Sitting of 29 February 1892

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
  LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL.

    SECOND READING.
    Order for Second Reading read.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Second Reading be deferred to Monday next."
    MR. BOULNOISI desire to protest against the postponement of this Bill until Monday. It was ordered for this day, and appears "by Order" on the Orders of the Day. A number of Members have attended early in their places expecting the Bill would be taken, and now it is again put off for a week. I do not know how these arrangements are made, but I do think that Members ought to have notice of a postponement of this kind, and should not be left to find it out at the very last moment when they expect the Bill to be taken. I have no objection whatever to the postponement, but I do not think it should be left on the Orders as to be taken "by Order."
    MR. KIMBER:MR. KIMBER (Wandsworth): I believe it is still competent for an hon. Member to move the rejection.
    Second Reading deferred to Monday.

  LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (TRAM-WAYS) BILL.

    SECOND READING.
    Order for Second Reading read.
    MR. J. STUARTIn moving the Second Reading of this Bill I will briefly allude to its objects. It is for the purpose of continuing the tramway lines across Westminster Bridge and along the Embankment as far as the bridge of the South Eastern Railway, near Charing Cross Station, and the object is to connect the tramway systems on the south with the north side of the river. There has been, as I will shortly show, very considerable

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    demand for this tramway. Last year a Bill for constructing the line was promoted by the Tramway Company, but it was rejected in the House on the Second Reading stage. The Bill now, somewhat differing from the Bill then, is promoted by the London County Council itself. It appears to the Council that the circumstances of the case make it more properly the Authority to construct the line, inasmuch as the bridge and the Embankment are under its particular care by Act of Parliament. For this and for other reasons it has seemed desirable that the London County Council should construct the line. There are two portions of the line, the one I have described and a very small portion uniting the new line with the other London Tramway Companies lines, which come very near to the terminus of the South London Company, but as to this small portion of the line it is hardly worth while my speaking. The clauses of the Bill are in one respect very different from the ordinary clauses of a Tramway Bill. It is proposed that the Council shall have power to work the tramway itself if necessary, and I may say that that clause has been introduced into the Bill because if the tramway were to be constructed and the Tramway Company were not to lease it from the Council the line would be useless and the expenditure on construction wasted. It is not desired, however, by the London County Council to work the line, and an agreement between the Council and the South London Tramway Company has so far advanced that there is hope that an arrangement may be arrived at satisfactory to all parties for the working of the line by the Tramway Company, and if this agreement is arrived at then the clause for the making of the line by the London County Council will not be pressed. Negotiations for this agreement have advanced a considerable length; they have reached this stage: that whereas the London County Council ask £1,350 a year rental for the line from the South London Company, the Company is willing to give £1,000. That is the difference at issue, that and the question of rates, and these points surely may very fairly be settled by the Committee upstairs. If we are so near an agreement as that, it is hardly worth our while contemplating it falling through now. There was a clause in the Bill
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    last year which caused great opposition, limiting the hours of servants to ten each day. There were many-Members who cordially agreed with the proposal, but objection was taken to it being introduced in a clause in an Act of Parliament. In the present case, the County Council are willing to make this a clause in the agreement with the Company subject to the approval of the proper Authorities. No doubt one of the points at issue before the Committee will be whether such a clause should be introduced or not into the agreement between the Council and the South London Tramway Company. That is a suitable point for decision upstairs, it, will take its place in the consideration of the agreement. The line is not proposed to be carried further than Charing Cross Bridge. The Lambeth Vestry, within whose district a considerable portion of the line lies, have signified their assent to the Bill. Now there come in one or two, objections that have been raised to the Bill and have been circulated among Members in papers which have reached my hands, and one of these documents emanates I believe, though it does not bear the statement on the face of it, from the District Railway Company. This document argues that this Company paid £200,000 for the privilege of passing under the Embankment, that it has stations at Westminster Bridge and also at Charing Cross, and that to run a tramway line along the Embankment is not fair to them. Upon this I beg to observe that the right to go under the Embankment was the right purchased, there was never a thought of a monopoly being conferred of a line of communication there, and the same objection, if it hold good, would equally apply to streets in almost any quarter of London, and I cannot for a moment think that the House will throw out the Bill on this ground. Then the same document objects to the London County Council embarking on a speculative undertaking involving risk of loss, the burden of which must fall on the ratepayers. Now, I have told the House how far the arrangement for working the line has gone, and it will be in the power of the House to estimate how far this is likely to throw speculative burdens on the ratepayers. But this is in no sense an extraordinary or novel undertaking. Local Authorities have laid down a very large proportion

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    of the tramway lines in the country, and the London County Council are doing nothing speculative in this matter. Then there is a statement put forward that Westminster Bridge and the Embankment are thoroughfares peculiarly unsuitable for tramway lines. Now, Westminster Bridge is, as I am informed by engineers of the London County Council, one of the widest bridges crossing the Thames, and the Embankment is one of the widest drives in London, and if people are to travel by tramway this is, just one of the lines to be taken. It is said it will destroy Victoria Embankment as a carriage drive; but this cannot admit for a moment, seeing the width of the roadway, though, even if it did, let hon. Members observe the number of carriages driving along the Embankment for pleasure and compare the number with the crowds of working and middle class people passing by this route to and from the South of London. There is a very large number of people indeed, clerks, artisans, shop assistants, male and female, working men of all classes, compositors, and others, who live in the South of London, and whose employment brings them to Westminster Bridge to cross to the other side of the river. They have to make the journey in all weathers, in rain or snow or mud, and unfortunately these conditions predominate in London, and these unfortunate people have to go to office, shop, or warehouse, in wet clothes and wet feet, to their considerable discomfort and with risk of injury to their health. If the tramway were constructed over Westminster Bridge, to say nothing of going any further, it would bring these people right up to lines of omnibuses, and of course going on to Charing Cross would do still more, and the crossing the bridge would land the people where they could avail themselves of Westminster Bridge Station of the District Railway. These facts have been before the London County Council in a memorial signed by no less than 62,000 inhabitants and resident ratepayers in the South of London, and these are some of the reasons I lay before the House in favour of this undertaking. I have only one more matter to touch upon, and that is that in one of these opposing memorials which have been circulated among Members of the House it is stated that, the present Council being just about to quit office,
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    it should not be allowed to commit its successor to this new departure. Well, the House has heard how very little of a new departure it is either in legislation or in the action of the London County Council itself, which has, as the House knows, resolved to take over a much more important piece of tramway than is now proposed to be made. But if the House throw out the Bill, if the Government should join with some of its supporters in the endeavour to throw out the Bill on the present occasion on the ground of objection I have just alluded to, then it will be a most extreme verification of what has been said on this side of the House—what has been predicted from this side of the House, not without full knowledge of the circumstances—that the deferring the County Council elections to March would have an exceedingly impeding effect on London legislation. If a Bill is not to pass because the Council is about to dissolve and its successor about to be elected, why then, for one whole year out of the three, will London progress and legislation for London and London people be absolutely arrested so far as the County Council is concerned. This question is of extreme importance to London people, and whatever points are at issue between the Council and the Company will be settled after the election by the chosen representatives of the people of London.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. J. Stuart.)
    SIR ALGERNON BORTHWICKI was extremely sorry to hear the closing remarks of the hon. Gentleman, because I am certain that in my own opposition to the Bill I am not moved by any political motives, and I am positive that Her Majesty's Government had nothing on earth to do with any such motive in postponing the County Council elections. I am equally certain that in opposition to the Bill I shall find support from the other side of the House. I need not follow the hon. Gentleman into detail of the various clauses, because these may very properly be dealt with by the Committee should the Bill ever reach that stage, but I ask the House to throw out the Bill positively. In the first place, it comes before us in a very shifty, broken form, and in the very

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    statement we have just heard we find how inconclusive the arrangements are for the working of the Bill, and in the very statement put before us by the London County Council itself we read—
    "The arrangement is so far complete that it will probably be ready for submission to the Council when it reassembles after the election if the Bill be read a second time."
    So we are to proceed on the hypothesis that if we pass the Bill, perhaps the London County Council may be able to entertain it after the new election. Then we ask if that is the case, seeing that the Bill was rejected only eight months ago, why are we troubled with the Bill again now; why not wait for the new Council to put it forward in a complete shape or a perfect form without taking any further steps? The hon. Gentleman has alluded to a certain amount of opposition from the Underground Railway Company, and that opposition appears to me perfectly natural. The Company paid £200,000 to the predecessors of the London County Council for the privilege of going under the Embankment, and, the Council having possessed themselves of this £200,000, now propose to run a line overground in opposition to the very persons from whom they derived this pecuniary benefit. But this is a matter which concerns the Railway Company, and is not the principal objection. The hon. Gentleman speaks of the Embankment as important as a means of traffic, and so it is of local traffic, but the hon. Gentleman will not tell me that the workmen, clerks, and others to whom he alludes have any business on the Embankment. They have no business, no work, no occupation there; they are not employed there. They travel long distances and they are dropped at various points. They do not all go to Lombard Street or to the City; they go to Regent Street and the City, and various places inside and outside the City, and, leaving the tramcars, are carried to their destination by the various lines of omnibuses which diverge in various directions in large numbers. I have counted six omnibuses in the minute passing my house, and excellent vehicles they are. I hope we shall have no comparison drawn to-day between these and "gilded chariots." They are excellent conveyances, and the ladies of London avail themselves of the omnibus
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    service quite as much as do the working classes. The stream of omnibuses crosses the bridge and takes natural directions according to the requirements of the traffic right or left and carrying passengers long distances for a penny. But none of these omnibuses take the line of the Embankment. No, they follow the natural routes, and I maintain that it is fiction to say that if you had this tramway it would be of the slightest real use. It is intended only to land passengers at the foot of a gentle hill rising to Charing Cross; it does not go to the station even, but practically nowhere—among a lot of cabs, where. the terminus will cause an enormous amount of obstruction. It would cause the greatest amount of obstruction, too, on Westminster Bridge, where the roadway is only 53 feet wide. If you take 16 feet from the centre of the roadway you leave a very narrow margin for the traffic, which even now is often brought to a standstill. But the fact is, this proposal is the outcome of a long-standing endeavour on the part of Tramway Companies to capture the West End. For their own purposes they wish to have lines running through the West End of London. I am quite aware that the tramway system is of great public convenience in some parts of London, where the thoroughfares are suited to them, but as Lord Palmerston said, "Dirt is only matter in the wrong place," so tramways become an intolerable nuisance when introduced into the unsuitable narrow thoroughfares of the West End. The traffic at many points is blocked beyond endurance now very often We shall probably have to come to this House for powers to do something to relieve the congestion of traffic at Knightsbridge. Here and at such places as Hyde Park Corner, in spite of the admirable steering of the drivers of cabs and omnibuses, who with the utmost cleverness and forbearance avoid constant difficulties, there are blocks repeatedly; and if you introduce into the middle of such traffic fixed lines, you will effect the greatest amount of inconvenience and damage to the tradesmen in the West End, who find employment for those sempstresses and shop assistants to whom the hon. Member has referred, and if you ruin their trade you injure the very class on whose behalf the hon. Member urges

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    this Bill. This I say on the question of tramways generally. For the last ten years attempts have been made to carry the tramway lines up such streets as Sloane Street, an impossible street for the purpose, and over and over again the project has been defeated. Now the attempt is made to get communication for the cars over Westminster Bridge, and I suppose in due time the attempt will be made to get up Parliament Street to connect with the northern branches of the lines. On these and other grounds I ask the House to reject the measure as one it is impossible to sanction.
    Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."—(Sir Algernon Borthwick.)
    Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
    MR. DIXON-HARTLANDMy objection is that the real object is not stated in this Bill, that real object being to make a connection between the northern and southern tramway lines. If this is to be done, then let the proposition be made in an open, straightforward manner. There is no reason why the North and South Metropolitan Tramway System should not be connected, but let it be proposed in a Bill introduced for the purpose, and let us have some voice in the selection of the bridge over which the traffic is to go. The last bridge to select would be Westminster. It is inconvenient, and the bridge is unsuited for such traffic. I have seen the plans of the bridge, and have consulted engineers, who tell me the construction is unfitted for such traffic. The crown of the arches is elliptical and unfitted to bear the heavy traffic in the centre of the road. The bridge was built to accommodate lines of slow, heavy traffic on either side and the quicker traffic in the middle; but if the tramway takes 16 feet from the centre of the road-way it will be impossible to accommodate two streams of traffic on either side. The power is also proposed to be taken to close a portion of the bridge for a certain time pending construction of the line, but meantime what is to become of the traffic? The Embankment was constructed at a great expenditure of public money for a specific purpose, to relieve
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    the traffic flowing east and west by the Strand then so often blocked. But if this tramway is sanctioned on the Embankment, the effect will be to drive traffic back again to the Strand, for it will be impossible to use the Embankment for carriages. Nothing owners and drivers of carriages dislike more than the twisting of their wheels by the tramway metals, and, equally with the public vehicles, carriages have a right to the use of the roads, for all pay rates. It is evident, also, that something more than horse cars is contemplated, for the Bill includes a clause for regulating the smoke from engines. Will that not prevent all other traffic? Will anyone care to drive along the Embankment passed by puffing engines every two minutes? With regard to the District Railway, undoubtedly it is right that the Company should have a voice in this matter. I was twitted last year with holding a brief for the District Railway Company, though I did nothing of the kind, as I have no connection with that line except as a passenger. But I think, if a public body gives £200,000 towards a public improvement, and directly that is made all the profit is to be taken away by competition promoted by the Local Authority, that is scarcely likely to encourage public bodies to assist municipal improvements in the future. Well, the Bill was thrown out last year by a decisive majority, and I hope the House will not stultify itself by accepting this proposal from a defunct County Council—a proposal which we do not know that the new Council will carry out. It may well be that the new Council may think it has quite enough in hand without entering upon other undertakings. I certainly think such a Bill as this should wait for the opinion of the new Council, and if the Bill is for the purpose of effecting a junction between the northern and southern tramway systems, this is not the bridge for the purpose, because the lines do not come up to the bridge on both sides of the river.
    MR. J. ROWLANDSI have listened with attention to the two speeches made against this Bill, and I fear they are of the class we have long been accustomed to as used against anything like a development of popular traffic. I have failed to recognise one argument or reason against the passing of the Bill. I was astounded

