Sitting of 8 March 1889

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
  LONDON CENTRAL (SUBWAY) RAILWAY BILL (By Order).

    SECOND READING.
    Order for Second Reading read.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
    MR. SEAGER HUNT: I rise for the purpose of moving that this Bill be read a second time on this day six months. It is a Bill which contains provisions of an exceedingly novel character. The line itself goes from nowhere and leads to nowhere; it is an experiment in the shape of construction, and it is to run right through some of the best streets of London—from St. James's Street to
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    Shaftesbury Avenue, and then on to Holborn Circus. It will disturb people who have only recently been enabled to settle down in the locality; it will produce a great hindrance to trade; and, in addition, the Company will not be compelled to take the whole of the property their projected line will interfere with, because by one of the provisions of the Bill they can take what portion of a particular property they choose—that is to say, they can take the underground portion of a shop without being compelled to take that which is above ground. It runs through a street which is now one of the leading lines of communication between the North and South of London, and the competition which will necessarily spring up between the omnibuses and the railway for the traffic of the district will, in the end, be ruinous to both. So far as the capital is concerned, it is to consist of 74,950 ordinary shares of £10 each, and 500 deferred shares of £1 each, and the management and control of the undertaking will be virtually in the hands of the deferred shareholders. This is certainly one of the most novel features we have yet seen in connection with railway enterprize. There is another curious feature—namely, power to sell the railway to the London County Council, and when we come to look at the amount of capital proposed to be spent, the means of communication which already exist, and have regard to the fact that the undertaking is to be carried on solely by five gentlemen acting as directors, I think the House will agree with me that it is not a Bill that ought to be passed.
    MR. GAINSFORD BRUCE: I beg to second the Amendment, and I regret that in addressing the House for the first time.

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    I should have to ask the House to do what it is ordinarily very reluctant to do—namely, reject a Private Bill on the Second Reading. I hope, however, to be able to place before the House reasons why the Bill should be rejected. It is a scheme for carrying a railway from the top of St. James's Street to Holborn Circus three sections—(No. 1) from St. James's Street to (No. 2) the south west corner of Shaftesbury Avenue; from Shaftesbury Avenue to Oxford Street, and (No. 3) from Oxford Street to Holborn Circus. The line, when constructed, will not be in communication with any other line of railway. The promoters may say that it is the beginning of a new system, and that it is capable of indefinite extension; but when we consider the enormous inconvenience and interference with traffic which must result from the carrying out of extensive works in great thoroughfares of London, I think hon. Members will concur with me that it ought not to be left to private individuals to lay down a line a mile and a-half in length between any points that caprice may determine in the centre of London, leaving it to chance or accident to determine whether hereafter the scheme is capable of such development as to form a connecting link between distant parts of the Metropolis. In my opinion the public have suffered in times past from the too great readiness of Parliament to sanction partially developed railway schemes. Already London is cut up by railways; and the public, although they have suffered the maximum of inconvenience, have as yet derived only the minimum of accommodation. The line, when constructed, is to be worked by electricity. Professors of science, who also claim to be prophets, tell us that electricity is destined to supersede steam as the locomotive power; I am not concerned to doubt their prophecy, but all I say is that the time has not yet arrived. With the exception of the toy railway at Brighton, I am not aware that at present there is a single line which is worked by electricity, and it has not yet been determined that electricity can be used with such regularity and certainty as is necessary for business purposes. I think some stress ought to be laid on the humidity of the climate with which the electricians will have to cope. The undertaking is put forward as an experi-
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    ment, but I wish the hon. Members for Stoke-upon-Trent (Mr. W. L. Bright) and Wolverhampton (Sir W. Plowden), whose names are on the back of the Bill, had, in the first instance, tried it in their own districts before attempting to carry it out in the Metropolis. I maintain that not only is the scheme in itself impracticable, but that the means by which it is proposed to carry it out are indicative of the unsoundness of the proposals in the Bill. The promoters seem to have ransacked every Parliamentary precedent in order to take advantage of every clause at any time sanctioned granting special favours to promoters of companies, so that the Company ask for the maximum of privilege and the public are deprived of nearly all the protection which the Land Clauses Act was intended to provide. For the first time in the history of legislation the promoters have introduced the principle of founders' shares. In comparatively recent times founders' shares have been introduced in Limited Liability Companies, founded on contract. It may be right, when a number of persons are brought together, to carry out a proposal that a founder should be remunerated somehow or other, but a proposal to pay a founder 900 per cent of the funds of the Company is very novel indeed, and involves a principle which I think the House will be very jealous to sanction. It may be right where the shareholders come in by agreement upon particular terms to pay 900 per cent. but this House cannot by Act of Parliament turn £500 into £5,000, and yet that is what this Bill does. Having regard to the fact that the Bill is an experiment, and taking into account also the mode by which it is proposed to carry it out, I think the House will do well to reject it.
    Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."—(Mr. Seager Hunt.)
    Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question"
    MR. W. L. BRIGHT: There seems to be a great deal of misapprehension in regard to this Bill. The hon. Member for West Marylebone (Mr. Seager Hunt) began by saying that it is proposed to take

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    underground property and leave that which is overhead. If he will take the trouble to examine the Bill, he will find that it is not true. Then he said that in certain streets omnibuses are careering to and fro from morning till night. That is exactly what we say—namely, that the street traffic is so great that it is necessary to divert some of it. As to the founders' shares, they are simply deferred shares, and they are provided for the simple purpose of paying the expenses of those who will have to construct the railway. The interest upon them will, however, be deferred until 5 per cent on the ordinary capital has been paid to the ordinary shareholders of the Company. I submit that if the Metropolitan and District Railways had been made upon this principle anyone who embarked his capital at the commencement of those schemes would, up to the present moment, never have realized a single sixpence out of them. So far as the clause in the Bill relating to the voting power of the deferred shareholders is concerned, we abandon the provision altogether, and agree that the ordinary shareholders shall have full control of the Company, and that the qualification of directors shall also be decided by the shareholders. The clause entitling the London County Council to buy the railway is a usual one, and simply entitles the Council to find money or take shares. Hon. Members will be aware that the City of London subscribed £300,000 to the Metropolitan Railway. These, however, are all of them questions of detail, and I submit that they can only be discussed properly in a Committee upstairs. The shopkeepers of Holborn oppose the Bill, and I find that a gentleman named Wallace has taken the chair at one or two meetings which have been called in opposition to the Bill. Mr. Wallace is a large shopkeeper in Holborn, and he is very indignant at this scheme; but I find that in 1884 this very gentleman stated that some thousands of persons were daily resorting to his premises from all parts of the Metropolis and the suburbs, and that any scheme that would give facilities of access cheaply, expeditiously, and comfortably, would be a boon. In the face of this declaration, can the House consider that the opposition of this gentleman is worth much? It is said that the
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    omnibus fare is only one penny. Well, we are only going to charge a penny. But I submit that all the difficulties which have been raised are difficulties which ought to be settled in Committee; we are perfectly ready to face the Committee. We believe that we have sufficient evidence to prove our case; and we ask this House to read the Bill a second time.
    SIR R. N. FOWLER: I have presented a petition, Sir, very numerously signed, from my constituency against this Bill. It seems to me to involve a new movement as regards underground railways, and that we are hardly in a position to deal with the question piecemeal until this House has investigated the whole subject. Nearly 30 years ago, a very influential Committee of this House, presided over by the present Earl of Derby, inquired into the railway system of London. I think that the Metropolis owes a great deal to the labours of that Committee; and before we enter into the question again, I think it is desirable that we should appoint a strong Committee to inquire into the whole subject.
    MR. ISAACSON: I wish to enter my most emphatic protest against a Member of Parliament using the machinery of this House for the purpose of promoting public Companies in order to foist shares upon a misguided and gulled public. In this case we have an hon. Member, who represents Stoke-upon-Trent, coming here to teach the Metropolitan Members what is necessary for the benefit of London. We, the Metropolitan Members, are rather a numerous body, and we fancy that we know quite as much about London as an hon. Member who represents a constituency like Stoke-upon-Trent. And what is it that the hon. Member wishes the House to do? He asks us to sanction an additional expenditure of a million of money upon an underground railway, when many millions have already been expended on similar undertakings, and up to the present day the unfortunate shareholders have not received sixpence in the shape of dividends. I do not think that the machinery of the House of Commons ought to be employed in order to foist such schemes upon the public.
    MR. COGHILL: I cannot help regarding this scheme as one of the most foolish propositions ever submitted to this House. It is a Bill introduced in the interests of the Metropolis yet the name of no Metropolitan Member is on the back of it; the only names which appear are those of the hon. Member for Stoke-upon-Trent and the hon. Member for Wolverhampton. I think that if those hon. Members would devote a little more of their time to their own constituents instead of to the Metropolis their services would be of considerably more value than they are at present. Of all the streets of which we ought to be proud in London, St. James's Street is one of them. It is one of the finest streets in this capital or in any capital in Europe, and yet it is proposed to run an underground railway from the top end of it to Holborn Circus. I think it is most undesirable that such a railway should be allowed to run through the heart of London, and I can only characterize the circular sent to Members of this House this morning by the hon. Member for Stoke-upon-Trent as an outrage upon good taste.
    MR. LABOUCHERE: The hon. Member who has just sat down commenced by saying that this is a Bill which concerns the Metropolitan Members alone; therefore, as representing Newcastle-under-Lyme, he gives us his views on the subject. The hon. Member attacked the hon. Member for Stoke-upon-Trent, and he says that a circular has been sent round by which my hon. Friend is an outrage upon the House. I do not think it necessary to make any further reply than this—that the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down is an Unionist. Then, again, there was the hon. Member for Stepney (Mr. Isaacson). I never heard such arguments addressed to this House. If the hon. Member would bring forward a proposal that no Member of this House should be a Director of a Company, that would be a matter for discussion, but to say that he will oppose a Bill because of the Members whose names are on the back of it is going a little too far.
    MR. ISAACSON: What I said was, that this was a Bill proposed by Members of Parliament who have no connection with the locality which it affects.
    MR. LABOUCHERE: The hon. Gentleman protested against the use of the machinery of Parliament for the purpose of carrying Railway Bills. But how can a railway be made without the consent of Parliament? I came, as I always do, with a very open mind to the consideration of this measure. If my mind was closed at all, it was to a certain extent closed against the Bill, because I thought it contained an improper clause—namely, the clause which threw the voting power into the hands of a few individuals. That clause, however, has been entirely given up by the promoters of the Bill, and I find it is an entire mistake to suppose that there is any intention on the part of the promoters to take portions of houses. The proposal is simply this: to be allowed to take any portion of a cellar running under the roadway without being obliged to take the rest of the house. In the event of a dispute, the matter, by the Bill, is to be referred to a jury, so that full and ample compensation may be given to the owner of the house for any injury he may sustain. I do not, therefore, think that that is a point which ought to prevent us from referring the Bill to a Committee. It is said that the Bill will involve a disturbance of the streets and a hindrance to the traffic; but that is an argument against any improvement in the Metropolis. No doubt the construction of this Railway will disturb the streets, but I find that the Bill provides that a large subway shall be made by the Company to carry all the gas and water pipes, and I apprehend that when that subway is made the disturbance of the streets will be much less than it is at present, for we know by painful experience that at the present moment the streets are being taken up every day by some gas or water company. There will be a disturbance for once and all, and it will then, to a great extent, cease. We are told that we ought not to pass this Bill because it is likely to injure the omnibus traffic; but that is similar to the argument that was used against the institution of railways—namely, that they would injure the stage coaches. I, as an inhabitant of London, and one of the public, think that this line will be of great advantage to the public, and for that reason I shall vote in favour of it. I have no personal interest in it except as one of the public. The Member for the

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    City of London (Sir E. Fowler) tells us that we ought to appoint a Committee to investigate the railway system in London. We have already had a Committee, and it gave us the Underground Bail way system that already exists in London, and this Bill simply proposes to add to it. The real question is this, whether primâ facie this is a system which ought to be submitted to a Select Committee, and I think it is.
    MR. COURTNEY: No doubt this is a scheme which involves many proposals of considerable novelty. It proposes to run under a very important part of London, commencing from the top of St. James' Street, and it proposes to use a power of locomotion which as yet has been practically untried. There may be some practical difficulty in carrying out the scheme, and the line may prove to be unworkable, but I think the case presented by the promoters is one which is entitled to reasonable examination. It will be backed up by guarantees of the usual character, and all doubtful questions, whether engineering or financial, or the relations between the Company and the Metropolitan authorities, will be closely examined by a Committee, to which alone we can look for a solution of such questions. I do not think that the hon. Member for Holborn (Mr. Gainsford Bruce), who spoke with great ability against the Bill, adduced a single argument which might not be brought against any scheme, or which ought to prevent us from referring the Bill to a Select Committee in the usual form. There was one provision in the Bill which was of a character that I think no Committee would pass, and if it were accepted by a Committee I do not think it would be sanctioned by the House itself—namely, the proposal that the founders' shares should be able to outvote or to nullify any vote of the ordinary shareholders. It was a provision rashly inserted in the Bill, and I am glad to hear from the hon. Member for Stoke-upon-Trent that it has been entirely abandoned. The mere creation of founders' shares is an item of novelty, but it does not appear to be one that ought not to be investigated with perfect fulness. There may be no reason for believing that founders' shares, properly controlled, may not be a
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    judicious way of meeting the preliminary expenses of schemes of this nature. I would suggest to the House that we should act upon the ordinary principles which guide us in regard to Private Bills, and refer this measure to a Select Committee, who will have full power to consider all the points which have been raised.
    MR. BARTLEY: As a Metropolitan Member and one who has been in London all his life, I think the great object we ought to have at heart is the provision of facilities for moving readily and cheaply from one part of the Metropolis to the other. Now, the only argument I have heard against this railway is that it is an experiment. If the House of Commons had thrown out every railway scheme which was an experiment, I am afraid that we should have been in a state of barbarism as regards travelling at this moment. I have no doubt that if this scheme can be successfully carried out it will be of immense value. The idea that it will ruin the omnibus traffic is a very old, fashioned notion. The Underground Railway, so far from ruining the omnibuses as was originally predicted, has greatly added to their traffic.
    MR. SEAGER HUNT: What I said, or meant to say, was that the omnibus fares at this moment are very low, and that the construction of this railway is likely to bring about a competition between the omnibuses and the railway which will reduce the fares and make the traffic ruinous to both parties.
    MR. BARTLEY: That is the argument which was used when the omnibus fares were much higher than they are now, but the London General Omnibus Company manage to pay a dividend of 10 per cent. I trust that the Bill will, as is usual in such cases, be referred to a Select Committee, and that the scheme will prove to be a useful addition to the system of underground railways.
    SIR W. HARCOURT: It is very rarely that I take part in the discussion of a Private Bill, but I think that we should be adopting a strong course if we were to refuse to refer this or any other Railway Bill to a Select Committee. There are, no doubt, questions of great importance involved in this proposal, but they will receive full consideration at the hands of

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    a Committee, and the House must recollect that in reading the Bill a second time it will not be parting with its jurisdiction in the matter, because if, after the investigation upstairs, the House is dissatisfied with the proposals contained in the Bill, it will always have the power of throwing it out upon the Third Reading. I quite agree with the hon. Member for Islington (Mr. Bartley) that it is of the utmost importance to provide all classes of society, and especially the humbler classes, with facilities for cheap travelling. To throw out a Bill of this kind on the Second Reading would, I think, be an unusual and an unwise course, and therefore, although I do not often vote upon a Private Bill, I shall vote in favour of this.
    MR. J. ROWLANDS: I am not going to oppose the Second Reading of the Bill, but I propose to reserve to myself the right to oppose it upon the Third Reading if I think it necessary. I came down to the House determined to vote against the Second Reading, but the promoters have now withdrawn some of the most objectionable clauses. I think the Bill is one which might be carefully investigated by a Select Committee.
    Question "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question," put, and agreed to.
    Bill read a second time, and referred to a Select Committee.

MOTIONS.

  KILSYTH AND BONNYBRIDGE RAILWAY BILL.
  Ordered, That the Order [27th February] that the Kilsyth and Bonny bridge Railway Bill be referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills be read and discharged.
  Ordered, That the Bill be withdrawn.—(Mr. Herbert Gardner.)

  EXPERIMENTS ON LIVING ANIMALS BILL.
  Address for Copy of the Report from the Inspector showing the number of Experiments performed on Living Animals during the year 1888, under licences granted under the Act, 39 and 40 Vic. c. 77, distinguishing painless from painful Experiments (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 186, of Session 1888).—(Mr. Stuart-Wortley.)
  GUNS AND PROJECTILES (PALLISER SYSTEM) BILL.
  Address for Return of number of Guns converted on the Palliser system, and of the approximate weight of the Shot and Shell cast on the Palliser system.—(Col. Nolan.)
QUESTIONS.

  IRELAND—CONSTABLE M'NEANY.
  MR. BLANE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lietenant of Ireland if it has been reported to him that Constable M'Neany pointed in a threatening manner his revolver at a man named Patrick O'Donnell, on 28th January, in County Done gal; if other constables have been reported in a similar way; and, if he will make inquiries as to complaints on the subject?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): The Constabulary Authorities report that it is the case that O'Donnell has alleged that the constable pointed a revolver at him, and threatened to shoot him. The case has been returned for trial at the Assizes to be held in a few days. No other constables appear to have been reported in a similar way. I shall, of course, make full inquiry as to any specific complaints on the subject.

  INFRINGEMENTS OF THE COAL MINES REGULATION ACT, 1888.
  MR. CUNINGHAME GRAHAM: I bog to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the workmen employed in Knockterra Pit appointed Mr. Keir Hardie, their Union Secretary, to intimate to the manager their appointment of a check-weigher; whether the manager refused to accept the intimation from Mr. Hardie; whether the Mines Inspector for the district refused to interfere in the matter; and, whether, in view of these facts, a body of workmen have not power to appoint their Union Secretary to make an intimation on their behalf; and, if they have such power, on what grounds the Inspector of Mines refused to prosecute the manager for a breach of "The Coal Mines Regulation Act, 1888," in having prevented the check-weigher from performing his duties after such legal notice had been given? I beg also to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether notice of the election of a check-weigher at Knockterra Pit was made to the manager in writing, signed by two of the workmen; whether, on

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  the morning following the said notice being given, the two men signing it were dismissed and the check-weigher prevented by force from performing his duty; and, whether this case was reported to the Inspector of Mines, who caused an investigation to be made, and found the facts to be as recited above; and, if so, whether it is in contemplation to prosecute the manager for a contravention of the provisions of the Mines Act; and, if not, can he explain for what reason?
  THE HOME SECRETARY (Mr. H. MATTHEWS,): Mr. Keir Hardie wrote a letter to the overman of the Knockterra pit informing him that Richard Young had been duly elected check-weigher by the miners employed in the pit. He did not state that he was appointed by the workmen to give this notice, and the owners of the pit refused to accept it. The inspector, on being appealed to, wrote to both parties, saying it was a pity that such disputes should arise, and pointing out that, in his opinion, the owners were entitled to an intimation from the workmen themselves and not from an outsider. Afterwards, two workmen in the pit left a letter for Mr. Angus, the manager, informing him that they had been appointed by the workmen to give him notice of the appointment of a check-weigher, and after Mr. Angus had received this letter the check-weigher was installed in his position. In the meantime, the two workmen had been dismissed by the overman, not for giving the notice, but for absenting themselves from work. They have since been reinstated, and are at work again. On the general question I have nothing to add to what I said in the House on the 28th ult.
  MR. FENWICK: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether a notice tendered on behalf of the workmen by the general secretary of their Association is insufficient under the provisions of the Act?
  MR. MATTHEWS: I am afraid I must decline to give an opinion on a legal question arising under the Act. The section is not explicit as to the manner in which the notice is to be given. I gave the best answer I could on the 28th of last month, and I will
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  not take upon myself to say what, in all cases, will be sufficient.

