Sitting of 16 April 1891

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

  CENTRAL LONDON RAILWAY BILL {by Order.)
  As amended, considered.
  MR. J. STUART: I have to apologise for the absence of the hon. Member for North St. Pancras (Mr. T. H. Bolton), who is prevented by illness from being present, and I beg to move the Amendments to this Bill which stand on the Paper in my hon. Friend's name. They all relate

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  to Clause 91, and they refer to the workmen's trains which this company proposes to run by electricity from Shepherd's Bush to the City. The circumstances of the case are referred to in a written statement which was sent out yesterday by the promoters of the Bill in support of the decision of the Committee to which the Bill was referred. As the scheme was introduced, it was at first intended that there should be only one working men's train in the morning and another in the evening, but it was afterwards proposed that there should be two before 7 o'clock in the morning. The Committee have altered that arrangement, and have inserted a clause making statutable the running of three workmen's trains each morning before 7 o'clock, and the same number every evening after 6 o'clock, at a charge of 1d. for each journey, for artisans, mechanics, and dock labourers. I have no objection to offer to the amount of the fare; but I have to propose that the term "daily labourer" shall be altered to "weekly labourer," so that it may. include porters, messengers, and persons engaged in similar occupations. I further propose that the hour in the morning shall be extended from 7 to 8 o'clock. People of this class are essentially working men, although they do not commence work as early as 6 or 7o'clock in the morning. They are messengers and underclerks in the City warehouses, who commence work after 8o'clock, and book the arrival and sending out of goods. They receive weekly, and not daily, wages, but they are equally necessitous with the persons provided for by the present clause. The first Amendment I have to move is that, instead of only three workmen's trains being run each day, there shall be six. At first sight it may seem that this would be a statutable imposition upon the company, which is not imposed upon any other company, and the company in their statement say that the clause already inserted in the Bill by the Committee goes far beyond any similar obligation imposed upon any other railway by Parliament. I beg to dispute that statement, because the trains which the company propose to provide are very short trains, and are incapable of holding anything like the number of persons who can travel in a train of the Great
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  Eastern Railway. According to Returns now before the House, a workman's train on various London railways is capable of carrying from 500 to 600 passengers, whereas the trains of this company will only carry 120 or 150-third-class passengers at the most. The-consequence is, that the carrying obligation imposed on them is nothing like that which is imposed upon other railways. The statement of the promoters. says that with the single exception of the Great Eastern trains between Liverpool Street and Edmonton, which cover a distance of nine miles, there is no case in which Parliament has imposed upon a Railway Company the obligation of carrying a third-class passenger for so-long a distance as six miles for a penny. That is scarcely accurate, because I believe that on the South London lines statutory obligations exist which cover more than six miles. It is said that in compelling the company to run six trains instead of three, we should impose obligations upon the company for which they would have no compensating advantage; but I wish to point out that the company are paying to the inhabitants of London, either individually or collectively, nothing whatever for the tunnelling rights they are to enjoy. I am aware that the clause has been struck out which permitted them to tunnel without paying compensation, but the question of compensation is left to be raised by individual owners under the clauses of the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act. That Act will be wholly inoperative because, as the tunnelling will be under Oxford Street, there can be no documents in existence, seeing that it is. one of the oldest streets in England, or probably in the world, which confer upon individuals the ownership of the soil. The result is, that that clause will confer no advantage upon the public either individually or collectively. It is said that the company will have to pay rates, but all other railways are in the same position. Mr. Pearson, the City Solicitor, wag the first person to propose an underground railway in London—the Metropolitan—and it was distinctly urged1 as an inducement in favour of legislation that the public were to get the benefit of the street improvements, which were to be associated with the construction of the railway as a compensation for the

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  use of the soil. About £250,000 was, I believe, paid for the right of tunnelling under the Thames Embankment.
  MR. ISAACS: £200,000.
  MR. J. STUART: I am obliged for the correction of the hon. Member. The present railway is absolved from any-such contribution to the public benefit, although other railways have had to pay it. On these grounds I think the company are fairly called upon to give more extended advantages to the public than have been decided by the Select Committee, and I beg to move the first of the Amendments which stand in the name of my hon. Friend.
  Amendment proposed, in page 72, line 25, to leave out the word " three," in order to insert the word " six."—(.Mr. James Stuart.)
  Question proposed, "That the word ' three' stand part of the Bill."
  MR. HOWELL: 1 beg to second the Amendment, which I look upon as a very reasonable extension. I am sorry that the Committee upstairs have seen fit to draw a distinction between working men who are paid by daily and by weekly wages. A great number of the clerks, messengers, and others in London who are paid weekly are in the same position as the artisars and labourers who work for a daily wage, but it would be impossible for them to take advantage of trains which run before 7 o'clock in the morning. Many of the warehouses and offices in the City are not open until 10, and every facility for cheap travelling should be afforded to these men, whose wages, or salaries as they are sometimes called, are scarcely equal to these of an artisan. If they are required to go to the City by a very early train, the only result will be that they will reach there before the offices or warehouses are open. I therefore think that the number of trains should be extended, and that they should run at a later hour.
  MR. BARRAN: I am sorry that the hon. Member for Preston (Mr. Hanbury), who acted as Chairman of the Select Committee, is not here to explain the circumstances under which the Committee decided to grant these workmen's trains. The Committee had the advice of Mr.
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  Courtenay Boyle, who has had large experience in connection with the Metropolitan Railways, and it was at his suggestion that the Committee imposed on the company the necessity of running-three trains every morning and every night. The hon. Member for Hoxton (Mr. Stuart) has stated that the trains on this line will be limited in their carrying power in consequence of the line being worked by electricity; but if that argument is to weigh at all, it must necessarily tell in favour of the company in the consideration of this Amendment, because if they are only able to carry a very small number of passengers, seeing the enormous expense they will be put to in making the line, it will be much more difficult for them to realise a profit in consequence of their limited carrying power. The Committee, in dealing with the Bill, had to consider the enormous cost the company will be put to in carrying out their project. Even if they get the land without cost, and have no compensation to pay, the cost of constructing the line will be enormously heavy. So far as the granting of workmen's trains is concerned, this company has agreed to grant more than any existing Railway Company. There can be no doubt that the construction of the railway will materially reduce the congestion of traffic in Oxford Street and the City; but if we are to load the company with obligations and restrictions which are unbearable, the probability is, that the line will never be made at all. I hope the House will support the decision of the Select Committee.
  MR. ISAACS: I wish to explain what was done in the case of the-District Railway with reference to contributions from public sources. A sum of £200,000 was paid by the company for the right to tunnel under the Embankment, while in the case of the City lines a grant of £800,000 was made to the company by the public. It is easy to get the-reputation of being a friend of the working classes by dipping your hand into other people's pockets. That is what the hon. Gentleman proposes in effect to do. The obligation to send three workmen's trains each way per day over the line is as much as the company can be reasonably expected to undertake. It must not be forgotten that the trains which will travel one way full will invariably

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  return empty. I hope the House will support the Committee, especially after what has been said by the hon. Gentleman opposite, who was one of the Members of that Committee.
  MR. GILES: Assuming that each train has to run six miles for fares of 1d., a full load of 500 passengers would only bring in a little over £2, while the cost of running the train would be quite as great, without any other expense whatever. I think that if the working classes of London get the privilege of three trains in the morning and three at night they will get all that they can reasonably expect from the company. I hope, therefore, that the House will reject the proposal to increase the number of trains.
  MR. GANE: I think that before the House adds to what is already an extraordinary burden some good reason [should be shown. I have every sympathy with the motive of the hon. Member, but I hope the House will not accept the proposal. If the Committee upstairs, in considering the matter, had fallen short of the real requirements of the working classes the House might be fairly asked to interpose, but I believe that what they have done is really in excess of anything that has been previously done. If the House is to compel the company to run six workmen's trains daily, I see no reason why they should not make it 20 or 50.
  MR. COURTNEY: I do not propose to enter into the details of this Bill, but I would only suggest that it is impossible for the House with any self-respect to come to a decision in this matter which is at variance with the decision of the Committee. The question has been carefully considered by the Committee with all the evidence before them, and with the assistance of an eminent and experienced official of the Board of Trade. Why, then, should we depart from the decision of the Committee merely upon a statement that cannot be submitted to cross-examination? I hope the House will reject the Amendment.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  MR. J. STUART: I now move, in line 28, to leave out "seven" and insert
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  "eight." The object of the Amendment is to change, from 7 to 8, the hour at which working men's trains shall run. I believe that this change would be for the convenience of the workpeople who are not required at their places of business before 8 o'clock. There are a very large number of persons who are in this position, and whose wages do not exceed those of the daily labourer and the artisan. My only desire is to make the clause useful to all these persons. It is desirable for the health and comfort of London that persons of this class should live in the suburbs, and a provision of this kind will assist them in doing so.
  Amendment proposed, in page 72, line 28, to leave out the word "seven," in order to insert the word "eight."— (Mr. James Stuart,)
  Question proposed, "That the word 'seven' stand part of the Bill."
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE(Sir M. HICKS BEACH,: I agree with the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Courtney) that the Bill has been fully inquired into by a Select Committee, and I trust in the interest and safety of the public that the House will not make this alteration.
  MR. BARRAN: I hope the House will not attempt to alter the hour, which is the same as that which is fixed in other Acts of Parliament. Not a word was said before the Committee as to the injustice or otherwise of the proposal. The Committee were anxious to meet, as far as possible, the necessities of the working classes; but if we are to extend the advantages already conceded to other classes, where are we to draw the line? How far and how often are we to enable general passengers to travel on a railway at little cost to themselves, but at very great cost to the Railway Company? There can be very little question that the Railway Company can make only a small profit out of trains of this kind, and in all probability they will sustain a loss. If we are to offer the privileges of the bond fide working man to other classes, I am afraid that Parliament will be taking upon itself a task which may entail very great responsibilities upon railways in future.
  MR. 0. V. MORGAN: The question is one which appears not to have been considered by the Committee. I believe that if they had considered it they would have substituted 8 for 7 o'clock, and I fail to see that such an alteration would entail any additional expense upon the company. I am quite satisfied, however, that it would be an immense boon to the persons who will make use of this railway.
  MR. HOWELL: I wish to point out that the persons in whose favour this concession is asked are as much bonâ fide working men as the man who carries a hod, the only difference being that they go to their work at a later hour, not for their own convenience, but for the convenience of their employers. It is of no use running trains at 6 or 7 o'clock in the morning if they do not embrace the class of working men who are to have the benefit of the Act. I cannot see how it would be an imposition upon the Railway Company, because the more trains they run the more likely they will be to recoup themselves for the expense. It is by keeping the line idle that they will lose. It is not the fact that these trains are full one way only. Many of them return fully loaded, and it must be borne in mind that many of the working classes who live in the West are employed in the East, as well as those who live in the East being employed in the West. I certainly believe that it will be of great advantage to the bonâ fide working man to extend this privilege to 8 o'clock in the morning.
  MR. ADDISON: I feel bound to protest against the introduction of Amendments of this kind after a Private Bill has been fully considered by a Select Committee. It is impossible that we could give a conscientious vote upon such questions, because we have no knowledge upon the subject, and we are not cognisant of the evidence which induced the Committee to arrive at their decision. How can we possibly know what the traffic is likely to be, how it is to be obtained, and the different places that are proposed to be accommodated? If we are to under-
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  take to deal with questions of this kind I am afraid we shall impose on ourselves a hopeless and impossible task. I certainly protest against the notion that when the details of a Private Bill have been carefully settled by a Select Committee we are to interfere and upset their decision.
  DR. CLARK: The hon. Member who has just sat down is probably not aware that this matter did not come before the Committee at all. [Cries of "Why not?"] I regard it as a matter of public importance, largely affecting the working classes of London—not only their comfort, but their sanitary condition. The porters and warehousemen who would use the trains at 8 o'clock are bonâ fide working men, and receive smaller wages than artisans. It is for that class of men, who are very badly paid and who can only afford to live in the suburbs, that this concession is asked. I think their case deserves full consideration at our hands.
  Question put, "That 'seven' stand part of the Clause."
  The House divided:—Ayes 148; Noes 68.—(Div. List, No. 134.)
  MR. J. STUART: As the other Amendments which stand in the name of the hon. Member for North St. Pancras are consequent on that which has just been disposed of, I shall not press them.
  Bill ordered to be read a third time.

  STILL-BIRTH INTERMENTS.
  Address for—
  "Return showing (l) the number of stillbirths interred during the year 1890 in each of the Burial Board Cemeteries in England and Wales enumerated in the Local Government Manual for 1891; (2) the number of such stillbirths interred in each such Cemetery without a certificate of a registered medical practitioner; (3) the total number of interments other than of still-births; (4) the aggregate number of interments in the said Burial Board Cemeteries under each of the preceding subheads; and (5) the total number of deaths registered in England and Wales during the year 1890."—{Dr. Cameron.)

  SWINE FEVER.
  Return ordered—
  "Showing the number of outbreaks of Swine Fever in each county in Great Britain in each of the last three years, the number of diseased and healthy animals slaughtered, and the sums returned as paid for compensation, after deducting any receipts for salvage, in the following form:—

  County (in-cluding Boroughs).

  Number of Outbreaks reported.

  Number of Swine slaughtered.

  Net compensation paid—

  Total net compensation.

  Diseased.

  Healthy, but on infected premises.

  For diseased animals.

  For healthy animals.

  £

  s.

  d.

  £

  s.

  d.

  £

  s.

  d.

  1888

  1889

  1890

  With totals for Great Britain in each of the three years."—(Mr. Fellowes.)

QUESTIONS-.

  IRISH CHURCH ACT—PURCHASES.
  MR. LEA: 1 beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland how many of the 2,591 purchasers under the Irish Church Act, who are said to have derived benefit under Section 25 of the Land Act of 1887, were permitted to extend their period of repayment to 49 years under that Act; and how many of the 787 purchasers under the Act of 1870, and the 726 purchasers under the Act of 1881, were allowed to extend their repayment to 49 years under Section 27 of the Act of 1887?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOE IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,: The Irish Land Commissioners report that of the 2,591 purchasers under the Irish Church Act who received the benefit of the Acts of 1885 and 1887, 2,263 obtained the full term of 49 years. The Board of Works report that in the case of the 787 purchasers under the Acts of 1870 and 1872 who received the benefit of Section 24 of the Act of 1887, the effect was to extend the period of repayment from 35 years to periods varying from 40½to 47½years. In the case of the 726 purchasers under the Act of 1881 who received the benefit of
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  Section 27 of the Act of 1887, the effect was to extend the period of repayment from 35 years to about 45 years in each case.

  IRISH FISHERIES.
  MR. MACARTNEY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether it was by order of the Inspectors of Fisheries that a document, headed " Notice to Millowners," "Turbines," signed "(By Order), M. P. Dowling, Secretary," and "dated at the Fisheries' Office, Dublin Castle, the 14th day of April, 1890," was served on Mr. C. J. Webb, of Randalstown, on the 18th of February, 1891; and, if not, by whose order; is he aware that at the date of this notice, or thereabouts (namely, April, 1890), proceedings were taken against other millowners under Acts of 5 & 6 Vic. and 26 & 27 Vic, and whether the local Board of Conservators instituted these proceedings of their own accord, and whether the Inspectors of Fisheries-approved of them; will he explain why-no inspection has been made, as promised to Mr. Webb on the 6th March; is he aware that, on or about the 20th March, Mr. Webb was served with two further summonses; whether any inspection had been made subsequent to his letter

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  of the 2nd March and previous to the service of these summonses; whether, since the passing of 32 & 33 Vic. cap. 9, any similar prosecutions have been undertaken; whether any of the defendants in the recent prosecutions have been summoned for similar offences previous to the year 1890; whether the Inspectors of Fisheries have had any expert evidence as to the injury supposed to be caused by the hydraulic machines at these mills; and, if so, who were the expert witnesses; whether he is aware that, for over 20 years, no similar requirements have been demanded by the Inspectors of Fisheries; and whether he will ask the local Board of Conservators and the Inspectors of Fisheries to furnish the evidence upon which they have taken these proceedings, and their reasons for doing so?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The Inspectors of Irish Fisheries report that the notice referred to was sent by them to the clerks of the Letterkenny and Coleraine districts for distribution, as the occasion arose, among millowners, in order to warn them of the provisions of the law regarding turbines, in regard to which the Inspectors have no power under the statute to grant exemptions. Before the date of this notice the Inspectors learned incidentally that prosecutions of this nature had taken place in certain cases then under consideration, and they pointed out to the Conservators that they thought it would have been better to have awaited the Inspectors' final decision. The Inspectors made no inspection of Mr. Webb's premises for the reasons (a) that Mr. Webb did not furnish, as he promised, the grounds of his application for exemption; and (b) that the Inspector had only returned from the district immediately previous to the application, and has since been engaged on other duties. The Inspectors are not aware that Mr. Webb has been since served with summonses. On the 16th of March they wrote to the Local Board that an Inspection in the case would be made as soon as possible. The Inspectors report that prosecutions have been instituted since the passing of the 32 & 33 Vic, c. 92. The Inspectors have no information as to paragraph 7, as such prosecutions are instituted by the Local Boards. The Inspectors have not had evidence as to
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  injury by hydraulic machines, &c. They themselves inspect mill premises, and hear anything the mill-owners or the local officers of the Conservators have to say in those cases where they have power to grant exemptions. The Inspectors state that the circumstances mentioned in the ninth paragraph, assuming it to be a fact, would not alter the law in the matter. Millowners have the opportunity of applying to them for exemption from compliance with Section 76 of 5 & 6 Vic, c. 106, which exemption would be granted if any injury were likely to arise to the working power of mills by the erection of gratings; but from the necessity of erecting sufficient means to prevent the passage of salmon, or any young of salmon, into turbines, the Inspectors have no power to exempt. Prosecutions are undertaken not by Inspectors, or at their instance, but by the Conservators.

  DONAGHADEE HARBOUR.
  ME. M'CARTAN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether any progress has yet been made in removing the silting from Donaghadee Harbour; and, if not, whether he can say when the work is likely to be commenced?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. JACKSON,: No progress has been made in removing the silting from Donaghadee Harbour. A demand was made locally, but the authorities are unwilling to sanction the commencement of new works at present.

  PIER AT HOLYWOOD.
  MR. M'CARTAN: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he can state about what date the plans of the proposed new pier at Holy wood, County Down, will be exhibited for inspection at the Harbour Office, Belfast; and whether he will consider the desirability of having a copy of the plans left at some public place in Holywood before the Board of Trade approves of the same?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD or TRADE(Sir M. HICKS BEACH,: I would refer the hon. Member to the reply I made to him on the 17th February last year, when I said that, whenever plans of new works at Holywood are submitted to the Board of Trade for approval, the Belfast

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  Harbour Commissioners will be consulted, and notice of the application for approval will be given in the locality. No application has, as yet, been received, and I am unable to say when the persons interested will apply.

  THE KANTURK UNION, CORK.
  MR. FLYN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that in April, 1890, the labourers who occupy cottages under the Guardians of the Kanturk Union (County Cork) presented a Memorial praying the Guardians to reduce the rent of these cottages, which Memorial was largely signed by the ratepayers of the Union; and that in May, 1890, the Board of Guardians at a general meeting passed a resolution making a general reduction of 3d. per week in the rent of the cottages; and did the Local Government Board refuse to sanction this resolution of the Guardians; if so, for what reasons and under what authority has the Local Government Board acted in overruling the action of the Guardians?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Yes; it appears to be the fact that the Guardians of Kanturk Union passed a resolution to the effect mentioned, but subject to the sanction of the Local Government Board. The Board having been thus asked to approve the Guardians proposal, and it appearing that the rents already charged in the Union were less than the rents at which such cottages are usually let, the Board informed the Guardians that they could not see any reason which would justify them in further reducing the rents and thereby increasing the tax upon the ratepayers in respect of these cottages. The effect of the reduction would have been to throw a charge of £2 13s. 2d. for each house, per year, upon the ratepayers until the loan is repaid, without taking into account the costs of repairs, insurance, and other existing expenses.

  ARMY CHAPLAINS.
  MR. MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Attorney General for Ireland whether he is aware that the General Protestant Synod in Ireland has unanimously passed a resolution claiming that the Irish Protestant clergy should have equal privileges with the Irish Roman
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  Catholic clergy in holding the appointment of chaplains to Her Majesty's forces in Ireland; and whether the Government will take any steps to give effect to that resolution?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN,: The question should be addressed to the Secretary of State for War.
  In reply to a further question by Mr. MAC NEILL.
  MR. MADDENsaid: It is the fact that more than three years ago, as Member for the University of Dublin, I entered into a correspondence with the Chaplain General on this subject. The question refers now to the action of the Government in the matter, and as I have not the honour of being Secretary of State I cannot give any official information. The question should be addressed torn right hon. Friend.

  POST OFFICE TELEGRAPHISTS.
  MR. LENG: I beg to ask the Postmaster General if he can explain the remarkable disproportions between the numbers of first and second-class telegraphists at different postal telegraph offices in the United Kingdom, and whether there is any principle regulating the maximum salaries; and particularly why Bradford has 21 first-class to 46 second-class, Plymouth 24 and Sheffield 23 to 46, and Cork 22 to 43, while Dundee has only 12 to 43; why the maximum salary is only 50s. at Dundee, while it is 52s. at Nottingham, and 54s. at Sheffield; and why, in Dundee, there are 10 first-class to 24 second-class clerks in the postal department, and some men of only six years' service have been promoted in that department, while there are efficient and well-conducted telegraphists, who have been 14 years in the service, still in the second-class of the telegraph department?
  THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (Mr. RAIKES,: The number of first-class telegraphists at an office is regulated by the number of first-class duties to be performed at that office. The maximum salaries are regulated by the importance and position of each office, and the cost of living in the different towns. The hon. Member gives certain figures showing the

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  numbers of the classes at five towns. The reason why the numbers were so fixed at the last revision was because the figures represented the number of duties at that date. A continual process of adjustment is necessary as business develops, and several of these towns will come under review. Nottingham and Sheffield are much more important offices than Dundee, and this is the reason why the maxima are greater there. I am advised that the duties on the postal side at Dundee require the higher appointments, and that the vacancies occurred on the postal side.

  SOLDIERS' UNCLAIMED PRIZE MONEY.
  MR. LENG: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he can now state if it has been decided to appropriate the interest of the large sum of soldiers' unclaimed prize money for the relief of sick and infirm but unpensioned veterans who served in the Crimean War?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. E. STANHOPE,Lincolnshire, Horncastle): The number of troops in the Crimea before the close of the war (excluding large numbers wounded and invalided) was 52,000. A large proportion of these had enlisted for only three years' service, and returned to civil life upwards of 30 years ago. If the claims of all men who served in the Crimea and are now infirm were recognised by the State—and it would be difficult to draw any distinctions—the charge would be an exceedingly heavy one, and would amount in one year to more than the whole amount of Army prize money. It would, moreover, be impossible to exclude men who served in the Indian Mutiny. Consequently, 1 do not at present see my way clear to a scheme for specially pensioning Crimean soldiers.

  MURDER OF A BRITISH SUBJECT IN VENEZUELA.
  MR. WEBSTER: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if it is a fact that a British subject has been recently murdered by Venezuelan officials?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS(Sir J. FERGUSSON,: Information has reached Her Majesty's Government that a British subject named William
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  Campbell had died from a gunshot wound inflicted by a Venezuelan policeman on the Venezuelan side of the Amakooroo River. The Venezuelan Government have telegraphed to state that the President of the Republic has ordered an inquiry into the circumstances, with a view to the exemplary punishment of any persons who may be found guilty of wilful violence. The evidence taken by the British Colonial Authorities on the subject of the incident has only recently been received, and is under the consideration of Her Majesty's Government.

  MANIPUR.
  MR. WEBSTER: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is in a position to give any information as to the alleged statement that the troops employed in the Manipur expedition were at the time of the recent disaster without an adequate or suitable supply of reserve ammunition to fit their rifles?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA(Sir J. GORST,: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will allow me to answer this question. The Secretary of State has no information as to the truth or otherwise of these statements.
  MR. WEBSTER: I beg to give notice that I will call attention to the subject on the Army Estimates.

  FOREST REGULATIONS.
  MR. MA.C NEILL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India whether the inquiry forwarded to the-Government of Bombay in August last respecting the Forest Regulations in the districts of Colaba and Thana has yet been answered; and whether he will grant, as an Unopposed Return, a Copy of the new Regulations which have been issued for the districts named?
  SIR J. GORST: No, Sir; the answer has not yet been received. The matter was under discussion in Bombay last month. As soon as the Report is received the Secretary of State will consider what Papers can be laid upon the Table.

  RIOTS AMONG BENGAL INDIGO CULTIVATORS.
  MR. MAC NEILL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India whe-

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  ther the inquiry into the alleged riots among the indigo cultivators in Bengal, promised in April 1890, has been made; and, if so, whether he will lay the result of such inquiry, with all Papers, if any, upon the Table; and whether a Report from the Government of India, as to the circumstances in, and conditions under which indigo is cultivated, has been received; and, if so, whether he will lay it upon the Table?
  SIR J. GORST: Yes, Sir; the Papers in this case were presented last month. I understand that they are now being printed, and will be shortly circulated.

  THE PERMANENT LAND SETTLEMENT PROPOSALS OF 1862.
  MR. MAC NEIL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India, with regard to the fact that, under the Court Fees Act in the North-West Provinces, the valuation of land in permanently settled districts is fixed at ten times the annual rental, whereas in districts not permanently settled the valuation is only five times the annual rental; whether, in view of this official testimony, and the greater value of permanently settled land, and in view also of the conditions laid lown in the correspondence on the subject, the Secretary of State will redeem the pledge given in 1862, and proceed to permanently settle the land still held on a 30 years' settlement in Madras, Bombay, parts of Bengal, the North-West Provinces, the Punjab, and the Central Provinces; and whether he will state why there has been so great a delay in carrying out the arrangements decided upon nearly 30 years ago?
  SIR J. GORST: I think the hon. Member has fallen into a little error. There is no delay to explain. The proposals made in 1862 were re-considered, in accordance with the recommendation of the Select Committee of 1871, and a final order, formally abandoning them, was issued in 1883.
  MR. MAC NEILL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a resolution was passed urging on the Government the extension of the permanent land system?
  SIR J. GORST: The proposals of 1862 were finally abandoned some years ago, and the resolution referred to by the hon. Member is an entirely new matter.

