Sitting of 10 August 1893

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

  LONDON IMPROVEMENTS BILL (by Order).
  Lords Amendments considered.
  Lords Amendments, as far as the Amendment, page 30, to leave out Clause 41, agreed to.
  Amendment, page 30, to leave out Clause 41, the next Amendment, a second time.
  Sir J. LUBBOCKrose to move, "That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said Amendment." It was, he felt, a serious responsibility to ask the House to disagree with an important change made by the House of Lords; and, under ordinary circumstances, any Member doing so would be bound to state his reasons very fully and in ample detail. The present case was, however, exceptional and peculiar. The clause known for shortness as the Betterment Clause was objected to on the Second Reading, but was referred to the Committee. It was passed by the Committee after careful inquiry, though by a small majority only. When it came back to the House it was again challenged, but after a full discussion was supported by a very largo majority—in fact, nearly two to one. Under these circumstances, and as the subject had been so recently before the House, it was not necessary for him to go at length into the matters then discussed, and that appeared to him the more unnecessary, because he thought he should be able to show the House that the Resolution taken against the clause in the House of Lords was really based upon a misapprehension of what the clause did. The Resolution adopted by the Lords said—
  "That this House, before assenting to the Second Reading of this Bill, desires to express its opinion that proposals for the assessment of capital values instead of annual values, and for creating new and arbitrarily-defined areas of taxation such as are contained in Clause 41 of
  1730
  the Bill, ought not to be embodied in a Private Bill, but, if found just and equitable, should be based on general principles laid down by Parliament."
  He did not wish at present to enter into the question whether this ought to be done by a Public or a Private Bill; but what he did wish to point out was that this clause neither proposed to substitute assessments of capital value instead of annual values, nor did it create any new and arbitrarily-defined areas of taxation. In fact, it created no area, of taxation whatever—either arbitrarily or otherwise. Then there was another objection to the clause—that it was considered to be an attack upon the rights of property. It was nothing of the sort. It was simply an attempt to adjust the payment for these improvements in a fairer manner than would otherwise be done. The improvements in the Bill had been passed both by this House and by the House of Lords as desirable in themselves, and the question arose how they were to be paid for. They all agreed that the great bulk must be paid for by the property liable for rates in the Metropolis; but they asked that some part should be borne by those who were benefited pecuniarily by the expenditure of their fellow-citizens. They were about to spend a largo sum of public money; and if the result was that certain houses were in consequence of that expenditure largely increased in value, they should contribute, not the whole, but a part, of that improvement, which was due to no action, no expenditure of theirs, but by the action and expenditure of the County Council as representing the ratepayers generally. It was sometimes said that if the property was improved the Council would be recouped by the rates. But so they should be if a man improved his property at his own expense. Take two cases. One man spent £1,000, and improved his house to that extent; he paid the rates on it. Another man had his property improved £1,000 by the expenditure of the ratepayers. He also paid on an additional £1,000. They both paid the same addition. Was it fair that the man who had spent his own £ 1,000 should pay more than the other, where the improvement was due to the money of the ratepayers? Surely that was manifestly unfair. Others said that the County Council should recoup itself by extra purchases. Long experience had

  1731
  shown that this was impossible. They had to pay for the land, the houses, and the trade interest, and they always found that the trade interest ran away with the whole profit, and more. The only case in which any profit was made was in that of Northumberland Avenue, where there were no trade interests to be bought up. It had been objected to him in conversation by several opponents that perhaps no property would be actually benefited, though there might be a general convenience; but the answer was that, if no property was actually benefited, no property would pay. Then the question arose—Were the County Council proposing any unfair mode of ascertaining the value? He did not understand that the clause was attacked on that score. The Board of Trade wore to appoint an arbitrator, the County Council were to convince him that there was an improvement, and unless they did so no betterment would have to be fixed. In the previous discussion in the House it was shown that the principle of betterment was not new. It was applied as long ago as the Fire of Loudon, though he admitted that it had been superseded by a different principle. What was that principle, and why was it proposed to change it? He was not concerned to prove that there were no objections to this plan; they did not say that betterment was perfect. There were objections to every system of taxation and of rating. All that could be done was to choose that which most nearly approached to equity and justice. He would therefore ask the House, and he would very respectfully ask the House of Lords, not merely to look at betterment in the abstract, but to compare it with the alternative. Under the system of our predecessors the cost of a local improvement was borne, half by the district, say the parish, and half by the Metropolis at large. But our Metropolitan Divisions were of very irregular shapes; and, even if they were symmetrical, it would often happen that those out of the district benefited more by an improvement than those in it. An improvement in the south of a district might be of little or no special advantage to those in the north; and yet, under the old system, they were called upon to contribute heavily towards it. Under the proposed system no one would be called
  1732
  on to pay more than the general rate, unless it could be shown that his house had been actually improved in value, and then only to the extent of a portion of that increase. The amount involved in the present instance was small, but the principle was important. If it could be shown that in any details the plan proposed was unfair, by all means let it be amended. The only object the County Council had, or could have, was to do justice as between different ratepayers. What they asked the House to affirm was the principle. They did not say that it was perfect, but they thought it was much fairer than the alternative plan. He would not, under the circumstances, go more fully into details; but he asked the House, he would not say to support the County Council, but to support their own Committee and their own decision, and he did so because they were satisfied that the plan in the Bill was equitable in itself, and fair to the ratepayers generally.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth disagree with the Lords in the said Amendment."—(Sir J. Lubbock.)
  MR. WHITMOREsaid, he could not throw himself into any violent passion against the general principle of betterment, or against the application of it in this particular instance; but, at the same time, he did not see how those hon. Members who had hitherto voted against the particular application of the principle embodied in this Bill could alter their action now. On the contrary, their attitude had been confirmed and strengthened by the decision of the House of Lords' Committee. The right hon. Baronet the Member for the London University had put his case forward with his usual moderation and fairness; but he had admitted that, in fact, the betterment principle was anovel principle, or one to be re-introduced after the lapse of a long period of time. He thought the right hon. Gentleman would agree that it was also a principle which in itself had many opponents; and however much they might wish, in the abstract, and theoretically, to give effect to the general idea of betterment, that the principle in its application was full of difficulty. The right hon. Baronet had said that to give effect to