  IRELAND—FATHER STEPHENS.
  MR. BLANE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether part of the evidence against the Rev. Daniel Stephens, of Falcarragh, county Donegal, who was recently sentenced for conspiracy against payment of rents to six months' imprisonment in Londonderry Gaol, was statements made on oath as witness before two Resident Magistrates sitting under the provisions of the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act, which statements were used against him in his own trial; and, if so, can he state if such be English Court practice except in case of perjury; if the second part of the case consisted of evidence of a letter found in a drawer at the house of the Rev. James M'Fadden, P.P. Gweedore, said to be in handwriting of defendant; whether any proof of publicity amongst the tenants of the Olphert estate were given at trial; and, if he can state the grounds of decision relied on by Resident Magistrates?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am informed that the defendant has appealed. I am, therefore, precluded at the present time from making any statement in regard to the evidence produced or with respect to the grounds of the decision come to.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Will the right hon. Gentleman state as a matter of fact whether a portion of the evidence produced against Mr. Stephens was evidence he had given himself in the case of another defendant?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I would rather not answer Questions on this matter, as an appeal is pending.

  DRAWING IN SCHOOLS.
  SIR HENRY ROSCOE: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether, before the issue of the Minute of the Committee of Council on Education in January, extending to Scotland the provision that no grant for drawing should be made on account of girls to whom cookery is not also taught, due account was taken of the circumstances of Scotch mixed schools and the

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  opinions of Scotch, educational authorities; whether he is aware that the effect of this restriction in England has been largely to crush out the teaching of drawing to both boys and girls in mixed schools; whether it is anticipated that this will be the case in Scotland under the new Minute; and, whether, since this is in direct conflict with the advice of the Report of the Royal Commission on Technical Instruction, and of both the majority and minority of the Royal Commission on Elementary Education, in all of which the extension of drawing teaching is strongly recommended, he can see his way to remove the restriction?
  THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL ON EDUCATION (Sir W. HART DYKE,): The form in which the Minute was issued was due to an understanding with the Treasury that Scotland should be placed on an equality with England, but there is no reason, so far as I know, why the change should have the effect my hon. Friend seems to anticipate, seeing that in mixed schools boys alone may be taught drawing, as, I believe, is largely done in England. Further changes in the English Code are in prospect which will, I hope, facilitate and promote the teaching of drawing to both boys and girls.
  MR. BUCHANAN: Was the Scotch Education Department consulted before the Minute was issued?
  SIR W. HART DYKE: I apprehend that was the case; but I have no right to answer positively in the absence of my right hon. Friend the Lord Advocate.
  MR. T. E. ELLIS: When is it proposed to lay the new Code on the Table?
  SIR W. HART DYKE: The new Code will be placed on the Table well within the limit of time—probably within the next fortnight.

  IRELAND—THE TREATMENT OF MICHAEL DAVITT IN THE CONVICT PRISONS.
  MR. BLUNDELL MAPLE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if his attention has been called to Mr. Michael Davitt's letter, which appeared in the Pall Mall Gazette of 4th March in-
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  stant, in which he states that, having been tried and convicted in 1870, on a charge of treason-felony, he was degraded to the level of a non-political prisoner; is it true that he was so treated, and dressed like a convict in Portland in 1881–2, or did he receive any exceptional indulgence; and, when in Dartmoor, was he made to wear a collar and yoked to a cart to do the work of a beast of burden?
  SIR W. HARCOURT: With the assent of the Home Secretary, as part of this Question relates to a matter in my knowledge, I will answer that portion of the hon. Member's Question. What I have to reply to is the second paragraph of the Question. As to what took place on the first imprisonment of Michael Davitt, I know nothing. It was not under my administration. But as to what took place in 1881–2 I will reply. The hon. Member asks whether Davitt was treated and dressed as a convict in Portland, or whether he received any exceptional indulgence. I will first answer that in the words of Davitt himself. He wrote a letter to me—very much to my surprise—immediately he was released from Portland. In it he says—
  "Learning since my release from Portland that I am indebted to you for whatever kind treatment I have received while incarcerated there, I beg you will accept this as an expression of my grateful acknowledgment of such kindness,"
  That is the first answer, and they are his thanks for the exceptional treatment he received. As it is a matter of some importance, I will tell the hon. Gentleman what the exceptional treatment was. Mr. Michael Davitt was arrested on February 4, a Friday, and I gave immediate directions that he was not to be treated as an ordinary convict, and I wish it to be quite understood that I acted on my own personal responsibility as Secretary of State, on the authority of the Prisons Act, by which the control of all prisons and prisoners is vested in and exercised by the Secretary of State. So that the Home Secretary is the prison authority. The Prison Commissioners are stated in, the 6th section to be appointed for the purpose of aiding the Secretary of State in carrying out the provisions of the Act, and in the 9th section they are ordered in the exercise of their powers

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  to conform to any directions of the Secretary of State which they may receive from time to time. Therefore I considered it my duty to determine and order how Mr. Davitt should be treated. I accordingly sent for Sir E. Du Cane, one of the ablest administrators I have ever come across, and told him what my views were, and desired him to communicate them to the Governor of Portland Prison. As far as my recollection goes, Sir E. Du Cane entirely coincided with my view, although I need hardly say, if he had not done so, he would have loyally carried it out. Mr. Davitt having been arrested upon the Friday, on the Monday, February 7, I was asked a Question in the House of Commons upon the subject, and I stated then that Mr. Davitt was to be removed to Portland, and was not to have his hair cut. The next thing I directed was that he should not be moved in his prison clothes. These, of course, were special directions in his case. Immediately upon his being removed to Portland, I had an application, which I also stated to the House—indeed, everything I did in this matter was stated to the House of Commons in the presence of a very experienced Home Secretary, Sir Richard Cross, who could have challenged my conduct if he had thought it open to observation. This application I refer to was made on February 11th, and was from a private friend of Mr. Davitt's, to see him. That was not allowed by the prison rules. I ought to have mentioned, when I referred to the Prisons Act, that the convict prisons are not under the Prisons Act, but the authority of the Secretary of State is the same; in fact, if it be possible, he has more absolute control over the convict prisons than he has over the ordinary prisons. This friend of Mr. Davitt's was the wife of an honoured and respected Member of this House, now unfortunately deceased, I mean the late Mr. A. M. Sullivan. Mrs. Sullivan wished to see Mr. Davitt, and I wished her to see Mr. Davitt for two reasons. I wanted his friends to be satisfied with his treatment, and I wanted to be satisfied with their report myself, and not merely with official reports. The constant communication, which passed between Mr. Sullivan and myself at that time were the foundation of a friendship which, I am sorry to say,
  1266
  lasted too short a time. Mrs. Sullivan visted Mr. Davitt, and from that moment down to a year after the imprisonment of Mr. Davitt there never was a question or complaint in this House as to his treatment. I ordered constant visits of his friends not allowable by prison rules, and there were other female friends of Mr. Davitt who wished to see him. [A laugh.] I do not see why hon. Members should laugh. I will tell you why I preferred that these ladies should visit him. I treated him as a political prisoner, and I said that I did not think it desirable that his political colleagues should visit him, but I wished his personal friends to do so. That was the distinction I drew. I ordered also that his own personal friend and medical adviser, Dr. Kennedy, should visit him. He did so, and reported to me constantly upon his condition, and I have those reports still. I said there were no further questions asked in the House of Commons until March 20th, more than a year after his imprisonment. On March 20th, 1882, I made a statement in this House of all the particulars of the treatment of Mr. Davitt. It is in Hansard, and my statement was made in the face of this House, so that my conduct could be challenged and I could, if necessary, be called to account. I said—
  "I not only wished to satisfy myself but also the friends of Mr. Davitt by allowing friends of his to visit him, and they have reported to me privately in a satisfactory manner. I could not give those private reports, but I see one of those visitors has published a letter in an American paper, in which he said:—'You will be glad to hear that Mr. Davitt is well, and that he has increased six pounds in weight since I last saw him, that he has no complaint to make, that he seems in wonderful spirits, and that he reads and writes every day.'"
  I had given orders that he should receive writing materials and whatever books he desired. This, of course, was contrary to all prison rules—
  "Mr. Davitt," his friend says, "is in the enjoyment of excellent health, and has nothing to complain of in his treatment. He is in as good spirits as if he were outside; satisfied with his diet and sleeping accommodation, and he takes an intense pleasure in the care of his garden."
  I wish to mention another thing. I ordered that he should not consort with any of the other convicts. I gave a direction that he should not be put to any disagreeable labour, and that

  1267
  he was to amuse himself in the garden; and his friend called it "his garden." As a fact, it was the Governor's garden which he so much enjoyed. "To wind up," his friend said, "we can say that his health has materially improved, and that he is now sound and strong." And I added at the time—
  "I thought that a man in his position would require mental as well as physical recreation, and, therefore, I have ordered that what books he wishes he should he allowed to use, and that he should have the use also of writing materials. These have been a great satisfaction to him. I have also permitted his friends to see him, and I do not think that they will take an improper advantage of that permission. This will allow his friends to satisfy themselves as to his condition."
  Then, Sir, a question was put to me by the hon. and learned Member for Longford—"Have you not refused him Hansard?" I confessed that I had not thought of that, and I gave the answer that—
  "If anyone likes to read Hansard he may do go as far as I am concerned. I should have thought that would have been an additional punishment."
  The only point on which Sir E. Du Cane expressed any doubt as to Mr. Davitt's treatment was as to whether Hansard should be allowed him. On consideration I thought that if Mr. Davitt wished to have Hansard for the purposes of the writing on which he was engaged, he should have Hansard, and he did have Hansard. That is the history of the prison treatment of Mr. Davitt upon which the hon. Member has asked a Question. Now, just to sum up what the exceptional treatment was, Mr. Davitt had a separate and comfortable room where he could read and write; he had a supply of writing materials and books, including Hansard; he was not allowed to consort with convicts; he had no irksome occupation, but occupied himself in an agreeable way in the garden; and he received visits from his friends. There is another point I ought to refer to, and that is with regard to the prison clothes. Now, I have already said that Mr. Davitt, when he was removed to Portland, was moved in his own clothes and not in prison clothess. I was not asked, I think, in this House, but I made a statement on this matter at the very beginning; and I said I thought prison clothes could not be dispensed with, because if he were allowed
  1268
  to wear his own clothes they might facilitate escape. From that time, as far as I can recollect, there was no question in this House, and I do not find that in any correspondence the matter of the prison clothes was pressed upon Mr. Davitt wore the prison clothes all the time he was at Portland; but if the matter had been pressed upon me, all I can say now is that, as in the case of Hansard. I think I should have dispensed with them. These are the facts of the case. When I was consulted by Lord Spencer as to the treatment of Irish prisoners I referred to the details of this case, and I recommended him in a letter that I have already read to the House to follow the example I had set. I thank the House for having enabled me to make this statement, I have told the hon. Member that my determination was that Mr. Davitt should not be treated as a convict, and he was not so treated. In that respect I followed, I believe, the course taken by my predecessors and by my successors; and if anybody had desired to challenge that course of conduct, it was stated in the House of Commons, and they had the opportunity here and at the time to do so. Having stated these facts as to the treatment of Mr. Davitt, I confess I was a little surprised—I am not going into details—at the tone of Mr. Davitt's letter on which this Question was founded; but I do not complain, because in these days one ought not to be surprised at anything.
  MR. MATTHEWS: I am afraid that the hon. Member will find my answer most uninteresting and jejune after the statement of the right hon. Gentleman. The right hon. Gentleman speaks from the fulness of his personal knowledge, while my answer contains only such particulars as I have been able to gather from the official sources at my command, Mr. Davitt, while at Portland in 1881–2, was clothed as a convict, but on medical grounds he was at once located in the infirmary in the usual course, and was there allowed such indulgences as were expressly recommended by the medical officer, including the use of books and writing materials. The Secretary of State himself verbally expressed the desire that every consideration should be shown to Mr. Davitt. While at Dartmoor in 1872 and subsequent years Mr. Davitt was employed as an ordinary convict, and had to assist, with five

  1269
  others, in drawing a cart with a yoke made of webbing placed on the shoulder and passed across the breast.
  MR. DE LISLE: Under whose Administration was Mr. Davitt first imprisoned, and who was Home Secretary at the time?
  MR. MATTHEWS: The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian was Premier in 1872, and Mr. Bruce, now Lord Aberdare, was Home Secretary.

  THE BANKRUPTCY ACT, 1883.
  COLONEL HILL: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether Trustees under the Bankruptcy Act, and the estates which they represent, are now put to considerable expense in disclaiming leasehold and other onerous property which is of no value to the debtor's estate, but which must be disclaimed in order to avoid personal liability; and, whether it is the intention of the Government to propose any amendment of the law with the view of diminishing such expense?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Sir MICHAEL HICKS BEACH,): The alterations in the law relating to the disclaimer of onerous property effected by Section 55 of the present Bankruptcy Act have undoubtedly been a serious source of expense to bankrupt estates, as has been pointed out in the Annual Reports presented to Parliament by the Board of Trade, and the Board of Trade are in communication with the Lord Chancellor on the subject, with the view of ascertaining whether any measures can be adopted to diminish such expense.

  IRELAND—MR. CECIL ROCHE, R. M.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland is it the fact that Mr. Cecil Roche, R.M., after presiding at the trial of Mr. Wm. O'Brien, M.P., at Killarney, proceeded with the accused to Tralee, and followed the vehicle containing the prisoner through the streets of Tralee; that Mr. Roche, finding the townspeople cheering Mr. O'Brien, ordered them to be prosecuted, and, in the case of at least one of them (Mr. M. Stack), swore a deposition before another Resident Magistrate (Capt. Welch); that upon Mr. Roche's evidence, Mr. Stack was sentenced to six months' im-
  1270
  prisonment, or to give bail for his good behaviour, for cheering for Mr. O'Brien; was this trial held in the police barracks, and was this legal under the Petty Sessions Act; can the deposition made by Mr. Roche be laid upon the Table; and, is there any precedent under the Crimes Act of 1882 for this blending of judicial and administrative functions by Resident Magistrates, or for their acting in this way in cases where they have sat as Judges?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am informed that Mr. Roche, on the occasion in question, accompanied on his way home Captain Welch, who was in charge of the forces, and who was going in the same direction. Mr. Roche did not take any part in the management of the forces, nor did he direct any prosecution. He did, when required to do so, give sworn testimony as to the riotous behaviour of Mr. Stack. Mr. Stack was ordered to find bail to be of good behaviour, or in default to be imprisoned. He found bail, as did the others charged on that occasion. I see no ground to adopt the unusual course suggested of laying the deposition on the table.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: The right hon. Gentleman has not answered the part of the Question which asks if the trial was held in the police barracks, and whether that was legal under the Petty Sessions Act?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Notice of the Question was not given me in time to get those particulars.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: It has been on the Paper the last two days. I will put it down for Monday. I beg also to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland why did Mr. Cecil Roche cease to be employed as Legal Sub-Commissioner under the Land Act, 1881, when he received £1,000 per annum travelling expenses; and, is it the case that since he was disemployed under the Land Commission other Legal Sub-Commissioners have been appointed by that body, although Mr. Roche's salary as Resident Magistrate is only £425 and allowances?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The appointment held by Mr. Roche as Legal Assistant Commissioner was an annual one. He was re-appointed by Lord Spencer no less than four times, and, I

  1271
  understand, was informed by all the heads of the Commission that they were perfectly satisfied with the manner in which he had discharged his duties. He was not appointed by the present Government as an Assistant Commissioner, nor did he subsequently seek to be so re-appointed. His present remuneration as a Resident Magistrate is £425 and allowances.

  IRISH NATIONAL TEACHERS.
  MR. PETER M'DONALDI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Poor Law Guardians of Clones and other Unions in Ireland have declined to certify to the Local Government Board, as required by the Probate Duties Act of 1888, that the contributory grant to National teachers is included under the head of "Salaries, &c." as they are empowered to do by that Statute; and, whether he, as head of the Local Government Board, will take steps to enforce this necessary requirement to be complied with, so that an equitable proportion of the Probate Duty Grant shall be applied to supplement the miserable salaries of National teachers in such Unions as do not otherwise become contributory?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The hon. Member appears to be under some misapprehension. By Section 3 of the Probate Duties (Scotland and Ireland) Act, 1888, the basis of the allocation of the grant is confined to the amount expended by the Guardians on the salaries and renumeration, &c, of the officers of the Union in connection with the relief of the poor or under the Medical Charities Act of 1851. Consequently, in making the allocation, no account can be taken of sums contributed or paid by the Guardians under the National School Teachers Act.

  PROVISIONAL ORDERS.
  SIR BERNHARD SAMUELSON: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board what steps are being taken by the Board in reference to making Provisional Orders, as directed by Section 52 of the Local Government Act of last Session, in the case of boroughs and sanitary districts in the same area, and when such Provisional Orders will be
  1272
  introduced for confirmation by Parliament?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL. GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. RITCHIE,): The Local Government Board have in each of the cases referred to directed a local inquiry by one of their inspectors, and the several inquiries have now been held. The preparation of the Orders which are required is being proceeded with, but before the Orders are issued the drafts will be forwarded to the local authorities. There will be no delay that can be avoided in submitting the Orders to Parliament for Confirmation.

  NATIONAL RIFLE ASSOCIATION—ACCOMMODATION FOR ANNUAL MEETINGS.
  MR. HANBURY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War what acreage of Government land the War Office has placed at the disposal of the National Rifle Association; for what portion of the year, for how many years, and upon what terms; and whether, as stated in the Times, it is the intention of the War Office to acquire control of Bisley Common and to place it together with the land it already holds at the disposal of the Association; and, if so, what is-the agreement or understanding with the Association as to Bisley Common?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. E. STANHOPE,): No detailed arrangements for the user of Government land have yet been made, as I have not yet received official intimation that the Brookwood site has been finally adopted. I have intimated informally to the Association that if they will grant the War Department the user over the land at Brookwood which they may purchase, I would take steps to extinguish the common rights over a wedge-shaped plot of Bisley Common which juts into War Department property, and allow the Association the user of it. Such an arrangement would add considerably to the ground in the neighbourhood of Aldershot available for military manœuvres.

  MARAUDING AT SIERRA LEONE
  SIR R. FOWLER: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for

  1273
  the Colonies whether he has received information as to a coroner's inquest held at Free Town, Sierra Leone, on February 1st last, on the body of the Chief, Gabanna Gombo, brought as a political prisoner from the Gallinas country, who died on January 26th; whether he is aware that it was alleged before the jury that the prisoner died of strangulation, having during four days been tied round the neck and other parts of his body with a rope, on the excuse that no handcuffs were available, and that the jury were only persuaded to pass a verdict of "death resulting from blood poisoning, the effect of ill-usage," on the coroner's promise that the facts of the case should be reported to the authorities with a recommendation that the police officers in charge of the prisoner be brought to justice; whether any action is being taken in accordance with this compromise; and whether he can acquaint the House with the circumstances under which a native chief who has for a long time been an ally of the British Government in its advances in the West Coast of Africa has been thus severely dealt with.
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES: This chief, who cannot correctly be styled a political prisoner, was conveyed as a prisoner to Sierra Leone, having been guilty of marauding and raiding a short time after he had been present at a meeting of chiefs when they were warned that such practices must cease. We have not heard officially of the inquest; but the Governor has reported the chief's death, owing to blood poisoning, in consequence of a wound caused by the rope with which he was secured. This treatment is very much to be regretted; and the Governor has issued a strict order to the police that as a rule handcuffs only should be used, and that when it is unavoidable to tie prisoners, great care should be taken that no injury or undue harshness is permitted; and that any remissness will be severely dealt with.
  DR. CLARK: Has anything been done to the police officers who dragged the man along with a rope; have they been suspended and tried, or are they still at work and in full pay?
  MR. PICTON: When the right hon. Gentleman says that an independent chief has been guilty of marauding, does he mean that the man was guilty of making war?
  BARON H. DE WORMS: I cannot give a definition of marauding.
  MR. WINTER BOTHAM: Will the right hon. Gentleman make inquiries as to what has been done to the policemen?
  DR. CLARK: May I call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to the third paragraph of the question, which he has not answered?
  BARON H. DE WORMS: I have given an answer. I said I have not heard of the inquest officially; until I do I cannot give the hon. Member any further information.