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    to hear the hon. Member for South Kensington (Sir Algernon Borthwick) argue that the other side of the bridge would not be more inconvenient as a terminus than the end of Villiers Street. You have a dense industrial population coming daily from Brixton, Peckham, and the southern suburbs to employment on the other side of the river, and crossing Westminster Bridge and turning northward many of these people will, by the line indicated in the Bill, be brought within reasonable distance of their place of employment. The hon. Gentleman who seconded the Amendment admits the desirability of connecting the northern and southern tramway systems, but where would he begin his operations for the purpose if not at Westminster Bridge?
    MR. DIXON-HARTLANDThere is no tramway system with which to make a junction on the north side of Westminster Bridge.
    MR. J. ROWLANDSNo; there is not, I admit that; but will the hon. Gentleman say that he would not equally oppose a plan to carry the northern system over Blackfriars Bridge by way of Farringdon Street? Would there not be exactly the same District Railway monopoly opposition as we meet with now? Am I to suppose the hon. Gentleman would be prepared to endorse a scheme of that kind for crossing Blackfriars Bridge?
    MR. DIXON-HARTLANDThat is not the question before us now.
    MR. J. ROWLANDSJust now the hon. Member said there was no reason why the two systems should not be connected, but he objected that there is no connection on the northern side of the bridge, then I ask him would he oppose a plan where the connection could be made at Blackfriars, and he evades the answer. Of course we should meet with the same opposition. I thought I heard the whole of the opposition when I heard of the carriage wheels. We have heard of this skidding of carriage wheels many times. I admit of course, the equal right of carriages to the use of the roadways, but I deny the right of the owners of carriages to exclude the public conveyances carrying thousands where the carriages carry units. With the argument on behalf of the railway monopoly I need not deal; it is not an argument against the Second
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    Reading of this Bill. The thoroughfare through which the proposed line will run is a wide one, the terminus is a useful one as landing passengers within easy walking distance of the Strand. I am not afraid of another argument which has not to-day been used, that it will spoil the Embankment. I desire to see the cars running along the Embankment, giving the industrial classes the benefit of a ride by the side of the river on a summer's evening for a penny, just as the industrial classes in Paris can ride along the Boulevard des Italiens. (Several hon. MEMBERS: No, no; that is not so.) Yes; I have done it myself—or I should say the Rue de (No, no.) At all events, I desire to see the industrial classes of London able to travel cheaply by the side of the Thames as the people in Paris do by the Seine. I hope that omnibuses may adopt the idea of going along the Embankment. I know of no reason why they should not. What reason is there for opposing this Bill? There is a dense industrial population dwelling at a considerable distance from their employment, and they have to take a public conveyance. But in bad weather they get wet through, having to cross the bridge on foot, and they have to continue their work during the day, and I, from experience, know what it is in wet clothes or with wet feet. I hope hon. Gentlemen will withdraw this opposition, for I can tell them there is only one opinion upon it outside. It may be bias on the part of the people, but it is regarded as class opposition from those who do not themselves need this means of conveyance.
    MR. KIMBERI base my opposition on grounds quite other than those which have already been advanced, though I concur in what has been said by the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment. My main ground of objection is that this Bill is promoted by the London County Council. ("Hear, hear!") I expected that cheer, but I am not at all afraid to announce at the outset of my observations the ground upon which I make them. I hope to show the House before I have done, and in a few minutes, that this Bill is the thin end of the wedge for proposals which, if carried to their logical conclusion, will be of a colossal description, involving London in Socialistic experiments for extracting capital

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    from the pockets of those ratepayers who have it and turning it into the pockets of those who have not—to be repaid Heaven knows when. Let me draw attention to Clause 27 in the Bill, which provides that if the Council carries on the undertaking at a loss, then this loss shall be borne by the ratepayers. Not without reason has this clause contemplating a deficiency been introduced. A few weeks ago we had announced to us from public platforms in London what is called the London programme of the Progressists—-programmes are fashionable just now—and the programme has attracted some attention. One speech in particular attracted my attention. It was suggested by one speaker, Why should not tramways be taken up by Municipalities and worked even at a loss to the ratepayers in order to accommodate what are called the toiling thousands, although those who would be made to pay are probably as great or greater toilers than they. The votes of these thousands are what is aimed at. That is the principle of which this, I say, is the thin end of the wedge, the first communication in the House, and I ask the House to pause before sanctioning such a principle as that. At another meeting in my constituency, one of the largest divisions in London, this principle was boldly announced by a well-known Socialist representative of his friends on the London County Council, and I suppose, to give it an extra touch of satire, it was said under the portals of the Local Board of Works. Working men in attendance were strongly recommended to organise and to use their votes, first of all, for getting on to the vestry and Local Boards, then on to the Council, and then, by the help of their fellows, into Parliament. For what? To control contracts for labour in London, to organise that labour for the purpose of appointing their own foremen, of fixing their own rate of wages, called a fair rate, but anyhow fixed arbitrarily, by those taking the wages and managed by the exercise of the labour vote, to fix their own hours of labour, or, as it might more properly be called, of non-labour. (Cries of "Question!") I am strictly keeping to the question, for I am proceeding to show that the Bill is simply a first enunciation before Parliament for carrying into effect this doctrine laid down out-of-doors by the party promoting this Bill.
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    These are the principles underlying the proposals in the Bill. If the Bill passes authorising the construction of one tramway, the precedent will be set and the House will be asked, if one why not ten, if ten why not all tramways? But the programme is not confined to tramways: it is to extend to docks and other undertakings, and the organisation is to extend to the vast army of labourers in this great Metropolis. Having made the London County Council the largest employer of labour in the Metropolis, and presumably in the country, those who secure the employment will, of course, expect the gratitude of this vast army of labourers and their votes to secure Socialistic domination over the whole of society, and over those whom Socialists call the people living at their ease, but whose work in most instances extends over many more hours than the limit labourers fix. Therefore I oppose this Bill. This proposal was rejected last year. The principle has often been affirmed that the State should not compete with private enterprise. The principle on which this Bill turns is of a much further reaching character than any mere question of whether or not this little tramway should be made. By Clause 24 the County Council seeks running powers over the whole of the two largest tramways in London—the London Tramways Company and the South London Tramways Company—and to work over and use them on such terms and conditions as, failing agreement, shall be settled by arbitration. The Parliamentary agents who are supporting the Bill say that it is not intended by the Council to work the lines themselves, but to enter into an agreement with a Tramways Company. But I object to private agreements made by Committees of the London County Council behind the back of this House, and smuggled through by a Bill of this kind. The Council would, under that clause, require an army of labourers, inspectors, conductors, and paymasters, and if there were any loss on the working the ratepayers would have to meet the charge. Clause 26 is a very necessary one, if the principle of the Bill be sanctioned, for in it the Council asks for power to spend on capital account, whatever that may mean in County Council finance. But it is not to remain capital; the ratepayers are to

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    repay it, as if it were a loan, in 60 years. Why should they not raise a million if they are to be the promoters and financial agents of this vast Metropolis, with power to drag, by compulsory powers, out of the pockets of the ratepayers enough money to create industrial undertakings of this kind, and carry them on in competition with private owners? If the County Council, which was to be the Superviser of the working of tramways, is to be a tramway owner itself, what kind of impartiality will they exercise? If this line is to be made at all, it is well known to commercial men that not only could it be done without charging the ratepayers or taking power to charge them, but it could be done not only with security against any possible loss, but with a very large payment to be made to the ratepayers if the County Council would but act as commercial men do. The Tramway Companies would give a large sum of money to cross the bridge. They would keep the bridge in order, and pay a large sum to the ratepayers annually in aid of the rates. If the line is to be made at all, it should not be made by the County Council, but by somebody else under conditions in which the ratepayers would be indemnified against any loss. For this reason, in addition to those given by the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment, I join in their hope that the Bill will be thrown out.
    MR. COURTNEYI think it would be convenient to the House if we were to restrict the Debate to rather narrower limits than did the last speaker. There are some persons now soliciting votes who believe that the whole of the tramways should be taken by the County Council, and worked on a semi-philanthropic and socialistic principle, at a loss, for the benefit of the people of the Metropolis, in somewhat the same way as the Post Office is worked. Whether there be many or few of these persons remains to be seen. I suspect that the number who indulge in these dreams is few. What I would submit to the hon. Member is that the best way to resist foolish proposals is to be sensible ourselves. Let us look at this question in its real dimensions and see what it really means. It is the same proposal as that brought before the House last year and rejected, and it will probably
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    be rejected now. Although it is proposed this year by the County Council, and was proposed last year by the Tramways Company, it is practically the same thing. If the Council takes over a tramway, it does so in accordance with what is now the law, which enables it to take over the various lines at fixed periods. The Bill also contains powers for the County Council to come to terms so that it will not work the line, but the Tramway Company will do so. These terms between the County Council and the Company are matters which will properly come under discussion in the Committee upstairs, and they are not points which we should enter into here. They should be examined by the Committee, if on consideration of the principle of the Bill you do not see a. fundamental objection to the construction of the tramway. What we have to consider here is whether there is any fundamental objection to the construction of the tramway. Let us examine that. Are the circumstances of convenience or inconvenience such that you will not entertain the project of a tramway being constructed over the bridge and a little way along the Embankment, not further than Charing Cross Bridge—so as not to interfere with the traffic from East to West? Have you such rooted objection to this tramway that you cannot allow the Bill to go upstairs? I asked hon. Members to consider this last year. It is perfectly true that there are no tramways along the Boulevard des Italiennes or the Rue, de Rivoli; but they are all along the Seine, along the Champs Elysées. Under the Empire they were stopped at the Place de la Concorde, but when the Empire was abolished one of the first things done was to run them again, and they now run between the Louvre and the Seine, which is a very narrow place. They run right through Paris, and to the other end of Versailles; and so between North and South there is uninterrupted communication. The tramways run from north to south and from east to west. Can you, with that experience before you, say that you destroy all the amenities of London if you allow this tramway to be brought over the bridge and along the Embankment as far as Charing Cross Bridge? If it were proposed to carry the line along the Strand or any other very busy place, it

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    would, of course, be absurd. But when you have a large space like this, I should recommend the House—though I am afraid it will adhere to its original Resolution—to send the Bill upstairs, so that the details may be examined.
    MR. KELLYI think, Sir, there is another course we might take with regard to this Bill, and that is to adjourn this discussion for a month. I will explain why I suggest that. This is not only not the same Bill as that of last year, but it will be opposed by the very persons who introduced the Bill last year. I have a letter from the Chairman of the London Tramways Company, in which he says the Company would not, and could not, consent to the conditions which the County Council desire to impose, and that the Company would, in fact, feel it to be their duty to oppose the Bill in Committee. The County Council desires to impose the condition that the Company shall not, under any circumstances, employ a man more than ten hours a day; but there are occasions, such as a great Bank Holiday, when they desire to run every car at the last possible moment to carry poor people home at night; and if they were placed under that restriction it would be impossible for them to carry on their business in their own way, dealing as they might find it necessary with their own servants. Their employés, who receive 42s. a week, are contented, and it has been found quite impossible to get the great majority of them into any union. We are now trying to decide this question, when in a week's time we may have a County Council willing to make reasonable terms with the Tramway Company, and so lead to that which is of the greatest importance to thousands of working girls and poor children who cross the bridge every day, and whom the Tramway Company would carry across it without any further charge whatever. I am bound to vote for the Second Reading, because I believe that will happen between now and the sitting of the Committee which will enable the parties to come to terms. The Tramway Company is willing to build the line or work it for the County Council, paying interest to the ratepayers for the use. The hon. Member for the Uxbridge Division held out the Smoke Clause to the House. The Bill provides
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    that the line shall alone be worked by either animal or electric power, so I do not see where the hon. Gentleman could get his smoke from. The line over the bridge would be a great convenience to persons driving to Waterloo, for the trams now stop in a narrow and dangerous spot, seriously affecting the traffic, and being a constant source of danger to those leaving and entering the trams. The Embankment is three or four times the breadth, and there would be little danger or trouble in entering or leaving the cars at that place. I regret that we must go to a Division, for I think it is absolutely useless to pass the Second Reading under the present circumstances, as the chairman's letter says the Company will not work the line under the conditions now insisted upon by the County Council. That Body takes power by this Bill to work the proposed line, but surely this is impossible. The line must be worked by the Tramway Company, or it cannot be worked at all. I appeal to the hon. Member for Hoxton to adjourn the Debate for a month, and then we shall have a chance of seeing whether the County Council will or will not come to terms with the Tramway Company, and if they will not, the House will be more than justified in throwing out the Bill.
    EARL COMPTONI have no intention of making an electioneering speech, as we are simply discussing whether a certain Bill promoted by the County Council shall be read a second time or not. As regards the matters brought forward by hon. Gentlemen opposite. The smoke difficulty was removed by the last speaker, and the clause referred to is the Board of Trade Clause, which has to be inserted in all such Bills, and I am quite ready to leave that point to the right hon. Gentleman opposite, who, I regret, was not here at the commencement of the discussion. We have been told that the traffic would be seriously impeded across Westminster Bridge. There are four lines of traffic over London Bridge, and they are regulated just as if tram lines, were laid down, therefore I cannot see where the objection comes in. As to the laying of the lines, I think some statement should be made on behalf of the County Council, as they are not to be laid in the centre of

    1483
    the bridge, but one line on each side, leaving the centre for the general traffic. The roadway is 54 feet wide, and the two lines for the tramway would take up 14 feet, leaving a 40 feet roadway for the general traffic, which would be ample. We should consider the necessity there is for some tramway communication between the South of London and the rest of the Metropolis. As to the question of finance, it seems to be the impression that it would be a serious matter. The cost would be £10,000. What has been the offer of the Tramway Company? Their offer has been to pay £1,000 a year. Of course there would be expenses, wear and tear and keeping up the line, and they might be calculated at 25 to 30 per cent. at the very outside. There would be no question of loss to the ratepayers of any shape or kind. A great deal has been made of the point that the County Council should have left the question for a future Council to decide. Foy my own part, I look upon that view with extreme disfavour; I think that it is the duty of a Municipal Body to carry out its work to the last moment, and that it has no right to postpone to its successors a duty which it regards at the present moment as necessary. With regard to the question of spoiling the Embankment, I imagine that the Embankment was made for the use of the ratepayers of London, that it should be used for their convenience, and that it should be left to them to determine what use to make of it. The argument has been used that the tramway would be competing with the Underground Railway. But that argument would mean that we are to have no more tramways or omnibuses at all. As a matter of fact, what is wanted is competition, and why should we not have it? Some hon. Members opposite seem to hold that everything proposed by the London County Council must be wrong, and I must confess regret that Party opposition has resulted in Party fights in elections for the London County Council. The London County Council knows that the districts of South London, which would be affected by this Bill, are unanimous in favour of it, and we have only done our duty is bringing it forward. I should like to call the attention of the House to Clause 5, by which it is laid down explicitly that if the work is
    1484
    not done in three years the matter will lapse. Therefore it will be in the power of the new County Council to decide whether they will go on with it or not, and the term would come to an end during their tenure of office.
    SIR A. BORTHWICKThe Underground Railway paid £200,000 for the privilege of going along the Embankment.
    MR. E. BOULNOISI wish to say a few words upon the subject, but I do not desire to go into the matter of competition as to which these tramways and omnibuses will be subjected. I wish to say a few words from the point of view taken by the minority of the Council against the course adopted by the Council of constructing tramways. The hon. Member for Shoreditch has stated that the County Council does not desire to work the tramways, but to enter into an arrangement with the Tramway Company by which the latter should work it. I do not believe that it would be possible for the present County Council to enter into such an agreement with Tramway Companies, because, as we all know, it insists upon such terms as to wages paid and the length of hours worked as that it would be absolutely impossible for the Company to entertain such proposals and pay its way. The minority of the Council object very strongly to the Council working those tramways. I admit there is a large majority in favour of taking them over and leasing them; but there has been a distinct undertaking given that there should be no attempt made to work them. With regard to the estimated cost of this undertaking, since the question of the acquisition of tramways has been discussed in this House last year the County Council has given notice to a Tramway Company to purchase a very small piece of line. That purchase has been carried out upon the estimate made by the valuer of the Council, and it is now rumoured that a claim six or seven times as large as the estimate made by the valuer has been sent in by the Tramway Company. I think, therefore, it is necessary to accept the noble Lord's statement as to cost with caution. What I ask the House to do is to give time. This is purely an experiment, and I think the House should pause before allowing such an undertaking to be prac-