  DISCONTENT IN THE MADRAS REGISTRATION DEPARTMENT.
  MR. MACNEILL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India whether the attention of the Secretary of State has been drawn to the serious discontent prevailing among the registering officers, chiefly among the sub-Registrars, and among their clerks, of the Registration Department of the Madras Presidency, due to the reduced scale of remuneration sanctioned by the Madras Government in 1882 and 1885, respectively; (2) whether the Secretary of State is aware of the large amount of surplus that is being accumulated and absorbed into the general revenues from the registration fees, intended, originally, an intention recently re-affirmed by the Government of India, for the sole maintenance of the Department and the pensionary charges of its officers, and not as a source of profit to Government; (3) whether the Secretary of State is aware that the Government of India have, in their review of the Triennial Reports for the period ending 1889-90 of the several Local Governments and Administrations on the working of the Administration Department, expressed their opinion condemning the large surplus that has been accumulated year by year from registration fee's, and have, accordingly, directed Local Authorities to take steps to reduce the surplus; and (4) whether he will take the present opportunity to press upon the Madras Government the urgent necessity that has arisen to sanction increased expenditure in order to allay the discontent of a Department composed of Indians by a re-organisation of the grades of sub-Registrars and Registrars, and of their clerks?
  SIR J. GORST: The answer to the first paragraph of the question of the hon. Member is in the negative. The answer to the second and third paragraphs is that the view taken by the Government of India as to the surplus is that it shall be devoted to providing facilities for registration wherever experience shows them to be necessary. This policy was re-affirmed in the review of the Triennial Reports referred to by the hon. Member. The answer to the fourth paragraph of the question is that the Secretary of State, as at present advised,

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  would not urge the Government of India to raise the salaries or increase expenditure in the Registration or any other Department.

  ABDUL RASOUL.
  MR. CONYBEARE: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India whether he has yet received the information from the Authorities in India respecting the case of Sheikh Abdul Rasoul, promised on 16th February; (2) if so, on what date was such information received, and what is its purport; if not, will he explain the delay which has taken place in the obtaining of this information; (3) whether he can now state what number of Her Majesty's Indian subjects have been imprisoned under the provisions of Regulation III. of 1818, or deprived of their property since that date to the present time; (4) whether he is aware that Regulation III. of 1818, to which he recently referred, applies only to. Bengal, and not to Bombay; (5) would he state to the House what were the reasons of State, and upon what facts or evidence they were based, which necessitated the detention of Abdul Rasoul for nine months in gaol without trial; and (6) whether the Government still refuse to make any compensation to Abdul Rasoul for the treatment he has received? As the Under Secretary for India is in his place, perhaps he will answer the question.
  SIR J. GORST: No information was promised on the 16th of February. It was then stated that—
  "The communications addressed by the Sheikh to the Secretary of State have been forwarded to India, and the Secretary of State will await a reply from the Government of India before taking any action thereon."
  (2) The Government of India on the 18th of February stated that Abdul Rasoul, on release from confinement, had applied to be sent to Cashmere, and, failing that, to England. On receiving this information the Secretary of State offered Abdul Rasoul the terms which have been already explained to the House. (3) As already stated, the Secretary of State must decline in the public interest to give this information. (4) The provisions of Regulation III. of 1818, which applied to the Bengal Presidency, were re-enacted in almost identical terms in Regulation XXV. of 1827, which applied to the
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  Bombay Presidency, and is still in force.
  (5) The Secretary of State has reason to believe that the Government of India were satisfied that Abdul Rasoul was employed as an emissary of Maharajah Dhuleep Singh, who, the House will remember, was at that time issuing treasonable Proclamations against the Queen. On the Maharajah receiving Her Majesty's pardon, Abdul Rasoul applied for his own release, which was granted.
  (6) The Government has not refused to make compensation to Abdul Rasoul; but, as already stated more than once, Abdul Rasoul, if he demands compensation, must address himself to the Government of India in the first instance.
  MR. CONYBEARE: I have had cause-to trouble the right hon. Gentleman so-frequently without obtaining a satisfactory assurance from him that I shall ask leave to move the adjournment of the House in order to raise the question.

  THE BLACK MOUNTAIN EXPEDITION.
  MR. PHILIPPS: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India whether it is the case, as has been stated in the newspapers, that some of "the reserve forces of the Black Mountain Expedition have been ordered to the front; and, if so, whether he is in a position to inform the House what regiments have been thus moved forward?
  SIR J. GORST: The Reserve Forces-of the Black Mountain Expedition have been ordered up not to the front in that direction, but to Kohat for the Miranzai Expedition. The full detail of the forces ordered up has not been received from India; but the following are either there or on the way:—3rd British Mountain Battery, 1st Battalion King's Royal Rifles, 19th Bengal Cavalry, 1st Punjab Infantry, 6th Punjab Infantry, 1st Battalion 5th Goorkhas, 15th Sikhs, and 29th Punjab Infantry.

  SCHOOL BOARD STANDARDS.
  MR. ELLIOTT LEES: I beg-to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether he can give the House any information as to the percentage of passes in the School Board Standards obtained by children attending school under the half-time system, between the ages of

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  10 and 12, as compared with those obtained by other children of the same age?
  THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL(Sir W. HART DYKE,: A comparison in the Oldham and Rochdale district for 1890 shows that the general percentage of passes was 90, against 77·4 in the case of half timers. In seven Board Schools in Rochdale the difference was 9·5 per cent. against the half timers, and in 10 Board Schools in Oldham 6·7 per cent. In Blackburn, during the year 1888, the difference against the half timers was 12 per cent., and in Darwen 11·5 per cent. I should add that this difference occurs principally in arithmetic and writing (including spelling), and that the results in reading, which offers more scope for the display of general intelligence, are much more even.
  MR. MUNDELLA: Do the figures include the whole of the half-timers?
  SIR W. HART DYKE: Yes, Sir; I believe they do.

  SHEERNESS DOCKYARD.
  MR. HERBERT KNATCHBULL-HUGESSEN: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether there are men at Sheerness Dockyard, on the books as smiths, who are really doing fitters' work; and, if so, whether they should be classed as fitters; and whether arrangements can be entered into for the forgings of engines which are fitted at Sheerness being made in that Dockyard, instead of, as at present, in private yards?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Lord G, HAMILTON,: The answer to the first part of the question is in the affirmative. It is not considered desirable to class them as fitters, as they are, as a rule, smiths by trade, and have been intermittently employed during the last two years upon smiths and fitting work, and are shifted from one class of work to the other to meet the requirements of the Service. The only forgings obtained by contract for engines made at Sheerness are propeller and crank shafts, connecting rods, and slide rods, and it is not considered desirable as a rule to depart from this arrangement unless the srnithery should
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  be in want of work. In that case the connecting rods and slide rods might be made in the yard.
  MR. HOWELL: Is there any difference in the pay of one class and the other?
  LORD G. HAMILTON: When these men are employed on the same class of work they receive the same pay.

  THE FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS BILL.
  MR. SUMMERS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been drawn to the passage in the last Report of the Committee of Council on Education in which they express regret to find, on examining the School Returns, that the education of so many children of 10 years of age and upwards is discontinued as soon as, by passing the prescribed standard, they are freed from the obligation to attend school and become entitled to go to work; and whether he will take the facts cited in the Report into consideration in connection with any proposals that may be made to amend the Factories and Workshops Bill?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. MATTHEWS,: My attention has been called to the passage in question. The hon. Member is doubtless aware that the effect of the Factories Act is that children between 10 and 13, if they are employed in a factory, are obliged to continue half-time attendance at school; whereas outside a factory a child of 10, as soon as he has passed the prescribed standard, is free from the obligation to attend school, and may enter upon full-time employment. The raising of the age at which a child can be employed in a factory from 10 to 12 will have the effect (in factory districts) of increasing the number of cases deplored by the Committee of Council, because every child between 10 and 12 who can pass the prescribed standards will betake himself to other employment; whereas if those children were employed in a factory between 10 and 12 they would probably continue that employment, and also their attendance at school, up to 13.

  SECOND-CLASS SORTERS.
  MR. JAMES ROWLANDS: I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether he has received a Memorial from the second-class sorters of the circulation department; and, if so, whether he has been able to give it his consideration, and can inform the Memorialists of his decision at an early date?
  MR. RAIKES: In reply to the hon. Member, I have to state that the answer to the Memorial referred to was sent yesterday (Wednesday).

  TRADE UNIONS REPORT, 1889.
  MR. HOWELL: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the Report on Trade Unions for 1889, by the Labour Correspondent to the Board of Trade, is not yet issued; whether he can give some explanation of this exceedingly long delay in issuing such Report; and whether he can inform the House when the Report will be ready for the use of Members?
  SIR M. HICKS BEACH: Delay was caused in giving the Report for 1889 in order to fulfil a promise made to Mr. Bradlaugh to include Returns from the great majority, if not the whole, of the Trades Unions in the United Kingdom, instead of the limited number dealt with in previous Reports. This has involved great labour, which falls peculiarly on Mr. Burnett, as much of it cannot be delegated. The delay having been so great, it is believed that it will be most convenient not to issue the Returns until the figures for 1890 can be included. The next issue will accordingly take place towards the end of the present year, and it will be a much more complete Return than any yet made. It will also include the figures for 1890 as well as 1889.
  MR. HOWELL: Is it not possible to obtain the Returns earlier? Most of them are published in the month of May. Is it not possible for Members to have them in their hands before the Votes are taken?
  SIR M. HICKS BEACH: I will try what I can do to have them published earlier.
  MR. HOWELL: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether it is
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  possible for the Registrar of Friendly Societies to give the whole particulars of the Returns made by registered Trade Unions in his Annual Report; and, if not, will he explain for what reason?
  MR. JACKSON: The answer just given by my right hon. Friend seems to dispose of the question which the hon. Member has addressed to me; but if he wishes further information I shall be glad if he will speak to me, and I will suggest what I consider the best course for dealing with the question.
  MR. HOWELLM: The question is not exactly the same as that which I put to the President of the Board of Trade. I ask whether, when a certain form is filled up by the Registrar of Friendly Societies as to Returns of registered Trade Unions, it could not be included in the Annual Report?
  MR. JACKSON: My desire is to avoid giving portions of the Returns by one Department and other portions by another Department. My object in suggesting that the hon. Member should speak to me is to try and find out whether some plan may not be decided upon by which we can improve the Returns.

  THE CHARGES AGAINST MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT.
  MR. MORTON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether it is true that warrants have been issued against two Members of this House for criminal offences; and whether it is also true that both Members have left this country, and are now out of the jurisdiction of our Law Courts?
  MR. MATTHEWS: The answer to the first paragraph is in the affirmative. So far as my information goes, both Members are now out of the jurisdiction. I am permitted to read a telegram addressed by the hon. Member for North Bucks (Captain Verney) from Paris to Mr. Speaker in these terms—
  "Seeing a question is to be asked about me in the House, it is my duty to inform you that as soon as I heard in Italy that a warrant had been issued for my arrest, I started at once and expect to reach London to-morrow.—VERNEY."
  MR. MORTON: Arising out of the answer of the right hon. Gentleman, may I ask whether, if an application is made for the Chiltern Hundreds by

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  either of the two hon. Members, the Government will undertake not to grant it?
  ME. SPEAKER: Order, order! The hon. Member must give notice of that question.

  BERMUDA DOCKYARD.
  MR. BROADHURST: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware that a shipwright has recently been placed in charge of the engines and machinery in the Bermuda Dockyard, and that the Inspector of Machinery at Bermuda recommended that an engineer should be appointed to the post; and, if so, whether he will cause an inquiry to be made into the circumstances which led to the appointment of a person who can have but little practical knowledge of the duties involved?
  LORD G. HAMILTON: It is not the case, as suggested by the hon. Member, that a shipwright has been placed in charge of the engines and machinery in Bermuda Dockyard. An established shipwright who has been employed continuously at Bermuda since 1878, and is now employed on electrical and other fitting work, will be appointed fitter to perform shipfitting work on docks and caissons and also electrical work as required.

  BRITISH SOUTH AFRICA COMPANY.
  MR. LABOUCHEREpostponed until Monday a question—To ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is aware that a Chartered Company is not under the obligation to make Returns to Somerset House in regard to the Act of its shareholders and other matters connected with it, which are obligatory on all Limited Liability Companies not being Chartered Companies; whether, in view of this fact, and that by the 25th Article of the Charter of the South Africa Company it is stated that—
  "Within one year after the date of this Our Charter, or such extended period as may be certified by Our Secretary of State, there shall be executed by the Members of the Company for the time being a Deed of Settlement providing, so far as is necessary for,"
  amongst other things,
  "the regulation of Members of the Company, and the transfer of shares in the capital of the
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  Company; the division and distribution of profits,"
  he will cause such a Deed of Settlement to be executed, and lay it, when executed, upon the Table of the House, in order that the public may have the same opportunity to know matters in connection with the transfer of shares in this Company, and with the division and distribution of profits which are available in respect to companies that are not chartered; and whether, in connection with this Return, he will see that it is fully set forth, and that, whilst the Company has to pay all costs and expenditure in regard to carrying out the objects of the concession from Lobengula, one-half of the profits (if any) are retained by the Promoters of the Company, should it appear that this is the case?
  MR. LABOUCHEREalso postponed until Monday a question—To ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies-whether an Imperial Proclamation has been published in the Gazette of the Cape Colony, declaring that any attempt to occupy Baryarland, or to establish autonomous government in that country, will be regarded as an infringement of the rights of the British South Africa Company, and an aggression against British suzerainty, and will be resisted; whether it is to be understood that no British subject is to be allowed in Baryarland without the permission of the British South Africa Company; and, if so, from whence this exclusive right of the Company to occupy this territory is derived; whether he can state how many British subjects there are now in Baryarland, and what is the area of that country; whether he is aware that persons wishing to pass through Mashona-land in order to go northwards are impeded by agents of the South Africa Company; whether he is aware that the Company does not permit any of Her Majesty's subjects to trade in Mashonaland, and that the monopoly of opening stores has been granted to two Kimberley firms, notwithstanding that it is set forth in the Charter granted to the Company, that it is conferred upon it because it will tend
  "To the opening up of the said territories to the immigration of Europeans, and to the lawful trade and commerce of Her Majesty's subjects and of other nations;"

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  and that it is stated in the 20th Paragraph of the said Charter that
  "Nothing in this Our Charter shall be deemed to authorise the Company to set up or grant any monopoly in trade;"
  whether he is aware that the concession from Lobengula in regard to which the Charter was granted is only a concession granting many rights to the Company, and that it conferred on it no land, and that promises are being held out by advertisements of the Company in the South African newspapers offering to intending settlers land in Mashonaland (which forms part of the territory in-deluded in the mining concession of Lobengula); and whether, in order to prevent Her Majesty's subjects from being deluded into going into Mashonaland by the promise of grants of land from the Company, Her Majesty's Government will take steps to make it known that the Company can make no grants of land, as it has no land to grant?

  THE CENSUS AND THE PRESS.
  MR. P. S. STEVENSON: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether the instructions laid down by the Registrar General are intended to prevent Registrars from giving to newspapers the number of inhabitants in their districts; whether he is aware that in some cases Registrars are declining to give the information, on the ground that they are not certain whether it is allowable for them to do so; and whether, in view of the interest taken in the numbers, and considering that it is well understood that such numbers as the Registrars supply are subject to correction after final revision in the Census Department, he will make it clear that no such prohibition exists?
  MR. RITCHIE: I have communicated with the Registrar General, and I learn from him that the Census officers are forbidden to give any information concerning the unrevised results of the enumeration in anticipation of their official publication. The Registrar General considers that it would be unwise to withdraw the prohibition; and I agree with him that it would be inadvisable to give general permission to Registrars to furnish information to the local Press and others which may prove incorrect.

  COUNSEL AND SELECT COMMITTEES.
  MR. J. E. ELLIS: I beg to ask the hon. Baronet the Member for Somersetshire (Wells Division) whether the General Committee on Railway and Canal Bills has arrived at any conclusion with respect to the cross-examination of witnesses by counsel before Committees which he can state for the information of the House?
  SIR RICHARD PAGET: I have to inform the hon. Member that the Resolution at which the Committee arrived is in the following terms:—
  "On consideration of the Resolution passed by the General Committee on Railway and Canal Bills in 1861, to the effect ' That Counsel shall not cross-examine a witness unless be has been present during the entire examination in chief—and That Counsel shall not re-examine unless he has been present during the entire cross-examination,'
  Resolved that the enforcement of such a Resolution is undoubtedly within the privilege of any Railway Committee for the better order of their proceedings."

  POLICE SUPERANNUATION.
  MR. P. STANHOPE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether a police constable appointed under Section 19 of the Act 3 & 4 Victoria, chapter 88, is entitled to superannuation under the English Superannuation Act of 1890, in the same manner as other county constables?
  MR. MATTHEWS: The question does not arise in the Metropolis; but with regard to other forces the question is not free from legal doubt. So far as I can judge, if the police constable appointed under Section 19 has been engaged on the ordinary terms of contribution towards superannuation and otherwise, and has fulfilled the conditions of age and service appointed by the pension scale of the force to which he belongs, ho would be entitled to superannuation in the same manner as other constables. As a rule, however, the service under Section 19 is temporary, and in some cases it has been on special terms.

  THE BOY MESSENGERS AND DISTRICT SERVICES COMPANIES.
  DR. CAMERON:I beg to ask the Postmaster General if he will explain to the House the nature

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  of the arrangements into which he has entered with the Boy Messengers and District Service Companies for the carrying on of their business under licence from the Post Office?
  MR. RAIKES: In reply to the hon. Member, I have to state that the arrangements in question are as follows:—The Postmaster General grants licences for the electric call system in London (such system not to include telephones), and if requested to connect the offices of the company or other persons licensed with police stations and fire brigade stations on the same terms as those in force in private wires. The licence to be for 12 years, and a royalty of £25 per annum, and 2s. 6d. per instrument to be paid by the licencees. The company (or other licencees) will act as agents of the Postmaster General to deliver single letters scamped with the penny rate of postage, provided that a messenger of the company may carry any number of letters (not exceeding six) handed in by the same sender. The company is not to make collection of letters. The costs of the legal proceedings have been ordered to be paid by the companies. I should perhaps add, the Private Bill promoted by the Boy Messengers Company has been withdrawn.

  ABERDEEN, ORKNEY, AND SHETLAND MAILS.
  MR. BRYCE: I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether he can now state the arrangements which it is intended to make for the provision of an improved mail service between Aberdeen and the Orkney and Shetland Islands?
  MR. RAIKES: I am at present only in a position to state that I have ascertained on what terms the present contractors would be willing to increase the frequency of the sailings of the mail steamers between Aberdeen and the Shetlands by one day a week all the year round, and those terms are now being considered by my noble Friend the Secretary for Scotland and myself.
  MR. BRYCE: Can the right hon. Gentleman say when he can give a definite and final answer?
  MR. RAIKES: It will be necessary for the Scotch Office and the Post Office to arrive at a common understanding,
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  and this must be submitted to the Treasury before I can say anything else.

  PRIZES AND BADGES FOR THE MILITIA.
  VISCOUNT WOLMER: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if it is the intention of the War Office to accede to the recommendations of the Committee of which Major General Mansfield Clarke, C.B., is President, with regard to money prizes-to recruits and trained men of the Militia; and if badges will be issued to marksmen in the Militia?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: In reply to my noble Friend, I have to say the Committee has not yet presented its final Report, and its recommendations are not yet before me.

  EGYPTIAN EXILES AT CEYLON.
  MR. SCHWANN:. I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether his attention has been drawn to the fact of the decease of Abdul al Helmi Pasha, one of the Egyptian Pashas exiled with Arabi Pasha to Ceylon, from asthma and other complications, notwithstanding the assurances given on a late occasion, that the health of the exiles was not suffering from exposure to the damp and hot climate of their actual place of exile; whether his attention has been drawn to a statement in the Ceylon Mail of 21st March, to the effect that—
  "Some of the other Pashas are really not in satisfactory health, Toulba Pasha, for example, has begun to suffer from asthma, while Arabi Pasha himself is not free from rheumatism ";
  and whether Her Majesty's Government will re-consider the desirability of removing the exiled Pashas to some drier climate?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: On behalf of my right hon. Friend, I have to say that no official information as to the death of Abdul al Helmi has been received. A Report on the subject will be called for.

  DUBLIN CATTLE REMOVAL LICENCES.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he will explain why the Privy Council have decided to withhold removal licences for Dublin cattle, which will have the effect of detaining within the city the whole of

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  the many thousands of milch cows now ' in the dairy yards of Dublin, contrary to the wish of the cowkeepers, who wish to put out the animals to grass for the annual summer pasture, and complain that these beasts, valued at least at £200,000, will be seriously deteriorated by imprisonment during the hot weather, while their owners will be put to much expense for their indoor maintenance; is he aware that many of the Dublin cowkeepers before the decision of the Privy Council had entered into binding contracts for the season's grazing, which will now be useless to them; and in view of the fact that this order extends to every dairy yard, even where there has been no pleuro-pneumonia for years, will he state whether there is any English, Irish, or Scotch precedent for the decision the Privy Council have arrived at?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The Privy Council have not decided to withhold removal licences for Dublin cattle. In consequence, however, of continued outbreaks of pleuro-pneumonia among Dublin dairy cattle, an Order was passed in February by the Privy Council restricting the movement of cattle out of certain districts scheduled to the Order without the consent of the Lord Lieutenant. Permission will be granted for the movement of cattle in the scheduled districts to pasture lands outside those districts within the North and South Dublin Unions in all cases in which his Excellency shall be advised that the movement can be effected with safety, having regard to the efforts now being made to stamp out pleuro-pnetimonia in Ireland. The circumstances of each application for permission to move cattle will receive careful consideration, and a communication to this effect was sent to the Dublin Cowkeepers' Association yesterday. The Order of the Privy Council referred to, restricting the movement of cattle, was made in accordance with the course adopted by the Board of Agriculture in Great Britain.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for his answer, which I think will give great satisfaction and remove much misapprehension; but will he inform me, as a matter of fact, why a gentleman named Mr. Thomas Cass, who has not had pleuro-pneumonia upon his premises for 10 years, when
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  he applied for a removal order was refused?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am afraid I cannot answer that; but if the hon. and learned Member will put down his question for a later day, I will endeavour to obtain the information.

  ASHTON-IN-MAKERFIELD LOCAL BOARD.
  MR. CALEB WRIGHT: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware that at the recent election of the members of the Local Board for the township of Ashton-in-Makerfield, Lancashire, the voting papers were deliberately taken out of the tin boxes in which they had been collected and locked, by the direction of the returning officer, by a member and certain officials of the Board; and that this extraction of voting papers took place on Friday night, 3rd April, 1891, previous to their being counted on the next day by the returning officer; and, if so, whether such conduct by paid officials of the Board is a breach of the Act of Parliament?
  MR. RITCHIE: My attention has not been called to any of the proceedings in connection with the election of members of the Local Board for the district of Ashton-in-Makerfield, and the Local Government Board have no jurisdiction whatever with regard to the election. If it is alleged that there have been any illegal practices which constitute an offence under the Public Health Act, 1875, in connection with this election, I may point out that provision is made by that Act for the punishment of the offence.

  ARREARS IN THE LAW COURTS.
  GENERAL GOLDSWORTHY: On behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Wandsworth (Mr. Kim-ber), I beg to ask the Attorney General whether he is aware that there are nearly 500 causes, besides motions, petitions, &c, awaiting a hearing in the Chancery Division, and over 1,500 in the Queen's Bench Division, which at the present rate of progress, and with all the Judges working hard, will take more than 12 months to try, irrespective of new causes; and whether, and when, the Government proposes to appoint addi-

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  tional Judges to overcome the very serious damage which the delay is inflicting on a large number of Her Majesty's suitors for justice?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL(Sir R. WEBSTER,: In answer to the question of the hon. Member, I have to state that I believe that the statements of fact contained in the first paragraph of his question are substantially correct. With regard to the question of the appointment of an additional Judge, I may say that the matter is receiving the careful attention of Her Majesty's Government. It is not possible, however, for me to make any statement with regard to the latter part of the hon. Member's question.
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: I beg to ask the Attorney General whether it is the fact that, in the Queen's Bench Division Courts, two Judges are constantly sitting for deciding questions of no greater importance than those which are decided in the Chancery Division by one Judge; and whether, having regard to the waste of judicial time involved in the present arrangements for the administration of justice in London and at the Assizes, to the accumulation of arrears arising from the long periods during which the Courts are not sitting, and to the dissatisfaction which exists with respect to the increased cost and delay caused by the working of the Judicature Acts, the Government will institute an inquiry, either by a Royal Commission or by a Select Committee, either of this or the other House, to inquire into and report on the whole question?
  SIR R. WEBSTER: In answer to the question of the right hon. Gentleman, I have to say that the first paragraph raises a point which was considerably discussed last year upon the occasion of the passing of the Bill of the hon. and learned Member for Inverness, and that there is a great difference of opinion as to whether more than one Judge should sit in Courts in Banc. There are certainly many cases that come before Divisional Courts of the Queen's Bench Division which require the attention of two Judges. The latter part of the question of the right hon. Gentleman should be addressed to my right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Treasury.
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: Perhaps the First Lord of the Treasury can answer now?
  THE FIRST LORD or THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH,: My attention has not been called to this question until this moment, and I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will see the answer requires a little consideration.

  GALLERY OF BRITISH ART.
  MR. MUNDELLA: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, in proposing to give the large plot of ground opposite the Normal School of Science at South Kensington for a Gallery of British Art, the Government had fully considered the difficulties of interpolating an Art Gallery under an independent management between portions of the Science School and the Science Collections of the Science and Art Department, and the future requirements of the Science Museum and the extension of the Science School, especially in view of the recent great development of technical education, owing to the Local Taxation (Customs and Excise) Act of last Session, with the demand for teachers caused thereby; and whether the Government would appoint a small Committee to report on the matter? I apologise for the form in which the question appears, for which, however, I am not responsible.
  MR. W. H. SMITH: In assigning as a site for a Gallery of British Art the plot of land opposite the Royal College of Science the Government have not overlooked the requirements, immediate or prospective, of the Science and Art Department, either in respect of its Science Collections or in respect of the additional accommodation required for the College of Science. For the Science Collections there will be available, part at once and part within a year or two, a continuous range of galleries, consisting of the present southern, western, and eastern galleries, and the cross gallery which is about to be constructed between the western and eastern galleries, thus affording more than the amount of accommodation which the Committee of 1889 considered to be necessary. Over and above this accommodation, Government has at disposal more than three acres of vacant land facing the Imperial Institute, and considerable areas besides to the

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  south of the present southern galleries. A portion of these vacant lands can be utilised for the extension of the College of Science and for future growth of the Science Collections. Additions to the College of Science must in any case take the form of a separate building, divided from the present building by Exhibition Road; and as access to the lands mentioned above from Exhibition Road will be secured by means of a corridor, the interposition of the Gallery of British Art need have no more serious effect than to increase by some 60 yards (which will be under cover) the distance between the two portions of the Science College. As the Art Gallery will be a distinct and separate building, the fact that it will be under different management need cause no greater difficulty than does the fact that the Natural History Museum is under a different management from that of the adjoining science galleries.

