Speaking on March 30, 1887, he said:—
  "The Luggacurran evictions differ from most of the other evictions to this extent—that the tenants are able to pay the rents, but it is a fight of intelligence against intelligence, of diamond cut diamond."
  To show how valuable were the tenants on the Luggacurran estate, one of those evicted is a distinguished Member of the Party opposite, and another victim to the rapacity of Irish landlordism. Mr. John Dunn ran a horse at the Curragh two months after his eviction. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman mentioned that fact in Canada. In reply to the charges made against this Irish landlord, I think we may rely on what has been said by Members of the Party opposite. But the question at present at issue is graver far than simply whether rents are too high or too low, whether this landlord or that is to be condemned or acquitted. The landlords are fighting the battle of the law of the land. ["How"?] Wait, and I will show you. Is it true that we, the Irish landlords, deserve the obloquy, the vituperation, the condemnation that has been heaped upon our heads, not only by hon. Gentlemen opposite below the Gangway, whose profession it is to do this, but by right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Opposition Bench who ought to know better? Why, if I wanted a character for the Irish landlords I need not go to the Government Bench, I would go to the Front Bench opposite. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian himself in

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  bringing in his Land Bill bore testimony to the character of the Irish landlords. The right hon. Gentleman did not justify his legislation by the expressed or implied misconduct of the landlords of Ireland generally. "On the contrary," said the right hon. Gentleman, "as a rule they have stood their trial, and as a rule have been acquitted." Then, as to the charge of extortionate demands for rent, and as to whether they should ask for the rents the Legislature has declared they ought to receive, I will recall the authority of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby, who about the same time said,—
  "The Liberal Party never will have anything to do with attacks upon the property, any more than on the persons, of our fellow-citizens. Landowners have just as good a right to a fair rent as you or I have to the coat upon our back. Whenever the Liberal Party has allied itself with socialistic ideas, when-ever it has followed"—
  I ask the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle (Mr. J. Morley) to listen to this—
  "Some of these misty philosophers into courses that would destroy the safety of society it has come to grief, as it deserved to come to grief"—
  as it has come to grief. The right hon. Gentleman said we have as much right to a fair rent as to the coat upon our back, but he said that before he turned his coat, and from a comparison of his speeches it appears to me that he abandoned his coat and his principles together. I think I heard some hon. Gentleman on the other side of the House express approval of the idea that we are entitled to a fair rent, and of course the question is what is a fair rent? I will give an example of what a distinguished Member of the Party below the Gangway opposite considers a fair rent to an Irish landlord. This is what the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool said when he visited the other side of the Atlantic, and I conclude he holds the same opinion on this side of the Atlantic, and I suppose he used the words for some purpose, whether good or not I do not say. The hon. Member said this:—
  "I want you to understand that the reduction of rent we require is not a small, or a petty, or a legal reduction, but the total abolition of rent."
  MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: In the first place, I never used the adjective legal; and, in the next place, the hon. and gallant Gentleman has dragged this sentence from its context, and thus conveyed a wrong impression as to my meaning. I spoke in 1881, before the Land Act had begun.
  COLONEL SAUNDERSON: In 1882.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: Well, practically before the Land Act had begun to operate. I speak of a speech delivered nearly eight years ago. My intention was to convey that what we wanted was not a petty sporadic or small reduction of rent, but that we wanted a large reduction of rent. When I said we wanted the total abolition of rent, I meant that we desired to see the rent-paying tenantry transformed into a peasant proprietary, which now I understand is advocated most warmly by the present Government.
  COLONEL SAUNDERSON: I took the quotation from a paper called United Ireland, and in that interesting journal there is no mention of the various sentiments upon which the hon. Gentleman has given us information. Of course I could not tell what the hon. Member meant. I could understand what the "total abolition of rent" would mean to the landlord when at the end of the year he totalled up his banker's book. "Total abolition of rent!" let the hon. Member explain that, if he intended any meaning.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: The hon. and gallant Member has no right to quote a speech and challenge its accuracy without accepting my statement. I say that at the time I used the words he has quoted what I meant by the total abolition of rent was the transformation of rent-paying tenants into peasant proprietors, with full and fair compensation to the landlords.
  COLONEL SAUNDERSON: I am not aware even now that the hon. Member has denied the accuracy of my quotation. He tells us he meant certain things—
  MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: I said not only what I meant, but I said what I say now.
