Sitting of 4 August 1893

Preamble
The House met at Two of the clock.
PRIVATE BUSINESS.
  BLACKROCK AND KINGSTOWN DRAIN- AGE AND IMPROVEMENT BILL [Lords] (by Order).

    CONSIDERATION.
    Order for Consideration, as amended, read.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill, as amended, be now considered."
    MR. CLANCY ()said, that in moving the re-committal of this Bill and the Instruction, he must repeat what he said yesterday, that he would have preferred the method of procedure which the hon. Member for Wicklow (Mr. J. O'Connor) proposed to adopt, as he considered it would be a more expeditious way of achieving the object he had in view; but inasmuch as that method of procedure had been ruled out of Order, there was no alternative open to him but to make the Motion which he now made. He might mention that he had made this Instruction mandatory for the purpose of giving time. The present Bill was a Bill to constitute a joint Drainage Board for the purpose of carrying out a considerable scheme of drainage for the two townships of Blackrock and Kingstown. This Drainage Board was to be composed equally of members chosen by the Kingstown Township
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    Board and the Blackrock Township Board, and he sought to put into the Bill a clause reducing the township franchise in Blackrock to £4. At present the Municipal franchise in Kingstown was £4, in Blackrock it was £8. So that if the Bill passed in its present form they would have one-half of the Drainage Board elected on a £4 franchise, and the other half elected on an £8 franchise. The number of Municipal voters in Blackrock was absurdly small when compared with the population, and when compared with the number of Parliamentary voters. The population of Blackrock was, in round numbers, about 9,000; the Parliamentary electorate was between 1,100 and 1,200, while the Municipal franchise was a little over 500, and he might observe that, owing to the want of a system of revision, the Municipal electorate was yearly decreasing. In 1890 the electorate was 682; in 1891 it was reduced to 605; in 1892 it was reduced to 586, and he was informed that there was every probability that when the lists for this year were made out, it would be found that the number of Municipal electors in Blackrock would not be much more than 500. He asserted that that was a gross anomaly when they considered the population, and also the number of Parliamentary voters. It was often said—and he dared say it would be said there that day—that the ratepayers were more interested than any other class of ratepayers in schemes such as this. But the curious thing was that the biggest ratepayers in the Blackrock township were absolutely not represented at all, and for this simple reason—that there was no provision whatever for joint occupation votes. There were several large establishments in Blackrock township with which he was personally acquainted. They paid the largest amount of rates, and owing to the fact that there was no provision for registering joint, occupiers every single one of these ratepayers was absolutely excluded from the list of voters. He was not in love with big ratepayers as a general rule, but he thought this state of things was a gross anomaly. All this was aggravated by the fact that there was absolutely no provision in the Township Act for the revision of votes. The Secretary of the Township Board was in this matter judge and jury, counsel, public, and all. He discharged

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    the duty of revising the lists in his own office. Nobody knew how he did it or when he did it. He took the names from some list or other, and put them on or kept them off at his own sweet will and pleasure. He did not know anything about the gentleman himself, and he should be sorry, in the absence of definite information, to say that he misused his position. He did not allege that he did, because he was unable to prove it, and he should be sorry to allege anything he could not prove; but what he did say was this: that no single person ought to be entrusted with a duty of this description, which ought to be performed, as in the case of Parliamentary voters' revision, by a public officer in a public court with an opportunity to the voters of seeing that their rights were pro-served, and that no injury was done to them. In no case ought it to be possible for the revision to be effected as it was at the present moment in Blackrock. An objection was raised to his proposal by gentlemen who said that he proposed to introduce machinery in the Blackrock Township which did not exist in any of the other townships around Dublin except Kingstown. Instead of the fact that in none of the townships around Dublin did machinery exist for the public revision of the voters' lists being a ground for delay, he submitted that it was a ground for beginning the reform at once. Blackrock township had got into the control of a family ring. He made no charge against these gentlemen personally. Personally he knew nothing about them, though he knew most of them as politicians. They belonged to the richer class in Blackrock, and they managed the affairs of the Blackrock township to suit the purposes of the family ring which they constituted. They did not seem to care one farthing about the opinion of the ratepayers. If anything ought to be the property of the public it was the Town Hall, which was built and was maintained at the cost of the ratepayers, rich and poor. Yet, unless it suited the purposes of this family ring, they refused to let the Town Hall to anybody but their own party for public meetings. And he believed the practice was—but on this point he was not quite sure—that when they did meet themselves they met to the exclusion of the ratepayers. They would not allow
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    the ratepayers to attend their meetings, and they had gone so far as to expel from the Board room the hon. Member for the St. Patrick's Division of Dublin, simply because he made himself troublesome in exposing their manner of managing the affairs of the Blackrock township. The hon. Member for the St. Patrick's Division was absolutely one of the largest ratepayers in the township, and naturally under any fair system of franchise he would himself occupy a seat on the Board. But the result of the state of things which he was attempting to describe to the House was that this gentleman—one of the most intelligent in the whole community, and one of the largest ratepayers—had not only been unable to obtain a seat at this Board, but on one or two occasions when he had attempted to witness with his own eyes the manner in which the Board transacted their business he had been expelled from the room. What was it he (Mr. Clancy) proposed? He had down yesterday, and some days previously, a Motion for the reduction of the franchise in Blackrock to the household level. He put down that Motion to assert a principle which he thought was too often ignored—namely, that the poorest ratepayers in the community had as much right as the richest ratepayers to a voice in the management of their Municipal affairs. They paid quite as much, or more, in proportion to their means than the richer ratepayers. He put down that Motion for household suffrage to assert the principle, and so that hereafter their opponents could not say they had not asserted this principle when they had had the opportunity. If he could he would establish household suffrage both in Kingstown and Blackrock; but he acknowledged that it would be a step in advance if a provision to that effect were inserted at this stage of the Bill, and therefore he had taken the moderate course of proposing to equalise the franchise in the two townships. It might be objected that such a provision should not be introduced at the present stage of the Bill. There were two precedents on this point present to his mind. In 1885, in the case of the Rathmines and Rathgar Township Bill, when the Bill had reached the very same stage which the present Bill occupied the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Forest of

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    Dean (Sir C. Dilke) proposed and carried the reduction of the franchise in the township of Rathmines and Rathgar from £10 to £4. In 1886 the hon. Member for North Kerry (Mr. Sexton) went further, and proposed and carried a provision for the reduction of the franchise in Belfast in connection with the Belfast Main Drainage Scheme to the household level, which was further than the present proposal went. Again, it was said that if this Motion was carried the Bill would be lost. They had heard that argument before. Why should the Bill be thrown out? If the House of Lords threw out the Bill on this ground, they would confess that they would prefer that the people of Blackrock should be slowly poisoned by bad water rather than consent to lower the existing franchise. He would predict that the Bill would not be lost if this Motion was carried. The House of Lords would pass the Bill if the promoters did not object, and he should like the promoters to go back to Blackrock and challenge public opinion upon the proposal he had made. He challenged them to get a verdict in any public meeting in Blackrock against the proposal. Another objection was taken to his proposal by gentlemen who said that though they had no objection to the reduction of the franchise in the ordinary way they objected to it being made in this manner. He (Mr. Clancy) had been in the House for eight or nine years. The Irish Party had every year introduced a Bill to effect the reduction of the Municipal franchise in Ireland, but they had never been able to get such a Bill passed. This reform was urgently needed, and he asked the House to agree to his Motion.
    SIR C. W. DILKE ()said, he rose at the request of the hon. Member who had made the Motion to second it. The hon. and learned Member had largely founded his argument on the precedent to which he (Sir C. Dilke) had induced the House to assent in 1885, of dealing with this matter of the franchise in urban districts in their Private Bills as they came before the House. The hon. and learned Member had said that the Municipal franchise in Ireland had been left long unaltered, although from year to year a change had been proposed. He remembered in the first year that the noble Lord the Member for Paddington (Lord R. Churchill) came
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    into the House, and when he was acting as private secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland he made a powerful speech in support of a change in the Irish Municipal franchise, and pointed out the terrible evils that existed in Ireland under the present system. And the state of things which existed in Ireland under the Towns Commissioners was even worse than that which existed under the Municipal Corporations. He would remind the House, as the hon. and learned Member had referred to it, that in 1885 and 1886 a proposal precisely similar to that now before the House was carried in the Rathmines Bill, and also in the Belfast Drainage Bill. The grounds on which he brought this matter before the House in 1885, and why he so strongly supported the present proposal, were because the Report of the Royal Commission on the Housing of the Working Classes in Ireland, over which he himself had the honour to preside, was almost entirely directed to this one point. The Commissioners pointed out in their Report with absolute unanimity—for the Report was signed by every member of the Commission—that of all the evils which affected the condition of the working classes in the Municipal and urban districts in Ireland, those which were directly due to the present condition of the franchise were by far the greatest, and that almost all those evils were traceable to the condition of the franchise in those towns. The Commissioners pointed out not only the curious nature of these franchises, but also the extraordinary thing on the part of the Municipal and Urban Authorities that they did not even observe the provisions of the law such as they were. He believed that in England they could hardly realise what the state of things in Ireland was. The only Electoral Body in England that in the least resembled the Urban non-Municipal Bodies in Ireland was the Thames Conservancy in so far as regarded the Upper Thames. That Body acted under an Act of 1795, and the gentleman who was responsible for the Register seriously maintained that he had no right to remove the names of persons who were dead, and as the Register was first made up in 1795 some of the original voters were still retained on it. The Report of the Royal Commission to which he had referred used the very strongest language on this question, and said it

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    was useless to talk about any reforms of detail concerned with the condition of the working classes in Ireland until the question of the franchise had first been dealt with. The Commissioners stated—
    "The existing evils of administration are not due to defects in, but to the failure of the existing authorities in acting upon, legislation which has invested them with ample powers. … It is not in the amendment of details of existing Statutes that the chief remedy lies for the deplorable condition of the dwellings of the working classes in the towns of Ireland. The legislation in existence has not been tried. There are provisions in Acts of Parliament which have been drawn expressly to meet the evils described to Your Majesty's Commissioners; but they are allowed to remain a dead letter. It will be well to again consider who are the authorities, who, while invested with considerable powers, have neglected to use them in face of a state of things which calls for the most energetic action."
    The Report of the Commissioners went on to show that—
    "The majority of the people who are rated for the expenses of Local Government have no voice in the election of the Corporate Body who spend the rates."
    It was a rather curious fact that while the death rate of Ireland, as a whole, was lower than the death rate in England, the death rate in the Irish towns was far higher than in English towns, and this was traceable to the condition in which the working classes existed. The evidence taken by the Commissioners showed most plainly that the miserable condition of things which existed in the urban districts was owing to the defects of Local Government in Ireland. The only recommendation the Commissioners made with regard to Ireland was that urgency should be given to the question of Local Government in Ireland. It was that strong Report, based on evidence which had been laid before the House, that induced him to take the action he did in 1885. The Chief Secretary for Ireland, he had heard, was likely to oppose this proposal of the hon. Member for North Dublin. He would remind the Chief Secretary that those who sat beside him on the Treasury Bench opposed in 1886 a Motion similar to that now before the House, but that they afterwards saw cause to repent of the course they then took, and to support a Motion which they had previously opposed. His right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary was a good Radical on
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    most occasions, but he did not trust him altogether on this question of popular franchises in local Governing Bodies. The Chief Secretary was asked some little time ago if he would do away with qualifications which existed with regard to certain Sanitary Authorities in Ireland, and he replied that so soon as he received representations from any of those Bodies in favour of doing away with qualifications he would be glad to consider it. If he trusted to those Bodies to do away with their own qualifications, or to change their own system, it would never be done. He believed there was a great majority on both sides of the House who thought it wise to popularise these franchises for local Governing Bodies, and he believed it should be done in the present case.
    Amendment proposed, to leave out from the word "Bill," to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "be re-committed to the former Committee."—(Mr. Clancy.)
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    THE CHAIRMAN of COMMITTEES (Mr. MELLOR,): I am not going to say anything to the House upon the merits of this proposal, because, so far as the merits are concerned, it is no part of my duty, and not my business, to deal with them. I have really to lay before the House the observations that occur to me in my capacity as guardian of the Private Bill Legislation; and, having done that, it will be entirely for the House to say whether they will accept the view put forward by the hon. Member for North Dublin, or whether, on the other hand, they will accept the view which I am going to suggest on the other side, not with the object of opposing the Motion, but simply of doing what I conceive to be my duty, and laying before the House those matters which I think ought to be called attention to upon the practice of the Private Bill Committee. The hon. and learned Member for North Dublin has laid an extremely forcible and clear statement on the matter before the House; but I think even he will admit that what he is asking the House of Commons to

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    do is a strong order. His answer to that will be that, no doubt, this is a strong order, but, at the same time, the circumstances are such as to justify him in making it.
    MR. CLANCY: And it has been done before.
    MR. MELLOR: I am coming to that. I think I ought to assume, after what has taken place, that the hon. and learned Gentleman has a strong case in this matter. But I want to point out that, while he has a strong case, I think be is asking for a very strong order. He says that this has been done before, and I agree. I do not attach so much importance to the first precedent as he does, because in the Bill of 1885 there was an original voting clause, and what was done upon its consideration was to deal with that subject, and to alter it; and, therefore, that precedent, I do not think, ought to have as much weight as the hon. Member seems to place upon it. I would ask the House whether it will follow the precedent of the Belfast Drainage Bill or revert to what I conceive to be the old practice of the House of Commons, and say that under the circumstances it is not disposed to adopt the hon. Member's proposal? That is a question for the House to determine and not for me, and before I go any further in that matter I desire to draw attention to two points: In the first place, the Bill has passed both Houses of Parliament. It has been examined by two Select Committees of both Houses of Parliament, and no suggestion of the question which has now been raised was made. There may be good reason for raising that question. The hon. and learned Gentleman may ask how I would have acted. Well, I should either have appeared before the Committees or employed counsel to do so for me. That is the system adopted by Parliament. It may be a good system or a bad one. This is a serious matter to hon. Members from Ireland, and I ask them to pause in any decision they may arrive at, and from which they may expect to reap an advantage, by following the precedent of the Belfast Drainage Bill. Such a precedent, though advantageous for the moment, may turn out to be disadvantageous to them hereafter. They had an experience of that when the Belfast Drainage Bill was quoted against hon. Members, and
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    that precedent was made as if for the purpose of defeating a measure they were interested in. I think I may appeal to the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Cork, who has a considerable acquaintance with Private Bill Business in this House and who has for some time given valuable service to the Referees Committee. I am sure he will appreciate the force of what I am saying. You may say—"The case is so important that it should over-ride these considerations"; but it should be borne in mind that the Private Bill practice of Parliament has not been as strict as the Public Bill practice, and it may consequently be argued that it will be to the advantage of the House and the country to assimilate the Private Bill practice as far as we can to the Public Bill practice. But this would scarcely do, because in the case of a Gas or Water Bill which has been passed through Select Committees, and comes back to the House, an attempt might be made to engraft upon its provisions some totally different subject when no opportunity has been afforded for the Committee to hear witnesses, and to consider the evidence as it affects the provisions of the Bill. I hope hon. Members will not misunderstand what I say. I am pointing out the extreme importance of preserving the ordinary practice of the House. I think we ought never to resort to special remedies at all unless there is an enormous grievance, and I submit that it is far more important to the Irish Members and to everybody that the principles of this Private Bill Legislation should be preserved than that the object of the hon. Member opposite should be attained. If this Motion is adopted it will form a strong precedent—it will be a guide to me as to the attitude I am expected to take. I hope, therefore, the House will pause before adopting the Motion. Hon. Members may think that they have a strong grievance, but I submit that that is not the question. The question is, are you going to set aside the plan of allowing Select Committees to take evidence and to carefully consider the questions that come before them? If you are going deliberately and with your eyes open to set aside the system which in the past has worked well, consider what a precedent you are setting, and what difficulties you

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    may be creating for yourselves. I cannot help thinking that before you by a very ingenious movement put aside the ordinary practice of Private Bill Legislation, and adopt this strong and special remedy over-riding the Standing Order and inserting a clause in the Bill which the Committee cannot consider, and on which they can call no evidence, you should have an overwhelming case.
    MR. MACARTNEY ()said, that in the absence, through illness, of his hon. Friend the Member for South Dublin (Mr. H. Plunkett), in whose constituency the townships lay, he opposed the Amendment on the general ground that the House was being asked to follow a course which had never, with the exception of two cases, by no means on all-fours with the present, been pursued by them before. Not a word had been said against the merits of the Bill. The case of Rathmines, to which allusion had been made, differed essentially from the measure before the House, since in it there was originally a Franchise Clause. In the Bill the right hon. Baronet opposite (Sir C. Dilke) found something to hang his arguments for the reduction of the franchise. To-day the right hon. Gentleman had culled from the Reports of the Commission over which he had presided a number of facts connected with the local sanitary administration of the Irish boroughs. Well, he (Mr. Macartney) did not deny that these were facts which were of most serious importance and deserved the attention of the House. He did not concur with the Report of the Commission when it said that the existing mischiefs were entirely due to the franchise. There were other causes. Did the right hon. Baronet mean to charge against the Commissioners of Blackrock and Kingstown the charges formulated against the general body of Municipal Bodies in Ireland in the Report of the Commission? He might say that in some degree he agreed with the Seconder of the Amendment with respect to the recommendations of the Committee on the Housing of the Poor, though not entirely; but, at the same time, he did not think the right hon. Baronet ought to have made on a small Private Bill the use he had made of the Report. If these great mischiefs had existed in these two townships—if the Commissioners were men who had an interest in insanitary buildings,
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    and derived profit from them, and neglected all the duties imposed on them by law in virtue of the office they enjoyed, surely there was ample opportunity for some of the ratepayers to go before the Committees in Parliament and make out the case which the right hon. Baronet had attempted to make by implication. The hon. Gentleman had said that the ratepayers of Blackrock were excluded—
    MR. CLANCY: Some of them.
    MR. MACARTNEY: Yes; some of them were excluded from occupying their proper position, either as electors or as representatives of electors. Surely the Bill had been duly formulated, and proper notice had been given to the ratepayers and inhabitants of Blackrock, so that if they had any grievances against the Town Commissioners they could have brought them before Parliament. He was not aware that any agitation had been got up against the Bill, which was absolutely necessary for the health and welfare of the inhabitants of the two townships, and the hon. and learned Member had not attempted to show that the Commissioners would act otherwise than for the advantage of those townships. Surely it was not quite fitting that the ratepayers of Blackrock should come before the House of Commons now to ask to have done for them what they ought to have done for themselves? With regard to the Belfast Drainage Bill, he would remind the House that that also was far from being on all-fours with the present Bill, and the contention of the hon. Member for North Kerry on that occasion was that the promoters of the Belfast Bill were trying to carry a measure which would be for the benefit of some portion of the inhabitants of Belfast, and it was upon the accusations he made against the Corporation of Belfast that he founded his demand for the reduction of the franchise in that city.
    MR. SEXTON: My case was that the Corporation of Belfast did not represent the ratepayers, and that it ought to do so, bringing forward a large and expensive scheme such as that the House was then considering.
    MR. MACARTNEYsaid, that argument was undoubtedly used, but that alone it would not have convinced the House. The hon. Gentleman pushed his