  1733
  this principle by Public Act would cause delay. He must ask the right hon. Gentleman had not the course followed by the supporters of this principle of attempting to give effect to it by Private Acts of Parliament led to us much delay as would follow from the introduction to that House of a Public Act of Parliament? Ever since the constitution of the London County Council, that Body had tried to tack on a Betterment Clause to every one of the public improvement schemes it had brought forward. What had been the result? So far, it had found itself unable to carry into effect any one of the proposals, and, at least, a delay of five or six years had followed on their persistent attachment to this principle. He did not blame them for their attachment to Betterment, but he said that so long as they refused to allow any London improvement scheme which did not have among its clauses a Betterment Clause, so long experience had shown in the past they were unable to carry such London improvement. He regretted and deplored that result. So long as they persevered in this particular course this must happen—that Committees of that and the other House, in sanctioning the particular application of the betterment principle, must, to some extent, follow the individual predilections and individual prejudices of Members of these Committees. That was, at all events, the lesson of the past. It was the precise result of what had occurred hitherto in the history of this matter. It was very unfortunate that the question of betterment had become, very stupidly, a Party question; but anyone who looked at the proceedings of the Committees which had considered this principle could not deny that the Members who sat on such Committees were largely influenced in their decisions by the accident of belonging to the particular Party to which they were attached. What would be the result of that? In one Session of Parliament they might get a particular London improvement carried out to which the betterment principle would be made applicable, and in a subsequent Session and subsequent Parliament another London improvement might be carried out in which that principle would be rejected, so that instead of there being a stable, consistent, and permanent system on which these improve-
  1734
  ments were carried out, they would have a capricious, piecemeal, and absolutely unfinal system. He believed most honestly that the bulk of the Conservative Members for London would be glad to see this question settled. He believed most of I hem would agree that landowners ami occupiers had, under the Lauds Clauses Act, too often received far too much compensation because of public improvements, and would also agree that changes in the law were necessary; but they differed from the methods of hon. Gentlemen opposite, and they considered that these changes ought to be carried out by Public Act, deliberately passed through that House, and not in a piecemeal fashion by means of a Private Act. If hon. Members opposite would only introduce a Public Bill into this House giving expression to their views on this subject, it would meet with no unfair opposition, and an end might be put to this stupid controversy. But so long as the London County Council unwisely tried to secure their end by proposals in Private Bills, it would be their duty, on public but not on Party grounds, to oppose such a policy. He should, under the circumstances, vote against the proposal of the right hon. Baronet to re-insert the clause.
  MR. J. STUARTsaid, he had hoped the House would have escaped another Debate on the betterment principle, which was affirmed at the last discussion by a majority of 2 to 1. He had still more hoped that criticisms on the attitude of the London County Council on the general matters with which it had to deal would also have been avoided. He should not reply to the last observations of the hon. Member for Chelsea, further than by saying that in regard to this question the London County Council was aware that upon it the House had confidently and distinctly declared its opinion. The House of Lords was in sharp contradiction with the House of Commons, and the point was what should they now do in reference to the action of the Peers in throwing out the Betterment Clause without discussion on its merits, but merely on the ground that it was not a suitable subject to be dealt with in a Private Bill. Two grounds were alleged for that action—namely, that the clause

  1735
  contained two new principles, neither of which, however, Was, as a fact, to be found in it. The complaints were that it constituted an assessment of capital value, and that it created arbitrary areas for taxation. So far from its being a clause for the assessment and taxation of capital values, his hon. Friend the Member for St. George's-in-the-East (Mr. Benn) had placed upon the Paper certain Amendments which distinctly provided that in the case where there was a betterment of £200, £100ouly was to be charged, and that at the rate of £3 per annum. That was a very different thing from the assessment of capital value. Then, as to the arbitrary delimitation of areas of taxation, there was no such thing in the clause; but even if there wore it would be a very proper provision to introduce in Private Bill legislation, and many instances might be cited in which limited areas had been subjected to special taxation because of the benefit they had derived from particular expenditure. The principle was included in Bills promoted in 1890 and 1892, and it met with the full approval of the right hon. Gentleman who, in the last Conservative Administration, filled the Office of President of the Local Government Board (Mr. Ritchie); and in those years it was rejected not because it was unsuitable in a Private Bill, but on its merits. But now, they had a very excellent opportunity of experimentally applying the principle; and that high authority, Lord Morley, the Chairman of the Lords' Committees, said that it would be extremely difficult by a Public Act to lay down principles which would apply to a variety of cases which depended entirely on local circumstance, and that, therefore, the subject was one which might legitimately and rightly be left to Private Bill legislation. The same view was taken by the Lord Chancellor; but in spite of these opinions the Lords, by a very slender majority, threw out the clause. He agreed with the Lord Chancellor that they were bound to accept that action as a pronouncement of the House of Lords against the principle of betterment—a pronouncement made without examination of the principle which the House of Commons, after careful and continuous examination for many weeks, had affirmed. They regretted that the House of Lords had not examined, into
  1736
  the question, and he now called upon the House of Commons to stand by its guns and to send the Bill back to the House of Lords for the re-insertion of the clause. This was the second time in which a Bill of great importance to London had been sent back from the Upper House mutilated and destroyed, and the people of the Metropolis had already suffered very great loss through the action of the Peers. This was not a Party question, for hon. Members sitting on the Opposition Benches were numbered among the supporters of the principle; and he would impress upon them that it was neither fair nor just nor right to the people of London that the House of Lords, without the slightest examination, should mutilate and destroy their Bills. He appealed to the House of Commons to support the decisions of its own Committee, to stand up for its own decision, and to stand forward as the protector of the London ratepayer in a most just reform.
  COLONEL HUGHEShoped that a further conference between the two Houses would result in the reinsertion of the clause, if only for experimental purposes, in order to ascertain how the principle of betterment would work. They nearly all approved the principle, and they only differed as to the method of giving effect to it. Before a general Bill dealing with it could be introduced, it was desirable that they should have some experience of its working; and by the Bill now before the House they were given an opportunity of trying within the next few years whether the valuation of betterment could be equitably adjusted. Let them not reject the principle from this Bill, because it was a good one, and he believed that if it had been applied to the Black wall Tunnel Scheme a considerable portion of the expense of that undertaking would have been defrayed by owners, the value of whose land had been increased twenty-fold by the improvement. The London County Council were perfectly right in seeking to stop the continuous accumulation of debt, and in trying to levy a portion of the charge for improvements on those whose property was benefited. The very fact that a Bill for the equalisation of rating in the Metropolis had been introduced showed that the limit of the taxation of occu-

  1737
  piers had been reached, and he thought it would be very unwise to prevent the application of the betterment principle in this case.
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: As Chairman of the Committee which considered this Bill I desire to intervene for a few moments in the Debate. The hon. Member for the Hoxton Division of Shoreditch (Mr. J. Stuart) has complained of the Bill being mutilated and destroyed by the House of Lords; but that is a mere figurative expression, for all we have to consider is the omission of a clause which provides for the application of the principle of betterment to the improvement authorised by the Bill itself. The area to which the principle is proposed to be applied is very small, and as the total amount it is suggested it will be possible to recover is only £5,000, the mutilation of the Bill appears to be extremely problematical. The interpretation which the Lord Chancellor gave as to the action of the House of Lords being a pronouncement against the principle itself is not binding upon the House of Lords. That House simply decided that it would not consider the novel principle of betterment in a Private Bill on the ground that it ought to be dealt with by general legislation. In so deciding it was perfectly consistent, because on a former occasion a very strong Committee of its own Members reported that it was impossible that the principle could be fairly applied to individual eases. And when the hon. Member for Hoxton referred to the fairness with which the principle was to be applied, I could not help bearing in mind that the area to be subjected to the charge was not the parish which the witnesses declared might be considerably benefited, but was to be that area immediately abutting on the proposed new roadway. When it was proposed to apply the betterment principle to the Strand Improvement Scheme, the idea was dropped because of the difficulty of fixing the limits within which it should be applied, and I venture to assert that those difficulties are still more marked in the present case. Here we have a roadway the houses upon which are to be made liable to the special charge, and the owners will only be able to dispute the charge by going before an arbitrator
  1738
  appointed by the Board of Trade. Possibly the houses immediately abutting on the roadway will be enhanced in value, and so, too, may those which happened to be corner houses in streets immediately adjoining. Then on what principle of justice is one set of houses to be arbitrarily assessed for the improvement and the other set of houses to escape? The principle of application in this case is absolutely inequitable. Another objection to this proposal is that while the benefit to the property may be of only a temporary nature, and be exhausted in a few years, the charge is practically a permanent one. The only true principle upon which such a charge as this can be imposed is in the nature of a quinquennial assessment of rents, and under such a plan as that property which really benefits by a public improvement can be made to bear its fair share of the burden in the form of increased rates. On the grounds I have stated I hope the House will support the House of Lords in the rejection of the clause.
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. S. BUXTON,): I do not propose to discuss the principle of betterment on the merits of this particular case. My right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board has stated on a previous occasion the views of the Government in regard to this matter; the question on that occasion was fully and thoroughly discussed, and the House, by a large majority, approved the insertion of the principle in this Bill. The Government adhere to the view which was taken by them on the Second Reading of the Bill. There ought to be a fair opportunity afforded of trying the principle of betterment, and I think that the House ought to give this power to the County Council, so that, as far as practicable, there shall be an extra portion of the cost of great public improvements placed on the shoulders of those who most largely benefit by their construction. I may remind the House that while the Betterment Clause was rejected by the Lords by the very narrow majority of 51 to 36, it was affirmed by the House of Commons by 216 votes against 118, and I hope that in these circumstances