  RAILWAY WORKS IN THE CROFTER DISTRICTS.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I bag to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he is now ready to state the arrangements of the Government with regard to railway extension in the crofter districts of Scotland?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: I am sorry that I am not yet in a position to make any definite announcement. We are in negotiation for the construction of a line of railway, and the Government are prepared to recommend that very substantial assistance should be given if adequate security can be obtained for its construction, working, and maintenance by a responsible company. I shall probably be able to say something definite in the course of next week.
  DR. CLARK: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman where this line is?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: I am not in a position to give any further information.
  DR. R. M'DONALD: Will the House have an opportunity of discussing the matter?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: We feel the importance of the subject, and, as the hon. Gentleman is aware, any undertaking the Government give must, to be effective, have the ratification of the
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  House. We must ask the House to approve our recommendation before it can become effective.

  TUESDAY AND FRIDAY SITTINGS.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, seeing that Morning Sittings have now become habitual, he will, if the sense of the House appears to be in favour of the proposal, move a new Standing Order, under which the House should rise not later than half-past 12 o'clock on days on which Morning Sittings are taken? I may say that all the Members with whom I have communicated are in favour of the suggestion in my question, except those who are in favour of rising at 12 o'clock.
  MR. LENGalso had notice of the following question:—To ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, in view of the growing feeling in favour of the curtailment of Debates and earlier closing of the Sittings of the House, he will consider the expediency of the Twelve o'clock Rule, now applied on Mondays and Thursdays, being extended to Tuesdays and Fridays, so that discussions may be terminated not later than midnight?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: I observe with very considerable satisfaction, so far as I am individually concerned, the expression of a desire in all parts of the House for an earlier conclusion of our Debates on Tuesday and Friday evenings; but it will be obvious to the House that I could not make any proposal of the character suggested unless I was satisfied that it would receive almost unanimous support. I shall endeavour to satisfy myself on that point; and if I am assured that any proposal of (he kind will be cordially accepted by the House, I propose to put down a Motion, after 12 o'clock on some evening, because I could not devote important time at the disposal of the Government for the discussion of a question of that kind. If the House be disposed to entertain a Motion of that kind, I will make a proposal shortly after 12 o'clock; and I should rather be disposed to accept the suggestion of the hon. Member for Poplar, that we should fix half-past 12 o'clock as the time for the closing of Debate.[Loud cries of " Twelve!"] I will endeavour, with the

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  assistance of hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House, to satisfy myself as to the prevailing feeling in the House.
  MR. DE LISLE: The right hon. Gentleman will, perhaps, answer my question: whether he will more a new Standing Order maintaining the Midnight Rule on days on which Morning Sittings are taken, limiting speeches at such Evening Sittings to the space of half-an-hour?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: I have always been disinclined, and I remain disinclined, to put a limit on the speeches of hon. Gentlemen. I do not know how I could do so successfully; and I am satisfied that such a limitation, unless it was imposed by the sense of the House itself, would be one which would be absolutely futile, and would not be attended with satisfactory results.

  TRAINING SHIP AT STORNOWAY.
  DR. R. M'DONALD: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, as was recommended by the Crofters' Commission, the Government will cause a training ship to be stationed in Stornoway, in order to utilise the services of a large number of young men anxious for such employment, in view of the deficiency which this year exists in the number of Naval Reserve men, and in the interests of the Island of Lewis?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: I think it would have been more satisfactory if this question had been addressed to my noble Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty; but in reply to the question of the hon. Member, I have to inform him that drill ships for the Royal Naval Reserve are only placed where there are no batteries. At Stornoway there is the largest battery the Admiralty has anywhere, and between 1,900 and 2,000 men are trained at it. There is no difficulty in maintaining the numbers of the Royal Naval Reserve voted; but when an increase of the force is ordered, the additional numbers are not all at once available. If a training ship for boys is referred to, the Admiralty could not recommend one being placed so far North. If boys are willing to join the Royal Navy from Lewis, they will, of course, be received, as are boys from any other part of the coast.

  THE NEWFOUNDLAND BILL.
  MR. M. FERGUSON: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether Her Majesty's Government intend to take the Second Reading of the Newfoundland Bill before the delegates from that Colony have been heard?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: Her Majesty's Government are not yet aware whether the delegates desire to be heard; but I would point out that, according to invariable precedent, Counsel would not be heard till after the Second Reading of the Bill in the House of Lords. The matter will, however, receive full consideration.

  RELIEF WORKS, WEST DONEGAL.
  MR. A. O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland what steps, if any, have been taken to start relief works in Ranafast. Ranomona, and Loughnanoran, in West Donegal; whether he is aware that there is much fever in these districts; and what means of subsistence there are for the 783 inhabitants from this time till June, and for the women and children from June till the return of the wage-earners from the Scotch harvest in August?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The condition of the districts mentioned is being carefully watched, but I am happy to say no necessity has arisen to start relief works. As the result of local inquiry, I cannot find that fever exists there. An outbreak of scarlatina had occurred in Dungloe dispensary district, but it was practically over on the 25th ult. It is not anticipated that any distress will arise to deprive the inhabitants of their present means of subsistence, or to derange the practice followed by the heads of families in previous years with regard to the maintenance of their families while they themselves are wage-earning in Scotland.

  EMPLOYERS' LIABILITY BILL.
  MR. S. BUXTON: On behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for West Nottingham (Mr. Broadhurst), I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether it is the intention of the Government to proceed with the Employers' Liability Bill during the present Session?
  MR. MATTHEWS: It must depend on the course of Public Business, and on the progress made with other Government measures, whether any practical result can be attained by proceeding with the Employers' Liability Bill this Session. I should not proceed with it unless there is a reasonable prospect that the House will have time to carry-it through its stages.

  MANICALAND.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any Despatches have been received from the Portuguese territory impugning the statements of the agents of the South Africa Chartered Company in respect to transactions in Manica; whether the House will have an opportunity to see the correspondence that has taken place between Her Majesty's Government and the Portuguese Government in regard to these transactions before the Colonial Vote is taken; whether he is aware that Mr. Colquhoun, who is now the leading official of the Chartered Company in Manicaland, was removed from his appointment as Deputy Commissioner of Burma by the Government of India, for having been proved to have instigated attacks, by the Times correspondent at Rangoon, on the Chief Commissioner of Burma, whilst, at the same time, assuring the Chief Commissioner in private letters of his complete confidence and loyal devotion; and whether the information of Her Majesty's Government, in regard to matters in Manica, is derived from Mr. Colquhoun?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: The Reports which have been communicated to us by the Portuguese Government give, in some respects, a different account of the events in Manica from those sent by the agents of the South Africa Company. It would be inconvenient, and contrary to established usage, to publish the correspondence while negotiations are pending between the two Governments. I am informed that Mr. Colquhoun was removed from his office in Burma on account of his conduct to the Chief Commissioner. The information in the possession of Her Majesty's Government respecting the events in Manica is derived from various sources: the Chief Commissioner at the Cape, the South
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  Africa Company, and the Portuguese Government. I am unable to say what portion of it, if any, may have been furnished by Mr. Colquhoun. But the officer who took part in the affairs at Mutassa's Kraal and reported on them was not Mr. Colquhoun, but Captain Forbes.
  SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL: Can the right hon. Gentleman give us any information proving or disproving the Report of the conduct of Mr. Colquhoun in reference to his removal from the-Service?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: I must ask for notice of any further question. I may point out that Mr. Colquhoun was not removed from the Service, but only from the special appointment in Burma.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: Removed afterwards, I suppose?
  SIR GEORGE BADEN - POWELL: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there are two gentlemen of the name of Colquhoun. up there, one of whom did not serve in Burma?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: I am not-aware; but my answer refers to the one who did.

  RATING OF SCHOOLS BILL.
  MR. PICKERSGILL: I beg to ask the President of the-Local Government Board whether his. attention has been drawn to the heavy additional burden which will be imposed on the ratepayers of the poorest districts in London by the Rating of Schools Bill, which proposes to exempt public elementary schools from rate ability; and whether it is the intention of the Government to support the Bill; and, if so, whether they will move or support an Amendment (in the event of the Bill being read a second time) excluding the London School Board district from its operation?
  MR. RITCHIE: No doubt, Sir, if schools were exempted from rating, the additional burden, so far as they are at-present rated, would have to be borne by the other ratepayers. I would, however, point out that if, as is alleged, the result of assessing voluntary schools on their full rateable value were to be the closing of voluntary schools, the effect on the ratepayers would probably be much more serious than their exemption from

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  rating. The Government will state the course they intend to pursue when the Bill comes on for discussion.

  BRIXTON MILITARY PRISON.
  MR. PICKERSGILL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether it is true, as reported, that he proposes to place Brixton Military Prison under the charge of a chief warder; what are the wages and qualifications of a chief warder; whether it is the legal duty of the chief officer of a prison to " observe the conduct of the prison officers, and enforce on each of them the due execution of his duties "; and whether, under the the new arrangement, the chaplain and surgeon at Brixton will thus be subordinate to the chief warder; and, if not, to whom will they be subordinate?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: The question relates to my Department, and the hon. Member will allow me to answer. From the present small number of military prisoners at Brixton, it is considered that a chief warder will be sufficient for the charge of the prison. The pay is £125 a year, with a yearly increment to £150, with quarters; and the qualifications of the present chief warder are experience and good conduct in a similar capacity. As the chief warder is generally responsible for the prison, the other officials are necessarily in a sense subordinate to him, as in many other military prisons; but, of course, the chaplain and the medical officer are responsible for their technical duties, whether the officer in charge is styled governor or chief warder.

  WOMEN'S DISABILITIES REMOVAL BILL.—(No. 175.)
  Order for Second Reading upon Wednesday 13th May, read, and discharged.
  Bill withdrawn.

  PROVISION FOR OLD AGE (FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS).
  Address for—
  "Return of the assistance afforded, or facilities given, by the Governments of Europe to the provision of the industrial population for old age, whether in the shape of compulsory insurance, State annuities, State guarantee of the security of industrial savings, or grants to Friendly or Benefit Societies, and societiés de sécours mutuels."—[Mr. Howard Vincent.)

MOTION.

  ADJOURNMENT OF THE HOUSE.
  MR. CONYBEARE,Member for the Camborne Division of Cornwall, rose in his place, and asked leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance, namely, " the Arrest of an Indian Subject in Bombay and his Imprisonment for nine months in the Gaol of Assergarh, and his subsequent deportation to London without trial and without any charge or accusation having been brought against him; " but the pleasure of the House not having been signified, Mr. Speaker called on those Members who supported the Motion to rise in their places, and not less than 40 Members having accordingly risen:—
  MR. CONYBEARE: I am l0th to trouble the House with a Motion of this kind; but there are Members in the House who will recollect that I have again and again pressed the Government of India with questions on the subject without receiving any reply I could consider sufficient, and it is not only because the question involves a case of very great hardship and maltreatment to a particular Mahomedan subject of Her Majesty, but also because it involves a question of principle relating to the Government of India generally, that I consider it to be of sufficient importance to justify the step I am taking this evening. I am sure there are not many Members in this House who would have credited the statement had anyone told them before this case arose that it is in the power of Her Majesty's Government in India to act as they- have acted in relation to this Mahomedan gentleman, Sheikh Abdul Rasoul. I will briefly recapitulate the facts as they are stated to me, and as they have been admitted to be in the answers I have received from Members of the Government, to questions I have put in the House. All I can say is, whether the Government can justify their action under old-fashioned regulations which they admit to be the authority under which they have acted, or not, I hope, at any rate, the House will come

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  to the conclusion that old regulations passed in time of turmoil and confusion and warfare in the early days of our Indian Empire, are quite unsuited to the requirements of modern times, and ought either to be repealed at once, or at any rate, ought not to be acted upon without far more than the bare suspicion which I believe Her Majesty's Government now allege to be the ground of their action. Sheikh Abdul Rasoul was born in Kashmir, which city he left 35 years ago. He remained one year in Mecca, and lived in Constantinople for 30 years, where he received 45 guineas per month as a Professor of Languages to the college, and where he was a member of the Academy. After the Russian war he left Constantinople, and came to London, where, having a little money, he published an Arabic and Persian newspaper, called Gairat. He remained in London 10 years, and then returned to Constantinople. During his residence in London, Sheikh Abdul Rasoul maintained himself partly by teaching languages, and received support also from his countryman, Porbuksh. He left Contantinople again after three months stay, and went to Moscow where he stopped four months. He was supported all this time by friends. From Moscow he journeyed to Berlin, where he stayed 10 days, and then went to Paris. He left that city for London after one month's stay. After remaining in London for one month, he went to Cairo where he lived for two years. He again returned to Paris for two months whence he went to Cairo and Bombay. He was travelling all this time for pleasure. He corresponded with the Government during his travels. He took a great deal of interest in the Soudan War. I place these details before the House to show that there is nothing this gentleman desires to conceal. His life has been more or less a public one, for at any rate portions of his time, and if he has been in correspondence with Members of the Government—I do not mean this Government in particular—and with the Maharajah Dhuleep Singh—that, in the absence of far more weighty evidence than has been vouchsafed by the Government, does not entitle the Government to treat him as he has been treated. What was that treatment? When he arrived at
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  Bombay, in January last year, he "was arrested by the Commissioner of Police, his clothes and boots were cut to pieces on pretence of discovering if he had any treasonable communications concealed about his person, he was then placed on the railway and carried to the inland fortress of Assirgad, and there detained, nine months after which he was removed to Bombay under arrest, placed on board a Peninsular and Oriental steamer, and! landed friendless, penniless, and homeless, in the London docks; and but for the care taken of him by certain friends, who fortunately have the means of ascertaining these facts, taking up a case like this, and bringing it before the House and the country, this unfortunate man, for aught the Government cared, might have perished of starvation in this city. Now the answer of the-Government, so far as the question of deportation is concerned, is that they did not deport—that this gentleman asked to come back to England of his own free will. Well, that is an official explanation. I place before the House by the side of it, and in direct opposition to it, the deliberate statement of Abdul Rasoul himself, and I will ask the House to say which party is most worthy of credence, the Government who have deported this unfortunate man under a regulation which, according to the admission of the Government, does not give authority to deport any person from India—I will call attention to this particular regulation presently—whether the explanation suggested by the motive of getting out of the difficulty this deportation landed the Government in, is to be accepted, or whether the statement of this gentleman does not bear evidence of its truth, and that the statement of the Indian Government is not true. As to the way in which he was-brought down to Bombay, he declares that he was 26 hours travelling from Assirgad. He says—
  "I was under a guard of eight police; hence the Government of India has paid all our rents of the railway and food."
  I would ask the House to consider the improbability of a man being sent back to England at his own wish under a guard of police. He says—
  "The new Commissioner of Bombay has informed me that he has received telegram from the Viceroy that he should send me back to London."

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  Will the right hon. Gentleman deny that that is the case? Is this telegram in existence; and, if so, will he produce it? He goes on to say—
  "Then I replied to him in the presence of one of my companions Khan Saheli that I am not going back to London by my own wish because 1 have not any means for my living there."
  The man he refers to is capable of production, and I challenge the Government to produce him. Abdul therefore said distinctly, when he was under this escort of police, he was not going to London at his own wish, but against it. He goes on to say—
  "In reply he said that the India Office of London knows very well all this matter and it will arrange for yon any sufficient pension, whether from the said office or from 'Dhuleep'; then he immediately sent me back to London with a passage of second class, from the office of the Commissioner to the port of Bombay under a guard of six police and one English officer with three carriages. The Government has paid all our rents for the said carriages, and from that port to the Assam steamer we were carried by a steamboat of the Government."
  He asks—
  "Hence how can you believe now that I came to London with my own wish?"
  I find, further, that Rasoul declares that his arrest, when he arrived at Bombay, was—
  "Because of communications received from the India Office by the Commissioner of Police at Bombay, so that the India Office knows all about the matter."
  I have asked the Representative of the India Office in this House whether that is the case, and I have been met with a denial of the fact. But then I want to question the Government in reference to the answer given by the right hon. Gentleman this afternoon. Ho intimates now, for the first time only, after I have been harrassing him with questions again and again, that it was in consequence of a supposed treasonable communication with Dhuleep Singh that this gentleman was arrested. I ask the Government to state whether it is not the fact that Dhuleep Singh was in Europe at that time? I have not heard that when Dhuleep Singh issued the proclamation, that is said to have been treasonable, he was in India. I always understood that he was in Paris or some other part of the Continent. I
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  ask the right hon. Gentleman opposite whether as a matter of fact Dhuleep Singh was not in Europe at that time, and if he was, I ask the House to consider whether there is not, at any rate, a great deal of probability in the statement of Abdul Rasoul when he says that the orders came from this side to the Viceroy to arrest and imprison him, and that therefore the statement made to me by the Government is not correct—that is to say, the statement that they knew nothing about the matter, and could not do anything until they had communicated with the Viceroy as to the circumstances of the case. It will be found by those who may have followed this matter that, in reply to the questions I have addressed to them from time to time, the Government have again and again objected to give me information on the ground that they were seeking information from India. I first mooted this question in the House on the 17th February, and as late as the 16th March I was being informed by the Government that they had no information because they had recived none from the Government of India. There is this curious discrepancy and contradiction in the answers which have been given to me by the Government: After telling me that Abdul Rasoul had been sent to London at his own request, they informed me that the Secretary of State was not in possession of information which enabled him to state the cause of complaint or to prefer any charge. In the same answer the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Manchester, who represented the Under Secretary of State for India for the time being, said the Government had offered to refund the expenses of Abdul Rasoul in this country since his arrival in November, 1890, and that he had been offered a passage to Bombay, with permission to return to Kashmir. Now, I want to know whether at the time that answer was given to me the Government knew the reason this gentleman had been arrested and imprisoned? If they had no information to give me as to the character of the suspicions against Abdul Rasoul, or the evidence upon which he was arrested, I want to know why it is—how they can explain the anomaly of their conduct in offering this gentleman such compensation as would refund him his expenses

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  in this country and enable him to reach Bombay and Kashmir? The Government are in this difficulty: First of all they tell us they have no evidence against the man, and know nothing of the reasons why the Viceroy thought it right to have him arrested, ' and they promise to give us the information, which promise they wait until to-night to carry out; and then, at the same time, they say, " We will send this gentleman back free of charge at the expense of the nation." But if the man was guilty of any offence at all, we have a right to demand what character the accusation assumes. If he is guilty, we have the right to say that the Government are not justified in sending him back to Kashmir and offering him a safe conduct. And if he is not criminal—and this is the chief ground of my complaint—there was no ground for his detention at all. I claim that the Government ought to go further, and give him some kind of compensation for the atrocious ill-treatment he has received. That is not all. It was not sufficient that this gentleman should thus be treated in India—insulted on his arrival at Bombay, taken up without a word of warning, imprisoned for nine months in India, and then sent back in the charge of a posse of police against his will. That is not sufficient. When he comes to this country, what happens? He applies to the India Office to be allowed to place his case before the authorities of the India Office. I would ask the House to observe that if the Government are correct in saying that he came to this country at his own request, it was for the purpose of being able to prefer a charge against the Government and the police as regards his grievances before the supreme authorities at the India Office. Yet when he was brought here by the Government at his own request, and surely for no other purpose than to seek redress, how do they treat one of our fellow-subjects in India, when he has so serious a grievance to prefer against the Indian Government? This gentleman first of all waited upon Lord Cross at the India Office. I think the statement he made to me—for I have personally examined him and tested his veracity in every way—was that he waited three hours on one occasion at the India Office without seeing Lord Cross, and he
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  was treated as a beggar or a dog and refused permission to see any of the authorities at the India Office. He then wrote a letter preferring his complaint and asking permission to expose his grievance. No notice was taken of that letter. Then he wrote a second letter, which was witnessed for him by a friend in London and which he took the precaution of having registered, and sent it to the India Office. That letter was also disregarded. Not a single syllable of reply was vouchsafed to this poor Mahomedan fellow-subject of ours; and if it had not been for the fact that the matter was brought by me before this House at the instance of friends in London, no more, probably, would have been heard of the matter, and nothing would have been done by the right hon. Gentleman and his Colleagues at the India Office. In consequence of the questions I repeatedly put to him, the right hon. Gentleman admitted that it was, at the least, uncivil that his office did not take the trouble to reply to those letters. I say it was not only uncivil, but positively unbusiness-like, and I want to know if this is the? usual manner in which the business of the office is conducted. It is a monstrous thing that, because a man happens to be a Mahomedan and a native of Kashmir, he should be treated like a dog, when he has a solid grievance to bring before the Government of the country. No other person would be so treated as long as he was not a native of India or some other foreign portion of Her Majesty's dominions. The Government seem to have got a little frightened at last when I pursued my inquiries in this House; and so I find that on the 24th of February, Abdul Rasoul was requested to go to the India Office and see one of the officials. He saw Sir Gerald Fitzgerald, who offered him £10 for maintenance, and said: "I suppose you are willing to go back to India." I want to point out that at this time the Government were informing me in this House that they knew nothing of the circumstances of the case, and were waiting for information from India. The right hon. Gentleman (Sir J. Gorst) shakes his head, but the official reply in the pages of Hansard proves that it was so. The interview- to which I refer took place at the India Office before the 24th of February. On

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  the 9th of March I got this answer from the Government—
  "Abdul Rasoul was offered the refund of his expenses since arrival in November, 1890; a passage to Bombay and permission to return to Kashmir. He was sent to London at his own request. If Abdul Rasoul demands compensation, he should address himself in the first instance to the Government of India, and, in the event of their refusing him redress, appeal to the Secretary of State. The Secretary of State is not in possession of information which enables him to state the cause of complaint or prefer any charge."
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA(Sir J. GORST,: What I said in reply to the first question was that the Government could take no steps to deal with Abdul Rasoul until they received information from India. Two days after that the information came that the Government of India paid the passage of this man to London. Immediately after that we offered to pay his passage back again.
  MR. CONYBEARE: That is all very well; but the question I have been hammering at, and could get no answer from the Government to, was as to the guilt or innocence of this man. Why should this man be treated in this infamous way, and then be sent back in this hugger-mugger fashion, in order to shut the matter up in this House? Why should he be sent back before we were informed whether he was guilty or not? The information I asked for in the first place I tried to obtain again and again, and only to-day, for the first time, have I been able to get a clear answer. What was the cause of complaint, if any, against this gentleman? At the time the right hon. Gentleman gave me the answer I have read he had not learned, or, if he had, he took very good care not to tell me, the cause of complaint against this gentleman. His words are—
  "The Secretary of State is not in possession of information which enables him to state the cause of complaint or prefer any charge."
  Yet, without knowing whether this man was guilty or not, they offered to pay his debts in this country and to send him back to India free of expense. I say, if the man was innocent he had no business to be treated in that way. If he was not innocent he ought to have been brought to justice; and, in any case, we have a right to know definitely what was the charge the Government
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  were prepared to bring against him, and whether they have now become convinced that there was no ground whatever for that charge. It is not a charge really, but merely a matter of suspicion. The right hon. Gentleman says-the Government had reason to believe or suspect that Abdul Rasoul was in communication with Dhuleep Singh, who had issued a treasonable Proclamation. A more humbugging way of dealing with one of Her Majesty's subjects I never heard of. If the Government had any solid ground for suspecting that there was any treasonable communication between this man and Dhuleep Singh, I say we have a right to know exactly whether they have come to the conclusion or not that the man was not guilty of any such treasonable practice as they thought he might be guilty of at the time of his arrest. But the importance of that is this: If this gentleman was kidnapped and imprisoned for nine months without a single charge or accusation being brought against him, and if the Government now—and they have by their action in offering him money, and offering to send him back to Kashmir —if the Government admit that there was no ground for the accusation against him, if he was not guilty of the matters. of which he was suspected, have we no right to demand that this unfortunate man should have something in the way of compensation? They say, "We won't consider the question of compensation." I have a letter from the India Office saying, " We will simply pay your debts within certain limits; we will pay your passage to Bombay, and give you a safe conduct to Kashmir," and in the event of his refusing these terms, in the event of his pressing for-something in the shape of compensation for these grievous wrongs which the action of the Government showed that they believed to exist, and were not justified by reason of there being no-guilt attaching to him at all, they say they will have nothing more to do with him. Now, I do not know that it is of any use pressing the right hon. Gentleman further on this question of compensation. But the House and the country will realise what this state of things is—that a man may be kidnapped and imprisoned in this way upon the

  705
  barest suspicion, and treated with all sorts of indignity, and brought against his will, under police escort, to this country; and then the Government, by their action, admit that there was nothing against him whatever; that he was an innocent man, and when he asks for some compensation and redress of his wrongs he is thrown back on what I venture to call a very illusionary promise or statement of the Government. They said the right persons to apply to are the Government of India. I should like to know what sort of redress this man would get from the Viceroy? How is he to proceed, I should like to know? In India he would have no chance whatever of getting any compensation. Is there any Court in India before which this gentleman could bring his complaint against the Viceroy? Could he in any way attack the Viceroy. in the Courts with a view to obtaining any redress? And probably the only answer he would get if he were to bring this matter before any Court in India, would be to be told " This is not a matter that concerns us; we derive our instructions and our information from London, and you must go to Lord Cross, who is the supreme authority in this matter, to whom these demands should be in the first place made." That is a style of playing at battledore and shuttlecock with the rights of our Indian fellow-subjects which is disgraceful, and it would be a novelty to most Members to find that such a thing could be possible at all. Therefore, I must again press the Government to re-consider their position in this matter. I think I have shown, and it must be clear to everybody, first, that this man has been wronged; and, secondly, that the Government know that they were wrong and that they have dealt unjustly by him, and I want the House to realise the effect upon the minds of our Indian fellow-subjects of such treatment. It is all very well to treat this matter as a matter affecting an individual. The effect of an incident of this kind will be far-reaching. It will permeate through every corner of India, and quite right that it should. And then, what effect do you suppose it will have upon the feelings of loyalty towards this country on the part of the people of India? How can you expect that the people of India will be satisfied with the
  706
  paternal despotism of which we are always boasting in India, when they find that Europeans go scot-free, that the fact of a man being a European is enough to prevent his being touched under these old-fashioned Regulations, while any unfortunate native may not only be detained in the way this gentleman was, but may have all his possessions and lands attacked and taken from him as well? I will just refer for one moment to the Regulations under which this matter takes place, and I want to draw attention to them for this reason: In the question I asked this afternoon the right hon. Gentleman was forced to admit that his previous answer to me was wrong when he said this gentleman was arrested under Regulation 3 of 1818. And it shows how little the right hon. Gentleman knows about this matter himself. There are several Regulations, and Regulation 3 of 1818 applies solely to Bengal. The Government had no more power to deal with this gentleman under Regulation 3 of 1818 than they had to deal with him under the Habeas Corpus Act, which unfortunately does not affect India in the smallest degree. The Regulation which the Government did act under was the Regulation passed in 1827, No. 25. The Regulation 3 of 1818 applies solely to Bengal; this Regulation of 1827 applies solely to Bombay. This is the Act under which this incident has taken place, and the Preamble of this Regulation states that,
  "Whereas reasons of State embracing the due maintenance of alliances formed by the British Government with foreign Powers, the preservation of tranquillity in native territory, and the security of British dominions from foreign hostility and internal commotion, occasionally render it necessary to place under restraint individuals against whom there may not be sufficient ground for instituting any judicial proceedings, when such proceedings might not be adapted to the nature of the case, or may from other reasons be inadvisable and imprudent."
  Then the Regulation follows, which enables the Government to arrest and detain any native gentleman whom they may suspect, and so on. That is Chapter I. of this Regulation. The second chapter contains rules for the attachment of lands for reasons of State, and for the removing of such attachments. Therefore, you have by the two classes of Regulations, which are no doubt very similar in both territories—Bengal and