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    contention further, and based his claim for the reduction of the franchise on the fact that there was a large and poor proportion of the ratepayers of Belfast, which was inimical to a certain proportion of the scheme, yet which was not adequately represented on the Town Council. No allegation of that nature was made by the hon. Gentleman the proposer of the Amendment now before the House. Moreover, he would point out that the Drainage Board to be constituted under the Bill would not be elected under a £4 or an £8 franchise, but that it would be appointed by the representative Bodies of Kingstown and Blackrock. Upon that Board the Irish Local Government Board would have an ex officio member, who would be a sufficient guardian of the public purse, and would prevent these gentlemen from acting against the interests of the townships.
    MR. CLANCY: Blackrock is the only township in the County of Dublin where this franchise exists.
    MR. MACARTNEYsaid, that he was not responsible for the anomalies of the franchise in the County of Dublin. As there was no general rule for the election of Town Commissioners all over Ireland, the proposal of the hon. and learned Member would only add one more anomaly to those which already existed. The Town Commissioners of Kingstown had promoted this Bill jointly with the Blackrock Commissioners, and he had received a letter from the Town Clerk of Kingstown declaring in effect that the Commissioners of that township had taken no action, directly or indirectly, for the insertion of such new clauses as the hon. and learned Member now desired. If the Amendment were agreed to the result would be that the Bill, which was of the highest possible importance to the inhabitants of Blackrock and Kingstown, and had received the unanimous support of the Boards of both townships, and which, moreover, had not been opposed before the Committees, would be indefinitely hung up. He said this, not because the Commissioners of Blackrock had an objection to the general law dealing with the reduction of the franchise, but because the Blackrock Commissioners had no power under their Act to accept the proposal, which ought properly to be contained in a general and not in a Private Act of
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    Parliament. They had to give a certain notice for every specific proposition they desired to carry out in relation to their duty. That notice went before the ratepayers, and the work to be done had to be approved of, not only by the Board itself, but by the ratepayers who elected the Board. The commission they received from the ratepayers was only a commission in respect of the specific objects contained in the Bill; therefore, if the House yielded to the arguments of the hon. and learned Member who moved the Amendment—and he hoped it would not—the Bill against which no public meeting had been held in either township, and which was not opposed before the Committee, would be postponed indefinitely, not because the Commissioners themselves had a fundamental objection to it, but because they had no power to carry out the proposal.
    MR. SEXTON ()said, the hon. Gentleman who had just spoken had drawn attention to the fact that the Kingstown Commissioners did not oppose the Bill. But Kingstown already had a £4 franchise, which the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Clancy) asked for Blackrock; and Kingstown, therefore, being already in possession of what was asked for in favour of Blackrock, of course the former township had no particular reason to intervene against the Bill. He thought the hon. Member (Mr. Macartney) was in error as to his (Mr. Sexton's) attitude on the Belfast Bill. In all matters of substance there was a close and perfect parity between the present case and the case of Belfast. In the latter case an expenditure of £300,000 was proposed; and his contention was that, as the main body of the persons who contributed the rates in Belfast were excluded from the franchise, it was not expedient that the expenditure of such a large sum should be entrusted to such a Body, but to a more representative Body. That principle was accepted by the House and was carried into effect, and it was precisely the same principle which the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Clancy) advanced to-day. The Blackrock Commissioners wanted to borrow £50,000, and, seeing that the township included some 9,000 inhabitants, he thought that the House would agree with him that the sum was relative to a greater sum than was asked for in the

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    case of Belfast, and that the persons who contributed to the rates in Blackrock had a right to be admitted to the franchise, so as to be enabled to control the Local Body, and a moiety of the representation on the Drainage Board, by whom this money would be expended. With regard to the observations of the Chairman of Committees, he would point out that the House did not always accept his ruling where matters of public money arose, and such a case arose in 1886. He would further wish to point out that in the case of the Local Government (Ireland) Bill of 1881, which was promoted by the Tory Party, the main principle was that every person entitled to be a Parliamentary elector, who paid local rates, was entitled to exercise the franchise. Further, he might mention there was a Select Committee of the House, the Police and Sanitary Regulations Committee, which sat from year to year, which had power and instructions from the House to sanction provisions in Bills in excess of the general law, and, if the House of Commons gave such powers to a Committee, he did not see why the House itself should not do what it had instructed a Committee to do. He thought that the speech of the Chairman of Committees was a dry effort, not worthy, in his judgment, of any serious attention, to overpower the merit and substance of the case by resorting to technicality. His hon. Friend did not propose to insert in a Bill any clause which had reference to the nature of the duties of the Committee. It was not a matter in regard to which evidence need be required. If the speech of the Chairman of Committees were to be received as the foundation and basis of Private Bill Legislation in that House, he would venture to say that it would introduce an extremely vicious principle. It meant that the House was to diverge to a principle of renunciation in regard to Private Bills, that no matter how pressing the public interests might be that the House was to declare in advance that it would not consider such a matter. A more vicious principle, and one more contrary to the practice of the House of Commons in police and sanitary matters, he could not imagine. Here was a Board in a community of 9,000 persons representing some 300 persons out of an electorate of 500. The Parliamentary
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    electors of the district numbered l,200r and the local electors would number 1,200 if Blackrock were situated in any part of the United Kingdom but Ireland. The Board sat in camera. It spent the funds of the community in private, and it expelled from the Town Hall the leading ratepayer of the district. Finally, the skeleton list of 500 was revised by a gentleman who was Judge, jury, and executioner all in one, and who left a name or cut out a name as he pleased. The thing was fantastic and absurd. He could not defer even to the opinion of the Chairman of Committees when that right hon. Gentleman told him that, because of certain Rules, the House was not to interfere when it found that so fantastic a system of government was carried on. The Bill proposed to put a burden of £5,000 on the two communities, and he was there to say that he would take not only that, but every other, opportunity of affording the ratepayers a means of supervising the expenditure of their money. He could not admit that any Ride of the House should debar him from giving those who in any local community contributed to the local purse the power of electing the Body which expended the local rates.
    MR. PLUNKET ()said, his principal reason for interposing in the Debate was that his hon. Friend who sat for the Division of Dublin County, in which Blackrock was situated, was not able to be present. He entirely agreed with the argument the Chairman of Committees had put forward, and would only submit to the House one consideration in support of what the right hon. Gentleman had said. If the precedent of the Belfast Bill was to be sustained and probably pressed further on other occasions, might not some objector to a Bill who had brought forward all the objections he could before the Private Bill Committee carry out his purpose, in defiance of the will of the locality and in the teeth of the Report of the Committee, by getting some friend in the House to introduce into the discussion of the Bill some matter of public policy by which he could snatch a Party Division? This was not only a possibility, but a strong probability, and it would be a total contravention of the whole principle on which Private Business was conducted in the House of Commons. The

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    present proposal would carry further than it had over before been attempted to carry the principle which was unfortunately established in the Belfast case. The hon. Member for North Dublin (Mr. Clancy) said that Kingstown, which was to take a share in carrying out the drainage system, had one franchise, while Blackrock had another. It had already been pointed out that the real Governing Body was not to be elected by the ratepayers under the provisions of this Bill. However this might be, the Kingstown township, which for a long time opposed this scheme, were so convinced by the discussion the Bill received before the Lords that they had joined the Blackrock Commissioners in urging its speedy passage. The question of franchise was not raised in any way whatever in the Bill before the House. There was no complaint whatever about the management of the township as regarded sanitation or anything else of the kind except with respect to the outfall of the drainage into the sea, and that defect this Bill sought to remedy. He hoped the Chief Secretary for Ireland would advise the House not to stop the further progress of the Bill, because it was absolutely certain that the Commissioners who were promoting the measure had no authority to give assent, and would give no assent, to the proposal which had been made, so that the result of carrying the Instruction would be the loss of a Bill which had involved great expense and trouble to those who had put it forward.
    THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. J. MORLEY,): My hon. and learned Friend who moved this Instruction must be aware that with every word he said on the merits of his proposal I am in full and entire accord. If his account of the franchise of Blackrock is true, I am sorry to say it is true also of too many other places in Ireland. The facts have long been well known to me, and I am entirely in agreement with my hon. and learned Friend in desiring to see a more rational system adopted in reference to these local franchises. The anomalies he pointed out are, as he said, gross, and call for remedy, but, at the same time, I must repeat now what I said some time ago in reference to the Rathmines and Rathgar Bill. Is it worth while, in trying to effect a reform, great as it
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    would be, for the sake, I would say, of making a demonstration—because it would not come to much more than that—in favour of a reformed franchise in Blackrock, to run the risk or almost to face the certainty of losing this Bill which my hon. and learned Friend himself agrees, upon the merits, is a Bill that is required by the condition of the township? It would be impossible for anyone who knows anything about this neighbourhood not to be aware that the demand for the creation of a drainage system there is an urgent demand, and one which every citizen of the County of Dublin, and especially of the City of Dublin, has a direct interest in. My hon. Friend the Member for North Kerry (Mr. Sexton), who made an ingenious speech in defence of the Amendment, referred to the position of the House in reference to the Police and Sanitary Committee, and he found it convenient to suppose that there was some analogy between the course recommended now by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for North Dublin (Mr. Clancy) and the practice of the House in referring certain matters to that Committee. But my hon. Friend forgets that the Police and Sanitary Committee was instituted not so much for doing things as for preventing things being done.
    MR. SEXTON: Or sanctioning things.
    MR. J. MORLEY: I agree; but the object of the House was to take can that certain things should not be done without having a special Report and calling the special attention of the House to the matter. I think that disposes of that part of the question. Much has been made of the precedent of Belfast. There is, however, this great difference between the Belfast case and the present case: that this is a mandatory Instruction to the Committee. In the Belfast case the Instruction was not mandatory.
    SIR C. W. DILKE: In the case of the Belfast Bill the House itself put the clauses in on Report. There is now a Standing Order that prevents that being done.
    MR. CLANCY: I explained that the reason why I did not adopt the course of moving a new clause was that it would be out of Order.
    MR. J. MORLEY: But, as my right hon. Friend (Sir C. Dilke) points out, the Standing Order was passed after the Belfast precedent was established. Why was it passed? It was in order to prevent anyone taking the course which my hon. and learned Friend now seeks to take. Therefore, I think that the more the Belfast precedent is examined the less will be thought of it as a precedent for a case of this kind. The present proposal does what the Belfast proposal did not do. It introduces an entirely new element into the Bill. It is proposed to insert in the Bill an entirely new idea, and, if I may say so, a heterogeneous matter. I do not agree with the view expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for North Kerry in reference to the argument of the Chairman of Committees. I think my right hon. Friend's speech was a very valuable reminder to the House of the conditions that would be introduced into Private Bill practice if this Instruction were assented to by the House. My right hon. Friend (Mr. Mellor) said that the Committee would not have power to hear counsel or to take evidence.
    MR. CLANCY: Why should they?
    MR. J. MORLEY: My hon. Friend asks why should they. Why have a Committee at all?
    MR. CLANCY: I would not have a Private Bill Committee if I could help it.
    MR. J. MORLEY: Well, I was rather alarmed at the argument of my hon. and learned Friend when he said time would be lost and endless discussion would take place. I quite agree that there are occasions when you may have discussions too indefinitely prolonged. I am not at all averse to brief discussions, but still I was alarmed at the rather supercilious treatment of the value of discussion by my hon. and learned Friend. I think that, as my right hon. Friend the Chairman of Committees said, it would be a rather strong order if the House were to accept a change in a local measure without resorting in any way to the method by which we obtain local opinions on the subject. I take the point I put earlier in the Session—namely, that it is not worth while, for the sake of making a demonstration against gross and intolerable anomalies, to lose a solid and practical advantage. I am sorry to say that I cannot support the Instruction.
    MR. J. O'CONNOR ()said, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary seemed to imagine that both Blackrock and Kingstown needed this Bill, and were in urgent need of it. Did the right hon. Gentleman know that the Kingstown Commissioners passed a unanimous resolution to oppose the measure? The Kingstown Commissioners had been dragged into this drainage scheme by Blackrock, and had been obliged to submit to it. The Kingstown people had a good system of drainage, which cost them £15,000, and they required a different system altogether from that which had been forced upon them by the Blackrock Commissioners. The Chairman of Committees had said that this was a very serious case. It was a very serious case for the people of Blackrock, who were involved in a very heavy expenditure without having had a voice in the decision of the ease. The majority of the people of Blackrock had no voice in the transaction of the business of their township. Some six years ago there was a proposal to establish a free library in the township, and because it would add 1d. in the £1 to the taxation, a majority of 300 out of 500 electors refused to apply the Libraries Act to the township of Blackrock. The roads which ran by the terraces in Blackrock were well attended to, but the dwellings of the poor were in the most unsanitary condition, and there were slums and back lanes in Blackrock which were a perfect disgrace to civilisation. In the first place, then, they had it that the Kingstown Town Commissioners had opposed this Bill; and, in the second place, they had no reason to believe that the people, if they had a voice in electing their Commissioners, would have supported a drainage scheme which involved them in a considerable amount of expense while the township was already heavily laden with debt. He hoped the House would vote for his hon. Friend's Motion, and enable the people of Blackrock to decide whether or not this drainage scheme should be carried without their consent if the franchise was reduced from £8 to £4.
    THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. E. Gladstone,)appealed to the House to allow the discussion to close. In order to comply with the law, it was necessary

    1337
    to take the Report of the Vote on Account at that Sitting.
    MR. DANE ()—[Cries of "Divide!"]
    Mr. Bodkin rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."
    MR. SPEAKER: I trust that the hon. Member for Fermanagh will bear in mind what has fallen from the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister.
    MR. DANEsaid, that after what had fallen from the Prime Minister it was not his intention to stand between the House and the decision of this question; but, having regard to what had fallen from the hon. Member for Wicklow, he should like to say a word or two.
    MR. Crilly rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."
    MR. SPEAKER: That Motion has already been made.
    MR. DANEsaid, the question was whether this peremptory Instruction should be sent to the Committee, the result of which would be to prevent the Bill becoming law this Session. The measure would get rid of a long-standing grievance. [Cries of "Divide!"] The hon. Member for Wicklow had said that the Kingstown Commissioners had passed a resolution in opposition to the Bill. That was quite true up to a certain point; but the hon. Member had forgotten to mention to the House that, although the Kingstown Commissioners had passed that resolution, and although they had lodged a Petition against it, they subsequently withdrew that Petition. It remained for the House to say whether it would prevent the 27,000 inhabitants of these townships from getting rid of their sewage, which, at the present time, was a source of great danger to the public health.
    Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    The House divided:—Ayes 98; Noes 107.—(Division List, No. 255.)
    Words added.
    Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.
    Bill re-committed to the former Committee.
    Ordered, That it be an Instruction to the Committee that they do insert new Clauses providing for the assimilation of the rated occupation franchise for township elections in Black-rock township to that now existing in Kingstown township, including the provisions for joint occupation votes, and for an annual revision of the list of township voters in the said township.—(Mr. Clancy.)

  NEW WRIT.
  For the Borough of Hereford, v. William Henry Grenfell, esquire, Chiltern Hundreds.—(Mr. Marjoribanks.)
QUESTIONS.

  STORAGE RESERVOIRS IN EGYPT.
  MR. BRYNMOR JONES (): I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can state when the Report on Storage Reservoirs in Egypt, to which Her Majesty's Agent and Consul General has referred in his Report, March, 1893, page 14, will be published by the Egyptian Government; and whether the Government will consider the advisability of requesting Her Majesty's Agent and Consul General at Cairo to communicate so much of it as may affect British interests to Her Majesty's Government at the earliest convenient time, with a view to its being laid upon the Table of the House?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir E. GREY,): Page 15 of the Report from Her Majesty's Agent and Consul General shows that the Report is not expected to be ready till the spring of 1894. The interests involved are Egyptian, and there does not appear to be any reason for incurring the expense of laying the scheme, or part of it, before Parliament, the question to be considered being of a highly technical nature, only to be properly dealt with by experts.

  FOREIGN-MADE ANNIVERSARY CARDS.
  COLONEL HOWARD VINCENT (): I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if the Law Officers of the Crown have yet given their opinion as to the legality of the admission to this country of masses

  1339
  of birthday and other anniversary cards, pictures, and religious tokens printed in Germany, without any notification of such fact save on the outside band of a large packet?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. MUNDELLA,): The Commissioners of Customs are taking the necessary steps to obtain the Opinion of the Law Officers for their own guidance, but it has not yet been received.
  COLONEL HOWARD VINCENT: Will the right hon. Gentleman lay the Opinion, when received, on the Table of the House?
  MR. MUNDELLA: No, Sir; it is not customary to do that.

  THE AMERICANS AND PAUPER EMIGRATION.
  COLONEL HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade when the long-promised Report of the Commissioners sent to the United States to see how Americans returned pauper candidates for admission to the Republic to this country will be laid before Parliament; and if, having regard to the increasing number of Englishmen unable to find employment in the Metropolis and elsewhere in Great Britain owing to the continuance and aggravation of the 12 months' depression, Her Majesty's Government intend to propose any limitation on the wholesale immigration of foreign competitors?
  MR. MUNDELLA: The two Reports referred to were presented yesterday, and will, I hope, be circulated during the present month, and the Labour Department has one in preparation which will shortly follow. Pending the consideration of these Reports, I think it is hardly desirable to make any statement on the subject.
  COLONEL HOWARD VINCENT: When will the Reports be issued?
  MR. MUNDELLA: Some day during the present month. They are in the printer's hands.

  TEACHERS' SALARIES IN IRELAND.
  MR. SEXTON (): I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether, under the operation of the Irish Education Act of 1892, the teachers of small schools maintaining an average attendance of 20 and
  1340
  upwards are entitled to third-class salary; and what provision has been made in pursuance of that Act to improve the remuneration of teachers of small schools?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. J. Morley,): Previous to the passing of the Irish Education Act, 1892, no teacher of a school having an average daily attendance of less than 30 pupils was entitled to a class salary. Such schools were paid only by a capitation grant. Since the passing of the Act those of the small schools having averages from 20 to 30 are paid third-class salary, together with 20 per cent. upon such salary, and the residual capitation grant, which amounts to 4s. per pupil. The improvement of the incomes of schools with average of 20 to 30 is represented by the excess of the class salary and the other advantages just named. The still smaller schools having an average of less than 20, in addition to the capitation allowance which they had hitherto been receiving, have obtained a special capitation allowance of 3s. 6d. per pupil, together with the residual capitation grant.

  HARBOUR AND PIER ACCOMMODATION IN NORTH KERRY.
  MR. SEXTON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, with regard to an intimation given last year by the Congested Districts Board, whether that Board has yet resolved to provide any harbour or pier in North Kerry, or has carried into effect its intention to hold public inquiries in North Kerry for the purpose of taking evidence with reference to the several schemes for piers and harbours on that part of the Western Coast?
  MR. J. MORLEY: The question of harbour or pier accommodation along the coast of Kerry has engaged the very careful attention of the Congested Districts Board; but no decision has yet been arrived at in the matter. The hon. Gentleman will readily understand that the matter is one which requires careful handling in view of the limited amount of funds at the Board's disposal and the many other demands on its resources. There appears to be some misapprehension regarding the latter part of the question, as I am informed both by the Congested Districts Board and the In-

  1341
  spectors of Fisheries that no such undertaking has been given so far as either of these Departments is concerned.

  CUSTOMS AND INLAND REVENUE WAREHOUSES IN IRELAND.
  MR. JACKSON (): I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury what is the number of the Customs and Inland Revenue warehouses in Ireland; how many of them are under the control of the Customs and Inland Revenue Departments respectively; how many are jointly used by the two Departments; and how many, if any, are the property of the Government?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Sir J. T. HIBBERT,): I am informed that there are in Ireland 195 general duty free warehouses under the control of the Inland Revenue (exclusive of warehouses on distillery premises), and 55 warehouses under the control of the Customs. None are used jointly by the two Departments. One Inland Revenue warehouse and four Customs warehouses are the property of the Government.
  MR. JACKSON: Has the right hon. Gentleman any objection to giving a list?
  SIR J. T. HIBBERT: I will show it to the right hon. Gentleman.

  TOBACCO RATES ON THE GREAT NORTHERN OE IRELAND RAILWAY.
  MR. SEXTON: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether communications have been addressed to him representing that the Great Northern of Ireland Railway Company are seeking to impose rates for tobacco over 20 per cent, in excess of the rates charged last year; and whether, if so, he has intervened?
  MR. MUNDELLA: Yes, Sir; and the Board of Trade have received from the Railway Company a letter on the subject, in which they deny the alleged increase. I shall be happy to show my hon. Friend a copy of the letter.