    1485
    tically forced upon the successors of the present County Council.
    MR. CREMERThe opposition to this Bill comes from two classes of Members—those who are actuated by an intense hatred of the London County Council and all its acts, and those who can afford to ride in carriages and cabs and who disregard the wants of the masses, who must ride in omnibuses or tramways or walk. The conditions which the London County Council desire to impose upon the Tramway Company are to my mind rational and wholesome. These conditions are that the Company should pay their servants fair wages, and that the hours of work should be limited to ten hours a day.
    MR. KELLYI wish to explain that there is no condition affecting the wages to be paid. The servants of the Company have always been contented with the wages they received, and they have refused to join in the union.
    MR. CREMERThe statement that a condition as to wages was to be imposed has been made by at least two hon. Members upon the other side of the House, and if such a condition is not contained in the Bill the hon. Members have been misleading the House. I believe that the poorer ratepayers of London have made up their mind that the control of the tramways should be in charge of the London County Council. Hundreds and thousands of people living upon the other side of the Thames are most anxious to avail themselves of the increased facilities of locomotion which would be supplied by this Bill, and I confidently say that if the opponents of the Bill succeed in defeating it they will regret their action before long. Depend upon it that the new County Council will insist upon harder conditions than the present Council seek to impose upon the Tramway Companies, and I believe it is quite possible that they will be supported in their demand by a Liberal House of Commons.
    MR. WEBSTERI think there can be no doubt that the construction of a tramway on Westminster Bridge would seriously interfere with the traffic. There is, in fact, no room on the bridge for a tramway. If there were any widespread desire for a tramway along this
    1486
    route I should say that the best proof of it would be to see omnibuses running along the same route, for it may be taken for granted that where the public wish to go there the omnibuses will be found. But we find none along this route; along the Embankment you seldom see an omnibus, and I take it that that is the best proof that the route is not desired for the purpose. Why was the Embankment constructed? I take it that it was not built for the use of a few people who want to go to the South of the Thames from Charing Cross, but rather for the general benefit of the people. Besides, it cannot be said that it is for the benefit of the public generally; for there are but few shops in the neighbourhood of Charing Cross. The Embankment was constructed for the general benefit of the whole of London, and I, for one, must protest against its being applied to the use of any particular class. The Embankment was spoken of as a great boulevard, and hon. Gentlemen referred to Paris, but they will find that in Paris there is no line of tramway running over any bridge. In Paris there may be a line of tramway running along the side of a bridge, but there is none running over it. Hon. Gentlemen want to have a tram line running along the Embankment in order that there might be better communication established with North London in the most congested districts. If they want to have communication established from North to South London it certainly ought not to be over Westminster Bridge.
    MR. CREMERMight I interrupt the hon. Gentleman for a moment with reference to what he said about Paris? There are at least two tramway lines in Paris running across bridges.
    MR. WEBSTERThen I beg the hon. Gentleman's pardon. But referring to London, I wish to point out to the hon. Gentleman who sneered at the statement that carriage wheels were injured by tramway lines, that carriage wheels are injured, and so are cab wheels, and so are omnibus wheels, and so are light car's and dray's wheels injured, and so are fire engines' wheels injured. I venture to say that the tramway line there is not wanted, that it is not required, and that it will destroy the beauty and all the interest of that noble boulevard, the Thames Embankment, Hon. Gentlemen opposite may also wish

    1487
    to use the open spaces along the Embankment, which were made by the late Leader of the House. Hon. Gentlemen in their Communistic wishes may desire to have gasometers erected there. I am opposed to this Bill on principle, and, further, I am opposed to it because I say, as a London Member, that a tram line is not wanted on the Thames Embankment.
    MR. A. J. MUNDELLAIt seems to me deplorable that the time of the House should be wasted with discussing a matter so small as this, a proposal relating to a tramway line which is promoted by the London County Council, and which does not extend to the length of three-fourths of a mile. Hon. Gentlemen opposite have spoken of this as a Socialistic movement, and as the introduction of the thin end of the wedge. I was very much surprised to hear this from the hon. Member for the Wandsworth Division, because I remember that this movement is only a small part of a scheme which was promoted in this House more than 20 years ago. It was not promoted by Socialists then; it was not denounced then as a Socialistic movement; it was promoted by the London Tramways Company. It was opposed by Mr. Beresford Hope, who sat on this side of the House, and he conjured up before the House all the horrors which have been referred to by the hon. Baronet the Member for the South Kensington Division, and spoke of trams being allowed to run down Piccadilly, and down the Strand, and going along and destroying the Thames Embankment. Really, this is a matter extending over a distance of under five furlongs.
    An hon. MEMBER: Eight miles of running power.
    MR. MUNDELLAThat is the running power that the London Tramways Company wanted to get at that time. But what we want is to get the control of the tramways. The Metropolitan Board of Works opposed them because they wanted entire control of the tramways; the Metropolitan Board of Works contemplated what I hope the London County Council contemplate—getting complete control, not to work them; but as the streets are the property of the citizens of London, they should be under the control of the Local Authorities of London. We do
    1488
    these things in the Provinces. Sheffield controls the tramways, so does Liverpool, and many other large towns. We have control of the tramways, because it may be necessary to change or divert the line of a street and improve it, and it is right that the Municipality should have complete control over it. I never heard such an argument as this on a Private Bill in this House—that this Bill should not be sent up in the usual course to a Committee upstairs because there was an election coming on. It is the first time that such an argument has been advanced in this House. Just fancy one saying "Oh! throw out the Nottingham Improvement Bill, or the Liverpool Improvement Bill; they will have a new election in November, and then there will be a change in the views of the constituency." Why these arguments are monstrous, and I think they hardly justify the waste of time the House is put to in this matter. What are the facts? There are 60,000 ratepayers of South London praying the House to make this small improvement. My right hon. Friend the Chairman of Ways and Means has made a brief but very powerful and important speech in favour of sending it to a Committee upstairs. Every argument that has been advanced against the measure is an argument that ought to be addressed to a Committee upstairs. That is the proper tribunal to try it. It is mischievous to the last degree that the House should take this matter into its own hands, and should refuse to consider the wants of any Municipality, and should further refuse to send the matter before the ordinary tribunal. As to what the hon. Baronet the Member for South Kensington said about the mischief of tramways, he has heard from the Chairman of Ways and Means what takes place in Paris, and Brussels too.
    SIR ALGERNON BORTHWICKI wish to say that I oppose this Bill on behalf of the West End Ratepayers Association, who have successfully defeated a series of these measures introduced notably by the very persons to whom the right hon. Gentleman alludes. About ten years ago it was proposed to bring this very tramway across Westminster Bridge, up Victoria Street, and also up Sloane Square.
    MR. MUNDELLAAnd who are the West End Ratepayers' Association? Let me ask the right hon. Baronet what right have the West End Ratepayers' Association to interfere with a proposal for bringing a tramway line from South London across Westminster Bridge, or to take up the time of the House in opposition to the 60,000 ratepayers who have petitioned in favour of the proposal? After all, it is a question to be decided by a Committee upstairs.
    MR. WEBSTERI should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman a question.(Cries of "Order, order!") I want to know whether the Petition was presented this year or not?
    MR. MUNDELLAThe real question is—shall this Bill be referred to a Committee upstairs? During the last 24 years that I have been in this House it has always been the custom to send Bills of this kind before a Committee upstairs. That is the proper way, and I hope this House will not stand in the way of an important improvement promoted by a Local Authority which the Government itself has set up. I trust we shall go at once to a Division.
    SIR CHARLES C. FRASER (Lambeth, N)I beg leave to trespass on the time of the House for a few moments. I shall stand closely to the question. I shall not wander to Paris, and I do not "come from Sheffield." I claim to have an intimate acquaintance with Westminster Bridge and its neighbourhood, and would give evidence as Member for North Lambeth, which I am proud to be, on which one end of the bridge rests. I would draw attention to a new feature in this Bill. Last year it was proposed to take the tramcars from Westminster Bridge Road over Westminster Bridge; this year it is proposed also to take the Albert Embankment tramcars—which at present stop well short of the bridge and road—round St. Thomas's Hospital, so that both lines will converge on the bridge—to the great detriment of trade and traffic. The noble Lord the Member for Barnsley (Lord Compton) has pictured four gentle streams gliding smoothly side by side over the bridge under the guidance of the County Council. I doubt it, and would leave his Lordship on the bridge and pass to the Westminster end of it, where the two lines of trams will have to turn sharply
    1490
    to the right on to the Victoria Embankment. At this point the flood of traffic from Victoria Street, Great George Street, Parliament Street, through Bridge Street, pour down and must cause great danger and difficulty. Every Member at the present time recognises that but for the attention of the police in Bridge Street we should all be killed every afternoon. I would not trespass on the time of the House; I would not speak of the County Council or of Socialists, of those who loll in gilded chariots, or of the working men who, full of health and life, trudge to their work like Englishmen, but I would ask the House to focus its interest on those who have not those advantages when they face the dangers of the streets, and ask it to stay the advance of the uncompromising tramcar.
    Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 160; Noes 158.—(Div. List, No. 9.)
    Main Question put, and agreed to.
    Bill read a second time, and committed.

  QUEEN'S SPEECH—HER MAJESTY'S ANSWER TO THE ADDRESS.
  THE COMPTROLLER OF THE HOUSEHOLD (Lord ARTHUR HILL)reported to the House, That Her Majesty, having been attended with their Address of the 15th day of this instant February, was pleased to receive the same very graciously, and to give the following Answer:—
  I thank you most sincerely for your loyal and dutiful Address, and especially for your expressions of sympathy with Me and My Family in the deep affliction which has visited Us.
  Your heartfelt participation in My personal sorrow has afforded me much consolation.

  BELFAST CORPORATION (LUNATIC ASYLUMS, &c.) BILL.
  Ordered, That the Order for Committee be discharged.
  Ordered, That the Bill be committed to a Select Committee of Seven Members, Four to be nominated by the House and three by the Committee of Selection.
  Ordered, That all Petitions against the Bill presented three clear days before the meeting of the Committee be referred to the Committee; that the Petitioners praying to be heard by themselves, their Counsel or Agents, be heard against the Bill, and Counsel heard in support of the Bill.
  Ordered, That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records.
  Ordered, That Three be the quorum.—(Mr. Sexton.)
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That it be an Instruction to the Committee to insert in the Bill clauses re-arranging the existing division of the City of Belfast into wards, so as to make it possible for all classes of its inhabitants to obtain representation in the Town Councils."—(Mr. Sexton.)
  And, the Motion being opposed, Further Proceeding stood adjourned until To-morrow.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  SUPPLY—CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS, 1891–2 SUPPLEMENTARY ESTIMATES.
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)

  CLASS VI.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That a sum not exceeding £90,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1892, as a Grant in Aid of the Capital of the Pension Fund created under the provisions of the National School Teachers' (Ireland) Act, 1879."
  MR. SEXTONThis, Mr. Courtney, is a Vote of very considerable interest, if not to English Members, who are now leaving the House in such numbers, at any rate to Irish Members. By this Vote it is proposed to take the whole of Ireland's equivalent, for the current year, of the grant given to England for freeing education. It is proposed to take this whole sum of £90,000, and apply it, not to any immediate purposes, but in aid of the National Teachers' Fund. Now, the question of the application of this money has been lying over since last year. It was frequently mentioned in the House in the later months of last Session; and now, when we are in close proximity to the end of the financial year, we find we are obliged to deal with it, not by a Bill, but by a Vote in Supply. I feel obliged to confess that, whilst a Vote in Supply is a very proper and convenient mode for dealing with money, when the principle of expenditure has been already affirmed, yet I can conceive nothing more inconvenient or prejudicial to the privileges, or destructive of the rights of Members than to present a new proposal, never affirmed

  1533
  or even debated, and perhaps to carry it into effect by procedure in Supply. If it were a Bill, we would have an opportunity of proposing useful Amendments which might have a chance of acceptance; but under this procedure, if we think the sum is not enough for the purpose we cannot move to increase it, and we cannot reduce it if it were thought that the amount was needlessly large. Again, Sir, it will not be denied that the information on the face of this Estimate is of the most meagre possible kind. There is a foot note in which we are told something which we know already, and upon which we do not require to be informed. We are told where the money comes from. Members are well aware that this money is 9 per cent.—Ireland's share—of the Free Education grant. But upon what we do require to know we receive no information. We are not told what circumstances have arisen to render necessary the appropriation of this great sum to the particular purpose in question. It is only a week ago that the right hon. Gentleman told us that—
  "Either the payments into the fund had been too small, or the payments out of it had been too large."
  Now, that might be a description of any fund that had ever been found to be in an unsatisfactory condition. What we want to know is, which is it? Have the payments been smaller than was originally expected; or have the payments out been larger? The right hon. Gentleman has truly said that the fund showed a tendency to get into bad water. Surely we are entitled to more information. Is it in bad water now? It has been suggested that the State is not responsible for the condition of this fund. Why, Sir, this fund was founded by a public Act of Parliament in 1879, and by that Act £1,300,000 was taken out of the Irish Church Surplus Fund, and applied in aid of this very fund now before us. Under that Act an elaborate system was devised. Three-fourths of the teachers' premiums were to be paid out of the Church Government subvention; the other fourth was to be supplied by the teachers who joined the fund. Who is it who is responsible for the Vote? If anyone will turn to the Estimates, and look at the Vote for the Treasury and subordinate Departments, he will find that one of the subordinate Departments is the
  1534
  office of this very Pension Fund. The superintendent of the pension office is a gentleman who receives £200 a year, and who is besides an actuary. So that you have an official actuary recognised in one of the great Departments of State in charge of this pension office in Dublin. It was his duty to see that the fund did not get into backwater, or even into the tendency to get into backwater. He should have warned the Government, and the Government should have warned this House, that the fund was getting into an unsound condition. I see in the Estimates we are told that the receipts of the fund are not in excess of liabilities as declared by the recent valuation. Why did not the recent valuation disclose that? I would suggest we ought to have a copy of the recent valuation; at least, we ought to have the substance of it. I now ask whatever Minister rises to reply, to inform us as to its precise effect. Moreover, when did the deficiency begin to arise? What is the amount of it at the present moment? I particularly wish to know whether, if we agree to apply this £90,000 to the Pension Fund now, we may assure ourselves that the fund will be in a sound position, and that we shall not be told at the end of another five years that the fund shows a tendency to get into backwater, and that some money is to be devoted by the Government to the fund for the purpose of assisting it. I think I am entitled to say that it is hardly treating Irish Members fairly in regard to a matter of finance, when it is only in a speech upon the Debate that the Chief Secretary tells us incidentally what he intends to do. We have received numerous letters from Irish teachers upon the subject. One teacher, writing on the 28th February, said, with reference to the report that the Chief Secretary intended to hand over the £90,000 accruing since September last to the Pension Fund—
  "It is not fair, as it was meant that the teachers would charge no school fees. They will be at a loss for the half-year ending 31st March, so that they are entitled to be compensated in lieu of the school fees."
  The suggestion here made is that upon the announcement of free education last year some of the teachers ceased collecting school fees—depending upon the establishment of free education. Their income for the present year is