  707
  Bombay—first of all enabled the Government on the barest suspicion, or for no reason at all, to arrest and imprison a native gentleman; and, secondly; to deprive him of his property and his estates. I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman upon that point whether it is not the case that these Regulations apply solely to natives, and whether it would be possible to attack any European subject under these Regulations? If I am not misinformed, these Regulations are strictly limited to natives of India. And I want to know why at the present time should such a Regulation as that be maintained with this odious distinction between the English Governors of the country and our native fellow-subjects, considering that it might not be inconceivable that European emissaries might also— if there is any ground for supposing that native emissaries do — create disturbances and disaffection? Now I hope, Mr. Speaker, that I have made this matter perfectly clear. As I have said before, I have brought this matter forward because I believe that it will be a perfectly new thing to most people that this Regulation exists. I repeat that these Regulations under which the Government acts are old-fashioned Regulations belonging to the year 1818 and 1827, when the circumstances were totally different to what they are at the present time. I venture to think that most people will agree with me that whatever may be done in this particular case of Abdul Rasoul, it is quite time that these Regulations should, in the interests of good government in India, be abrogated, or, at all events, no longer acted upon. I cannot conceive anything more calculated to destroy confidence in the justice of our rule in India than the maintenance and exercise of Regulations such as that which I have brought under the notice of this House. There is another point I want to address the Government upon before I resume my seat. It has reference to a question which I have asked several times as to the number of persons who have been imprisoned under this Regulation. I asked, in the first place, for the names and numbers of the persons so imprisoned, but the right hon. Gentleman said it would be prejudicial to the interests of the country to give such particulars. But
  708
  there can be nothing prejudicial to the interests of the country in giving the numbers of the persons over a series of years who have been thus treated. We want to know how these extraordinary Regulations have been put in force. I again ask the right hon. Gentleman why he objects to give a Return showing the number of persons who since 1815 have been deprived either of their lands or their liberty? I thank the House for having allowed me to bring the matter forward, and I hope I shall not be considered as having unduly trespassed upon the time of the House, having regard to the magnitude of the subject. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will be able to give us some satisfactory assurance on the point. If not, I am afraid we will have to avail ourselves of the alteration of the Rule by putting down an Amendment to the Motion to go into Committee on the Indian Budget for the purpose of further discussing this matter.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, " That this House do now adjourn."— (Mr. Conybeare.)
  SIR J. GORST: I hope in a very words to be able to assure the House that my noble Friend the Secretary for India is desirous not only of treating this unfortunate man with justice, but with kindness and generosity. There are four matters which the hon. Member for Camborne has dealt with in his Motion for the Adjournment of the House, and I may be permitted to say that he has rather mixed them together, but I will endeavour to keep them distinct. The first question is whether this Abdul Rasoul was properly arrested and put in prison by the Government of India. The second is the question whether he was deported or not to this country. The third is the question, what is to be done with Abdul Rasoul now he is in this country. And the fourth is the claim of Abdul Rasoul for compensation for imprisonment, which the hon. Member has rather mixed up with the other points. I shall take each of these four points separately, and deal with them frankly to the House. The first question is, was the Government of India justified in arresting and imprisoning Abdul Rasoul in India? That is a question which this

  709
  House, even if it wishes to do so, is not yet in a position to discuss, because, as I have repeatedly stated to the hon. and learned Member, in answer to his questions, we are not in possession of the information which will enable the Secretary of State himself to judge whether the Government of India, in arresting Abdul Rasoul, has exercised wisely or not the discretion entrusted to it by law. Now, the hon. Member has found great fault with the existence of the arbitrary and despotic power given by these Regulations to the Government in India. That is a large question which this House might discuss if it is disposed to do so. But India, it must be remembered, is a despotic country; it is not a free country; it is a country which is governed by a very arbitrary and a very strong despotism, and the power given by these Regulations to which the hon. Member refers, is one of those powers which are put into the hands of arbitrary Governments, and which must be exercised by an arbitrary and despotic Government from time to time. The hon. Member asks me whether these Regulations are applied only to natives and not to Europeans. They apply to everybody who goes to India. If the hon. Member for Camborne were to go into the Province of Bombay, and were suspected of acting in a manner which was likely to interfere with the security of the British dominions from foreign hostility, it would be the duty of the Viceroy of India to arrest the hon. Member, and to detain him for such time as would prevent him from carrying out his nefarious intentions. The hon. Member says he has experienced great difficulty in drawing from me the reason of the arrest of Abdul Rasoul. That is quite true. I have had the information dragged from me with great reluctance, and it is the hon. Member for Camborne, and not the noble Lord the Secretary of State or myself, who is responsible for the publication of the facts. During the last two months I have been most anxious not to state the reason. The Maharajah Dhuleep Singh, having made his submission to Her Majesty, I was most reluctant to rake up those matters which for the Maharajah's sake ought to be forgotten. But the hon. Member, by his reiterated question, has compelled my noble Friend to
  710
  tell the House the reason why this man was arrested. He was arrested because the Government of India had reason to believe that this Sheikh was an emissary of the Maharajah Dhuleep Singh, and arrived in India for the purpose of stirring up discussion and commotion in our Indian Empire.
  MR. CONYBEARE: On what evidence?
  SIR J. GORST: I refer the hon. Member to the Regulation, which places the discretion in the hands of the Government of India. It says that—
  " When the considerations stated in the Preamble of this Regulation require it, the Governor in Council has power," &c.
  Considerations of public safety required it. What evidence has the hon. Member that the Governor in Council has exercised his power unwisely or corruptly in this matter? Is the House of Commons going to act without Papers, without any information whatever, and merely upon the ipse dixit of the hon. Member for Camborne? Is it, in the absence of the necessary material, going to discuss whether the Government of India have exercised the very great power conferred upon it by Statute, with proper discretion or not? If the House of Commons wishes to discuss it; if any hon. Member raises a Motion on the subject, and discusses it when the Papers have been received from India, of course it will be my duty to defend the Government of India in this House. But I strongly appeal to this House not to discuss any matter of the kind, unless it has some primâ facie evidence brought forward to show that the Government of India was animated by some personal or corrupt motive. I ask the House to leave the discretion where the law has put it, with the Government of India, and not to discuss whether their discretion has been properly exercised or not, in the absence of information. Abdul Rasoul was arrested according to law; the arrest was made on the responsibility of the Government of India; and we have no means at present of knowing whether the discretion of the Government of India was rightly or wrongly exercised. With regard to the second question: Was he deported? The hon. Member has used the word deported in order to show that the man was sent to

  711
  London against his will, whereas he was sent at his own request, and was not deported. Fortunately, by a piece of very good fortune, there has been transmitted from India a copy of the Petition which was presented from the Sheikh Abdul Rasoul to Mr. Mackenzie, Chief Commissioner of the Central Provinces, for his release. This is a remarkable document, and it disposes so entirely of the ingenious conjectures of the hon. Member for Camborne, that the House will permit me to read it—
  " I take the liberty of craving your gracious attention to my following poor Petition. In short, His Highness Maharajah Dhuleep Singh, who is my old friend and master, has received pardon of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Empress of India. I also lay before your honour my humble Petition, that you will be pleased to solicit my release. If 1 should be released I give my most solemn undertaking that I will in no way in future do or join in anything against the Government of Her Most Gracious Majesty. If I should be graciously released I will request the Committee to return to my native place, Srinigar, in Kashmir. On the other hand, if the Government shall not accept my return to Kashmir, then 1 request to be sent back to England. I am without funds or means of paying my passage, or any means of support. His Highness the Maharajah Dhuldeep Singh would supply the necessary funds for my passage to England, and fur my future a sufficient year's salary."
  The hon. Member for Camborne spoke of the cruelty of the Government of India in landing a man at London Docks without a penny for his support. But the Government of India, when they sent him, had reason to suppose that if he got back to London His Highness the Maharajah Dhuleep Singh would support him. On arrival, however, Abdul Rasoul did not go to his old friend and master Dhuleep Singh, but he went to the hon. Member for Camborne, who has treated him ever since as having a grievance. That leads me to a third point, namely; What is to be done with this man? Well, as the hon. Member for Camborne himself admits there was this unfortunate man over here in London without a penny to call his own, longing to get back to his native home at Srinigar in Kashmir, from which he had been absent for a period of 35 years. Taking him at his word, my noble Friend the Secretary of State said to the man, " If you desire it I will pay your passage back to India. I will pay the debts you have contracted in
  712
  London, and I will also guarantee that the Government of India shall not arrest you when you get there, and that you shall be permitted to go to your native home at Srinigar." But the moment this was said the man turned completely round. I do not know whether it was at the instigation of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Camborne, but at any rate he said " I will not go without compensation." Matters were thus brought to a deadlock.
  MR. CONTBEARE: I beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon. I did not make any such suggestion.
  SIR J. GORST: The hon. Gentleman may take it that that remark was merely in the nature of a flower of rhetoric. At all events, we have the fact that this man, Abdul Rasoul, was here in London expressing the desire to get back to his native place, and that when made acquainted with that fact the Secretary of State was ready and willing to pay his fare home, and that the moment this offer was made to him the man refused to go because he wanted to get compensation, and thought he might be able to get it through the medium of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Camborne and the House of Commons. Now, Sir, it has been said that the offer made by the Secretary of State to send the man back to Kashmir was a proof that my noble Friend knew that he had not been justly treated. I reply that it was nothing of the kind. The Secretary of State has the most perfect confidence in the discretion of the Government of India; and when, in consideration of the altered circumstances, the Government of India expressed no objection to the man's return, the Secretary of State was glad to help him to return; just as when he found that the Government of India were of opinion that the man was a danger to the peace of India, he had no doubt the discretion of the Government of India had been very properly exercised in arresting him.
  MR. CONYBEARE: What was the evidence?
  SIR J. GORST: That I have declined, and must decline, to state. I have not got the evidence here, and if I had I should certainly decline to state it unless I were called upon by an overwhelming majority of the Members of

  713
  this House to do so. I believe, however, that the majority of Members in this House are sufficiently inspired with good sense that they would not ask for that evidence unless they believed that it was of a character which it was absolutely necessary to produce. With regard to the question of compensation which has been raised in this case, 1 may say at once that that claim is not one which I have shown the slightest desire or inclination to shirk. All I can say on that subject is, that if it is brought forward in a proper manner it shall be fully considered. But the proper course to take would be, in the first instance, to bring the claim before the Government of India, who are acquainted with all the facts of the case. Abdul Rasoul must petition the Government of India for compensation, and put forward in support of this claim the grounds of injustice and ill-treatment upon which he founds it, and if, on fall consideration of all the circumstances, the Government of India should refuse his request, he will then have a right to appeal to the Secretary of State, by whom, I may say, in answer to the rhetoric of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Camborne, his application will be fully and fairly considered. This is what the man has to do if he wants compensation. There is no such thing in the present state of the case as getting compensation from the India Office. We could only give the man compensation on an appeal from a refusal of the Government of India. The hon. Member for Camborne is derisive of this point, but I would remind him that you do not tell a man to go direct to the House of Lords for justice, you only go there by way of appeal. In the same way, you cannot allow a man to apply for compensation directly to the Secretary of State. He must, in the first instance, submit his case to those who are acquainted with the circumstances. I have now dealt with the case as it has been brought before the House as shortly as I could consistently with the facts, and I hope I have said sufficient to convince this House, that the Secretary of State is desirous of doing everything he possibly can that is not only fair but even generous in this matter; that there is no wish on his part, or on the part of the Government of India, to
  714
  oppress or persecute Abdul Rasoul, and that if that person had only placed himself in the hands of good advisers— instead of his case being now made the occasion for a Motion for the Adjournment of the House, and used for Parliamentary purposes of Party—if this native had been advised by those whom he consulted to accept the offer made by the Secretary of State and had gone back to India, he would have been very much happier and better off than he is likely to be while he remains in the hands of his present advisers.
  MR. MACNEILL: I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House are very glad to see the right hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary of State for India back again in his place in better health and vigour. Having said so much in reference to the right hon. Gentleman himself, I now have in my place in Parliament to make a serious complaint against the Indian Government. Their conduct is, in point of fact, so bad that Irish officials are becoming respectable by comparison. Now, Sir, about 130 years ago — [Laughter.] Hon. Gentlemen do not seem to be very fond of ancient history, but I wish to remind them that about 130 years ago the elder Pitt got up in the House of Commons and said—
  "The iniquities of Indian Administration are so rife that they smell from earth to heaven and from heaven to earth again."
  Well, Sir, what have we here? We have before us the case of a poor poverty-stricken and a defenceless man. We have that man, by the confession of the Indian Government themselves, arrested on no charge whatever, and not only on no charge, but also on no warrant. He is then kept in gaol for a period of nine months without the shadow of a pretence or any excuse except the mere suspicion which has been communicated to the Indian Government. Let us compare the position of this man to that of the noble Lord the Secretary for India. Lord Cross receives a handsome salary from this country, whereas the average income of an ordinary native of India is something like l½d. a day. Against this 1½d. Lord Cross is in receipt of £5,000 a year. When this poor, wretched, poverty-stricken man goes to Lord Cross and states his case, and the reasons which induced him to bring it forward, Lord

  715
  Cross turns him with contumely from his door. Let us again consider by way of contrast and comparison the amount of personal liberty which is revealed by this transaction as possessed by the natives of India. Why, Sir, if this kind of thing is to go on a man might as well be in Ireland as India. Even the right hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for India is compelled to admit that that great bulwark of liberty of the subject, the Habeas Corpus, has no operation in India. No doubt it is a pleasant confession to hon. Members opposite that there is no Habeas Corpus Act in India. But let me recall the facts of this case. For nine months this man was kept in gaol without warrant and without charge. Had he been in England he could have demanded to be brought up under the Habeas Corpus Act. According to his own account that man has been deported from his own country to a country where he was perfectly friendless, and where he had no means of support. Why, I ask, will not the right hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for India lay the evidence in this case before the House? If India is to be retained under the British flag and the British Constitution, why should not the House of Commons, having regard to the interests of the 250,000,000 of people over whom this country exercises the rule, have the Return they ask for laid upon the Table, so that hon. Members might be able to go into the question and form their own judgment upon it? Why, I ask, should not the people of India have afforded to them the same comfort and consolation that are afforded to every oppressed man who has the knowledge that his grievance will be justly and properly investigated, and that injustice will be exposed before the British public. The right hon. Gentleman has referred at great length to the Regulations of 1827 having been endorsed by Parliament. No doubt that is so, but I would point out to the House that those Regulations were made 30 years before the East India Company were disestablished, and that they were made by a Board of Control, which was practically outside the control of the House of Commons. There was undoubtedly a revision of these Regulations every 30 years, but that, after all, was merely a formal matter;
  716
  and even though they were endorsed by the House of Commons, they were endorsed by the House of Commons of 1828, which was very differently composed to the present House of Commons. If the right hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs should think it necessary to speak on this question, he may tell me that those Regulations were Bombay Regulations, and that the right hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary for India, whose administration I admit is marked with great ability, is not in Bombay. But I would ask the right hon. Gentleman the Foreign Under Secretary whether he will get up and say he ever knew of a single case in which a European was arrested under such circumstances, and by the exercise of such powers as these. It may seem a strange term to use if I speak of " bullying the natives," but, Sir, I do use that phrase, and I find it has been used by no less a person than Lord Lytton, when holding the high office of Governor General of India. Lord Lytton is reported to have said in a private letter, and the statement has never been denied, that he, as Governor General, had only two courses to pursue—" to cheat them or to bully them, and he preferred to cheat them." Will Lord Lytton deny that he said this? The question may be put to him in Paris by telegraph to-morrow, and an answer can easily be obtained if the Government wish to obtain it. Now, here is a case in which a man has been absolutely bullied, and only on suspicion of having taken part with Dhuleep Singh; but when Dhuleep Singh has been forgiven for his part in what took place, his accomplice is kept in prison many months after the principal has been released. The right hon. Gentleman commented upon the document the man wrote. It must be remembered Abdul Rasoul had been in prison many months when he wrote the document, and that people who are imprisoned and who suffer keenly will do almost anything to secure release. I certainly hope my hon. Friend will press his Motion to a Division. It ought to be pressed to a Division if this were only a case involving the liberty of this poor man. I agree with what was once said by a great countryman of my own—Edmund Burke—with reference

  717
  to India; he said he hoped the time would come when the personal liberty of the subject would be as respected and as secure in the heart of our Indian Possessions as it was in the Strand in the City of London. We govern the people of India and impose on them burdens that we have not ourselves. Mr. Bright once said that the Government of India was a pure despotism. Do we work that despotism for the good of the natives or for our own gain? Her Majesty's Government have tried for four months to suppress this case, and therefore it is, I trust, my hon. Friend will go to a Division. I know very well he will be abused to-morrow morning in the Tory papers; but he will have this satisfaction, that what he has said and what I have said will be read by those by whom we most wish it to be read, namely, by the native populations of India.
  MR. W. McARTHUR: Had time permitted, I should have found it necessary to differ very widely indeed from the hon. Gentle-who has just sat down, but I want to make a few remarks with reference to what fell from the Under Secretary of State for India. We are not used to hearing from him flowers of rhetoric, but are accustomed to the more solid fodder he is in the habit of giving us in reply to questions and Motions. I am bound to say, I think that on the whole the Under Secretary made out a fairly reasonable case, except in one particular to which I wish to address my observations. I have always been one of those people who, having seen something of native races, appreciate the great difficulty English people have in dealing with them; and I think if there is anything about which this House ought to be most careful, it is in passing votes of indiscriminate censure against the action of Englishmen who very often do their duty under circumstances of very great difficulty. As I say, I do not altogether sympathise with the speech of my hon. Friend (Mr. Mac Neill) after the speech of the Under Secretary; but I think a great deal of harm is done abroad, and very wrong impression often conveyed of Englishmen in authority abroad, by the kind of defence their action receives in this House from responsible Ministers. I do not say
  718
  whether this man was right, or wrong. I do not intend to argue whether the Regulations are right, or wrong. I am inclined to think they are right. I think it is necessary to make this kind of Regulations in India. But it is unfortunate that the right hon. Gentleman should have chaffed my hon. Friend the Member for Camborne (Mr. Conybeare) because he called attention to the case of a native in India who he thought had been unfairly treated. If there is anything which can excuse a Motion for the Adjournment of the House it is surely the case of some supposed injustice to a native subject of the Queen, because what does our great Empire abroad rest upon? No one will say we can maintain our Empire simply by the number of soldiers we have got. We maintain it in India, as we maintain it elsewhere, because this country has always been able to convince coloured races that in the main our rule is a fair and just rule, and that as far as the English people can provide, and as far as the House of Commons can provide, every native, wherever he lives, will get as fair treatment from English officials as he would if he were an Englishman. But if you are going to scoff at everybody who calls attention to a case of injustice, if you are going to protest against giving the House of Commons any information on these subjects, it seems to me you are going the best way to convince every native in India and throughout the world that you have got something to conceal and that you are afraid to explain. I put it to the Under Secretary whether he would not have saved a great deal of time by giving us a frank and straightforward answer when he was first asked for the information? I assure the right hon. Gentleman that there is no desire on the part of hon. Members who put questions on Indian and colonial matters to be regarded as opposed to him. We ask questions because we are anxious for information, and I do not think it ought to be thought we ask them for the purpose of damaging the Government, or of making Party capital. Indian and Colonial questions are not Party questions, and when we on this side interrogate the Under Secretary, we do not want flowers of rhetoric from him, but frank and plain answers. If he gives us

  719
  such answers he may rest assured we shall not make Party capital out of them, but these questions should be fully and fairly answered, so that we may feel satisfied that justice has been done.
  Question put, and negatived.

  ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  TAXES (REGULATION OF REMUNERATION) BILL (changed from " ASSESSMENT OF TAXES (REGULATION OF REMUNERATION BILL.")—(No. 221.)
  THIRD READING.
  Order for Third Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."
  MR. BARTLEY: I should like to take the opportunity to express my appreciation of the great step forward which the passing of this Bill marks, because it puts an end to the whole system of poundage in the collection of Income Tax. I thank the Government very sincerely for having fulfilled their pledge to carry this great reform. Under this Bill neither assessors of Income Tax, collectors, nor clerks will be financially interested in the amount they collect or in the assessments they arrange.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill read the third time, and passed.

PURCHASE OF LAND AND CONGESTED DISTRICTS (IRELAND) BILL.—(No. 111.)

  COMMITTEE.
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Clause 1.
  MR. KEAY: Before proceeding to conclude the remarks which I Commenced on Tuesday, I desire to be permitted to call attention to one fact, and that is that I was unable to finish my speech on Tuesday evening solely owing to the obstruction of the Government and the young lions of the Tory Party. It will be in the recollection of the Committee that a great deal of time was wasted in consequence of the refusal of the Government to afford information on the most essential and fundamental points. The arithmetic of the Government
  720
  is all wrong, and they now know it. They consequently wish to avoid discussion, trusting implicitly to the mechanical majority which they usually keep at hand in the pellucid atmosphere of the smoking room. I only wish they would keep it there, and not bring it into the House of Commons to disturb the calm deliberations of hon. Members. The Amendment is to strike out certain words with the view of preventing the general assets of the taxpayers of this country from being pledged to secure the Land Stock. I have already pointed out to the Committee that the proposal in this Bill, namely, that the purchase price shall be a capitalisation of the gross rent of the holdings, and that the instalment payable shall be a fixed one for 49 years, must reduce the tenant purchasers to bankruptcy, but the Government, in spite of the recommendation of theirown Royal Commission which sat in 1887, and which recommended that judicial rents should be revisable every five years, now recommend that rents should not be revisable for 49 years. The Return, which on the Motion of the hon. Member for the Rushcliffe Division (Mr. J. E. Ellis) has been issued with regard to the operations under the Ashbourne Acts, shows that a considerable number of tenants have defaulted already. I find that one poor man was made to buy at as much as 38 years' purchase, another at 37½ years, and so on. I will not go into the details of the Return, but simply remind the Committee that the average price of purchase was 25 years. What does this mean? It means simply that the instalment to be paid to the State on the extortionate sale price is as high as the Poor Law valuation. That will not be denied. These tenants who are now defaulting, and whose instalments are being paid by the British taxpayer, have defaulted because their instalments instead of being reduced from £100 to £68, which the right hon. Gentleman assured us was the scheme of his Bill—
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,: I never said anything of the kind.
  MR. KEAY: I am surprised to hear the right hon. Gentleman dispute it. He certainly took a supposititious

  721
  average of 17 years' purchase, but that is exactly where my point comes in. I say that when I take an average of the actual cases of default under the Ashbourne Acts, the average turns out to be, not 17 years, but 25 years' purchase. The right hon. Gentleman said that looking to the general average of 17 years' purchase at which the tenants would get their land, the result would be that the tenants who paid £100 now as rent would pay £68 of normal annuity under the Bill. I hope I have convinced the right hon. Gentleman that I am right, and he is wrong, in regard to the words he used on 24th March of last year. There is not a single clause in this Bill that is of a character to check or prevent the indefinite enlargement of this evil of the systematic over-valuation of holdings, and the consequent bankruptcy of the tenants. That I hold to be a most urgent reason why the risk of the British taxpayer should be eliminated from this Bill. Moreover, the Consolidated Fund is brought in for the purpose of making a " temporary advance." I hold that in the scheme of the right hon. Gentleman's Bill the idea of a temporary advance is perfectly illusory, impossible, and absurd. I am prepared, in the face of the right hon. Gentleman and of the Committee, to prove that fact by the hardest possible arithmetic. We must consider what the word " temporary " means, and I would urge gentlemen on the Treasury Bench to analyse it and tell us what it means. I endeavoured in February last to ascertain this by a certain question addressed to the Government. The Chancellor of the Exchequer in his reply to me laid great stress on the alleged temporary character of the advance; so much so, indeed, that he told me I had " suppressed the fact" of its temporary character, and had by so doing suppressed a material fact. He said that the Consolidated Fund would be "at once recouped" from the Guarantee Fund. Now, I say that this is an arithmetical impossibility. The right hon. Gentleman at the instance of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bradford (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) promised a Return showing the working of the Sinking Fund as connected with the Guarantee Fund, and I have that Return
  722
  here. He first made it for 10 years only, but very kindly, at our suggestion, he extended it to 30 years. I am sorry to say, however, that he positively declined to extend it to the whole 49 years, although I represented to him that the fresh advances to be made increased between the 30th and the 49th year immensely more than between the 1st and 30th year. I have, however, made a Return for the 49 years myself. The right hon. Gentleman said it would be very costly to produce such a Return, but I had it made by a clerk at an expenditure of about £2. The right hon. Gentleman shows, however, on page 4 of his own Return, that at the end of the 30th year there will be due from the tenant purchasers instalments amounting to £1,845,000. But the whole of the Guarantee Fund of the right hon. Gentleman has a fixed annual income for 49 years of, in round numbers, £1,200,000. The matter is one, therefore, of simple subtraction: you have only to subtract £1,200,000 from£1,845,000, and there-suit is a deficit of £645,000 arising in the 30th year alone, which deficit the Consolidated Fund has got to pay. The right hon. Gentleman has asserted that the Guarantee Fund covers all the risk, and that these advances from the Consolidated Fund are to be merely temporary. But assuming that he can get in the whole of the £1,200,000, that is, both the cash portion and the contingent portion of the Guarantee Fund, a so-called temporary advance will have to be made from the Consolidated Fund of £645,000 on that year's operations, and each year the deficit thus made up will be added to. I ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer to solve this arithmetical puzzle arising out of his own Bill. I say the Government are declaring that they are going to do impossibilities. I will take the figures a step further. In the 40th year, supposing repudiation does not take place till then, the deficit will have risen from £645,000 to £1,055,000 on that 40th year's transactions alone, and thus the Consolidated Fund will have to go on increasing its advances year by year until at the end of the 49th year the sum owing to it will be something like £10,000,000 sterling, or even double that amount, if the re-lending is still