  ALLEGED ILLEGAL SEIZURE BY A SHERIFF'S BAILIFF IN KERRY.
  MR. SEXTON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that at 3 a.m. on the 30th ultimo a Sheriff's bailiff, named John Daly, made an illegal
  1342
  seizure of cattle, the property of Patrick Casey, a tenant of Mr. D. O'Connell, at Feeromoyle, County Kerry; that the bailiff, on being called upon to exhibit his authority, assaulted the tenant and his son, who, for acting in self-defence, were arrested, taken in custody to Cahirciveen, 10 miles distant, detained there in the bridewell for two days, bail being refused, and finally discharged at the Petty Sessions on the following day, on the ground that the seizure was illegal; whether it was legal to place the cattle, not in a public pound, but in a private building, the property of the Sheriff's bailiff, and to detain them after the seizure had been declared illegal; and whether the police, before affording protection to the bailiff, adopted any means to satisfy themselves whether he was authorised to make the seizure?
  MR. J. MORLEY: I have called for a Report on this question, but have not yet received it. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will be good enough to repeat the question on Monday next.

  CHEMICAL WORKERS.
  MR. HERBERT LEWIS (): I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether a Departmental Committee has been appointed to consider the conditions under which chemical workers carry on their employment; and, if so, whether he will state the terms of Reference, and when the Committee may be expected to present their Report?
  MR. CHANNING (): Before the right hon. Gentleman answers the question, may I also ask him if he is in a position to say what progress has been made by the Departmental Committee inquiring into dangerous and unhealthy industries, such as the white lead?
  The SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. ASQUITH,): Yes, Sir; it is the fact that such a Committee has been appointed. The terms of Reference require the Committee to deal with the matter both generally and in the case of alkali works and the manufacture of bichromate and chromium compounds, with particular reference to the following points:—(1) How far these manufactures, as at present carried on, injuriously affect the health of the workpeople, and how far

  1343
  the injurious effects depend upon the age and sex of the operatives; (2) what means can be adopted to abate the injurious effects of the manufacture; (3) what special regulations should be adopted to protect vats and other dangerous places and utensils used in the manufacture? As regards the date when the Committee may be expected to present their Report, I can only say that the field of the inquiry is an extensive one. Much valuable information has been obtained at Widnes and St. Helens; but the Committee still propose to visit such important centres as Flintshire, Glasgow, Northwich, and Newcastle, and therefore I do not think their Report can reasonably be expected until next month. In answer to the hon. Member for East Northamptonshire, a Committee is inquiring into the white lead and kindred industries. It is making an extensive investigation, and will, I hope, report in a very short time.

  JOHN WYNNE'S CHARITY.
  MR. HERBERT LEWIS: I beg to ask the Parliamentary Charity Commissioner is he aware that the Trustees of John Wynne's Charity, notwithstanding the express instructions of the Charity Commissioners, are still refusing to allow parishioners to inspect the accounts of the Charity; and what steps the Commissioners intend to take to immediately compel the Trustees to disclose the accounts of the Charity?
  THE PARLIAMENTARY CHARITY COMMISSIONER (Mr. T. E. ELLIS,): The Commissioners are without information, other than that derived from the hon. Member himself, that the Trustees of John Wynne's Charity still refuse to comply with the provisions of the law relative to the production of the accounts of Parochial Charities, to which their attention was called in a letter addressed to the rector on behalf of the Trustees on July 13. The Commissioners have since addressed a second letter to the rector, asking to be informed whether the above-mentioned provisions have been complied with. The further steps to be taken by the Commissioners will depend on the nature of his reply to this communication. In case the reply of the
  1344
  rector is unsatisfactory, the Commissioners will make an order for the due production of the accounts.

  HAULBOWLINE DOCKYARD.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN (): I beg to ask the Civil Lord of the Admiralty whether he is aware that the 87 men lately discharged from Haul-bowline Dockyard are now out of work; whether he is aware that the breakwater behind the Dockyard has been left in a half-finished condition; and whether the Admiralty will consider the desirability of giving much-needed employment by completing this necessary structure; and also, in view of the scarcity of hay, of finding profitable employment for the unemployed workmen in cutting and saving the grass at present growing over the Haulbowline Docks?
  THE CIVIL LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. E. ROBERTSON,): (a.) It has not been practicable to reemploy the 87 men lately discharged from Haulbowline Dockyard; but a few of them will probably be re-entered shortly, as found necessary. The numbers-employed by the Admiralty from time to-time depend on the new works and repairs in progress, for which provision is made in the Annual Estimates, (b.) The work of covering the earth-banks-behind the Dockyard with a stone face has been partially carried out, and there remains about one-fourth of the work to be done when funds are available. This service is not of an urgent nature, and has had to give way to more pressing claims, owing to want of funds, (c.) Profitable employment could not be found in cutting the grass on the "Extension Works," as it is not considered worth saving.
  MR. FLYNN (): May I ask whether the amount provided in the Annual Estimates will be spent within 12 months on this Dockyard?
  MR. E. ROBERTSON: That is certainly the intention?

  BOGUS CLUBS IN DUBLIN.
  MR. MAURICE HEALY (): I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether, in view of the recent disclosures in the Dublin Police Courts as to the mischief being done by bogus clubs, he will take steps to secure the extension to Ireland

  1345
  of the Registration of Clubs Bill now before the House?
  MR. J. MORLEY: My attention has been drawn to the subject. I have not had time to examine the Clubs Registration Bill sufficiently close to enable me to say whether its provisions should be extended to Ireland. Perhaps the hon. Member will repeat the question in a week's time.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL (): Cannot these clubs be put down by a strict enforcement of the existing law?
  MR. J. MORLEY: I understand that everything possible is done by the police.

  ELEMENTARY EDUCATION ACT, 1891, SECTION 4.
  MR. T. LEGH (): I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education if he will state the exact meaning attached by the Education Department to the words "educational benefit" in Section 4 of the Elementary Education Act of 1891?
  THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (Mr. ACLAND,): I cannot take upon myself to give any further definition of the words used in the Act of Parliament referred to. The hon. Member is aware that the schools which come under this section are very few in number. I think each case must be settled on its merits, in accordance with a reasonable interpretation of the question to be decided—namely, whether the charging of fees or the increase of fees is, or is not, for the educational benefit of a particular district.
  MR. BARTLEY (): May I ask whether it is a fact that when a higher fee is charged in some schools in a district it is generally for higher-class instruction? Would not that be regarded as "educational benefit" under the section?
  MR. ACLAND: The question of educational benefit does not rest on that alone; and I am bound to say that the example set by Birmingham, in making its two admirable higher-grade schools free, cannot but be considered as for the educational benefit of the inhabitants of that town.
  MR. BARTLEY: Does not this clause evidently contemplate that a higher fee shall be charged in some cases, and, therefore, give the Vice President discretion to permit it?
  MR. ACLAND: There is no question of permitting schools now in existence. The point only arises in the case of proposed new arrangements as to schools.

  ANGLO-GERMAN FRONTIER IN AFRICA.
  MAJOR DARWIN (): I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the delimitation of the Anglo-German frontier from the Coast to Kilma-njaro is yet accomplished; and, if so, if he will state the general terms of the arrangement; and whether he will lay the Papers in regard thereto upon the Table?
  SIR E. GREY: The agreement has been signed, and will be laid upon the Table as soon as the map attached to it can be prepared.

  THE PETERHEAD RIOTS.
  MR. RENSHAW (): I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether he is aware that the Swedish steamers Dagrnar and Gelfe have been compelled to leave the ports of Fraserburgh and Peterhead without discharging their cargoes; whether it is the case that no efficient protection has been afforded by the Burgh Authorities; and whether any, and if so what, steps have been taken by Her Majesty's Government to secure the protection of those in charge of the steamers and enable them to discharge their cargoes?
  THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Sir G. TREVELYAN,): The Burgh Fiscal of Peter-head telegraphs to-day that no attempt was made to land barrels; that coopers and others expecting barrels to be landed struck work and gathered to oppose landing; that an attempt to pull one steamer out was stopped by the police; that beyond this no violence or threats were reported to him or to the police; that the Magistrates offered the owners of the cargoes all necessary police protection, if the cargoes were to be landed, but that the owners of their own accord removed the steamers to the bay, and that the steamers have since sailed. I shall obtain fuller information, but, thus far there does not appear to be any

  1347
  ground for supposing that the Local Authorities, with whom the duty of preserving the peace primarily rests, will not perform that duty.

  WORKS ON THE SUCK.
  COLONEL NOLAN (): I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if the works on the Suck are now approaching completion; if the Government have already contributed the money voted for the improvement of the Suck by this House; and if they will endeavour to see this useful work completed?
  SIR J. T. HIBBERT: Yes, Sir; the works are now approaching completion. The amount provided in the Estimates for the current year will make the total amount advanced £39,500. This will leave £10,500 still to be contributed by the Government out of the £50,000 Grant in Aid. This £10,500 will be provided in a future Vote.

  BRITISH WAR VESSELS AT BANGKOK.
  SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT (): I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether Her Majesty's war vessels Pallas, Pigmy, and Swift have withdrawn from the mouth of the Menam and outside the limits of the blockade in consequence of directions from the French Admiral Humann; and what British men-of-war remain at Bangkok for the protection of British subjects and British commerce? Can the right hon. Gentleman also state whether the blockade has been raised?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Sir U. KAY-SHUTTLE-WORTH,): So far as is known, the Linnet remains at Bangkok. A telegram has been received from her dated Bangkok, 3rd August, stating "Blockade raised." No information has been received as to the movements of the Pallas and Swift. The Pigmy is not off the Menam River, so far as is known, but by last advices was at Singapore.
  SIR E. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT: Can the right hon. Gentleman inform us whether any demand was made for the withdrawal of our ships from certain limits under this "pacific blockade"?
  SIR E. GREY: Perhaps I may be allowed to answer the question. We are informed that no demand was made by the French Admiral that British war vessels should leave Bangkok, and their removal outside the blockade limits would never have been permitted by Her Majesty's Government.

  SUPERANNUATION OF ELEMENTARY TEACHERS.
  SIR R. TEMPLE (): I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether he will afford particulars regarding the Official Committee to report on the plan already proposed for the superannuation of elementary teachers, the names of the gentlemen who are to compose it, and the exact terms of the Reference?
  MR. ACLAND: The Committee will consist of two gentlemen, MR. Kekewich and Mr. Tucker, representing the Education Department; one, Mr. Spring Rice, representing the Treasury, and two actuaries—Mr. Sutton, of the Friendly Societies Office, and Mr. Finlaison, of the National Debt Office. The terms of the Reference are as follows:—
  "To consider and report upon alternative methods of establishing such system, and the form which it should take both generally and in detail, and to make suggestions as to the conditions, amount, and limits of the contributions by the State, and the control and management of the Superannuation Fund. The Committee should have special regard to the evidence taken, and the recommendations made, by the Select Committee of the House of Commons appointed to consider the best system of providing for the superannuation of public elementary teachers in England and Wales, as embodied in the Report of that Committee, dated the 27th May, 1892."

  ORDNANCE SURVEY IN IRELAND.
  MR. BUTCHER (): I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the number of Civil assistants employed in connection with the Ordnance Survey in Ireland is about 245, and the number of labourers employed in that connection is about 120; and whether, in the event of the Government of Ireland Bill, 1893, becoming law, it is proposed that these Civil assistants and labourers shall be in the employment of the Imperial Government or of the Irish Government; and, if of the

  1349
  Irish Government, whether any provision has been made by the Government of Ireland Bill with a view of providing pensions or gratuities to the above-mentioned persons?
  MR. J. MORLEY: The number of men employed on the Survey in Ireland comprises 36 Civil assistants, 366 temporary Civil assistants, and 198 labourers. These persons are officers in the Public Service within the meaning of Clause 25 of the Bill, serving in Ireland, and if not retained in the Imperial Service they will be entitled to continue during the transitional period, unless they either resign or are removed, and if they resign or are removed they will be entitled to the pensions or gratuities provided by the clause.

  THE INDIAN BUDGET.
  MR. MACFARLANE (): I beg, in pursuance of private notice, to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, as it appears improbable that the Indian Budget can be adequately discussed at this late period of the Session, he will consent to postpone the discussion to the Autumn Session?
  MR. BARTLEY: Will the right hon. Gentleman at the same time name the date for the commencement of the Autumn Session?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. E. Gladstone,): My hon. Friend opposite wants to take too many fences at once. I cannot give any opinion as to the exact date of the Indian Budget.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  SUPPLY—REPORT.
  Resolution [3rd August] reported.
  SUPPLY—REPORT.

    CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DE- PARTMENTS, 1893–4.
    (THIRD VOTE ON ACCOUNT).
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That a further sum, not exceeding £2,111,500, be granted to Her Majesty, on account of the Charges for the Civil Services and Revenue Departments for the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1894."—[See page 1102.]
    Resolution read a second time.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
    MR. T. W. RUSSELL ()called attention to several matters connected with the administration of affairs in Ireland. He thanked the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for affording him this opportunity, and said he would endeavour to repay the right hon. Gentleman's courtesy by brevity. He wished, first, to direct the Committee's attention to a rather serious disturbance at Bundoran, in Donegal, on Sunday week. The Evangelisation Society, an Organisation composed of ministers and members of various Protestant Churches, had been conducting a mission in the North of Ireland. On Sunday week the Society sent two of its agents to Bundoran, a seaside place much frequented by visitors. The Society had a tent put up in a private field, by the permission of Mr. James Hamilton. Before the arrival of the two evangelists a Nationalist newspaper published a leading article, in which it was said—
    "The visit of the evangelists to begin a propaganda has aroused deep indignation among the Roman Catholics, who have made up their minds, whether rightly or wrongly, that they will not permit this fresh insult to their feelings or their religion."
    He did not know what was meant by "fresh insult," because the evangelists had not been in the locality before, and nothing like an insult was intended either to Roman Catholics or any other portion of the community. Few, if any, Catholics attended the services in the tent. It was asserted that when the people were leaving the parish church they were assailed and assaulted by a mob of over 1,000 persons, who had been brought from Gleneagh and the mountains for the purpose of doing what the Nationalist paper had advised—namely, interfering with religious liberty under the pretence of not permitting a "fresh insult." The Rev. Mr. Templeman and others were assailed and assaulted on their way to the tent. When the mob were remonstrated with by a gentleman of some position in the town, they answered that they had made up their minds that they would not permit this sort of thing. The tumult lasted something like an hour in the public streets, and the town was in an excited state all night. The normal

    1351
    strength of the police force was 17 officers, and others had to be called in. He gladly admitted that the Chief Secretary had taken every step in his power to prevent anything like a recurrence of these transactions; but he was anxious to direct attention to the language of the newspaper, which said that proceedings which were perfectly legal and proper could not be permitted any longer. Surely these men had a right to preach the Gospel in the open air? Protestants were not prepared to accept the liberty which the Nationalist newspaper and mob in Bundoran were willing to concede to them—the liberty of meeting within four walls to carry on religious services. Protestants had a right to meet on private property, as in this case, and to erect a tent, and they had no right to be restricted by Nationalist feeling, and, moreover, they had no intention to submit to such restriction. Besides, this was not the first time that such an occurrence had taken place. His hon. Friend the Member for South Londonderry had informed him that some time ago a similar body of men were assailed in the same way. There had only been three arrests made, though this was not all the enforcement of the law they desired to see. He would tell those mountaineers of Gleneagh that Home Rule had not passed yet. What were these men doing? [Cries of "Go to Eastbourne!"] He no more approved of what was done at Eastbourne than he did of the proceedings at Bundoran; but the shouts of the men from Gleneagh were for Home Rule, and they cheered for the Prime Minister. That was the idea of religious and civil liberty they had to expect when the right hon. Gentleman had got his way. The Prime Minister had not got his way yet; they were still under Imperial control and Imperial protection, and they asked that these evangelists should receive that protection. The Chief Secretary ought to have known, and his officers in Bundoran ought to have known, from the information contained in this newspaper and from the offensive placard with which the town was posted in the name of these evangelists—a placard for which no Protestant was responsible—that these disturbances were likely to take place, especially as they had occurred
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    under similar circumstances in other parts of the country. Before he left Donegal he wished to direct the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to another thing in connection with that county. The right hon. Gentleman knew, no doubt, the circumstances of the murder of District Inspector Martin at Gweedore. Martin's widow was allowed compensation by the Grand Jury—he forgot the amount, but it was a considerable sum—for the murder of her husband. That sum was to be levied off certain baronies of the County of Donegal; but the barony of Gweedore, in which the murder took place, had not only not paid a penny of the widow's claim, but had not paid a penny of county cess for some years. The people simply declined to pay. The matter was before the Grand Jury at the last Assizes. The Grand Jury could not get a collector to undertake the duty of collecting the county cess in the barony of Gweedore because the claim for the widow of District Inspector Martin was involved in it. The collectors evidently considered it dangerous to life to attempt its collection. The Grand Jury had a long correspondence with the Executive in Dublin on the matter. The Executive stated that the Grand Jury had not allowed a sufficient poundage or commission. The Grand Jury replied that they had offered the highest poundage or commission that the law allowed. They requested the Executive to do what was done by the late Government in the case of the compensation of Constable Leahy at Mitcholstown—that was, that the warrants should be addressed to the Constabulary and the cess collected by them. This was refused by the Government, and so a deadlock was reached. Did the Chief Secretary intend to maintain that position? Were those people—many of whom were on the ground on the Sunday that Martin was murdered—to escape paying this compensation to the widow of the murdered man and all other county cess as well? The third point to which he desired to direct the attention of the Chief Secretary was some recent proceedings in the County of Clare. [Ironical laughter from Nationalist Members.] He was aware that hon. Gentlemen opposite thought that Clare was a most excellent place, and that the people of Clare were the most law-abiding

    1353
    people in the country. But that was not the view of the Chief Secretary, because the right hon. Gentleman held that the state of Clare was a disgrace to civilisation. He did not wish to repeat the old story of crime and outrage in Clare, but he desired to direct attention to what had taken place in Clare only the last week. There was a riot, or, at all events, an unlawful assembly at Bodyke. He was not going to say anything, and nothing would induce him to say anything, in favour of Colonel O'Callaghan, the landlord of that district. If the case of that landlord was to be fought in the House of Commons, he was not the man to fight it. But if the law were broken at Bodyke or elsewhere the officer of the law in that place had a clear duty to perform. Quite recently there was, what was admitted to be, an unlawful assembly, arising out of seizures for rent in the neighbourhood of Bodyke. Twelve men were arrested by the police on that occasion; they were brought up at the Petty Sessions of Tomgrauy, before two Resident Magistrates—but not under the Crimes Act—aud charged with having been part of this riotous assembly. The two Magistrates held that the prisoners ought to be returned for trial, as they were charged with an indictable offence. One of the Magistrates, Mr. Hodder, said that if the prisoners were tried in any other county in Ireland but Clare they would be sent for trial and would receive long periods of imprisonment. Mr. Hodder, whom he knew personally, was one of the most cautious and careful men that ever held the position of Resident Magistrate; and if Mr. Hodder said that, he was bound to believe that the case was not one that should be lightly dismissed. The Magistrates had said that there was a primâ facie case against these men, and that they ought to be returned for trial. What happened? The Police Inspector intervened, and said that that course had not been satisfactory in the past.
    MR. J. MORLEY: He denies having made such a statement.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid, it was quite impossible that all the newspapers should have invented a speech for the Police Inspector, and he thought it was high time that the policy of blaming the reporters should cease. The Police Inspector said that the procedure of re-
    1354
    turning men for trial had not been satisfactory in the past. He was right, whether he said it or not. Beyond all doubt this method of procedure had not been satisfactory in the past. It was beyond yea or nay that the only result in all the cases of agrarian crime which came before the Assizes was the discharge of the prisoners. In the case at Tomgrany the Police Inspector suggested that the men should be bound over to keep the peace. What did that action on the part of the Crown amount to? It amounted to this: that in all agrarian cases there should be no prisoners returned for trial. That mode of stopping the supply of criminals was certainly novel. It was laid down—probably by the Irish Attorney General or the Irish Solicitor General—that men guilty of agrarian offences in Clare were not to be sent to the Assizes, but were to be bound over under the ordinary law to keep the peace. That was a dangerous step to take in Clare. Of all the counties in Ireland Clare was the last place in which a new departure of that kind should be made, and he would look with some interest to the explanation which the Chief Secretary would give in the matter. He now came to another place —Limerick. The Chief Secretary had referred to the dark area of Clare, Limerick, and Kerry. Some weeks ago he brought under the notice of the Chief Secretary by a question a meeting of the National League and a meeting of the National Federation, in Limerick, both convened for the express purpose of protesting against some evicted land in the neighbourhood of the city being taken by a Mr. Bateman and by the representative of a Building Society for building purposes. Both meetings resolved that if the lauds were not given up circulars should be issued to the customers of Mr. Bateman, amongst the farmers of Limerick and Clare; and The Limerick Leader, the leading Nationalist organ of the locality, declared that if Mr. Bateman and his friends did not take this fair notice they would have to take the cost. Mr. Bateman and his friends did not take this notice, fair or unfair; they insisted on their legal right to take land in the neighbourhood of Limerick, and they continued to hold possession in spite of the Federation and the League. These rival Nationalist Organisations were as