  1739
  the House will disagree with the Lords' Amendments.
  MR. FORWOOD: It might be supposed that the betterment principle only affects Loudon, whereas it is a matter of principle which affects the country at large, especially the large urban constituencies. I have been connected for many years with the management of one of the largest Municipalities, which has spent between £2,000,000 and £3,000,000 in street improvements, and I affirm that it is absolutely impossible to adjust with any equity and fairness the charge of betterment on the adjoining property. It is impossible for anyone to estimate how much property immediately abutting on the roadway to be improved has been benefited, or how much a mile away or more has been benefited. Let us take the case cited by the hon. and gallant Member for Woolwich (Colonel Hughes), the tunnel constructed at Blackwall. He said it had raised the assessable value of adjoining property. But it will probably do more than that; it will cause the conversion of agricultural land into building land, and land even a quarter of a mile distant from the tunnel will benefit. Where, then, is the line to be drawn for the delimitation of the betterment area? It certainly would not be fair, simply to include the property immediately adjoining the tunnel. The same difficulty arises in the case now before the House, and I say the only way to overcome it is for the County Council to buy the land for some considerable width on each side of the roadway and to take care that the price paid for the land on the proposed street is the price of the back land before an attempt is made to construct the street. That laud could be re-sold, and thus the real improved value of the laud is obtained by the public, and not by the owners of the land. The question of betterment is in this way avoided. This is the principle which, if I remember rightly, was adopted by the Metropolitan Board of Works with reference to Northumberland House and the adjoining land, and this has been the system followed by the Municipality with which I have been connected. We have paid largely for public improvements by buying back land and selling it at a higher price than we gave for it.
  MR. J. ROWLANDS (Finsbury, F.)said, the whole question of recoupment had been dealt with by the Committee. They had had the figures worked out in reference to the recoupment schemes of the Metropolitan Board of Works, which showed that every scheme, with the exception of the Northumberland House scheme, where the Board of Works were able to enter into negotiations with one purchaser for the undeveloped land, had been carried out at a great loss. To carry out the principle of recoupment, it would be necessary to buy the back property. They had to compensate every tenant on each property; they acquired the property, and then they had simply the freehold of the land loft, and that had to recoup them for the whole of the outlay they had incurred. However, it was not necessary to go into that question to-day. It was considered in the Committee for eight or nine days, and the result was that it was decided to recommend to the House the betterment principle. The right hon. Member for Manchester had said that the Bill had not conic down to them in a mutilated form. There was no other proposal for improvement in the Bill, and yet the Committee sat for the time he had mentioned. Why was that? Because of the fight on the vital principle of the Bill contained in the clause struck out in the House of Lords. It came to this—were they in London to have great improvements, or were they not? Could they have some relief for occupying tenants, or could they not? Rents had gone up, and rates had gone up at the expense of occupying tenants alone, and improvements which were required were at a standstill because they could not burden occupying tenants with further rates.
  MR. KIMBERthought it time that attention should be directed to the Motion before the House, the discussion having turned on the principle of betterment, to which few Members were opposed if it was correctly applied. That principle itself was not involved in the Motion. The question was whether or not the particular method proposed should be adopted for carrying out the principle? Unfortunately, the question had taken a Party turn, the London County Council being supported by the present Government in all their measures, whatever their tendency. The

  1741
  question was, as the House of Lords had said, whether they should improve the principle of betterment by means of an entirely now tax—whether the experience of 200 or 300 years should be ignored, and they should have a restricted area of taxation rather than that which had been adopted in the Metropolis for so many years? The right hon. Baronet opposite had said that the two grounds taken by the House of Lords were not well-founded. He had said that the House of Lords were wrong in saying that this clause attempted to assess capital values, but he had not attempted to prove his contention by argument. The right hon. Baronet's argument was that if the House of Lords were right, and if a capital tax were going to be imposed, he should be with them, and he did not argue for the clause as against the objection of the House of Lords. He (Mr. Kimber), therefore, claimed the right hon. Baronet as a supporter of his argument that the House of Lords were right in saying that the clause involved a capital charge. As to the other point that the House of Lords took—namely, that; the Betterment Clause created a new area of taxation—hon. Members opposite denied that this was so; but they did not attempt, by reference to the clause, to show that that was so. Not only was it a new defined area, but a map was produced showing the limits of the application of the Betterment Clause, and that was actually a part of the Bill, and was signed by the Chairman of the Committee.
  SIR J. LUBBOCKsaid, the taxation would not be levied on that area; but if there was property within that area that was bettered, that would have to pay.
  MR. KIMBERdid not think that was an answer. The map showed that the area was a specific one for taxation. Reference had been made to the Committee. He happened to have been a Member of it, as he had been of the previous Committee which had considered the Betterment Clause two years before. The authority of the Committee would not be taken as great, for the reason that it was a Committee of nine, and they were divided on the principle of betterment by five to four, and amongst the five was a member of the Loudon County Council who were promoting the Bill. The decision of the
  1742
  Committee was the decision of the London County Council; nothing more, and no more authority could be attached to it. The hon. Member for Shoreditch said this was never discussed in the Lords at all; but he (Mr. Kimber) was present and heard the discussion, and the question could not have been more deliberately discussed. The question was fairly gone into; the clause was described in fair and accurate terms, and the decision was given after due deliberation. The hon. Member for Shoreditch (Mr. J. Stuart) said that all the London County Council desired was to do justice to the ratepayers; but if he might be allowed to say so, the question of justice, in the opinion of the London County Council, was not always the same as the idea of justice amongst the ratepayers of the Metropolis. If a man was bettered by £20 or £200 capital value, and if the charge on that at the ordinary rate was not enough, they could double the charge, or increase it. At any rate, they should give him the benefit of the principle of the annual revision and value which they had had in force for so many years—even centuries—in the City of London. Why had not the Council adopted that plan? Because they wanted to attack a particular class—namely, the ground landlords. No wonder that in that they were supported by the Government of the Prime Minister, that right hon. Gentleman himself having been so closely associated with assaults against the classes, and with attempts to sow dissensions between them and the people. As an example of the injustice of the clause, if a man had two properties within the limited area, one of which was admittedly worsened and the other bettered, while he was taxed with regard to the bettered property he was not allowed to set off anything in respect of the worsened property. Moreover, he was not allowed an appeal. As a matter of fact, three-fourths of the House had not had an opportunity of examining this matter, and must be taken as not understanding the particular kind of betterment now proposed. Private Bills were not circulated like Public Bills, and hon. Members did not come down at 3 o'clock to discuss them.
  MR. BARTLEY (Islington, N.)said, they all agreed that if betterment could be fairly adjusted it was a fair pro-