  723
  continued. I hope I have made myself clear to the right hon. Gentleman. As he cannot make up these vast yearly deficits out of the current year's income of the Guarantee Fund the deficit in the Consolidated Fund will necessarily increase year by year, instead of being temporary and reducible, as asserted by this clause. I ventured the other night to say that the right hon. Gentleman was disregarding the old saying that it was impossible to put a quart of water into a pint pot, but the Government hydraulic machinery is so powerful that he has apparently succeeded in getting it in, and now, in this clause, he is preparing to take it out again. There is only one remark to be made with regard to this network of securities, and that is that it is a network in the sense that a net holds no water. But another, and in fact the crowning, monstrosity of this enormous finanical scheme is exposed by my Amendment, for the words which I propose to leave oat must be read alongside of Clause 6, Sub-section 3. I think the effect of so reading them will surprise the Committee very much, and I think it would have surprised the right hon. Gentleman had I not already taken so much trouble to educate him. The advances which are to be made from the Consolidated Fund are necessary to pay up all the different Sinking Funds as well as to pay the dividends to the public. Supposing that the tenants have, through famine or repudiation, committed default, and the Consolidated Fund has had at the end of the 40th year to provide a sum of £1,055,000, the Bill provides that while the British taxpayer is to go on year after year meeting the deficits and swelling the Sinking Funds with new British money, this new money is to be re-lent in the same way to another set of rotten landlords and rotten tenants year by year. I am glad to see the right hon. Gentleman is able to laugh at this. I asked a plain question on the subject and got a straightforward, honest answer. I asked if it were true that the new moneys thus forced from the British taxpayer were to be re-lent, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the 5th February admitted that it was so, but qualified the answer by what? By the astounding statement
  724
  that it would always be optional to and not compulsory on the Treasury to sanction these additional advances of the resources of the British nation. It actually comes to this, therefore, that the House of Commons is asked to resign to the Treasury its duty of looking after the public money. I decline to be a party to any such breach of trust. And I believe that no one in this House would dare to face his constituents on such an issue. We know that all this is painful to the Chief Secretary to listen to, because he has not got his young lions here to interrupt me, and my task of explaining the Amendment has consequently been made so much the easier. If the right hon. Gentleman will give me a fair hearing and will keep his young lions in order, I will promise to occupy as little time as possible in discussing this Bill. I think that even he will admit that this is a grave matter. As all reply has been deliberately withheld up to this time, I shall, in order to secure an answer on the present occasion, conclude with these four pointed questions to the Chief Secretary. (1) Is there any precedent for purchasing a fixed property at a price based on capitalising the gross instead of the net annual income, and can any such purchase be a safe transaction to be guaranteed by the State? (2) Have not the defaulters under the Ashbourne Acts, by paying an average of 25 years' purchase, now saddled themselves with instalments to the State about 20 per cent. higher than they would have paid of judicial rent to their landlord if they had not bought at all, but instead of buying had gone into the Land Court? Hon. Members opposite may laugh at that, but the right hon. Gentleman will not deny that the thesis on which he has all along defended his Bill is that the tenants will not fail to pay because they are getting £100 of rent lowered down to £68 of annuity. But Returns show that the defaulting tenants have been made to pay as annuity to the State £100; whereas, if they had gone into the Land Court and got judicial rents fixed, they would only have had to pay £80. My third question is: How will the £645,000, which is the right hon. Gentleman's admitted deficit arising on the transactions of the

  725
  30th year, be " at once recouped? " (4) Is it not the fact that, under this clause, read with Clause 6, Sub-section 3, the Bill provides for a continued further advance going on equivalent to the capital of the Sinking Funds, even if these Sinking Funds are filled up year by year entirely by yearly drafts on the Consolidated Fund to pay the default?
  Amendment proposed, in page 1> line 26, to leave out from the word "paid," to the word "out," in page 2, line 1.—(Mr. Keay.)
  Question proposed, " That the words ' as a temporary advance out' stand part of the Clause."
  ME. A. J. BALFOUR: The Committee have just heard from the hon. Member a recapitulation of a speech made before, garnished with a large number of abusive comments on the Government for not having dealt with the speech on a previous occasion. The hon. Member, who is not a very old Member of this House, must be aware that undoubtedly it is the duty of the Government to lay before the Committee arguments in support of their Bill, but it is not their duty to take seriatim every point, good, bad, or indifferent— and the hon. Member's points are usually bad or indifferent—and to waste time discussing at length, not the case itself, but certain aspects of it which the hon. Member who made the speech thinks are adequate to the merit of his own performance. The Amendment, with regard to which it has pleased the hon. Member to read the Government a lecture, alleges want of security to the British taxpayer. That question was discussed on the First Reading of the Bill last year, on the Second Reading also, on the introduction of the Bill this year, and on an Amendment brought forward earlier in this Committee. If any point has been thoroughly threshed out from beginning to end it has been this. Everything that can be said on the point has been said; and, therefore, I do not think it necessary to go into the character of the security again. I may, however, point out one or two of the grosser fallacies into which the hon. Member appears to have fallen. In the first place, the hon. Member says it is impossible that a proper price should be
  726
  given for holdings estimated on a gross and not a net rental. The business of the Land Commissioners is to see that the price does not exceed the fair amount which the tenant may properly give for the holding, and it does not in the least matter whether they calculate on the gross rent or on the net rent. They cannot be compelled to adopt as the basis of their calculations the net rental as defined by the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian in the Bill of 1886. The hon. Member has brought up an ancient mare's nest which troubled him much last year. He seems to think that directly repayments begin the solvency of the Guarantee Fund will be imperilled. This cannot be so. In proportion as the loans are paid they are let out again, and the original security is not impaired. I do not think the hon. Member raised any other point which it is worth while troubling the House with.
  MR. KEAY: The right hon. Gentleman has not said how the £645,000 is to be recouped.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: If the hon. Member will reflect — if the security provided for the £30,000,000 is sufficient, it will be equally good for the advances to be made accordingly as the original loan is repaid. The question whether or not it should be a continuous operation does not arise under this clause. I hope I have satisfied the hon. Member.
  MR. KEAY: No.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: At any rate, I have given him the best information in my power. No doubt it is my own stupidity which is responsible, if he does not understand the explanation.
  MR. J. MORLEY: There was one incidental remark made by the right hon. Gentleman which I considered to be surprising in its character. If the right hon. Gentleman has said one thing more often than another in the course of the present Parliament in connection with land purchase it is that the Land Commissioners are to regard nothing but security. But now the right hon. Gentleman says it is the duty and the business of the Commissioners to see that a fair price or value is given for the land.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: What I meant was this: The hon. Member for the Elgin Burghs says that as the holdings in Ireland are sold at the gross rent this is a method always leading to a high price. I replied to the hon. Member that this would not be the case, because it would be the business of the Commissioners to see that the security was ample. My speech must be taken in connection with the speech I answered, and it has no other meaning.
  MR. J. MORLEY: If the right hon. Gentleman means security he—
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The whole point of the Debate is in regard to security.
  MR. J. MORLEY: The right hon. Gentleman said that it was the business of the Commissioners to see that a fair price or value was given.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I should have said, to see that no excessive price or value was given.
  MR. J. MORLEY: But whether fair price or excessive price, it is one of the duties of the Commissioners to have regard to the price. He may have said it by inadvertence. I submit that it is a denial of the language used by the right hon. Gentleman during the course of the present Parliament.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I may have used the phrase, but the duty of the Land Commissioners is this: They have to see that no more money is advanced on the holdings than it will properly bear. If I did not convey that meaning I regret it. I hope that I have now made it clear.
  SIR G. CAMPBELL: I shall support the Amendment, not merely on the grounds put forward by the Mover, but on the broad ground also that I object altogether to bleeding the British taxpayer in the last resort. The crux of the whole matter is the security offered by the British taxpayer. It is a tortuous and unintelligible Bill, and this peculiarity is particularly manifest in this clause. This liability of the British taxpayer is, I find, here expressed indirectly as it were, and I may say by surprise, in this apparently small provision in regard to temporary advances. If, under certain circumstances, the Land
  728
  Purchase Account should be insufficient, then payments to the extent of the deficiency are to be made as a temporary advance from the Consolidated Fund, and every such advance shall be repaid to the Consolidated Fund out of the Guarantee Fund as provided by this Act. I have searched the Bill through from beginning to end, and I cannot find in any other shape any arrangement in regard to these British advances. What I understand is that the British taxpayer is to make these temporary advances, and get the money back the best way he can. We are asked by this unobtrusive, innocent - looking clause to accept all the liability, and I think we are bound to take good care that we understand the effect of it and the enormous liability it brings upon the British taxpayer. It is a very serious clause. What does it mean? Two or three irremovable Commissioners are to have a statutory right to ladle out enormous sums from the Consolidated Fund for the benefit of Irish landlords and tenants. That is the meaning of the clause, and I think we should fully understand this before we pass it. I daresay these Land Commissioners—Irishmen as they are—are very respectable men, but they are Irishmen; and they would be very degenerate Irishmen if they did not ladle out this British money with a liberal hand when Parliament has entrusted them with this power under this innocent-looking clause. I confess I am rather anxious in my mind when I find the Bill does not meet with more resistance. Irish Members have accepted the Bill, and the only Amendments they will propose, so far as I can gather, are in the direction of asking for more, of doing away with the faint and illusory Irish security the Bill contains, and throwing the whole of the risk upon the British taxpayer. I must say I hoped that this tremendous burden on the British taxpayer would have been vigorously resisted by the leaders of our Party. I was surprised and distressed when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle (Mr. Morley) got up just now to speak to the Amendment to find that he only raised one partial point. I hoped he was going to denounce altogether this proposal to put this

  729
  enormous liability upon the British taxpayer, but unfortunately he has done nothing of the kind.
  MR. J. MORLEY: It has been settled before.
  SIR G. CAMPBELL: My right hon. Friend says it is settled, but I think he accepts that a great deal too easily. We are told of preliminary Resolutions that do not bind the House to any thing, and I think this point is not yet settled; it is to be settled by the clause at which we have arrived. I was in hopes that this portion of the Bill would have been vigorously resisted, but I find my right hon. Friend and other right hon. Gentlemen seem to be very easily satisfied with the belief that this question has been settled by a previous vote of the House and do not care to fight it vigorously, as I hoped and expected they would. But while I find so little resistance on the part of our leaders, I cannot help having some faint suspicion that they think that the passing of this Bill may in the future make their course easier; and leading up to their proposals in 1886, which the constituencies so strenuously resisted, I am inclined to think that if £30,000,000 or £40,000,000 are added to the Ashbourne Act, we may find that£50,000,000 or £60,000,000 will have gone for the benefit of the landlord party; and that when the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Gladstone) returns to power, as we hope he will, and comes to deal with the problem of Home Rule, perhaps we may find in the Home Rule Bill some innocent little clause enabling the remaining Irish landlords to claim the same privileges already given to many of them under the Ashbourne Act and by the Bill now before us.
  THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is travelling very far beyond the immediate Amendment before the Committee. I may also take the opportunity of pointing out to the hon. Members for Kilkenny and Cavan that their Amendments, which are for the omission of the same words, should be discussed at the same time as this.
  SIR G. CAMPBELL: The Amendment before us is to omit the words which authorise these temporary advances out of the Consolidated Fund in
  730
  case of any deficiency in the payment of these loans, and in that view I venture to submit that that is not a process which will really settle this land question as we were told it might be settled. The land question will always be with us. But we can do this by the Bill: enable landlords who do not like Home Rule in Ireland to sell their estates and clear but of the country.
  THE CHAIRMAN: Instead of addressing himself to the Amendment, the hon. Member is discussing the principle of the Bill.
  SIR G. CAMPBELL: I really wish to confine myself to what seems to me to be the principle of the Bill, the burden laid upon the British taxpayer. I venture to think that is the backbone of the Bill contained in the clause we are now discussing. I am opposed to that burden. I am very much opposed to it, even while we retain the power of coercing Irish tenants to repay the advances; but I confess I am still more opposed to it in the view of a Home Rule system, under which we shall lose that power of coercion to compel payment. I am not only opposed to the clause in the Bill which throws such an enormous burden upon the British taxpayer, but I am also uneasy in my mind because the proposal is not more vigorously resisted by our Front Bench, for I am afraid it might lead to the burden being increased when we come to the consideration of Home Rule, and the appropriation of £150,000,000 or £200,000,000 to the object of enabling Irish landlords to clear out of the country.
  MR. SEXTON: With reference to your ruling, Sir, as to the several Amendments, I submit to you that the Amendment of my hon. Friend (Mr. Chance) comes in after the word "as," in the last line, and he moves the omission of words for the purpose of proposing the insertion of words having directly the contrary effect of those proposed by the hon. Member for Elgin, who wishes to discharge the Consolidated Fund of all liability. My hon. Friend desires to place the liability, in case of deficiency, on the Consolidated Fund.
  THE CHAIRMAN: It is quite true that the hon. Member for Kilkenny

  731
  wished to insert words after " as," but that insertion in that line would make nonsense of the clause. It is associated with words in a subsequent Amendment, but his proposal to strike out the words in reference to the temporary advance is the same as that of the hon. Member for Cavan. Although the proposals after the striking out are opposite in their sense, the Debate must take place on the proposal to strike out the words.
  MR. CHANCE: I must have made a mistake in the form of my Amendment. It was not intended to strike out the word "as," but, adopting that, to go on with the words I propose. I submit that my Amendment has a totally different object, and I would suggest that, as a matter of form, the question should be the retention of the word " as."
  THE CHAIRMAN: It is not at all necessary. The real point is whether the words " temporary advance " should be inserted, and whether the advance should be temporary or perpetual. The question of omission must be the subject of our Debate.
  MR. KNOX: The object of my Amendment is not, as that of the hon. Member for Elgin, to prevent any advance from the Consolidated Fund, but to substitute a permanent contribution for a temporary advance. My object is to prevent any contribution being made from Irish local resources. There is a difficulty which arises owing to the wording of the clause; and though the Amendment might come in on the first line of the next page, if these words remain in the clause, it becomes nonsense, so that I am obliged first to move the omission of these words.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN,: May I suggest to the hon. Member that he might attain his object by moving an Amendment to Clause 4?
  MR. KNOX: The right hon. Gentleman mistakes the meaning of my Amendment. We object not merely to the contingent guarantee, but to all the local Irish guarantees; and that is the point we want to raise.
  THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member wishes to provide that the payments shall be made once and finally out of the Consolidated Fund; and that is secured by leaving out the words " temporary advance; " and though the propositions move in divergent directions, they must be discussed on the omission of the same words. The hon. Member is now entitled to discuss his.
  MR. CHANCE: I regret that it is necessary to debate two distinct propositions upon one Amendment, but it cannot be helped, and illustrates the great difficulty Members have in dealing with these matters of a highly technical character; and the Bill is drawn in a manner that does not offer facilities for discussion, and really two sets of Members whose objects are completely different are compelled to go into the same Lobby. My proposal is an exceedingly simple one; but I am under the difficulty that, while my Motion is to insert certain words, the Committee are now only cognisant of the Motion for the omission of certain words with a wholly different object to mine. My proposal is an exceedingly simple one, and I would recommend the Government to consider carefully before rejecting it. The words I would propose would come in after the word " as,'' and run as follows:—
  " That is to say, out of the guarantee deposits in the first place provided, and if this should prove insufficient, then by a contribution from the Consolidated Fund."
  The effect will be to provide that any deficiency which may arise shall be borne by the Consolidated Fund, and to strike away once for all the whole provision for local guarantees. That will leave the Bill precisely in the same position as the law stands under the Ash bourne Acts, with the one exception that, instead of advances in cash, the Chancellor of the Exchequer will advance Two and Three-quarter per Cent. Stock. I want to know why the Government have departed from the Ash bourne Acts in this matter and proposed this system of checks. It was a Conservative Government which passed those Acts, and they always maintain that they are a success. The distinction which is now made is in favour of the State. The tenant under the Ashbourne Acts gets .£100 in gold and pays back £100 in gold. But

  733
  under this Bill he will not get £100 worth of Stock, but only the value of £100 Stock in the open market, which may be 98½ or 99. Therefore the National Debt Commissioners, if they purchase this Stock at anything under par, will gain by it.
  COLONEL NOLAN: I am glad the hon. Member seems to have come round to my view that the higher the Stock stands the better for the tenant. Now, the hon. Member for Elgin has proposed an Amendment which is extremly bad for the tenants, and the hon. Member for Kilkenny intends to support it. That is not very consistent with the argument of the hon. Member for Kilkenny, that any deficiency ought to be borne by the Consolidated Fund. It appears to me that the hon. Member should have given notice of his Amendment before the hon. Member for Elgin. If an Amendment is bad I would vote against it, and I am not prepared to vote for it because there is a good one which cannot be pat. If the hon. Member for Cavan can move his Amendment later on in Committee or on the Report stage I shall be glad, though, I think, it rather cuts at the whole machinery of the Bill, and something else would have to be substituted.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: The hon. Member is in the proverbial difficulty in this matter. He cannot be in two places at the same time—both in the " Aye " Lobby and the "No" Lobby. I think it is the duty of all on this side of the House to recognise the great debt of gratitude we owe to the hon. Member for Elgin and Nairn (Mr. Keay). I thought at first the Bill was a bad Bill, but every time my hon. Friend gets up I am more conclusively convinced that it is an execrable one. My hon. Friend has been a great deal in India, engaged in financial transactions there. He has had a great deal to do with the Hindoos. The Hindoos could not get the better of my hon. Friend, so that I can understand the Chief Secretary and the Chancellor of the Exchequer giving up the attempt to answer the hon. Member as a bad job.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Hear, hear!
  MR. LABOUCHERE: The right hon. Gentleman says " hear, hear ! " He gives it up. He says he cannot answer my hon. Friend. The right hon. Gentleman used a most extraordinary argument in reply to the able and exhaustive speech of my hon. Friend. He said that when a Minister prepared a Bill it was his business to lay down certain facts and not to reply to arguments made against them; and, therefore, he says he will not reply to the important facts and questions addressed to him by my hon. Friend. He went even further. When the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy was making a very valuable contribution to the discussion, the right hon. Gentleman opposite said "Divide." Apparently the Government do not intend that this important and complicated Bill shall be discussed. When cogent arguments are urged against certain provisions of the measure the right hon. Gentleman calls " Divide," as much as to say, " I despise you so much that I am not going to argue with you." That is not the way in which a Bill like this should be dealt with. One thing the right hon. Gentleman did say which shows me that my hon. Friend's observations did have some effect upon him. Previously he has stated that the estimate is to be made on the net rental, but to-day, when the hon. Member insisted that it is on the gross rental, the right hon. Gentleman admitted that that was so. He contradicts himself. He says at one time that the thing is black and at another that it is white, just to suit the exigencies of his position. For my part I hold that the views of the hon. Member for Elgin are very sound, and if the hon. Member goes to a Division I shall support him as a humble follower. I promise to do the same every time the hon. Member, who so thoroughly understands the Bill and whose views with regard to it are so sound, brings forward an Amendment.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I must congratulate the hon. Member for Northampton on his new leader. The Committee, I think, are now in an awkward position, because those who wish to throw the loss caused by any possible default upon the Exchequer, and those

  735
  who wish to throw it upon the locality concerned, are apparently going to vote in the same Lobby. I address myself to the Members of the first Party—those who wish to throw the default, if default there be, upon the Exchequer. The hon. Member for South Kilkenny asks why the Government have not adopted the provisions of the Ashbourne Acts in the present instance. There are two reasons why they have not done so. When the last Ashbourne Act was passed pledges of the most specific character were given by the Government that the £5,000,000 asked for should be the last 45,000,000 that the House would be asked to grant on the terms specified in the measure. Therefore, if the Government were to take the course suggested by the hon. Member they would violate their pledges. But there is a second reason. If hon. Members desire to have Land Purchase in Ireland they can only have it by assistance from the British Exchequer. The Member for Bradford told us that money borrowed on Irish security could not be borrowed for less than 5 per cent., and that being so an Exchequer guarantee is necessary. Well, it is impossible for the British Exchequer to give this additional loan of £30,000,000, except upon terms which will absolutely secure the public from loss. I believe that Ireland can and will pay, and that there will not be any serious conspiracy against the payment of the instalments; but my own opinion upon the point is not in question. The fact which has to be faced is, that the British public will not pledge its security for the purchase of Irish land except upon terms that will safeguard it against loss. However much hon. Members opposite may desire to remove all risk from the shoulders of the local taxpayer, and to put it upon the shoulders of the British taxpayer, the idea does not come within the sphere of practical politics. The hon. Member put this dilemma to me. He said, " If the tenants do not pay it will be because the Land Purchase Commissioners have permitted too large a price to be given for the holdings." Without going into controversial matter, I would say that the hon. Member must be aware that, rightly or wrongly, the British public are of opinion that there is such a thing
  736
  possible in Ireland as conspiracy against the payment of rent and annuities. That is possible, but not probable.
  MR. CHANCE: The guarantee deposit would intervene to prevent loss, and all the Commissioners would have to do would be to make the guarantee large enough. You are deliberately throwing away the best security.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The guarantee deposit could not be made to cover the advance, unless you exact such terms from the landlord as would really prevent sales taking place.
  MR. KEAY: I think it is my duty to say a few words after the extraordinary statement we have heard from the other side, as to the four points referred to by me. I promise not to jump upon the Chief Secretary now that he is down, and he is undoubtedly " down " now that these financial matters are being discussed. I do not intend to be hard on him. I must, however, say this, that it is too bad for the right hon. Gentleman, when he feels himself in utter despair and confusion, to avail himself of the absurd and ancient doctrine which was written on a brief, "No defence; abuse the plaintiff's attorney." I do not say he was positively offensive, but he was on the verge of it. He certainly went much nearer to it than I have ever done with regard to him. Speaking of my four points, he said, " The hon. Member's points are usually bad points." Now, when the right hon. Gentleman is laboriously engaged in admitting that he cannot reply, it is too absurd for him to abuse my points. If the right hon. Gentleman finds it impossible to reply, the inference is that the points are good points. I may not be able as efficiently to support the prominent position I have been reluctantly compelled to assume in regard to the financial part of this Bill as I should like; but I think it will be admitted, even by hon. Members opposite, that it is absurd to call my points bad points, and to refer to them as " what the hon. Member is pleased to call points." The right hon. Gentleman has been guilty of an erroneous statement in addition to many omissions. He has said that the point as to the

  737
  insolvency of the Guarantee Fund, and the certainty of danger to the Consolidated Fund was threshed out in the Debates on the first and Second Reading of the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman is entirely mistaken. [Cries of "Divide ! "] I, and I only, attempted to raise the question on the Second Reading, knowing that the guarantee portion of the measure was rotten. And what a reception I got! The Under Secretary for India came and sat opposite, below the Gangway, and positively jeered, hoping thereby to discourage me from touching this raw spot. Moreover, I myself was unable to prosecute the argument owing to an error of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, who omitted, to tell us that the Ashbourne Act moneys had been taken out of this Bill. Later on I obtained the proper figures, and on the main question of the Second Reading I endeavoured to put my case before the House, but was closured. [Cries of " Divide ! "] The right hon. Gentleman did me the honour to say be despaired of getting the real arithmetical facts of the case into my head. Well, I do not despair of being able to get the arithmetical facts of the case into the head of the right hon. Gentleman. [Renewed cries of " Divide ! "] I will tell him where the crux lies. The Bill is so complex, that the financial part of it is a sort of Frankenstein to the right hon. Gentleman. The point he does not understand is this—and if he gets up the fact it will save him hours in Committee. He truly says that the amount of the first loans will be £30,000,000, that there will be a partial repayment, and that the money repaid will be re-lent, but he utterly forgets that with every re-lending there will be an increase of the aggregate annual amount of the instalments due from the tenant purchasers. He must remember that in connection with the £30,000,000 there is only one Sinking Fund, and that in connection with every annual advance there will have to be another Sinking Fund, all the payments to which will have to come out of the Consolidated Fund in case of default. Does he not see that if you have 49 Sinking Funds all running parallel to each other, all having run for different terms of years, and all demanding that
  738
  their annual 1 per cent. should be paid into them, it must take more money to fill them up than it would take to fill up the one original Sinking Fund only?
  MR. KNOX: It will be admitted that " this matter has not been dealt with from the Irish point of view at inordinate length; and that we are within our rights in asking the House to bear with us while we continue the discussion from that point of view. We have no spmpathy with the attitude of the hon. Member for Elgin on this subject. The hon. Member for Kirkcaldy spoke of us as " Irish " in a tone of unutterable contempt. The word " Irish" seemed to convey to his mind the same meaning as the word "jobbery." He said the Commissioners would be Irishmen, meaning that they might be expected to job away the public money. Well, I must protest against that treatment of Irishmen. I would remind the hon. Member for Elgin and the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy of a story told of Dr. Johnson. It is said that he was once discussing with an Irishman the question of the Union, and he said to the Irishman—
  "Do not unite with us. If we unite with you it will be to rob you. We should have robbed Scotland if she had had anything to take."
  I consider that Dr. Johnson's prophecy has come true. The Union has been brought about, and we have been robbed in consequence, and now we want to get back a little of that which has been stolen from us. I do not find Irish Members continually making protests when money is proposed to be spent on Scotland; but Scotch Members are continually raising such protests when it is proposed to give money to Ireland. They protest against the principle of the Bill, although some of them have had the frankness to declare that if it were proposed to apply it to Scotland they would not oppose it. If hon. Gentlemen above the Gangway take up an attitude thoroughly and deliberately selfish we can understand it; but we cannot understand the point of view of hon. Gentlemen who rise to protest against the use of the Imperial guarantee in the Bill while they never raise any protest against the use of Imperial money or

  739
  guarantee in case of their own improvements. I did not know whether the House is aware that the principle of Imperial guarantee in the case of English allotments was allowed to go through the House without protest from these Benches. The Public Works Loan Commissioners have the right to lend money for the purpose of providing allotments in villages in England—that is to say use Imperial credit. Ireland, as well as England, is to provide allotments for the English agricultural labourers. Well, no Irish Member rose to protest against that, and we do ask that if hon. Gentlemen object to the use of Imperial credit in the manner set forth in the Bill they should, at least, spare us insult at the same time. I support the Amendment from the Irish point of view, and protest against the local guarantees which the Government have devised. Our position on this point is clear. We candidly admit that if we had Home Rule in Ireland it would be necessary for us to deal with the land question out of our own resources. But we protest against having these resources pledged for us while we are denied the right of self-government. The guarantees provided by the Government are described in some quarters as trumpery. It is supposed that they are of no real value. It is supposed that no real damage could be done to the Irish taxpayer. I believe the risk to the taxpayer has been greatly exaggerated by minimising the amount of the Irish security pledged by this Bill, and I believe there is great and imminent risk to the Irish cesspayer in the mortgaging of the rates, and I believe also that the great and imminent risk to the Irish cesspayer in the mortgaging of the rates has likewise been greatly minimised. The Government propose, firstly, that certain cash sums usually paid to Ireland shall be mortgaged without in any way consulting the Local Authorities. The first of these is the Probate Duty Grant. The Probate Duty Grant consists of £5,000 paid annually to the Royal Dublin Society for improving the breed of horses, and also about £200,000, excluding the exempted cities, which is paid partly in relief of the county cess and road rates, and partly in relief of the poor
  740
  rate. Last Session, in order to explain the Bill of that year, the Government published a Return showing the amount of the resources in each locality in Ireland which are pledged by the Bill. Although those figures may not now be correct, owing to certain changes that have since been made, I may use them for the purposes of argument. I find that the cash portion of the Guarantee Fund amounts to £200,000 of Irish securities. I say it is a serious thing to pledge Irish securities to that amount without consulting the Local Authorities, because they will need the money, and do already grievously need it in many cases. The Chief Secretary as President of the Irish Local Government Board is aware of the great difficulty experienced by the Local Authorities of the West of Ireland in making both ends meet. He knows that in certain cases, Vice-Guardians have had to be appointed because the Poor Law Guardians through no fault of theirs, had found that the Unions were practically insolvent. Of the sum I have mentioned more than half is county cess. There might have been some fairness in it had the poor rate only been charged, because the poor rate is paid partly by landlords and partly by tenants, whereas the county cess is paid only by the tenants. So that, while the landlord gets the major part of the benefit conferred. by the Bill, the tenant has to find the greater part of the security. We, therefore, object to this part of the Bill, and we point out that the difficulties attending the collection of the county cess in certain contingencies do not apply to the cash guarantee, because in that case the money, if needed, will come directly from the Probate Grant, and the Local Authorities will simply have to do without it, they not being in a position to resist. We are, however, somewhat reconciled to the contingent portion of the guarantee, because we know that if an attempt were made to raise the money by county cess, at something like an extra 3s. in any Irish county, we could,; without difficulty, organise such hostility to that action, that the Government would have to spend more in police and other military forces than the sum they might attempt to recover. We know we have enormous power in.