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    good as their word. They both issued circulars directed to the customers of Mr. Bateman, who was a victualler or butcher in Limerick, and against the travellers of Messrs. Denny and Son, who were mixed up some way in the matter; and as the circulars had not the effect of inducing these men to give up the land, the Organisation had taken to posting boycotting notices on the walls. On the Sunday morning of last week about 2 o'clock two constables were out on duty. They found three men standing near a hoarding, or place where bills were posted, two of whom ran away, and they arrested the third. The man when arrested at once threw away a packet of papers, which were found to be boycotting notices. He was brought up at the Limerick Petty Sessions. There were nine Magistrates on the Bench. There was no question about the identity of the prisoner. In fact, no defence was raised. A letter was put in evidence. It was addressed to Samuel Frost, a boy in the employment of Mr. Bateman, whose duty it was to visit the disputed land to see after the stock. The letter was dated 3rd June and ran—
    "If you go out to Miss Morrison's land again, look out! Our city is not going to be disgraced by you grabbers; and, by God! if you go there again, there will be too much proof that you were there."
    Everyone who knew anything of Ireland knew that by that notice the young man's life was threatened. And yet, in spite of that threatening notice; in spite of this prisoner having been arrested with boycotting notices in his possession; in spite of their being no defence, this Bench of Nationalist Magistrates refused to send the case for trial. The man was discharged, and walked out of Court.
    An hon. Member: What was the charge?
    MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid, the charge was posting boycotting notices. But the Crown Solicitor stated that he attended to prosecute by direction of the Attorney General; and why the man was charged with posting the notices was a question the hon. Member would have to settle with The MacDermott. The Attorney General would not have directed the Crown Solicitor to prosecute unless there was an offence. And surely it was an offence to be found with boycotting notices near a hoarding from
    1356
    which the police had previously pulled down similar notices. No doubt the Chief Secretary would say—"What power have I over these Limerick Magistrates?" But his charge against the right hon. Gentleman was that he had deliberately divested himself of the power of dealing with offences of that kind. If the right hon. Gentleman only availed himself of the Act that he found on the Statute Book, and in operation when he came into Office, he would be able to have those prisoners in Clare and Kerry tried by two Resident Magistrates, and summarily awarded from one to six months' imprisonment. He would now briefly refer to the question of the classification of crime by the Irish Office, and also to some comments made upon it by the Judges at Assizes. He had asked the Chief Secretary the other day why the attempt to murder Mr. Blood should have been put down as intimidation. The right hon. Gentleman replied that the question was a very natural one, but that the fact of the matter was that the shot had been fired at such a distance that Mr. Blood could not have been injured by it, and that it could not, therefore, have been an attempt to murder. What were the facts? He had them in a letter from Clare written by a person who probably knew more of the case than anyone else. On the occasion when Mr. Blood was last fired at he was fired at from a Snider rifle at 400 yards distance, and the Chief Secretary said it was put down as intimidation because the shot could have no effect. In 1887 Mr. Blood was fired at from a Snider rifle at 500 yards distance, and it was put down as an attempt to murder. The right hon. Gentleman said that no change had been made in the classification of crime, notwithstanding the facts that in 1887 a shot fired at 500 yards distance was put down as an attempt to murder, while a shot fired in 1893 at 400 yards was put down as intimidation because, forsooth, it was fired at so great a distance. The right hon. Gentleman's classification might be the right one, but there was a change.
    MR. J. MORLEY: It is not my classification.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELL: Of course, I do not charge the right hon. Gentleman with having interested himself personally in this matter.
    MR. J. MORLEY: The men are the same, the principles are the same, and the practice is the same. I did not meddle in the matter one way or the other.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid, that the right hon. Gentleman must not say that, because he would have to meddle in the matter. The right hon. Gentleman was responsible for the government of Ireland. In his Charge to the Grand Jury at Maryborough, Mr. Justice O'Brien said that in the Return made to him by the Constabulary there was only one case of arson; but before the Grand Jury there were nine cases of malicious burning. Mr. Justice O'Brien did not say that there had been any change in the classification of crimes, but simply that the Police Returns did not accurately represent the facts. That was a perfectly legitimate statement to make. When this question was last before the House an hon. Gentleman had asked whether the English Judges had these Returns placed before them, and whether English Judges made charges of the kind. As a matter of fact, the English Judges had not these facts before them. They had the Chief Constables' Returns of the actual crime before them, and it was with that they dealt in their Charges to the Grand Juries. But in England the great bulk of the crime was made amenable, and in Ireland, in many counties, the great bulk of the crime was not made amenable. If the Judges in Ireland did not know what crimes had been committed in respect of which there were no prisoners before them, they would have nothing to go upon in addressing the Grand Jury on the actual condition of the county. The defence set up by the Chief Secretary was that these cases of burning were not entered on the Police Report unless the Constabulary were certain that they were malicious. But they must go to the Grand Jury for that question to be decided; and then it would be too late for the Judge to include them in his Charge, because the Judge would have gone away. The hon. Member for Shipley suggested that a number of people fired their own premises in order to get compensation. That would be a worse outrage than malicious burning, and at any rate it did not remove the cases from the list of crimes. Such cases ought to be on the sheet laid before the
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    Judge; and if they were placed on the sheet till the Grand Jury had decided whether or not they were malicious, they would never appear, for by that time the Assizes would have been over.
    MR. SEXTON: They are not agrarian outrages.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid, that might be, but all the same they ought to be on the Return. His contention was that the Judges, not finding these cases on the Returns, were justified in calling the attention of the Grand Jury to the fact. It was not fair for the Chief Secretary to charge the Judges—who had simply complained, as they had a right to do, that the Police Reports were not accurate—with attacking the Executive. They were doing nothing of the kind. At the Kilkenny Assizes there was a case which the Police Inspector had not put on the Return at all. There was a Unionist meeting. It was held at Waterford before those Assizes, was attended by the Rev. Mr. Power, the incumbent of Kilkenny Parish, and by two of his parishioners. Everyone would admit that they had a right to go to this meeting without being punished. But what happened? Mr. Power's church windows were broken, and boycotting notices were posted on the houses of the two parishioners, cautioning people to hold no intercourse with them. That was the freedom of opinion they had in certain parts of Ireland. The Police Inspector did not report a word of this to the Judge. He wished to protest against such tyranny. Were Unionists to be able to attend religious services and political meetings only by the consent and grace of the Nationalists? Some years ago he should have had the enthusiastic support of the present Chief Secretary in his protest.
    MR. J. MORLEY: Hear, hear!
    MR. T. W. RUSSELLasked why he had not that support now? The position he took up was not that there had been a change in the classification of crime since the Government came into Office. What he said was that the Irish Judges ought not to have been attacked by the Treasury Bench, as they were attacked, because they simply declared that the Returns laid before them by the Constabulary were not accurate representations of the facts. There was another matter to which he wished to

    1359
    refer. At the beginning of the Session the Chief Secretary made considerable changes in the constitution of Asylums Boards by putting on a considerable number of Roman Catholics. The right hon. Gentleman was attacked for his action. But he did not join in those attacks, as he believed the right hon. Gentleman to be perfectly justified by his defence that the Roman Catholics were not represented on those Boards according to their numbers. But he asked the right hon. Gentleman's attention to County Down. In that county there were 106,000 Presbyterians, 73,000 Roman Catholics, and 65,000 Protestant Episcopalians. According to the theory of the right hon. Gentleman, the Presbyterians ought to have had a majority on the County Asylums Board; but, while the Episcopalians had nine representatives and the Roman Catholics six, the Presbyterians had only two. Upon what theory had the right hon. Gentleman constructed that Board? Presumably it was because the Presbyterians were opponents of the Government that their representation was so small. He supposed it was thought the Presbyterians could be trampled on with impunity. But they could not. He asked the right hon. Gentleman also why it was that a loading man among the Presbyterians—Mr. R. S. Corbett, J.P.—and a Unionist candidate for South Down at the Election of 1886 was dismissed from the Asylums Board? The last question which he wished to raise he only brought forward from a sense of duty. He had done his best to have the matter settled outside the House, but he had failed. It was the case of one of the candidates for a Professorship in the Marlborough Street Training College, Dublin. Marlborough Street College was established very shortly after the National system of education was brought into existence, and for a very long time it was the only College where teachers could get trained. It was a strictly undenominational College. As years went on the denominationalists succeeded in getting Training Colleges of their own—two Roman Catholic and one Episcopalian. The College in Marlborough Street was left on its undenominational basis, and was largely attended by Presbyterians and Methodists. Quite recently Professor Joyce, who was at the head of
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    the College, resigned after a service of 50 years, and his resignation was viewed with regret by all concerned with education in Ireland. It became necessary to elect a successor, and a number of candidates came forward, but it was at last narrowed down to two. He did not know either the one or the other of their religious opinions. Against the moral character of one of these candidates Professors in the College made serious charges. The Board felt themselves compelled to order an investigation, which was held by the two secretaries of the Board. It was proved that Professor Joyce some 10 years ago declined to put this man over a class of girls in the drawing school, and left a Minute to that effect. Two National school teachers gave evidence that they had seen this man in a state of intoxication in the streets of Dublin with people he ought not to have been with. The secretaries acquitted him, and a Minute was passed by the Board to that effect. When he went to an election seven members of the Board voted for and seven against him. The Resident Commissioner, Sir Patrick Keenan, three ex-secretaries, and three other Commissioners voted for him. The Chief Baron, Lord Justice Fitzgibbon, and the Presbyterian and Methodist Commissioners voted against him. The matter came up again, and the votes were six to six. In the meantime the Presbyterian Church sent in a protest against his candidature, and a Presbyterian Commissioner who had voted for him refused to vote in his favour again. The election was then adjourned till October. This matter was first introduced into the House by a question by an hon. Member opposite. On the part of the Presbyterian Church he desired to say that, inasmuch as students of that Church, young men and young women, were attending this Training College, they could not consent to have a man against whom such charges had been made placed over the Institution. If he was, it would result in the breaking up of the College. Even supposing the man had been wrongly charged and that the case was one of suspicion, to put him over such an Institution would be nothing short of a calamity. This undenominational College had maintained its existence under difficulties; it had many opponents, even in the House of

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    Commons, and he desired that it should I not have to contend against this appointment, but that a Professor should be selected against whom nothing could be alleged. He had brought forward the case now because the election had been adjourned until October, when the House would not be sitting, and on behalf both of Presbyterians and Methodists he protested against this man being forced on the Institution by the Chief Commissioner.
    THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. J. MORLEY,): I think the last case mentioned by the hon. Member for South Tyrone is really a reductio ad absurdum of the principles on which be and his Section would desire the Irish Administration to be conducted. I am not responsible for the Marlborough Street Training College except in a very narrow Parliamentary sense. Anyone who is acquainted with the history of the relations between the Executive Government and the National Board, certainly from Mr. Forster's time downwards, is aware that the Executive Government as a rule, almost without exception, do not enter into the minute details of the working of those establishments. It would be perfectly impossible to carry on the working of those establishments, and leave the National Board with any free administrative power whatever, if the Chief Secretary or the Lord Lieutenant are to meddle in matters of this kind. Let the House understand what the hon. Member for South Tyrone has just done. Here is a man who is a candidate for a position in this Training College. Charges of an odious kind were brought against that gentleman—as the hon. Member said, the two Secretaries held a long inquiry, extending over four days, into those charges. The Report of those Secretaries, with, I presume, the evidence, was submitted to the Board, and at the end of it the 14 Commissioners present passed a resolution in these very words—
    "The Commissioners are satisfied of the innocence of this gentleman, and that no imputation rests upon his moral character."
    I pass no opinion upon the policy or expediency of choosing this gentleman,
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    but I do say that it is a matter for the deepest regret that any hon. Member in this House should think it right or fair to drag this candidate—who has, at all events, so far as the voting has yet gone, half the Board behind him—should drag him on to the floor of this House and expose this matter to the fierce light of Parliamentary discussion, while, at the same time, no Member of this House has any right to pronounce judgment up mi the man's conduct. I say it is a monstrous thing to seek the intervention of the House of Commons in an affair of this kind at this stage. The final decision of the Commissioners has to be taken in October, and it seems to me to be a monstrous thing to attempt to prejudice their decision by getting up a storm in the House of Commons against this gentleman, while, at the same time, no material is furnished on which the House can form a judgment.
    MR. SEXTON: Was the exonerating resolution passed without a division?
    MR. J. MORLEY: I am very glad my hon. Friend has put that question. The resolution was passed unanimously, though it is quite true that when the Board came to consider on the same occasion whom they should choose seven, voted against the gentleman in question and seven for him; but that division, for aught I know, bearing in mind the previous resolution, was on general grounds. The hon. Member has referred to the Resident Commissioner, and with bad taste, I think. All I can say is, I received, on last Saturday, an account from the Resident Commissioner himself of his share in the transaction, and I learn, that when this gentleman was first proposed Sir Patrick Keenan knew nothing whatever about these charges. I need not go into the question of the appointment. That is a matter for the National Board to determine. I can quite imagine they may feel that if the Presbyterian Church adheres to the resolution since passed, it may be open to doubt whether it would be politic to appoint this gentleman; but I hold that it would not be proper that, any Church, without producing any kind of evidence of the reasons upon which they found their

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    exclusion, should have the opportunity of preventing the Commissioners from choosing the man whom they think best fitted for the post. Now I will pass to the other matters which the hon. Member thought fit to raise in connection with the Irish Administration. The hon. Member began with a reference to certain disturbances at Bundoran, and he made a very passionate and loud appeal as to the free exercise by the subjects of the Queen of their right to proselytise.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELL: That is not a fair observation. I said nothing about proselytising.
    MR. J. MORLEY: I will withdraw the word proselytise, and will say, of their rights to preach. There is no difference of opinion between the hon. Member and myself on the principles of the right of freedom of political and religious meetings as now expressed by the hon. Member. I only wish that the hon. Member had bethought himself of those principles during the last six years. The hon. Member quoted from a leading article in a paper called The Donegal Vindicator with reference to the Evangelists, and said the Government must have known that it would lead to disturbance, and why, then, did they not make extra provision? But the Executive Government did make extra provision. They sent 25 extra men to Bundoran before the proceedings in the Evangelist tent began. As for the hon. Member's account of what did happen, it really was one of the grossest bits of exaggeration that I have ever heard, even from Ireland. I have read all the official Reports on the subject, and there was not a word about 1,000 men having come in for the purpose mentioned, or for any purpose. There was no doubt a crowd gathered round the tent, but, though the circumstances were exciting, the police were perfectly able to preserve the peace. There was, no doubt, an attack on Mr. Templeman, and some rudeness was offered to his sister; but, as I understand, it was rather of a gallant than of a controversial character. She very properly resented it, and a scuffle arose, but it was entirely unconnected
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    with any general view as to the preaching in the tent. It was a personal scuffle, and so far from lasting an hour, as the hon. Member said, ray information is that it did not last more than a couple of minutes.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid, he spoke of the general disturbance attending the tent service.
    MR. J. MORLEY: This was the only disturbance that took place.
    MR. MACARTNEYsaid, there were two separate disturbances.
    MR. J. MORLEY: I think I have road the papers more carefully than the hon. Member, and that is not so.
    MR. MACARTNEY: There were none of the police present.
    MR. J. MORLEYsaid, they were not in the very area where the assault on Miss Templeman took place; but they were effectually preserving the general peace in the crowd round the tent.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid, Mr. Templeman was coming from evening service at the church to the tent when he was assaulted.
    MR. J. MORLEY: Quite true, but he found himself in this crowd round the tent.
    MR. MACARTNEY AND MR. T. W. RUSSELL: Not at all.
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!
    MR. J. MORLEY: Mr. Templeman found himself in the crowd drawn together by the services. It was asked why the police did not arrest the persons concerned in the assault on Mr. Templeman. As I have said, the assault on the lady took place in a very limited area, and when the police got to the spot the persons concerned had got away; but they arrested three persons connected with the general uproar, and I am told that it was nothing more than an uproar. There is one fact to which I wish to call the attention of the House after hearing the language of the hon. Member about 1,000 men coming to suppress the freedom of preaching at Bundoran, and that is the fact that there has been a

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    service conducted in that tent by Evangelists every evening since, and there has not been a trace of disturbance or interference with them. What becomes of all the highly-coloured pictures which the hon. Member drew of the attempt in Bundoran to put down freedom of preaching and of religious service? I am told that there are both Catholics and Protestants in Bundoran who were sorry that the Evangelists had come there; but since the first disturbance, which was accidental and productive of no serious injury, everything has been tranquil. What is the good, merely for the sake of getting a small crumb of political capital, of stirring up the dying embers of religious prejudice, as the hon. Member did when he began his speech? With regard to the complaint of the hon. Member in reference to the Gweedore cess, he wanted to know why we have not ordered the Constabulary to execute warrants for the collection of the county cess? I am not aware of the precise facts connected with Gweedore; but I hold strongly the view—I do not know what the right hon. Gentleman opposite thought when he was in Office—that at all events this case needs very careful examination; it is very doubtful whether it is wise to issue these warrants to the Constabulary. I think it would be a very bad precedent, and I dispute the hon. Gentleman's doctrine that it is the duty of the Executive Government to order the Constabulary in all cases to execute warrants for the collection of the county cess.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid, he simply asked whether the Government were going to do anything, or whether they were going to let those people go scot free who were responsible for the murder of District Inspector Martin?
    MR. J. MORLEY: That is the spirit in which the hon. Gentleman approaches this very narrow point of administration.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELL: The cess is for Inspector Martin's widow.
    MR. J. MORLEY: The point which the hon. Gentleman has attacked the Government for has nothing to do with the origin of the imposition of this county cess. It is a small matter of adminis-
    1366
    trative detail, and in the reference he has made to this lamentable event of the death of Inspector Martin he has tried to stir up political prejudice, just as before he tried to stir the religious passions of gentlemen opposite, though I am glad to say the attempt did not succeed. Then the hon. Member went into County Clare, and told the House that a Resident Magistrate, Mr. Hodder, used certain language as to the propriety of the proceedings which were taken against a certain number of persons who were charged at Bodyke, and, with astonishing courage, stated that District Inspector Feeley used language of a somewhat similar kind—namely, that it was no use sending prisoners for trial in County Clare. Now, I have here before me an explicit and categorical denial from Inspector Feeley that he used a single word of the language imputed to him by the hon. Member. The hon. Member seems to have expected that some such denial would be forthcoming, for he said that the view he put forward was right, whether the District Inspector used the language or not. That is the way in which the hon. Gentleman argues as to the demerits of the Irish Administration. The hon. Member said that the language used by the Resident Magistrate, Mr. Hodder, is a proof that the Government are taking a now departure, and, instead of sending cases for trial, are getting minor notice taken of misdeeds of the kind referred to. The hon. Member was kind enough to exculpate me, and said the responsibility for this action must lie with the Attorney General and the Divisional Commissioner. Now let me say, once for all, that it is entirely on myself that the responsibility lies, and I cannot let the Attorney General or the Divisional Commissioner rest for a moment under what the hon. Member regards as a charge. Most of the proceedings of this kind are taken on my own personal responsibility, and I am here to answer for all that is done in these matters. If the hon. Member had been a little more careful he would have seen that even if the men in question had been committed for trial, they would not have been tried at Ennis at all, but at the Winter Assizes in Cork, so that the Government lost nothing by giving up the power of change of venue. Mr. Hodder,