  COLONEL SAUNDERSON: The quotation was made in the House of Commons two years ago. It was not denied then, and I naturally imagined it was

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  accurate. But I pass on. What I want to point out is this—the reason why we Irish landlords are subjected to these attacks is not because we are grasping; it is not because the tenants are suffering; the reason we are attacked is because we are looked upon as the principal prop and assister of the rule of Great Britain in Ireland. I do not make this statement rashly. I will do hon. Members the justice to say they have never changed their attitude, and all along the line their action has been continuous in this respect. When the "union of hearts" took place they did not change, they changed others. From the first, and up to now, they have candidly acknowledged that the attack on the landlords was a synonymous term for attack on the British Government. What did the hon. Member for Long-ford say? I am sorry to weary the House with these quotations; but it is important that the country should know the reason why we, and the class to which we belong, are so fiercely attacked. What did the hon. Member for Longford say twice in America, when he went to enlist the sympathy of his friends there? He said, speaking at Boston on December 24, 1881:—
  "We believe that landlordism is the prop of English rule, and we are working to take that prop away. To drive out British rule from Ireland we must strike at the foundation, and that foundation is landlordism."
  A month later he was at New Orleans, and there he repeated the words with emphasis. Speaking at New Orleans on February 4, 1882, he said:—
  "We wish to get rid of British rule in Ireland. Landlordism is the prop of that rule. It must be abolished."
  This may be looked upon as ancient history, but all along the line and up to the present day hon. Members and their friends have pointed out to the Irish people that the end and aim of their efforts was not to reduce rents and to get rid of landlords, but to throw off the hated rule of Great Britain. The Rev. Mr. Cantwell, P.P., on September 23, 1886, in Dublin, said:—
  "All our action with regard to this intermediary question of the landlords and tenants is only a step towards the great goal of Irish nationality."
  Even the other day the hon. Member for Wexford in a speech—I want to show how continuous is the line of
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  thought and action of hon. Members opposite—on the 12th May the hon. Member for Wexford said:—
  "I have always held the view that the farmers of Ireland, once they become independent and are no longer serfs, will be strong in the desire for Home Rule. So, I repeat, this is not a land movement; it is a National movement, and even if to-morrow the land question were settled, and the farmers showed apathy to the National cause, we should denounce the farming class as we denounce the landlord class who stand in the way of the National cause."
  ["Hear, hear!"] I am glad hon. Gentlemen acknowledge the accuracy of the statement; it shows that they, at any rate, have the courage of their convictions; but I think it is a very grave thing when we find right hon. Gentlemen opposite who have held high positions in the State adopting principles which, in recent times, they so utterly condemned. What did the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian say the other day at Torquay? He said this:—
  "Never, I think, gentlemen, in my recollection, has there been so interminable a series of details of the painful processes connected with eviction processes, which in many cases, I fear, have been put in motion for the purpose of enforcing claims in themselves impossible and unjust."
  Impossible and unjust! And he himself established these claims by the Act of 1881!
  "And processes which, even when they may be excusable, can never be otherwise than odious in the eyes of a free people, because we ought to feel that if we cannot manage the affairs of Ireland in such a way as to avoid social evils of this kind perpetually recurring and having such a tendency to promote general disaffection, we ought to allow the Irish to see whether they cannot manage their own affairs better."
  What does that mean? It means that the Irish people are to go on from day to day perpetuating the recurrence of these scenes; and if, by a perpetuation of these scenes, they can show and prove to the British people and Parliament that the law of the land cannot be enforced, and that the hands of British Government are effete and nerveless, and allow the reins of Government to fall into the dust, then, forsooth, the men who have defied your authority and contemned the law are to be made the rulers of Ireland. I say no statement more reckless was ever made in the course of political controversy.

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  We who are now in the front of this battle are fighting that the authority of the law shall be maintained. We may be shattered with the cause we seek to sustain. We may fall; our position is not a happy one. As the right hon. Gentleman said, in times gone by, "the hour glass is turned and the sands are sinking." Well, we may fall; but if we do we shall have the proud consciousness of this—that we fall like Irish gentlemen, contending for the cause for which our forefathers fought, and for which we are not ashamed to fall.