  741
  our hands in that matter, and can insist that, in the end, the consent of the Irish people shall be given before the money is so taken; but as regards the cash portion of the guarantee, we have not the same security. If the Bill is passed, we shall have no way of resisting the non-payment of these sums; they would simply be stopped. We say, therefore, that this provision ought not to he made, unless, as was proposed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle, it was accompanied by some means of obtaining the assent of the Local Authorities. In introducing the Bill this year, the Chief Secretary suggested, as a possible way of getting the assent of the localities, that after the cash portion of the Guarantee Fund had been paid, the consent of the people might be asked before the contingent portion came to be paid. But we say that this is the wrong way about. We can resist payment of the contingent guarantee, and so in a rough and lawless way show that those resources cannot be mortgaged without our consent, but we cannot resist payment of the cash guarantee. If the form of local assent is to he given at all, it ought to be given to the cash rather than to the contingent portion. We know the Government will not be content to leave the country without control over pauper lunatics, schools, and so forth, coming under the contingent branch; but the greater part of the cash portion may be cut off independently of the Local Authorities. It may be said that these guarantees are more or less on paper only, and will not be called up. I admit if the administration of the Bill were to remain in the hands of the present Land Purchase Commissioners, and we were sure that Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Lynch would not die, and the Chief Secretary would not appoint jobbers in their places, there would be very small need for any of these guarantees. But this may not always be as it is, and if the Bill is jobbed it may hereafter be possible to force the tenants to agree to prices they will not be able to meet, whereby considerable charges may fall upon the guarantee; whether the charge falls on the cash or the contingent portion of the Guarantee Fund the effect will be very serious on the
  742
  Irish Local Authorities. The Government professes the intention to establish County Councils in Ireland. If these bodies are established it will be necessary for them to borrow money as has already been the case with the County Councils in England. What would be the position of the Irish County Councils when they go to the men they want to borrow money from? Those men would say "you need not come to us, the Government have pledged all your rates beforehand up to 3s. in the £1; you cannot come to us as you have no security to offer." What I ask would be the position of the Public Works Loans Commissioners if this Bill were passed? Could they say the security for their advances would be the same as it has hitherto been? Obviously they could not if the Government mean these guarantees to be on the same footing as other guarantees in the case of the County Authorities, such for instance as those for the light railways. I venture to say it would be impossible for the Local Authorities to borrow money for any purpose whatever. Therefore if the Bill is passed in its present form, the Irish Local Authorities would be unable to improve the country or perform any of the duties as to Public Works which the Local Authorities perform elsewhere. Why does the Government want these provisions? It admits that English credit is due to Ireland. England has maintained the nuisance of Irish landlordism, and it is only fair that England should pay the cost of abating that nuisance. We know that the Government has to satisfy the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, and others who have made pledges on this subject. Hon. Members opposite have broken those pledges long ago, not to allow English credit to be pledged for the purpose of buying out Irish landlords. Having broken them once, I ask them to honestly and frankly break them altogether. You admit that England owes a debt to Ireland in this matter. Why not also admit that the Irish people have a right to demand that the whole working of Local Government in Ireland shall not be hampered by these guarantees to such an extent that if this Bill be carried in its present form it would be almost impossible, within the next half century, for the Irish Local Authorities

  743
  to perform those beneficial functions for the improvement of Ireland, which are performed by Local Authorities in this country?
  MR. SHAW LEFEVRE: I am unable to vote for this Amendment. The House has been placed in some difficulty by the Amendment being supported from two totally different points of view. In the first place, my hon. Friend the Member for Elgin has moved the omission of certain words and has raised a difficulty as to the process of re-lending under the Bill. I think he was treated well on that point by the Chief Secretary. But a better opportunity for discussing the re-lending process will be afforded when we come to a later clause. In the meantime, as I understand these particular words in the clause, they are for the purpose of carrying out the guarantee. Although I am opposed to the whole scheme, I shall not be disposed to go into the same question again and again, whenever it is merely raised in a different form. The objects of the words proposed by the hon. Member for Kilkenny reduce the Bill to the exact form of the Ashbourne Acts. So long as the sum involved was the comparatively small amount of £5,000,000 in the first Act, and £5,000,000 in the second, I thought it was very reasonable that the country should look to the holdings themselves and to the Landlords Guarantee Fund as sufficient security. But when so large a sum as £30,000,000 is involved, danger of a totally different character arises mainly from combinations, bad seasons, or other causes, against which it is only reasonable that you should have some other security. For my part, I do not think it is unreasonable that we should look for those securities from Ireland, but I think those securities should be given with the consent of the Irish people. But that is a matter which had wetter be discussed on the Amendment of my right hon. Friend (Mr. J. Morley). If the Government refuse to make any commesssion in this direction, I for my part shall certainly vote against any additional securities being placed upon the Irish people.
  ME. CALDWELL: I regard the question of the Imperial guarantee differently from other hon. Members on this side of the House. I quite admit, on the Home Rule principle, with the Kingdom divided into three parts, each part should be made financially responsible. But when you approach the Bill from the Unionist point of view, then we regard the United. Kingdom as a whole, and hold that if there be any risk under this Land Purchase scheme, then the loss, if there is to be any loss, should fall, not upon the 5,000,000 of Ireland, but upon the 36,000,000 of the United Kingdom. So far as the Imperial Government is concerned, the object of this Bill is to bring peace to Ireland. With peace in Ireland, a less Constabulary Force will be required, and there will be a saving all round to the whole of the United Kingdom. It is all very well to speak of the responsibility of the British taxpayer and the British working man, but let it be known that if any loss should occur under this Bill, when it becomes law, not a single copper will fall on the the British working man. The Chancellor of the Exchequer will go to the upper classes, where the money is to be got. Why is the Government afraid to face the working classes? If their measure is a sound one—and surely it is a sound one— let them go to the working classes and tell them that it will effect a saving in Imperial charges, and that no loss can occur to them. The very fact that some of these Irish tenants would be too poor to pay their instalments, is a reason why these guarantees should not be placed upon them. I look upon this question from an Imperial point of view, regarding Ireland as part of the United Kingdom. (8.30.)
  (9.2.) Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,
  (9.5.) The Committee divided:—Ayes 113; Noes 81.—(Div. List, No. 135.)
  MR. SEXTON: The Committee are already familiar with the arguments on which we found our claim that this liability should be finally borne by the Imperial Consolidated Fund, and should not fall on what we

  745
  consider to be properly the funds of Ireland. I am anxious that the right hon. Member for Newcastle should have an immediate opportunity of moving the important Amendment that stands in his name; and, therefore, I will content myself by simply moving my Amendment.
  Amendment proposed, in page 2, line 1, to leave out from the word " of," to the end of the Clause, and add the words "moneys to be provided by Parliament." —(Mr. Sexton.)
  Question proposed, " That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
  MR. MAHONY: I take this opportunity, as being the more convenient one, to object altogether against Irish securities being used in this matter. The adoption of the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle might modify the objection to the use of Irish securities, but it would not do away with the great objection. The great objection is that the Irish people whom it is proposed to tax will have no control over the administration of the money advanced. The Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman would only give the people the right of saying once for all whether they would allow the Purchase Act to be put in operation in a certain county or not, and if they decided in the affirmative they would have no control over the working of the Act. My object is not in any way to delay the progress of this Bill. The position I take up now is different to that I took up a year ago. Things have happened since then that have modified my views regarding land purchase. We have now to choose between two evils. We may not like the Government Bill— we may not think it a Bill that Ireland is entitled to; but what are we to expect from the Front Opposition Bench or the Liberal Party in regard to land purchase in Ireland? It is perfectly well known there are divided counsels in the Liberal Party on the subject of land purchase, and, therefore, we may find ourselves bound to accept a Bill such as this though we may not think it is as good as it ought to be. We may be told that in objecting to the use of the
  746
  Irish securities in any form, we are not consistent. It is true the Irish Party raised no objection to the use of the Irish securities in 1886, but then the Bill of 1886 was a very different one to the present Bill. That Bill proposed to settle the Irish land question; this Bill does not propose to do anything of the kind. In addition to that, in 1886 Ireland was prepared to make a sacrifice of her credit because she was getting the right to self-government. Neither of these two advantages are offered us under the present Bill. A very remarkable statement was made this evening by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary. The right hon. Gentleman said it was not within the range of practical politics for any Government at the present time to propose to advance British money for the purpose of buying out Irish landlords without having adequate Irish securities. The Government have exhausted every means at their disposal to furnish Irish securities; they have furnished many securities which are unjust, and many which are absolutely absurd. But with all these securities, they cannot obtain more than will justify them in advancing more than £30,000,000 for the purchase of land in Ireland. If £30,000,000 will not settle the Irish land question, and it is not within the range of practical political politics to advance money for the purchase of land in Ireland without having Irish securities, what are you going to do when the £30,000,000 are exhausted? You intend to force us to pledge all our available securities not for a permanent settlement, not for a settlement to benefit the whole country. For a settlement that will only benefit one particular class in the country you are going to make the whole country pledge its security. That is unjust. The whole country would have benefited by the financial arrangements under the Land Purchase Bill of 1886. No one will say that £30,000,000 will buy out all the Irish landlords. One of the chief objections to the proposal of 1886 was that it was only intended to provide £50,000,000. The right hon. Gentleman who now leads the House characterised the proposal as illusory, as a very much larger sum would be required. If it was wrong to put £50,000,000 in

  747
  that Bill, surely it is far worse to put £30,000,000 in this Bill. I hope the Attorney General for Ireland will not tell me that as the money is repaid it will be loaned out again; and that, therefore, in process of time, when he and I and future generations of his and my family are in the grave—some 200 or 300 years hence—the Irish land question will be settled. That will not be satisfactory. What I wish to particularly point out is that by insisting that Irish securities are necessary you are putting a block in the way of the settlement of the Irish land question, because if Irish securities are necessary now they will be necessary in the future. You are going to exhaust them all now; and if you cannot ask for an advance of British money in Ireland now without Irish securities, how can you have the face to ask for an advance at any future time? You are almost pledging yourselves against doing so. There is another reason why you should not introduce into the Bill these Irish securities; and that is that you are doing it without the consent of the Irish people. It is perfectly monstrous that you should take securities for the benefit of one particular class in Ireland and that against the will of the people, without their consent, you should pledge the securities which belong to the whole nation, and do it in order to protect the British Exchequer. The Irish land question is the heritage of bad government in Ireland; it is the British Government who are responsible for the present state of the land question, and it is the British Exchequer that ought to bear the responsibility. I have no doubt that on some platforms in this country this measure will be described as one of extraordinary generosity towards Ireland. The measure displays the very reverse of generosity. It is drawn in a most niggardly spirit because you are taking from Local Authorities in Ireland every available security they have got. If you ever create them what will be the position of these Local Bodies? What credit will they have at their disposal? How will they raise money for their own purposes? If the Imperial Government are sincere in this matter they ought to be only too glad to run some small risk. The Irish question has been for a long
  748
  time a thorn in the side of the British Government, and Her Majesty's present Government believe, or profess to believe, that it is going to be almost settled by the settlement of the land question in Ireland. Is that not worth risking the British credit for? By pledging Irish securities against the will of the Irish people you make that settlement more difficult, you deprive the Irish people of their securities, and you do this, giving the Local Authority no controlling power over the administration of the Act, or the amount of advances made for the interest of which these local funds are to be made responsible. More than this, you remove from the Land Commissioners, who are the body who have to sanction the amount of these advances, all responsibilities in regard to repayment—that is to say, no matter how great the mistakes they may make in ascertaining that there is proper security for the amount to be advanced, they have no danger or responsibility in the matter, because no matter how unfair, however much too large the amount advanced may be for the security offered there is the local security behind them to make good the losses. So yon are going to set up in Ireland a body charged with most important functions and great responsibilities, and yet you are not going to attach to them the consequences of their action should they grossly err in the discharge of their functions. If they advance money on bad security no matter, the loss will be made good by people who have no voice in deciding whether the loan was a proper one or not. This is a monstrous principle to proceed upon, a principle in direct opposition to that upon which, up to this, we have proceeded because, under the Ashbourne Act, the first person who suffers if the Land Commissioners make an improper advance is the landlord when he has received too high a price for his land. But now the people whom you are going to make bear the loss are those who have no voice in, and who derive no benefit whatever from, the advances. This is a very serious change to make, and I think it would be time to ask the Irish people to pledge their local securities when" you are prepared to give the Irish people some control over the money to be advanced, some control over

  749
  the machinery by which the Act is to be administered. You might then be fairly said to be in a position to ask for these pledges, but if the House is going to take upon itself the full responsibility of making the advances, then with Parliament should the responsibility of the payment lie.
  MR. FLYNN: It is not my intention to take up time at length, because the question has been dealt with in a spirit of great clearness and cogency by my hon. Friend the Member for Cavan. My own view is, that it is our duty to strenuously resist every effort to saddle this liability upon Irish local securities, and that to do so in this manner without the consent of the locality amounts to an embezzlement of those local funds. We shall have more to say upon this point on the Amendment which is to be moved by the hon. Member for Newcastle, but still I think the reasonableness of this proposition ought to command a large measure of support.
  MR. M. J. KENNY: It is not likely that the use of these guarantees will ever be required, they are not likely to be required at all, and so, I think, the Imperial Government might take the risk, if risk the Government think there is, though I do not believe that a halfpenny will ever have to be paid out of such guarantee. The local guarantee can well be dispensed with, it will only impede the working of the Act.
  MR. CHANCE: I submit that it is a dishonest thing to attempt to seize local funds for the benefit of the landlords of Ireland. It is a novel principle that anyone should be compelled to become a surety against his will, and in my opinion a locality would not be under the slightest moral obligation to repay any moneys which it might be called upon to pay under this provision. The measure of the availability of the fund will be precisely the measure of the force by which you will be able to screw it out of the pockets of the Local Authorities. The effect will be that the Commissioners will have a larger margin to operate upon, and considering these Commissioners will have probably very pronounced views on the subject of
  750
  landlord and tenant, it is to be expected the sale price of holdings will be much enhanced. We have no control over the Land Commissioners; their salaries are paid from the Consolidated Fund, and they can snap their fingers at public opinion and local pressure.
  (9.45.) The Committee divided:— Ayes 160; Noes . 60. —(Div. List, .No. 136.)
  MR. J. MORLEY: I think it is not too much to say we now approach what the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary will doubtless himself call the most difficult and critical portion of the Bill. Those who think with me hold that there are many objections to this measure, but of those objections none are so capable of being widely and generally understood as the one I now put forward, namely, that for the benefit of a small number of Irish landlords, and for a larger number, but still a comparatively small number, of Irish agricultural tenants, the Government are going to make whole Irish counties pledge a great and substantial portion of their local revenues to make good any default on the part of those casual and privileged tenants who avail themselves of the provisions of this Bill. Her Majesty's Government insist upon forciby taking for the purposes of this measure funds which belong to the different Irish counties, without the counties themselves being consulted on the matter, and without their having choice or voice in transactions that may lead to an immense aggravation of the local burdens. The proposition that forms the foundation of my Amendment is that such a policy is contrary to equity, contrary to the practice of Parliament, and wholly inexpedient. The right hon. Gentleman, in introducing his first Bill on this subject, admitted all that I require for the purposes of supporting my Amendment, because he declared that he was about to treat Ireland in a manner in which he knew that the House would not have allowed him to treat England. It is certain that if political troubles arise in Ireland there would be considerable default on the part of the Irish tenants who purchase their holdings under this Bill, and in that case what do the Government propose to do? In the first place, they propose to impound that

  751
  part of the cash portion of the Guarantee Fund which consists of an annual £40,000 which should in every financial year be paid out of the Consolidated Fund, and of the Irish Probate Duty grant. If this cash portion of the Guarantee Fund should be insufficient to meet the defaults of the tenants, then the Treasury is to stop the deficiency out of the contingent portion of the Guarantee Fund, which consists of the Government grants to local purposes. Then comes the third and undoubtedly, the most formidable provision of all, under which the Lord Lieutenant is to order a levy to be made upon the county at large in which the default has taken place, through the Grand Jury. Upon this point I should like to put a question to the right hon. Gentleman which strikes me as being one of great importance. It is this: The Government are going to bring in a Bill for local government in Ireland upon lines analogous to the Act which passed for the local government of this country, which, I presume, will create elective, popular County Councils. Do they intend, when such County Councils are called into existence, that the Lord Lieutenant should order the County Councils in place of the Grand Juries to make this levy? What will you have then? You will have the Lord Lieutenant giving an order for the levy, and you will have a popular elective body assenting or refusing to carry it out. That, especially, if the right hon. Gentleman's views as to Irish national opinion are true, will place the Lord Lieutenant and the County Authority in a position of the greatest difficulty, and will lead to extreme confusion. I put this point to the Chief Secretary, and ask him for this information parenthetically—whether in his contemplation it will be for the Lord Lieutenant to order the County Council, as he is now going to order the Grand Jury, to levy the sum necessary to make good the default of the tenants? However that may be it comes to this—that the Lord Lieutenant can order a levy to be made through a Grand Jury on the county so that the tenants whose landlords decline to sell, and will not give to their tenants the boon conferred by this Bill, will not only have to patiently bear as they best can their own unfavourable,
  752
  disadvantageous, and inferior position relatively to those whose landlords have been willing to sell, but also to make good the default of people whose landlords have been willing to confer this boon. I am perfectly sure that not only Ireland but England will agree that this is an intolerable injustice and a strong provocation—I will go further and say a justifiable provocation—of disaffection to a Government which imposes so unjust a burden. The Chief Secretary, I must admit, agrees that this is the position as the Bill makes it, and that it is absolutely indefensible. The right hon. Gentleman regards it as being so indefensible that he now assents, as we understood from the speech introducing the Bill, to some modification. [Mr. A. J. BALFOUR dissented.] Surely the right hon. Gentleman has admitted the necessity of some modification in the proposals which are in the Bill. I take it that he did so when he talked of a plébiscite, though he said,. " I declare that in my judgment I do not think it will be an improvement to my scheme as set forth in the Bill." We wish to know, after the declaration of the right hon. Gentleman, what is the plan of local control which he is prepared to submit to the House. The right hon. Gentleman led the House a certain way into his plan, and said that if we had any plan of local control at all it must be by way of plébiscite to the ratepayers. He said we must put the matter of undertaking this liability and bearing this obligation, " aye " or " no," to the ratepayers under the safety of the ballot, and so take their verdict upon it. Now what is the question to which the ratepayers are to say " aye " or " no "? Are they to say " aye " or " no " to each individual transaction between a landlord and a body of tenants? Is such a plébiscite to be taken from the whole body of ratepayers in a county on each transaction in which a landlord wishes to sell his estate and has come to terms with his tenants? That would be control in the real sense. I understood from the right hon. Gentleman's utterances that he does not intend by this plan to take a plébiscite on individual transactions. That being so the right hon. Gentleman, in my opinion, rejected popular control in what I should have regarded as its most effective and prac-

  753
  tical shape. I do not believe that popular control would be of any great value in the administration of this Act, unless the localities had some kind of voice in individual transactions. The Chief Secretary gave as his reason for refusing this interpretation of popular control that it would never do to allow men who might, and probably would, themselves become buyers, to " bear " the market and fix the price of the article. That may be a good argument, or a bad one; but if you force a man to become surety for the repayment of purchase money without consulting him at one stage or another as to the amount of that purchase money, without taking his judgment as to the price for which he is to be made bondsman, to call such a process popular control is, in my opinion, a sheer mockery. Now, what is the question which the Chief Secretary is going to submit to the " aye " or " no " of the ratepayers by his plébiscite? It is, I understand—and he will correct me if I am wrong—to be taken on the plain question whether or not the ratepayers will assent to the mortgaging of the contingent portion of the Guarantee Fund; do they agree to pledge their share in local taxation duties or local grants, or do they not? Do they agree to make good by county levy the default of tenants whose landlords have conferred upon them this immense boon? The Chief Secretary draws a distinction between the contingent portion of the Guarantee Fund and the cash portion of the Fund, which, in the opinion of the right hon. Members for Mid Lothian and West Birmingham, and in the opinion, I think, of all men who have given this question impartial consideration is absolutely untenable. The right hon. Gentleman admits that there is no logical distinction between the cash portion and the contingent portion. But he says there is a sentimental distinction. What is it? The right hon. Gentleman says that there is all the difference from the point of view of sentiment between grants that the Irish community have been in the habit from time immemorial of receiving, and grants which Parliament has made to them within a very short time past. I submit that this is one of the most ludicrous, I would even say childish, defences I have ever heard
  754
  for a distinction which the right hon. Gentleman does not pretend to defend in logic. I will put it as the right hon. Gentleman does. In the Debate on the Second Reading of the Bill the Chief Secretary said—
  " You may say that both are the property of the locality. They are contributions given to the locality by the free gift of the Legislature, and may be withdrawn at any moment. The claim of the locality to those contributions is based only on the fact that other localities have the same."
  I should have thought, for my part, that it would have been impossible to base a claim on anything much more likely to touch the sentiment of the community, than the fact that you are going to deprive them of control over a fund the full control of which is possessed by all other localities. This disputation as to the distinction between the cash and the contingent portion is not very ingenious, and is, I think, rather idle. If I understand rightly the veto of the country upon the contingent portion of the Guarantee Fund, it will have the effect of stopping purchase. The right hon. Gentleman admits as much as that. But I confess that I do not understand when this plébiscite on the contingent portion of the Guarantee Fund i going to be taken.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: When the cash portion is exhausted.
  MR. J. MORLEY: Is it to be as soon as 25 times the cash portion of the Guarantee Fund has been exhausted and advances have been made up to that amount? Will the ratepayers then decide? Very well; that was not expressed before, and I do not think it was so understood by the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian; but in any case it seems to me that it would be found an extremely inadequate form of popular control. Because—mark this—the whole of their cash portion has been taken, and therefore a very considerable step has been made in the way of purchase and in placing an imposition on the country at large without their consent having been asked. I do not think, therefore, that this plébiscite proposal really meets the foundation of our objection. I would ask the Chief Secretary to say how he proposes to arrange for his plébiscite—what clauses he proposes to introduce? It is.