  LIVERPOOL BOARD OF CUSTOMS.
  MR. NEVILLE: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether his attention has been called to the action, at Liverpool in February last, of the Deputy-Chairman of the Board of Customs in ordering the immediate dissolution of the joint committee of the examining officers and outdoor officers of Customs, censuring the members of that committee and other officers, and ordering the removal to other posts of five examining officers and six outdoor officers; whether the committee had been guilty of any breach of existing regulations which justified such action; and, if not, whether he will instruct the Board of Customs to remove the censure passed on the officers and the interdict on their association; what was the reason of the removal of the officers from Liverpool; and whether they have been restored to their former positions?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. JACKSON,): I have received a Report from the Commissioners of Customs with reference to the hon. Member's Question. The Treasury does not interfere with matters of discipline in the Revenue Departments unless specially appealed to. In the present case I am informed that the Board of Customs had reason to believe that the committee referred to was organizing opposition throughout the service to the orders of the Board, and the Commissioners took steps for the dissolution of the committee

  1275
  and for the removal to other ports of certain officers. I am informed that several of the officers selected for removal petitioned to be allowed to remain at Liverpool, and that the Commissioners, their directions having been obeyed, have granted this request.

  THE ARREST OF DR. TANNER.
  MR. CONDONasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether it is true that, on the arrival of Dr. Tanner on Sunday morning last in Clonmel, a reporter of the Tipperary Nationalist sought admission to the railway station in his professional capacity, and was refused by the police; that he asked for the name of the sergeant in charge, and was also refused and told "to go to the devil"; and that, immediately after, the police charged and bâtoned him, inflicting several wounds; whether it is true that the policeman who committed the assault was fined 21s. at the Clonmel Petty Sessions, on Wednesday, 6th March; and, what notice the Government intends to take of this policeman's conduct?
  MR. JOHN ELLIS: I beg also to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether Constable Doyle, of the Royal Irish Constabulary, was fined 20s. and coats by the magistrates at Clonmel for unnecessarily using his bâton in Clonmel on the 3rd March, on the occasion of the arrival there of the hon. Member for Mid-Cork?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The Constabulary authorities report that it is the case that on the arrival of Dr. Tanner at Clonmel a cordon of police, which was keeping back a disorderly crowd, refused admitance to a reporter of the Tipperary Nationalist, as they could not let him through without giving an opportunity for others to force their way in also. The two sergeants in charge denied that they refused their names, or heard any offensive expression used to the reporter. The police did not charge until they were severely struck with stones, one constable being knocked down insensible. The reporter appears to have received a blow in the charge, but it is not true that a policeman was fined in respect to it. A man who was arrested in another part of the town, when in the act of picking up a stone,
  1276
  and who resisted arrest, was in the mêlee struck with a bâton. For this he summoned Constable Doyle, who was fined in the Borough Court, from which, however, he has appealed.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Will the right hon. Gentleman say how it is the police took upon themselves the right to exclude persons from the railway station? Does the railway station belong to the police, or is it not private property belonging to a Limited Liability Company?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The police have a right to prevent a disorderly mob entering the railway station upon an occasion like that referred to in the Question.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Does the railway station belong to the police, or to a Company?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have no official knowledge as to whom it belongs to.

  IRELAND—MR. JOHNSON.
  MR. M'CARTAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether Mr. Johnson, who was formerly employed as sub-agent in a landlord's office where Mr. Commissioner Wrench was then the landlord's rent agent, has been promoted to an important office in the Land Commission at a salary of £500 a year; whether Mr. Johnson some time ago appeared before the Sub-Commission, instructing the landlord's solicitor against the fair rent applications of the tenants; whether he is now, or was lately, in charge of that department of the Land Commission which has custody of and control over the lists of prices and the reports furnished by the scrutineers, &c., for the purpose of altering or revising the judicial rents; and, why Mr. Johnson was promoted over the heads of the four Registrars appointed in 1881, and in preference to them and to others in the Land Commission, who were led to believe that they would be treated as Civil Service officials?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: He was employed in the office; I do not know whether as a sub-agent. He has not been appointed to a place of £500 a year. He gets £1 1s. a week, and his place is temporary. The answer to the second and third paragraph is in the

  1277
  negative. His duties are confined to clerical and arithmetical work. He has not been promoted over the head of anyone. The Registrars alluded to have much better places. No officials of the Land Commission have been given to understand that they will be treated as Civil Servants.

  IRISH BANKS.
  MR. SEXTON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland what were the circumstances under which the Board of Guardians of the North Dublin Poor Law Union recently applied to the Irish Local Government Board to sanction the substitution of the Munster and Leinster Bank for the Bank of Ireland, as treasurer of the Union: whether the Local Government Board maintain their refusal to sanction the substitution desired by the Guardians; and, whether a copy of the correspondence will be laid upon the Table?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: As regards paragraphs 1 and 2, I beg to refer the hon. Member to the reply given by me yesterday to a Question on this subject put by the hon. Member for Dublin County, North. With respect to paragraph 3, I do not see that any public advantage would be gained by following the course suggested. The correspondence is in the hands of the Guardians of the Union, and has already obtained publicity.
  MR. SEXTON: As I intend to raise the Question on a future occasion, would it not be of advantage that all the facts contained in the correspondence should be in the hands of Members?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I will consider the point.

  THE SPECIAL COMMISSION.
  MR. GILL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant whether Head Constable Preston, in visiting certain prisoners in Millbank without direction from any one, was acting on his own responsibility?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The answer is in the affirmative.
  MR. GILL: Is it the custom to allow a constable to rove about English gaols for the purpose of seeing prisoners?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: If the hon. Member asks me the Question, I do not
  1278
  know anything about the circumstances, but I have no doubt it is in accordance with the English practice.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: As Preston is an Irish Constable, will the right hon. Gentleman tell us what he is doing in England?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I believe I have answered before that Head Constable Preston was in London on subpoena from the Commission.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Does that give him the right to visit gaols, and do the Government approve of a constable brought over here to give evidence taking other duties and functions on himself and visiting prisoners in gaols in the interests of the Times?
  MR. A. J. BALFOURdid not reply.
  MR. GILL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, in what capacity did Head Constable Preston visit certain prisoners in Mill-bank; was his application for leave to visit them made in writing; and, in virtue of what consideration or authority was it that Preston was held entitled to have his application to visit these prisoners granted?
  MR. MATTHEWS: Head Constable Preston visited the prisoner Tracy on two occasions as the representative of Mr. Soames. The application was made in writing on the first occasion. The second visit was allowed on personal application. The applications were granted in accordance with the usual practice, which I have more than once explained.
  MR. SEXTON: Was the prisoner Tracy asked in advance whether these visits were acceptable?
  MR. MATTHEWS: I think I have answered that Question once or twice before, but I really do not carry these particulars in my mind.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: The right hon. Gentleman says that on the occasion of the first visit a written application was made. Who made the written application?
  MR. MATTHEWS: The written application was from Mr. Soames.
  MR. GILL: I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has any objection to lay the written application on the Table of the House; and I wish to ask the Chief Secretary under what understanding a Head Constable of the Royal Irish Constabulary is authorized

  1279
  to act as the representative of Mr. Soames?
  MR. A. J. BALFOURdid not reply.
  MR. M'CARTAN: May I ask the Chief Secretary whether we are now to understand that it was not correct, as he stated, that Preston went to visit Tracy on behalf of the Government to find who was tampering with him?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I believe that to be perfectly and absolutely accurate. I stated that this constable, who was over here on subpoena, did ask Mr. Soames to get leave to visit this prisoner, and I also informed the House that the object with which he visited him was for the purpose I then indicated.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: May I now ask the right hon. Gentleman if he approves of the Irish Constabulary acting on the initiative of Mr. Soames in visiting these prisoners?
  MR. A. J. BALFOURdid not answer.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I will put the Question again. Does the right hon. Gentleman approve of Head Constable Preston, of the Royal Irish Constabulary, acting for Mr. Soames in this matter?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I did not catch whether the hon. and learned Gentleman addressed his Question to me or to the Home Secretary.
  MR. T. M. HEALYintimated that he addressed the Question to the Chief Secretary.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I will give my answer. I do not think any general rule can be laid down as to what is proper or improper in the matter. [Ironical cheers.] I repeat, I do not think any general rule can be laid down as to what is proper or improper in the actions of constables in the matter to which the hon. and learned Member has referred. It depends upon the circumstances of the case. For my own part, I will lay down no other general propositions on the subject than those I have already stated to the House on more than one occasion; but, as a matter of fact, I believe in this case the constable in question was not acting as agent for the Times. I stated so yesterday.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Who was he acting for then?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: One hon. Gentleman has already referred to the answer which I gave to a similar Ques-
  1280
  tion yesterday. That answer was given in precise accordance with the information conveyed to me. I still believe it to be accurate.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: As the right hon. Gentleman has stated that Constable Preston, in visiting the prisoner on a letter from Mr. Soames, was not acting for Mr. Soames or the Times, will he be good enough to state if he was acting for the Government; and will he be good enough to state whether the Government were aware that he was so acting for them?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have already stated that this constable acted entirely on his own responsibility, and the Government were not cognizant of it. But I may remind the House that the circumstances under which any constable visited Tracy were these: Tracy, when in Ireland, volunteered information of a very serious and a very important character connected with crime in Ireland. He was at that time in one of the local gaols—Sligo, I think—
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: Castlebar.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Yes. He was then denounced in the local Roman Catholic chapel as an informer. Thereupon he was removed to Belfast, and in Belfast also police—I am not sure whether this particular constable, but members of the Police Force—again visited him, with a view of seeing whether he would pursue and complete the confession—complete the statement; and I conceive that the police were unquestionably not only doing their duty, but were doing that which, if they had not done, they would have been guilty of a very grave dereliction of duty. I am informed that when the prisoner was brought over to London on the subpoena of the Times he asked to see Head Constable Preston. He either made the request in London or just before he left Belfast; and the Head Constable, I believe, went to the prisoner in consequence of the request of the Treasury—his object being, as I have stated, to elicit, so far as he could, the truth of this matter from the man, and to see what means had been used to tamper with him; and the fact that he got permission to go and see the prisoner through Mr. Soames, who was the instrument through which he had been brought to London as a witness, appears to me to be immaterial.
  SIR W. HARCOURT: The right hon. Gentleman has made a long statement, but he has not answered. ["Oh, oh!"] I do not complain at all: but what I am going to point out is—
  MR. E. STANHOPE: Oh, oh!
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Hear, hear!
  SIR W. HARCOURT: It is only the Secretary of State for War. What I was going to point out was that the right hon. Gentleman has not answered the Question put to him—namely, Did Constable Preston go into this prison on behalf of the Times or on behalf of the Government; and if he did not go on behalf of either, I think we must ask the Home Secretary by what right Irish constables go into English prisons on roving commissions of this kind?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I think I have answered that point, Sir. I have stated that I believe this Head Constable acted on his own responsibility. It appears to me he acted perfectly rightly. Tracy was already giving very interesting and important information to the Government, and this man was perfectly right to try and follow it out.
  MR. SEXTON: In reference to the statement just made that while Tracy was in Castlebar he was publicly denounced in the Roman Catholic Chapel, as he had turned informer, I beg to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether his attention has been drawn to a letter of the Rev. Patrick Lyons, P.P., of Castlebar, who is Chaplain of the prison, in which he states:—
  "I feel it my imperative duty to give that statement an emphatic and unqualified contradiction. It is utterly and absolutely untrue that Tracy's name was mentioned either directly or indirectly, under any circumstances whatsoever, either in the Prison Chapel or the Parish Church at Castlebar."
  I would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he now withdraws the statement.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: No, Sir; I do not withdraw my statement. I cannot recollect the name of the chapel at this moment, but I know it is not in the parish church to which the hon. Gentleman refers. Of course I am quite open to correction, but so far no reason has been stated in this House by the right hon. Gentleman to induce me to believe I am wrong.
  MR. SEXTONrose to put a further Question, but—
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! I think any further Questions should be put on the paper. The supplementary Questions are becoming very numerous.
  MR. SEXTON: As a personal explanation, I wish to state that I quoted from the verbatim report of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman in which Castlebar Church is mentioned.
  MR. COBB: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether there is any precedent for the course which has been taken with reference to the visit of the agent of the Times to Nally in Mill-bank; and, if so, whether he will give the date, names, and circumstances relating to the last precedent?
  MR. MATTHEWS: I have already stated that the course followed was in accordance with the usual and frequent practice. It is quite unnecessary that I should refer to precedents.
  MR. COBB: Can the right hon. Gentleman not give one similar case?
  MR. MATTHEWS: I can give many; but, inasmuch as the Question appears to throw doubt on my veracity, I decline to do so.
  MR. LALOR: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether Delaney, the Invincible convict, was accorded any special privileges; and in virtue of which of the prison rules was it that he was exempt from the compulsion to wear prison dress, and to have his beard and moustache shorn when he appeared to give evidence at the Special Commission?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: As I have already stated to the House, Delaney was accorded no special privileges whatever. I am informed he was brought over from Ireland in private clothes, in pursuance of the discretion exercised by the General Prisons Board, which was responsible for seeing that the convict was safely produced in Court in compliance with the order of the three Judges.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department upon whose authority or instructions he stated that Mr. Anderson, of the Home Office, would give evidence before the Special Commission; and if Mr. Anderson has been absent from

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  duty on the 7th of March through illness?
  MR. MATTHEWS: Mr. Anderson himself informed me that he was under notice to give evidence before the Royal Commission. He has not been absent through illness.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: The right hon. Gentleman stated in his answer previously that Mr. Anderson had been subpoenaed. Upon what authority did he state that Mr. Anderson would be produced? If Mr. Anderson was not absent through illness, why did the Attorney General ask for an adjournment because one of the witnesses was sick?
  MR. MATTHEWS: I cannot answer for the conduct of the case by the Attorney General in asking for an adjournment. I fail to see the distinction set up by the hon. Member. If Mr. Anderson is produced he will give evidence.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether District Inspector Newall, of Tralee, has been in attendance at the Commission Court for several months, was only examined on 28th January, and is still here in constant communication with the Times solicitor; whether Sergeant Faucett, of Cork, Head Constable Stretton, of Listowel, and Acting Sergeant C. O'Brien, of Tralee, were examined before the Christmas adjournment, but are still here, and in constant communication with Mr. Soames; whether Constable Kenny, Listowel, has been for months attending the Commission in plain clothes, but has never been called, and is in constant communication with Mr. Soames; whether Sergeant Clark, of Tralee, was examined on 13th December and is still here; whether Superintendent Mallon, of Dublin, has been here since the Commission began, or for several months, and has never been called; whether District Inspector Webb, Kilkenny, came over shortly after the Commission opened, and was only examined on 6th March to prove the arrest of Mr. Redmond, being meanwhile in constant communication with Mr. Soames; whether Detective Sergeant Humphreys, of Queenstown, was brought over, kept here for several weeks, never examined, and only allowed to return a few days ago after several consultations with Mr.
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  Soames; whether eight Royal Irish Constabulary men in uniform, ten Royal Irish Constabulary men in plain clothes, five District Inspectors of Royal Irish Constabulary, and four members of Dublin Metropolitan Police in plain clothes are still here without being examined, although the Commission was obliged to adjourn till Tuesday for want of witnesses; whether they or any of them have been in frequent consultation with the Times advisers; what are they doing in London if they are not to be called; and why do not police witnesses who have been examined return to their duties in Ireland?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The necessary inquiry regarding the various officials is being made; but, as several of those referred to have already left London, it is impossible to give full details before Monday. All witnesses return to their duties in Ireland immediately upon being permitted to do so.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I understood from the right hon. Gentleman the other day that there is a Sub-Inspector in London in charge of the policemen over from Ireland; and, after all, it is only a shilling fare from the Home Office to the office of Mr. Soames.
  MR. M'CARTAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, with reference to the Times witness Tracy, who was removed some months ago from Belfast Gaol to Millbank, whether he can state on what grounds the Irish Prisons Board refused the application made on his behalf to have an interview with his solicitor without the presence of a warder, though officers of the Constabulary were allowed to visit him alone; whether he is aware that Tracy alleges that County Inspector Melling and District Inspector Gibbons, during their private interview with him at Belfast Gaol, wanted him to swear against the honourable Member for South Mayo and Father O'Malley, P.P., The Neale, county Mayo, in connection with a conspiracy to murder, and that Tracy was then threatened with continued imprisonment when he refused to swear against either of these gentlemen, on the ground that such an oath would be absolutely false; whether Head Constable Preston, on the occasion of his last visit to Tracy at Millbank, further pressed him to consent to swear against these two gentlemen, and promised him

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  his liberty if he would attend the Special Commission and swear accordingly; whether Tracy, having again refused to swear falsely as required, was told by Preston that be would not be called as a witness; whether these officers of police were the only persons who held communication with Tracy on behalf of the Times; and, whether, considering the serious nature of the allegations made by Tracy as to threats and promises of reward held out to him by the police officers who visited him at Belfast, in the event of his refusing or consenting to swear as instructed at the Special Commission, he will grant an independent inquiry into all the circumstances in connection with these visits, and as to the communications made to him by the police at and since his removal from Castlebar Gaol?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The ground for refusing the application was that Tracy had no legal case pending. Under the circumstances there did not appear to be any necessity for an interview. I am not aware that Tracy made any such allegations as are contained in the second paragraph of the Question, and if he has done so they are untrue. The allegations in the third and fourth paragraphs against Preston are also untrue. If by paragraph 5 it is intended to be conveyed that these police officers held communication with Tracy on behalf of the Times, I have already stated that they did not do so. As to the last paragraph, I do not see any necessity for granting such an inquiry.
  MR. M'CARTAN: If a statement in writing by Tracy of the character indicated is produced, will the right hon. Gentleman grant an inquiry?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Of course, I should be glad to consider that or any other communication, but such a statement would not of itself be adequate ground for an inquiry.

  IRELAND—REV. FATHER CLARKE.
  MR. WILIAM CORBET: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, (1) whether the Reverend Father Clarke, now undergoing sentence in Wexford Gaol has undergone the two terms of punishment on bread and water imposed on him by the governor of the gaol for refusing to take exercise with the
  1286
  ordinary prisoners; and (2), whether it is the fact that a number of prisoners convicted of disgraceful crimes, pickpockets, burglars, and others have been transferred from Dublin to Wexford, and is it intended to require the Reverend Father Clarke to take exercise in the same yard and at the same time with such criminals?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: As regards the inquiry in the first paragraph, I beg to refer the hon. Member to my reply of yesterday on this subject. I may, how-ever, add that I am informed that one of the terms of punishment was remitted on medical grounds. With respect to the inquiry in paragraph 2, time has not admitted of the receipt of a Report, a local reference being necessary.

  LOCAL TAXATION IN COUNTIES.
  SIR J. DORINGTON: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he is in a position to state when the first instalment from the local taxation account will be paid to counties, and what proportion it is likely to bear to the whole amount payable in the course of the year, and also at what periods similar instalments will be paid, such information being necessary to enable County Councils to arrange their Budgets?
  MR. RITCHIE: I have under consideration the arrangements which it may be practicable to make for the distribution of the licence duties and the proportion of the probate duty payable to local authorities, and I am anxious, so far as possible, to meet the convenience of the authorities in this matter. I am endeavouring to arrange that an instalment shall be paid in July, and a second instalment in October or November, the two together making up an amount not much less than one-half of the sum which it is estimated that the authorities will be entitled to receive in the course of the year.

  COAL MINE CERTIFICATES.
  CAPTAIN HEATHCOTE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he is now able to say whether the additional certificates of fitness now in be possession of the Home Office entitle Isaac Dale, Thomas Oswald,

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  William Butcher, Thomas Scragg, Joseph Brindley, Caleb Johnson, and James Lloyd to receive Second Class Certificates under section 80 of "The Coal Mines, &c. Regulation Act, 1887?"
  MR. MATTHEWS: In the case of Isaac Dale, William Butcher, and Thomas Scragg, certificates of fitness under the Coal Mines Regulation Act will be granted. No certificate can be given in the case of Thomas Oswald, as I find on inquiry that the applicant's previous service did not substantially correspond to that of an under-manager of a mine. The inquiries into the merits of the applications of Joseph Brindley, Caleb Johnson, and James Lloyd are not yet completed.