  MR. SEXTON: When the hon. and gallant Gentleman talks about himself and his friends being prepared to fall like Irish gentleman, he, no doubt, means that they will fall backwards, borne down with the weight of 23 years' purchase in their coat-tail pockets. The Chief Secretary is in the habit of claiming for himself the credit of some improvement in the state of Ireland, and whatever deficiency in that claim is due to his modesty is always made up by his friends; but happening to know something of Ireland, I venture to say that any improvement that may be visible is due, not to the efforts of the Chief Secretary, but to the extent to which his evil policy has been counteracted by the feelings and action of representative Englishmen, like my hon. Friend the Member for the Rushcliffe Division (Mr. J. E. Ellis), the hon. Member for Scarborough (Mr. Rowntree), and others. Whatever may be the issue of the Motion before the House, the wise and kindly action of hon. Members above the Gangway will be sure to bear good fruit. I am not surprised that the Motion does not meet with the approval of the hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh. Touching the substance of his speech, I must say that he has emptied before the House the same old wallet of mouldy scraps, and I shall not disgust the sense of the House by turning over the decayed materials. He has indulged in the same old jokes in the manner of a circus humourist; but I will not take notice of them, because the profession of the hon. and gallant Gentleman, so far as he has any discernible profession, is to defame his country. I thought I discovered in one part of his speech an allusion to a certain great process now going on, and to the inefficient manner
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  in which it is conducted; an attempt to eke out the poor forensic powers of the Attorney General, and the inefficient judicial conduct of Sir James Hannen and his colleagues, by trying to decide before the House of Commons a cause now before a great tribunal. The hon. and gallant Gentleman would have better followed the professions of his Party by leaving these matters to the decision of the tribunal itself. I do not expect the hon. and gallant Gentleman to give countenance to arbitration. The hon. and gallant Member claims to be an Irishman; but he is at present engaged in the promotion of joint stock speculations for providing the capital to banish Irish tenants from their homes. I do not expect an Irishman who goes so far in malignity against his own people to give any countenance to the attempt by arbitration to secure them in their homes. Moreover, nothing but fighting will servo the turn of the hon. and gallant Gentleman, and only should he stoop from his Olympian height and assist in arbitration for Irish tenants when he has at his back a squad of anonymous British officers who are pledged to any extent to follow him even to the height of offering forcible resistance to the will of the Irish people expressed in a Parliamentary manner. I regard the fighting characteristic of the hon. and gallant Gentleman with tranquillity, though it may yet bring him before the termination of his career to breaking stones, not upon the road, perhaps, but in a more inconvenient place. I call to mind that when fighting had to be done as a matter of duty, the hon. and gallant Member managed to keep very clear of it. He had then a little Plan of Campaign of his own—a sort of "no fight" manifesto. Well, if the case of the Ponsonby estate was left in a bad condition by the hon. Member for South Hunts, the hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh put it in a worse condition. The omissions of the hon. Member for South Hunts were remarkable. He told the House that he would not attempt to argue whether or not a great part of the value of the estate had been created by the tenants; he told the House he would not argue as to the sufficiency of the reductions; but even in the meagre narrative he gave, there were some remarkable facts. What where the terms offered by Mr.

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  Ponsonby according to the hon. Member? First, that every penny of the arrears admitted and proved to be unjust by the voluntary action of the landlord and by the decisions of the Courts should remain as a debt against the tenants upon which they were to pay interest; and, secondly, that the tenants wore to purchase on such a calculation that the annual instalments payable to the Government would be far in excess of Griffith's valuation. Does the hon. Member attempt to argue that that is, or even can be, maintained as just? I speak within the knowledge of the House when I say Griffith's valuation was made as a valuation of the rent which a solvent tenant would pay from year to year for the holding as it stood, including tenant's improvements; and it was made, moreover, when prices were high and buoyant, and not as they are now, low, and sinking lower. The offer of Mr. Ponsonby was not an offer that the tenant could fairly accept. An attempt has been made to confuse the issue by introducing a number of figures; but I put the case broadly before the House, when I say the tenants on the one hand offered £104,000, and the agent offered to accept £110,000. The hon. Gentleman the Member for South Hunts has been unsuccessful in an attempt to define further sums he mentioned. He has spoken of certain charges on the land, but he has not defined them.
  MR. SMITH BARRY: Drainage charges, tithe rent charges, and quitrents.