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    experienced and learned as he is—and he is a gentleman of whose legal competence both the Lord Lieutenant and myself are satisfied—seems to have thought that because charges in the order book clearly showed that an indictable offence had been committed, it was not, therefore, in his power to bind the defendants to the peace. If Mr. Hodder used language of that kind he was mistaken, because if persons charged with an indictable offence are brought before a Magistrate, and if in the opinion of the prosecuting counsel the facts do not disclose circumstances of such gravity as to justify the committal of the defendants for trial, the Magistrate has it within his power to bind the defendants to keep the peace under his ordinary commission. That is the clear law of the matter. Mr. Hodder, owing to an inadvertence of the Petty Sessions Clerk, mistook the form of summons under which the men had been brought up. The latter part of the summons, calling on the defendants to show cause why they should not be bound over to keep the peace, was omitted from the order book; and Mr. Hodder's remarks, as far as I understand from his own Report, were based on a misconception; and on referring to the summons itself he saw at once that the course proposed by the District Inspector was a perfectly regular one. As for the offence itself, obstruction of the police, especially in cases like that of Bodyke, is a very serious matter, and you cannot afford to trifle with obstruction and resistance to the police in a place like Bodyke. But I am bound to say that the facts of the case are not of such gravity as necessarily made a committal for trial with a heavy sentence the only way of dealing with it. There may be circumstances under which the most trifling breach of the peace deserves to be severely dealt with; but such circumstances were not present in this case. I recapitulated these circumstances in answer to a question, but I will recapitulate them briefly again. Two caretakers, with their police escort, went out for the purpose of occupying evicted farms. When they arrived at a certain townland they made a delay of a few minutes; and, as is likely to happen in such a case, a crowd assembled, several members of which hooted and groaned at the caretakers. On the police
    1368
    cautioning the crowd, most of them desisted; but some half-dozen persisted in following the caretakers. These few persons were afterwards joined by a number of children, and in the result three stones were thrown in the direction of the caretakers and the police; but nobody was struck by them. The police then warned the people that they would use force if they did not disperse, and the crowd then dispersed. The circumstances were reported to the authorities, who directed that any persons who could be identified as having taken part in the stone - throwing should be proceeded against, with a view to having them bound over, and the Judicial Commissioner approved of that course. The hon. Member thinks there has been a great miscarriage of justice, and yet these are the facts.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I am simply acting on what Mr. Hodder is reported to have stated.
    MR. J. MORLEY: The report in the newspapers, I am informed, is not accurate; but apart from that, in matters of this kind, the judgment of the Divisional Commissioner, representing the Executive Government, is more important, and ought to weigh more with the House of Commons as to the precise amount of gravity of the wrong done, than the dictum of a Magistrate. It is a most dangerous thing to get into the habit of quoting the dicta either of Magistrates or Judges as to the course the Executive Government should take. I have no more to say with regard to that Tomgreaney case. With regard to the case of Doyle of Limerick, the man who was found with the boycotting notice in his possession, he was arrested by the police and taken before a Bench of 10 Magistrates, five of whom refused to convict, four of whom took the opposite view, and one of whom refused to take any part in the proceedings. The hon. Member finds fault with me because I have not overruled the decision of the five Magistrates; but the right hon. Gentleman the late Chief Secretary throughout his administration took the very opposite view. He always said—and no one doubted that what he said was perfectly

    1369
    true—that the Executive Government did not interfere with magisterial discretion, and he should regard it as the gravest and the grossest impropriety if he attempted anything of the kind. Are we to decide off-hand? Are we to say all the Magistrates acted wrongly, and immediately take fresh proceedings? I told the hon. Member that it is still a matter for consideration, and then the hon. Member's reply was—"Ah, you now begin to consider it, because I am bringing down the House of Commons on you." With all respect to the House of Commons, I do not think that even that Assembly would make the Executive Government in Ireland undertake proceedings of that kind; and I do not think the House of Commons, the more they understand these proceedings and the spirit in which the hon. Member has brought forward this case, will impugn the action of the Irish Executive Government. The hon. Member was entirely wrong, in connection with this case, in his account of what he called my divesting myself of powers given by the Crimes Act. It is not so, because he forgets that one of the boasts of his own friends when they left Office was that they had practically dropped the Crimes Act. What certainly is true is that they had dropped that portion of the Crimes Act which many of those who supported them in their administration and otherwise considered the most valuable part—namely, summary jurisdiction for boycotting notices, intimidation, and so forth. That part of the Crimes Act was dropped before we came into Office. As for the powers of summary jurisdiction in cases of not and unlawful assembly, these powers remain intact, and therefore the hon. Member was not at all accurate. Then, with regard to the classification of offences, the hon. Member and those who agree with him in Irish matters persist in the suspicion that somehow or other a great change has taken place in the system of classification. What was the proof he put forward? It was one of the most remarkable that even the hon. Member's ingenious mind could devise. He referred to the shooting at Mr. Blood, and said the outrage was not recorded as an attempted murder because the shots were fired at a distance of 400 yards,
    1370
    while under the Chief Secretaryship of the right hon. Member for Bristol (Sir M. Hicks-Beach) a case was so recorded, although the shots were fired from 500 yards; and, therefore, there must have been a revolution in the system of classifying these cases, because, forsooth, a rough guess fixes one distance at 400 yards and another at 500 yards!
    MR. T. W. RUSSELL: It could not be a rough guess, because a Snider rifle was dropped on the spot, and the distance was accurately measured.
    MR. J. MORLEY: I was at the place the other day, and in this case there was no Snider rifle found at all, and no kind of rifle or any other weapon was found. There may have been in the case which occurred during the Chief Secretaryship of the Member for Bristol. But can anything be more childish or frivolous in the way of proof that there has been a revolution in the system of classification in the interests of the present Government than to state that there was this discrepancy of 100 yards in a rough guess as to distance?
    MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I find I am wrong in saying that a Snider rifle was found. A cartridge case of a Snider rifle and the tracks of two men were found at a certain point—
    MR. SEXTON: In which case—this or the former?
    MR. T. W. RUSSELL: And that is a matter of proof very nearly as good as a rifle.
    MR. J. MORLEY: The House will see that this serious charge, or rather innuendo, because it has not yet taken the shape of a charge, as to a revolution in classification rests on proof of that kind, which is really so childish that it is not worth detaining the House upon it. The hon. Member also referred to some remarks made by the Lord Chief Justice, and he said that the Lord Chief Justice had never stated that there was a change of system of classification. I am not sure as to that, because I have not had time to read through his words; but my impression was that there was some indication

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    of that kind. The hon. Member accuses me of attacking the Judges. I have not attacked them; but what I have said—and I shall certainly always repeat it—is that the course taken by this learned Judge in cross-examining the County Inspector in open Court in Clonmel the other day was a course open to grave objection. That was all I said. Unlike the hon. Member, I may have strong feelings, but I do not like using violent and strong language, otherwise stronger language than that might have been used. But this is what strikes me as curious: that though the Lord Chief Justice has had a great deal to do with the administration of the law in Ireland for a number of years, he has never found out until now that there is anything faulty or defective in the system of classification. Everybody who has anything to do with the administration of the law in Ireland, every County Inspector who has to make Returns to the Judges, knows perfectly well that there has been no change, not an iota of change in the classification, and that precisely the same material has been presented to the Judges and in the same form during the last 12 months as has been the practice and custom to present through a good many 12 months before; and I may say that I do not think it adds to the notion of the impartiality which people like to see, especially in Ireland, among those who administer the law that these remarks should, for the first time, have been made after a change of Government. Now, Sir, the last point raised by the hon. Member was in respect of the Governors of lunatic asylums. With respect to the names of Governors of the lunatic asylum of the County Down the hon. Member tells us—and I think rightly—that there are in County Down 106,000 Presbyterians, 65,000 members of the Church of Ireland, and 73,000 Roman Catholics, and that there are six Governors who are Roman Catholics, nine who are members of the Church of Ireland, and only two who are Presbyterians. Now, upon that matter I can only say that the appointments on those Boards all over Ireland was an extremely laborious and very difficult task. I felt it to be our duty to undertake that task, because it seemed to me—and here I believe the hon. Member agrees with me
    1372
    —[Mr. T. W. RUSSELL: Hear, hear!]—that it was our duty to undertake that task, because it is a monstrous thing that in nearly all the counties in Ireland where the percentage of Roman Catholics in the population was enormous that yet on the Boards of Governors, consisting of 20 or 25 gentlemen, sometimes not more than one or two Roman Catholics were members. I do not believe any Member in the House—neither the Member for North Armagh nor the Member for South Belfast—would deny that it was time to put an end to that state of things. Very little fault, I am bound to say, has been found with our nominations, difficult though the task was. We may have made some oversights in the matter of County Down, and I may say here that perhaps I did not draw a sufficient distinction between the members of the Church of Ireland and the Presbyterians. Wanting to make up the balance between Roman Catholics and Protestants, I admit I did not sufficiently recognise the difference between the Protestant denominations; but as to the hon. Member saying that I desired to trample upon the Presbyterians, I can only say that is an instance of the exaggeration which has pervaded the whole of his speech this afternoon. He knows very well that I have no desire whatever to trample upon the Presbyterians, any more than upon the Episcopalians or the Roman Catholics. As to the dismissal of certain gentlemen, I cannot, of course, say off-hand what the circumstances were. I repeat, that in the case of the County Down and in all other cases of the kind we did the best we could. In one or two instances, or perhaps in three or four instances, oversights were pointed out to us, and I believe in most of those cases we have repaired those oversights so far as we could. I can only say that I will do the best I can in the next revision to redress the balance, and give the Presbyterians their fair share of representation. The hon. Member has not opened up the general question of the state of Ireland. If he had gone through the Judges' Charges at the recent Assizes he would find—and the House will be glad to know it—that, excepting a very small area, which is certainly far from satisfactory, in the case of 33 Judges' Charges the report is as satisfactory as possibly could be, and

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    that the improvement in the condition of Ireland and the course of restoration to peace and order, which began, I am quite willing to admit, under the right hon. Gentleman opposite, has gone on through an unbroken progress, and the improvement is every month continued.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR (): I think the House will have derived great satisfaction from the closing sentences of the right hon. Gentleman's speech. The perennial problem of dealing with Irish crime is one which must cause great anxiety to whoever is responsible to this House for the administration of Irish affairs, and I am perfectly certain that no man feels the weight of that responsibility more than the right hon. Gentleman himself. I do not propose to enter into a minute survey of the controversy between the right hon. Gentleman and my hon. Friend the Member for South Tyrone; but I will deal only with three or four points which have been raised. The first of these relates to the collection of the county cess in that part of Donegal where I learn—I was not aware of it before—that for some years past no county cess has been collected. The right hon. Gentleman declines to admit that he is bound to entrust the collection to the Constabulary in the event of the ordinary officials failing to collect it. With that general proposition I am not inclined to quarrel. No hard-and-fast rule can be laid down, but all my hon. Friend said was that if the county cess was not collected because its collection involved some controversy connected with Irish politics or agrarian crime, then the Executive Government ought to consider seriously whether they could allow the duty of paying the local rates to fall into abeyance, or whether they would take steps to enforce it. It is a very serious responsibility to allow the county cess in any district to be repudiated year after year. With regard to what took place before Mr. Hodder, I have no doubt that the right hon. Gentleman has given an accurate version of what that gentleman said and what the Constabulary officer said; but the reason why my hon. Friend
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    brought that case before the House was that it appeared to him that the Government were anxious to avoid bringing certain cases to trial, and that their anxiety not to do so was justified by the fact that whenever cases had been sent to trial in that particular county no attempt had been made by the juries to do justice. Perhaps I should say, in any case arising out of an agrarian quarrel, there has been no attempt at the last two Assizes on the part of Clare juries to execute their bounden duty. That was ample justification for my hon. Friend and others interested in Ireland to watch with critical eye every step taken which might throw light on the policy of the Government in relation to these Assizes. As to the question of classification, I accept fully the statement of the Chief Secretary that there has been no change of policy whatever. But, Sir, I think the right hon. Gentleman entirely misunderstood the particular case my hon. Friend brought forward with regard to Mr. Blood. He mentioned that this unfortunate gentleman had been fired at three times. On two occasions the shot was fired at long ranges with a Snider rifle, and one of the Returns made was "attempted murder," and the other "intimidation." I agree that no great weight ought to be laid on the difference between 400 and 500 yards; but unless it can be shown that in the second case there were circumstances connected with the firing of the shot which obviously proved that it was not intended to take effect, I do say that, whether the principle of classification has been changed or not, to put the case down as one of simple intimidation is absolutely absurd. I do not know how high the courage of hon. Gentlemen in this House mounts; but I know I do not wish to be fired at from a distance of 400 yards by a Snider rifle, and should resent such an attempt being put down merely as intimidation, and not attempted murder. The Government may have information in their possession to show that Mr. Blood was not fired at; but, if so, it should be stated. But if the shot was fired at Mr. Blood—whether at 400 or 500 yards—out of a Snider rifle, I say it was wholly ridiculous to describe that attempted assassination as intimidation. That is not the only peculiarity with regard to the classification of crime

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    brought before us. The right hon. Gentleman has repeated the criticism—I will not use a stronger word—he made on a previous occasion upon the Chief Justice of Ireland. Well, Sir, I understand it to be the duty of a Judge of Assize in Ireland to make himself acquainted with the condition of the counties in which he is carrying on trials with regard to serious crime. If it be admitted that that is his duty, I cannot see how he is to perform it unless he be permitted to examine the officer who makes the Returns; and if all that can be alleged against the Chief Justice is that he so carried out his duty, I fail absolutely to understand on what principle the right hon. Gentleman objects to that system on which the action of this distinguished Judge was based. But I go further—
    MR. J. MORLEY: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will allow me to explain that hitherto these interviews between the Judge of Assize and the officer have been private; on the present occasion, for the first time, the cross-examination was made in open Court.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have not present in my mind all the particulars, nor do I know what the special justification for any change of procedure may be, if change of procedure occurred; but, on the broad principle I have already mentioned, I cannot see that there is any room for attacking the Chief Justice. But I go further, for it appears that the result of the learned Judge's examination, whether public or private, was to show that two or three serious errors had occurred. I think my hon. Friend has done well in calling attention to these important matters, and I think the right hon. Gentleman will admit that we could not have ascertained this had the examination not taken place.
    MR. J. MORLEYwas understood to assent.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The Chief Justice said the Inspector was quite right in what he had done; but there was a mistake—probably in accordance with the regulations—with regard to a case of intimidation, which did not
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    appear in the statistics, which could only be brought out by this examination by the Judge of Assize of the officer responsible. It must be admitted that if a case of serious crime was not before him when it ought to have been, the Chief Justice was justified in asking for particulars. No one would, of course, say that there was any desire on the part of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. J. Morley) to cook the statistics. It is clear, I think, that public benefit has been derived from calling the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to the fact that very serious mistakes have occurred with regard to the enumeration and classification of these cases. That is all I desire to say on the subject. I think the right hon. Gentleman will acknowledge that my hon. Friend has done well to call attention to this matter. I will only say, in conclusion, one word, repeating the congratulations to the right hon. Gentleman—and not to him only but to the House—on what we are assured is the improved condition of social life in the disturbed districts.
    SIR T. ESMONDE ()said, he had intended to bring forward the question of Irish light railways; but there were only a few minutes left to them, and he could not do so at any length. He would, however, call attention to the burdens which had been cast upon the cesspayers of his constituency in connection with the construction and working of the Tralee and Dingle Light Railway. There could be no doubt that the construction of light railways had been a great convenience to many localities; but in some districts they had been badly constructed and badly managed, with the result that cesspayers who guaranteed a portion of the interest on the capital of the undertaking were saddled with heavy financial burdens, representing, with local taxation, between 5s. and 6s. in the £1 on the Poor Law valuation. The line was 36 miles in length, and cost £120,000. The tax was a very serious matter for the people, who had no voice in the management of the line. It was constructed under the County Kerry Grand Jury, and passed by the Board of Works in Ireland and

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    the Board of Trade. But the people of the district had no more to say to the construction of the line than to railways in the moon. There was no idea at the time of the project passing that the liabilities would be so great. There was one way of meeting the difficulty. His (Sir T. Esmonde's) Colleagues and himself had introduced a Bill dealing with the Irish Light Railways, which had passed the Second Heading, and he would ask the Government to take it up and endeavour to carry it into law. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary would remember that the Bill had passed its Second Reading. They (the Nationalist Party) were not tied to the drastic provisions of this Bill. They only wished to obtain some further relief for those concerned in the working of these railways. He would suggest that the right hon. Gentleman representing the Government should consider whether they could adopt the view of the people of the district and of the Irish Members. He hoped they would have an assurance that the Government were prepared to take up the Bill and carry it through.
    THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Sir J. T. HIBBERT,)said, the matter referred to by the hon. Baronet had been the subject of discussion between the Irish Government, the Treasury, and the Irish Board of Works, with a view to considering whether any plan could be adopted so as to relieve the pressure on the cesspayers in the districts in which the light railways existed, and so meet the wish of the hon. Member and his friends. At the same time, he must remind his hon. Friend that this scheme had been passed by the Grand Jury, and had been carried out on the strength of the guarantee.
    SIR T. ESMONDEsaid, they only guaranteed a proportion.
    SIR J. T. HIBBERTsaid, he might soon be able to state how far they could go. It was a question as to how far the Irish Government and the Treasury could agree upon the proposals to carry out the object in view.
    MR. MACARTNEY ()said, there wore proposals in the Bill
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    which had been mentioned by the hon Baronet which were, in his opinion, open to serious objection. He would not discuss them, however. He merely rose to revert for a moment or two to the question which had been before the House prior to that which had just been raised He was not surprised at the attitude of the Chief Secretary towards the late Administration. It was an extremely convenient course for him to adopt, and could be taken in connection with the "angelic theory" of which they had heard so much during the past few months. He could say, however, that the information given to the Chief Secretary was not prepared in accordance with the immediate facts of the Bundoran ease. There could be no doubt that the arrangements made by the Constabulary were absolutely insufficient, and they failed after due notice had been given to the police. The local Nationalist organ, used the most inflammable language for the purpose of inciting the passions of the people. He did not care whether The Vindicator was right or the Constabulary was right. One fact remained—that the disturbance took place. He (Mr. Macartney) had had a report sent him by an eye-witness, who stated that Mr. Templeman and his sister—the lady who accompanied him—were attacked as they were coming not from the Evangelistic services, but from the church. Some 200 or 300 roughs had been drinking in the neighbour hood; and some of them insulted the lady, and the disturbance then arose. The right hon. Gentleman had no information about what happened; he could not have any, as there were no police about at the time. They were engaged elsewhere. He thought they were justified—
    The Chancellor of the Exchequer rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."
    Question, "That the Question be now put," put, and agreed to.
    Question put accordingly, and agreed to.

    LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (MONEY) BILL.
    Lords Amendments agreed to.
    CANAL RATES, TOLLS, AND CHARGES PROVISIONAL ORDER (LEEDS AND LIVERPOOL CANAL BILL).—(No. 420.)
    Read the third time, and passed.
    CANAL RATES, TOLLS, AND CHARGER PROVISIONAL ORDER (NAVIGATION OF THE RIVERS AIRE AND CALDER) BILL.—(No. 422.)
    Read the third time, and passed.
    CANAL TOLLS AND CHARGES PRO- VISIONAL ORDER (GRAND JUNCTION CANAL) BILL.—(No. 421.)
    Read the third time, and passed.
    CANAL TOLLS AND CHARGES PRO- VISIONAL ORDER (WARWICK AND BIRMINGHAM CANAL) BILL.—(No. 423.)
    Read the third time, and passed.

    MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
    That they have agreed to,—
    Housing of the Working Classes Act (1890) Amendment Bill, without Amendment.
    Tramways Provisional Orders Bill, London Improvements Bill, with Amendments.

    MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.

      PUBLIC HEALTH (LONDON) ACT (1891) AMENDMENT BILL.
      On Motion of Mr. J. Stuart, Bill to amend "The Public Health (London) Act, 1891," with respect to the removal of refuse, ordered to be brought in by Mr. J. Stuart, Sir J. Lubbock, Mr. Pickersgill, Colonel Hughes, and Mr. Benn.
      Bill presented, and read first time. [Bill 432.]

      METROPOLIS MANAGEMENT (PLUMSTEAD AND HACKNEY) BILL.
      On Motion of Colonel Hughes, Bill to amend the Metropolis Management Acts, ordered to be brought in by Colonel Hughes, The Attorney General, Sir A. Scoble, Mr. Pickersgill, and Mr. Bousfield.
      Bill presented, and read first time. [Bill 433.]

      SALE OF GOODS BILL.
      Ordered, That Mr. Alexander Cross be discharged from further attendance on the Select Committee on Sale of Goods Bill.
      Ordered, That Mr. Asher be added to the Committee.—(Mr. Marjoribanks.)

      PUBLIC WORKS LOANS (no. 2)
      [REMISSION].
      Resolution reported,
      "That it is expedient to authorise the remission of certain loans made by the Public Works Loan Commissioners to the Rosslare Harbour Commissioners, in pursuance of any Act of the present Session to make provision for certain purposes relating to Local Loans."
      Resolution agreed to.

    PUBLIC WORKS LOANS (No. 2) BILL. (No. 426.)
    Considered in Committee, and reported, without Amendment; to be read the third time upon Monday next.
    CERTIFIED INDUSTRIAL SCHOOLS.
    Copy presented,—of Model General Rules for the Management and Discipline of Certified Industrial Schools for the Detention of Children [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
    CERTIFIED REFORMATORY SCHOOLS.
    Copy presented,—of Model General Rules and Regulations for the Management of Certified Reformatory Schools for the Detention of Juvenile Offenders [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
    SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE ACT, 1875.
    Copy presented,—of Order in Council, dated 28th July, 1893, for regulating the holding of the Summer and Winter Assizes [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
    GREENWICH HOSPITAL.
    Copy presented,—of Order in Council, dated 28th July, 1893, approving a Memorial of the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty for reducing the number of Greenwich Hospital Pensions allotted to Lieutenants, and allotting one additional Pension of £35 a year to the ranks of Chief Gunner, Chief Boatswain, and Chief Carpenter [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
    PILOTAGE.
    Copy presented,—of Order in Council, dated 28th July, 1893, approving certain Bye-laws made by the Pilotage Authority of the Port of Dublin [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
EVENING SITTING.
  ORDERS OF THE DAY.

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

    BILLS PASSED TWICE BY THE COMMONS.

      RESOLUTION.
      MR. STOREY ()said, he rose to move—
      "That it is desirable in the public interest and for the promotion of necessary legislation that any Bill which has twice passed this House, but has failed to pass elsewhere, should become Law if with the support of the Government of the day it shall again pass through the House of Commons in the same Parliament and should receive the assent of the Crown."
      In proposing this Resolution he founded himself upon two propositions: In the first place, our Government had existed for more than 500 years, and had lasted so long because the political genius of the people had altered and developed it to meet the varied needs and desires of each succeeding generation; and, secondly, because present circumstances made it absolutely necessary there should be a further development.
      Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,
      MR. STOREYsaid, he proposed to establish these two propositions by drawing the attention of the House to the remarkable changes that had taken place so far as two of the governing powers of the State were concerned—he referred to the Crown and the Commons. Now, as to these two essential portions of the Government there had been remarkable changes, and changes in the direction of development. The Crown remained, but its claims and powers had been modified in all directions. The Crown once claimed to rule by right divine; now it was content to reign by
      1382
      right of Parliamentary arrangement. Of old it claimed to initiate Rills, and all the two Houses had to do was to assent to them; now the initiation of Bills remained with the two Houses, and assent rested with the Crown. Of old the Crown claimed to tax without the consent of Parliament; now Parliament taxed without consent of the Crown. Of old it claimed to imprison without law; now no one could be put in jeopardy —in this country, at any rate—but by due process of law. Fifthly, the Crown down to 1780 claimed to choose Ministers; nowadays that duty rested with the House of Commons. Of old the Crown claimed to veto Bills; now the Crown practically assented to the Bills passed by the two Houses of Parliament becoming the law of the land. He thought, therefore, he was correct in saying that the Crown had there been popularised. It had lost in power, but had gained in popularity by adapting itself to the ideas and to the needs of the present time, the keynote of our political philosophy being that the Crown existed for the people and not the people for the Crown. How was it with Parliament? Had there been change there, and had been development? In the process of centuries the House of Commons had there taken to itself the power of the purse, by which it controlled the Government of the country, the rise and fall of Ministries, and the Dissolution of Parliaments. The Commons claimed—and he trusted they would sustain the claim—to determine, through the action of Ministers, the time of Dissolution, refusing to concede to any power outside the walls of this Chamber the right to say when the Commons should go back to the country. These were remarkable changes, but not more remarkable than those which had been made in the Constitution. It could not be said by any man who would read history aright that up to 1832 the Commons of England represented the people of England. He had a curious analysis which had been made of the House of Commons as it existed in this country in the year 1816. In that year —the year after the great French War—there were 658 Members of that honourable House, and of those 301 were elected by the direct choice of the Members of the House of Lords, 117 were elected by

      1383
      gentlemen in the House under the control of Members of the House of Lords, 14 Members were elected directly by the Crown, and of the whole 658 only 171, or a little over one-fourth of the whole, could be called the Representatives of the free and independent electors of the country. The Act of 1832 made a difference, as did the Act of 1867 and the Act of 1884, and in the last-named year they came to this position for the first time: that, broadly, they could say that the House of Commons represented the large proportion of the grown men of the country, and there were many who thought that until the Commons were elected by all grown-up people, each possessing one vote, we should not have come to the end of the chapter. Now, he thought he had established the proposition that enormous changes had been made as to the position of the Crown and as to the position of the Commons. The Commons stood now representative in the main of the Bill. The Crown stood now as the honoured servant of the people. How was it with the House of Lords? Had there been any development there? No. Whilst the Crown had been popularised, and whilst the House of Commons had been popularised, the House of Lords had exhibited not progression but retrogression. Originally summoned as of grace by the Crown, noble Lords now claimed to be summoned as of right. Secondly, in its origin and its early history, the House of Lords was non-hereditary in the main, but it had become hereditary in the main. Of old it contained a majority, sometimes of one political Party and sometimes of another; but now the great majority of the Peers was of one political Party, and the House had degenerated into a Tory Club. The House of Lords claimed now to possess the power of permanent veto—a power which the English Commons would never permit to be exercised by a King, and yet one which was claimed to be exercised by the 500 kinglets of the other House. And now the Leader of the other House had for the first time claimed the power of decreeing when, and how, and where the Dissolution of the House of Commons should take place. He called this not progression but retrogression, and he invited the House to consider
      1384
      that, whilst the House of Commons had popularised itself by bending to and placing itself in accord with the will of the people, and had thereby become more powerful than ever, the other House had retrogressed until it had lost all touch with popular feelings and wishes. We had a House elected by the people and a House not elected by the people, and what was the result—what was the result upon the Crown? Why, that it could not depend upon both Houses being in harmony with the nation's views at any time. They had the spectacle of gentlemen agreeing to a Bill who did not themselves think it was good for the nation. The consequence was that the Crown could not obtain the counsel and assistance of the wisest and best and most experienced of its subjects. The House of Lords put forward a claim to review the work of the House of Commons, and when objection was taken to their doing so they pleaded time and usage in their favour. But in 1641 the sturdy Parliamentarians informed the King that they could not admit time and usage as pleas in support of encroachments upon the liberties of the people. He should be inclined in 1893 to say that when they had popularised the Crown and popularised the Commons they should do their best to bring the House of Lords in line with the popular inclinations and desires of the times. What was the complexion of the other House—which claimed to decide, and to decide permanently, what should be the fate of Bills in the House of Commons? He found that the House of Lords consisted of five or six Princes of the Blood, 26 Bishops and Archbishops, 16 Scotch Peers, 28 Irish Peers, four or five Law Lords, and about 470 other gentlemen. The Bishops and Archbishops represented the Church of England. But the Church of England did not stand alone—there were other Churches as great and as pious and as useful, and yet they were all without representation in the House of Lords. The Scotch Representative Peer did not represent the Scotch people, nor the Irish Representative Peers the people of Ireland. It was, however, a far more serious thing that the House of Lords, which in the old days contained a fair proportion of all Parties in the State, and which—notably in 1688—

      1385
      honourably distinguished itself by standing on the side of the people, was now entirely a Tory Assembly. No Liberal measure of importance could be passed through it. The House of Lords did not reflect the changing opinions of the people of England, sometimes Whig and sometimes Radical, and sometimes Tory. Whatever the opinions of the people might be, the House of Lords remained representative of the Tory Party only. The House of Lords claimed to exercise a perpetual veto—a veto being a thing which the House would never accord to Kings. A suspensory veto they had, but the House of Commons had always resisted the attempt of the other House to say that the House of Commons should not have its way. And it was now too much for these 500 kinglets to claim the right to say that such and such a thing should not be. There were hon. Members listening to him who would say that this never happened in practice. But he would undertake to prove before he finished, by reference to historical facts, that that did happen in practice, and that the House of Lords had claimed, and successfully claimed through a whole generation, to prevent the House of Commons, which represented the people, from carrying out the views at which it had arrived. It was said at the present juncture that the House of Lords would compel this House to dissolve. Well, without entering into controversial matter, he desired to say that it must lie apparent to everyone who chose to consider the matter from a political point of view that the House which held the purse possessed a strong weapon; but the Body which had the power to dictate to the House which held the purse possessed the stronger power, and would lie master. He apologised for having expatiated on these points, but he wanted to show that the general run of events as to the Crown had been to bring it into accord with the people, and the general run of events as to the Commons had been to make the House really representative of the people, whilst the general run of events and the claims on the part of the other House had been to put them out of harmony with the people, and to bring them into antagonism with the other two powers which governed the country. Surely it was an anomaly to
      1386
      have, on the one hand, the Crown depending on the people, and, on the other, the unelected House of Lords, which was not dependent on the people, saying that it would choose its own time to accede to what the Commons had agreed to and what the Crown was willing to accept. But the answer to that was plain. The answer, in English, was—"Well, it is an anomaly, but from a commonsense point of view does it work?" A Member of the House the other day said to him—"Whenever I am told here that a thing is an anomaly, I vote for it straight away, because I know that of all things an Englishman loves, the thing he loves dearest is an anomaly." Certainly it was an anomaly that they should possess a House of Lords thus constituted. Did it work? If he thought it did, he would sit down—because he was an Englishman himself, and he frankly admitted that he did not care twopence whether a thing was an anomaly or not if it practically worked for good and improved the condition of the people of the country. Did it work? Yes; the arrangements between the Lords and Commons at the present time worked. They worked to prevent or delay all reform, to produce weak and insufficient measures on the part of the Liberal Ministries, and to keep the House of Commons for ever spending its time and strength in amending what had been badly done. Mr. John Bright had said, near the end of a long life of usefulness—
      "I am scarcely able to discover one single measure important to English freedom which has come from the voluntary consent and good will of the Lords."
      ["Oh!"] He was tempted to say, by that expression of dissent from hon. Gentlemen opposite, that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. J. Chamberlain), whose absence he deplored and whose support he had naturally expected, not very long ago said—
      "The atmosphere of the House of Lords is detrimental to Liberal legislation. The Bills which we have prepared with so much care and labour meet in these exalted regions with a most inhospitable treatment. They are frequently massacred; they are frequently maltreated, and they are generally so mutilated and disfigured that they are past all recognition."

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      That, he took it, was literally true. The answer given was that the House of Lords passed the Bills at last. But how "at last?" Hon. Members in the House of Commons spent their energy; they spent their strength and intellect year after year in trying to give effect to the principles which they believed in; but the Bills passed by them were thrown out again and again in another place. And still they were told that the House of Lords passed the Bills at last. Well, he should be able to show before he had done what that "at last" meant. What did that mean? He was tempted to ask the House what was the use of a Second Chamber? There were some hon. Members near him who did not believe in a Second Chamber. He did not know that he disagreed with those hon. Members; but he would, for the moment, argue as though a Second Chamber was necessary. What was the use of a Second Chamber? Its use was to review the hasty—it might be the ill-considered—legislation of the House of Commons. Lord Salisbury had said about a year ago of the House of Lords—
      "All it does is to suspend a matter for the decision and solemn judgment of the country."
      He agreed with Lord Salisbury that this was the duty of the Second Chamber. If we had a second House of that kind he, for one, would never make any complaint whatever. Then Lord Salisbury said—
      "No one can assert that the House of Lords has ever attempted to set up any other opinion as supreme in this country except the opinion of the nation itself."
      Well, of all the shocking utterances ever made by a noble Lord, he had never heard one to exceed that. Was the statement true in fact? The House of Lords had never, in 60 years, passed a complete and sufficient measure. It had persisted in obtruding its own ideas and prejudices into every measure passed by the Commons. He had taken the trouble to extract the history of a few of the measures that had been passed, or attempted to be passed, in the last 60 years. Out of about 50 cases, he had extracted 12 relating to all sorts of things and all portions of the population. He would take first the case of Irish municipal reform. In 1837 the Commons
      1388
      passed an Irish Muuicipal Reform Bill, and they passed it again in 1838 and in 1839. Yet, in 1893, Irish municipal reform still remained unachieved. Next there was the case of Irish laud. It was in 1843, when he was three years old, that the Devon Commission reported on the condition of Irish laud, and claimed that there should be immediate reform. In 1845 Lord Stanley, afterwards the Earl of Derby, passed through the Commons a Bill for compensation for Irish tenants. In 1854 a similar Bill was passed by a private Member, and it was not till 1870 that his right hon. Friend the present Prime Minister (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) was able to pass his moderate and insufficient Bill, nor till 1881 that it could be said that the Commons had really made an honest effort to deal with the question of Irish land. So that there was a period of 56 years as to the Irish municipal franchise, and one of 25 years as to Irish land, between the time when the Commons first passed a Bill and the time when a measure was passed by the Lords. Then there was Catholic Emancipation. The Commons passed a Catholic Emancipation Bill in 1821; the House of Lords could not or would not pass it till 1829, and why it passed then history recorded. That was a period of eight years. A Bill for the abolition of University tests was passed by the Commons in 1834, and again in 1868, 1869, 1870, and 1871. In 1871 the other House pleased to pass it. The period between the first time when the Commons passed the Bill and the time when the Lords passed it was 37 years—the average life of a man. A Bill for dealing with Irish tithes was passed by the Commons in 1837 by a majority that must make the mouth of the Chancellor of the Exchequer water —a majority of 229 to 14. The other House could not be induced to pass the Bill till 1858—a period of 21 years. The Commons passed a Bill for the abolition of Church rates in 1855, and again in 1856, 1858, 1860, 1867, and 1869. In 1869 the other House registered the decree that the Commons had so long ago made, and after a period of 14 years Church rates were abolished. Then there was the case of the Burials Bill, which simply claimed that Nonconformists should be buried as decently as their

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      neighbours. The Commons passed the Bill in 1873, and it was not till 1880—seven years after—that the other House could be induced to pass it. The Commons passed a Bill to relieve the Jews of disabilities in 1833; but the other House could not be induced to register that decree till 1858—a period of 25 years. In 1792 the Commons resolved in favour of the emancipation of slaves, and it was not till 1807–15 years later—that the other House could be brought to adopt the same view as the elected Representatives of the people. It was the Christian law in this country for a long period that a man who stole 5s. from a shop should be hanged. In 1810 the Commons passed a Bill putting an end to this enormity; but it was 10years later before the other House could be persuaded to adopt the same measure. Then there was the case of public education. In 1807, on the proposition of Mr. Whitbread, one of the most honourable Members of Parliament that ever existed in this country, a Bill was passed providing for the education of the common people. That Bill was defeated in the other House twice, and when Lord Brougham brought into the other House a Bill for a similar purpose it was only admitted to a First Heading. It was not till 1870 that the other House could be induced to act with the Commons in making provision for public education. Lastly, he must instance what was, he thought, the most atrocious case of all. He hoped the House would not laugh when he gave the familiar instance of the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill. The Prime Minister described the successful opposition to that Bill many years ago as ruinous. That Bill had been before Parliament for nearly 50 years, and although it had passed the Commons seven times and had received the support of the Commons in one form or another 18 times, the Lords—and principally the Bishops— still stood in opposition to so simple a reform. The House of Review ought to be a House which reviewed and amended and, after a decent interval, passed; but the other House, through all its history, had been a House which retarded and destroyed, and, where it could not destroy, mutilated, the best efforts the Commons were able to make. This being the history of
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      the past, what did the House and the Government expect would be the history of the future? There were great measures to pass. There was a Home Rule Bill. Would the Home Rule Bill be treated differently from other measures? There were some things that Radicals like himself cared for more even than for Home Rule. There was the question of the English laud. Did anybody believe that the House of Lords, as at present constituted, would act differently as to laud reform than it had done in the past? There was the question of religious equality. Would the other House treat that question differently from the way in which it had treated other questions? As it was in the beginning, and was now, so it ever would be unless a radical change were effected. He saw an hon. Member near him who said that the change he proposed was a very weak one. He did not agree with his hon. Friend. He thought he would be in Order in asking what were the remedies his hon. Friends proposed. One man said—"Abolish the Lords." That would be no better than a revolution. [Sir R. TEMPLE: Hear, hear!] A revolution in this country was not effected in a short period without the effusion of blood; and he was sure that neither the hon. Baronet opposite (Sir R. Temple) nor himself was inclined to shed any blood in this matter. They would not even descend to fisticuffs. Joking apart, he asked the House to consider what was the remedy. Not only Radicals, but many worthy Conservatives, would admit that the want of relation between the Commons and the Lords was an undesirable thing. He would like to know how the Lords were going to be abolished? He was not going to run his head against that wall, if he could find any other way out of the difficulty. He knew what the old-fashioned prejudices of Englishmen were. There was nothing that was more truly said about his unfortunate countrymen than that they "dearly loved a lord." He would point out to his Radical friends that if they did achieve the abolition of the Lords they could not get much further, because they would be face to face with a much more difficult problem. Were they going to have a Second House or not? If not, they would find a great