  POSTAGE TO AUSTRALIA.
  MR. HENNIKER HEATON: I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether he can explain why newspapers four ounces in weight are charged 1½d. to Ceylon, but only 1d. to Sydney, Australia, 5,000 miles further, and although the Australian mail steamers of the Penninsular and Oriental Company call at Ceylon?
  THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (Mr. RAIKES,): Ceylon is in the Postal Union, and consequently the postage rates on newspapers for that Colony are governed by the Union regulations. Newspapers sent viâ Brindisi to all places in the Union are charged 1½d. for four ounces. The Australian Colonies, on the other hand, are not within the Union, and under an arrangement made with them in 1880, when the Southampton route for mails to Australia was abandoned, it was agreed that the old long sea rate of 1d. should continue to be charged on newspapers for Australia, notwithstanding the fact that they would be forwarded in future by the quicker and more expensive route of Brindisi. I need hardly say that this was a very advantageous arrangement for the Australian Colonies.
  MR. HENNIKER HEATON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that France, which is also in the Postal Union, charges 50 per cent less than England for letters and newspapers to our British Colony of Ceylon. May I ask, too, what excuse the British Postal Authorities give for taking advantage of a clause in the Postal Union for doubling
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  the rates to Ceylon, and whether England cannot withdraw from the Postal Union by giving six months' notice.?
  MR. RAIKES: I must have notice of the Question.

  DINIZULU.
  MR. WALTER M'LAREN: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has had notice of the fact that an appeal is now pending before the Privy Council upon the question of the validity of the warrant by virtue of which the Zululand officials claim the right to try Cetshwayo's son, Dinuzulu, by the Special Commission now sitting in Zululand; whether the Lord Chancellor, upon the occasion of the Privy Council granting leave for the said appeal, used these words with reference to such notice, viz.: "Anybody who with notice proceeds to try him (Dinizulu) now would be guilty of a very grave dereliction of duty;" and whether he has reason to fear that this warning will be disregarded?
  BARON H. DE WORMS: No appeal is actually pending; but leave to appeal has been granted. The jurisdiction of the Special Commission to try Dinizulu does not depend upon the validity of the warrant for his removal from Natal. I am informed that the Lord Chancellor did use the words in question; but he was under the impression that if the trial proceeded and sentence of death were passed, Dinizulu might be executed before the appeal could be heard. This, however, is not the case, as distinct instructions have been long ago sent to the Governor that no sentence passed on any of the accused chiefs is to be carried out until the proceedings have been reviewed by the Secretary of State. I may also add that the Governor reported to the Secretary of State that further postponement of the trial was most undesirable and possibly dangerous; and that delay had already caused apprehension, and created a bad impression on the well-disposed. In these circumstances the Secretary of State considered it proper that the trial should proceed.

  THE MURDER OF DISTRICT INSPECTOR MARTIN.
  SIR J. SWINBURNE: I beg to ask the Chief

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  Secretary for Ireland whether it is the case that the peasantry of Donegal during the past three weeks have been pursued by constables of the Royal Irish Constabulary with loaded firearms?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I suppose the hon. Member refers to the persons accused of being concerned in the murder of District Inspector Martin. In reply, I have to say that they have been pursued.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  DR. CAMERON: Mr. Speaker, I rise to a point of order with reference to the business of this evening. In the Orders of the Day circulated among hon. Members no effective Supply is set down, and no notice is given of any particular class of Estimates to be gone on with. Hon. Members have made their arrangements accordingly. On the paper which we got on coming down to the House I find that effective Supply is set down, and the point of order I wish to put is whether we are to be guided by the paper distributed this morning, which may or may not be in accordance with the Notices given last night, or by the amended paper distributed this afternoon?
  MR. JACKSON: I am very sorry that a mistake has occurred in reference to the notice paper circulated among Members. It was an entirely accidental omission, and was discovered too late to stop the circulation of the paper. The mistake was corrected in the white paper laid on the Table of the House. There was no fault on the part of anybody, the mistake being entirely accidental.
  DR. CAMERON: But the point is rather an important one. If there has been a mistake on the part of the hon. Gentleman or of the clerks in noting the procedure of the House, and if there has afterwards been an informal interpolation in a second edition of the notice paper, I take it that that will not constitute a valid expression of the Orders of the House, and I ask for the Speaker's ruling on the point.
  MR. SPEAKER: A mistake has evidently been made, but I am bound to say that under the circumstances the notice of effective Supply is insufficient.

  HER MAJESTY'S SHIP "SULTAN."
  LORD C. BERESFORD: I wish to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the Government can give the House any information as to the abandonment of the Sultan?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Lord G. HAMILTON,): I will read to the House the telegrams which I have received on this subject. Yesterday afternoon I received from the Commander-in-Chief at Malta a telegram to the following effect:—
  "Sultan on shore, Comino Channel. I have been on board. Ship has made some water. In my opinion she can be safely got off by lightening. I am proceeding with Alexandra and other ships this evening."
  Late in the evening I received a further telegram stating—
  "Damage to Sultan greater than I anticipated. Fear there is little hope of saving the ship."
  The last telegram from the Commander-in-Chief, which was despatched this morning, is as follows:—
  "Thursday night.—Have reduced water in Sultan by employing German salvage ship Berger Wilhelm. There may still be a possibility of saving her when further appliances preparing are used to-morrow morning. I remain directing proceedings."
  The Commander-in-Chief has been directed to report whether any assistance can be sent from England. We have not yet received his reply. I may say that the last telegram from the Commander-in-Chief is confirmed by a subsequent telegram through Reuter's agency. It is dated March 8th, 11.40 a.m., and says:—
  "The position of the Sultan remains unchanged, and she is now full of water. The salvage steamer Berger Wilhelm is alongside, working her centrifugal pumps, and gaining slightly on the water. The other vessels of the Mediterranean Squadron, under the command of the Duke of Edinburgh, are doing their utmost to render assistance, and the prospect of saving the Sultan is now better than it was yesterday. The accident occurred during torpedo practice."

  THE PROPOSED INCREASE OF THE NAVY.
  MR. CHILDERS: After the statements made last night on the subject of the Navy by the First Lord of the Admiralty and the Chan-

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  cellor of the Exchequer, I asked the noble Lord whether he would lay on the Table certain information. The first thing I asked for was a statement as to the waste of ships in the Fleet; the second was a statement as to the effect of what was known as Lord Northbrook's scheme since it was adopted; and the third was a statement in print of the figures contained in the noble Lord's speech. Will the noble Lord give the House that information?
  LORD G. HAMILTON: I have directed the first two statements mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman to be prepared, and I will circulate the third statement for which the right hon. Gentleman asks in the course of 24 hours.

MOTIONS.

  SUPPLY—MORNING SITTINGS.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH,), in rising to move, "That until Easter whenever the Committee of Supply is appointed for Tuesday or Thursday the House shall meet at 2 of the clock. At such Morning Sittings the Committee of Supply shall be the principal business, and the provisions of Standing Order 56 shall be extended to Tuesday, The Motion appointing the next Sitting of the Committee of Supply may be taken at any hour, though opposed," said: During the past 20 years the difficulties which have been experienced by the House itself in regard to the discussion of the Estimates have been considerable. I remember, in previous years, to have taken part in the objections urged in the House against the practice of asking for repeated Votes on Account, and have myself deplored the delay connected with the business of Committee of Supply in many Sessions of Parliament. I believe that every Government, without exception, has been most anxious to take steps to remedy that acknowledged evil, and make a serious attempt to grapple with it. Various Select Committees have from time to time been appointed to consider whether better arrangements cannot be made for that purpose. A strong Committee in 1885 gave the question a great amount of consideration; but they were unable to arrive at a conclusion which offered any
  1292
  hope of affording the relief desired in regard to the despatch of public business. Last Session, again, a Committee, of which the noble Lord the Member for Rossendale (the Marquess of Hartington) was Chairman, very seriously considered the question. It has been suggested that a Standing Committee might be appointed to deal with the questions involved in the voting of Supply; but no conclusion has been adopted which will be sufficient to justify the House in making any very considerable departure from the present form of procedure in Committee of Supply. I think that anyone who looks back to our past experience must feel that many of the discussions in Committee of Supply have not been of a businesslike or satisfactory character, and that it is very desirable, if possible, that questions involved in Votes of Supply should be considered by an authoritative body, which will aid the House and the Government in arriving at a satisfactory result. But no such suggestion has been made in any form that gives the slightest hope that it is likely to be accepted by the House, and, therefore, the Government are forced to fall back on the existing system, with such modifications as are found to be practicable. Under the present practice the pressure of public business has driven the voting of Supply to a late period of the Session, and the very prolonged discussions on certain Votes has led to other Votes having afterwards to be passed with a slight amount of consideration. Now, if it should be decided that the Government must appropriate the ordinary Government days, Mondays and Thursdays, to Committee of Supply, it will result in this—that, taking yesterday, the 7th of March, as the first day of Committee of Supply this Session, every Monday and Thursday up to the end of July will be absorbed by Committee of Supply. That is assuming the business of Supply to occupy as much of our time as it did in the Sessions of 1887 and 1888. I wish to show that some change is absolutely necessary if the House is to give proper consideration to the business of Supply. I do not doubt that hon. Members themselves may effect a considerable change in our progress with the Votes if they slightly condense their speeches in Committee of Supply and proportion their observations to the im-

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  portance of the items discussed. I remember that in former years both sides of the House approached Supply in a perfect impartial spirit, with a desire to assist the progress of business, and with much lees of that kind of discussion which tends to delay it. But I do not wish to say anything to protract this discussion. I am only anxious to invite the attention of the House to a most grave and important question, and to recommend it to accept the proposal of the Government, by which I hope we shall be better able to get through the business of the country, and to abate what has amounted to something like a public scandal. In proposing that Supply should be taken at the Morning Sittings of Tuesday and Thursday, I fully recognize that it must be reserved to the House, to the Government, and to the Opposition itself to require a different appropriation of the time of the House for special reasons; but I trust that, if the Resolution is passed, we shall at least endeavour to make the best use of the time so appropriated for the purpose of making progress with Supply, and so rendering Votes on Account less necessary than they have been in the past. It is not necessary to discuss the matter historically, and therefore, I will only say that I prefer to begin the Session this way rather than at a later period to have to make appeals for concessions, which then take the character of a much more complete absorption of the time of private Members than I now desired to make. The absorption of the whole time of the House by the Government has been necessary in the public interest, but it is an exceedingly unsatisfactory condition of things, and it is one which I hope may be avoided by the assistance of Members on both sides of the House. If we can only find a method of dealing with the problem before us in a business-like manner—in something like the manner in which other great Assemblies transact theirs, I think we may accomplish even better results with a saving of time. I beg to move the Resolution.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That until Easter, whenever the Committee of Supply is appointed for Tuesday or Thursday, the House shall meet at Two of the clock. At such Morning Sittings the Committee of Supply shall he the principal Business, and the
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  provisions of Standing Order 56 shall he extended to Tuesday. The Motion appointing the next Sitting of the Committee of Supply may he taken at any hour, though opposed."—(Mr. William Henry Smith.)
  SIR W. HARCOURT: I am very sorry the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian is not able to be present to-day, but I am sufficiently acquainted with the views of the right hon. Gentleman to be able to answer the Leader of the House. I will not dispute that the condition of business in the House is unsatisfactory, and that it has been so for a long time; but I am afraid that the Opposition and the Government will not agree as to the causes of that unsatisfactory condition; and the remedy I would recommend would be very much wider and broader than Motions of this kind. We have been promised over and over again that the House of Commons shall have plenty of time to deal with all the subjects it desires to discuss, because in a certain portion of the United Kingdom the success of the Government's administration has been such that there is really no question of difficulty there. If that were so we need not anticipate any discussions upon that subject; but I am not so sanguine, and I am afraid that there are difficulties that will still lead to a good deal of discussion. It is true that proposals were made in former times for dealing with the Estimates. In 1886 there was a Committee on the subject, presided over by the noble Lord the Member for Rossendale, and the Government then made proposals for dealing with the Estimates, but they were rejected by the friends of the right hon. Gentleman, and mainly through the opposition of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. No doubt the Estimates occupied more time last year than in former years, but the obvious reason was that the Government took the whole time of the House. The consequence has been that the utmost ingenuity has been employed to find in Committee of Supply opportunities for discussion which cannot be had in any other way. It is for the same reason that the Debate on the Address has become, of late years, so protracted. The Government is now asking for a limited sacrifice of the time of private Members. I understand the present Motion only asks for the time of the House till Easter, and, of course,

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  it is on that footing, and on that footing alone, that we have to deal with this proposal. I quite admit the great difficulty in which the Government are placed at this moment is partly owing to the late commencement of the Session, with reference to Votes in Supply which must be obtained before a certain date. To the limited demand made for the purpose of enabling legal conditions to be fulfilled I have no opposition to offer; and I am glad to hear the right hon. Gentleman say that the enforcement of the Resolution must be subject to the condition of allowing time for the discussion of questions that may be raised by the Opposition. For I contemplate that we shall have grave matters to bring before the House, and I desire that they shall be submitted to the House at the earliest possible moment. On the Vote on Account we shall desire to challenge the conduct of the Executive Government in this country and in Ireland. There are questions to be raised with regard to the conduct of the principal Law Officer of the Crown and with regard to Irish magistrates and constables; and these are matters which might be properly discussed on the Vote on Account. There is also another matter, which it would be premature to refer to, but upon which it will be our duty to ask for the opinion of the House. I will be no party to limiting the liberties of private Members, but I will not oppose the facilities asked for by the Government in the special circumstances, and under the necessary conditions which have been recognized by the Leader of the House.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I certainly did not expect that we should have any assistance from the Front Bench below me in resisting this demand of the Government; the Front Benches invariably agree in the attempt to absorb the time of private Member. I do not believe there is anyone in the House but is anxious that the discussions in Supply should be more frequent and more efficient than they have been in the past, but I do not believe the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman will tend to that result. There are two strong objections to it; in the first place it is an unwarranted infringement of the rights of private Members; and, secondly, it will cause an undue prolongation of the
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  Sittings of the House without adequate reason shown for it. The right hon. Gentleman says let us meet at 2 o'clock, but he forgot to remind us that when we do so we sit until 1 o'clock the next morning. In regard to private Members, I am bound to say that I may be somewhat partial in this matter, because I have for the first time after four or five years of membership had the satisfaction of drawing the first place for the coming Tuesday, and now the Government propose to take away my ewe lamb. I naturally resent it. But the right hon. Gentleman tells us that we may have our discussions in the evening, but every Member knows perfectly well that unless the matter is one combining Radicalism with amusement, such, for instance, as the reform of the House of Lords, it is impossible for a private Member to make or keep a House after five hours' work and the two hours' interval, and practically it comes to this, that the Government secure five hours for official work, the House is counted at 9 o'clock, and you, Sir, have an opportunity of going to bed at a reasonable time. I must say, if the Government are to make a proposal in reference to Tuesdays, it would be much better for them to be bold, and to say the exigencies of the time require us to take the whole day. As it is, they only get five hours, and the rest of the time is almost certain to be wasted. I would much rather see them get a good night of the ordinary hours for Supply than see this time wasted. It is perfectly true that one reason why there is so much time absorbed in Motions on the Estimates, on adjournments and discussions in Supply, is that the Government are always intruding on the rights of private Members. If private Members cannot get these rights in meal they will have them in malt. I do not believe this appropriation of Tuesdays will save any of the time of the House, because Members who find themselves counted out will take care to raise questions in which they are interested on the Estimates or in some other way. The right hon. Gentleman says he only asks this now in order to save the absorption of time of private Members later on in the Session. I never yet heard a Government make this proposal, without saying that they do it to

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  safeguard future rights; and after Easter we shall find the Government ready with another proposal to absorb more of our rights. So much in regard to Tuesday. But I do want to ask what in the world is the reason for making this proposal in reference to Thursdays? It simply comes to this—that instead of sitting from 3 to 12 we shall sit from 2 to 7, and from 9 to 1. Why, we all know perfectly well and I should have thought the right hon. Gentleman would know, that the best time to get through business, especially Supply, is just those two hours about dinner-time. We shall have, instead of nine consecutive hours, a division into five hours and four hours—the first period taken up by the front benches, and a great part of the second. What possible gain can be expected I cannot see. The number of hours will be exactly the same, and hon. Members will be inconvenienced by having the hour in the morning and the hour after 12 o'clock added, or one hour at each end, the Government losing two hours, and those the two best hours, in the middle. I protest most emphatically against the proposal—not that we do not desire that Supply should be adequately discussed, but we object at this early period—the third week of the Session—to private Members' rights being ruthlessly invaded; and the proposal as to Thursday is one of the most extraordinary with reference to business that any Government—even a Conservative Government—ever made to the House.
  MR. E. T. REID: I will not prolong the debate beyond a few words. Certainly I am somewhat disappointed that my right hon. Friend (Sir W. Harcourt) has taken the course he has taken; for, although I have every confidence in him upon other matters, I have not on this subject—the protection of the rights of private Members. Now, what is the situation? At the very beginning of the Session, and with no special circumstances to justify them, the Government takeaway a considerable portion of private Members' time down to Easter; and if they do it now, I do not see why they should not do it at the commencement of every Session. There are important questions which hon. Members desire to raise; for example, the hon. Member for West Nottingham has a Motion in reference
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  to the condition of the poor in our great cities. Last year his opportunity was taken away in this manner, and now it is to be taken away again, merely to enable the Government easily and leisurely to get through Supply. Many projects have at different times been submitted to the House, any one of which the Government might have adopted instead of thus taking away private Members' rights. These encroachments are continually going on. From 1880 to 1885 there were few; in 1886 and 1887 they increased; and in 1888 the time of private Members was almost entirely taken away; and now, at an earlier stage than ever, the process is continued, against all the traditions of the House. It has always been customary to allow Members facilities for bringing on matters of public interest, and, public attention being thus directed, they frequently afterwards become the subject of important measures.
  MR. SPEAKER: The form in which the hon. Member has put down his Amendment cannot appear on the Journals of the House, as it is not, as it stands, an independent proposition. Perhaps it will suit the hon. Member's purpose to meet the right hon. Gentleman's proposal with a negative.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I will do that, Sir.
  MR. CHAPLIN: I have a good deal of sympathy with Members against whom there seems to be a conspiracy of the two front benches. I confess I am not surprised in the least at the course taken by the right hon. Member for Derby (Sir W. Harcourt). He is always extremely liberal, and in this case he does not mind how much of private Members' time is taken up, provided he gets the opportunity of ventilating any grievance against the Government whenever he pleases. That is an attitude I am not surprised at. But I submit there is another side to this question. Undoubtedly it is desirable that we should get on better with Supply than we have done in recent Sessions. Undoubtedly, in these days it does take a great deal longer for any Government to get Supply than it did some years ago, when first I had the honour of a seat in this House, and this is mainly owing to the increase and development of the talking powers of hon. Members.