  MR. SEXTON: The information in my hands leads me to the conclusion that these charges were included in the £128,000 first stated by Mr. Brunker. It is remarkable that the difference between the first offer of Mr. Brunker—£128,000—and his offer of £110,000 corresponds with the sum of £18,000, the charges stated by the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Smith Barry). But whether that be so or not, the agent asked £110,000 and the tenants offered £104,000. We have a letter under the agent's hand in which he says that the negotiations had almost reached the point of settlement; that he would make every effort to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion; and that he had no doubt his efforts would be successful. I ask
  512
  this assembly, why at that moment did the hon. Member for South Hunts, who had no connection with the estate, step in as the Mephistopheles of peace? It is perfectly manifest that if the agent had been allowed to continuo to negotiate these tenants would before now have been settled in their holdings. There is no English landlord opposite who would not be ashamed to have it said of him that he had interfered in such a way with the tenants of other people. I do not think there is one English landlord opposite who, however he may be constrained by Party exigencies to vote upon this or any other question, will not in his conscience and heart condemn the hon. Member for South Hunts for the cruel and wanton course he has taken—a course unworthy of a representative man, unworthy of a generous minded gentleman, and manifestly opposed to the public interest and public peace. The hon. Member made a bad case for himself; but the case was made worse by the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for North Armagh (Colonel Saunderson). In reply to the challenge, "What business had the hon. Member for South Hunts to interfere," the hon. and gallant Gentleman said "the Irish landlords have a personal concern in the property of every landlord in Ireland." Now, if Irish landlords, with all the law upon their side, with all the administration upon their side, with juries packed in their interest, every recourse of law and Government at their service, have such a personal concern in the properties of each other that it is right of them to combine or to form themselves into a joint stock company to drive the tenants of any one landlord from their homes, then I ask, have not the tenants on any particular estate a personal concern—I do not go so far as to say in the affairs of all tenants in Ireland, but only in the affairs of their fellow tenants upon the same estate. Have they not a right to combine with one another not to evict other people from their homes, but to save themselves from expulsion? That is the morality of the Plan of Campaign, make the legality of it what you like. Speaking for the Irish landlords the hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh said, "We stand or fall together." Well, and so do we. So do the tenants. If the observance of that

  513
  laudable maxim on the part of the landlords is patriotic and Constitutional, is it immoral and criminal on the part of the tenants? The hon. and gallant Gentleman spoke of law and order being treated as a joke. Who have made law and order a joke? The Party opposite. They pass laws to suit the interests of their Party. They allow those laws to be administered according to the will and caprice of the most discredited and incompetent of their servants. Law and order a joke! Why, when the Government have reduced law and order in Ireland to the position of an instrument or servant of a class, it has become a very bitter joke indeed for the masses of the Irish people. The hon. Member for North Armagh referred to a speech my hon. Friend the Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) delivered in America eight years ago, and said my hon. Friend declared for the total abolition of rent. I declare for the total abolition of rent. The whole Irish Party declare for the abolition of rent, and the curious part of it is that the Party opposite do the same, for what else does the Ashbourne Act, and £5,000,000 one year and £5,000,000 another, and the Land Purchase Scheme, involving £50,000,000 or £100,000,000, which will be introduced next year, mean? I wish to ask the hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh whether the hon. Member for South Tyrone is an accredited Member of the Unionist Party? The hon. and gallant Gentleman discloses a prudence incompatible with military dash in not answering the question. This morning there is reported in the Times a speech of the hon. Member for South Tyrone, in which he states as the first article of what he calls a constructive policy for Ireland the termination of dual ownership. What is that but the abolition of rent? Now, what is the genesis of the Plan of Campaign? The Chief Secretary for Ireland refused in 1886 to pass the Bill of the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Parnell). He passed the Bill in a modified form next year. If he had passed that Bill, or founded any reasonable legislation upon it, at the time it was introduced, we should never have heard of the Plan of Campaign. If even in 1887 the right hon. Gentleman had in-
  514
  serted in his Bill any provision to liquidate arrears, if he had allowed the Court to deal equitably with arrears, arrears which according to the voluntary action of many landlords and the Judgments of the Courts were impossible and could not be collected, the Plan of Campaign would have come to a speedy end. That is the genesis of the Plan of Campaign. The tenants found themselves driven to desperation, they felt that their last chance was the Plan of Campaign, and they adopted it. I maintain that the responsibility for the Plan of Campaign and its sequel rests solely upon the shoulders of the right hon. Gentleman. But I claim for the Plan of Campaign, and I challenge the Chief Secretary to deny it, that it has led to many settlements. Landlords in Ireland by the dozen have admitted in the most practical way the justice of the Plan of Campaign by yielding to the demands of the tenants. Can the right hon. Gentleman say that in any case any landlord has ever declared the claims to be unjust, or has expressed regret for yielding to them? But that is not all. I claim that the demands of the tenants under the Plan of Campaign have in every case been justified—firstly, by reductions freely granted by many landlords in the same district to tenants under similar conditions, and secondly in the reductions granted in the Land Courts to tenants able to seek the intervention of these tribunals. I see that on the Munster estates of Lord Kenmare fair rents have been fixed on 19 holdings, and that the rents have been reduced from an aggregate of £577 to £430, a reduction of 25 per cent. Thus, Sir, what the hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh stigmatises as an illegal conspiracy stands justified in the most formal manner.
  COLONEL SAUNDERSON: Will the hon. Member state the percentage taken off the rents of the tenants of the Corporation of Dublin, of which he is Lord Mayor?