  1743
  position. He differed rather from some of his hon. Friends, who held that the subject was one which could be better dealt with in a general Bill than in a special Bill. It seemed to him that the question of betterment was so peculiar to the particular district in which it occurred that it was better to consider each case specially in this way than in a general Bill. He, therefore, asked himself whether the proposal in the present measure, as an experiment, was fair and reasonable? The improved value which would attach to the property in the street when this bridge was constructed, and which would be added at the public cost, would be carefully ascertained and adjusted, and half the amount on a 3 per cent, scale would be added to the taxation of the property. He could not but think that that was a reasonable and fair proposition as an experiment. Looking at it from the point of view of equity, it must commend itself to every reasonable-minded man. He acknowledged that he had a certain sympathy against the County Council, but that very fact induced him to look at this matter rather more carefully than he should otherwise do. He had opposed several of these schemes—notably that in the Strand—as being unfair; but the present proposal was framed so as to cause the least possible amount of mischief, and if, when it was adjusted, it proved to be a fair experiment, it would have done something to show how the principle of betterment could be adopted. They all agreed that if property was improved by public works and at public cost the owners of that property should, in some equitable measure, share the burden of the cost in a greater degree than others whose property was not thus individually improved.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes 221; Noes 88.—(Division List, No. 260.)
  MR. BENNsaid, it was not necessary to trouble the House with any explanation respecting the Amendments which stood on the Paper in his name. They had been framed to carry out a pledge given to the hon. Member for Wandsworth (Mr. Kimber) to destroy the mortgage character of the charge, and to put it in the form
  1744
  of an annuity. He therefore moved them as printed.
  Amendments proposed,
  Clause 41, page 55, line 18, leave out "annual."
  Page 86, line 29, leave out from the second "to," to "the," in line 32, and insert "redeem the charge upon any lands on payment to the Council of any arrears thereof, and of a sum equal to thirty-three times the amount of such charge, and from and after such redemption."
  Page 36, line 37, leave out "annual."—(Mr. Benn.)
  Amendments agreed to.
  Amendment proposed,
  Clause 5, page 9, to omit lines 5, 6, and 7, and to insert "In consideration of this section no part of a Railway, and land of a Railway Company, shall be deemed to be land liable to an improvement charge, or rate authorised by this Act,"—(Sir J. Lubbock.)
  Amendment agreed to.
  Committee appointed, to draw up Reasons to be assigned to the Lords for disagreeing to one of the Amendments made by the Lords to the Bill:—Mr. Henry H. Fowler, Mr. Buxton, Sir John Lubbock, Mr. James Stuart, Mr. Benn, Mr. James Rowlands, Mr. Pickersgill, and Mr. Causton:—To withdraw immediately; Three to be the quorum.
  Reasons for disagreeing to one of the Lords' Amendments reported, and agreed to.
  To be communicated to The Lords.

  NEW MEMBER SWORN.
  Robert Ambrose, Esquire, for the County of Mayo (West Mayo Division).
QUESTIONS.

  ACCIDENTS TO HER MAJESTY'S SHIPS.
  MR. BARTLEY (Islington, N.): In the absence of the hon. Member for the Lowestoft Division of Suffolk (Mr. H. S. Foster), I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty how many accidents to Her Majesty's ships, due to incorrect charts, have happened since 1st January, 1890; and why he proposes to reduce the expenses of the Hydrographical Department (Vote 6, page 73), and spend only two per cent, more upon coast and other surveys?
  THE SECRETARY to the ADMIRALTY (Sir U. KAY-SHUTTLEWORTH,): (1.) Since January 1, 1890, there have been 30 accidents of more or less importance, referable to incorrect charts, to Her Majesty's ships. Nineteen of these accidents were in British or Colonial waters, and six of them happened to surveying vessels in the course of explorations. (2.) There has been no reduction in the Hydrographical Department. The decrease of cost is entirely due to the retirement of officials whoso places are filled by juniors. (3.) The number of ships and officers employed on surveying duties could not be conveniently increased at present.

  POOR LAW RELIEF TO MEMBERS OF FRIENDLY SOCIETIES.
  MR. STRACHEY: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he has power to issue an Order giving Boards of Guardians leave to grant, where desirable, outdoor relief to members of a Friendly Society without deducting all or any allowance received by them from such Society; and, if so, whether he will at once issue such Order?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. H. H. FOWLER,: The question whether Boards of Guardians, when determining the amount of out-relief that should be given to a person who has been a member of a Friendly Society, should exclude from consideration the amount which the applicant may receive from that Society has been considered from time to time by the Poor Law Commissioners and the Poor Law Board, as well as the Local Government Board, and I may draw attention to a letter of the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, written in January, 1870, in which the whole question was very ably discussed. I am advised, however, that the Local Government Board are not empowered to issue such an Order as that referred to in the question. It is also to be borne in mind that if such an Order were issued it could not be limited in its application to the one class of thrift indicated—namely, contributing to a Friendly Society. At the same time, I may state that it is not unusual for Boards of Guardians to take into account as the
  1746
  income of the person a portion only of the weekly sum which he receives from a Friendly Society. The subject is one of considerable difficulty, and, as it has been brought under the attention of the Royal Commission on the Aged Poor, I think that the Local Government Board should wait for the Report of that Commission before taking any legislative action in the matter.
  MR. STRACHEY: If the Local Government Board have no power to modify the Order of July 24, 1847, how is it that the predecessor of the right lion. Gentleman issued an Order which took away the powers of Boards of Guardians in this matter?
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: I must ask for notice of that question. I am investigating the case to which the hon. Member alludes, and I am distinctly advised by the legal advisors of the Local Government Board that they have no power to issue an Order such as that suggested by the hon. Member.

  BRITISH COMMERCIAL TREATIES.
  SIR E. HILL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he would cause a Return to be presented to the House of Most-Favoured-Nation Clauses in existing Treaties of Commerce and Navigation between Great Britain and Foreign Powers, bringing up to date the information contained in Parliamentary Paper, Commercial, No. 11, 1886?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir E. GREY,): Yes; a fresh Return will be prepared and presented.

  PAYMENT OF SEAMEN'S ALLOTMENTS.
  MR. KEARLEY: I beg to ask the Civil Lord of the Admiralty whether there are any reasons why the wives of petty officers and seamen of the Royal Navy, residing at the Naval ports, should be compelled to attend the dockyards at a specified hour and day in order to draw the allotments left for their support by their husbands, whilst on foreign stations, with the Admiralty; whether he is aware of the disadvantages and evil results that have been experienced through the enforcement of this system; also the inconvenience and expense occasioned to those who have

  1747
  young children, by reason of the necessity of making some provision for their care whilst absent; and whether, viewing these circumstances, the Admiralty will concede to those residing in these localities the privilege of cashing allotments at local post offices, as is enjoyed by the wives of those petty officers and seamen who are resident in parts of the country other than those referred to?
  THE CIVIL LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. E. ROBERTSON,): I shall be obliged if the hon. Member will allow this question to stand over for a time. I am inquiring into the matter.

  THE UNITED STATES AND TRADE MARKS.
  SIR J. LENG: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he will explain in what way the 4th paragraph of the final Protocol to the International Convention between Her Majesty's Government and the United States, for the reciprocal protection of trade marks, has become inoperative; and whether anything is proposed to be done to give effect to the intention of the parties to the Convention?
  "THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. MUNDELLA,): The paragraph referred to is by no means inoperative, but it is not fully effective as regards certain American marks, such as words having reference to the character or quality of goods, or geographical names; these are not at present within the scope of our law. Her Majesty's Government are in communication with the United States Government upon the subject, but I am not at present in a position to make any statement as to future action.

  THE ANGORA TRIALS.
  MR. CREMER: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he can state when the Consular Reports having reference to the Angora trials and the imprisonment of Armenians in various parts of Asia Minor will be laid upon the Table of the House?
  SIR E. GREY: I can give no pledge as to the presentation of these Papers. It is probable that the publication of them would not at present benefit either the Angora prisoners or other Armenians,
  1748
  whose welfare, as I stated last Thursday, must be the first consideration in any step of this kind.