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  Now we are told that to fulfil the conditions of the law these days must be appropriated by the Government, and if it is absolutely necessary we must consent to it; but it appears to me the conditions of the law would be fulfilled if, instead of taking the Tuesdays up to Easter, the Government took them up to March 31. This suggestion I submit for consideration. I have always protested against this absorption of private Members' rights, and I confess I am the more inclined to to do so now, having in view a subject in which I take great interest—interest that I know is shared on both sides of the House; and certainly I shall take what steps I can to secure a day for its discussion before the end of the Session. I hope the suggestion I have made to limit the Motion to March 31 will find favour; but, whether or no, the passing of this Motion must not be taken as a precedent to be followed up with another immediately after Easter. My experience is that a Motion made thus early is very likely to be soon renewed.
  MR. FENWICK: There are strong reasons why we should not consent to this proposal. It will be in the recollection of the House that on Wednesday afternoon a special appeal was made to the Leader of the House in reference to a Motion standing in the name of the hon. Member for West Nottingham, raising a very important question, which we hoped to have fully and properly discussed. That Motion stands for the 26th; but a week earlier there is a Motion in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Morpeth (Mr. Burt), in which many Members on both sides take the deepest interest. During the whole of last Session my hon. Friend was unfortunate in the ballot; but, having been more fortunate this Session, I sincerely hope his opportunity will not be taken away. From the shake of the right hon. Gentleman's head I suppose I may infer that he means that it will not be taken away, because there will be opportunity for discussion at the Evening Sitting; but I submit the time at our disposal in the evening would not be sufficient to deal with a question of such vital importance, for I know there is a desire among many Members on both sides to take part in the discussion. I certainly could not give a silent vote on this occasion, and I make an appeal
  1300
  at least to except the 19th and 26th from this Motion, that we may have the opportunity of discussing Motions that are of vital interest to the industrial classes of the country.
  SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOT: I can quite understand the right hon. Member for Derby (Sir W. Harcourt) when he says he will have ample opportunity of discussing the difficult and delicate questions he is prepared to bring before the House, and that is a statement which of course the First Lord will take notice of, because it means that we shall be considerably delayed with the Estimates, even with the time the Government now propose to take. The Committee of Public Accounts are considering whether the number of Civil Service Votes can be reduced; but there is another point that deserves serious consideration, and that is whether, in this branch of the Estimates, Votes might be taken and used precisely in the same way as they are used in the Navy and Army Estimates. If that were done, I venture to say it would prevent a large waste of the time of the House. I merely mention it as a subject deserving serious consideration. Now, we were kept here until Christmas last year. Do you want to be kept here until Christmas again? I venture to say we ought to do everything in our power to prevent an Autumn Session, and it is only by working steadily at the Estimates that we can prevent that. We all know what a melancholy failure that Autumn Session was, and I hope we shall not be placed in such a position again. Therefore it is that while disliking, as I do, taking away the time of private Members, I shall support the proposal. It must be remembered that at least private Members will have as much time as the Government up to Easter, half Tuesdays and all Wednesdays and Fridays. But I would, however, make an appeal to my right hon. Friend in respect to Thursdays. I cannot for the life of me see what object is to be gained by the proposal. Let us have Supply on Thursday and proceed consecutively through the day. I am not at all sure that even the Government, without great pressure, will be able to keep a House at 9 o'clock. I am sure it would be more in the interest of business to leave Thursday as it is.
  MR. T. E. ELLIS: I support resistance to this combination of the front benches to take away the time of private Members. Year by year this encroachment increases under Liberal and Conservative Governments alike. But our grievances must be discussed, if not in the old way on the Motion for going into Supply, then upon special Votes as they arise, so progress is not actually accelerated. The hope that our time after Easter will not be taken is utterly groundless. It is a completely hollow promise for the right hon. Gentleman to hold out any hope that the Government will be more tender with our time then than now. Let me point to one consideration in reference to this meeting at 2 o'clock on two days of the week. It is putting an unnecessary and unfair strain upon a large number of Members who attend Committees upstairs. They cannot attend to their duties there commencing at noon, and then take that interest in the proceedings here as they are supposed to do until 1 o'clock the next morning. It is unprecedented for the Government to make this demand at this period of the Session. When the right hon. Gentleman asks us to work as other great Assemblies do, he asks us to do an impossible task. No other Assembly attempts to do the work we attempt, attending to the interest of an Empire of untold millions, and actively superintending the government of every parish, county, and nationality in the United Kingdom. You are asking us to perform an impossible task. Various Governments have tried to change our Rules of Procedure, but it becomes more apparent Session by Session that this House has completely broken down under the strain put upon it, and that you never will be able, by any changes in procedure, to keep abreast of the work to be done. The only remedy is that hinted at by the right hon. Gentleman last Session, that, instead of putting increased work on one Assembly, you should delegate to local Assemblies in England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, work that can be more effectually done by them. I hope opposition to this Motion will be pressed to Division.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN, St. George's,): I can assure the
  1302
  House this proposal is made with every desire to meet the views of hon. Members. Supply is in one sense Government business, but in another sense it affords to Members the opportunity of criticizing the conduct of the Executive Government, and the performance of a certain portion of those functions for which the right hon. Gentleman opposite is so anxious to retain full time to private Members. But I am bound to say it appears to me that a larger number of private Members have far more opportunities of taking part in criticism of the Executive on the days of Supply than on those particular days when a private. Member brings forward a Motion, and when he does not, perhaps, secure a very large attendance. I can assure hon. Members that the Government have a harder time when Supply is before the House than when a private Member's Motion is under consideration. If we consulted merely our own convenience, we should rejoice at the Motions on Tuesday, inasmuch as most of the Ministers can then take a holiday, instead of having to be present in the House prepared as we ought to be, and as I hope we are, to meet the criticisms that may be passed upon our conduct. The hon. Member opposite says no Assembly in the world has such a mighty task, and I entirely agree with him, but no Assembly devotes anything like the proportion of time we do to the minutest criticism of the minutest details in the Estimates. I have often wondered, when I have heard two Members discussing as they did last year over so small an item as £10 paid for a park-keeper's ammunition, if they consider that there may be others who desire to discuss colonial and other large matters of administration. A small number of Members carry their criticism to such a minute point that they prevent time being given to larger and more general questions of policy which certainly ought to engage the atttention of the House. I can assure the House that in proposing to take Morning Sittings on, Tuesday and Thursday, it is with the idea that we should allow some reciprocity to Members for the time taken from Tuesday. We do not seek to take the time from them without an assurance that a portion of the time shall be given to Supply. I judge that I am not

  1303
  mistaken in the belief that the right hon. Gentleman opposite considers it a reciprocal concession on our part. It was made with that view, and we have reason to believe it was so estimated by some Members for whose judgment we have considerable regard. What I would suggest to the House is, that they should, at least, allow us to take this on trial and see how it works. We are only anxious to get on with Supply. Hon. Members will admit that Supply is to a great extent private Members' time, for not only do we vote the money, but we ventilate grievances—and grievances are freely brought forward in relation to many subjects for which Supply affords ample opportunity. Therefore, we really thought we were not trenching much on the rights of Members in making the suggestion. We ask you at least to give it a trial until Easter; and if it does not work smoothly, if hon. Members do not get their opportunity, it will be open to us to reconsider the matter. We do not wish to force our view with any degree of obstinacy or persistency, but there is a desire that Supply should be brought on early, and full opportunity will be given for financial criticism, as well as for the ventilation of grievances that arise in connection with administration.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: The right hon. Gentleman said he was willing to make a sacrifice in conceding an alteration as regards Tuesday.
  MR. GOSCHEN: As regards Thursday.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: AS regards Tuesday, I think the right hon. Gentleman used the word "sacrifice." I can assure him we do not want him to make that sacrifice, and that we prefer to remain as we are as regards Tuesday. The right hon. Gentleman says he makes the sacrifice to us as a sort of quid pro quo, but are we sure that he will put down the Estimates on Thursdays as well as Tuesdays? What is to prevent him on a Thursday going on with the Estimates for a certain number of hours, and then going on with other business? I really believe the majority on both sides of the House would infinitely prefer to meet at 3 o'clock and adjourn at 12 o'clock, than to meet at 2 and adjourn from 7 till 9 o'clock and then sit until 1 o'clock. I do hope we shall have some sort of
  1304
  assurance from the right hon. Gentleman that he will not press this matter as regards Thursday. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Chaplin) came forward as a private Member, and said he had sympathy with us. It is an exceedingly barren sympathy. He is going to vote against us, this sympathetic friend. He says that this will not be established as a precedent for the taking of all Tuesdays, because it appears that the right hon. Gentleman wants it after Easter, to treat us to an essay on bimetallism. I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that if you give an inch to a Minister he will take an ell. We will not get back the Tuesdays after Easter, and they will take our Fridays. It is an additional reason with me for voting against the Resolution that I might lose the chance of hearing the most interesting essay on bimetallism. I entirely agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the Members of both front benches need to be thoroughly instructed in these matters. A man once he becomes a Minister, loses half his virtue. The reason private Members have been crushed like worms is because hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House will not turn. There are two notes upon this question—the official and the non-official or private Members below the Gangway on either side of the House. Private Members have always stood together—irrespective of Party—in protection of their rights; but the reason why we cannot get those rights now is that hon. Gentlemen on those benches are too servile to their Leaders. It is notorious that no reforms whatever would have been brought forward had it not been for private Members, who bring forward their measures or resolutions, probably getting small divisions at first, but gradually increasing them until the Ministry, from considerations of Party support in the House and country, are at length compelled to deal with the questions so brought into public view for settlement. It is absolutely essential for the well-being of this country, and for the progress of any species of reform, that you should have private Members' nights. We have been told that the Estimates must be pressed forward at this time of the Session, otherwise we shall have to sit until Christmas. Irrespective of the Estimates, there will

  1305
  be a good deal to discuss, and which we will insist upon discussing. But surely there is no necessity for taking private Members' nights after we have only been sitting for fourteen days, unless it is the fear of sitting until Christmas. I cannot see anything in the gracious Speech of Her Majesty to show that the Government have any important business to lay before this House. We are going to have an increase of the Navy, which will of course be approved on this side of the House. We are going to have a Scotch Local Government Bill, in respect of which, knowing nothing about Scotch business, I shall vote with the majority of Scotch Members, who ought to know pretty well what they want. I do hope the First Lord of the Treasury will reconsider this proposal, or if not—for I know that he has the majority at his back—that he will reconsider it with regard to Thursday.
  MR. DE LISLE: I hope the House will pardon my supporting the Motion, for, in doing so, I shall be imposing on myself a Lenten penance, which, like other Lenten penances, may not lead to an amendment of life. I agree with the hon. Gentleman opposite that Morning Sittings do not add much to our work, and at the Evening Sittings it is often impossible to keep a House for the discussion of questions in which we are interested. I hope this is the last time a Motion of this kind will be proposed. I hope the House will give a kind consideration to the proposal which I had on the Paper last Session, for it meets nearly all the objections which have been urged on both sides of the House. It has been said by the First Lord of the Treasury that discussions in Committee of Supply are generally not of a profitable kind. Now my proposal is that thirty days of the Session should be set apart for the discussion of the Estimates, dividing the total into 10 parts, and allowing for the discussion of each class of the Estimates three days. When these three days had elapsed, then the Closure would, by automatic action, be applied at midnight. Thirty days are in excess of the average number, the figures given by the First Lord of the Treasury-showing that the number of days devoted to Supply for the last 20 years average 26 days, although last year 42
  1306
  days were devoted to Supply. In classes of the Civil Service which are sub-divided into English, Scotch, and Irish Estimates the Government, by taking English Estimates the first day, Scotch the second, and Irish the third day, would be able to reduce the discussion of Irish affairs to just and well-proportioned limits, and if necessary to insure adequate and fair discussion. Spokesmen might be selected on both sides, who should devote their energies to the subjects which they had mastered. I hope the House will give this proposal their careful consideration. As a loyal supporter of the Government, I am bound, though not without regret, to vote for the Motion of the First Lord of the Treasury.
  SIR W. FOSTER: The hon. Member who has just sat down says he will vote for the Motion as a matter of penance; but I must join with hon. Members in protesting against this interference with private Members' rights. Our experience of Evening Sittings last Session was by no means satisfactory, for the House counted out on several occasions. Now, when there are several questions affecting the industrial classes to be discussed, I emphatically object to a return to a system that has worked badly. I think it is time private Members should protest against these reciprocal concessions being made at their expense. The proposal of the right hon. Gentleman is to restore the custom of last Session with regard to Tuesdays, and which did not work well, and further it seeks to apply that which worked badly to another day of the week. I do not see the advantage of it. It is a great inconvenience to hon. Members to be brought down to the House at two o'clock, only to adjourn at seven and meeting again at nine—a course which gives you exactly the same number of working hours, only with this disadvantage, that an interval like that from seven to nine retards the work therefore, I holding as I do, that the use of Thursday as a day for Morning Sittings would interfere with the business of the House, I move that the words "or Thursday" be omitted.
  SIR G. CAMPBELL: I beg to second the Amendment, and would appeal to the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury to give due consideration to the

  1307
  general feeling of this House on the subject. I am quite ready to come here at two o'clock, but I have a strong objection to stay here till one o'clock in the morning, especially when two hours in the middle of the time are rendered absolutely useless.
  Amendment proposed, to leave out the words "or Thursday."—(Sir Walter Foster.)
  SIR W. HARCOURT: There seems to be a strong feeling in the House as to the inconvenience of the arrangement as to Thursday, and I would suggest that the Government might avoid the inconvenience of a Morning Sitting on that day if they would allow the House to meet at the usual hour on the understanding that after a certain amount of time has been given to Supply, progress shall be reported and the legislative business proceeded with. The Government can hardly expect to get through all the legislative business on the Monday, and must, therefore, have some portion of another day on which legislative measures can be considered.
  MR. W. H. SMITH: If it be the pleasure of the House to sit at three o'clock on Thursdays instead of two, I shall not object so long as the House is agreeable to carry out the spirit of the proposal I have submitted, and give an amount of time to Supply equal to that which we shall obtain on Tuesdays. In that case I will endeavour to carry out the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby, and not insist on the part of the Resolution which relates to Thursday.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: I object entirely to the proposal of the Government, who are anxious to put further obstacles in the way of the discussion of Irish business. I think there never was a time when the Government were less entitled to take the time of private Members. I can assure my Friends below the Gangway who have spoken with sorrow of the opportunities that will be lost to them in regard to the consideration of matters in which they are interested, that it is not English matters of which the Government are thinking; the object of this proposal is entirely to extinguish Irish discussions. [Laughter.] Hon. Members opposite laugh, and I quite agree with the suggestion
  1308
  that laughter conveys—namely, that Her Majesty's Government will not succeed in preventing the discussion of Irish matters. We have in Ireland a most stringent Coercion Act—the operation of which is producing daily acts of cruelty and injustice—and the Irish people, in view of this, have a right to have their affairs discussed in this House. The more the Government coerce in Ireland, the more strenuously will they endeavour to apply the Closure with regard to Irish discussions in this House; the Closure with them being the complement of Coercion.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: If the Government will only frankly state that no business will be taken at the Tuesday Morning Sittings except Supply, and that no other business of a contentious character will be taken, I think the House will be satisfied. I should like to know what the Government mean by "the principal business?" Do they mean that no business shall be taken on Tuesday mornings except Supply and purely formal business, and that they will not bring on contentious matters?
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: While thanking the Government for the concession they have made, I am fully of opinion that it does not meet our objections to their proposals, and therefore I shall feel bound to divide the House on the Question.
  SIR W. HARCOURT: I think we ought to have some clear understanding as to what is to be "the principal business;" and that the Resolution is not to be used except for the most formal business beyond Supply.
  MR. W. H. SMITH: It might be necessary to take the Report of Committee of Supply, or a stage of the Consolidated Fund Bill.
  Question, "That the words 'or Thursday' stand part of the Question," put, and negatived.
  Main Question, as amended, put:—The House divided; Ayes 255; Noes 132.—(Division List, No. 11.)
  Resolved, That until Easter, whenever the Committee of Supply is appointed for Tuesday, the House shall meet at 2 of the clock. At such Morning Sittings the Committee of Supply shall be the principal Business, and the provisions of Standing Order 56 shall be

  1309
  extended to Tuesday. The Motion appointing the next Sitting of the Committee of Supply may be taken at any hour, though opposed.

  SUPPLY—MORNING SITTINGS.

    PARTNERSHIP BILL.
    On Motion of Colonel Hill, Bill to consolidate the Law of Partnerships, ordered to be brought in by Colonel Hill, Sir Bernhard Samuelson, Sir George Elliot, Sir Charles Palmer, Mr. Whitley, Sir Albert Rollit, and Mr. Seale-Hayne.
    Bill presented, and read first time. [Bill 151.]

    POOR RELIEF (IRELAND) ACTS AMENDMENT BILL.
    On Motion of Mr. Tuite, Bill to amend and extend the Acts relating to Poor Relief in Ireland, in order to enable Boards of Guardians to provide Industrial Training for Pauper Children, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Tuite, M'Cartan, Mr. P.T. Power, Mr. Pinker-ton, Mr. Patrick Joseph O'Brien, and Dr. Fox.
    Bill presented, and read first time. [Bill 152.]

    SMALL DEBTS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
    On Motion of Mr. Caldwell, Bill to extend and amend the Law relating to the recovery of Small Debts in Scotland, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Caldwell, Mr. W. P. Sinclair, Mr. Thorburn, and Mr. Provand.
    Bill presented, and read first time. [Bill 153.]

    SHERIFF COURTS CONSOLIDATION CIVIL CODE (SCOTLAND) BILL.
    On Motion of Mr. Caldwell, Bill to combine in one Code the regulations affecting Sheriff Courts in Scotland, and to extend and amend the Law of civil process therein, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Caldwell, Sir George Trevelyan, and Mr. Philipps.
    Bill presented, and read first time. [Bill 154.]

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

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

  PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS (MR BRADLAUGH)—MOTION TO EXPUNGE FROM THE JOURNALS OF THE HOUSE RESOLUTION OF THE 22ND JUNE, 1880.
  Mr. BRADLAUGH: The Amendment which now stands in my name, and which I now beg to move, is—
  "That the Resolution of this House of the 22nd day of June, 1880, 'That having regard to the Reports and Proceedings of Two Select Committees appointed by this House, Mr.
  1310
  Bradlaugh be not permitted to take the oath or make the affirmation mentioned in the Statute 29 Vic. c. 19, and the 31 & 32 Vic. c. 72,' be expunged from the Journals of this House, as being subversive of the rights of the whole body of electors of this Kingdom."
  Now, this Resolution which I ask the House to assent to will be found in the Commons' Journal, vol. 135, page 934. In asking the House to give its assent to the Motion, I trust I may be allowed to express a hope that the Government will not feel it its duty to oppose it. The Resolution itself is not without precedent. There are, indeed, several precedents upon the Journals of the House, but I shall only trouble the House with five of them, and those very briefly. Two of them are exactly applicable to the state of things I am about to submit to the House this evening. The one most in point is the Resolution which stands in the Commons' Journal, vol. 38, page 937, of the 3rd of May, 1782, and is as follows:—
  "That the entry in the Journals of the House on the 17th of February, 1769, of a Resolution that John Wilkes, having been in this Session expelled the House, was and is incapable of being elected a Member of the present Parliament, be expunged from the Journals of this House, as being subversive of the rights of the electors of this Kingdom."
  That, however, was not the first Resolution of this character. In vol. 4 of the Commons' Journal, page 397, there is this entry:—
  "The House took into consideration the Votes and Orders of this House for disabling Mr. Henry Martyn to sit as a Member of Parliament."
  After some discussion, it was resolved—
  "That this Resolution be annulled and made void and erased out of the book, and that the Clerk do vacate the same accordingly."
  There are several other Resolutions which, by subsequent Resolutions, have been expunged from the Journals of the House. One will be found in 5 Commons Journals, page 197, but it is impossible now to discover its application, the page being blank, the Resolution having been actually expunged, and no trace of it left. Then there is in the 11th Commons Journals, page 210, an entry of a payment made to Sir Thomas Clarges which is directed to be struck out; and, curiously enough, there are two other entries on the same page which are also directed to be ex-