  MR. SEXTON: The Corporation of Dublin are forbidden by law to make abatements of rents; but when the Land Act passed, they not only gave every facility to the tenants to go into Court, but they actually extended that right to leasehold tenants. If the landlords of Ireland had followed the example of the Corporation of Dublin, the land

  515
  question would have settled itself. The reason why I think the policy of arbitration is one of urgent pressure, is because of the course being pursued in Ireland by the Government and the landlord party—a course which I think shows rather the temper of the gamecock than the prudence of the statesman. They are fighting the Plan of Campaign, and want to beat it; and as long as they think they are beating it, they care nothing for order or for peace. If that course of conduct be continued, evictions will be continued which will gravely imperil the public peace. What happened last week on this very Ponsonby estate? While some tenants were being evicted, a number of people assembled in an enclosed piece of land belonging to the parish priest and raised a cheer. Colonel Caddell ordered the police to break into the ground, which they did, and batoned from the ground the people to whom the parish priest had given permission to go there. I want to know whether in Ireland the mere fact of cheering entitled the police to break into that private ground. Canon Keller, in respectful language, complained to Captain Plunkett, who told him to go about his business. Captain Plunkett then gave an order to the police, who assaulted the priest in the presence of his congregation, and the Member in the presence of his constituents, by pushing them along the high road. I will mention another incident. Four girls, the daughters of a widow, had been evicted from their home. They were arrested, and were inside the lines of police, when a person named Crockett, who would appear to be some one of importance, as he was admitted inside the lines, asked one of the girls to kiss him. Colonel Caddell was standing by when the low-lived rascal made this proposal. Would anyone have blamed him if he had kicked that fellow out of the place, or at least rebuked him and placed him under arrest? Colonel Caddell, a magistrate in the execution of his duty, turned to the girl, and, pointing to some whitewash on the back of her dress, said, "You must have been kissing the police inside"—a vile insinuation. I denounce the conduct of Colonel Caddell as unmanly and disgraceful, and I say that he ought to follow Captain Segrave out of the Public Service. But
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  why should we talk of subordinates when the responsibility rests upon the Minister who countenances, favours, and stimulates these blackguards? By his conduct the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. A. J. Balfour) proves himself to be not a friend, but an enemy of the public peace. Some time ago I endeavoured to induce the right hon. Gentleman to favour the method of arbitration and to use his influence on the Vandeleur estate, but he refused to say a single word to promote or encourage arbitration. The hon. Member for Canterbury (Mr. Henniker Heaton) told me a few days after that the landlord was disposed to arbitration, and the tenants on that, as on every other occasion, proved themselves ready to facilitate every offer of the kind. The hon. and learned Member for Hackney (Sir C. Russell) was named arbitrator, and the first result was that 26 tenants were restored to their homes, and the second result was that 500 tenants went in and paid their rents, not in consequence of the action of the Chief Secretary, but in spite of it. I admit that it was a most unpromising case. Many evictions had taken place on the estate, and many persons had been thrown into gaol; but the moment the landlord consented to arbitration everything was plain sailing, and the situation became tranquil. There was one case of an evicted tenant in which Colonel Vandeleur was anxious to come to a settlement and to restore him. But Colonel Turner, accompanied by Captain Welch, went to the house and urged the tenant not to settle with the landlord. So that Colonel Turner, at the critical moment of negotiations upon which depended the security of 500 tenants, interfered, not for the purpose of promoting peace, but to prevent it, just as if the right hon. Gentleman, having passed a Coercion Act, thought it necessary to provide work for it. Three years ago, and every moment since, the Archbishop of Dublin has applied his eminent abilities to induce the landlords to consent to arbitration. But he was told that his plea for arbitration was a cry for mercy, that the tenants were beaten, that they were driven to the wall, and that they would get law and nothing but law. A private agent of the Government, one who turns up at evictions when the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr.

  517
  Hayes Fisher) and the hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell) are engaged in festive scenes, told a tenant the other day that the Plan of Campaign was beaten and that Dillon had not got enough money to bring him home from Australia. The right hon. Gentleman will be glad to hear that the mission of Mr. Dillon has turned out a splendid success, that the Plan of Campaign is not beaten, and that the tenants are not driven to the wall. Their claims are just; to those claims they will adhere, and they will win justice, if not with the concurrence of the right hon. Gentleman, without his consent and against his will.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): I am sorry that this debate upon certain important questions connected with Irish land was not destined to come to an end without being seasoned with some of the familiar calumnies against the Ministers of the law in Ireland. I do not propose to go in detail into the allegations made against Colonel Caddell and Colonel Turner. In both the stories which the right hon. Gentleman the Lord Mayor of Dublin (Mr. Sexton) has told, he has been utterly and entirely misinformed; and it would be well, before he gives currency to calumnies in this House, that he should take pains to acquaint himself with the truth of what he says.