  1535
  consequently seriously diminished. I would like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he has inquired of the Commissioners of National Education if within the past half year an expectation amongst the people has led to the cessation of school fees; and whether, if so, he has any proposal to meet the case? I do not myself oppose the principle of the allocation of this fund in aid of the Pension Fund, but I submit that as some teachers may have incurred loss, we are entitled to have the most specific information given as to the circumstances of the Pension Fund.
  THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Sir JOHN GORST,)I will give the hon. Member the fullest information I possibly can in reply to his questions. The fund was created, as he indicated, by the appropriation of £1,300,000 out of the Irish Church surplus, to which was added a contribution by the teachers themselves. About three-fourths of the fund consists of the Irish Church surplus and accumulations, and about one-fourth consists of the contributions made by the teachers themselves and the accumulations. The whole difficulty has arisen from an unfortunate, and I must say I think a mistaken, actuarial valuation made in the year 1885. That was at the end of the first quinquennial period of the fund. The Report made at that time to the then Government showed that the assets of the fund, on the 31st December, 1884, amounted to £1,664,872 and the liabilities to £1,468,285 only, showing a surplus of assets over liabilities of no less than £196,587. The Government of the day, 1885, had to deal with that surplus. It clearly belonged to the National School teachers of Ireland. It had to be allocated in some way—either by reducing the amount of the subscription, or by increasing the benefits which had been provided by the Act of 1879. The Government of 1885 decided to take the latter course, and they changed the scheme of the Act of 1879 by promising the National School teachers of Ireland certain extra benefits.
  COLONEL NOLANWhat was the date in 1885?
  SIR JOHN GORSTThe hon. Member asks a question which I shall be glad to answer later. This was what was done. In the first
  1536
  place, provision was made for a return, to the representatives of a teacher who died, of the premiums which the teacher had paid towards his pension, and which according to the scheme of 1879 would have been lost to the teacher's representatives in case of death; and the cost of this was supposed to amount to £35,000. Then there were the claims of members of certain abolished classes of teachers to somewhat increased pensions to be considered. These claims were admitted, amounting to a capital liability of about £3,500 more. Then there was a rule introduced that male and female teachers should be allowed to retire after 40 years' service upon their maximum pension, reckoned from the age 21 in the case of males, and 18 in the case of females. This concession was calculated to involve a capital liability of about £150,000. Therefore, by these concessions which I have, enumerated, nearly the whole estimated surplus of £196,000 was disposed of. The new rules were in operation for-another quinquennial period, and then there was another actuarial valuation made. And it turned out, that so far from the fund being then solvent there was a deficit in it.
  An hon. MEMBER: Was the valuation made by the same actuary?
  SIR JOHN GORSTI believe so. The actuarial valuation brought out in 1891 that the liabilities were £195,000 more than the assets, so that whereas at the end of the first quinquennial period there was a sum of £196,000 to the good, at the end of the second period there was £195,000 to the bad. Of course the merits of highly technical actuarial calculations form a subject upon which Members of the Government, and, I daresay, Representatives from Ireland are not properly qualified to express an opinion. Therefore the Government, with this extraordinary variation between the first and second actuarial valuation, appointed a Committee consisting of three actuaries, one being the actuary who made the first Report—and, I believe, the second Report also—and two being independent actuaries. They are now preparing a Report which has not yet been submitted to the Government. Therefore I am as much in the dark as hon. Members from Ireland are as to how this extraordinary difference between the

  1537
  first and second valuation arose. But when the investigation is completed Her Majesty's Government will carefully consider the Report, and will see how this important fund can be brought into a condition of solvency.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELLThey may bring out a surplus.
  SIR JOHN GORSTI do not think that is likely; but, of course, it is possible. However, when this careful valuation is made, the Government will take the matter into their careful consideration to see that such steps are taken as can be taken to put the fund into a condition of solvency. With regard to the dates in 1885, I may explain that the valuation referred to the condition of the fund on the last day of 1884, and it was received in the middle of 1885. I am afraid that the question as to exactly what Government was in Office is rather doubtful. The probability is rather in favour of the last Government but three. I do not commit myself to a positive statement on that matter, but it was not the present Government, and not the last Government but one, but either the last Government but two or the last Government but three. Then there was this sum of £90,000, which was due to Irish education in some form or other as an equivalent to the English free school grant, and it was represented to Her Majesty's Government that it could not be applied to free education in Ireland, because the fees had already been paid for the current year. The Government could not find any object on which it could be spent which seemed more in the interests of Irish education than applying it to this fund and putting it in a condition of solvency. By the rules of 1885, the teachers received greater benefits from the fund without being called upon to subscribe more to secure them. The object of the present proposal is to continue those benefits at the low subscription under the Act of 1879. I am sorry that more time has not been given to the Irish teachers and Members of Parliament to consider the matter. There is a great deal of force in the suggestion that the matter should be dealt with by Bill, but it is necessary that the money should be disposed of before the 31st of March of this year, or it will have to be paid back to the
  1538
  Consolidated Fund and go towards the reduction of the National Debt. There is, therefore, scarcely time to pass an ordinary Bill on the subject, and I thought hon. Gentlemen from Ireland would accept it in the form of a Supplementary Estimate, which would be equally conducive to their interests.
  COLONEL NOLANI cannot quite understand the position with regard to this money which belongs to the Irish teachers, and has been simply confiscated by the Treasury. This sum of £90,000 became due last year, and we were told that it was the equivalent to the £500,000 or £600,000 which was the proportion of England. The then Chief Secretary for Ireland said:—
  "I have a delightful scheme by which this sum will come into my fund for making my Land Act perfectly secure."
  We Irish Members protested against the money being confiscated in that way, and the disposal of the money was postponed till this year. Now it ought to go to the teachers in some form or other. They may give it in the shape of class salaries, pensions, or capitation grants as they choose; but they are not going to do that. The Government have no right to dispose of this money as they are proposing to do. This fund was started in 1879 with £1,300,000 from the Irish Church surplus and went on well till 1885, and then the Treasury comes forward and says it will increase the benefits to the teachers. I do not know which Government it was, but it is a significant fact that whenever there is a dispute as to Ireland's share of any advantages Ireland always goes to the wall. In 1885 you made us a present of £196,000, and now you want to take it back again, which is the way you always behave towards Ireland. You have no right to give and take in this manner. Last year you told us that Ireland was to get a proportional share of the Grant, and now you are giving us none at all. You are putting the £90,000 into a reserve fund of the Treasury, and the teachers will get no benefit from it. Then what is the cost of administering the Fund?
  MR. JACKSONThere is no cost of administration.
  COLONEL NOLANIn 1885 you pretended to make a gift to Ireland of £196,000; what right have you in 1892 to take this £90,000 to make up that

  1539
  original sum without the consent of the Irish Members? If I can get any of my hon. Friends to support me I shall be inclined to vote against this £90,000. I do not believe it will be confiscated: on the 31st of March. It is confiscated already. The teachers lose it actually either with or without the consent of the Irish Members, and I rather think the latter way is the better of the two.
  SIR JOHN GORSTIn 1885 fresh rules were made under Section 10 of the Act of 1879, which empowers the Treasury, at any time after the passing of the Act, with the consent of the Lord Lieutenant, to make rules from time to time for the administration of the Act. These are the rules which prescribe the amount of benefit to be given to the teachers under the Act. The new rules of 1885 gave the teachers greater benefits, the Treasury being under the impression that the fund was more than solvent. The fund was, however, found to be less than solvent on an actuarial examination in 1891, and it was found that unless something of this sort were done, some capital sum carried to the relief of the fund, teachers entering the service in the future would have less benefits than those at present in the service are receiving. The fund was created out of the Irish Church surplus, and the investment of the fund is prescribed by the Act, so that the Office of the Treasury is purely ministerial in carrying out its provisions. It is only on the fund created by Parliament that the teachers have any claim, and therefore if that fund is insufficient without a subvention of this kind it becomes the duty of the Treasury to make fresh rules which would give less benefits to teachers.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELLThe statement of the Secretary to the Treasury was perfectly clear, but I do not think it will be very satisfactory to Irish Members. The Actuarial Report in 1885 showed a surplus of £195,000, but we are told that the Actuarial Report in 1890 showed a deficit of £190,000, and now there is another Actuarial Committee sitting to inquire into its actual state. Will this £90,000 make the fund solvent? At any rate it will help in that direction, and I must not be taken as objecting to it. I want to point out that we have one precedent for dealing with this fund. Last year
  1540
  the Constabulary Pension Fund was found to be in the same condition—insolvent. But the Government did not take any money of this kind to make it up; the Government made it up themselves. I think the Irish teachers are entitled to this money, and if there be a deficiency in the Fund I do not say that this is not a good way of meeting it. But I should like some explanation from some Member of the Government as to the difference in the treatment of the two Funds.
  MR. J. DILLON (Mayo, E.)I want to know if there is any precedent in the history of Parliament for calling upon a Committee of this House to vote a large sum of money to make good a deficiency in a fund when nobody knows if there is a deficiency at all? I understood the Secretary to the Treasury to say that the actuary who made the valuation in 1885, and the one in 1890, producing such utterly different results, is one and the same individual. If that be so, no reliance can be placed on the valuation of that gentleman. We are left entirely in the dark as to the deficit, and the Government has appointed a committee of this gentleman and two others to look into the matter. Yet we are asked to vote this £90,000 to make up the deficit while that committee is still sitting, and has not yet reported. The Government has given us no reason for believing in this deficit at all, and it is most unjust to the teachers to take the money and apply it in this way. If the Government had been able to deal with the money when it dealt with the grants to England and Scotland the teachers would now have been in the enjoyment of it; and if the fund had then been found to be insolvent, does anyone doubt for a moment that it would have been held to be the duty of the Government to make up the deficiency which had arisen entirely from their maladministration. The Irish teachers are admittedly the worst paid in the three countries, and that makes it a greater hardship that this money should be disposed of as the Government proposes. Last year the principle on which the Chancellor of the Exchequer laid it down that this money was to be distributed to the three countries was most unjust. On what ground was it decided that Ireland was only to have 9 per cent. of the total sum? The Govern

  1541
  ment proclaims itself Unionist and determined to keep Ireland part of the United Kingdom, but when it comes to distributing money they are Separatists, and set up a totally different principle to guide our finance. The right hon. Gentleman, instead of taking the number of children to be provided for and giving the grant at so much per head on the school attendance, as in the other two countries, asks us to accept from him what are the relative contributions from the three countries to the Imperial funds, which contributions are calculated by him in the dark, and which he gives us no means of checking. We are told over and over again that Ireland is to share to the fullest extent in all the benefits of a division as part and parcel of the United Kingdom. Here, because she is the poorest part of the Kingdom, and, according to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, only contributes 9 per cent. of the Imperial funds, her school children are to get a very much smaller grant per head than those of the other parts of the Kingdom. I want to know on what ground he justifies that proportion. Scotland is treated far more justly than Ireland is. The principle which underlies the distribution is the principle of separatism in finance. When the question of the distribution of money comes to be considered, the Government are Separatists and not Unionists; they act as Separatists in the matter of finance, and in that only. Instead of giving the grant at a rate per head of the children attending school, as they do in England, they act on the principle of the relative contributions of the three countries, and even then they give us no means of checking the figures. In conclusion, I have only to say that in my judgment the appropriation of this £90,000 to make good a mistake of the actuaries in regard to the Teachers' Pension Fund is a great injustice to the teachers of Ireland. The Government are responsible for the mistake that has been made. and I hold that it is their duty to make good any deficiency out of Imperial funds,
  SIR JOHN GORSTI am anxious that the House should understand how this matter stands. As to the question of the proportion which Ireland ought to have, I admit that it is, upon the whole, a very large question, and I must decline to go into it.
  1542
  This is not the time when such a matter can be approached. But I wish to state to the House that the figure before the Committee was based upon the very best information which was accessible to the Government, as to the proportion of revenue paid by the three parts of the United Kingdom respectively.
  MR. J. DILLONIs it based upon that principle?
  SIR JOHN GORSTIt is based upon that principle. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is most anxious to have the matter investigated, and it is not the fault of my right hon. Friend, nor is it the fault of the Government, but because of the opposition coming from other quarters of the House, that an independent Committee has not been appointed before now to ascertain the justice or otherwise of the amount to be paid to Ireland.
  MR. J. DILLONIt is the principle I object to.
  SIR JOHN GORSTThat is quite another matter. With regard to the fund, there is little doubt that it is at present insolvent. The actuarial calculations in 1885, after the fund had been only five years in operation, was necessarily based a good deal on conjecture or opinion rather than upon fact; but the calculation made in 1891, after more than ten years' experience, was to a much greater extent based on fact as distinct from opinion, and therefore it is more likely to be correct. However that may be, I can assure the House that every single penny of that £90,000 will go to the benefit of the teachers, whatever may be the results of the investigation of experts. Supposing the fund is proved to be solvent, then the whole of the £90,000 will go to the benefit of the Irish teachers; and if it be insolvent, the money will go to relieve the teachers from the reductions which they might otherwise be compelled to submit to. I think it only right that the House should understand the question, and I think I have made plain the reasons for submitting the Vote now before the House.
  SIR UGHTRED KAYSHUTTLEWORTHIt is gratifying to find that the whole of this money should be going to the teachers. But, at the same time, it is right that attention should be called to the loose way in which public money is

  1543
  being dealt with. I think this should not be left to Irish Members, and that the House has reason to complain that, although the Government and the House are alike in the dark as to the state of this fund, a Vote should be asked for.
  MR. SEXTONI must confess that this whole arrangement looks excessively awkward. Three explanations have already been placed before the House, and it is difficult to understand any one of them. I should say that if the English Government persist in managing Irish affairs in this fashion, Irishmen will be justified in the impression that they can manage their affairs better themselves. I do not admit the distinction the Secretary to the Treasury attempts to draw between school teachers and the Constabulary, and I contend that the school teachers are just as much officers of State as any other body of men, and that they should be treated accordingly. In fact, there is a large amount of suspended judgment in regard to this Vote, and I think it is perfectly plain that we cannot pass it to-night, considering the important fact that the representations upon which it has been presented are, to say the least of it, inexact. I think the Vote ought to be adjourned until such times as the Report of the Committee of Experts has been placed before the House, and I must protest against the Vote until we have some assurance that the teachers will benefit by the Vote.
  SIR JOHN GORSTI wish the Committee to understand that under any circumstances, whatever may be the result of the investigation, the whole of the £90,000 will go to the benefit of the National School teachers.
  COLONEL NOLANI understand from the statement of the Secretary to the Treasury that this money is not to benefit a single teacher. Is it not a fact that no existing teacher will get one single penny of benefit out of this £90,000? Let the House recolect that the money ought to be given to the Irish teachers in exactly the same proportion as it was given to the English teachers. It appears from the statement of the right hon. Gentleman that the Irish teachers are not going to get any benefit from the grant; not one single penny of benefit are they likely to derive.
  1544
  If you apply the money in this manner it simply means that it is going to make out Treasury balances. I think the teachers, roughly speaking, ought to get £8 or £9 apiece as back money. If you give this £90,000 to the Irish teachers, almost exactly as you have given the money to the English teachers, then you will be doing justice.
  MR. JACKSONWith respect to, the opinion of the class of persons interested in this matter, I think it right that I should read to the House the following telegram, which I have just received:—
  "The Executive Committee of the Irish National teachers authorise me to state that they heartily endorse the allocation of the £90,000 to the pension fund."
  From that it appears that the National School teachers highly desire the allocation of the £90,000 to the pension fund; and probably that may assist the House in coming to a decision on the matter.
  MR. WEBBOur contention is that the Government find that a mistake has been made; it is the Government that ought to pay for that mistake; and the £90,000 ought to be paid additionally to the teachers. The manner in which this is brought before the House is very extraordinary. First we were told that there was a deficit in this fund, then we are told that this was very doubtful and that there is a Committee sitting upon it; and now, when it suits the convenience of the Government, we are told that there is no doubt whatever about it. If there is no doubt whatever about it I do not understand why a Committee should be appointed at all. It has been asserted by the Government that they have not the same responsibility towards the National School teachers as towards the Constabulary of Ireland. We know the Constabulary is considered a more important force in Ireland in the government of the country than the teachers. That the people should become better educated and better able to do for themselves is a matter of small importance. As to the treatment of the Irish National teachers, during the last ten years I have myself known instances where National teachers, because they had opinions of their own as to political questions and political reforms which were afterwards carried out by the