  1311
  punged, and which related to the Rev. Dr. Nowel and Mr. Lenthall for words spoken. So that what I am asking the House to do to-night, if I make out a good case, is only a matter which has been done more than once. I do not propose, in what I have to say, to reawaken any of the bitterness which might be found in portions of the struggle which commenced with this Resolution. My desire is rather to induce the House, in the interests of my constituents specially, and in the interests, I think I have a right to say, of the electors generally, to erase the Resolution from the Records of the House, the struggle in this matter having practically ended by the passing into law last year of the Oaths Act. I do not propose to make any other statement of facts than that which is found in Sir Erskine May's admirable summary, and the only references I shall make are to the Journals and the Report of the Select Committee, to which I must refer in order to make myself clear. I shall abstain from referring in any way to Hansard, because it would be impossible for me to do so without remembering things which Members on the other side of the House have shown a wise disposition to forget, and which I have no desire to recall. There is only one exception which I shall make to that, and the House will see the reason why I make it. In the Journals of the House of Commons it will be seen by reference to vol. 135, page 123, that it is recorded that I did not come to the House until the 3rd of May, 1880, to make my claim to affirm, while the Journals show that Parliament opened on the 29th of April, several days earlier. I think it is absolutely necessary, both for my own honour and in order to explain what is otherwise not clear, that I should state why it was that I delayed coming to the Table. What I am now stating has reference to the late Speaker of the House of Commons, of whom I desire to speak with the most profound respect, and for whose personal courtesy towards myself, during the difficnlt struggle to which I am referring, no words of recognition on my part can be too high. I have no desire to speak of him except as a Judge holding a high position in which I am sure that in every respect he tried to do what he
  1312
  thought to be right and just in reference to the honour of this House and the rights of individual Members. Of course it is necessary that I should challenge the decision of the late Speaker upon one point, although I admit that the House itself acted with him. It must be remembered that I am speaking now of the opposition which I received some years after it happened, but I received full permission at that time from Mr. Speaker Brand to state at any time, seeing that the matter had been alluded to by Sir Stafford Northcote in a speech to the House, that I delayed coming to the Table after having communicated informally to Mr. Speaker and to the Clerk, subsequent to my election, my intention to claim to affirm, as I then thought I had a right to do, in consequence of Mr. Speaker's request that I should wait until the opinions of the then Attorney General, Sir John Holker, the Solicitor General, the present Lord Chancellor, the Speaker's Counsel, and an eminent legal personage who was not named to me, and whose name, therefore, although I think I know it, I have no right to mention, had been taken, as to whether my claim to affirm was a claim which, in their opinion, was well founded in law. I stated then to Mr. Speaker Brand that, if the opinion of the majority of these personages turned out to be against me, although I thought myself right in my individual opinion, I should bow to their decision. I was told by the Clerk, Sir Erskine May, and afterwards by Mr. Speaker Brand, that if the opinion of the majority was not in my favour, the majority were certainly not against me. Under those circumstances I came to the Table, relying not merely upon my own view, but knowing that most eminent legal authority held exactly the same view as I did. I say this because the case has been sometimes put as though I had thrust a conflict upon the House of Commons, implying that I was wrong from the commencement, and that a degree of moral blame attaches to me which would naturally attach to me if the statement were true, I will assume, for the purposes of my Resolution this evening, that my claim to affirm was an ill-founded claim. Any way that is a position which I am bound to accept, because it

  1313
  was so decided against me by a competent tribunal. It is right, however, that I should inform the House that in the trial at bar, in which I was defendant, the learned Chief Justice of England, referring to that decision against my claim to affirm, said—"Whether that is well or ill decided it is not for me to suggest. It is decided, and decided by authority superior to the Court sitting here." Frankly I admit that the whole difficulty in the struggle arose from my making a claim to affirm, which the Courts ultimately held to be an ill-founded claim. I have made that admission, because I desire to be as frank with the House as it is possible to be, because I wish to appeal to the generous judgment of hon. Members, as well as to their just judgment in the way in which they will deal with my Motion this evening. It is right I should remind the House that one Committee having decided, as far as a Committee can decide by its Report, that my claim to affirm was ill founded, when the matter was referred to a second Select Committee on my claiming to take the oath, this is what happened. The Journals of the House say—
  "Mr. Bradlaugh, returned as one of the Members for the Borough of Northampton, came to the Table to take and subscribe the oath, and the Clerk was proceeding to administer the same to him, when Sir Henry Drummond Wolff, the Member for Portsmouth, rose to take objection and to submit a Resolution to the House."
  Now, I cannot help thinking that Mr. Speaker Brand did not then act upon what was clearly his view as contained in the Journals of the 26th April, 1881, when he said that—
  "The hon. Member for Northampton, having been introduced, has come to take the oath in the accustomed form, and is prepared to comply with the provision prescribed by the House, ought, under ordinary circumstances, to be continued without interruption."
  I submit that the words "under ordinary circumstances" ought to have been omitted, and that between the return of a Member to Parliament and the performance of his duties at the Table imposed upon him by law, whatever they are, there should be no kind of interference, supposing that he comes regularly in compliance with the Standing Orders to that Table ready to fulfil everything imposed on him by law. If he does not
  1314
  fulfil these obligtions, there is then a method of trying the question by a tribunal—a Court before which all matters of fact would have to be proved and none assumed. That was not the course adopted. Sir H. D. Wolff was permitted to submit a Resolution under which the matter was referred to a Select Committee. The Report of the Committee is rather long, but I will only trouble the House with two material paragraphs contained in it, and which are those which come last. The Committee were
  "of opinion that in making the claim to affirm Mr. Bradlaugh voluntarily brought to the notice of the House that on several occasions he had been permitted in Courts of Justice to affirm under the Evidence Amendment Acts, 1869 and 1870."
  Therefore the Committee reported that the House could—and in their opinion, if it could, it ought to—prevent Mr. Bradlaugh from going through the form of taking the oath. The Committee pointed out that if the House prevented a duly elected Member from taking the oath or affirming, there was no power of reviewing or reversing that decision, however erroneous it might be in point of law. The Committee, therefore, recommended that should Mr. Bradlaugh again request to make and subscribe the affirmation, he should not be prevented from so doing. But the House of Commons, in its wisdom, did not accept that Report, and passed the Resolution which I now ask the House to erase from its Journals, declaring that Mr. Bradlaugh should not be permitted either to take the oath or to make an affirmation. Having put this to the House, I should like to say that there is no truth in the statement that in any fashion whatever, either directly or indirectly, have I ever sought, during any portion of the struggle, to put upon this House any opinions I hold upon any matter whatever other than those which are connected with the discharge of my political duties as a Member of this House. Now, it is clear what was the old practice of the House, and I am going to ask this House to renew and re-affirm it by erasing this Resolution from its Books. The old practice, as shown by Hatsell, vol. ii., p. 64, was that on a Member appearing to take his seat, all business was suspended until he was sworn. I do not ask the House to vary the change as to time made by the Stand-

  1315
  ing Order on the 30th April, 1866. It is clear that much difficulty might arise, and some difficulty did arise, by Members coming to the Table during a debate to be sworn, and thus interrupting the business that was going on, and therefore the House ordered that Members may take and subscribe the oath required by law at any time during the sitting of the House before the Orders of the Day and Notices of Motion are entered upon, or after they are disposed of, and that no debate or business shall be interrupted for that purpose. Now am I only asking the House to say—by erasing this Resolution—that within the limits of the Standing Order nothing shall stand between a Member and the performance of his duty. I submit that the right of the electors to choose whom they will to represent them, unless that person be a person incapacitated by law, is a right of which this House should suffer no kind of deterioration or detriment. My electors bad returned me in 1880, and they were entitled to my services as soon as I was ready and willing to comply with the law without any difficulty being placed in my way, and the House was bound constitutionally not to prevent me from doing what I was trying to do. I agree that the House may expel a man at its own mere will and its decision is, except by its own vote, an irreversible and unchallengeable decision, which no Court of Law can touch. By expelling a Member the House gives his constituency a right of fresh judgment—of either re-electing the Member or of choosing somebody else; but by preventing me, as the resolution did, from fulfilling the requirements of the law, it prevented the constituency from having my voice. It did not vacate the seat, but it deprived the constituency of Northampton of half of its Constitutional right of representation in the House. I am glad, in moving this Amendment to-night, I can do so with a certain sense that the particular matter which caused the struggle in my case can never happen again. First, I ask it as a measure of justice to the electors of the United Kingdom, and I ask it more, because, if the Resolution remains on the Journals of the House, there will be a precedent for a state of things so dangerous that I do not think any Members, likely to be in a minority
  1316
  at any time, could contemplate them with calmness, because, if the House may prevent one Member, it may prevent 10, or 20, or 40. Now, on the argument of the case of "the Attorney General v. Bradlaugh," before the Judges, the then Attorney General, the right hon. and learned Member for Bury (Sir Henry James) contended that the House not only had power to expel, but could refuse to a Member the right to sit and vote, and equally it had the power to say he should not take the oath. If that power does exist, it is a power on the part of the majority to exclude the whole minority. It is a power of a most dangerous character in time of a Party heat and ill-feeling. It is a power which the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Bury, distinguishing himself from his capacity then as representing the House of Commons in the Law Courts, would scarcely argue for here to-night as against the people. In the whole of my struggle I did not use one word disrespectful to the House—I always spoke of it as a Chamber in which I desired to serve—as a Chamber which I did not desire to dishonour, and which I trust I am serving without dishonour to it and with some usefulness to the constituency which elected me. But I will not leave unchallenged upon the Journals of this House this Resolution. I do not know what may be the fate of my Amendment to-night. I have not the means of guessing what kind of consideration the Government will give to it, but there is one thing I do venture to believe—that there is no Member of the Government, I would even say no Member of the Conservative Party, who desires to evoke memories necessarily unpleasant and bitter, not tending on either side to make the one or the other greater, and the more the House than myself, for I am only one filling but a sand-grain place on the page of its history, soon by time to be swept away, but this House remains. I appeal to the House that there may be no third struggle. Two there have been within the past 110 years, and in each case the House, in haste and perhaps in anger, made its judgment against a man who perhaps did not deserve kindness at their hands, but at least should have justice. For the electors I am bound, if I fail to-night, Session by Session, to renew this Resolution. I

  1317
  trust I may not have to waste the time of the House, which, willingly, I have never wasted and do not desire to waste, in such an undertaking, and I trust the House may feel they can accept the Resolution in the spirit in which I move it, without taunt or boasting, only entreating the High Court of Parliament to do itself the justice which none other has the power to do.
  Amendment proposed, to leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words—
  "The Resolution of this House on the 22nd day of June, 1880, 'having regard to the Reports and Proceedings of two Select Committees appointed by this House, Mr. Brad-laugh be not permitted to take the oath or make the affirmation mentioned in the Statute 29 Vic. c. 19, and the 31 and 32 Vic. c. 72,' be expunged from the Journals of this House, as being subversive of the rights of the whole body of Electors of this Kingdom,"—(Mr. Bradlaugh,)
  —instead there of.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Sir MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH,): I think the calm atmosphere of the House at the present time is a sufficient earnest to the hon. Member that the question he has brought forward will be approached by the Government, and by any hon. Member who addresses the House, in no spirit of personal hostility to himself, and with no desire to re-awaken unpleasant memories. Sir, I would point out, in the first place, that the Motion of the hon. Member is no mere request for the assertion of a principle or doctrine in which himself believes; it is to ask the House to take the very serious step of expunging from the Journals a Resolution entered upon those Journals by the vote of a previous Parliament. Now, Sir, I hope I shall command the assent of the House, whatever their opinion upon this Resolution itself may have been, to this proposition, that no such step as that which the hon. Member asks the House to take should be taken on account of a mere difference of opinion, if such difference of opinion exist, between one Parliament and another. If it were otherwise, we might be asked to rescind Resolutions passed by previous Parliaments on any conceivable subject. Not only the inconvenience, but the unconstitutional nature of such a
  1318
  course is obvious. I venture, Sir, to submit to this House that the only ground upon which it could be asked that the Resolution of a former Parliament should be rescinded is this: that it should be clearly proved that the Resolution is either contrary to the law or the Constitution of the country. Well, now, what is the argument of the hon. Member? He asks the House to rescind this Resolution, in the first place in the name of justice to himself, but it appears to me that if the Resolution was in accordance with the law it was not unjust. Secondly, he asks us to do this as a protest against some terrible prospect which he holds out—that this or some future Parliament may exercise the power of debarring 10 or 20 or any number of Members from coming to the Table to take the oath and their seats. But, Sir, the mere expunging of this Resolution—if Parliament possesses such a power—could not deprive it of that power. We can only deal with this Resolution as one arrived at under certain circumstances, and applicable only to a particular case. In the first place I deny that the precedents which the hon. Member has quoted afford any argument for the course he recommends. The two precedents on which he seemed most to rely are the case of Henry Martyn and that of Wilkes, in 1782. I think that the case of Henry Martyn was not an expunging by one Parliament of a Resolution arrived at by a previous Parliament. It was merely the expunging by a Parliament of a Resolution which the same Parliament had previously arrived at, by which a disqualification had been imposed on Henry Martyn; and it must be perfectly obvious that that is a very different thing from asking the House to go back nine years and expunge a Resolution at which a previous Parliament had arrived, which certainly now imposes no disqualification on anybody. In the case of Mr. Wilkes, that gentleman moved—
  "That the following Resolution, which had been passed by a previous Parliament, should be expunged—'That Mr. Wilkes having been in this Session of Parliament expelled from the House was, and is, incapable of being elected a Member to serve in this present Parliament.'"
  And the House of Commons of the day, on Mr. Wilkes's Motion, expunged the Resolution from its Journals as being

  1319
  subversive of the rights of the whole body of electors of this United Kingdom. But why was it subversive? Because it was considered that, although the House had, of course, the right to expel a Member, it had no right to debar the electors from returning him again if they so pleased. That does not apply to the case of the hon. Member. The Resolution which he asks us to expunge did not touch the power of the electors of Northampton to return the hon. Member as often as they choose, and, as a matter of fact, they did return him after it was passed. What the Resolution did was to express the opinion of the House of Commons that the hon. Member, after having been so returned, should not be allowed to take the oath or the affirmation prescribed in certain cases by law. What, Sir, was the effect of this Resolution, and how did the circumstances arise? As the hon. Member has very fairly admitted, they arose owing to his own action in asking to be permitted on the 3rd of May, 1880, to make an affirmation instead of taking the oath in the ordinary manner; that brought the whole case before the judgment of the House, and from that began all the subsequent proceedings in the Parliament of 1880 with regard to it. I remember when, at the commencement of the Parliament of 1886, before any hon. Members had taken the oath, I felt it my duty to place before you, Sir, by letter, the history of the case, and to ask you to submit to the judgment of the new House of Commons whether the hon. Member for Northampton should be permitted to take the oath or to affirm. You, Sir, declined to comply with the request, ruling that it was not for you nor for the House to enter into any inquisition as to what may be the opinions of a Member when he comes to the Table to take the oath. No question was then raised, and the hon. Member for Northampton took the oath like any other Member of the House. These circumstances obviously differed from the circumstances of the Parliament of 1880, when, by his own action in claiming to affirm, the hon. Member had invited the judgment of the House on his particular case. Now, Sir, I contend, in the words of one of the Committees, to which the hon. Member has referred, that there is an inherent power in the House to require
  1320
  that the law by which the proceedings of the House and its Members in reference to taking the oath is regulated, should be duly conformed to; and that was the power which was exercised in the Resolution which the hon. Member now asks to have expunged from the Journals. I think I can show, in the first place, that it was exercised strictly in accordance with the law. Indeed, the hon. Member has not denied it. What have been the decisions of the Courts? On March 31, 1881, the Court of Appeal decided that the hon. Member was a person who, by want of religious belief, was not entitled by the Parliamentary Oaths Act or the Promissory Oaths Act to make or subscribe an affirmation.
  MR. BRADLAUGH: I have not denied that the conclusion at which the House arrived was a conclusion in accordance with the judgment of the Court, but I deny the right or the duty of the House to arrive at any legal conclusion at all respecting a lawful return. I held that the Courts alone should do that.
  SIR M. HICKS-BEACH: I am arguing that the House in this matter did not arrive at a legal conclusion, but simply maintained and enforced the law. That was the decision of the Court of Appeal. The hon. Member, by his own action in being primarily responsible for the passage of the Oaths Act of last Session, has shown that he himself accepts the decision of that Court as good law. In January, 1885, the Court of Appeal decided that—
  "The hon. Member having been found by a jury to be a person not believing in the existence of a Supreme Being, and upon whom the oath, as an oath, had no binding effect, is, owing to his want of religious belief, incapable by law of taking and subscribing the oath at the Table."
  That was the law in 1880, both as regards the taking of the oath and the right of the affirmation in the hon. Member's case. What the Resolution of the House did was simply to see that the law was enforced and carried out. The hon. Member contends it was not the duty or the right of the House to do so. But this is not the first time in the history of the present Parliament that he has brought the matter under the judgment of the House. Last Session he asked the House to declare that

  1321
  Mr. Speaker should call any duly elected Member to the Table to take the oath on his presenting himself in the ordinary form, with this exception, "unless the House should otherwise order."
  MR. BRADLAUGH: I only introduced those words on the express request of the Attorney General, and stated by him to be made at the instance of the Leader of the House, who intimated that if I inserted these words which were not in my Resolution the Government would accept it. They did not carry out that pledge.
  SIR M. HICKS-BEACH: As a matter of fact, the hon. Member did insert the words, and my right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Treasury was prepared to accept it in that form. What did the hon. Member himself say in speaking to that Motion. He said it did not touch the authority of the House, and admitted there might be occasion when the House ought to make a special order with regard to some Members. He also went on to say later on that whether or not the words were retained in the Resolution, the House would remain master of its own proceedings. He had always contended that while there was no legal limit there was a Constitutional limit to its power to meddle with the free choice of a constituency unless the person returned were legally disqualified from taking his seat. That was the hon. Member's position, for in the Parliament of 1880 he was legally disqualified from taking his seat, and the House acted on that legal disqualification, which now has been happily removed by the Act of last Session. I think the House at the time was right in its decision, and that a most dangerous precedent will be set if its Resolution should be expunged from the Journals.
  SIR HENRY JAMES: I am sure that, whatever may be the opinion of hon. Members on this matter, everyone will agree that the tone assumed by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Northampton and the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade will assist the House in coming to a decision. Sir, I agree with what the right hon. Gentleman has just said, that we ought not lightly to expunge a Resolution from the Journals of this House. Certainly, because one Parliament differs from the
  1322
  views of another, it has no right to expunge the Resolutions of its predecessor. That proposition will, I think, receive the assent of the great majority; for the records ought not to be, as it were, falsified by striking out Resolutions passed by previous Parliaments. But that is not the question before us. I admit that, before this Resolution is expunged, it ought to be shown that the Resolution was wrongly drawn, not because the opinions contained in it are wrong, but because something was wrongly done by the Resolution. When the matter was discussed in 1880, it fell to the lot of some of us to say that the Resolution could not be arrived at constitutionally. I quite admit that, if the Resolution had merely expressed an opinion of the Parliament of that day, it could not with propriety be expunged. But if, as in the case of Mr. Wilkes, there was an assertion of power to do an act which the House had no right to do, it is, I think, our duty to expunge the Resolution. If it is allowed to remain on the Journals of the House, in after time it will be quoted as a precedent that the Parliament of that day had the power to carry the Resolution into effect. Let me remind the House of the position taken up in 1880, and still taken up, by those who opposed the Resolution in 1880. Upon a Resolution made by the senior Member for Northampton, "That Mr. Bradlaugh do take his seat," an Amendment was moved by the present Lord Chancellor to the effect that "Mr. Bradlaugh be not allowed either to take the oath or to affirm." In answer to what has been said as to the views which were presented to the Court of Law, let me say that my belief is, in one sense, the House had right in their action—I mean in the sense that there is no power in the Court of Law to review what the House has done. The House is the High Court of Parliament, and that no other Court can control its action within its own walls. But the question is not whether the House had a technical legal right, but whether it had a Constitutional right to take the course it did take. My view then was—and it is now—that the House had no right to take such a course, and the House will never dare to take such a course again. When the hon. Member for Northampton appeared afterwards to take the oath it was admitted by the silence of those who