  MR. SEXTON: I have taken what I consider to be sufficient pains to ascertain the truth, and I have evidence which I will be willing to submit to the right hon. Gentleman if he so far departs from his usual course as to grant an inquiry.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am perfectly willing to listen to any statement of the right hon. Gentleman, but he cannot have a Commission of Inquiry upon every subject. Leaving the personal questions which the right hon. Gentleman has thought fit to foist into the debate, and coming to the more general issues, it appears to me that in the course of the discussion to-night most of the old familiar fallacies with respect to the land question have been raised and aired afresh. The hon. Gentleman who initiated the discussion asked why I never replied to the argument that as there was an Arrears Act dealing with the crofters there ought to be an Arrears Act dealing with the
  518
  Irish tenants. I have answered that question till I am sick of answering it. In the case of the Irish tenants, as in the case of the crofter tenants, this House determined in its wisdom that rents should be fixed by a legal tribunal. Holding that view they thought it right that the new system should be initiated by wiping off the old arrears which hung round the necks of the tenants. They did not adopt in the crofters' case, and they did not adopt in the Irish case, a policy which would involve the passing every five or six years of another Arrears Act, which would not only re-open all the old questions, but should wipe off not rents accruing before judicial rents became possible, but arrears which accrued after that period. That is a perfectly clear and definite statement. The case of the crofters and of the Irish tenants is, I grant, broadly speaking, on all fours, and when the hon. Gentleman again talks on this subject I hope, at all events, he will not say I have shirked the argument put forward, or was afraid to give him an answer which I believe is adequate and complete. Then the hon. Gentleman went on to state what, in one sense, is undoubtedly true—namely, that in Ireland the improvements are largely the work of the tenants, in a degree in which they are not the work of the tenants either in England or Scotland. I do not think it is so good a system as the English or Scotch system, but it is not a correct deduction to say that the tenants are the true owners of all the value of the soil which is not prairie value. I say the existing system of law, by which the tenant is amply protected, whether on eviction or on leaving his farm voluntarily, from losing any part of the value of his improvements, is the true system, and that the tenant has no right to the increment in the original value of the soil which is not due to his efforts. The third point is the conclusion that is to be drawn from the fact that the Irish Land Courts have lowered the rents of the Irish landlords. The hon. Gentleman, following in this case the bad example set him by many hon. Gentlemen who sit near him, stated that because the Irish Land Courts have reduced the rents 20 or 30 per cent, the Irish landlords were exacting before those deductions unjust rents. The hon. Gentleman must be perfectly aware that

  519
  coincidently with the passing of the Act of 1881 there was a large fall in the value of land in England, in Scotland, and in Ireland. In England and Scotland, where rents are not fixed by a Court, the lowering of rent was arranged by mutual agreement between landlord and tenant. In Ireland you provided a Court to carry out that operation; and because that arrangement is made, and because the results with regard to the lowering of rent have followed similarly to the results which have happened in England and Scotland, you hurl the monstrous calumny against the Irish landlords that they have been robbing their tenants. I hope hon. Gentlemen will no more accuse the Irish landlords of robbing their tenants because, in 1881–2–3 or 1884, the rents were lowered, than he would accuse the English or Scotch landlords of robbing their tenants because, in consequence of agricultural distress and the fall in prices, there has been a fall in the general value of land. This is a debate on the subject of evictions, and it appears to be assumed by all the speakers that the question of eviction is in a specially acute form at the present moment. It is nothing of the kind. There have always been evictions in Ireland, and there always must be evictions in any country where either land or house property exists, and where the tenants of either land or houses refuse to pay their rents. That proceeding necessarily ends in eviction, whether it be in England, in France, in Germany, or in America. But hon. Gentlemen are greatly mistaken if they think that this difficulty is in a specially acute form. The hon. Gentleman appeared to think that since 1886, when this Government came into office, there had been a special number of evictions, meaning by that the process by which a man is turned out of his home. I find, however, according to the best calculations, that the number from 1882 to 1884 inclusive was 6,887, and that in 1886–88 inclusive, the corresponding three years of the present Administration, the number was 3,951.