  1545
  Government, were obliged to give up their situations and leave the country. It is idle to say that the Government are not as much responsible to them as to the Constabulary. I trust this Vote will not be allowed to pass without being brought to a Division.
  MR. PIERCE MAHONYThe right hon. Gentleman has just read a telegram which he has received from the Irish National teachers approving of the allocation of this money to the Pension Fund. Perhaps he could also tell us whether the National teachers of Ireland or their Association are aware of how this money is to be applied—whether it is to be applied to the Pension Fund or not?
  MR. JACKSONYes, I should say they are.
  MR. MAHONYMight I ask are they aware of the alleged deficit in the Fund? What we are asked to believe is this: that an Association representing the existing body of the National teachers of Ireland wish this sum of money to which they are entitled as individuals to be used for the benefit of teachers in the future—that they wish it to be used for the benefit of a Fund from which they will not derive one single halfpenny. That may be a very praiseworthy state of mind of the Association, but I, for one, have very serious doubts on the subject. I do not believe that the National School Teachers' Association have at all realised how this fund is to be applied. I do not believe that they realise the fact that they as individuals will not benefit to the extent of a single halfpenny if this £90,000 is to be granted to the Fund. That is why the right hon. Gentleman said the Government were not responsible to the present teachers.
  SIR JOHN GORSTWhat I said was that the new rules could not be altered as applied to the existing teachers, and that if this fund is inadequate a reduction would be made all round.
  MR. MAHONYWe are now told that the Treasury of this great Empire makes rules with regard to certain servants.
  SIR JOHN GORSTWith regard to the beneficiaries, the Government make rules under an Act of Parliament
  1546
  regarding the beneficiaries of a certain statutory fund.
  MR. MAHONYThe Government make rules with regard to certain of its servants. A Minister of the Crown gets up and says these rules cannot be altered as regards the existing servants of the State. One would naturally suppose that the Government, who were responsible for framing the rules, and who have no power to alter the rules regarding the existing servants of the State—that the Government of this great Empire would at any rate undertake that the servants of the State will receive what they are entitled to. The right hon. Gentleman does not say that if there was a deficit under these rules this House would not make it good. But what we are asked is quite a different matter. We are asked to take this sum of money, this £90,000 to which the National School teachers are entitled and ought to get, and transfer it to a fund which will benefit not the people entitled to this £90,000, but some future teachers in Ireland. I think it is most unjust to the present body of National teachers in Ireland, and I am confident that the telegram sent to the right hon. Gentleman was sent in ignorance of the facts, because the teachers in Ireland at the present moment are not in a position to understand the facts. There seems still to exist a very great doubt regarding this fund. But under any circumstances, whether a deficit exists or not, I do not see how it is just to the present teachers in Ireland to take away this sum of £90,000, to which they are entitled, and put it to a fund which will not benefit them individually, but some future teachers.
  SIR JOSEPH McKENNAI believe this to be absolutely a misappropriation of this fund. A fund that was intended for the immediate benefit of the teachers in Ireland is, by a Vote in Committee, to be allocated to make good a mistake made by an actuary in the Treasury some years ago. I think this actuary has proved himself unfit to make such calculations at all; and if his calculations in the first instance were wrong, and if they are right now, it does not alter, in my opinion, the appropriation of this £90,000, which was intended for the immediate benefit of the existing teachers. The late Secretary to the

  1547
  Treasury has read a telegram from the secretary of the teacher's body in Ireland or some other representative. I should like to know in reply to what communication that was read.
  MR. JACKSONPerhaps the hon. Gentleman will allow me to say that no communication was made; that the telegram came to me quite spontaneously, and was received by me quite unexpectedly, and that is all I know about it.
  SIR JOSEPH McKENNAI am sure the right hon. Gentleman has given entirely what has occurred; but I venture to think that the gentleman who sent it was entirely ignorant of the circumstances which surround this question; and, therefore, I think we should treat the matter as if the telegram had not been sent at all, and we must fall back upon our own common sense in this matter. I hope that when this Vote is put from the Chair every Irish Member in the House, on whatever side of the House he may sit, will vote against such a misappropriation, for it appears to me to be a misappropriation of this Fund.
  MR. HAYDENWe have been told, and we have no reason to doubt the statement, that there is a deficit of £195,000. The Chief Secretary and the Secretary to the Treasury say that unless this deficit is made good new rules would have to be made; but we are told at the same time that the rules cannot be changed; so that the existing teachers are concerned. But are we to understand that a deficit exists to the extent of £195,000, that the teachers are to suffer, and that the Government will not make it good? As regards the case of the Constabulary, it has been very well pointed out by the hon. Member for South Tyrone and the hon. Member for West Belfast that this fund was not a fund originally started by the Government, but contributed to by the police themselves, and therefore stands in the same position as the Teachers' Pension Fund, so far as Government responsibility was concerned. Neither the teachers of Ireland nor the people had anything whatever to say to the administration of this fund, and I do not think that either the teachers or the Irish people should be made responsible for it. I think, before this Vote passes,
  1548
  it ought to be made clear whether the Government intend to make good the deficit, and whether steps should not be taken in future to see that the fund was kept in a sound condition?
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIENI entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken. The remedy which the Government propose is the old one of robbing Peter to pay Paul. I do not think the House ought to consent to any such bargain with them. As has been pointed out by more than one Member of the House with regard to their dealing with the police, wherever the money came from, the Government always took care that those who were breaking men's heads should get their pay, and there have been a large number of men pensioned for breaking people's heads, and for no other reason that I know of. And it has been often pointed out that while the police are paid big salaries and pensions the poor teachers, who are endeavouring to develop the brain-power of the people and give them an education, are utterly neglected. With nothing except coercion from the present Government during the past five years, the people have been told that they are not fit for Home Rule; but I think that the mismanagement of this Fund shows that the British Government is not fit to administer the funds of the country at all. What would be the action of the Government if this happened in a Board of Guardians in Ireland? I have known several Boards of Guardians, composed of men who gave their services voluntarily to the public service, who came long distances at their own expense to attend the Board meetings, and the Boards got into debt. What was the procedure? Why, they were suspended at once. They were not paid large salaries, like Members of the Government, for looking after the public interest, but they were suspended peremptorily by an order from Dublin Castle. And the coming County Councils that are going to be newly appointed are to be put into the dock for less than this. I should like we had the power to put the Government in the dock for such administration as has been disclosed in this House to-night. I shall resist the passing of this Vote until the assurance is given that this deficit is to be made

  1549
  good. I am quite of opinion that if the gentlemen—the associated Irish teachers—on whose behalf this telegram has been sent to the Chief Secretary, were aware of the fact that this money is gone astray and that they are likely to be deprived of it entirely, they would not have sent any such telegram. I shall not trespass on the time of the House any longer, but I hope every hon. Member in the House will press this question until we get an assurance that the Government will make good the deficit. If the gentleman who was in control of this fund was in a City counting-house and could not account for his employers' money they would put the detectives on his track, and keep him under observation until they got satisfactory evidence on the subject. We have got responsible Ministers under observation, and we will keep them there until we have got sufficient satisfaction on the subject.
  COLONEL NOLANI look upon this case as one calling for the most careful investigation. This is one of the few cases that come before the House of Commons in which Irishmen can actually obtain money for a very valuable class in Ireland, and a considerable sum—£90,000—by forcing this question on the attention of the country. I suppose the telegram from the National Teachers' Association was from some members sitting in Dublin, and who had got some short account that £90,000 was to be allocated for the Pension Fund, and they thought they would relieve their feelings by trying to get a larger pension. I do not believe—I say it is impossible—that the report of this Debate that occurred here up to eight o'clock could have reached them; and they have evidently sent this telegram in sublime ignorance of everything that has happened in this House. I always suspected that this £90,000 would be collared; I always suspected that some of this £90,000 would be taken away from the teachers. The teachers have not had their suspicions aroused; but if they heard the position taken up by the Secretary to the Treasury to-night I think they would alter their opinion. In 1879 certain calculations were made, and in 1885 the Treasury suggested that it would be well if the fund could be stretched out a little more. Then as re-
  1550
  gards these quinquennial periods, the Secretary to the Treasury has not been exactly frank with us.
  SIR JOHN GORSTThere was a quinquennial period in 1884; in 1885 new rules were made. They came into force in 1886, and the new quinquennial period was therefore 1891.
  COLONEL NOLANThe actuary has made no suggestion that his calculations in 1885 were wrong; but supposing they are wrong, they have no right to take this £90,000 simply to rectify the error of one of their own officials. I do think this £90,000 ought to be given to the teachers. It will really be a great deal to them, and will help to place them on a footing of equality with the English teachers.
  MR. LENGI should not have interfered in the discussion upon Irish Estimates if I did not feel that this was not entirely an Irish question. We are suffering from the strange fatality which has attended all proposals resulting from the vicious system of finance introduced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in creating a surplus by levying taxes before knowing that its object was approved by the country, and then fishing for other purposes to which that surplus might be applied. We Scotch Members spent a whole night last week in discussing the equivalent grant for Scotland, and then towards midnight it was found that our whole time had been wasted; and here to-night it must be admitted that the Committee is in a financial muddle. We are told that there is a deficit of £195,000 on the Report of an actuary in the service of the country. But the Government are not satisfied, or they would not have appointed two other actuaries to make inquiries. If all three were to be unanimous, it would be an exceedingly suspicious, and almost unprecedented, circumstance. It may prove that the deficit is less, and if so this Vote will be too much; or it may prove that the deficit is even greater than has been reported, and then this Vote will not be enough. But whether the deficit is too much or too little, I agree with hon. Gentlemen from Ireland that this money should not be applied to the Pension Fund, but should be devoted to educational purposes, and that before the

  1551
  money is so allocated further explanations are required.
  MR. J. O'CONNORIn the course of the few remarks I made a few nights ago on the introduction of the Government Bill, I stated that I should not oppose the appropriation of £90,000 for increasing the National Teachers' Fund, and I feel, therefore, it is necessary for me to offer some explanation of the Motion I am now about to make for reporting Progress. It is in no spirit of opposition to the appropriation of the £90,000 that I make this Motion, but because I object to taking a leap in the dark as we are invited to do by the Government this evening. There is every reason for delay. A sort of appeal ad misericordiam has been made to us on behalf of the teachers; but I hold it would be the falsest economy to devote this sum to bolstering up a fund which needs to be investigated. No damage can be done to the teachers by withholding this grant for a little time; for the £90,000 will still be there, and will be increased by interest while it is invested. What the Irish teachers want is a fund administered on a solid basis. They wish to have established a permanent, solvent, and properly-managed fund; and if the £90,000 be added to it, when it has been placed on a solid basis, it will be a sub-substantial advantage to the teachers; but according to the proposition now made it would only be a something thrown in to fill up a gap. For these reasons I beg to move that you now report Progress.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. J. O'Connor.)
  Mr. JACKSONI do not believe the hon. Member thinks for a moment that the Government will consent to report Progress. The case has been stated with great clearness by the Secretary to the Treasury; but hon. Members opposite have seemed to lose sight of or to ignore the fact that if this fund has been brought into this condition, it is because too large an amount of benefit has been given to the teachers who have been admitted to it. It is quite clear from the Act that it is our duty from time to time to have these
  1552
  actuarial valuations made, and it is also clear that it is open to the Treasury from time to time to vary, revoke, or alter the terms and rules regulating the distribution of the pensions. There can only be two alternatives: either we must use this money to add to the Pension Fund, or changes must be made which will give to the teachers less benefit. I have already stated that I am informed that the Teachers' Association endorse the allocation of the £90,000 in the manner now proposed, but I think the Member for West Belfast was not in his place when I read the telegram.
  MR. SEXTONI have heard of it.
  MR. JACKSONI only mention it because the hon. Member referred to a letter received from teachers taking a different view.
  MR. J. O'CONNORMay I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the teachers who signed that telegram are aware of the unsatisfactory state of the fund, as it has been stated here?
  MR. JACKSONI have told the Committee all I know on the subject of the telegram, which came quite unexpectedly; but I think the question is one of such interest to the teachers that they will have already very closely followed what has been said upon the subject. After listening carefully to the speeches made this evening, I see no reason for reporting Progress, or for altering in any degree the proposed allocation of the grant. It belongs to the teachers only, and the Fund cannot be diverted to any other purpose than for benefitting them. It was intended, when the Act was passed, that the interest on £1,300,000, plus the contributions of the teachers themselves, should be so dealt with that the benefits to be given should not exceed the resources of the fund so constituted. Up to 1885 the experience was short, and the actuarial valuation then made showed that there was a surplus. For some time past the teachers desired, and they still desire, as hon. Members from Ireland must be aware, to get larger benefits from the Fund, and that in many ways modifications should be made. There is no doubt that in 1885 the Treasury, believing that the condition of the fund justified some relaxation of the rules, assented to some increased benefits being given to the teachers. There are many