  1323
  had previously opposed him that they had no Constitutional right to prevent him taking his seat. If a constituency returns a Member to the House, that Member has a right to take his seat. If he took his seat wrongfully by affirming when he had no right to affirm, or by pretending to take the oath when he did not take it, there is a penalty imposed which prevents the Member from continuing to take his seat, because it is a recurrent penalty. What was contended for in July, 1880, and what was then opposed by the Government of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. Gladstone) was the proposition that said, "We will not let the hon. Member take the oath or affirm." The House cannot probe the reasons or thoughts of men, and it is not in the power of the majority wilfully to lay down such a proposition in order that the right may be legally tried. The present case is identical in principle with that of Wilkes. In the case of Wilkes the effect of the House's action was to say, "The constituency had no right to return Mr. Wilkes, and his opponent is returned." That was an unconstitutional Resolution. If the House prevents a Member from either taking the oath or affirming, it is a barren argument to urge that the House does not prevent the constituency from returning the same Member again. It will be but an empty form for the constituency to go on returning the Member under such circumstances; and yet of such a character is the Motion which was proposed by Sir Hardinge Giffard and carried by the House of Commons. Both in the case of Wilkes and in the present case there is an unconstitutional interference with the rights of a constituency. I believe that the resolution of 1880 was unconstitutional and wrong, and that it never ought to have been entered on the Journals of the House. What ought to be done, then? To express a contrary opinion now would be scarcely enough. It was proposed in 1880 to insert in the Resolution the words "if Parliament shall otherwise direct," but those words were, by the unanimous consent of the House, struck out, thereby admitting that no such right existed. I feel that this is a grave matter, but I believe we shall be acting constitutionally and rightly if we assert that there is no power in the
  1324
  hands of the House to interfere in the return of a Member of Parliament.
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL (Sir E. CLARKE,): I cannot help thinking that the recollections of the conflict of 1880 are very acute in the mind of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Bury (Sir H. James). The right hon. Gentleman began by admitting that the expunging of a Resolution from the Records of Parliament was a very serious action. Of course it is absurd, unless there is some necessity to disaffirm a principle laid down in a previous Resolution. It is an idle thing to try to tear out of the history of the House of Commons one page. That does not get rid of the incident itself. If this Resolution is carried it will not alter the fact that the House of Commons did, in 1880, take upon itself the right represented by the Resolution in question. Unless it is to relieve the character of some person from stigma, or to remove some principle which ought no longer to remain in the Books of Parliament, there is no excuse for tampering with and falsifying the Records of the House by striking out part of them. The right hon. and learned Member for Bury admits that it requires a very strong case to induce the acceptance of the Resolution before the House, and he seems to think that the case of Wilkes in some way supports the proposal of the hon. Member for Northampton. There can be nothing more marked and clear than the difference between the present case and the cases of Martyn and Wilkes. In the case of Martyn the House had pronounced a disqualification against the Member, and as long as that remained on the Books, the man could not be sent to the House. But the House of Commons retracted that disqualification, and declared that it should be annulled and erased from the Books of the House. The sentence of disqualification was cancelled, and Martyn admitted to all the rights of citizenship. In the case of Wilkes, as long as the Resolution remained unaffected by any later Vote of the House, it amounted to a declaration by the House of Commons that any person who had been expelled from the House was by that very act incapacitated from being a Member of the House again. The history of the matter with regard to John Wilkes was rather a

  1325
  curious one. In the year 1769 the Resolution which was complained of had been carried by a substantial majority in a full House. Afterwards Wilkes, having been again elected, took his seat, and from time to time, between 1775 and 1782, made almost annual Resolutions on the subject. At last the Resolution was passed in a careless and tired House—a House which attached very little importance to the matter. There is in the Records of the House which are generally referred to for the facts of that period no mention of the Debate or the Division which resulted in expunging the Resolution from the Journals. In the seventh volume of "debrett's Parliamentary Debates" a reference is made to the incident, but it is a very short one, very little of the Debate is given, and the Motion is stated to have been eventually carried by 115 against 47. Only one speech was thought worthy of report by the editors of those reports, and that speech was the speech of Mr. Fox—[Sir W. HARCOURT, Hear, hear!]—in which Mr. Fox protested strongly against the Motion being expunged. Mr. Fox opposed the Motion, but said—
  "It was not from any false pride or fear of being thought inconsistent. He had turned the question of ten in his mind, and he was still convinced that the Resolution which gentlemen wanted to expunge was founded on proper principles. It was for the good of the people of England that the House should have a power of expelling any man whom the representatives of the people of England thought unworthy to sit among them; this was a privilege too valuable to be given up He supposed some cases in which the public utility of it would be felt and acknowledged; if the Bill for excluding contractors from seats in that House had been rejected in the other; and that the House of Commons should come to a Resolution of their own that no person holding a contract should sit amongst them, the present contractors losing their seats might be re-elected, and then, if not prevented by the inherent power of the House to expel, the very men whom the House should have pronounced improper to sit among them might be returned again".
  The Resolution passed in 1769 was expunged in the Manuscript Journals of the House, but when they were reprinted in 1803 it was not expunged, and is to be found in the printed Journals to this day. The difference between that case and the present is perfectly clear. In respect to the present case the House had appointed two Select Committees, the first of which
  1326
  advised that the hon. Member (Mr. Bradlaugh) was not a person who could be allowed to affirm. That was sound law. Then the second Committee reported that the hon. Member was not a person who was capable of taking an oath.
  MR. BRADLAUGH: The Committee added that in their opinion the House ought not to prevent me from affirming.
  SIR E. CLARKE: I am quite aware that that Committee added the suggestion that the hon. Member should be allowed to affirm; but in view of these declarations of the two Committees, what was the House to do? Was it to throw over the Reports of the Committees when it believed them to be sound, and to say that the hon. Member should be allowed to do one of these two things? The House of Commons was perfectly right in its law. In the conflict which ensued between the two sides of the House it was suggested by the right hon. and learned Member for Bury and those acting with him at the time that the House had no certain knowledge of the opinions of the hon. Member for Northampton, and, therefore, it ought not to take this action, but that it ought to be left to the judgment of a Court of Law. My right hon. and learned Friend has said in the course of his speech to-night that the House of Commons is a Court. It is part of the High Court of Parliament; and the House of Commons, knowing that the Member who came to the Bar was one who could not affirm and was incapable of taking an oath, was only discharging its first duty in passing that Resolution. I submit to the House that so far from being, as in the case of Wilkes, the assertion of a principle which the House may or may not now desire to get rid of, it is simply the Record of an act done by the House. There is no sense in expunging the Record from the proceedings of the House; it would be of no use to the hon. Member or to his constituents. There is nothing on the face of the Resolution which in the least degree infringes the Constitutional rights of the electors of the country, because the House took the proper course at that time in protecting itself against an illegal or profane performance taking place before it. If, however, it is suggested that the House should expunge

  1327
  from the record of its proceedings acts done by the House, there would be scarcely any limit to the discussions of this kind. There is one important instance to be found on the Records of the House. Not many years ago the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian rose at the Table while Mr. O'Donnell, then the Member for Dungarvan was addressing the House, and moved that that hon. Member should no longer be heard. Tour predecessor, Sir, said that no such Motion had been made for 200 years, but he could not say that it was out of order. There was a strong majority in the House at the back of the right hon. Gentleman at that time, and Mr. O'Donnell was directed to discontinue his speech at once, but when the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Parnell) followed the example of the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian, and proposed in the next Session that the right hon. Member should be directed to discontinue his speech, the results were different, for the hon. Member for Cork was straightway suspended. Would any sane man suggest that those incidents should be expunged from the Records? The House may have done a wise or an unwise thing; it may have adopted in conveniently an old precedent, or made an inconvenient new one, but everything which takes place in the House in the course of the Session is part of the history of the House and the country. It is as childish to suggest that a leaf should be torn out of the Records of Parliament as it would be for an angry wife to revenge herself by tearing up her marriage certificate, or for an embarrassed tradesman to put himself right by tearing a leaf out of his ledger. If a transaction takes place the record of it ought to remain. I do not say that if a Resolution on the Books of the House lays down an unsound and un-Constitutional principle, the House may not be right in expunging it in order to mark its strong sense of the wrongful principle so laid down, but the Resolution which the hon. Member asks should be expunged is the Record of an action taken by the House. That action was, in my judgment, absolutely right; I believed it to be right at the time, and I know it has been proved to be right in the Courts of Law by the proceedings which have taken place since. I appeal to the House not to do so unwise or
  1328
  foolish a thing as to try to erase the Resolution from our Records.
  SIR W. HARCOURT: I wish that the hon. and learned Gentleman had endeavoured to deal with what, after all, is a grave Constitutional question in a somewhat more serious manner and in a style more worthy of the subject. The illustrations he gave were beneath the gravity of the occasion. The question is whether the action taken by the House at that time was un-Constitutional? I could not make out, from the hon. and learned Gentleman's quotation from the speech of Mr. Fox, whether he thought the original decision of the House of Commons in Wilkes's case was right or wrong. I think that everyone is of opinion—that every Constitutional lawyer is of opinion—I make an exception in the case of the Solicitor General—that the course taken by the House of Commons from 1769 to 1782 was thoroughly un-Constitutional. It is said that Mr. Wilkes made an annual Motion. Yes, but in what kind of Parliament did he do this? It was in the corrupt Parliament of Lord North, which did un-Constitutional acts every day. The striking out of the Resolution from the Records was one of the first acts of the first Liberal Parliament elected after the disasters of the American War. That is a chapter in the history of the matter to which the hon. and learned Gentleman did not refer. Was the declaration an un-Constitutional one? It has always been held so, because it was an assumption on the part of Parliament to prevent a Member taking his seat who had a right to take his seat. The Solicitor General says it was the bounden duty of Parliament to pass that Resolution in 1880. If it was the bounden duty of Parliament to do so because it was a right and proper Resolution, why is it not the bounden duty of this Parliament to pass a similar Resolution? What became of the sacred duty insisted on by the Solicitor General? When this Parliament was elected, the persons who had the guardianship of this legal duty were the present Law Officers of the Crown. What were they doing when they failed to declare this fundamental duty of the House of Commons to exclude the hon. Member for Northampton? They did not perform that obligation in this Parliament, because they knew that the Parliament

  1329
  of 1880 had committed an un-Constitutional act, and they were ashamed to be again parties to that transaction. The Attorney General laughs. He is a bold man I know; but why did he not make the Motion? The hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General says the incident has taken place, and, therefore, it cannot be obliterated. Everybody knows that. We do not wish to falsify the Record, as has beet suggested, but merely to point out the fact that the House of Commons committed an illegal act, and we do not desire that the precedent should remain. The question does not affect one side of the House more than the other; it is the right of the constituencies which is involved. If you choose to leave on the Records that the House of Commons—I care not whether the declaration is a legal or an illegal one—assumes to itself by a vote of the majority to declare the rights of a Member or of a constituency, you set a dangerous and an un-Constitutional precedent. If the declaration is a legal one, then the Court of Law can work it out if necessary, but if the declaration is an illegal one, then, unfortunately, there is no Court to reverse our decision or examine our conduct. That is, unfortunately, the danger of a declaration of this kind. I shall vote as I voted in 1880, against the Resolution, because, now, as then, I think, as I thought, that it is an extremely dangerous thing, and still more so after this debate and the speech of the Solicitor General, that we should allow it to remain on record that the Government has maintained the proposition that the House of Commons has a right by its own vote to determine the right of a Member to his seat, and the right of a constituency to elect him. That is the doctrine maintained on those benches and asserted by the Solicitor General, but which they did not dare to act upon at the commencement of this Parliament. What does it mean? It means that whenever it is convenient to them—and it was not convenient to them at the beginning of Parliament—whenever it suits their purpose they will assert that principle and act upon it.
  SIR JOHN GORST: The hon. Member sat in the last Parliament.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: What I am saying is in reference to the proposition of the Solicitor General. I
  1330
  was examining his proposition, the position that a great Party assumes in reference to this point, and I say it is a most dangerous thing. Depend upon it it is a doctrine that will be taken up by a Party to which you do not belong, and I shall deplore it as a great evil then as it is when asserted by you. It is an assertion that a Parliamentary majority may at any moment exclude a Member elected to this House as a representative of the people, may take upon itself to declare the law, not leaving that declaration to the Courts of Law. That is a most dangerous doctrine, and, therefore, I shall vote for the Motion of my hon. Friend.
  Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  The House divided:—Ayes 112; Noes 79.—(Division List, No. 12.)
  Main Question again proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I understand that a Scotch Member desires to bring forward a Scotch measure in which Scotch Members on this side are much interested, and I will not, therefore, stand in the way with the Motion of which I have given notice.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  SUPPLY.—REPORT.
  Resolutions [7th March], reported.

  (1.) "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £909, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1889, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Offices of the House of Lords."

  (2.) "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £3,290, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1889, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Land Commissioners for England."

  (3.) "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £8,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1889, for Stationery, Printing, and Paper, Binding, and Printed Books for the two Houses of Parliament, and for a Grant in Aid of the publication of Parliamentary Debates."

  (4.) "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £292, be granted to Her Majesty to defray the Charge which will come in course

  1331
  of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1889, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Commissioners of Charitable Donations and Bequests for Ireland."

  (5.) "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £12,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1889, for Criminal Prosecutions at Assizes and Quarter Sessions, and for Adjudications under 'The Summary Jurisdiction Act, 1879; and for Sheriffs' Expenses."

  (6.) "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £20,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1889, for certain Expenses connected with the Police in Counties and Boroughs in England and Wales."

  (7.) "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £600, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1889, for the Expense of the Maintenance of Juvenile Offenders in Industrial Schools in Great Britain."

  Resolutions agreed to.

FACTORS ACTS CONSOLIDATION [BILL 80.]

  SECOND READING.
  SIR J. LUBBOCK: I hope the House will allow me to move the Second Reading of this Bill. It is introduced on behalf of the London Chamber of Commerce and the Institute of Bankers, and is intended to consolidate the law now scattered through several Acts of Parliament and a number of legal decisions. Merchants and bankers are anxious that the law on this important subject should be comprised in one simple and comprehensible Act. There are also certain points on which the law is uncertain, or as to which, at any rate, it is not clear, and which it would be desirable to have determined. The new parts, though not important in themselves, nor involving any new points of law, are important from the magnitude of the sums involved. For instance, the legal necessity for notice in writing is done away with. As a matter of fact, it is constantly omitted. The term "advance" is extended so as to include the incurring of liability, and a factor's power to pledge is made the same as to sell, and conversely. These points, however, are technical; I believe they are generally approved; and, at any rate, they would fee best dealt with in Committee. Per-
  1332
  haps it would be advisable that the Bill should be referred to the Standing Committee on Trade. I beg to move the Second Reading.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH: Sir, it will be a very proper thing that the Bill should be read a second time and referred to a Committee; but it can hardly be referred at present to a Standing Committee on Trade which has not yet been appointed.
  MR. BARING: I hope the Bill will be referred to examination by the Standing Committee on Trade, and I hope the Government propose, as soon as possible to set up this Standing Committee.
  MR. SPEAKER: If the hon. Baronet confines his Motion to Second Reading and names a day for Committee it will be competent for him when that date arrives to move the discharge of the Order, and to move that the Bill be referred to the Standing Committee.
  Motion agreed to.
  Bill read a second time, and committed for March 15.

HERRING FISHERY (SCOTLAND) BILL [BILL 16.]

  SECOND READING.
  COLONEL MALCOLM: I have to express my thanks to the hon. and learned Member opposite (Mr. Healy) for yielding me the opportunity of moving the Second Reading of this Bill. For three years it has been before the House unsuccessfully. I think I need only say that it is brought in at the wish of the fishermen themselves, and so far as has been possible the details have been arranged with them in various parts of Scotland, and as I believe there is no desire to debate the Bill now, I do not propose to make any observations on matters of detail that had better be left to the Committee stage. In relation to Clause 6, I may just mention that Section 2 gives power to the Fishery Board to make alterations that I think will carry out the wishes of hon. Members opposite. I now beg to move the Second Reading.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  MR. R. T. REID: I have not the slightest intention of offering any opposition to the Bill at this stage, and when I hear that it is designed in accordance with the interests of the fishermen generally, it would be churlish in me to do so. All I say is, that the Bill comes forward at a very early period of the Session. I am aware that it has been introduced before, but there has not been opportunity to Members representing fishery constituencies to communicate with their constituents, and I desire to have that opportunity in reference to certain clauses before they are irrevocably diposed of. I am satisfied the hon. and gallant Member will recognize the reasonableness of this, and defer the next stage to a reasonable date for the purpose. With out in any way committing myself, I hope we may be given to understand that while the Government accept this Bill, they maintain an open mind in regard to its application to different parts of Scotland, and will be ready to consider representations made by different localities. I do not offer opposition now, feeling sure that our interests and convenience will be consulted as I indicate.
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. P. B. ROBERTSON,): I am quite ready to assent to the Second Reading, and I agree with the hon. and learned Member for Dumfries, that it is necessary in regard to the Bill, which largely consists of detail, that the House should maintain an open mind as to the ultimate adjustment of the clauses. I apprehend my hon. and gallant Friend will not be indisposed to take the Second Reading on that footing. As the House is aware, the Bill emanates, to a large extent, from those who have and deserve the confidence of fishermen, and there is on the part of the Government, and, I think, of the various sections of the House, every disposition to give it the most favourable consideration. I congratulate my hon. and gallant Friend upon obtaining thus early the Second Reading of a measure with which he has so faithfully persevered, and with relation to
  1334
  which he enjoys so large an amount of sympathy.
  Bill read a second time, and committed for April 5th.

LAND LAW (IRELAND) ACT (1887) AMENDMENT BILL.— [BILL 31.]

  SECOND READING.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: In moving the Second Reading of this Bill I need only say a few words. The Land Act of 1887 left a considerable number of perpetuity and long leaseholders outside its provisions, and this Bill merely provides that these leaseholders shall have the right to purchase out their interest under Lord Ashbourne's Act or have a fair rent fixed by the Land Court. I hope the House will accept the Second Reading, and in that event I shall be ready to fix the Committee for a distant date so that all care and consideration may be given to the Bill.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN,): This is a Bill the Government are not able to accept. Its principle is contrary to the principle of the measure which has been attended with so much success in Ireland. Lord Ashbourne's Act is purely voluntary in its action, and the great defect of this Bill is that is against the main principle of that Act. I recognize the attempt to deal with the case of the perpetuity leaseholders, which presents itself to the hon. Member's mind as a grievance in connection with the Irish Land Question, and no doubt the Bill is an honest attempt to deal with it; but proceeding on the lines I have indicated, the Bill contains a principle which the Government cannot accept, and, therefore, I must oppose the Second Reading.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I think I never heard a Bill proposed in a more extraordinary manner; and it is equalled in the way in which it is opposed. We have had nothing from the proposer of the Bill—not the slightest heartiness or the slightest desire evinced to see it carried into