  755
  against his own judgment; he does not think it 'will be an improvement in the Bill, but he is prepared to propose it. [Mr. A. J. BALFOUR dissented.] I understand that if the Chief Secretary finds a distinct preponderance of opinion in favour of a plébiscite a clause will be introduced to provide for one; but, if not, it will be interesting to know what are the objections to it, because some of the voting upon this Amendment will depend upon the satisfaction with which the proposed plebiscite is received. The Chief Secretary has offered two objections to popular control. First of all, he says that land purchase is a policy in which not merely Ireland but the whole Empire is concerned. I should have thought the answer to that perfectly simple. It was given before you took the Chair, Mr. Courtney, by the hon. Member for the St. Rollox Division of Glasgow. The hon. Member asked, why should one part of the country—meaning the United Kingdom—be saddled with a burden for the sake of a measure which is conceived in the interests of the United Kingdom as a whole? The logic of that is unanswerable, and the Chief Secretary admits it. If we are going to embark on this land purchase for the benefit of the Empire as a whole, why should not the Empire run the risk? The Chief Secretary boasts that he has taken great care to guard British credit against incurring any risk whatever; he says that he is going to throw the whole risk of default in these transactions upon Irish local resources, although he says that the purposes and objects are not merely Irish. The right hon. Gentleman is a very acute dialectician, but I defy him to explain such a paradox as this. He says that " Here is a boon given by the country at large to Ireland for the purpose of improving its social position; do not let the Local Authorities interfere with that boon, but give it freely." By all means prohibit the localities from interfering with the boon, but if you prohibit them from interfering you have no right to impose upon them the burden of the risk. The right hon. Gentleman's second objection to popular control is that the body intrusted with it might use it for political objects. Agrarian discontent, he says, truly enough, at one time or another has been used for
  756
  political objects, and he contends that if we introduce local control in this business we shall be intrusting the success of the land purchase policy to a body called the National League, which, he says, for its own purposes would stop the operation of the Act. That seems to me as hollow an objection as could possibly be taken. What does it prove? If the National League is strong enough, in American electioneering jargon, to " capture " the Local Authority, and to prevent the Local Authority from sanctioning a purchase, how can the right hon. Gentleman dream it will not also be strong enough with the tenants to prevent them from entering into bargains with the landlords? If the National League is the master of the Local Authority, why should not its influence be strong enough to make it master of the tenants? Then if the Lord Lieutenant orders a levy to be made by the County Council, and if the National League were hostile to the Government policy, what chance would there be that the levy would be carried out? Another objection urged by the right hon. Gentleman is that the introduction of popular control by a Local Authority is absolutely impracticable and unworkable. I have never yet been able to understand the force of that objection. The right hon. Gentleman says you cannot introduce into this Bill provisions for constituting County Councils, and that if we are to wait until a County Councils Bill is passed, at the rate at which the House of Commons does its business, we shall have to wait at least for some months. Well, I hope it is only some months we shall have to wait for the County Councils Bill. The Chancellor of the Exchequer cheers that, meaning, no doubt, by his cheer that the Bill may be produced any day. Yes; but we have heard that ever since 1886, and I shall believe in the existence of that Bill and in the intention of the Government to pass it, when I hear it explained from that box, and not before. The Chief Secretary says if we put into this Bill a clause saying that the County Councils are to possess a veto on its operations, we may find ourselves in the absurd position of allowing a certain number of sales to be effected, and then County Councils may step in and stop

  757
  the operations. I do not think that truly describes the case. I will submit to the Committee a hypothetical timetable. Let it be assumed, as stated by the Government, that the unexhausted fund at the disposal of the Purchase Commissioners under the Ashbourne Act is just short of £1,000,000, although I thought it was larger. That is plenty of money with which to continue transactions under the Ashbourne Act. At present there is usually an interval of from four to six months between the date of an application and the date of sanction, and from six to eight months are occupied in proving the title and other matters. I believe it will be June, 1892, before the fund provided by the Ashbourne Act is exhausted, and preliminaries under this Bill will occupy till November, 1892. If the County Councils Bill is to be brought in and passed by next year, there is no reason why County Councils should not have been elected by November, 1892, and be in a position to undertake the supervision of these purchase transactions. Therefore, if my hypothetical time-table be approximately correct, the third argument against the policy of my Amendment falls to the ground. Having now done my best to answer the objections of the Chief Secretary, I will now point out, merely by way of enumeration, the advantages which we who support this Amendment anticipate from its operation. The first advantage would be that we should avoid the admitted, the immense, the formidable peril of bringing the State into the relation of direct creditor with 180,000 or 200,000 tenants. I need not ransack Hansard for proofs that right hon. Gentlemen opposite have always taken that view. The second advantage is that a veto on the transactions would be given to the people in the neighbourhood, who would know far better than anybody else whether a transaction was a good one and the security sound. As it is, the Government would be at the mercy of the valuers of the Land Commissioners. I am the last person to say a disrespectful word of those valuers, of whom I know more than one to be men of great experience and thoroughly conscientious, but not even the most experienced and
  758
  upright land valuer can know and go into all the local circumstances and details of transactions. He does not know the character of the purchases, nor all the circumstances of the holding. On the other hand, the members of a Local Board would know. That would be a second great advantage—submitting these transactions to people who know all the conditions. The third advantage would be that if the County Council, or some other Local Authority, were to interpose, the tenants would be protected against coercion and duress on the part of the landlords. I know the Chief Secretary has said or written that that is an imaginary alarm, but in a Committee upstairs we had such a case proved by a valuer of the Land Commission concerning the tenants of one of the most powerful companies in the City of London; they had attempted to force a bargain on their tenants under circumstances which the superior officer of the Land Commission decided to be circumstances of coercion and duress. The fourth advantage would be that if the assent of a Local Authority, were secured, it would remove one of the most potent arguments for repudiation in hard times or for political reasons. If you interpose the Local Authority, you at least have got popular assent, though enormously inferior to the assent we proposed in 1886—still some sort of assent which would remove the argument that no assent had been given. The fifth advantage would be a not inconsiderable one. No other plan, except the invocation of Local Bodies to superintend the administration of that Bill, will get over its administrative difficulties. The administrative difficulties, even if the thing worked as smoothly as the Chief Secretary hoped, would be enormous. The interposition of Local Authorities would at least smooth the difficulties of administering the Bill. The difficulties of working the Act by a Central Authority in Dublin would be enormous. Let us picture what a state of confusion Ireland might be in. I agree with the Chief Secretary in hoping it would not be so, but at any rate it is not improbable if the Chief Secretary's opinion of the Irish character is the true one. Let us picture the confusion there would be after this land purchase

  759
  scheme has been for some time in operation. The Government would be doing three things, each enormously burdensome and calculated to spread confusion. Suppose bad times, with a certain amount of default on the part of the purchasers, the State would be recovering its debts from the defaulters in the Courts. In the second place, the State, after getting its decrees, would have to enforce those decrees by eviction, for I know no other method of enforcement; and, in the third place, it would be exacting the tax levied by the Grand Jury, by order of the Lord Lieutenant, over great districts of Ireland. There would be proceedings in the Courts and on the holdings, and you would have complex proceedings in the county, to collect what must be the most unpopular impost levied by an unpopular body—the Grand Jury. All those who have to pay would protest, and, in my judgment, rightly protest, that it was an unjust impost. Would it not be well to have a Local Authority to share all these burdens? The sixth advantage is that by giving Local Authorities control over those transactions you would take the best means to make the money go furthest. I myself have always regarded a settlement of the land question as an indispensable part of any policy which aims at giving self-government to Ireland, and of giving that self-government anything like a fair chance. This has always been my position; it is my position now. But I should be blind, if I did not recognise what I believe the Chief Secretary said in effect that this Bill gives the last £30,000,000 which Parliament will ever be likely to lend for the purpose of land purchase in Ireland. It is simply notorious that the constituencies have made up their minds on that point. That being the case, and attaching the importance I do to the land question, it is in the interests of all to take care that the money now to be advanced should go as far as it possibly can be made to go. A Local Authority would exercise a very vigilant supervision over those transactions. It would see that the money was not wasted, and that every sovereign went in the direction for which Parliament destined it. The Government are going the wrong way to work in the
  760
  order in which they have shaped their policy. I do not believe that Land Purchase plus Local Government will solve the Irish question, but, even taking the point of view of the Government, in placing Land Purchase before Local Government, they are moving in an inverted order. No doubt there are great difficulties in the way of the Party opposite, with their Conservative friends from Ireland especially, in the way of setting up a Local Government they do not want at all. It is easier for the Government to ask the House for £30,000,000 of British money for land purchase. They have taken what is for the moment the easy course, and have introduced one of the very worst and most dangerous Bills I have ever known introduced to Parliament. In evading these temporary difficulties they are preparing for themselves, if they remain long in Office, or their successors when the time comes, a sea of future troubles. In what sort of temper will the Irish County Councils to be created next year approach their duties when they find that a large proportion of the financial resources which they ought to have had to carry on the work of local self-government are already hypothecated and taken out of their control? Nothing is more likely to upset Local Government in Ireland than this hypothecation of local resources with which Local Government ought to be carried on. The Chief Secretary knows the great sentence of a famous divine: " Things are what they are, and the consequences will be what they will be: why, then, do we deceive ourselves? " That was said of morals, but it is just as true of politics, and the question might be put just as aptly to the Chief Secretary, Things in Ireland are what they are, and the consequences which you are bringing about by this Bill will be what they will be. Why, then, does the right hon. Gentleman deceive himself in the first place; and, in the next place, why does he deceive Parliament and the country. I beg to move my Amendment.
  Amendment proposed,
  In page 2, line 2, at the end of the Clause, to add the words, " Provided that no Guaranteed Land Stock shall be issued by way of advance in any county for the purchase of any holding unless the making of such advance in that

  761
  county shall have been previously approved by a resolution of the County Council elected to represent the county in which the holding is situate under an Act of this or the next ensuing Session of Parliament."—(Mr. John Morley.)
  Question proposed,
  " That the words ' Provided that no Guaranteed Land Stock shall he issued by way of advance in any county for the purchase of any holding, unless the making of such advance in that county shall have been previously approved,' be there added."
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The right hon. Gentleman concluded his speech by making a quotation from Butler to the effect that no greater folly could be committed by mankind than not looking facts in the face, and meeting things as they are. There is no more direct issue than the one raised by the right hon. Gentleman. The question really between us is, which looks at the facts of Irish contemporary life as they are; which of us sees the political forces which have been at work, are at work, and may be at work in the future in the Irish counties, as they are; which of us is deceiving himself by familiar formulae, useful on platforms, and even for perorations, but not always useful, I venture to think, for the practical conduct of great and important affairs. I shall endeavour to meet the points of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman in the order in which he has raised them. The right hon. Gentleman said, and said truly, that I admitted on a previous occasion, on a Bill similar to this, that the elected County Authorities in England and Scotland would be associated with the central Government in the administration of the Bill. I adhere to that. I do not believe that any such Bill as this will be brought in for England or Scotland. It is because the condition of Ireland has happily no parallel in the rest of our dominions that we ask for the use of British credit, and for the expenditure of public money in a machinery which no Government, as far as I know, would ever have been justified in using either in England or Scotland. We have asked ourselves whether the condition of Ireland which justifies a Bill of this kind does not also justify us in not asking that the local elected bodies should help in making, or probably marring, the work of the British Legis-
  762
  lature. The right hon. Gentleman told us we might or might not associate these bodies; but that if we created them they would be strong enough to prevent compulsory taxation. I want to know why he thought it would be more difficult after County Councils were created than now to have compulsory presentments? Compulsory presentments exist now, and cannot be destroyed whatever system of Local Government may be started in Ireland, whether it be the circumscribed and limited Local Government, which I hope to be enabled to present to the House, or whether it be the enormous scheme of national self-government, which right hon. Gentlemen opposite hope to present under the name of Home Rule. You may think that you would have compulsory presentments for malicious injuries abolished, and that then malicious injury would become legalised. Putting that aside, you might have compulsory presentments for light railways. Are we going to abolish them when we have County Councils? The County Councils are not consulted about their being undertaken. Capital has been advanced by the country, but they could not be abandoned simply because the County Councils did not happen to like them. The right hon. Gentleman must reconcile himself to this—that whatever the form of Local Government given to Ireland, compulsory presentments will be a necessary part of the social system, and we do not throw upon ourselves an unnecessary burden when we make it an integral part of the present scheme. The right hon. Gentleman then referred to the plan by which a certain amount of local control should be given in respect to a certain part of the Guarantee Fund. I have no objection to the mode in which the right hon. Gentleman stated that scheme. I think that any such limitation of the present Bill would be a misfortune. The suggestion might not destroy the Bill, but it would make it absolutely unworkable. Then the right hon. Gentleman went on to argue against the Government scheme as a compromise. The right hon. Gentleman said that an attempt was being made to distinguish between two portions of the Guarantee Fund; that each portion belonged by

  763
  right to the Local Authority, and that the attempt to distinguish between them was childish and foolish.
  MR. J. MORLEY: Childish.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I entirely differ from the right hon. Gentleman. I think there is a distinct difference between the two portions of the Guarantee Fund. What is the cash portion consisted of? It consists of subventions to the Local Authorities from the Imperial Exchequer, which was never heard of until 1888. What is the contingent portion of the Fund? It consists of contributions from the Imperial Authority to the Local Authorities, which are, I will not say of immemorial usage, but of long standing—contributions to education and pauper lunatics. I see no absurdity in distinguishing between the two. The right hon. Gentleman said that it is illogical. Well, I never yet heard of a compromise that was logical. Almost the essence of a compromise is that it is illogical. My Bill is illogical, and I think it a good Bill. The proposal of the right hon. Gentleman is logical, and therefore I think it bad. I am not going into the matter in detail, for this is not the time to discuss it. The time will be on the 6th clause, which will soon come. It will then come naturally, logically—that is, I believe, the word—and I shall not now be tempted into a more close examination of it. Having discussed the Government plan, the right hon. Gentleman then went on to defend the plan which he proposes. He told the Committee that unless we associated the local bodies in Ireland with the mortgage of their rates we would practically throw the whole burden upon Ireland, and lessen the burden upon England and Scotland. I entirely differ from the right hon. Gentleman. My view has always been that we are carrying out great national objects, and that every part of the United Kingdom should aid in the fulfilment of that object. The right hon. Gentleman admits that this great object can only be carried out by the mortgaging of the rates. [Mr. MORLEY expressed dissent.] At all events, the right hon. Gentleman will not differ from me when I say that it would be quite impossible to bring for-
  764
  ward any scheme of land purchase which did not have some local guarantee behind the Imperial Exchequer. The Government think, and I am sure rightly think, that the British public will never consent to employ their credit unless there is some local resource behind. This is the sacrifice we ask of the Irish Local Authorities in order to carry out the present scheme of land purchase; but we do not believe the Local Authorities will be called upon to sacrifice their rates, and experience of the Ashbourne Acts warrants that confidence. They are simply asked that their funds may be used as far as security is concerned. But do not the taxpayers of Great Britain give anything on their part? They give a great deal. In the first place they give their credit, although I am bound to say that I do not believe the loan of that credit will cost the British taxpayer 6d. in money. Still, that fact does not prevent the loan being a great boon to Ireland. It is a boon which, by universal admission, no effort of Irishmen could ever obtain for themselves. I venture to say that no Irishman will get up in the House and say that, if Home Rule were granted to-morrow and Irishmen had the settlement of the land question, they could settle that question by the aid of Irish credit. It would be financially an impossible task. While, then, we have asked the Irish localities to help us in this great work by the aid of their rates, the English people, on the other hand, lend them that which they would never obtain for themselves — the solidity which is given by the use of British credit. That is not all we give. This machinery of land purchase is a costly one; it cannot be made cheap, and the whole expense of this machinery is borne, not by the localities in Ireland, not by the ratepayers whose cause hon. Members opposite plead, but by the British ratepayer, for the purpose of settling a question which moreover directly affects only a small corner of the United Kingdom. All parties admit the necessity and desirability of land purchase and that it is a great work, and I contend that under the Bill all will contribute to the great result—the Irish localities by their rates, and the British public by the aid of their credit and also by bearing the whole cost of the

  765
  machinery—no trifling cost either— required for carrying the scheme into operation.
  Mr. KEAYattempted to put a question to the right hon. Gentleman, but he was unable to make himself heard in the cries of " Order " which were raised.
  THE CHAIRMAN: The right hon. Gentleman is entitled to continue his speech.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I failed to catch the observations of the hon. Gentleman. So much for the criticisms the right hon. Gentleman has made, partly on the Bill as it stands, and partly on the Bill as it would be modified by the suggestion I threw out in November last. Now I come to the discussion of the right hon. Gentleman's own proposal, which is a very simple one. It is that we should wait until County Councils are created, that when created they should be required to consider each transaction between landlord and tenant and give their decision upon it, and that no purchase should be allowed to take place until the decision had been given in favour of that transaction. Now I say that such a plan is perfectly impossible. Irish Local Authorities, as far as we have had experience of them, in a large number of cases—I will not say all, but certainly the large majority—have been animated very much more by a desire to further a political cause than the particular interest of the people they represent. [Cries of "No" from the Irish Benches.] That statement cannot be denied, at least with any plausibility. I do not intend to go through all the cases I could enumerate, as hon. Members below the Gangway opposite know, to prove what I say—but what, for instance, does the Committee think of a Resolution passed on the 11th of November, 1886, by the Ennis Board of Guardians, in which the Nationalist Guardians pledged themselves to support no candidate in a future election unless he had been a member of the Irish National League for six months previous to the day of election, and unless he produced a certificate to that effect signed by the secretary and the president of the branch? That may or may not be a proper Resolution, but it is certainly a political one, is entirely alien to the administration
  766
  of the Poor Laws, and shows that these elected bodies in Ireland are not prepared to subordinate polities to every other consideration. I will take a later case. It is that of the New Ross Guardians, who were dissolved. It appears that Lord Emly had some controversy with his agricultural tenants; the National League interfered, and the tenants were induced to join in refusing to pay their rent. The tenants had been evicted, and the Board of Guardians established what was called a " ward of honour " for these non-agricultural town evicted tenants and gave them special and favourable terms. I am not now criticising the action; my point is that this is political and nothing but political, when an elected Board of Guardians throw themselves into a land controversy and take a decided side, with such vigour that they violate every rule that should guide their behaviour. Ultimately they were dissolved. I am not sure that the case is different with regard to the larger Board of Guardians at Cork. They were dissolved because time after time they insisted on discussing politics and political resolutions before they came to their proper business, to the neglect of that business. If I remember rightly the final cause of their abolition was that they discussed for four hours whether or not there should be a resolution of condolence with the senior Member for Cork, with regard to certain incidents of an entirely non-political character. Again, I am not criticising their action, but it shows that politics and politics alone in certain circumstances, to the exclusion of every other consideration, animate these elected bodies. In this connection I think that I shall not be out of order if I remind the Committee of an interruption made, some time ago, by the hon. Member for Longford. The question was asked who would determine the price of the land, and the hon. Member for Longford said, "The Land League." I have no doubt that as far as the efforts of the hon, Member were concerned it would be, if not the Land League, some other organisation which, acting through the Local Authority, would attempt as far as it could to determine the price at which these land transactions should be carried

  767
  out. I would like to ask the Committee what species of justice would be done under a Bill framed on such lines. The case of Mr. So-and-so and his tenants comes before the County Council, elected on political grounds, and animated by political motives, and perhaps with a desire that the land war should continue, The County Council says, " Mr. So-and-so has evicted tenants, he is a rack-renter," or they will say he is guilty of some of those numerous offences which popularly elected bodies in Ireland are wont to find in landlords, and the bargain will not be allowed to be concluded except on the terms of seven or 10, or 13 years' purchase. Each bargain which has to pass this Local Authority would be criticised, not upon its merits, or with a view of determining from local knowledge whether the transaction was a fair one or not, but with the view of beating down the price of land and bringing the landlord, to use the classic phrase, to his knees. Who can doubt that these Local Authorities would be used for "bearing "the price of land in Ireland, for reducing it below the normal value, and making the position of any landlord who happens to contravene the laws of the League, or whatever organisation may happen to be paramount, a difficult one by saying that unless he gave in he would not be allowed to sell an acre of land to any tenant, however willing that tenant might be to buy, and however capable he might be to pay the annuity? That seems to me to be a perfectly conclusive argument against any form of local control which would allow a popularly-elected body—that is to say, a body elected by those who wish to purchase, and not by those who wish to sell—to determine which transaction should be accomplished and which should not. If any plan is adopted I hope it will not be a plan which gives control over each particular transaction. It would make the Bill not worth passing. The right hon. Gentleman has told us that one of the great recommendations of his plan, if it is adopted, is that we shall not come into direct contact with the purchasing tenant. The right hon. Gentleman has not used the word " buffer," but I understood his argument to imply that his plan would interpose
  768
  between the State and the tenant, when he had bought his holding, some kind of buffer. For my own part I admit that if it has that effect there may be much to be said for it, but I cannot see how the right hon. Gentleman's proposal is to have that effect. If the Local Authorities were the persons who received the annuity, I think that there would be something in it; but the plan of the right hon. Gentleman proposes nothing of the kind. The Local Authority are simply to give their consent, and when that is given the tenant would be as directly in contact with the lending Exchequer as previously.
  MR. J. MORLEY": Yes; but then in a previous Debate I expressly stated that the advantage of giving the County Council or the Local Authority an interest was so great as to be indispensable to my scheme.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: It would be necessary to have some body in the position of mortgagee. But does the right hon. Gentleman really suppose that the assent of the Local Authority alone would secure us from repudiation? I would think very little of any Local Authority to be created in Ireland if they could not find a plausible excuse for any amount of repudiation. Repudiation has always been by popularly-elected bodies. [" Oh!"] They are the repudiating people of the world, and the fact that a Local Authority has stated that it would permit such a transaction to take place would be no security, moral, financial, or physical against repudiation after the transaction has been completed. The right hon. Gentleman concluded his speech by drawing a picture of the confusion in which Ireland would be if the Government were doing its best by legal process to collect instalments and levy rates in a time of distress. I want to know how the position of things would be worse in a time of distress under this Bill than it would have been under the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman? We have, at all events, contemplated the possibility?— nay the probability—that such cases will occur. Rightly or wrongly, we have provided an insurance fund by which such distress can be met. No such insurance fund existed in the scheme of the right hon. Gentleman. In that scheme also there

  769
  would have been an authority collecting rents in time of distress, and if those rents were not collected there would have been a sacrifice of local resources. It is quite true that in our case the bodies that would be hampered would be the Local Authorities of the county, and that in the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman the body would have been a Parliament in College Green. But how does that make the matter better? The right hon. Gentleman appears to expect that a scheme of this kind would come to grief if a time of distress occurred. But that difficulty he was ready to throw on the shoulders of the unfortunate Irish taxpayer, and no machinery was provided for dealing with such a contingency. The right hon. Gentleman simply said, " We have to collect an additional tax. If you cannot pay it, manage your own affairs; we cut you adrift."
  MR. J. MORLEY: They had 18 per cent. for doing it.
  MR.A. J. BALFOUR: But that does not make the matter better. Though it is true that the scheme of 1886 gave more to the Local Authorities than the present measure, it was given at the expense of the tenant; and therefore the tenant was far less able to meet a time of distress as contemplated under that Bill than he would be under the present measure. Therefore, I say if we are to condemn this Bill, which of all others provides machinery for dealing with distress, because in such a time it might cease to work favourably, you condemn with a double and treble condemnation every Bill which has preceded it, and, most of all, the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman. I have now endeavoured, point by point, to meet the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman. I do not think anyone will say I have failed to face the difficulties of the position, that I have shirked the material issues which have been raised, or that I have not done my best to meet the powerful but laboured argument of the right hon. Gentleman.
  MR PARNELL: We have had some interesting discussions initiated by English Members as to plans proposed for protecting the British tax payer from any loss or damage under the operations of this Bill, and I am far from
  770
  saying that English Members are not entitled to object to the principle of this measure and to propose every possible precaution to save the community from loss. We now come to a different undertaking, and an attempt is being made by the right hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. J. Morley) to protect the Irish taxpayer from the risk and from what I join with him in considering to be the unfair position in which the Bill proposes to place him. When I saw this very important Amendment appearing in the name of the right hon. Gentleman I wondered why it was that no Representative of the Irish taxpayer had proposed it, and that it had been left to him to protect the interests of the Irish taxpayer. In saying that I do not dispute the right of the right hon. Gentleman to move the Amendment, nor do I in any way seek to cast doubt on his bona fides in moving it. Certainly I do not undervalue the protest which the right hon. Gentleman has made against the absence of local control, for which the Bill is distinguished, and which I think is its greatest blot. The right hon. Gentleman has very justly and very eloquently shown that there ought to be local control in return for the hypothecation of Imperial grants in aid, and that, failing such local control, we are violating one of the first principles of representative self-government which you carried out in establishing County Councils for Great Britain. But the right hon. Gentleman went further, and in doing so I cannot see my way to accompany him, because the right hon. Gentleman says that until local control is given he will not allow any sales to take place under the operations of this Act. If the Amendment be accepted as it stands an absolute end will be put to all further land purchase in Ireland until County Government has been established, except with regard to the unexhausted balance of the Ashbourne Acts, and probably with regard to those sales which have been partially completed in Ireland. I have had an opportunity of learning a good deal about the wishes of the Irish tenants in regard to land purchase, and I do not believe they desire that Irish land purchase should be interrupted. I think they want to get the 40 per cent.

  771
  reductions which they hope to obtain under the operation of this Bill. I think it is a fact that will not be denied by any Representative from Ireland representing an agricultural constituency that there is a great anxiety on the part of the Irish tenants to get rid, to some extent, of the crushing burdens of the judicial rents which are now upon them. The Irish tenants welcomed this measure in the hope that their burdens might to some extent be relieved by its operation. The right hon. Gentleman says that Local Government may be established next year or the year after. We do not know that it will. I have been hearing of the probability of its establishment for the last 25 years; and if we placed in the Bill the proviso of the right hon. Gentleman that there should be no further land purchase in Ireland until County Government is established, and if the Liberal Party should come into Office after the next General Election, as I suppose they intend to do, how much County Government would they establish, knowing that by refusing to establish it they would prevent the advance of one single penny for land purchase in Ireland? We do not exactly know what the Liberal Programme is. We have not heard anyhow, that it is County Government. We have heard that it may be Home Rule, or " one man one vote." In more recent times the balance seems rather inclining to "one man one vote " as the pièce de resistance, at all events, for the first year. That programme, if carried out, would postpone the establishment of County Government by the Liberals when they came into Office by at least two years from the present date, assuming we get a General Election within 12 months; and, looking to the fact that during the 25 years that County Government has been spoken of as likely to be passed in a short time the Liberal Party have been mainly in Office, I do not think we are entitled to postpone land purchase indefinitely because of the prospect that it will be probably passed by the Liberal Party in the near future. The opinion of the Irish tenants will probably be found to be that " A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush," and while I should be glad to support the right hon. Gentleman in the attempt to obtain local control, I should not wish to go with him in saying that we shall
  772
  have no land purchase until we get Home Rule. With the view of improving the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman and making it coincide with the ideas I have ventured to put before the Committee, I have drafted a further Amendment. I do not know whether it will meet with his acceptance. I suppose I can hardly hope for the acceptance by him of any suggestion from me, but I offer it to him and to the Committee in the belief that it will amend his proposal in such a fashion as will enable us as far as possible to secure local control without putting a stop to the progress of land purchase. I propose to insert, after the first two words of the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment—
  " After the enactment of any measure establishing County Councils in Ireland."
  The Amendment would then read thus:—
  " Provided that after the enactment of any measure establishing County Councils in Ireland no guaranteed Land Stock shall be issued," &c, " unless the making of such advance shall be previously approved by a resolution of the County Council elected to represent the county in which the holding is situate under an Act of this or the next ensuing Session of Parliament."
  Having said so much on the Amendment, I wish to express my very great disappointment that we have had no clear pronouncement from the Chief Secretary with regard to his proposed method of plébiscite for ascertaining the views of the Irish ratepayers before this measure comes into operation. May I ask from the right hon. Gentleman that before this Debate closes we shall have some more specific announcement? The Committee is entitled to so much guidance from the right hon. Gentleman before being asked to divide on the Amendment. Undoubtedly it would be advantageous if the ratepayers were afforded an opportunity of watching the operation of the Act from time to time and saying whether they will co-operate in its working. This would be a valuable concession to the principle of local control, for it would give the ratepayers the right of deciding whether their credit shall be pledged or not. If it should be found—which I do not apprehend—that popular opinion is against the operation of the Act, then the County Councils could step in and stop

  773
  it. Of course, the proposal for handing over to the County Boards the duty of adjudicating upon each separate sale is much preferable, and I hope that before the discussion proceeds much further the Chief Secretary will explain fully the views of the Government on this point. With regard to the larger question of the effect of land purchase upon the future settlement of Ireland and the peace of the country, I certainly think that the policy of the Front Opposition Bench is a false one. The policy of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle, that the land question ought to be first settled, so that the working of Home Rule would be easier, is the true one from his point of view. It is, indeed, surprising that the right hon. Gentleman has not been able to convert his colleagues to his own more sensible views. I have always been amazed that they have been able to carry the right hon. Gentleman BO far along with them as they have done. There can be no doubt that the land question will be a difficult one for any Liberal Government, and if they can get one-third or one-fourth of it out of the way, the task of the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues will pro tanto have been undoubtedly and materially facilitated and assisted. However, now that the scruples of the English Radical school have been voted down by the Committee on the previous Amendment, I hope that the measure will be considered from the Irish point of view, and that the Chief Secretary will express his willingness to assent to any reasonable proposals coming from the Irish Benches which will make the measure a more workable one and remove grave objections entertained by many hon. Members from Ireland to it in its present shape.
  Amendment proposed to the proposed Amendment,
  After the word " that," in line I, to insert the words " after the establishment of elected County Councils in Ireland."—(Mr. Farnell.)
  Question proposed, " That those words be there inserted in the proposed Amendment."
  MR. FLYNN: It seems to me that the Amendment now before the Committee would act as a premium to any Conservative Go-
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  vernment never to establish County Councils in Ireland; and for this reason: that if there were any possibility of the County Councils or Local Bodies unduly hampering the operation of a Land Purchase Act, the Tory Party would not be anxious to facilitate the creation of such bodies with such inconvenient powers. If the Amendment of the hon. Member for Cork were accepted, it would act as a strong inducement to the present Government and to any future Tory Government never to establish County Government in Ireland. The speech of the Chief Secretary for Ireland naturally divides itself into two parts. With characteristic dexterity he evaded the main point put forward by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle, but he addressed himself with great force and, at times, great vehemence of denunciation to a defence of the system of Local Government which he says the Tory Party are to establish next year or the year after. If I understood properly the gesture of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Government have already a Bill on the stocks, but I shall refuse to believe in its reality until I see it launched from the stocks. Why did the Chief Secretary flout and sneer at and deride the operation of Local Government in Ireland? Why did he persist in bringing forward unfavourable examples? Why did he quote cases in which Boards of Guardians had been superseded? Is that the way to recommend Local Government for Ireland? Notwithstanding the platonic affection of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for the Member for Cork, I entertain a wholesome scepticism as to the intentions of the Tory Party to establish Local Government. The Chief Secretary managed to lay delightful emphasis on the phrase which suggested that they will give circumscribed and limited Local Government. In fact, he foreshadowed that the Local Authorities in Ireland are to be shorn of nearly all power, and will, practically, be of no use whatever. I contend that the larger portion of the right hon. Gentleman's speech was not a defence, but a denunciation and condemnation, of Local Government in Ireland, and an attempt to demonstrate that the Irish people were utterly unfit to take advantage of

  775
  any legitimate or useful measure. The point which he evaded answering was as to what kind of local control he in tends to give to the Irish people. What will be the referendum to the rate payers? And it is important to know this, seeing the suspicious alliance which is now growing up under our eyes. I doubt whether, even to satisfy the Member for Cork, the Chief Secretary will give us the terms of the Reference. All he has done is to tell us in vague terms that he may or may not, in the discussion on Clause 6, outline the intentions of the Government with regard to the plébiscite. I think we are justified in calling for a distinct statement on that point, and we tell the Committee and the country that they are drifting into what may become a very dangerous condition of things by failing to deal with these matters. I contend it is absolutely essential to have Local Bodies established in Ireland in order to have some control over the question of land purchase. It is the very essence of despotism and tyranny to tax a locality for any purpose without giving that locality some voice in the management and disposal of the funds thus raised. If you do not give us the opportunity by means of a National Body established in Dublin, and if, at the same time, you refuse to give us control by means of bodies established in the various localities, then I say the Treasury and the British taxpayer will be incurring serious responsibility. I had intended to bring forward a number of cases in which purchasers under the Ashbourne Acts were already complaining of having been forced under threat of eviction to purchase their holdings on terms so onerous as to be impossible of fulfilment. Are you going to repeat that under this Act, and on a large scale? You have by coercion exhausted our country, you have stopped legitimate combinations among tenants, and I should like to know—
  THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order !
  It being midnight, the Chairman left the Chair to make his report to the House.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again to-morrow, at Two of the clock.