  1553
  ways in which the question of solvency can be affected, and I may mention what has been the result of increasing the age at which teachers are admitted. It is obvious that if they are admitted at a later age than formerly, the tendency is to limit the period of years during which they will be on the Fund. There has been a growing tendency for teachers to pass examinations so as to enable them to get into the second and first classes, and the proportion of teachers in the first, second, and third classes is so much altered from what it was that there is in the Fund a very much higher percentage of the first and second class, and a very much less percentage of the third class.
  MR. SEXTONDo they not pay into the fund according to their class salary?
  MR. JACKSONNo; they do not pay according to their class salary, and that is rather important. In the Act the number of the first and second class is limited, and the result is that supposing the number of the first class was limited to 150, although there may be 400 of the first class on the Fund, only 150 can contribute towards it, according to the first-class salary. Supposing a teacher is classed as a first class, and in receipt of a first-class salary, if he does not contribute to the Fund as a first-class teacher, and supposing he retired, and was pensioned during that period, he would only be pensioned in accordance with the second class, he having contributed as a second-class teacher. But it must be borne in mind that the limit is only as regards contributions to the fund, and not as to the number of pensions to be given.
  MR. SEXTONDoes the right hon. Gentleman say that a man who can pay only at the second-class rate may get a first-class pension?
  MR. JACKSONI mean to say that he may have paid at the second-class rate up to last year—I am putting this as a mere illustration, and not binding myself to any particular order—and then this year get into the first class; and if then he happened to be pensioned, he would be pensioned on the first-class rate. When the valuation was made in 1885 and it was found there was this surplus, there was an anxiety to give the teachers the benefit of this improvement in the Fund. Now, further experience goes to
  1554
  show that the additional advantages given at that time have been just sufficient to turn the scale in the opposite direction. I have given very anxious consideration to the question. I think it is of great importance that we should take this opportunity of making this contribution to the Fund. There is no doubt the question will have to be faced as to what is going to be done with regard to the Fund. No doubt the Fund shows a deficit on the valuation; but the Treasury, in order to be quite certain about the matter, have decided to have the actuarial valuation again checked. I do not think there is the smallest hope that they will be able to show that the valuation that has been made is otherwise than a correct one. It will be some time before we can know the result of the further examination that is being made; but I put it to hon. Members—assuming what I have said to be correct, that there has been a disposition to give more to the teachers than the fund would bear—is there any purpose to which we could devote this money that would be more agreeable and more satisfactory to the teachers themselves? It is desirable, if we can, to maintain the advantages that have been given to the teachers under the old rules. It is very undesirable, I think, to alter these rules if we can avoid it; but the alternative is either to make this contribution now or endeavour to modify, it may be, the conditions under which the Fund has been administered so that there should be brought about a state of solvency. With regard to the school fees, it may be that they will have to continue even for a while longer—certainly until we get our Education Bill passed. I do not know what may be the view taken in the future, but I do feel it is incumbent upon us, now that we have found out the position we are in with regard to the Fund, to make this contribution to it, and this is the view of the Teachers' Association. I believe this is a wise allocation of the money, and I hope the Committee will not agree to reporting Progress, but allow us to take the Vote.
  DR. CLARKI think the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman are rather in favour of reporting Progress, because the Government have no right to ask us to vote

  1555
  this money until they are satisfied it is really required and until they verify their facts. When they have verified their facts and know the exact amount of money they want, then they can come to Parliament and ask us to vote the money. I think this is the first time since I have been in the House that I have seen a real Irish financial grievance. I will also support the Motion on another ground. I think the Government would have been wise if they had adopted the precedent of the Irish Constabulary Pension Fund, and voted the money in the same fashion.
  THE CHAIRMANOrder, order! The Motion before the Committee is to report Progress. If the discussion on the Vote is to go on, the Motion to report Progress should be withdrawn.
  DR. CLARKI was going to argue that it is desirable for the Government on many grounds to withdraw this Vote altogether and bring it up in another shape. The statement of the Chief Secretary for Ireland is rather in favour of reporting Progress. Let the Treasury wait until they have verified their facts and figures, and then come before us and tell us what they have done.
  COLONEL NOLANI think there is a good case to be made out for postponing the Vote, to give us an opportunity of knowing what the teachers of Ireland think of the matter themselves. I think it would be better for the Secretary to the Treasury to withdraw the Vote now. It is so unbusiness-like on the part of the Treasury to come down here and ask us to come suddenly to a decision on a question of figures, when we have heard for the first time of these actuarial calculations. We have only gradually extracted from the Treasury a good many of the financial facts. We have drawn them out one by one but we do not yet know the whole facts of the case. If the Vote was postponed for three or four days and all the figures were laid on the Table, we would then be in a better position to come to a decision. The Government may frighten the teachers, but I do not think they will frighten the Irish Members. We know that in the long run the money will come back to the teachers in some way or other. I think a very fair case has been made out for postponing this Vote. We
  1556
  have not the materials in our possession for forming a correct conclusion upon the matter. The Government themselves are not thoroughly well informed, and, perhaps, in a day or two they will be properly coached by the officials of the Treasury.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURI hope hon. Members will not press this Motion. The way matters stand is this. I do not propose to traverse again the grounds so admirably mapped out by my-right hon. Friend the Secretary to the Treasury. This money will go to the Irish teachers,whether the Fund be insolvent, whether it be solvent, or whether-it be more than solvent. If it be insolvent, the money will go to diminish the insolvency; if it be solvent it will go to increase the benefits to the teachers; if it be more than solvent, it will still go to the same excellent object. Whatever the condition of the fund, and whatever the actuarial calculations ultimately determined upon by the various experts, this £90,000 will go to the Teachers' Pension Fund in augmentation of the money they would otherwise derive. That, at all events, is perfectly clear, and I do not propose to dwell upon it any longer. Now, what hon. Members say is this—"There is an inquiry going on to investigate the precise amount of the deficiency. Wait until the inquiry has come to a conclusion before asking for a Vote of this money." These calculations are of so difficult and laborious a character that there is not the slightest possibility that they can be completed and in the hands of Members before the end of the financial year. I do not pretend that the £90,000 is not due to Ireland. I think it is due to Ireland. I think it extremely doubtful if the thing is hung up whether the Vote will go to the teachers at all. The teachers, as teachers, have no claim to it whatever. If you are going to follow in Ireland the precise analogy of England it will go to the parents, and not to the teachers. There are in Ireland large bodies of public opinion desirous of promoting technical education among other most valuable objects. Let it be understood if this Vote is adjourned it will not come on in the course of the Parliamentary financial year, and the money will this year go to the extinction of the National Debt. There is no ques-

  1557
  tion about that, and when, either in this Session or some subsequent Session, this House took into consideration the things to which this money shall be voted, there is no security or probability that it will necessarily go to the particular object to which this Government desire to vote it. Under these circumstances, I ask hon. Gentlemen not to postpone indefinitely the decision of this question to-night. There is other very pressing and important Business of interest to Irish Members before us, and I would ask them to be content with a Debate which has proved this, at all events, conclusively: that whatever is the state of the Fund the Irish National teachers will benefit by this allocation, and let us pass to other not less interesting and important matters.
  MR. SEXTONThe Government have changed their ground considerably since the opening of the Debate. When this Debate opened to-night, the evidence before us was a positive declaration that a deficit had arisen which this grant of £90,000 would partly meet. Now, the First Lord rises and delivers a strictly hypothetical statement. He says, "If there be a deficiency this grant will go to meet it."
  MR. A. J. BALFOURI have no doubt there is a deficiency.
  MR. SEXTONHe put it in the form that if there is any deficiency this money will go to the teachers. That is what I do not see. These teachers are entitled to certain benefits. They will receive no new benefits unless new rules are made. What assurance have we that new rules will be made?
  MR. A. J. BALFOURThis £90,000 may be considered as added to the £1,113,000. The Treasury are bound to make rules by which that £1,113,000 will be allocated to the teachers.
  MR. SEXTONThere are two sets of rules. The teachers are entitled to certain benefits, and these benefits must be made good by the Treasury. ["No!"] Does the Chief Secretary mean by that "no," that after men and women have been paying into this Pension Fund you can alter these rules so as to take away the benefits conferred on them? I say that is impossible. There is a contract, amounting to a statutory contract, between the Treasury and the teachers, and it would be impossible to alter it.
  1558
  We have no means of satisfying ourselves, if we were to vote this money, that it would secure the teachers any further benefit. That would be at the discretion of the Treasury. We know how plausible the Treasury is at the moment when it is seeking a concession, and how slippery it is afterwards. I am sorry the First Lord has made an attempt to overbear Members of Parliament by threatening us that unless we consent to pass this Vote the money will not go to the teachers. What right has the right hon. Gentleman to take to dictating to the Committee?
  MR. A. J. BALFOURThe postponement is asked for on the ground that the investigation is not terminated, and it will not be terminated before the end of the financial year.
  MR. SEXTONIs it not strange that the right hon. Gentleman is able to say the valuation will not be completed before the 31st March? Upon what day were these gentlemen set to work? Where is the letter appointing them? How long have they been at work? How long will they be at work? Did the actuary who made the calculation of 1891 make any Report? If he made a Report that the fund is £90,000 to the bad, let that Report be produced. I suppose all the business at the Treasury is not by word of mouth. There is, I suppose, some written correspondence. I hope it will not be considered too much to ask that proof of the deficiency of last year should be placed in our hands. I think I can throw some light on the telegram which the Chief Secretary read. I take it that the telegram came from the Executive Body of the National teachers in Dublin.
  MR. JACKSONYes.
  MR. SEXTONThat is a body of 20 gentlemen living in Dublin who have sent the telegram without sufficient information, and probably because these gentlemen were aware that last year the right hon. Gentleman, who is now First Lord, proposed to apply this £90,000 to his Irish Land Purchase Act reserve fund which has not worked at all. The teachers naturally preferred that the money should be given to the Pension Fund rather than to the Purchase Act reserve fund. I beg the Committee therefore to discount the telegram from the Executive of the National teachers. I

  1559
  would respectfully ask the First Lord if he can see his way to accept the Motion to report Progress. I cannot honestly vote away £90,000 without knowing why. Let him consent to the adjournment, so that he may procure some general memorandum from the three actuaries, or else show us the document upon which the actuaries calculated last year that the fund was in an unsound state. If he does so, I do not think he will find the progress of Business has been injured.
  R. A. O'CONNORI say we have no information to justify the statement that there is any deficit at all. The actuarial calculation of 1883, which was very elaborate, is now in the Library. The actuarial valuation of 1891 has been carefully concealed by the Government, until it suited their purpose to quote it; and they have quoted it without putting it on the Table, or supplying Members with the information it contains. It is very curious that we have not seen this document showing that there is a deficiency. The right hon. Gentleman, now the First Lord, when he was Chief Secretary, made a statement as to the capital of this fund in the month of May, and from that it appears that the interest alone on the £1,300,000 was £39,000, showing a surplus of £2,000 on that item alone. Besides that, you were receiving from the National Debt Commissioners £8,000 by way of interest and premiums to the extent of £9,000 a year. Therefore, you had a surplus of £20,000, and that fact is borne out by this, that you transferred from income to capital account last year no less than £27,000.
  MR. JACKSONI think the hon. Gentleman overlooks the fact that what he has quoted is the question of receipts and expenditure. The question of solvency depended upon the actuarial estimate of what will happen to the Fund in the course of years when certain charge fall upon it.
  MR. A. O'CONNORThe explanation appears to be a little elementary. Anyone can make this calculation for himself. I have been at the trouble to check the calculation of 1885, and I think I can see one or two points on which the actuary has made a mistake I am not a all satisfied that the
  1560
  actuarial estimate laid before the Treasury for the year 1891 is any more accurate than the actuarial estimate made in 1885. Before I am asked to vote on the strength of it, I should like to see the actuarial estimate examined. The First Lord of the Treasury says this £90,000 is to go to the teachers.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURI said it belongs to Ireland, and that we propose to give it to the teachers.
  MR. A. O'CONNORThe right hon. Gentleman appeared to lead the House to suppose that he was speaking in the interest of the teachers. He was not doing so. He was speaking in the interest of the Government, as shown plainly by the words of the Act. The 7th section says—
  "If at any time the Pension Fund shall be insufficient for the repayment of the advances by the National Debt Commissioners for the pensions payable to the teachers, the Treasury, upon being informed thereof by the Commissioners for the reduction of the National Debt, shall issue the amount of such deficiency out of the Consolidated Fund, and the growing produce thereof, and the Treasury shall certify such deficiency to Parliament."
  So that, in reality, this apparent anxiety for the interest of the teachers is merely an anxiety to save the Treasury; and in order to enable the Treasury to perform this little evolution we are asked to vote in the dark a sum of £90,000, which it is admitted ought to go to benefit the position of the teachers, but which the First Lord thinks will go to pay part of die National Debt. It is mere affectation for the First Lord of the Treasury to say that whatever happens to this Fund the teachers can suffer. You have entered into a contract with every one of them The interests of the teachers will not be hurt in any way if this question be held over till we have an opportunity of seeing the actuarial report.
  SIR UGHTRED KAYSHUTTLEWORTHIt seems to me that the Government are in this position. They find themselves under two obligations to Ireland. The first obligation is to give to Ireland, in some shape or form, this grant of £90,000, or whatever sum may be her fair proportion equivalent to that given to England in the form of the fee grant. The other obligation is to keep this Teachers' Pension Fund in a state of solvency. If this Fund

  1561
  were to break down it would be a great disappointment to a large number of teachers, and the Act says that under certain circumstances the Treasury is to meet any deficiency out of the Consolidated Fund.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURThe clause to which the right hon. Gentleman refers is one dealing with the capital sum. There is a schedule stating certain benefits which the teachers are to receive, and that would appear to involve an obligation on the Treasury, but if hon. Gentlemen will look at Clause 11 of the Act they will see that it provides—
  "That the rules and schedules of this Act may from time to time be revoked, varied, and added to by the Lords of the Treasury."
  The duty of the Treasury is simply to see that any teacher gets such pension or benefit as his contributions to the Fund may justify, and that the rules under which teachers receive benefit from the Fund shall, if necessary, be varied in such a way as to keep the Fund solvent, not out of the taxes or funds voted by Parliament, but out of the £1,300,000 of the Irish Church surplus.
  SIR JOHN GORSTThe clause is no obligation at all—it only applies to such advances as are made from time to time out of the Consolidated Fund, which are to be repaid to the Consolidated Fund. The Act provides—
  "That the Commissioners for the reduction of the National Debt may from time to time until the payment of the whole of the said capital sum of £1,300,000 make advances for the purposes of the Act, and may apply for that purpose any funds for the time being in their hands. All such advances shall be repaid to the Commissioners out of the pension fund, with interest at the rate of 3½ per cent. per annum. If at any time the Pension Fund shall be insufficient for the repayment of such advances, the Treasury, on being duly informed of it by the Commissioners, shall issue the amount of such deficiency out of the Consolidated Funds of the United Kingdom or out of the growing produce thereof."
  The 7th clause is a provision for advances by the Commissioners till the Irish Church surplus is realised, and for the subsequent repayment of such advances.
  SIR UGHTRED KAY-SHUTTLEWORTHThe right hon. Gentleman does not answer my point. Supposing this Fund were to be in a much worse state of deficit than was reported last year, do right hon.
  1562
  Gentlemen opposite mean to say that all they would have to do would be to so whittle down the rules that the expectations held out to the teachers would be falsified? Is it not a fact that they must come to Parliament to make the Fund solvent? It does seem to me there are two obligations: an obligation to pay Ireland an equivalent sum in respect of the fee grants in England; and the other, an old obligation, to keep the Pension Fund solvent. They are trying to meet both obligations by one payment. That is very ingenious on the part of right hon. Gentlemen, but I am not surprised that hon. Gentlemen from Ireland do not look upon the matter in quite the same light.
  Question put.
  (10.10.) The Committee divided:—Ayes 106; Noes 132.—(Div. List, No.10.)
  Original Question again proposed.
  MR. FLYNNI think it would be well if the Vote were postponed in order that the Committee may have time to get some knowledge of the actuarial report which is now being prepared. No harm can be done by delay. It is very strange that a Fund which was £196,000 to the good in 1885 should be £195,000 to the bad now. The Chief Secretary read a telegram from the Executive of the Irish National Teachers' Association, but we are prepared in the interests of that body to take the responsibility of postponing the Vote. The question of this £90,000 also involves another consideration. The right hon. Gentleman in his argument assumes that there will be a deficit in a very short time; that the actuarial valuation when properly worked out will show a deficit of £195,000; but, Sir, the Government are not sure of that, and I think the Committee is entitled to a fair statement on the matter. The Treasury are not in a position to give us such a statement to-night, and they should, therefore, allow the Vote to be postponed for a week, during which time independent actuaries, of whom there are many connected with large insurance companies, might be employed to work out the calculation. The Chief Secretary was the only Member of the Front Bench who endeavoured to give some explana-