  MR. J. E. ELLIS: Has the right hon. Gentleman included the notices under Section 7 of the Land Act, 1887, which, as he well knows, have the force of eviction?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: When I talk of evictions I mean evictions—namely,
  520
  the tenants being turned out on the roadside, that process with regard to which the feelings of the people of England are stirred by hon. Gentlemen's rhetoric, and I say that the number of evictions in these years under the administration of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian was nearly double the number in three years under the present Government. I hope nobody will infer that I attribute any blame to the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian. I do not, of course. Just as I am not to blame for evictions, so he is not to blame for the evictions which took place under his administration. But let it be understood that this difficulty of evictions is not in a specially acute form at present; on the contrary, it is far less acute than when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian was in office. Almost all the difficulties we have in regard to evictions are on the Plan of Campaign estates. The chief specimen of a Plan of Campaign estate which has been brought under the notice of the House to-night is that of the Ponsonby estate, and we have had a great deal of bandying backwards and forwards of figures on this subject. It appears to me that the facts are very simple. No human being can deny that Mr. Ponsonby had a perfect right to dispose of the estate as he pleased. The question is not whether Mr. Ponsonby had or had not the right to sell his estate. The only question is whether the new owners of it are or are not dealing harshly with their tenants. On that essential point there is not a shadow of justification. I will just remind the House, as it is now a good deal fuller than it was when the hon. Member for South Hunts spoke, of the broad aspects of the case. These tenants owe four years' rent. They have not, broadly speaking, paid 6d. of rent for four years. The landlord is prepared to accept in the case of non-judicial tenants one year's rent, less 20 per cent down, and to capitalize the remainder at 3 per cent. But the right hon. Gentleman says that it is capitalized on unjust arrears. Well, if they are unjust arrears, why did not the tenants go into Court? [Cries of "Leaseholders."] There are leaseholders, and there are judicial tenants, but it is not necessary to decide that point, and I will give the

  521
  House reasons that will even permeate the mind of the hon. Member for the Rushcliffe Division (Mr. J. E. Ellis). The landlord has offered all those tenants to go into Court, and make the reductions of the Court retrospective. So that not only are the arrears to be capitalized at the rate of 3 per cent, which is in itself a most generous proposal, as the hon. Member opposite will admit—if he is the owner of cottage property I do not know whether he would always be prepared to accept arrears in this capitalized form—but the arrears are not unjust arrears; they are arrears the amount of which is practically determined by the decision of the Land Court. The only pretence to argument that I have heard against the justice of this proposal is that Griffith's valuation is lower than the rents. This is a little excusable from the hon. Member for the Rushcliffe Division, but it is not what I should have expected from the Lord Mayor of Dublin (Mr. Sexton). The right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well that Griffith's valuation, speaking generally, is not a test of rent. Sometimes it is far too low; but it was never intended to represent the full letting value of the holding. It was supposed to be a third less than the letting value. ["No, no!"] It was always intended to be a good deal less than the letting value. ["No."] To that statement I adhere: but, apart from that, the conditions of agriculture have so changed—[Mr. SEXTON: For the worse]—in Ireland, sometimes for the worse and sometimes for the better, that in no part of Ireland is it ever safe to take Griffith's valuation as a fair test for the proper rent. This is a commonplace, and I have heard that very fact brought forward by the Irish Party, when it happened to tell in their direction, though we might have Griffith's valuation urged against the justice of the proposal for the Ponsonby estate. The most vehement invective has been brought against my hon. Friend the Member for South Hunts because he, not being the landlord but a stranger to the estate, has chosen to mix himself up in its affairs. I am amazed that that argument should be used by hon. Gentlemen. What have they got to do with the estates in which they mix themselves up? Does the right hon. Gentleman wish to make this House
  522
  believe that the Plan of Campaign is, as a rule, the spontaneous act on the part of the tenants of the various estates?
  MR. SEXTON: Certainly. [Cries of "Yes," laughter, and "What do you know about it?"]
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The right hon. Gentleman corrects me; he thinks the action has been spontaneous on the part of the tenants. All I can say is that their spontaneity is shown in a very singular manner. We have the tenants loudly-promised support out of the Central Land League funds. I am not aware that it is either a tenant or a landlord; this organization is a stranger which promises support to the tenants. They send down a gentleman expert in the art of fortification to arrange for the defence of the holdings. Is that a spontaneous act on their part? Is that leaving each estate to manage its own affairs?