  ASSAULT ON A VILLAGE HERD AT KINGUSSIE.
  DR. MACGREGOR: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate if he is aware that, as stated in an Inverness newspaper last week, on a recent Sunday evening an attack was made upon the village herd, who is deaf, in Kingussie, by a resident holding a most prominent position; as the assault was to the effusion of blood the case was reported to the police authorities who were to take action; witnesses were found and summoned to appear at Inverness on Wednesday last, but somehow or other the case seems to have been quashed; and whether he can explain why the criminal escaped punishment in this case, while the cottars of Besneray are suffering two months' imprisonment for an assault which was not to the effusion of blood?
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALFOUR, Clackmannan, &c.): The assault to which the question of my hon. Friend refers consisted in a slight cut inflicted by an umbrella. The information was lodged by the brother of the person struck, and the Fiscal on receipt of the complaint ordered a prosecution, the trial being fixed for the 26th ultimo. On the 22nd the Fiscal received a letter from the brother stating—
  "That I wish to withdraw, as I hereby do withdraw, the charge, and I hope you will not take further proceedings in the matter."
  In these circumstances, I think the Fiscal was quite justified in withdrawing, especially as the person struck made no charge. My right hon. Friend the Secretary for Scotland has already described the serious nature of the offence committed by the cottars of Besneray, and I do not refer to it again.
  DR. MACGREGOR: Do I understand that the Public Prosecutor may exercise his discretion as to the withdrawal of cases of this kind?
  MR. J. B. BALFOUR: Yes, I hope so, within reasonable limits.
  DR. MACGREGOR: In that case we may anticipate class legislation.
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

  THE LOSS OF THE "VICTORIA."
  DR. MACGREGOR: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he be now at liberty to say whether the officer next in command is to be permitted any discretion in the execution of orders when it appears inevitable that such orders will result in the loss of life and property?
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: At the same time, I will ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether all orders given by a superior officer in Her Majesty's Navy to a Captain of a ship are always subject to the paramount condition "with due regard to the safety of Her Majesty's ships"; and, in case obedience to such an order would entail a collision with a friend or endanger a ship in any other way, is it the duty of any such Captain to avoid that danger by forbearing to obey such an order; is it a Regulation of Her Majesty's Navy that in case it appears to the Captain of a ship that the course ordered by his superior officer would endanger his ship, it is the Captain's duty (such orders notwithstanding) to take such steps as may be necessary to avoid any such danger, and is not the responsibility for so doing thrown entirely on the Captain; and is it, further, the Captain's duty, when time or circumstances do not admit of the Admiral's permission being obtained, to take such steps without such permission?
  SIR U. KAY-SHUTTLEWORTH: The Minutes (which are voluminous) of the Court Martial on the loss of the Victoria have reached the Admiralty and are being printed with a view to their full consideration by the Board. Meanwhile, it seems undesirable to give any answers which might be interpreted as referring to officers concerned in the events which led to the Court Martial.

  OVERCROWDED EXCURSION STEAMERS ON THE THAMES.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the accommodation provided for their passengers by the Victoria Steamboat Association is frequently limited to closely packed standing space; whether any Rule exists limiting the carrying capacity of these river steamers; and whether steps will be taken to compel
  1750
  this Association to pay more regard to the comfort of the people, especially on Sundays and holidays?
  MR. MUNDELLA: The steamers referred to by the hon. Member are carefully measured and surveyed by officers of the Board of Trade under the provisions of the Merchant Shipping Acts, and the certificates granted indicate, in each case, the maximum number of passengers to be carried and the limits within which the steamer may ply. The certificate is required to be put up in some conspicuous part of the ship, so as to be visible to all persons on board, and, if the certified number of passengers is exceeded, the owner or master is liable to a heavy penalty. The question of comfort (as distinct from safety) is not one in which the Board of Trade have power to interfere. We have had no complaints.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: May I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman is aware that the Inspector in the employment of the Association did not appear to know how many passengers the steamboats were authorised to carry? Will he give instructions that full information on this point shall be plainly marked on each steamer as in the case of tramcars and omnibuses.
  MR. MUNDELLA: In the present state of the law the Association is bound to exhibit on board each vessel belonging to them the certificate of the Board of Trade fixing the number of passengers authorised to lie carried by such vessel.
  MR. MACFARLANE: May I ask whether any steps are taken to compel Steamboat Companies not to carry more than the authorised number of passengers? Have the Board of Trade officers any instructions on the point? What remedy have the passengers in case of overcrowding?
  MR. MUNDELLA: In all cases where the fact that a Steamboat Company has carried more than the authorised number of passengers on board their steamboats is brought to the notice of the Department steps are taken to enforce the law on the subject. Of course, the Board of Trade cannot keep Inspectors to go on every vessel, but Mercantile Marino officers and Superintendents of the Ports between which the vessels ply will at once inquire into any complaints made to them.
  MR. CREMER: Will the right hon. Gentleman be willing to receive evidence from the Members of the House and others as to the absolutely dangerous condition of these steamboats on holidays, and especially on fine Sundays, and the impossibility of anyone being able to ascertain the number of passengers they carry?
  MR. MUNDELLA: I shall be glad to receive such evidence.
  ADMIRAL FIELD: Will the right hon. Gentleman re-issue the Order issued by his Predecessor at the time of the Jubilee Review in order to prevent overcrowding?
  DR. COMMINS (Cork, S.E.): Is it not the duty of piermasters to count the number of passengers on any steamer which appears to be overcrowded, and to institute prosecutions in cases of overcrowding?
  [These questions were not answered.]

  THE CULLIPOOL EASDALE QUARRIES.
  MR. MACFARLANE: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate if his attention has been called to the complaint of the men working in the quarries owned by Maclean & Co., at Cullipool Easdale, that their wages are paid only once in three months, and that a deputation of the men who waited upon Maclean & Co., asking for payment once in six weeks, was informed that they would pay the men "when they saw proper," and that anyone refusing these terms would "be compelled to clear out of the houses immediately," and that the spokesman "would beat once dismissed"; whether he is aware that the houses referred to were built by the men and their forefathers; and whether he will cause inquiry to be made; and, if the facts are as stated, he can suggest any means by which such conduct may be prevented?
  MR. J. B. BALFOUR: There has not been time to obtain information for a detailed answer to this question, but I am informed by telegram that Messrs. Maclean & Co. have offered to pay their men on an eight-weeks' term—the same as at other quarries in the neighbourhood—if they will return to work for the current quarter, and that the men have asked time for consideration before giving a final reply.

  THE EQUALISATION OF RATES IN THE METROPOLIS.
  MR. WOOTTON ISAACSON: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he will name a day for the discussion of the Bill for the better provision for the equalisation of rates as between the different parts of London?
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: I am sorry that I cannot satisfy the very laudable curiosity of my hon. Friend. I wish I could name a day.
  MR. WOOTTON ISAACSON: The regret is shared not only by myself, but by the majority of people at the East End of London, who are waiting anxiously for this relief.
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

  THE LIBERATOR FRAUDS.
  SIR C.CAMERON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the statement that the name of J. W. Hobbs, a convict, is still on the Commission of the Peace for the Borough of Croydon, and that that of Jabez Spencer Balfour is still on that for the County of Surrey; and, if so, whether he will take steps to have these names struck off the lists of Justices of the Peace?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. ASQUITH, Fife, E.): I am informed that both these names will shortly be removed from the Commission of the Peace.