  1563
  tion of how the deficiency arose, but he was dealing hypothetically with a certain state of things. We want to see exactly how the fund stands. If there is a necessity for £90,000 and the teachers are entitled to it I should be inclined to vote for it. I hope the Government will not press the Vote on to-night, but will bring it forward again when the Irish people, and especially the teachers, will be in a position to judge how the Fund stands at the present moment.
  COLONEL NOLANI take the result of the last Division as showing that, though we are in a minority, we are at the same time sufficiently strong to be recognised in this House. The Division has only resulted in a majority of 26 to Her Majesty's Ministers, and I think that fact in itself should be sufficient to remind them to stay their hand. I would suggest that the Report stage in connection with this matter should not be brought on for at least a fortnight, and that before then the figures should be placed in the hands of hon. Members showing what the actual state of the fund really is. This I think would be a proper course for the Government to adopt, having regard to the confusion that exists in the minds of most hon. Members in regard to the figures.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURI have no objection to the Report stage being postponed for a fortnight, as is suggested by the hon. Member; but what I desire to say is that, after the prolonged debate, and, to say the least of it, the exhaustive debate which has taken place, I think the Vote should now be allowed to be taken, so that the House may proceed with some other business.
  MR. MAHONYI think it must be plain to every Member of the House that the Government are obliged to make good this deficit, and I do not see why the Irish National School teachers should lose in consequence of the default of the Government. I think the Irish National School teachers are being unfairly treated, and that in all the relations of the Government with them their interests have not been fairly considered. I think that the Government are much to blame in this matter, and that there is every reason why they should make good the deficit out of Imperial Funds. If there is any new statement which the Government have to make before we go
  1564
  to a Division, of course we should like to hear it. But if that is the position of the Government, that they cannot alter these rules as regards the present staff of teachers, then the present staff of teachers——
  Mr. A. J. BALFOURrose in his place and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."
  Question put, "That the Question be now put."
  (10.45.) The Committee divided:— Ayes 146; Noes 113.—(Div. List, No. 11.)
  Original Question put accordingly,
  "That a sum, not exceeding £90,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1892, as a Grant in Aid of the Capital of the Pension Fund created under the provisions of 'The National School Teachers (Ireland) Act, 1879.'"
  (10.50.) The Committee divided:—Ayes 157; Noes 120.—(Div. List, No. 12.)
  Resolution to be reported.

  CLASS VII.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £30,486, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1892, for certain Expenditure in connection with the Relief of Distress in Ireland."
  MR. DILLONI do not intend to oppose the grant of this money, nor do I complain of the money spent last year in relief of distress in Ireland. My observations refer rather to details of administration of the money than to complaint as to the amount of relief afforded. As far as I have been able to ascertain the distress was fully met and adequately dealt with. I do not believe any people in the West of Ireland were left in a state of destitution, and I am perfectly prepared to give credit to the Government for that. Now, Sir, the circumstances that surrounded the institution of these works for the relief of distress leads me to observe that, although representing one of the districts in which most of the money was spent, I had no opportunity of addressing the House on the subject last year. When the know-

  1565
  ledge came to us twelve months ago that the West of Ireland was threatened with one of those famines which have unhappily become an institution in Ireland we made an appeal to the Government to investigate this matter, and to take immediate steps for the relief of this distress. Sir, as on previous occasions, our early representations were met with contempt and derision, and it was said that we were raising the cry of pauperism. I can recollect the cruel and insulting articles that appeared in the Times, and the speeches delivered by some gentlemen connected with the Government treating our warnings with contempt. It was not until a somewhat serious and prolonged agitation had taken place in the West that we could induce the Government to take any steps. The then Chief Secretary was engaged in that recreation in which he is so accomplished a master, and we could not even discover his address. It was only after repeated meetings, and after speeches of a strongly condemnatory character, that the right hon. Gentleman awoke to the seriousnes of the situation in Ireland. The present Chief Secretary went to Ireland carrying with him a small box or basket of potatoes, which somebody stole and substituted others. He returned to this country and represented our statements as grossly exaggerated. The events that have occurred since, and the enormous expenditure, of which this Vote forms part, prove that we understated rather than overstated the case. After a strong appeal from the Member for Newcastle, in answer to urgent invitations, and goaded to some extent by the reproaches made against him, the Chief Secretary made a desperate resolution, and for the first time in the five years of his government of Ireland he marched away from Dublin, and, with feelings something like those which animated Stanley when he embarked on the Congo, he advanced to the Shannon and crossed that terrible river. I was in America at the time, and day after day I read columns of telegrams describing the progress of the right hon. Gentleman as if it were a march of an army in a hostile country, and it seemed wonderful to the Americans that there was no terrible loss of life or injury to limb. I never thought there was anything to fear, and I think the Chief Secretary made a
  1566
  remarkably good departure in acquainting himself with the people and with the country that he governed. The sights he saw led to his mind being aroused for the first time as to the true condition of the people in those districts, and the fact of his going through had a good deal to do with the very liberal scale on which relief was afforded to those people. As regards the distribution of that relief, I cannot resist the conviction that it was, to a considerable extent, affected by the nature of the right hon. Gentleman's reception. The Magistrates behaved in the most reprehensible fashion by telling the people that if they did not give the right hon. Gentleman a warm welcome they would suffer. I believe that in some districts the right hon. Gentleman was welcomed with a small and miserable appearance of hospitality, and that the people received more than their due share. That is a very unfortunate thing, and unfortunate that any impression should have been left in the minds of the people that this relief was employed for the purpose of furthering political objects. I am sure the people of this country would not approve such a proceeding. You can always get a good idea of what is in the mind of the Government by studying The Times. They sent a special correspondent down to the West towards the close of last summer, and he gave a most magnificent account of the result of these relief works, and described the gratitude of the people, and threw a flood of light upon the views of the official classes in Ireland. As regards the administration of the fund, it was placed mainly or altogether in the hands of the police. One of the extra items in this Vote is £1,400 as extra pay to the police for acting as gangers, timekeepers, overseers, &c., in connection with the relief works, and of that item I should like some explanation. If the work of overseeing and timekeeping on the relief works was done by constabulary men and officers, who were amply paid for all their work, the sum of £1,410 for distributing £30,000 is an enormously excessive amount for extra pay to these men. The First Lord of the Treasury consulted the Catholic priest, and gave them a large voice in putting men on the relief works, and to that extent neutralised the mischievous influence of the police; but, making due

  1567
  allowance for that fact, the use of the police was not a wise or proper course. There is another matter connected with this system of relief works which is worth bringing under the attention of the Committee. I represent one of the poorest districts in Ireland, and the right hon. Gentleman has treated my district in a liberal fashion. In the first place, he ran a railway right through the middle of it, which I never asked him for—if I had asked him for it, I might not have got it—and he has greatly benefited the people. He disbursed £13,000 in the Barony of Swineford, which includes one of the poorest populations of Ireland. When these famines occur, and anyone comes down amongst the people—as the right hon. Gentleman did, much to his credit—who has the power of giving them relief, it is impossible for his humanity to resist the demand made upon him by the condition of these people. But what I have always urged upon this House is, that the system of waiting for a famine to come and then bringing in a Bill for relief is one of the most wretched, degrading, and hopeless systems ever undertaken by an Executive Government. Yet this has been going on in our unfortunate country for the last hundred years. Nothing is done in the intervals to take away the root of the evils; and when distress recurs, we are compelled to raise an agitation for relief; and no Government system of relief was ever applied to a people without leaving behind it frightful demorsaliation. The whole financial system of the West of Ireland is thoroughly rotten. If we take the Union of Swineford, we find a population of 53,700 people, with an annual valuation of only £1,000; and it is a remarkable fact, full of sorrowful significance, that in that Union the population is not decreasing, although emigration is taking place from other districts. As to the economic condition of this district during the last ten years, I may say that before this latest distress I had a calculation made which showed that there had been spent there from external resources £110,000 in public charity and relief works within ten years; and that in the same Union, within the same time, £300,000 had been paid in rent largely taken away by the absentee landlords. Was there ever heard of in the whole world such folly as
  1568
  this? Look, again, what happened this year. The right hon. Gentleman spent £26,634 out of this fund, and very probably £4,000 out of the other fund which he collected from the public. I do not suppose that he spent less than £10,000 or £15,000 on the railway, and at least the sum of £35,000 has been spent from the Public Exchequer and private charity from outside sources to keep the people alive in that Union; and yet the landlords, who do not subscribe to these charities, have taken their rents out of this money. It is a most deplorable system, and it is humiliating to us to have to come to this House as paupers when we know that that this is an artificial condition of things. Yet I was threatened with the bayonets of British soldiers and the batons of policemen because I endeavoured to address my constituents on this subject. I was forbidden by a Magistrate to point out to them that they were bound in duty, as well as entitled in morality, to hold for their children and their wives the products of their labour. The right hon. Gentleman sent his troops down at great expense to stop me; but he had to come down afterwards and spend public money there. I am glad to have this opportunity of telling the English House of Commons that it is a fraud on the charity of this country that the absentee landlords of Swineford, and other districts in the West of Ireland, should be allowed to take their rents out of the charity of the English people. I am aware that the right hon. Gentleman in his answer to me will point to the Congested Districts Board, and say the course I have urged has at last been adopted by the Government. I am glad that such a Board has been brought into existence; but I warn the right hon. Gentleman that, as in the case of these relief measures, so in the case of the Congested Districts Board, until you stop the leakage, and do something to bring about a proper economical basis on which to build your structure in the West of Ireland, you are defrauding the people of this country by pretending that these measures can do any permanent or lasting good; while all you are really doing is to increase the security for the rents of the landlords. I am now, as I always have been, ready to meet with friendly

  1569
  criticism any scheme for improving the condition of our people. I do not care where it comes from—a Conservative or a Liberal Government; but I feel it my duty to point out the economical unsoundness of the present schemes, and I think nothing can be done for the population of the West of Ireland, with any hope of producing good fruit, unless you begin by purchasing, at a fair valuation, the rents of those landlords who are the curse of that country, and have been the cause of its poverty.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURI cannot congratulate either the Committee or the hon. Gentleman upon the performance we have just witnessed. (Cries from the Irish Members of "No performance," "the truth," "speech.") The hon. Gentleman speaks not so much as a despairing philanthropist as a disappointed politician. He cannot forgive me for having been one of the instruments by which, not with his assistance, but in his despite, relief, and immediate relief, was given to the West of Ireland. He cannot conceal the bitterness—(A voice: "Neither can you")—with which he learned that I had travelled through these districts, not guarded by a multitude of police, but without their assistance, and that I was welcomed by his constituents, as by others, in a friendly and generous spirit, and with a full recognition that my object was to make myself better acquainted with their needs; and that my purpose was not, as he seems in his generosity to suppose, to make political capital out of them, but to do something for the relief of the distress about which the hon. Gentleman talks so much and towards mitigating which he does so little. I do not propose to occupy the time of the Committee at any length in dealing with the charges of the hon. Gentleman, but it will be very easy to refute those which have any reference to my own action. The hon. Gentleman appears to think it was not until the Government had listened to the speeches he made in this House and the speeches the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Morley) made outside that we contemplated the possibility of distress in Ireland, or took steps to
  1570
  relieve it. That is the opinion of other hon. Gentlemen opposite.
  MR. MAC NEILLYes. I mentioned that.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURThe hon. Member's memory is enfeebled by partisanship when he makes such a charge. The facts are these. Before Parliament separated in August, 1890, we, on this side of the House, had sat up all one night, until our proceedings were lightened by the dawn of the day following that on which we began, in order to pass a measure connected with Light Railways, which would enable us to hurry on the employment of labour with a view to meeting impending distress. That measure was resisted by the hon. Gentleman's friends opposite.
  MR. SEXTONI, with several Irish Members, supported the Bill, and a very small minority resisted it.
  MR. DILLONThe right hon. Gentleman had me under arrest at the time, or, at any rate, I was unable to appear here.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURI acquit both hon. Gentlemen, the hon. Member for East Mayo because circumstances over which he had no control prevented him from taking part in the proceedings. I do not remember what they were, and with reference to the hon. Member for West Belfast, though I think he joined in some of the Divisions against us, I amply recognise that he did render yeoman service towards the passage of a Bill intended for the future salvation of the poor people in the West of Ireland. But the broad fact remains, we conclusively proved by our action on that night that we contemplated the possibility of distress, and we were already preparing the means to meet that distress; and that, further, we were hampered in our efforts by hon. Gentlemen sitting on the other side of the House. What is the use of talking about the speeches of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle; there is the broad fact recorded on the Journals of this House conclusively proving who were the friends of Ireland and who were her enemies, who were prepared to help her in her hour of need, and who were prepared to interfere with that assistance if they could only get a little temporary politics benefit

  1571
  thereby. That is enough on this argument, but that is not all I could point out. Long before the speeches of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle all the arrangements for my tour in the West were made, and incessant communications were passing between myself and those whose duty it was to deal with distress there. But so much for the manner in which the Government were "spurred on." I now come to the proposition urged by the hon. Member that he, and he alone, has been the apostle of the true doctrine that the distribution of eleemosynary relief is demoralising. I venture to say that no man in or out of the House has urged that doctrine more earnestly and more frequently than myself. I can say that I have not contented myself with urging it in the House and in this country—I went down to the West, and I said it to the people at meetings there; I said it in discussions with priests and local leaders; I did everything in my power to impress on every man having any influence that to suppose that this House or any Government was to continue giving at quinquennial or decennial periods large sums of money for relief was to build hope on the most insecure foundation, and which, even if secure, held out no prospect of permanent amelioration in the condition of the country. I did not confine myself to speeches in this matter. The hon. Gentleman appears to think it is our pleasure to come forward and ask for a Vote from the House for the relief of distress every ten years, and yet to refrain from taking any steps for the relief of the poor population in the West of Ireland. Sir, I claim for this Government, alone among Governments which have existed in Ireland before and since the Union, that we have proposed and carried measures which have for their object the amelioration of the condition of this poor population. We have carried the Light Railways Bill, to which I have already alluded. We proposed it, carried it, and have given effect to it; and if anything is calculated to permanently increase the value of the soil, to improve the fishing industry, and to give to the people who live on that inclement seaboard a chance of competing in the race of life—if anything can give them that chance, it is the railways we have planned, constructed, and paid for.
  1572
  That is not the only proposal we have made and carried for dealing permanently with the West of Ireland. The hon. Gentleman has himself alluded to the Congested Districts Board. That Board has at its disposal large funds and ample powers. Its labours, unless legislation interferes, will extend over many years, and in them we have a right to hope that by ceaseless and continued endeavours a great effect will be produced in the amelioration of the conditions of life among those classes with which the Board has to deal. The Board was first proposed in the Land Act of 1890, an Act which I should have thought, on many grounds, had title to the gratitude of the Irish people. But I speak only of this establishment of a Congested Districts Board. Against the Second Reading of that Bill every man below the Gangway opposite voted, including, no doubt, the hon. Member for East Mayo, unless again on that occasion he happened to be otherwise employed. At all events, the whole Party of which he is a distinguished Member united to oppose a measure for dealing specially with the necessities of the West Coast. And after that the hon. Gentleman talks to us as if he had been preaching wisdom to deaf ears, as if he had been the author of a number of bountiful schemes to which we objected, as if he were the enlightened apostle of Irish progress and we the deaf and obtuse obstructives to his beneficent schemes for the welfare of the people. I have heard the hon. Gentleman in countless speeches descant on the woes and wrongs of Ireland, but never in any speech have I heard from him a practical proposition from the day he entered this House until now—unless I am to count among practical propositions the contribution towards the solution of the Irish problem he has been good enough to offer to-day. What is that contribution? It appears, in spite of all evidence ever given, in spite of all elementary principles of public morality, in spite of the obvious forces of economic law, the hon. Member sees no source for Irish regeneration, or amelioration of their condition, except in the refusal of Irish tenants to pay their rents. There alone he sees the promised land, there only does he see the dawn of future hope to light his countrymen to political salvation. He comes down to the House with this nostrum