      1391
      many people against them, and if they were they would make masters for themselves instead of servants. His hon. Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) said that his remedy would be to make Peers. Let the House just think of it! In 1832 the Reform Bill was passed by threatening to make 40 Peers. He wondered how many Members of the House would be prepared to make the number of Peers that they (the Radical Party) would consider necessary. If they took the 550 Peers, 500 would be found on one side and 50 on the other. Did anybody want to make 500 Peers? He frankly confessed that he would not make 500 Peers, even if they were all like the hon. Member for Northampton. He would, of course, trust the hon. Member himself; but if he had a son they could not say what he would do, and the last state of the other House might be worse than the first. Another proposal was that the Crown should summon only such Peers as it willed; but there might be difficulties about that proceeding, and his own remedy was preferable to either. Suppose the House of Commons passed the Home Rule Bill this year, and the Lords threw it out. If it went up from the Commons to the Lords a second time and was again rejected, it would then, under this proposal, pass into law upon receiving the assent of the Crown.
      An hon. MEMBER: How about the people?
      MR. STOREYsaid, he had, perhaps, been unfortunate in his selection of a Bill; but he would take as an illustration the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill. Could any hon. Gentleman give any sufficient reason why that Bill should not pass into law? Other Bills had taken 10, 20, 30, and even 40 years to pass; and, on the average, no Bill of any importance passed under five or six years. Therefore the proposal did not seem to be unreasonable. His proposal would be a great relief to a Liberal Ministry and a great advantage to this House. The present arrangement was historically bad. The House of Commons was in touch with the people, and was obliged every few years to go to the
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      people; and it might, therefore, be trusted to provide the laws which the people needed. Ministers, however, could not settle their Bills according to the wishes of the people or the desires of this House; but they had to make those Bills small and weak, so that they might not offend the prejudices of the other House. The result was weak legislation here and obstruction there. The time of the House of Commons was spent in amending the bad measures that had been passed, and the suggestion he made to his Radical friends and to the Liberals of the country was not that they should spend their strength in attempting to abolish the House of Lords, but that they should put before the country in the old English common-sense fashion his simple, practical, and sufficient remedy, which was that when this House had twice passed a Bill and the House of Lords had twice thrown it out the other House should be left out in the cold; and the will of the people expressed in this House, joined with the will of the Crown expressed in the signature of the Act, should conclude the legislation. He did not wish to monopolise time, as many others would desire to speak; but he would conclude by stating that the present system, being historically bad, involved weak legislation, obstruction, and the spending of time in passing Amending Acts. He had pleasure in moving the Resolution—
      "That it is desirable, in the public interest and for the promotion of necessary legislation, that any Bill which has twice passed this House, but has failed to pass elsewhere, should become Law if, with the support of the Government of the day, it shall again pass through the House of Commons in the same Parliament and should receive the assent of the Crown."
      MR. SNAPE ()said, he rose to second the Resolution, and he did so because it was, he thought, the only practical measure of reform that was at present within the reach of the country. The hon. Member had pointed out that although since 1832 there had been a number of valuable reforms, there had been practically no reform in the procedure and constitution of the other House; but he had omitted to state one reform. Until 1868 the other House had the power of voting by proxy; but in that year a

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      Standing Order was passed which suspended that power, and it could not be revived unless by Motion after two days' notice had been given. Another change had been made in the early constitution of the House of Lords which had led to the evils of which complaint was now made. The Peers had originally been summoned from time to time by the Crown, but they had no right to sit in succession; and it was not until after many centuries of its existence that the House of Lords passed a Resolution, in which this House had no part, decreeing that in future the eldest sons of Peers should succeed to their fathers, and from that Resolution all the evils had flowed. The only justification for the exercise of the veto over this House was either that the power was exercised by a superior body, or else that it had been exercised in such a way as to make the continuance of that power desirable in the future. But the exercise of that power in the past by the House of Lords, instead of justifying its continuance, demonstrated the necessity for some such alteration as that proposed by his hon. Friend. In illustration, he would refer to the opposition with which the House of Lords had, year after year, met the Jewish Disabilities Bill, and also the Bill which opened the Universities for the admission of Nonconformists. Since the latter Bill was passed in 1871, the majority of the distinctions even at the older Universities had been won by Nonconformists. The action of the other House had been to deprive the House of Commons of the services of many men of the Hebrew faith, and also of Nonconformists, who might have rendered service to their country in this House. The only other justification for the continued exercise of the veto by the House of Lords would be that they were a superior Body. But the men who occupied the Benches of the other House did so, not because they could point to any superiority, but because they were the sons of their fathers, though they might have inherited none of the distinctions which their fathers had acquired. Besides, the House of Lords was altogether out of touch with the people. They all remembered the notable expression of the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. J. Morley) when he said that the House of Lords
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      would have either to be mended or ended. He never heard those words uttered before a Liberal audience that they did not interrupt the speaker by saying that it must be ended, not mended. They would remember what had occurred on a London Bill not long ago, when a great Municipality, which wished to have its interests represented on a Conservancy Board, was obstructed by the Lords, and a Conference was necessary after the Commons had disagreed with the Amendments sent down to it. The three years which the Amendment would give the House of Lords would be sufficient time to enable them to point out any defects which there might be, if defects there were, in the measures which might be sent up to them. It was essential that any Assembly which claimed the right to legislate for the people should be "broad based upon the people's will." The existence of the House of Lords could only be justified by bringing its powers into more harmony with popular and democratic rights. The late Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Goschen) was not present now, but in 1885 he expressed his views upon the character of the other House by saying "the other House is a permanent Conservative or High Tory Committee." Since that time the right hon. Gentleman had passed over to the other side, and now, no doubt, he wished that the House of Lords should remain a permanent Conservative Committee, in order that it might oppose the legislation which the country demanded.
      Amendment proposed,
      To leave out from the word "That," to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "it is desirable in the public interest and for the promotion of necessary legislation that any Bill which has twice passed this House, but has I failed to pass elsewhere, should become Law if I with the support of the Government of the day it shall again pass through the House of Commons in, the same Parliament and should receive the assent of the Crown,"—(Mr. Storey,)
      —instead thereof.
      Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
      MR. DARLING ()said, that if what had been stated in the course of the Debate as to the views and wishes of the Radicals in the House and in the

      1395
      country was accurate, it was perfectly obvious that this Motion ought to be rejected. According to the statements of the Mover and Seconder of the Motion, their constituents and the Radical Party generally were in favour of ending the House of Lords rather than mending it. And yet they came forward with a Resolution for the purpose of mending it. They were, therefore, not carrying out the wishes of those whom they represented, and no worse offence could be committed according to the Radical creed. But what was really the meaning of the Resolution? Here was a proposal that where a Bill had twice passed the House of Commons and had failed to pass the House of Lords, if it again passed this House and had the support of the Government, it should become law straight away if the Crown assented. There might have been no discussion on the Bill. If the Bill had secured the assent of the present Government, in all human probability it would be a Bill that had not been discussed, because when Bills were discussed the Government became by no means enamoured of them, and they changed them or withdrew them; but so long as they were not discussed, or some portion of them had not been discussed, that portion was pretty sure of having the support of the Government. Therefore, the Resolution was suggested to the hon. Member for Sunderland and his friends by their passion for passing into law measures that had not been discussed. They knew the difficulty of passing extreme measures if discussion was permitted; and, therefore, they desired to curtail the rights of the chief deliberative Assembly in the Kingdom, as the easiest way of getting Radical legislation or Irish legislation into the shape of an Act of Parliament. The hon. Member for Sunderland was in favour of one Chamber only.
      MR. STOREY: I never said so; but I will not deny it.
      MR. DARLINGsaid, he had gathered from the hon. Member's speech that he was in favour of one Chamber only. If he was in error he was sure the hon. Member would contradict him. As the hon. Member favoured a system under which there should be only one Chamber, of course he was anxious to do all that
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      he could to weaken and bring into contempt the House of Lords. The hon. Member had referred to the period when the Peers and the Commons sat in one Chamber together. If they were to have but one Chamber was it to be a Chamber of that kind? The hon. Member condemned the encroachment of the House of Lords. What was this Resolution but encroachment? Even if they went back to the time of Edward II, they would not find that the House of Commons ever had the power of passing Acts of Parliament without the assent of the House of Lords. How did this House get its power? It got it by encroachment.
      MR. STOREY: It got it as the Representatives of the people.
      MR. DARLINGsaid, no one would venture to deny that the House of Commons did not represent the people on the great question of the day, and yet it was proposed that this House should encroach on the powers of the House of Lords, which did represent the feelings of the people on the great issue of the day, which the Government would discover whenever they chose to take the opinion of the country upon it. If nothing could justify encroachment, how could the hon. Member justify this Resolution, which was an encroachment on the powers of the House of Lords?
      MR. STOREY: All power rests with the people. This House represents the people, and as their powers must be the powers of the people, all they have cannot be an encroachment on anybody.
      MR. DARLINGsaid, it was true that all power rested with the people, but with the people as represented in the Legislature, composed of the Queen, the Lords, and the Commons. All power did not rest with the people, if the people meant those who broke up Tory meetings and attended Radical gatherings.
      Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members not being present,
      House adjourned at twenty minutes before Eleven o'clock till Monday next.

TOOK THE OATH.
The Lord Braybrooke.
PROGRESS OF INDIA.

  QUESTION. OBSERVATIONS.
  VISCOUNT CROSS: My Lords, seeing the noble Earl the Secretary of State for India in his place, I wish to ask him a question of which I have given him private notice. Every year there is, by Statute I believe, a Blue Book presented to Parliament called The Moral and Material Progress of India. At every tenth year it has been the custom lately that there should be a more popular book published for the information of the public upon this interesting subject. Some time ago, knowing the tenth year was approaching, I took the pains to find out some gentleman specially qualified in order that he might have the editing of that decennial account, more especially with regard to the poorer people—the ryots, and as to the condition of the inhabitants—the several peoples in the different parts of India. I wish to ask the noble Earl whether that book is now in progress, and whether there is any chance of its being presented before the Session is over, or whether there has not been time to finish the inquiries which it is necessary to make for the purpose?
  THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (The Earl of KIMBERLEY): My Lords, the noble Viscount is very desirous, as I understand, to have an early summary of the Report, and not to have to wait as long for it as on previous occasions, a desire in which I fully sympathise with him, and I have been anxious that his wish should be carried into effect. I am afraid I have not altogether succeeded. The Government of India telegraphed—I think it must have been before I was in Office—that the time allowed (six months) for collecting the necessary information was too short; and they suggested that the Memoranda called for should be pre-
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  pared by the Local Governments and Corporations, and should form part of the Administrative Reports for 1892–3. A telegram has been sent in reply to the effect that it was intended that the Report should be published in the present July, and that short Memoranda should be prepared as requested. Those Memoranda only began to arrive in January last. On the 6th April, in reply to representations made to us from India, we approved their reasons for not completing the Census before June last, and that, in accordance with that arrangement, Mr. Baynes would commence his "Moral and Material" Report when he got the information from India, which will not have been finished, in fact, until about this time. Mr. Baynes is the gentleman who was appointed, I think, by the noble Viscount. He has recently begun to prepare his Report, and it is expected that it will be ready in January next—not before. I can assure the noble Viscount I am as anxious as himself that it should be published as soon as possible, but the information could not be obtained earlier.
  Viscount CROSS: I do not know whether I may infer from the noble Earl's answer that the Report will be considerably fuller than those previously published, and that Mr. Baynes will have a pretty free hand in the matter.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: There is no kind of limitation imposed upon him, except that it should be prepared by the time mentioned. Of course, it will not be so full as if a longer time had been given, but I have no doubt it will be very useful and instructive.

REPLACING H.M.S. "VICTORIA."

  QUESTION. OBSERVATIONS.
  LORD HOOD OF AVALONasked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether it was intended to take a Supplementary Estimate in order to provide, with the least possible delay, for the commencement of a first-class battle-ship to replace the Victoria, and also for the entry of the necessary number of men to replace those lost by the sinking of that ship? He said, the grievous loss the country had sustained must be deplored most deeply by all as a great national disaster. In Sir George Tryon the country had lost an Admiral of the very

  1299
  highest distinction and ability, who had won the admiration and respect of the whole Naval Service and the entire confidence of every officer and man who had served under his command. We had also to deplore the loss of some 400 of our officers and trained men. But whilst deeply mourning their loss, one bright spot stood out conspicuously in this great disaster, which must command the admiration and sympathy of all, and that was the cool courage displayed and the high state of discipline maintained by officers and men to the very last. No panic was shown, but each man remained steady at his station until the order was given them to endeavour to save themselves. The country might well be proud of such men. All honour to them! It was of vital importance that this great national loss should be repaired as soon as possible. First, as to replacing our trained men. Heretofore, when it had been necessary to do so through any sudden loss in the personnel of the Navy, an additional number of boys had been entered for the Service; but the adoption of that course was not to be recommended in this case, and the trained men lost must be replaced by trained men. Boys after 18 months' service in the training ships only became ordinary seamen at 18, and, therefore, if the necessary number of boys to replace the men lost in the Victoria were at once entered, nearly three years must elapse before they became ordinary seamen. On the other hand, a Marine recruit joined as a man in 14 months after passing through the whole of his training, and was ready to embark as a trained gunner, his cost to the country during training being £48, as compared with £102 for a boy, from his entry on the training ship to his becoming an ordinary seaman. He would, therefore, strongly recommend that an addition of 400 men should be made to that most valuable corps, the Royal Marines, to replace the loss of trained men in the Victoria, in the shortest possible time. Then as to replacing the vessel herself. The loss of a first-class battle-ship was a matter of the greatest importance at present when large increases were being made in the number of battle-ships in both the French and Russian Navies, and that loss should be replaced with as little delay as possible. Three years were required to complete a first-class battle-ship, and six or seven
  1300
  months' time would be saved if a new one were commenced now instead of waiting for the Naval Estimates for next year. There would be no necessity to wait for a design to be prepared, for that of the two first-class battle-ships in this year's Programme could easily be adopted for a third, and but a moderate sum, comparatively speaking, would be required for the material and so much of the construction as could be carried out in the present financial year. He trusted the noble Earl the First Lord would be able to assure the House that it was intended to take a Supplementary Estimate for the purpose of replacing the grievous loss the country had sustained by this great national disaster.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Earl SPENCER): My Lords, I do not wonder at the noble and gallant Lord referring in appropriate and feeling terms to the serious loss of the Victoria, or at the tribute he has paid to the high discipline shown by the crew in the foundering of that vessel. But I do not intend to-night, in the few words in which I shall answer the noble and gallant Lord, to enlarge upon that painful subject. I will go at once to the answer I propose to make to him. I would first ask the noble and gallant Lord whether he considers that in the estimate of the strength of the Navy made by the Board to which he belonged they did not intend to have a margin of strength in the ships building and in commission, and whether, in a minor degree, they did not intend to have a margin with regard to the men? As to the ships, I think we should be in an exceedingly bad position if we calculated so narrowly the strength of our Navy and the number of ships we possess that we should be put into serious difficulties by the loss of one of them. I do not under-rate the serious nature of this loss; but, at the same time, I deny that the loss is so pressing that immediate action is imperative in order to keep up the strength of the Navy. Having said that, I at once make the qualifying admission that the loss of a great ship like this is, as the noble and gallant Lord says, a very serious and grave loss, and that in the Estimates and Programme we are making, and have made, the loss of the Victoria has been considered, and will be

  1301
  considered in any plan of construction we have to lay down. That I say most deliberately. It would be impossible for any Board having a sense of responsibility to exclude from their view the loss the country has suffered by this grave disaster. Now I come to the other question of the seamen. I have very little to criticise in the remarks of the noble and gallant Lord, but I do not think any immediate stops are pressed upon us owing to what has taken place. The losses in the Victoria, which were so serious and which we all so much deplore, are divided among different ratings. There were 124 seamen lost. That includes 15 boys. I will not go through every one, but will take some of the principal ratings. There were 81 stokers and 68 Marines. Altogether, exclusive of the officers, there were 320 lost. Now, there will be no difficulty whatever, with the ships now in commission, in replacing the 124 seamen lost. If there were a difficulty, we could resort to two courses: We might resort to the course suggested by the noble and gallant Lord—namely, increasing the Marines, who can be made efficient much more rapidly and at a smaller cost than seamen. As the noble and gallant Lord has reminded your Lordships, the seamen now are educated and trained in special training ships as boys for a period of from one and a-half to two years. It may be necessary on account of this loss to keep up the rather large number of boys now entering the training ships for a longer period than would otherwise have been necessary. We may have to continue the number voted each year at the somewhat high figure at which they were put for 1892–3. That was not intended to be continued as a permanent figure, and it was supposed that by 1894–5, if those numbers were entered, we should have got up the strength of our seamen to what it should be for the number of our ships. That full number may have to be kept up, as I have said, rather longer in consequence of this serious loss. Then, coming to the question of stokers, I have to say that we are trying to increase the number of stokers; and the recruiting for them, under the new conditions we have imposed, has been so far satisfactory. If it continues as satisfactory as it has begun, we hope that by the end of the year we shall have brought up the
  1302
  stokers to the number we have asked for in this year's Estimate. That, I think, is satisfactory. With regard to the Marines, I also hear that the recruiting is satisfactory, and alike in this respect and in respect of the stokers we have sufficient numbers without reducing the standard. I need hardly say that if we reduced the standard for men joining the Navy, especially for the Marines, we could immediately increase the numbers very materially. There is another source to which we could turn in case of real necessity. We could turn to the Royal Naval Reserve men, and we believe we should be able to get at once a very considerable number of Royal Naval Reserve men to join the Navy as seamen if there were necessity for doing so. At present we do not think there is that necessity, as we believe we shall have sufficient men to man the ships we put into commission. But in regard to this we are now considering very seriously—it has not been absolutely settled—whether we cannot put through training on board Her Majesty's ships for a certain time Royal Naval Reserve men who are seamen just in the same way as we put officers of the Royal Naval Reserve into a great many ships that are commissioned. That is the answer I have to give to the noble and gallant Lord. I am not prepared to pledge Her Majesty's Government to introduce a Supplementary Estimate, we do not consider that is necessary, and, while keeping in view our responsibility to maintain the strength of the Navy, we do not consider it is absolutely necessary to take fresh steps at present, considering especially that the ships under the Naval Defence Act are rapidly going forward. We may press forward to completion rather earlier some of those ships, but we do not consider the needs of the moment are so urgent that we must at once lay down a now ship or in any way increase the number of recruits in the Navy.

ELEMENTARY EDUCATION (BLIND AND DEAF CHILDREN) BILL.—(No. 219.)