  FREE EDUCATION AT GLOSSOP.
  MR. KEIR HARDIE (West Ham, S.): I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether his attention has been called to a report on proceedings of the Glossop Town Council, in which it was resolved to publish a list of the names of those parents who had memorialised the Education Department in favour of having free education provided for their children, the object being, according to the report, to prevent other parents presenting similar Memorials in future; and what action the Education Department proposes taking to put an end to such proceedings?
  THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (Mr. ACLAND, York, W.R., Rotherham): My attention has been called to a newspaper report of a meeting of the Glossop Town Council or a committee of the Council, when a Petition from the parents of about 200 children for free education which had been referred to the School Attendance Committee by the Education Department was discussed. According to this report, a motion to publish the names of the parents in question was moved in the following words:—
  "I think it would be better, and to prevent anything of this in the future, if we ask the Press to publish the names of the petitioners. I move that the memorialists' names be published in the public Press."
  The motion was carried, and the names published accordingly. I have received a protest against this method of proceeding from several parents. The Department does not in any way discourage reasonable publicity in inquiries so as to ascertain that Petitions are bonâ fide. But if attempts are made directly or indirectly to discourage parents from assorting their just rights to free education for their children under the Act of 1891 such a course can only load ultimately to an alteration of the law so as to give fuller facilities to parents on this subject.

  UNMARKKD IMPORTS.
  MR. MACDONA: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he is aware that the steamer Blue Bell, from Antwerp, delivered at Butler's Wharf, Southwark, S.E., on the 17th of July last, 10 "casks cement" (so called), and that each cask contained a soldered tin case with 10 revolvers in it, on which there was no mark whatever: whether the Customs Officers on finding these revolvers, as they were not marked, had to pass them; whether the 10 casks have been since shipped, said to be for Manilla, marked "La Puenta," Manilla; and whether the Government will bring in a Bill, or propose such an amendment to the Merchandise Marks Act as will protect the British wrorkman from unfair and fraudulent foreign competition?
  MR. MUNDELLA: The Commissioners of Customs inform me that the
  1754
  facts generally are as stated by the hon. Member. The pistols bore no marks rendering them inadmissible under the Merchandise Marks Acts, and on amendment of the documents of description the goods were delivered out of charge. The Customs are unable to trace the shipment of the casks. There is nothing fraudulent in the importation of unmarked pistols.
  MR. MACDONA: And is it not the fact that cutlery and other articles are imported in large quantities unmarked, and deprive English artisans of their means of livelihood?
  MR. MUNDELLA: The Act only provides that where goods are marked with the place of origin they shall be honestly marked. It is not illegal to import unmarked goods.

  ILLEGAL SEIZURE IN COUNTY 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 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 Sheriffs bailiff, and to detain and sell 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?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. J. MORLEY, Newcastle-upon-Tyne): It is a fact that on the date and at the hour mentioned a Sheriff's bailiff made a seizure of cattle as stated, but it is not true, I am informed, that the bailiff assaulted Casey or his son. They were arrested for attempted rescue of the cattle and conveyed by car a distance of 10 miles to Cahirciveen,

  1755
  where they were remanded by a local Justice on the charge of attempted rescue, and detained in custody for 33 hours. Bail was not refused. The Magistrates at Petty Sessions refused informations on the ground that the warrant on which the bailiff acted was not addressed to him personally. It would not, I am informed, be illegal to place cattle, seized under a writ of fi fa, elsewhere than in a public pound, provided the seizure be regularly carried out. But, if the seizure were made under an illegal warrant, as the Magistrates appear to have decided in the present instance, the whole proceeding would seem to have been illegal, and the detention of cattle in any place was a wrongful act. The police evidently acted on the assumption that the warrant was in all respects regular; if they had been aware of the illegality in it they would not have acted as they did. As, however, it is expected that a civil action will be taken against the bailiff and the Sheriff in connection with this seizure, I do not think it expedient at the present stage to discuss the action of the police on the occasion.
  MR. SEXTON: I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman if the Sheriff was called upon to show his authority, and refused to do so? Would it not be as well to issue instructions to the police warning them against assisting in illegal acts of this kind?
  MR. J. MORLEY: Undoubtedly their action is to be regretted on this occasion, and the attention of the officers concerned has been called to the matter. I cannot say if the police demanded to see the Sheriff's authority.
  MR. MACARTNEY: Wherein was the illegality of the seizure?
  MR. J. MORLEY: The illegality arose from the fact that the warrant did not contain the name of the bailiff' to whom it was addressed. That is a requirement which ought to be complied with.
  MR. DANE: Was not the warrant addressed to a certain bailiff or his assistants?
  MR. J. MORLEY: In this case the name of no bailiff was inserted; hence the illegality.

  IRISH CUSTOMS WAREHOUSES.
  MR. A. O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the Dublin Port and Docks Board pay a large annual sum to the Collector of Customs for collecting their warehouse rates; and whether this is the same officer who has to sanction or refuse the use of any other trader's warehouse?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Sir J. T. HIBBERT,): The Collector of Customs at Dublin has been appointed by the Dublin Port and Docks Board to collect the dues payable to that Board. These dues are not confined to warehouse rates, and the warehouse rates are not in any case collected by the Collector of Customs. The power of sanctioning or refusing the use of premises as bonded warehouses at Dublin, or at any other port in the United Kingdom, rests with the Board of Customs in London, subject to the control of the Treasury, and not with the collectors at the ports.
  MR. A. O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer how the 51 non-Government Customs warehouses in Ireland are situated: how many in Belfast, how many in Dublin, Cork, &c.; and why they are granted in Belfast, and not elsewhere?
  SIR J. T. HIBBERT: The largest of the Customs bonded warehouses in the Port of Cork—situated on the Custom House Quay—is the property of the Crown, and is rented by a local firm, by whom it is held available for the general accommodation of bonders; but the Board of Customs have no information, as to whether, on this account, Cork merchants prefer to bond iu London or elsewhere.

  THE GARRISON ARTILLERY.
  COLONEL COTTON - JODRELL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether any Reports have been received from General Officers and Colonels on the Staff commanding the chief Garrison Artillery stations at home and abroad on the working of the reorganisation of that branch, and with what results; and whether any further extension of these changes is contemplated? I beg also to ask the right hon. Gentle-

  1757
  man whether Returns have been asked for, or have been sent in, from the chief Garrison Artillery stations at home and abroad, giving the number of specialists required as position finders, telephonists, dial members, signallers, and the like; and whether such Returns will be laid upon the Table, or be issued with the Army Estimates next year? Further, may I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether his attention has been called to the length of foreign service in the Garrison Artillery: whether it is the case that 46 companies are abroad and 21 at home, so that two-thirds of all ranks are constantly on foreign service; and whether he will consider any scheme for lessening the long periods at which companies are kept at the same foreign station?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN, Stirling, &c.): I would ask leave to answer the three questions of the hon. and gallant Member together. Reports on the working of the reorganised system of Garrison Artillery have been received and are now under consideration with a view of ascertaining whether any changes are necessary. To assist in this inquiry Returns have been called for and received as to the number of specialists required as position finders, telephonists, dial members, signallers, &c, but it is not usual to present such detailed Returns to Parliament. Any results arising from their consideration will be shown in the Army Estimates. It is the case that there are 46 companies of Garrison Artillery abroad and 22 at home. This is an incident of the Service, and it is difficult to see how the proportion can be lessened under existing conditions, but every consideration will lie given to the subject.
  COLONEL COTTON-JODRELL: Is it necessary the force should be kept so constantly on foreign service?
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I have said it is a necessary incident of the Service, but I do not think the men are kept longer abroad than those in any other branch of the Service.
  COLONEL COTTON-JODRELL: My question had reference rather to the companies.