  MR. SEXTON: It may follow spontaneous action.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I think the right hon. Gentleman will hardly get the House to believe that. We know well enough that directly the tenants of any estate show the slightest desire to abandon the Plan of Campaign, some hon. Member goes down to make a violent speech denouncing those persons as traitors to the national cause, using language which, however it be intended, is on the spot interpreted as an inducement to intimidation and outrage. Am I to be told that estates on which this is done are acting spontaneously? And how am I to reconcile this supposed spontaneity on the part of the tenants with what we know of tenants going to pay their rent secretly to the agent and every device being adopted by those persons who wish to be honest, but dare not be honest in the face of day, in order to break loose from that disgraceful and illegal conspiracy—the Plan of Campaign? The right hon. Member for Mid Lothian, in one of the speeches he recently made, appeared to give his hearers to understand that never before in his experience bad there been so long a series of painful details connected with evictions in Ireland. I have told the House that the numbers of evictions are fewer by far now than they were in the time of the right hon. Gentleman him-

  523
  self, and if there are painful details who is responsible? It is those who organize from a distance those elaborate scenes. It is those who send out orators to inveigh and intimidate. It is those who send out agents to barricade and organize resistance. They are the people who are responsible for the long series of painful incidents in which I agree with the right hon. Gentleman in deploring. The time at my disposal has elapsed. The Lord Mayor of Dublin told the House that the landlord had the law on his side, but that the tenants had no law on their side—that they were not protected. The Irish tenants are protected as no tenants in the world are protected. The law which protects their interests is a law more detailed, more elaborate, more carefully contrived to protect every interest they have than the law of landlord and tenant in any other civilized country of the world. The hon. Member (Mr. J. E. Ellis) told us tenants were robbed of their improvements. Their improvements are protected by every conceivable method. If they leave voluntarily, or if they are evicted, it is the tenants' fault alone if they do not get compensation for the improvements they or their predecessors in title have made on the farm. That their rents are not unjust is the proud boast that hon. Gentlemen opposite have made of their legislation. Are they then not protected in the matter of evictions? We have had a debate of nearly four hours, and I have hardly heard an allusion to Clause 30 of the Act of 1887. Under that clause every single tenant who has been threatened with eviction or has been evicted since the month of August, 1887, nearly two years ago, has the right—
  MR. J. ELLIS: Not over £50, which was the case with the instances I quoted.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: With holdings under £50—that is, the enormous mass of the tenants—can before actual eviction apply to the Court to have eviction stayed and to have their arrears spread over, if necessary, an indefinite number of years [Cries of "No."] over any number of years the Court may thin) fair. In a recent case they were spread over ten years. ["Never before."] It is in the power of the Court. I am talking of the law. They have a right to go to the Court, and the Court can
  524
  spread the arrears over any period it likes. These are privileges no other tenants in the world have got, and if they have not availed themselves of them the reason is that they have been ill-led, that it has been thought more profitable for a Political Party to have evictions in Ireland than to let the tenants feel that they owe to a Conservative Government their protection from harsh and capricious eviction. Now, what is the present proposal? The Front Bench opposite have not informed the House of their views on the subject. Do they desire that the law shall he inforced? Silence—I perceive they do desire that the law should be enforced. All that we are doing is to enforce the law, and what, therefore, is the complaint against us? We have been told by the hon. Member for North Dublin and by the right hon. Gentleman the Lord Mayor of Dublin that the system of purchase is the true remedy. In that they agree with us. That has long been my creed, avowed in this House many years ago, before I thought I should have anything to do with the practical government of Ireland; but how is a purchase scheme or any other plan to succeed if you teach the tenants of Ireland they may settle their own terms by illegal combination and if you denounce every attempt to enforce the law? This will not only be fatal to a settlement of the land question, not merely unjust to landlords, but it will carry a curse with it that will make absolutely impossible or barren of any good result any effort this House may subsequently make to substitute some better system of land tenure than that which now unhappily prevails in Ireland.
  The House divided:—Ayes 248; Noes 178.—(Div. List, No. 150.)
  Main Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair"
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  It being after One of the clock, Mr. Speaker adjourned the House without Question put.
  House adjourned at ten minutes after One o'clock till Monday next.

COMMITTEE OF SELECTION FOR STANDING COMMITTEES.
Report from, That the Committee have added the Lord Balfour to the Standing Committee for Bills relating to Law, &c., for the consideration of the Advance Notes to Seamen Bill, and the Weights and Measures Bill. Read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
OFFICIAL SECRETS BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read la and to be printed. (No. 112.)

MUNICIPAL FRANCHISE (IRELAND) BILL. (No. 103.)
LORD DENMANasked the Lord Chancellor if this Bill might be reappointed on some day convenient to the House?
THE LORD CHANCELLOR: The Motion for the Second Reading and the Motion moved as an Amendment to it have both been withdrawn, and it is, therefore, quite in the noble Lord's option to put the Bill clown for any night he likes.
LORD DENMAN: Then, with your Lordships' permission, I will put it down for Thursday next.
House adjourned at a quarter before Five o'clock to Monday next a quarter before Eleven o'clock.