  LAW AGENTS (SCOTLAND) BILL. (No. 69.)
  As amended, considered; to be read the third time upon Monday next.

  PRIVATE BILL PROCEDURE (SCOTLAND [SALARIES, &c]
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  " That it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, of any Salaries, Remuneration, and Expenses which may become payable under any Act of the present Session to amend the Procedure in regard to Private Bills relating to Scotland."—(Mr. Jackson.)
  Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Monday next.

  CROFTERS' HOLDINGS (SCOTLAND) BILL.—(No. 73.)
  Order for Second Reading read, and discharged.
  Bill withdrawn.

  HERRING BRANDING (NORTHUMBERLAND) BILL—(No. 236.)
  Considered in Committee, and reported without Amendment; read the third time, and passed.

  PRIVATE BILL PROCEDURE (SCOTLAND) BILL COMMITTEE.
  Ordered, That Mr. O'Kelly be discharged from the Committee.—(Colonel Nolan.)
  Ordered, That Mr. Hunter be discharged from the Committee.
  Ordered, That Mr. J. C. Bolton and Mr. Esslemont be added to the Committee.—(Mr. Arnold Morley.)

  TOWN HOLDINGS COMMITTEE.
  Ordered, That Mr. Bryce be discharged from the Committee.
  Ordered, That Mr. Randell be added to the Committee.—(Mr. Arnold Morley.)
  House adjourned at a quarter after Twelve o'clock.

REPRESENTATIVE PEERS FOR IRELAND.
Lord Teignmouth(Claim to vote for Representative Peers for Ireland)— Ordered and directed, That a Certificate be sent by the Clerk of the Parliaments to the Clerk of the Crown in Ireland, stating that the Lord Chancellor of the United Kingdom has reported to the House of Lords that the right of the Lord Teignmouth to vote at the elections of Representative Peers for Ireland has been established to the satisfaction of him the said Lord Chancellor; and that the House of Lords has ordered such Report to be sent to the said Clerk of the Crown in Ireland: And it is hereby also Ordered, That the said Report of the said Lord Chancellor be sent to the Clerk of the Crown in Ireland.
The Lord Ebury—Took the Oath.

PROTECTION OF MARRIED WOMEN.

  QUESTION-OBSERVATIONS.
  THE EARL OF WINCHILSEA: I beg to ask the Lord Chancellor a question, of which I have given him private notice—whether his attention has been called to statements by certain Magistrates that, in consequence of the decision in what is known as the Clitheroe abduction case, they will no longer make Separation Orders, or otherwise interfere for the protection of married women; whether the law as laid down in that case has really such an effect as those statements seem to import; and, if so, whether the Government will propose legislation on the subject?
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: In reply to the noble Lord's questions, I beg to say that I have not myself seen the statements of Magistrates which he mentions; and I should be very unwilling to think any such reports could be accurate, and that any Magistrates could have given utterance to the statements attributed to them. Nothing, to my mind, could be more inappropriate or inconsistent with the demeanour which
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  becomes persons in judicial positions than to make general statements beforehand as to their views on classes of cases which may come before them; and I should be reluctant to attribute to any Magistrate, on the authority of a newspaper only, a view of the law laid down in the case referred to so erroneous as almost to appear perverse. The Court of Appeal released, by their order, a person whom they held to be in unlawful custody. As to legislation, therefore, as the noble Lord sees, there is only one point to be dealt with—whether or not a man may imprison his wife. I am sure that the Government will not propose a Bill to enable a man to imprison his wife, and I should not myself personally be able to give such a measure my support. If they did bring in such a Bill, the facts published in the recent application for a habeas corpus would not, I think, be likely to assist them in passing it.
  LORD ESHER: My Lords, as I was a party to the judgment, which seems to have been more misunderstood than any judgment I recollect, I, perhaps, may be excused from making an observation. It was urged before the Court of Appeal that by the law of England a husband may beat his wife with a stick no bigger than his thumb if she refuses to obey him, and that if a wife refused her husband conjugal rights, whatever that phrase may mean, which I have never been able to make out, he may imprison her until she restores him conjugal rights, or satisfies him that she will. All that the Court of Appeal decided was that a husband cannot by the law of England, if the wife objects, lawfully do either of those things. Those intelligent people who have declared that the judgment is wrong must be prepared to maintain the converse, namely, that if a wife disobeys her husband he may lawfully beat her; and if she refuses him a restitution of conjugal rights he may imprison her, as it was urged, in the cellar or in the cupboard, or, if the house is large, in the house by locking her in it and blocking the windows. I thought, and still think, that the law does not allow these things. The intelligent objectors say that by so holding we made a decree for the restitution of conjugal rights a farce, so that it is a farce to grant it; and that a Magistrate

  643
  ought not, or even cannot, give a protection order to a wife. They may rest assured that the Court did not hold any such nonsense. If there is a difficulty in enforcing a decree of restitution of conjugal rights it is caused by the Legislature, which lately took from the Divorce Court the power of imprisoning a wife for contempt for refusing to obey such a decree. But—perhaps it may appear absurd to the intelligent critics—we did not think that, by taking away from the Court a power which the Legislature thought was oppressive and unnecessary, the Legislature meant to give to the husband the power of perpetual imprisonment which it took away from the Court. We thought, and I still think, that the Judge of the Divorce Court may grant a decree, and the Magistrates may make an order, and that they need not attribute to the Court of Appeal decisions which, if they had read the Judgment, they would probably have seen that the Court of Appeal did not arrive at. I cannot see that the critics have reason to find fault with the decision of the Court of Appeal, which, begging their pardon, I venture to think was perfectly right.

MARRIAGE ACTS AMENDMENT BILL [H.I,.]—(No. 79.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
  THE BISHOP OF LONDON: My Lords, this Bill has been introduced after a great deal of consideration for the purpose of dealing with certain troubles and difficulties in the working of the present law of marriage. The complaints which I get in very great numbers from the clergy of this diocese, and which I have heard also from the clergy of other dioceses, are that they are put into great difficulties by the rules which they have to obey. They are obliged, in many cases, to make inquiries, which in the present state of things it is practically almost impossible for them to make, and they are subject to exceedingly severe penalties under the Acts bearing upon the subject if they cannot prove that they have made sufficient inquiry in any case where the law has been broken. It is quite true that the Courts in their interpretation of the Acts
  644
  have always, as they naturally would, done their best to protect the clergy where there has been no intention to disobey the law; but still, for all that, the clergy are placed in a very difficult position; and in certain cases of breach of the law, in consequence of the difficulties that they find in obeying its provisions, are liable to 14 years' transportation for celebrating marriages where, as far as they could see, everything was quite right, but where, in reality, some serious impediment existed. The banns are now put in three Sundays before the marriage, and those who put them in are required to state their residence to be in the clergyman's parish. In the vast number of cases the residence is merely nominal, and the clergy have very little chance of being able to ascertain whether it is real or not. Practically the law is evaded in hundreds and hundreds of cases, and, meanwhile, as matters stand, the clergy are often involved in serious trouble and perplexity. Besides this, there is constant discontent on the part of the laity at the restraints which are put upon them at present in the matter of choosing in what churches they shall be married. They very often feel that those restraints are very unreasonable indeed. A man, for instance, living in a district parish in London, and probably not knowing exactly what is the boundary of his own parish, but worshipping at some church in the district near him, not within his own parish, finds to his great surprise that he is not allowed to marry in the church where he has always worshipped. As far as he can see there is no reason whatever why he should not be married in the church where he usually worships and where he is generally known, or why he should be compelled to be married in some church where he does not usually attend, and where nobody knows anything about him. The laity further complain that their right of being married in the Mother Church of a large parish which has been divided has now been taken away, and they cannot get married in the Mother Church where their fathers and mothers have been married before them. They look upon these things as great hardships, and the hardships are felt the more because they see no particular public good that is done by insisting upon,

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  and no necessity for, such restraints. Though the matters which are the subject of those complaints may not seem to some persons to be of any very great consequence, yet they do cause a great deal of friction, and much annoyance to the clergy. Undoubtedly these restraints cause exceeding discomfort, because it is very hard for any clergyman when he really desires to obey the law to be quite sure that he sees exactly how the law is to be obeyed. Besides those, there are cases which need special provision, namely, those where persons are not living in any parish at all, but in boats upon canals and rivers, or on board ship; and it is desirable that their cases should be dealt with upon some regular system. It is also felt to be a great evil that the marriage fees at present required in the churches should be so much larger than those which are charged in a Registrar's office. The result of that is that there is a growing tendency towards giving up marriage in the church, and substituting marriage at a Registrar's office for the solemn ceremony which Christians ought certainly to undergo upon the celebration of their marriage. The Bill proposes to deal with all these matters. It has been very carefully considered, and it is hoped that the provisions of the Bill will remove a great deal of the present trouble, and make the law of marriage, as far as marriage in church is concerned, very much clearer than it was before. I need not say anything about Sections 1, 2, and 3, which practically only repeat the present law; but the 4th section empowers parties to be married in any church of the diocese in which the banns have been published, and does not confine the marriage to the precise church in which the publication of the banns has been made. It thus gives a very large extension of liberty. There does not appear in these days of rapid communication to be any reason for restricting the marriage to the place where the banns have been published, and certainly anything which allows greater freedom in this respect will be a boon to the laity, and will I think tend to encourage marriages taking place in church very much more than hitherto. In the 5th clause it is proposed to deal with seamen by recognising for this purpose a church or chapel in the parish in which the man
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  usually lives, that it shall be treated as if he was there living, even though he may not be residing in the place at the time when the banns are published. But it is the 6th clause which most effectually protects the clergyman, because he will have the power of requiring from the parties desiring to be married a declaration as to various particulars similar to that which is now required at the Registrar's office. There does not seem to be any reason why the Registrar should, and the clergyman should not, be allowed to ask questions which have to be answered on pain of punishment. If a man is to be married at a Registrar's office he is required to answer those questions, and there seems to be no reason why, if he is to be married in a church, it should be left to the clergyman to find out, if he possibly can, what the law requires. In a large number of cases it is simply impossible for him to do so, and this section provides that he shall be put on the same footing as a. Registrar. Sections 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 provide for marriages by licence instead of by banns. There is nothing very peculiar in them. They confer the same liberty upon the persons desiring to be married as is given when the marriage is to be by banns. In the case of sear men the fact that a man is on board his ship is to be recognised as if he were residing in the diocese where he gets the licence; and if he comes on shore to be married he can get the licence exactly as if he had been all the time living in the parish. There does not seem to be any reason why be should not have that liberty granted to him. There are special provisions in Clauses 11 and 12 which I do not think I need speak further about, with regard to the sending of notices of the marriage of persons residing in canal or river boats-By Clause 13 it is proposed to effect great changes in the fees for performing marriages by making them the same for marriages in church as in the Registrar's office. This is, of course, a considerable change, and it is likely that in many cases the clergy may lose something by it. The 14th is a mere protective clause. The 15th is more important, inasmuch as it puts a false statement made to a clergyman on the same level as a false statement or declaration made in the Registrar's office.

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  The other clauses are nothing more than formal or consequential. This Bill, it will be seen at once, seriously affects the clergy, and therefore it is right to say that it has been very carefully considered, both by the clergy in the Diocese of London generally, who are the most seriously affected by it, and also by the Convocation of the Province of Canterbury. It has also been considered by the Convocation of the Province of York. In the diocese of London the clergy—the vast majority, about nine to one—are strongly in favour of fixing the marriage fees at the same rate throughout for marriages in church as in the Registrar's office, and the Lower House of Convocation of the Province of Canterbury have accepted the proposal, though not unanimously, yet by a very large majority indeed. So that I think I may assure the House that I am representing the wishes of the clergy in proposing that such a change as this should be made. The whole Bill, I may say, has the approval of both Houses of Convocation of the Province, and I submit it therefore to the House, not merely as a Bill of my own, but as -one which is, speaking generally, backed up by all the authority of the Church. I do not question that the measure may not require very careful consideration, and perhaps a good deal of amendment in Committee. A Bill of this sort is sure to require very careful revision, especially by lawyers, to put it in proper form, and it has not yet received perhaps that full consideration by lawyers which it ought to have before it is passed into an Act. Therefore I expect that in the Standing Committee, if it is referred to the Standing Committee, as I rather hope it will be, there will be a good deal of criticism on details, which, for my part, I shall very heartily welcome, because 1 think it is of the greatest importance that a measure of this sort should be made thoroughly workable. So far as it can be considered outside the House I think it has been fairly considered. It has been before the clergy, as I have explained, both in Convocation and generally all over England, and I may say that I have particularly brought it before the clergy of the diocese of London. It has been before them for two years, and therefore there can be no question that those who are most particularly concerned in the matter have had the fullest
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  opportunity of considering the effect of it. 1 now ask your Lordships to give the Bill a Second Reading.
  LORD GRIMTHORPE: My Lords,I quite agree with the main object of the Bill, and I have very little to say in the way of criticism of it here. As the right rev. Prelate says, there are details which will have to be attended to, and in Committee the lawyers may, as he says, be able to point out certain matters for which provision will have to be made, which even the two Convocations have not discovered. One of the objects aimed at by the Bill, which, indeed, the right rev. Prelate very properly put first, it is certainly desirable should be effected, and he might, I think, have gone a little further than be did when he said that people are unable to see the necessity for the present restriction or that any public good is done by it in regard to people being married in any church of the place where they live, because that difficulty was really never intended. The difficulty in people being married in any such church is generally considered to have arisen from a mistake in the Act of 18 & 19 Vict., commonly called Lord Blandford's Act, in which there was a provision that where a new parish was created it was to be an ecclesiastical one for all purposes; and that has been decided to cut off the connection with the old parish church completely. I have always heard that the authors of the Bill, and those who supported it, had no intention of so cutting off the new districts, and the people living within them, entirely from their old parish church. I happen to know that people do resent that very much, and that, whether they are in the habit of going to that parish church or not, they are very angry at it. I merely wished to add that as a supplement to what the right rev. Prelate has said. With regard to the publishing of banns, I may mention at once that the Bill seems to me very imperfect in that respect, unless it is intended that new Parliamentary rubrics should never be followed by those who have the printing of them. Looking at the Prayer Book, and the rubrics in it, one at the end of the Nicene Creed, and two others in the marriage service itself, they seem to have become very wrong. The original ones were entirely supplanted

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  by the Act of George IV., which is referred to here, and somehow or other the Queen's [printers, or somebody else, whoever may be responsible, took upon themselves to make new rubrics. And they were, at any rate, understood wrongly by the clergy for a long time, until a judicial decision was given upon them. Baron Alderson had to try a case in which those points were involved, and after he had pointed out where the clergy were wrong the practice became different. The old rubric after the Nicene Creed, which is referred to here, said that notices of banns and sundry other things were to be published then, and there was no provision for there being no morning service with that creed. Thereupon provision was made in the Act of George IV. that where there was no morning service banns should be published at the evening service after the Second Lesson, but the Universities and the Queen's Printer printed the new rubrics so ambiguously that that was not generally understood. Besides that, nobody had a legal right to alter them at all, even to accord with the Act. The question is whether We ought to allow the Bill to remain in the form in which it is now, leaving the same kind of practice to be gone through again. I cannot help thinking that we had better make the Bill complete, or at any rate give to the proper persons authority to make the rules correct. Of course we might make them so ourselves, but I think it would be better to give the proper authorities power to authorise new rubrics to be printed. When I mentioned that, I was answered as I knew I should be that the Convocation would insist that they only had a right to alter the rubrics. It is quite true that in 1662, when the whole Prayer Book was modified a very little from the previous one, the matter was referred to the Convocations to give their opinions upon it, but Parliament was not the least bound to accept them even as to doctrine or ritual, and a fortiori not on marriages. Nor did they make any material alteration from those rubrics of the second Prayer Book of Edward VI., until 1824. This claim of Convocation is an entirely new one. Parliament has never regarded it as right, and Parliament has altered every marriage rubric and canon
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  that has existed. But now, 60 years very nearly after the great Act of George IV., Convocations are waking up on the point, and putting in a claim to meddle with rubrics not affecting matters of Church ritual or anything of that kind, but about the purely lay matter of marriage. I call it a purely lay matter for this reason: Long ago, no less a person than Lord Hardwicke said in one of his decisions, that, although the laws affecting marriage are, in a sense, ecclesiastical, Convocations have never been allowed to meddle with them. In 1874 both Lord Salisbury and Lord Selborne on the Public Worship Regulation Bill laid down the same thing very emphatically, that Convocation has never been allowed to meddle with any matter of jurisdiction. Therefore, I say at once now, this is not a mere matter of detail to be dealt with in Committee. Assuming, then, that these rubrics are to be referred to somebody to amend, the question is who it should be. We are making the law, not the Convocations, who have nothing to do with it. But I think both your Lordships and the clergy will think that may well be left to the two Archbishops to do, with, of course, the consent of the Crown. Having said that, I turn to another object of the Bill. It is quite true, as the right rev. Prelate has said, and as great Judges have said, that clergymen might be subjected to-very considerable penalties if they did not happen to have made inquiries which every sensible man knows must be utterly futile and impossible; and if it is intended that clergymen should know whom they marry, it is of course desirable to give them the proper means of making the necessary inquiries. As the law stands at the present, less inquiry is required to be made in putting up banns than either for granting licences or for solemnising marriage at or from a Registrar's office. That is a matter which should be attended to. Certainly, I am in favour of modifying the declaration so as not to tempt persons to go and be married for the sake of cheapness in a Registrar's office, but there are two ways of doing that. Assuming it is right that the clergy-should know that the persons they are going to marry have a right to be married by them, it does not at all follow

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  that inquisitorial powers should be given to ask questions of no legal importance whatever. I think the man who drafted this Bill and its schedules must have been thinking of his catechism, for it directs the clergyman to begin with "What is your name?" Then the next is—not "Who gave you this name?" but—" Where do you reside in this parish?" It is not even "Do you reside in this parish?" That has been omitted. Why that omission was made I do not know; but if the thing is to be made homogenous the first question ought to be, "Do you reside in this parish; and if so, where?" I quite agree that if the clergy really are responsible for the residence of the parties, no doubt they ought to have the means of ascertaining it, or, at least, that the responsibility should be thrown on the parties themselves; but this Bill goes far beyond that. They are to ask, "How long have you resided there?" What business is that of the clergy? And it is not necessary because a man cannot get either a licence granted or banns put up without making a false declaration. Then the next question is—"What is your age?" Well, we have just been answering that question all of us for the Census, and I do not know why a lady should be obliged, under penalties for a misdemeanour, to put down a different age to that which she has put down in her Census paper. The Act of George IV., after a great deal of experience had been gained, entirely altered the canon upon that subject: the canon prohibited the clergy from marrying anybody under age; the Act of George IV., for reasons which I cannot investigate now, threw the onus the other way, and left parents to forbid the banns, I suppose because it was recognised that the old law was unsatisfactory. If the father and mother of a person under age choose to forbid the banns they can do so, though what follows in that case I do not know. People know that they can go to the parish clerk, and put down in the book "A. B." and "C. D." as they please, and if the banns are to be made a reality they ought to be made consistent. If you do not desire to frighten the people into the Registrar's offices for the purpose of getting married you ought not to put inquisitorial questions to them, such as 652
  "What is your age?" It must be remembered, too, that after a few years the reading of what may be called the Registrar's banns at a meeting of the Guardians of the poor was abolished, and so the Registrar's Office is a far more secret place than the Church, where banns are published before a large congregation. Then the next question is a very queer one to address to people—"Are you a blood relation?" What is that to the clergyman? And it is absurd, because everybody is a blood relation of everybody else. Assuming the clergy to be anxious to carry out the law, it is quite sufficient for them to ascertain that the persons coming to them to be married are not within the prohibited degrees, and I quite agree with the right rev. Prelate that the law ought to prescribe the means of ascertaining that. Curiously enough, there is provision made for it in almost every case except that of banns. When a person goes to the Registrar's office he is warned that if he declares falsely he is liable to a penalty, and if he gets a licence from a surrogate he must swear it. The fact is, all this is an attempt of the clergy to edge in inquiries about matters which they have nothing whatever to do with. Lately, many of us, no doubt, have been reading Newman's Letters, and there we find that the clerical attempt to make laws of their own as to whom they should allow to be married was started by Newman nearly 60 years ago, when he refused to marry a couple because one of them had not been baptised! They were poor people, and could not fight the case, and Newman had his way. Another case is recorded in the law books, within quite modern times, of a clergyman refusing to marry a couple because one of them had not been confirmed. Unluckily, the prosecution of the clergyman was defeated by a technicality; but there are sufficient warnings against our allowing any such clerical inquisition. So long as clergymen are acting entirely as the officers of the State in these matters they are within their rights, but the moment they go beyond that and claim to put the inquisitorial questions which the Bill proposes, I am sure that two things will follow; in the first place they will wreck the Bill, and

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  in. the next if they do not they will frighten people from the churches into the Registry offices. John Stokes goes to a clergyman and asks to have banns of marriage put up; and he is at once asked, "What is your age?" Naturally he will reply, "Why should I tell you my age?" Then "Are you a blood relation of your intended wife?" He will say, "What is that to you, so long as we are not within the unlawful degrees?" Then he is asked sundry other things, and presently says—" I am not going to be bothered in this way; I shall go to the Registry office and get married there." People have a right to resent inquisitive-mess of this kind. Therefore, I say, these are not mere matters of detail which can be dealt with in Committee, but matters of principle. If I wait until the Bill goes to the Grand Committee I shall be told that they are matters which the Grand Committee cannot consider. There are other minor matters to which attention might be called. I do not know whether it is intended to introduce a new, or an American, clerical aggression on the English language for the word "licence," but all through this Bill it is spelled with an "s," and in all my experience the noun has been spelled with " c," and the verb with an "s." I will trouble your Lordships no further at the present stage beyond saying that I shall be most happy to give the right rev. Prelate all the assistance I can in making the Bill a really good one, and in putting it in a form in which it will not be likely to suffer through anything objectionable in the way I have suggested.
  Bill read 2a (according to order), and committed to a Committee of the Whole House on Friday, the 24th instant.

EVIDENCE BILL [H.L.]-(No. 71.)

  SECOND HEADING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, this is merely a Consolidation Bill dealing with the law of evidence, and I ask your Lordships to give it a Second Reading.
  Bill read 2a (according to order), and committed to a Committee of the Whole House to-morrow.

TRUSTEE BILL [H.L.]-(NO. 72.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: This also is a Consolidation Bill dealing with the various statutes relating to Trustees.
  Bill read 2a (according to order), and committed to a Committee of the Whole House to-morrow.

MIDDLESEX REGISTRY BILL.—(No. 87.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: This is a Bill which comes from the Commons. It is understood that arrangements have been made for vacancies occurring in the Middlesex Registry. Practically the Bill is to drive into the coffers of the State certain revenue received at the Registry. It has come up from the Commons without Amendment, and the question I have to ask your Lordships is simply whether it should now be read a second time.
  Bill read 2a (according to order), and committed to a Committee of the Whole House to-morrow.
  House adjourned at five minutes past Five o'clock, till to-morrow, a quarter past Ten o'clock.