  THE SWAZILAND CONVENTION.
  BARON H. DE WORMS: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he has seen in The Times of 8th August a statement of the terms of a proposed Convention between Her Majesty's Government and the Government of the Transvaal relative to the cession of Swaziland to the South African Republic; and whether the terms are therein correctly stated, and were communicated officially or unofficially to the Press; and, if so, why the conditions of the new Convention were not first stated in the House of Commons in answer to repeated questions on the subject?
  MR. S. BUXTON: I have read the article in The Times. It appears to contain a fairly accurate account of the history of the Swaziland question. But I would point, out to the right hon. Gentleman that the terms of the Draft Convention—which I may mention is not yet signed—are not stated; nor, indeed, could they be, for they are not yet public. I repeat what I have said more than once, that, as soon as the Convention is signed, I will make a full statement to the House on the subject, and lay Papers.
  BARON H. DE WORMS: Are we to understand the statement is correct; and, if so, was it communicated officially to The Times?
  MR. S. BUXTON: Certainly not officially. There was some correspondence with The Times, but not as to the terms of the Convention.
  BARON H. DE WORMS: Can the hon. Gentleman explain how it is that the terms of the Convention were known to The Times before they were communicated to the House, and that my questions on the subject were not answered?
  MR. S. BUXTON: As far as the terms stated in the article are concerned, I had already stated them in Debate in this House on the Vote on Account. But, I repeat, they are in no sense complete.

  MILITIA OFFICERS' ALLOWANCES.
  COLONEL LOCKWOOD: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if the Militia is below its establishment in officers; and, if such

  1759
  is the case, if he would cancel the Order 2209, of 27th July, 1893, that deprives officers of their mess and lodging allowance after 12 months' service, inclusive of all broken periods of service?
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: It is the case that the Militia is below its establishment of officers. The Circular Letter referred to involves no new Regulation. It merely draws attention to the provisions of Articles 210 and 504 of the Militia Regulations, which, there was reason to think, were overlooked or misunderstood. The allowance referred to is a special allowance to cover the cost of coming up for a short period of service, and 12 months is a very liberal limit. When an officer's employment extends beyond a year he receives the ordinary allowances of his rank.
  COLONEL LOCKWOOD: Could not the allowance be given in the case of officers who, having served 12 months, are willing to continue provided no other officer can be found to take his place?
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: So far as I am aware, no such case has arisen.

  SAMOA.
  SIR T. ESMONDE: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if it is true, as reported in Reuter's telegrams, that Malietoa made war upon Mataafa last month at Samoa, whereupon the foreign warships then intervened and stopped the fighting, and that Mataafa and his chiefs surrendered; if he can state whether Mataafa and his chiefs are prisoners; and, if so, in whoso custody; what is going to be done with them; and whether the English Government will take the necessary steps to secure their personal safety?
  SIR E. GREY: The statement made in the first paragraph is correct. According to the latest information received Mataafa and his chiefs were on board H.M.S. Katoomba, and their personal safety is therefore assured. The ultimate decision with regard to them will be the subject of consultation between the three Treaty Powers.

  SPECIAL COMPASSIONATE CAMPAIGN PENSIONS.
  SIR J. LENG: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War
  1760
  whether the Chelsea Commissioners have yet allocated the whole of the additional grant of £5,000 for Special Compassionate Campaign Pensions; what number of applicants have been awarded such pensions under the grant; and what number of applications have been held over for consideration next year?
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The Commissioners of Chelsea Hospital have awarded the whole of the additional grant of £5,000 a year for special campaign pensions; and the actual payment of the pensions will be made very shortly; 381 applicants have been thus provided for, and 571 cases are held over for consideration next year.

  AGRARIAN CRIME IN IRELAND.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER (Belfast, W.): I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will lay upon the Table of the House a Return giving the particulars of all cases of agrarian crime tried at the recent Assizes in Cork, Limerick, Clare, and Kerry, the Return to show the names of the persons committed for trial, the nature of the offence with which such persons were respectively charged, the place and date of such offence, and the result of the trial?
  MR. J. MORLEY: On the 7th instant I stated, in reply to a question by the hon. Member for North Fermanagh, the number of cases of this kind tried at the Assizes referred to and the result of the trials. The detailed information for which the hon. Member asks, including the names, has already been published in the Press, and I certainly do not think any public advantage would be gained by granting the Return asked for.

  THE CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he can explain why the grand totals of the Gross Estimates for 1893–4, and for 1892–3, are not shown in the Civil Service Estimates, as is done in the Navy Estimates and the Army Estimates; and whether it is the fact that the grand total of the Civil Service Estimates for 1893–4 is £19,436,953, as against £18,901,637 for 1892–3?
  SIR J. T. HIBBERT: I am not aware of any reason why the summary at the beginning of the Civil Service Estimates should not state the gross and net totals of all the Classes added together in the same way as the Abstract now states them for each Class; and I will give instructions for carrying out the change in the next year's Estimates. The figures in the second paragraph are correct.

  THE BUNDORAN DISTURBANCES.
  MR. DANE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has received a Report from Captain Slacke, Divisional Commissioner for Ulster, respecting the organised attacks upon Protestants at Bundoran upon Sunday the 23rd July; have any persons been made amenable for the injuries inflicted upon Mr. Boyle, one of the Evangelists, the Rev. Mr. Templeman, Miss Templeman, his sister, and Dr. Atkinson; what extra force of police were drafted into Bundoran after the occurrences; and is it the fact that as many as 140 Constabulary were on duty there on Sunday the 30th July?
  MR. MAC NEILL: Was not the question of these disturbances discussed in the House last week on the Motion of the hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell); and did not the Chief Secretary state that the occurrence had been grossly exaggerated, and the case was only brought forward for the purposes of political capital? Is it necessary, therefore, to answer any further questions on the point?
  MR. MACARTNEY: I desire to ask whether the discussion on that occasion was not closured?
  MR. J. MORLEY: I think that was the fact—that the discussion was closured. The answer to the first paragraph of the question is in the affirmative. There is no evidence forthcoming as to the assaults committed upon the persons named in the second paragraph, as the assailants were unknown to them, and in neither case did the police witness the assaults. Summonses have been served, however, for hearing at Petty Sessions to-day upon four men for other assaults arising out of these proceedings. On Sunday, July 23, and during the following week, the entire number of police on duty at Bundoran was 32. On July 30 the force was
  1762
  augmented to 118 men, and during the following week this number was reduced to 10 men, the strength of the local force. On Sunday, August 6, an extra force of 40 men was drafted into Bundoran, and since that date the local force alone has been employed.
  MR. DANE: Does not the Report of Captain Slacke state that some persons were seriously assaulted?
  MR. J. MORLEY: The Report is a confidential one, and I must decline to answer any questions respecting it.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: If the suggestion of the lion. Member is correct, can the right hon. Gentleman give the House any clue as to how the hon. Member for North Fermanagh became aware of any of the contents of this confidential Report?
  MR. MACARTNEY: How many of the 118 men were actually on duty on the Sunday when the attack was made?
  MR. J. MORLEY: To the best of my recollection, I stated on Friday that the number was about 28.
  MR. SEXTON: As to the disorder which followed the holding of the meeting, may I ask whether the disturbance was not really provoked by certain posters being displayed about the town stating that the object of the mission was to "convert the benighted Catholics of Bundoran from the errors of Popery."
  MR. MACARTNEY: On that point I should like to ask whether it is not the opinion of the Constabulary Authorities in the district that that placard was circulated by those who desired to create a disturbance—that, in fact, the placard was entirely of a bogus character?
  MR. J. MORLEY: I have no reason to suppose that the Constabulary have taken that view of the matter. No observations have been communicated to me by them upon the authenticity of this placard.
  MR. MACARTNEY: Is not the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Nationalist organ in the district rather indicates that this view was taken by the Constabulary Authorities?
  MR. J. MORLEY: We have heard all this before.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Again, may I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman can state how the hon. Member for North Fermanagh could have obtained

  1763
  access to the confidential document of Captain Slacke?
  MR. DANE: I will, with the permission of the House, explain that I have never had the opportunity of seeing Captain Slacke's Report; but I am in possession of the fact that a number of respectable inhabitants of the town of Buudoran communicated with Captain Slacke, who took down fully the details they communicated to him.