  COMMITTEE.
  House in Committee (according to Order.)
  Clause 1.
  LORD SANDFORDregretted that the noble Lord who presided over the Royal

  1303
  Commission on the Deaf and Blind in 1889 was not present to give their Lordships the benefit of his experience on the subject. On the other hand, he was glad to see opposite the noble Lord now representing the Scotch Office, who gave so much time and attention to the work of that Commission, as he had done on almost every Commission that had sat of late years, for he would probably give his assistance in carrying some of the Amendments, which were taken direct from the Report of the Commission. One point he would like to mention as a preliminary to moving the Amendments in detail—
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: I beg the noble Lord's pardon for interposing, but I must remind him that it is not in Order for him to make a general speech in Committee. He must confine himself to his Amendments.
  LORD SANDFORDsaid, he was only proposing to save time by one or two remarks, which would have to be made on almost all the Amendments. His Amendment on this clause was to insert an exception in the case of a deaf child under seven years of age, as recommended by the Commission. Under this Bill a deaf or blind child could be sent to school at the age of live and kept there until 16. He would not touch the case of blind children, because the sooner they were sent to school the better.
  Amendment moved,
  In page 1, line 9, after ("itself") to insert ("except in the case of a deaf child under seven years of age").—(The Lord Sandford.)
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: I agree to this Amendment. I would only say that this is in the Scotch Act.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Clause, as amended, agreed to.
  Clause 2 agreed to.
  Clause 3.
  LORD SANDFORDsaid, one of the recommendations of the Royal Commission (No. 208) was that, subject to inspection, the control of the internal domestic management of the Institutions should be left as heretofore with the existing Governing Bodies. The clause as it stood proposed to introduce representative Governors where the Education Department thought it possible or expe-
  1304
  dient upon the Governing Body of every school, whether industrial or day, receiving grants from the rates or from the Department. He thought this was unnecessary. He would not go back to the recommendations of Mr. Forster in 1870, for circumstances and ideas had changed considerably since those days, but would only refer to a statement made when it was proposed that the London School Board should make an arrangement with the School Board of Liverpool to send children to their industrial schools that—
  "The Board had not the slightest representation on the management of those schools, although they were almost entirely kept up by the contributions of the School Boards."
  In reply to that, Mr. Lyulph Stanley said the Board had a power which was rather more efficacious than that representation, for they could send to the schools their Board Inspectors, who made suggestions which were generally agreed to by the managers. That was the line taken by Mr. Forster in 1870 in the House of Commons, when it was suggested that every voluntary school should have representative Governors on its management. In this Bill provision was made for the representation of the Local Authorities, who sent their children to these schools, whether near or at a distance. His Amendment was based on a conversation he had had with the late Cardinal Manning as to the conditions on which rate-aid should be given, when His Eminence said that he would have no objection to the inspection of any schools receiving such aid by officers of the rate-paying Body which contributed to them; but he would certainly object very much to representatives of School Boards or other Local Authorities being added to their management. His Eminence referred to the case of industrial schools, and especially to the Roman Catholic Deaf and Dumb School at Boston Spa, in Yorkshire, where the system of inspection worked well. The Boards of Guardians of 63 Unions sent children to that Institution. They came from all quarters of the country: from Alnwick in the North, from Birkenhead and Swansea in the West, and a considerable number from London in the South. If it were claimed under this Bill that the large School Boards in Yorkshire should be

  1305
  represented on the management of this Roman Catholic Institution, he did not think the Department would be able to resent this claim, and they would have a number of representatives from such towns as Sheffield, Leeds, York, and Manchester placed upon the Governing Body, and over-ruling the existing Manager. He saw no necessity for that, for popular control was given by the Bill, which provided inspection by Local Authorities in the form which Mr. Lyulph Stanley and others thought was best.
  Moved, to leave out the Clause.—(The Lord Sandford.)
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: I hope the House will not agree to this Amendment. The clause as it now stands is a very mild one, far less stringent than was strongly desired by many who took part in the preparation of the Bill in the other House, because it is merely giving to the Education Department power whore they think it expedient and convenient to allow representation. In the case mentioned by the noble Lord, I should think it could not be done, because each of the 63 Boards of Guardians could not be represented on the Governing Body. But there are many cases where such representation can be provided, and it is extremely desirable, where a considerable amount of public money is to be given, that in these schools there should be some representation of those who contribute the money. As I said before, this is only a provision that it may be done. If it were compulsory the noble Lord's objections would have considerable weight; but to give a discretionary power of this kind seems to me desirable and quite in accordance with the principles of the Bill.
  Amendment negatived.
  Clause agreed to.
  Clause 4.
  LORD SANDFORDproposed to add to the clause a limitation of the powers of School Attendance Committees appointed by Boards of Guardians. It was not perhaps generally known that the number of children who would come under the operation of the Bill was comparatively small. There wore in England and Wales about 2,000 blind children between 5 and 16 years of age, of whom 1,544 were
  1306
  at school in 1888, leaving only 450 unprovided for. There were at present probably from 6,000 to 7,000 deaf and dumb children between the same ages, of whom 2,500 were maintained in existing Institutions, generally denominational. If any of those schools were left in existence by the Money Clauses of this Bill new accommodation to that extent would certainly not be required, and only about 3,000 seats would, at the outside, have to be supplied for deaf and dumb children throughout England and Wales. In the Bill of 1892 only School Boards were given power to build schools for these unfortunate children, because the Attendance Committees at present had no powers of providing schools at the cost of the rates. He proposed, however, to allow the Attendance Committees in boroughs and large Urban Sanitary Authorities to have that power, because there might be a considerable number of these unfortunate children in their districts. In country places, where such cases occurred very sporadically, there was no use in giving School Attendance Committees the power of providing schools which would be supplied by the District Councils referred to in this Bill, if and when appointed. As there would be under the Amendment 2,534 School Authorities left with the power of providing school accommodation, and there were only about 3,500 children to be accommodated, there was no use in giving to the 578 School Attendance Committees for Unions extended powers for making such provision. There would, on au average, be only four children to be provided for in each of the areas under their jurisdiction.
  Amendment moved,
  In page 2, line 31, at end of Clause, to insert ("Provided that in the case of a School Attendance Committee appointed by a Board of Guardians, the powers of such Committee shall be limited to contributing to the annual maintenance of any school certified under this Act, and to the payment of the expenses of individual children attending such school, but shall not extend to the provision of school accommodation for the purposes of this Act."—(The Lord Sandford.)
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: I observe, in the first place, that there is, in one sense, the provision the noble Lord alludes to. The clause provides that if a District Council should be established it is to exercise those powers. Of course, that is assuming what may

  1307
  not come to pass—it is as well to notice that; but in the interval the School Attendance Committee is to act. But I think there is some misapprehension in this matter. I admit that at first I entertained some objection to the clause on the ground that it did not seem to me a School Attendance Committee was exactly the kind of Body to spend the ratepayers' money; but I found that it was not the School Attendance Committee which would have the discretion in the matter, and that the Authority was to be either the Board of Guardians, the Borough Council, or the Urban Sanitary Authority, appointing the School Attendance Committee, and acting through it. When I referred to the Act under which these Committees are appointed, I found that no expenditure whatever can be incurred without authority from the Board of Guardians, and, in point of fact, in all matters involving expenditure it is the Board of Guardians who will impose the taxation, and not the School Attendance Committee. All that is intended is that they are to use the latter as the Body best acquainted with the subject for the purpose of setting the matter in motion. As regards the general observation of the noble Lord, that there is no necessity to do this, I think it is necessary. It seems to me that when you are enacting provisions requiring schools for deaf and blind children it is absolutely necessary those enactments should be extended to the whole Kingdom. What the noble Lord proposes is that in those districts, which are very numerous, where there are School Attendance Committees, they shall have no power to erect a school for this purpose. My own experience in these matters is that it is very rarely they will do so—that these Committees and rural Boards of Guardians will not incur expense unnecessarily. No doubt there will be cases where it is absolutely unnecessary, and they will, as a matter of course, contribute to some other schools; but there may be cases where there are no means of providing for the education of these children except by the erection of schools, and this clause as now framed will give that power. It seems to me to be giving power which certainly ought to be lodged somewhere, and that it is better it should be done in this way.
  Amendment negatived.
  Clause agreed to.
  Clause 5.
  LORD SANDFORD LORD SANDFORD moved the insertion of the following clause from the Bill of the late Government:—
  Amendment moved,
  In page 2, line 39, to insert new sub-section: ((2.) "In granting or withholding their consent under this section the Education Department shall take into consideration the sufficiency of the accommodation available for blind and deaf children in existing schools.")
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: I must say I do not quite see the necessity for this. The clause runs that the Department is to exercise the power in any case in which the exercise of that power appears to the Department to be expedient. That appears to me to cover the case, because, of course, one of the grounds upon which the matter would be determined would be the accommodation available. It seems to me to follow almost as a matter of course, and I do not see any reason for specifying these particular things. The whole question would turn upon whether there was or was not sufficient accommodation. I imagine that the course taken would be that the Department would require from the persons applying a full statement of the grounds upon which it was alleged that the accommodation was not available, and they would thereupon make inquiry in order to ascertain if it was the case that accommodation did not exist; and I cannot see in the least why these particular things should be singled out.
  VISCOUNT CROSS: This Amendment of the noble Lord would, at all events, point out to the Department that it is their special duty to look after these particular cases.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: I do not see why it is necessary, because it seems to me that the provision points that out of itself, almost by necessary implication.
  On Question? their Lordships divided:—Contents 23; Not Contents 18.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Clause, as amended, agreed to.
  Clause 6 agreed to.
  Clause 7.
  LORD SANDFORDsaid, this was one of the most important and serious clauses in the Bill. The Lord President had

  1309
  been applied to on this subject by his noble and learned Friend Lord Morris, at whose request he had taken up the question. When moving the Second Reading the Lord President had promised to consider whether the clause should not be amended, as the words were of rather doubtful interpretation.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: I might, perhaps, save the noble Lord some trouble by explaining one little point, not interfering with the Amendment. I did not like to answer the other night, though I thought the words somewhat ambiguous; but I find that arises entirely from the word "or" being used instead of "and." I think the noble Lord will at once see the effect of that. It is simply a verbal error.
  LORD SANDFORDsaid, that substituting "and" for "or," the clause as it stood imposed upon the managers of these Institutions, which had done so much good work in times past, and which, he hoped, would be recognised under the Bill, though no provision was made for their immediate certification, too great a burden. He would take the case of the Roman Catholic school at Boston Spa, which he had already referred to. It appeared from the Report of the Royal Commission that the cost per head of educating the deaf and dumb was £7 19s. 10d.—a large sum; but for the instruction of those poor children a considerable number of teachers were required. For maintenance, food, and clothing in those Institutions generally the cost was £16 18s., the total charge being £24 17s. 10d. At Boston Spa there were 150 scholars, and the cost was £22 6s. 6d. This reduction upon the general average was owing to the devoted Sisters of Charity (St. Vincent de Paul) giving their services almost gratuitously. The children's payments amounted to £16 0s. 2d., leaving £6 6s. 4d. to be supplied by voluntary effort. Last year the voluntary contributions, which, like those to similar Institutions throughout the country, had fallen off, amounted to £4 17s. If the parents' payments were not to be taken into account, and one-third of the cost of the school was to be supplied by voluntary effort, instead of £4 17s., £7 8s. 10d. would be required. From the falling-off in contributions, the schools were already getting into debt, and to require the larger sum to be sup-
  1310
  plied pointed to the closing of those valuable Institutions altogether. On the other hand, one-fifth would only amount to £4 9s. 3d., which the Institutions would be able to obtain and to go on flourishing.
  Amendment moved, in page 3, line 39, to leave out ("third") and insert ("fifth").—(The Lord Sandford.)
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: I am sorry I cannot consent to the substitution of one-fifth. The object of the clause is to prevent the schools being supported practically by public money alone—that there shall be a substantial contribution towards the management of these schools. That seems to me to be a proper provision, and I think one-third is right. I cannot agree to the substitution of one-fifth; but if the noble Lord does not press that, I shall not resist the next Amendment. It was intended to exclude from the Bill the calculation of the parents' payments for the children boarded, lodged, and educated at the schools; but on that point, if the noble Lord does not press the one-fifth instead of one-third—whilst I know that in the Committee of the House of Commons, which inserted the words, a good deal of importance was attached to them, as they wore not in the original Bill—I shall not press for their retention.
  VISCOUNT CROSS: As far as the last observation of the noble Lord is concerned, I entirely agree. I may say that I have received a letter from Birmingham, where they feel very strongly on the matter, stating that it would have the effect of injuring the Institution there, which is doing very good work.
  LORD PLAYFAIRsaid, as Chairman of the Managing Committee of the largest Blind Institution in the country—that at Norwood—he could state that they were not afraid of one-third, which they considered was a fair test to put upon such an Institution.
  LORD SANDFORDsaid, if his second Amendment were accepted, he would not press the reduction to one-fifth.
  Amendment (by leave of the Committee) withdrawn.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: Then the noble Lord's next Amendment will be agreed to.
  Amendment moved,
  In lines 39, 40, and 41, to leave out ("or the payment made by the parent of the children boarded and lodged or educated in the school.")—(The Lord Sandford.)
  Amendment agreed to.
  Clause, as amended, agreed to.
  Clause 8 agreed to.
  Clause 9.
  LORD SANDFORDasked for an explanation of the words "regard being had to the provisions of the Education Act, 1891."
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: I am afraid that point has escaped me, and I cannot answer it off-hand. If the noble Lord will allow me to answer it in Standing Committee, I will then give him an explanation, but at present I do not feel quite sure what it is.
  Clause agreed to.
  Clause 10.
  LORD SANDFORDproposed to insert the words "or boarding with any person," as parents would no doubt wish to have a voice in the selection of the persons with whom their children were to be placed.
  Amendment moved, in page 5, line 17, after ("school") to insert ("or boarding with any person").—(The Lord Sandford.)
  LORD HALSBURY: The Local Authority might nominate some person to whose care the parent would not like to confide his child.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: The Bill provides in a previous clause that they are to arrange, if possible, for the boarding-out being with some person belonging to the religious persuasion of the parent. That, of course, is desirable; but I think if these words were inserted they might give rise to difficulties in cases of boarding-out orphans and similar cases. If due care is taken as to the religious education, that, I think, will be sufficient. This might give rise sometimes to a great deal of embarrassment if it entailed an inquiry what were the religious persuasions of parents.
  Amendment negatived.
  Clause agreed to.
  Clause 11 agreed to.
  Clause 12.
  Amendment moved, in page 5, line 31, after ("education") to insert ("and "industrial training.")—(The Lord Sandford.)
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: I think I can explain to the noble Lord that there is no occasion for this Amendment, because the Definition Clause includes what he intends. That clause says at line 16—
  "The expression 'elementary education' may include industrial training, whether given in the school which the child attends or not."
  I am informed by the draftsman that that is intended.
  LORD SANDFORDsaid, the Amendment followed the terms of the Scotch Act, but he had overlooked this Definition Clause.
  Amendment (by leave of the Committee) withdrawn.
  Clause agreed to.
  Clause 13.
  Verbal Amendments.
  Clauses 14 to 17, inclusive, agreed to.
  Bill re-committed to the Standing Committee; and to be printed, as amended. (No. 241.)

SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE BILL [H.L.]

  REPORT OF AMENDMENTS.
  Amendments reported (according to Order).
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord HERSCHELL): My Lords, I have to move an Amendment on page 2 at the end of the clause to add a sub-section. The object is this: Some question has arisen whether by the rule-making power of the Rule Committee rules can be made relating to inter-pleaders. Inconvenience has been found to arise from this doubt, and this Amendment is really to carry out an Act which has already received the sanction of the Legislature by applying the rule-making power to the Acts mentioned in the Schedule.
  Amendment moved,
  In Clause 3, page 2, at the end of the clause add a sub-section:—"The power to make rules conferred by the Judicature Acts, 1873 to 1891, shall include power to make rules with respect

  1313
  to the matters contained in and regulated by the enactments described in the Schedule to this Act."—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  Amendment agreed to.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: Then in Clause 5 I have to move an Amendment which I do not think is one of substance as the Bill now stands; but I am afraid some misapprehension has arisen as to the intention of Clause 4. When the matter was before the Standing Committee I believe some observations of mine were understood as indicating an intention that that part of the section which related to age of retirement should not be applicable to any existing officers of the Court. Certainly that is not the effect of the Amendment of which I gave notice, according to my opinion, nor the effect of the Bill as it now stands; but, at the same time, I am given to understand that I was understood as having made that statement. I daresay, when one is talking about various sections, what is said intending to apply only to certain of the Judicial officers may be understood as applying to all. Having stated that the one main object of the Bill was to put the clerks and officers in the Central Office of the Supreme Court, speaking generally, in the same position as Civil Service clerks in regard to the scheme of retirement, to have excluded all the clerks in that office from the retirement conditions would have been practically not to put them on the same looting as the Civil Service clerks, but to leave them entirely outside. That certainly was not my intention; it was not the effect of the Amendments of which I gave notice, nor is it the effect of the Bill as it now stands. The proposal I now make is, in my judgment, only putting into a form less open to dispute what I understand to have been sanctioned in Standing Committee; and it is with that view I propose the Amendment of which I have given notice.
  Amendment moved,
  In Clause 5, page 3, line 23, leave out Subsections (3) and (4) and insert the following sub-section:—"(3.) Any order made under this section may be made to apply to any officer of the Supreme Court, whether appointed before or after the passing of this Act, except that an order as to retirement or removal shall not in any case apply to any master or other judicial officer."—(The Lord Chancellor.)
  LORD MACNAGHTENasked if the noble and learned Lord would have any objection to insert at the end of Subsection 3—
  "Nor shall any such order apply to any officer appointed before the passing of this Act who holds office by Statute during good behaviour."
  The noble and learned Lord was aware that there were persons in that position who would be affected by the clause as it stood.
  LORD HALSBURY: I hope the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack will agree to that suggestion. It seems to me to be very undesirable that persons who have already a certain status by Statute and who hold office during good behaviour should by a kind of side wind be deprived of their office. That would, I think, cause great dissatisfaction and be a great blot upon a Bill otherwise beneficial.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I do not wish to affect Civil servants in the legal offices referred to, and, therefore, I should certainly not oppose the Amendment proposed by the noble and learned Lord.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment, as amended, agreed to.
  Bill to be read 3a on Monday next.

ADJOURNMENT OF THE HOUSE.
VISCOUNT CROSS: My Lords, I would ask the noble Earl the Leader of the House whether on Tuesday next, as there will not be much to be done, and it might probably be convenient for many noble Lords to be able to leave town at an earlier period than they would otherwise, it would not be advisable for the House to meet at a quarter past 4, instead of half past 5 as usual on Tuesdays?
THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: I quite agree that it would be extremely convenient to everyone, and, therefore, I will give notice that on Monday I shall move that the House do meet at a quarter past 4 on Tuesday instead of half past 5, and the Standing Committee will be fixed for 3 o'clock. I shall also take the opportunity of moving that we meet again after the adjournment at the usual hour of a quarter past 4, as there will be no Standing Committee on that day.

LONDON IMPROVEMENTS BILL.
Read 3a, with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 13) BILL.—(No. 229.)
Amendments reported (according to Order); further Amendments made; and Bill to be read 3a on Monday next.
IRISH EDUCATION ACT, 1892, AMEND- MENT (No. 2) BILL.—(No. 220.)
House in Committee (according to Order); Bill reported without Amendment; and re-committed to the Standing Committee.
REFORMATORY SCHOOLS BILL [H.L.] (No. 234.)
Amendments reported (according to Order), and Bill to be read 3a on Monday next.
COUNTY OF THE CITY OF GLASGOW BILL.—(No. 235.)
Amendments reported (according to Order), and Bill to be read 3a on Monday next.
COMPANIES (CERTIFICATE OF INCOR- PORATION) BILL [H.L.]—(No. 236.)
Amendments reported (according to Order), and Bill to be read 3a on Monday next.
STATUTORY RULES PROCEDURE BILL. (No. 237.)
Amendments reported (according to Order), and Bill to be read 3a on Monday next.
LAW OF COMMONS AMENDMENT BILL [H.L.]—(No. 238.)
Amendments reported (according to Order), and Bill to be read 3a on Tuesday next.
LIVERPOOL COURT OF PASSAGE BILL. (No. 239.)
Amendments reported (according to Order), and Bill to be read 3a on Monday next.
BURGHS GAS SUPPLY (SCOTLAND) ACT (1876) AMENDMENT BILL.—(No. 226.)
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without Amendment; and re-committed to the Standing Committee.
LAND TRANSFER BILL [H.L.]—(No. 230.)
Read 3a (according to Order); Amendments made; Bill passed, and sent to the Commons.
TRUST INVESTMENT BILL [H.L.] (No. 232.)
Read 3a (according to Order); and passed, and sent to the Commons.
CONVEYANCE OF MAILS BILL. (No. 223.)
Read 3a (according to Order), with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
MERCHANT SHIPPING (FISHING BOATS) ACTS (1883 AND 1887) AMENDMENT BILL.
Order for the Third Reading on Monday next, discharged.
CANAL RATES, TOLLS, AND CHARGES PROVISIONAL ORDER (LEEDS AND LIVERPOOL CANAL) BILL.
Brought from the Commons: read 1a; to be printed; and referred to the Examiners. (No. 242.)
CANAL RATES, TOLLS, AND CHARGES PROVISIONAL ORDER (NAVIGATION OF THE RIVERS AIRE AND CALDER) BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; to be printed; and referred to the Examiners. (No. 243.)
CANAL RATES, TOLLS, AND CHARGES PROVISIONAL ORDER (GRAND JUNC- TION CANAL) BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; to be printed; and referred to the Examiners. (No. 244.)

CANAL RATES, TOLLS, AND CHARGES PROVISIONAL ORDER (WARWICK AND BIRMINGHAM CANAL) BILL.
Brought from the Commons; read 1a; to be printed; and referred to the Examiners. (No. 245.)
House adjourned at a quarter before Six o'clock, till Monday next, a quarter past Four o'clock.