  1573
  in his pocket, and accuses us who sit on this Bench of incapacity to found a constructive policy for Irish interests and of ignorance of Irish misfortunes. If anything is certain in this world, if there be one truth which the universal experience of mankind has conclusively established, it is that you cannot found the prosperity of a nation on national dishonesty and national disgrace. If we are to take the hon. Gentleman as a Representative of future statesmanship and as a Leader of that future Parliament he hopes to establish in Dublin, if we are to suppose he has laid down the great principles of public policy which are to direct the counsels of the Irish House of Commons, then, indeed, we have more reason than ever to despair of the future of the race he represents. I, Sir, have better hope for Ireland. I believe that deep as is the darkness which appears to have settled over the regions of the West, grinding as is the poverty which, in seasons of distress oppresses the people, nevertheless, partly by their own efforts, partly by the assistance we are able to give them, they will lift themselves out of that slough of poverty and despond, and will become, what I am sure they deserve to become, some of the most worthy, contented, peaceful elements of a great and united people.
  MR. MAC NEILLIt is pleasant to observe that in the person of the First Lord of the Treasury we have not lost our old friend the late Chief Secretary for Ireland. Speeches of the kind we have just heard will be our charter for the next General Election. I always admired the late Mr. W. H. Smith, but never till now did I recognise that as Leader of the House he was a genius. He did not trade on the animosities between classes, but tried to infuse into our debates his own genial spirit, and regarded us, though opposed to him, as his Colleagues here. How different is the spirit we have just heard. Can any reasonable man fail to see in this exhibition the feeling of a disappointed politician. Again and again the right hon. Gentleman has said he did not go to the West in a political spirit, but his friends undoubtedly have endeavoured to make political capital out of his tour in these districts. The right hon. Gentle-
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  man has done me the honour to say that possibly my memory is weakened by partisanship, but at least one fact is strongly impressed on my memory. Does the right hon. Gentleman recollect that within the last few weeks a gentleman, full of years and honour, was gathered to his fathers, a gentleman whose counsel was sought on these matters—Sir James Caird—who said two-thirds of the holdings in Ireland are such that no economic rent can be exacted for them? This Debate cannot conclude to-night, but let me say a word on an incident upon which I may enlarge later on when I resume my speech. I met the right hon. Gentleman in Donegal, and very hard I found it to find him. No one seeking an interview with a Royal personage could have had more difficulty. At last I found the right hon. Gentleman, and first I had to ask a Resident Magistrate, who consulted an Inspector, and then applied to the hon. Member for Dover, who acted as diplomatic agent, and at length I was ushered into the presence. Then I found an interview or reception proceeding, which, I suppose, if I had not happened to be there, would have been described as an interview with leading representatives of the district. As a fact, I found the local land agent and the dispensary doctor, surrounded by a group of newspaper men, and in a little time I found that the thing was got up for political capital. Did not the right hon. Gentleman on 3rd October, 1890, write a letter to an American gentleman stating that the distress in Ireland had been got up for political purposes? But see with what little wisdom Irish affairs are governed when, shortly afterwards, he made application here for an enormous sum of money for the relief of that distress. That distress was first emphasized by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle, when he made a personal appeal to the Chief Secretary, but the latter would not allow the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle "to dictate to him where he should write his letters from."
  It being Midnight, the Chairman left the Chair to make his report to the House.
  Resolution to be reported to-morrow.

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  Committee also report Progress; to sit again upon Wednesday.

  FEE GRANT (SCOTLAND).
  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 the Fee Grant in Scotland, and to make provision in regard to the distribution and application of sums from time to time paid to the Local Taxation (Scotland) Account."—(Sir John Gorst.)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. Caldwell.)
  SIR JOHN GORSTI hope the hon. Member will allow this purely formal stage to be taken. The Resolution will have to be reported to the House, after which the Bill will be introduced by the Lord Advocate. Hon. Members may then address the House, but I hope this purely formal stage will be allowed to pass.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  Resolution to be reported upon Thursday.

  MILLBANK PRISON BILL.—(No. 140.)
  Considered in Committee, and reported, without Amendment; to be read the third time upon Thursday.

  SUPERANNUATION ACTS AMENDMENT BILL.—(No. 191).
  Order for Second Reading read, and discharged.
  Bill withdrawn.

  LOCAL COURTS OF BANKRUPTCY (IRELAND) BILL.—(No. 165.)

    COMMITTEE.
    Considered in Committee.
    (In the Committee.)
    Clauses 1 to 3 agreed to.
    Clause 4.
    MR. SEXTONWe made no opposition to the previous Amendments, but to this and subsequent Amendments the Chamber of Commerce
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    at Belfast a body fully competent to judge of such matters strongly object. Can the Attorney General see his way to accept the opinion of these representatives of the mercantile community at Belfast?
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN,)I cannot at present say I am in a position to withdraw the Amendment of which I have given notice; perhaps it will be convenient at this point to report Progress. The Amendments I have put down have been very carefully considered, and they embody the views of the Government. They have been submitted to various authorities, and I shall be glad to consider the view of the Belfast Chamber of Commerce.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. Madden.)
    MR. SEXTONIf we resume Committee this day week I hope, meantime, the right hon. Gentleman will consult the Chamber of Commerce?
    MR. MADDENCertainly I will send a copy of the Bill with my Amendments to the Belfast Chamber of Commerce.
    Motion agreed to.
    Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Monday next.

  POST OFFICE MAIL CONTRACT (PORTSMOUTH AND RYDE MAILS).
  Resolved, That the Contract with the London and South Western and London, Brighton, and South Coast Railway Companies, dated the 10th day of November, 1891, for the conveyance of Mails between Portsmouth and Ryde, be approved.—(Sir John Gorst.)
  MOTIONS.

    FISHERY LAWS (IRELAND) AMENDMENT BILL.
    On Motion of Colonel Nolan, Bill to amend the Fishery Laws of Ireland, ordered to be brought in by Colonel Nolan, Mr. Mahoney, Mr. Hayden, and Mr. Maguire.
    Bill presented, and read first time. [Bill 200.]
    House adjourned at a quarter after Twelve o'clock.

THE COLONIES AND THE McKINLEY TARIFF.

  QUESTION—OBSERVATIONS.
  THE EARL OF DERBYMy Lords, I wish to take this opportunity of putting to the noble Lord, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, a question of which I have given him private notice. My noble Friend stated last week, in answer to a question that was put from this side of the House, that the West Indian Legislatures had been considering what new taxation should be levied in order to make up for the loss of Revenue resulting from the arrangement come to with the United States in consequence of the McKinley Tariff Act. My Lords, I have no doubt that the answer of my noble Friend was accurate as regards the West Indian Colonies generally; but, since that answer was given, I have received communications from certain persons connected with the Colony of Jamaica, who complain of the statement then made as not doing justice to the actual financial position of the Colony. They inform me that, although the total loss of the Revenue, consequent upon the new arrangements, exceeds £30,000 a year, it has not been found necessary, nor is it intended, to levy any new taxation in consequence. I understand that, since that answer, to which I refer, was given, some further information has been received at the Colonial Office, and I should be glad to know whether, in consequence of that information, my noble Friend is inclined in any way to modify or add to the statement he lately made.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Lord KNUTSFORD)My Lords, the statement which I made on the former occasion was made purposely in very general terms so as to comprehend all the Colonies; and, speaking broadly, the statement was correct; for the Colonial Legislatures have, speaking generally, been considering the question of what taxation, if any, would be necessary in order to make up for the loss occasioned by their action to meet the views of the United States. It is true that, as
  1462
  regards Jamaica, the Governor, in his speech on the opening of the Legislative Council, stated, as his opinion, that it would not be necessary to raise any new taxation in Jamaica,—the Revenue being, as the noble Earl opposite has pointed out, in a very prosperous state,—and that, therefore, he did not propose to ask for fresh taxes. I have no official or other communication or intimation that this view has been adopted by the Legislative Council; but, at the same time, I have not the least doubt but that it will be. I may perhaps mention some other facts a little more in detail as regards the other Colonies, as this opportunity is now given me by the noble Earl. I may state that in British Guiana the Court is probably now considering Ways and Means. In Trinidad I have just approved of some votes imposing new taxation; but there are some proposed Stamp Acts which have not been settled by the Council so far as we know. In Barbadoes fresh Acts have been passed and have been sanctioned. In St. Vincent measures came before me after I had spoken on the former occasion, and I have now approved of those measures. In St. Lucia the questions are still under consideration; and so also in the Leeward Islands.

TECHNICAL EDUCATION COMMITTEES OF COUNTY COUNCILS.

  QUESTION—OBSERVATIONS.
  THE BISHOP OF SALISBURY:My Lords, in venturing to put to Her Majesty's Government the question that stands in my name, I should like to ask, by the indulgence of the House, to be allowed to explain why it is that I do so. I do it in the interests of the County Councils themselves as much as of those who have asked for grants from them. My Lords, I recognise fully the difficulty in which these Councils have been placed, especially in the matter of technical education. They have perhaps been rather imperfectly instructed in their duties on this matter by the three Acts of Parliament passed in three recent years; they have had to formulate their principles and to work out their methods in practice as they went along; and, therefore, it was almost inevitable that there should be some little inequalities in their way of acting.

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  But, inasmuch as unfortunately,—I am afraid it is a matter of general knowledge,—elections to County Councils are conducted more or less on Party lines, it seems reasonable that the light of publicity should be brought to bear on their action, especially in the distribution of large sums of public money. I venture, my Lords, to ask whether it is not a matter of right, rather than of favour, that we should be explicitly informed on what principles and by what persons grants for technical education are either given or refused; and I beg, therefore, to ask Her Majesty's Government whether it is possible to require technical education Committees of the County Councils to publish minutes of their proceedings?
  THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (Viscount CRANBROOK):My Lords, in the absence of my noble Friend (Lord Henniker) I have been requested to answer this question, which would naturally have fallen to him My Lords, the fact is that there is no power to require a Committee of the County Council to publish minutes; nor am I aware that there is any authority for their incurring expenditure for such a purpose. It may be the case that they could admit reporters; but everybody will see that there might be a good deal of difficulty in admitting reporters to consultations of Committees. And, after all, my Lords, the grants are not made by the Committees, but by the Councils themselves.

EVIDENCE IN CRIMINAL CASES BILL [H.L.]—(NO. 4.)
Order of the Day for the Third Reading, read, and discharged.
SHORT TITLES BILL [H.L.]—(No. 12.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: My Lords, the object of this Bill is simply to shorten the language of Acts of Parliament. Your Lordships are aware that of late years it has been the practice in every Act of Parliament to introduce a short title which by Statute
  1464
  is made the mode by which the Act can be cited; and that has been found in practice to be very convenient. But, unfortunately, that was not the practice in Parliamentary drafting until a comparatively short period since; the result of which is that all Acts of Parliament which have been passed before a particular date must now be cited by their long titles—and some of them are very long indeed. We popularly are in the habit of speaking of the Habeas Corpus Act, and the Statute of Fraud, and so forth, which is a convenient and popular mode of citing them; but, if you had to refer to either of those Acts in an Act of Parliament, you would require to have four or five, sometimes six, and, in one case that I have here, twelve lines as the title by which the particular Act is known. Under those circumstances, my Lords, it has been thought well to endeavour to grant to the references to former legislation the same procedure as the modern habit of Parliamentary drafting has introduced; and this Bill, which is called the Short Titles Bill, is simply for the purpose of re-christening the old Acts of Parliament with short titles, whereby they may be referred to in future when new legislation has to be applied to them. I am afraid your Lordships would not find much instruction or information by my reading through this Bill, or making any further observations upon it; because, after having explained its object, the only thing I could do would be to read the old titles of the old Acts of Parliament, and then to read the new titles that have been introduced for the purpose which I have indicated. I am afraid your Lordships would not consider that a profitable employment of your time, and therefore I will now simply move the Second Reading of the Bill.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a (according to Order) and committed to a Committee of the Whole House Tomorrow.

  GAMING ACT, 1845, AMENDMENT BILL [H.L.]
  A Bill to amend the Act of the 8th and 9th Vict., chap 109, intituled "An Act to amend the law concerning games and wages"—was presented by the Lord Herschell; read 1a; and to be printed. (No. 23.)
  PRESENTATION TO BENEFICES BILL [H.L.]
  A Bill to make better provision for the exercise of the right of presentation to benefices in cases where the right is now exercisable by parishioners or others forming a numerous class—was presented by the Lord Archbishop of York; read la; to be printed; and to be read 2a To-morrow. (No. 24.)
BETTING AND LOANS (INFANTS)BILL [H.L.]—(No. 13.)

  THIRD READING.
  Order of the Day for the Third Reading, read.
  Bill read 3a (according to Order.)
  Amendments made; Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACTS OF ENGLAND AND SCOTLAND REPEAL BILL [H.L.]
  A Bill for the repeal of the Local Government Acts of England and Scotland—Was presented by the Lord Denman; read 1a; to be printed; and to be read 2a To-morrow. (No. 25.)
  DURATION OF SPEECHES IN THE HOUSE OF LORDS BILL [H.L.] (No. 26.)
  A Bill to ascertain and limit the duration of speeches in the House of Lords. And
  WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE BILL [H.L.] (No. 27.)
  A Bill for extending the right of voting at Parliamentary, Municipal, and County Council elections in the United Kingdom to duly qualified women—Were presented by the Lord Denman; read 1a; and to be printed.

RAILWAY RATES AND CHARGES PROVISIONAL ORDER BILLS.
Message from the Commons that they have come to the following Resolution, viz., that all Bills of the present Session to confirm Provisional Orders made by the Board of Trade under the "Railway and Canal Traffic Act, 1888," containing the classification of Merchandise Traffic, and the schedule of maximum rates and charges applicable thereto, be referred to a Joint Committee of Lords and Commons, and to desire their Lordships' concurrence thereto; the said message to be taken into consideration To-morrow.
Standing Committee to meet To-morrow at Five o'clock.
House adjourned at twenty minutes before Five o'clock.