  1335
  effect, and from the manner in which it has been met we might gather that the whole thing was arranged beforehand between the Government and the hon. Member for South Tyrone. The hon. Member discharges a pious duty towards a certain portion of his constituents in proposing the Bill, without the least desire to see it carried; he proposes it in a half-hearted manner, without advancing the slightest reason in its support, while the Government think so lightly of him and his Bill, that the Solicitor General for Ireland disposes of them with the briefest words. I am very glad indeed to see the great Liberal Union Alliance has come down to this. I am rejoiced to think this is the result of the great Liberal Unionist compact with the Times. "That it should come to this!" The hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland, when he kicks out the Bill, kicks with so little ceremony that he does not, out of courtesy to the hon. Member for South Tyrone, spend a few words to give a decent grace to the act of summary dismissal. This is a most instructive evening for the constituents of the hon. Member for South Tyrone. We have him posing as a supporter of the Union, but at the same time he is most anxious that the "diggers and delvers" of South Tyrone, the people who till the soil, the honest Orangemen, the people who love their country—not as we do—the hard-headed people of South Tyrone, who love the Government of law and order, should get their rights in Parliament by returning a Member who, while cordially supporting the Union, and all the great purposes of the Union, is at the same time the extremest Radical on Land Questions. Well, we have seen to-night what all this flummery amounts to. I observe the Chancellor of the Exchequer growing slightly uneasy; will he, with Liberal Unionist force and humour, express to the House the great advantages of this measure from a Liberal Unionist point of view, this Bill which has "some features that specially recommend it"? The Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1887 professed the principle of admitting leaseholders under 99 years to the right of having fair rents fixed; but why are 99 years' lease to be omitted and 100 years to be left outside? I hope Members of the Government are not pro-
  1336
  moting a "count" against this great Liberal Unionist question. I do not wish to detain the right hon. Baronet (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) to listen to me, but to wait for the reply of the hon. Member for South Tyrone. The gloom in which we were obscured in 1887 was suddenly irradiated by the light of a Liberal Unionist Chancellor of the Exchequer. Persons who hold for longer than 99 years, he says, must be considered as purchasers—they must be considered as having a perpetuity; and the great object of the Liberal Unionist Party and the Tory Party, of which he is so distinguished a Member—for he spoke of the Tories the other day as "We the Tory Party"—is to root in the tillers of the soil perpetuity of tenure. We had to allow the Bill of 1887 to pass in that shape and form, but stirring meetings were held in Ireland on this subject at the end of 1887 and during the whole of 1888, and the Ulster leaseholders clamoured for relief. Well, it is rather remarkable that the only class of persons for whom the learned Solicitor General for Ireland has no sympathy, and whom he proposes to exclude from the benefit of a fair rent under this Liberal Unionist measure, are the loyal classes of Ireland. These classes would have nothing to do with us. Oh, no; they would not touch us with a 40-foot pole. They are all "loyal men and true," and they entrust their fortunes to that distinguished Member of this House, the Member for South Tyrone. They know that he is employed about the country, paid by some mysterious source, acting on behalf of the Government, speaking in the name of the Government, promising that there will be evictions here and no evictions there, and they naturally thought they might treat with this Plenipotentiary on the Land Question. The hon. Member for South Tyrone gets up to night, and how does he treat these poor people, the long leaseholders? Why, he does not even pretend to argue the question. He dismisses it in a sentence without so much as pretending to understand it. It is not as though he were dealing with a subject which could be disposed of in a sentence, or as if there were no time to discuss the Bill. With a view to enable it to come on—and, in part, to oblige the Scotch Members—I re-
  1337
  frained from bringing forward a Motion which I had put down on the paper. I must say I had an eye to the bringing on of this great hybrid piece of Liberal Unionist legislation. We have three and a half hours before us for the discussion of this Bill, but the hon. Member for South Tyrone did not occupy three and a half minutes in describing the grievances of the long leaseholders. I doubt if he took half a minute, and though we are all anxious to get on with the business I must say that I think the fate of these unfortunate leaseholders is a subject which should have induced the hon. Member who so keenly sympathizes with them to pour out from his bleeding heart a word or two of commiseration for their woes, as he had the opportunity of doing to-night. It is seldom that a private Member has an opportunity of this kind. It is only in consequence of your very fair ruling, Sir, that any Member of the House had the opportunity of bringing on this legislation. Your ruling gave an opportunity which anyone desirous of promoting the interests of the Irish farmer would gladly have availed himself of, and that is exactly the opportunity which the hon. Member for South Tyrone has thrown away. To-night is the first opportunity we have had for years of bringing on a private Member's Bill on Friday night when Supply is put down. It is a golden opportunity—a Liberal Unionist opportunity—an opportunity which I should have thought the hon. Member for South Tyrone would gladly have seized hold of. I can only deplore that Her Majesty's Government and the Liberal Unionist Party should have no heart in a measure for the relief of the Ulster farmers. We all know there is no Irish grievance which the Liberal Unionist Party are not pining to remove so long as its removal does not interfere with the Union. Oh, the anxiety of the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury (Mr. W. H. Smith) to remove Irish grievances! Those grievances are killing him. Well, here is a chance of depriving the miserable agitators who infest Ireland, and are the bane of that unhappy country, of another grievance. One would expect the First Lord of the Treasury to spring to his feet with alacrity, and say, "This measure may not be perfect in its details; there
  1338
  may be some faults of draftsmanship about it; there may be some little defects in it one way or the other, but we will not reject the Second Reading; we will send it to a Select Committee, or even give it the favour we extend to Scotch herrings—we will send it up to a Standing Committee." But, Sir, Scotch herrings are one thing and Irish tenants are another. The grievances of the Scottish fishermen may be dealt with by a Standing Committee; but Irish farmers, even under the wing of the hon. Member for South Tyrone, are to be kicked out of this House without even a word of sympathy, or without even the pretence of argument, by the learned Solicitor General for Ireland. Now, Sir, I desire, as the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Tyrone has entirely betrayed the cause of those who entrusted him with this important measure, to say one or two words upon the scope of the Bill. I know, of course, that the Liberal Unionist Government are most anxious for a "count out;" and no doubt the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Tyrone would be happy to promote it with them, but I decline to enter into that conspiracy. I intend to take advantage of this unusual chance that has been afforded to us to expose exactly, in the light of day, the state of the case and the situation as it has now presented itself; and I may say, in the first instance, that this measure represents the united action—I am speaking now of the measure to include in the benefits of the Land Act all leaseholders—of a large organized body of Loyalists in Ireland. Now, an Irish Loyalist is so rare a specimen of an Irishman that I should have thought the hon. Member for South Tyrone would have thought it right to tell us something about his grievances. These people who are excluded from the benefits of the Land Act are, as a rule, members of the Loyalist Party. They have been labouring under their grievance patiently, because, above all things, the beauty of the Irish Loyalist is that he is a patient animal. He is always boasting about his patience—he is always telling us that he does not go out with a mask on his face, or with moonlighters. He lies as quietly as a slug under a garden roller, and takes every unpleasantness that falls to his lot as if it were a dispensation from

  1339
  Providence, instead of a dispensation of the Government. These Irish leaseholders have begged and prayed of the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Tyrone to submit their case to a sympathetic House of Commons. They say—
  "This is an Imperial Parliament; we are all anxious to be under the rule of such a Parliament, and we, therefore, expect that our grievances will be attended to by it, and we confidently submit to the House that it is unfair that we should be under rack rents, whilst our neighbour across the road, whose lease is only for ninety-nine years, is able to go to the Land Court and get a fair rent fixed."
  I would ask on what ground can this abominable disability be continued? I say there is no ground, and that, as a matter of fact, since the Act of 1870 was passed, leases for extremely long periods have been forced on the tenants at the point of the bayonet; and it is because these men have had these leases forced on them for these long periods that now you refuse to remedy the situation. I say that there is no logic, reason, or common sense in that position, and one might at least expect that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who in his position as a leading Liberal Unionist has done so much service to the Government on this Irish Land Question, which I believe he so thoroughly understands—which I believe he understands as well as the Egyptian Canal Question—I should have expected that he would have said, "Let us go to the Select Committee and take evidence, and see what is the extent and scope of this grievance." But what does he do? I saw him put up the Irish Solicitor General—who, I am bound to say, I do not think understands anything about the Bill. There is not a keener intellect in the House than that of the hon. and learned Gentleman, and if he had been afforded two minutes he would have digested the Bill and understood all about it. But the Government put him up—and it may be that even now, at the eleventh hour, they may mean to retrace their steps, because I observe that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been bending his giant mind to the task of understanding the measure of the hon. Member for South Tyrone. I do trust that as I am making this appeal on behalf of the Loyalists of Ulster the Govern-
  1340
  ment will now consider it in a fair and reasonable spirit. I am quite free to admit that the consideration of the clauses of the measure may, perhaps, be relegated to a more favourable opportunity when a "count" is not in the offing; but with regard to the proposal to admit leaseholders, I do say that if the Government will accept my assurance that the Loyalists in Ireland would be most gratified to see this principle accepted, and will do something to secure its adoption, they will be taking a step in the right direction. Let them remember that most of these loyal and long-suffering leaseholders are Orangemen and most strenuous supporters of the Unionist Party, and that a number of them came over to this country not long ago, and poured into the sympathetic bosom of Lord Salisbury an account of their grievances. Has it come to this—that after this measure has been so fully explained by this worthy body of men, it is to meet with such scant courtesy on the part of a House which has such ample time to attend to it? I hope it will be understood in the country that the House of Commons has no other business but this before it. There is not a single item of business remaining on the Paper except this, and we have yet some hours at our disposal before the hour for adjournment. Parliament, for once in its long-centuried historical existence, has perfect leisure to attend to this small Irish grievance; and I, therefore, do trust that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with that anxiety he feels to remove Irish grievances—reasonable grievances put forward by the hon. Member for South Tyrone in a calm spirit and in a business-like way, embracing, I believe, two sentences—the time of the House not having been taken up with long and wordy harangues—I do trust, I say, that the right hon. Gentleman will, at Least, condescend to give attention to this measure. And I say, for my own part, that, representing as I do a Nationalist constituency, I would sincerely urge the Government, if they want to assure their supporters in the Loyalist districts of Ireland of the earnestness of their desire to remove grievances, to regard this question of leaseholders as one which, above all others, should be attended to. It cannot be pretended—and this is a misfortune from the

  1341
  Government point of view—that there is not ample time to attend to the matter. If you were to count out the House it would show that you were indifferent to the interests of the Loyalists of Ireland, and were ready to count out a measure introduced by one of your own supporters. Therefore you are debarred from such ruthless procedure as that. There only remains then the question, as you have ample time, "oceans" of it, in which to deal with this measure, what is it that stops you from doing justice to the Irish leaseholders? It cannot be want of will, because we know you have most anxiously at heart the improvement of the material prosperity of the Irish people. We know you have no arguments, as the Solicitor General for Ireland—than whom you could not have a keener advocate—had none to offer, and he met the thing with a simple non possumus. It cannot be that you have not sufficient time, or that you want a count out. I have shown how this particular measure has the strongest claim upon the time and attention of Parliament. I have disposed of every possible objection that can be taken to it; I have shown that the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Tyrone has been sent to this House by a body of Loyalists most anxious in every way to uphold the Union, and that he, as their spokesman, asks you to attend to the measure. And I, uniting and associating myself to the fullest extent with the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Tyrone—joining myself with him in the desire that this House should do ample justice to the Loyalists, I do trust that you will, to-night, by passing this measure, do an act of justice which will enable this House, and especially its Unionist Members, for all future time to say that nothing shall stand between them and justice to Ireland when the great cause of the Union is not interfered with.
  MR. C. W. GRAY: I have listened with considerable interest to the somewhat lengthy speech of the hon. Member for Longford (Mr. T. Healy), who has just sat down, and I regret the tone of levity which pervaded the greater part of it. In my opinion, the subject of land, in
  1342
  connection with Irish tenants, is one that ought not to be treated with levity in this House. I can assure hon. Members opposite that we English agriculturists watch with great interest all measures that are brought forward in this House relative to Irish land and Irish tenancies, and I am sure there are many on this side of the House who are sincerely anxious, where it can be shown that there is anything unfair in connection with those tenancies, that the unfairness shall be as speedily as possible removed. We are all perfectly well aware of what the Irish tenants must have suffered; for the agricultural depression which affects them, as well as the English tenants, has been common to all parts of the United Kingdom, and we can honestly say that, whenever there is a reasonable opportunity of doing so, we are desirous of assisting in the passage of measures that will, to some extent, alleviate the difficulties of our Irish brother farmers, But I think the hon. Member for Longford was hardly serious in the speech he made—and a most interesting speech it was—or he would not have treated with so much levity a subject which we are told is one of so much importance to the Irish tenants. This Bill has come somewhat unexpectedly before the House, owing to some accidental circumstances; and in dealing with it as it now stands, I would ask hon. Members on that side of the House whether, if Her Majesty's Government had proposed to deal with so important a question as this unexpectedly, they would not have been the very persons to get up in their places and say, "How can you undertake to deal with such a question as this without having given the House sufficient time to consider it?" I can assure hon. Members opposite that the interest felt in this question does not belong altogether to that side of the House, and I say without hesitation that every Member on this side of the House is anxious that all questions connected with Irish tenancies should be dealt with not in an off-hand way, as will be the case to-night, but

  1343
  with that consideration and care which its importance demands. If Lord Ashbourne's Act has worked well—and I have never heard it suggested that as far as it goes it is not a beneficial and a good Act—I ask, would it not be a pity to make a departure from it? I am not sure that the Irish Members opposite take the best course when they so persistently find fault with Her Majesty's Government whenever it proposes to do anything; and then, on the other hand, as persistently blame it for something it does not propose to do. This line of action is injuring the Nationalist Party in this country, and I say so with perfect honesty. As long as the Nationalist Party are only going for measures of justice which the English tenants themselves would like to see passed, they will be supported not only in this House but in the country generally; but I am sure the English people will not be impressed with the earnestness of the Irish Members on this occasion, as evidenced by the speech of the hon. Member for Longford. We on this side of the House have all along recognized that there are undoubted Irish grievances, and we desire to see them brought forward in an honest way and with a single purpose; but we do not think they should be made a stalking-horse for the mere purpose of getting the Party that now holds the reins out of office and of placing another Party in office. We want all grievances brought before the country in a bonâ fide way, and to see them when before this House debated with earnestness. If hon. Members opposite will only accept this hint from me, in the belief that it is made with perfect sincerity, and will put before us genuine measures dealing with questions of Irish land and Irish tenancies, they will find that hon. Members on this side will be more inclined to listen to their arguments than when our debates are mixed up with so much bitter Party feeling. I implore hon. Members opposite to try and drop that bitterness, and put before us what they regard as practical remedies for the grievances of the Irish tenants. In that case I believe that many of us on this side of the House would do all in our power to get those practical remedies carried into effect as speedily as possible. If, however, you are to go behind Lord Ashbourne's Act and alter the greater
  1344
  principle of that measure without due consideration—
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I would point out to the hon. Member that this Bill, so far from upsetting Lord Ashbourne's Act, actually proposes to extend that Act to a certain class of tenants now exempted from it.
  MR. C. W. GRAY: I accept the statement of the hon. Member, but I think my argument will apply equally to the way in which he has put the case. If you apply Lord Ashbourne's Act in the manner now proposed, without being very careful of what you are doing, you may set up precedents which will eventually land you in great difficulty. We English tenants watch all these proposed changes with a great deal of interest, because we are not sure how soon the time may come when we shall be seeking similar reforms for ourselves; and this is one reason why I so anxiously hope that when this question is practically debated there will be a fair attendance of those Members who represent English agricultural interests in this House, I do not see why we should not be able to give you a helping hand.
  MR. SPEAKER: I would call the hon. Member's attention to the fact that he is not discussing the Second Reading of the Bill.
  MR. C. W. GRAY: I bow, Sir, to your ruling, and am sorry you have had the trouble to rise; but I do not wish to go into the details of the Bill.
  MR. CRILLY: Will you permit me to say that, as an Irish Member, I quite recognize the friendly and kindly spirit in which the hon. Member for Maldon has just spoken, and I am quite sure if the same spirit were more frequently evinced by hon. Gentlemen opposite—and I am sorry to see now those empty benches—when questions affecting the agricultural tenants of Ireland are discussed, they would be more speedily and more satisfactorily settled. One reason given for the rejection of

  1345
  this Bill by the hon. Member, which was applauded by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was that it had been brought forward unexpectedly. Any Member, either inside or outside the House, knows very small that this question of he leaseholders of Ireland is an old one. Any gentleman in the position of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who knows, or professes to know, the condition of Ireland, would be aware that no Parliamentary Session could open without the question of the leaseholders of Ireland being brought forward. Therefore I think that the excuse given for the action of the Government—that this Bill has come on unexpectedly—is not a genuine one. This question has been before the House on many previous occasions. It is a pressing and vital question. The right hon. Gentleman knows very well from experience that a large number of his supporters from Ireland have every cause to complain of the action of the Government on this question. Now, although we have not perhaps many friends among the leaseholders, and anxious as we are to settle the social condition of Ireland, we are also anxious to press upon this House the necessity of dealing with this question as quickly as possible. We must press the Government to take some other action than they have taken to-night. I hope the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Tyrone is proud of his friends, and of the action of the present Government, which he supports through thick and thin. I daresay he thought that they would have accepted his Bill; so, without deigning to give one single word of explanation, he moved the Second Reading. I hope that he is grateful to the Government, and that he will convey to the leaseholders of Ireland the fact that they have nothing to hope for from the present Government. I hope that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will yet tell us the Government do not intend to meet this Bill with a point-blank refusal. They cannot plead the excuse that there is no time to
  1346
  debate it, for we have nearly three hours before us. The Bill might even be advanced by promising to deal with it in Committee; at least the promise might be held out that the leaseholders will be assisted in the coming year. There are many clauses of the Bill with which I do not agree, but I hope the Government will not shut the door on the principle that it is their duty to come to the assistance of the leaseholders of Ireland.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN,): I think that hon. Members below the Gangway opposite have enjoyed the opportunity of displaying a little political hypocrisy. But they have disguised the fact that this is entirely an unexpected debate. The hon. Member who has just sat down, by a rather clever rhetorical device, suggested that the Bill was not unexpected. Certainly it was not thought by any Member of this House that the evening would be devoted to this subject. The hon. Member has challenged us to take a Division, but we ought not to do so in the absence of those who are interested in the Bill which they did not expect would be debated to-night. Why, the hon. Member himself is said to have stated he did not expect it to come on.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I never was consulted on the matter.
  MR. GOSCHEN: The language which was used by the hon. Member to some Members of the House was that he did not expect to be able to reach this Bill to-night.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I hope that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer will allow me to say that the Bill came on quite unexpectedly to myself, but I never said to any Member that I did not expect it to come on, I had no conversation about the Bill, and it was only when the House was dividing on the Motion of the hon. Member for Northampton that I recognized it would come on.
  MR. GOSCHEN: Then the impression conveyed to me was not absolutely correct. The hon. Member says he had no idea it was coming on; neither had

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  the Irish Secretary nor hon. Members from Ireland who are interested in it. In such circumstances it has often been the practice to adjourn the debate on a Bill reached unexpectedly. I am sure my hon. Friend is quite aware that if the Chief Secretary had had any idea that the Bill would come on he would have been in his place and have been able to deal with the Bill. No disrespect was intended to those Members by the Solicitor General, and I am sure the hon. Gentleman will not see in anything that has happened any intention on the part of the Government to treat with any disrespect the proposals he has brought before the House. The hon. Gentleman will see that there is a wide difference between this Bill and Lord Ashbourne's Act, for while the latter makes the expropriation of owners voluntary the hon. Gentleman's Bill will make it compulsory. I would suggest that the hon. Member should consent to the adjournment of the debate. If the Bill be pressed to a Division in the absence of those who take an interest in it, the Government will have no option but to vote against it. The Government are, however, anxious that every opportunity should be given for the discussion of the Bill, and I think the best course will be to adjourn the debate.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I can only speak by the indulgence of the House; but I hope I may be allowed to say that if I introduced the Bill in a somewhat summary way, it was because I saw every Member wished the early adjournment of the House, and I thought the Government might assent to the Second Heading. I wish to point out to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that if I accept the suggestion to adjourn the discussion to another day I shall be practically giving up my chance of bringing on again a Bill which I believe to be urgently necessary in the interest of a large number of leaseholders in every part of Ireland, for the Government have given no promise of facilities for another day to continue the discussion. I have a duty to perform as a Member of this House,
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  and unless I get such a promise I must press the Motion to a Division.
  MR. ESSLEMONT: I hope that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer will not press a Motion for the adjournment of the debate. It is quite notorious that the principle of this Bill has been before the Government during the last two Sessions; and if it is only for the purpose of gaining time as regards the clauses, the Second Beading can be assented to, with the reservation on the part of the Government that it will deal with them in Committee. I am sure that, as a Scotchman, I shall not be charged by the Chancellor of the Exchequer with speaking on this subject in a bantering tone or sarcastic manner; but I think the case of the Irish leaseholders is so pressing that every Member who represents an agricultural constituency should lose no opportunity of bringing the principle of the Bill before the House. I hope the hon. Member for South Tyrone will take the sense of the House on it.
  The House divided:—Ayes 46; Noes 87.—Majority 41.—(Division List, No. 13.)

  ADJOURNMENT.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I wish to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, who has returned to the House, whether he is aware that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said it was impossible to discuss the Bill, which has just been defeated in his absence; and whether he will now favour the House with his views upon it?
  No answer was given to the hon. Member's question.
  Motion agreed to.
  House adjourned at Ten o'clock till Monday next.

Preamble
Their Lordships met, and having gone through the business on the paper (which consisted of the Second Reading of certain unopposed Private Bills) without debate,
House adjourned at half past Four o'clock, till Monday next, a quarter before Eleven o'clock.