  THE CONSTABULARY FORCE FUND.
  MR. DANE: I bog to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ire-laud whether he has received copies of resolutions passed at a mooting of Royal Irish Constabulary Pensioners, recently held at Enniskillen, respecting the winding-up of the Constabulary Force Fund; and whether, having regard to the unanimous feeling existing throughout the Royal Irish Constabulary Force, as to the desirability of winding-up the Fund, the Government will adopt the necessary means of effecting that object?
  MR. J. MORLEY: I have answered several questions on this subject already, and I have only to say now again that the matter referred to in the question of the hon. Member is receiving the attention of the Government.

  WALNEY LIGHTHOUSE.
  MR. WOLFF: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade when, and under what authority, was the Walney Lighthouse at the entrance of the harbour of Barrow erected; what is the revenue annually received from same; by whom contributed; and on what basis of charge; what is the cost of maintaining the light; and how is the surplus, if any, applied?
  MR. CAYZER: At the same time, may I ask the President of the Board of Trade whether a charge of 3d. per ton is now levied on all vessels entering the port of Barrow, for maintaining the Walney Lighthouse, which is now practically useless to vessels entering the port; whether the Lancaster Harbour Commissioners receive the revenue derived from this lighthouse, amounting to several thousand pounds yearly, and, less the trifling cost for upkeep of the lighthouse, expend the same for purposes totally unconnected with the lighting of the Port of Barrow; and whether
  1764
  he will cause inquiry to be made into this matter, and take steps to remove the burden imposed upon the shipping entering this harbour?
  MR. MUNDELLA: Walney Lighthouse is a local light under the control of the Furness Railway Company, and in no way under the authority of the Board of Trade. I have asked the Railway Company to give the information asked for by the lion. Members for East Belfast and Barrow-in-Furness, and I will communicate to them the reply.

  THE EXPORT OF HAY FROM AUSTRIA- HUNGARY.
  THE MARQUESS OF CARMARTHEN: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any communication has yet been received from Vienna respecting the export of hay from Austria-Hungary; and whether exception will be made in favour of those who have made contracts before the exportation was prohibited?
  SIR E. GREY: We have not yet received the final answer of the Austro-Hungarian Government; but I regret to say that the result of the representations which we have made does not indicate a disposition to make any exceptions whatever.

  THE FFRWYD DISASTER.
  MR. KENYON: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he has received any intelligence as to the cause of the disaster at the Ffrwyd Colliery, near Wrexham?
  MR. ASQUTTH: The Inspector has been telegraphed to, but up to the present no reply has been received. Perhaps the hon. Member would put his question down for to-morrow.

  THE "NIGER."
  MR. HANBURY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether it is the fact that the newest s and largest torpedo gunboat or catcher 2; Niger was unable, during the manœuvres, to keep up with the Royal Sovereign at a speed of less than 15 knots; what is the speed the Niger was designed to attain; whether a speed of less than 15 knots is considered adequate for a torpedo catcher; and how many of these; vessels, with the possible exception of the Rattlesnake, can be relied on to dis-

  1765
  charge the proper functions of a torpedo catcher?
  SIR U. KAY-SHUTTLEWORTH: No official confirmation of the reports quoted in the first part of the question have been received. The Niger was designed to attain a speed in smooth water of 19¼ knots forced draught, and 17¾ knots natural draught. My answer to the third question is, "No." In regard to the fourth question, all, with proper management, can fulfil the duties for which they were intended as torpedo gunboats. The House is aware that a different class of smaller size and higher speed are being built for service as torpedo boat destroyers or catchers.

  RECRUITING.
  MR. HANBURY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War what was the number of recruits enlisted during the first six months of 1892 and 1893 respectively; and whether the Infantry of the Line is now below its authorised strength; and, if so, by what number of men?
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The recruits enlisted in the first six months of 1892 wore 19,683, or 18,202, if those for Colonial corps are excluded. During the same period of 1893 there were enlisted 16,472, or 16,288 without Colonial corps. The difference is partly accounted for by the restrictions placed on special enlistments. The Infantry of the Line at home and abroad, according to the latest Returns, was 1,417 below its authorised number.

  THE CHIEF JUSTICE OF THE BAHAMAS.
  MR. HANBURY: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies how long the Chief Justice of the Bahamas has been absent from the Colony; whether he has been receiving half-pay during the whole of his absence; whether he is aware that the House of Assembly has refused to vote any further money for this purpose; whether the Secretary of State has ordered that he shall continue to receive half-pay from the Crown Funds of the Colony; and bow long it is intended that this arrangement shall continue?
  MR. S. BUXTON: The Chief Justice of the Bahamas has been absent from the Colony since the 6th of June,
  1766
  1892, and has been receiving half-pay during the whole of his absence. As the local law makes no provision for payment from the general Revenue of the salary of an officer on leave beyond nine months, the Secretary of State has ordered that since the expiration of that period the Chief Justice shall receive half-pay from the Crown Funds. The House of Assembly has not been asked to vote any money for the purpose. The Legislative Council and House of Assembly of the Colony have passed Resolutions deprecating the return of the Chief Justice. The case has been referred to a Committee of the Privy Council, and the present arrangement will continue until the Committee have heard and reported on the case.

  THE TREATMENT OF SEWAGE.
  MR. MATHER: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether the Board in sanctioning any scheme for the treatment of sewage by Local Authorities invariably stipulates (and is required by Act of Parliament to do so) that the effluent must be passed over a certain acreage of laud before entering streams of rivers, whatever the degree of purification the effluent may have undergone by chemical or mechanical means; whether the acquisition of such land is, in many cases, very difficult and costly to the ratepayers; whether some sewage schemes most urgently needed have been delayed in consequence of the stipulation of the Hoard that land shall be acquired, regardless of the undertaking on the part of the Local Authorities to purify efficiently without land; and whether he will cause tin inquiry to be instituted by a Departmental Committee or otherwise into the recent improvements (since the Rivers Pollution Act was passed) in the chemical and mechanical treatment of sewage where applied and maintained in an efficient manner, with a view to relaxing the present uniform rule as to the acquisition of land in cases where the Local Authorities will undertake to apply such efficient treatment to the satisfaction of the Board, and subject to penalties which may be imposed by the Local Government Board (if necessary under the authority of Parliament) to prevent any imperfect application of the treatment so sanctioned?
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: It is the invariable practice of the Local Government Board to decline to sanction a loan for any scheme of sewerage or sewage disposal unless it provides that the sewage shall be purified by being passed through land before being discharged into a river or stream to which the Rivers Pollution Prevention Act, 1876, applies. They consider that the requirements of that Act would be contravened unless the sewage is so purified. The Board are fully aware that by means of chemical and mechanical treatment very much may now be done to aid in the purification of the sewage, and they, therefore, approve of a very much less area of land being provided when the authority propose to adopt such treatment; but they are not of opinion that these means alone, without the passing of the sewage through land, are sufficient. The acquisition of land for the purpose referred to is, no doubt, in some cases attended with difficulty, and it must increase the cost of the scheme. It is also the case that delay has in some cases been occasioned where sanctions to loans have been withheld pending arrangements being made for the acquisition of land. I have considered the question as to instituting an inquiry, but, apart from the difficulty of securing the services on such a Committee of men of the necessary scientific and practical knowledge who could give the requisite time for such an inquiry at places at a distance from London, I am not prepared at present to say that such an inquiry is necessary. The Inspectors of the Local Government Board, in connection with inquiries which they have to hold with regard to sewerage schemes, are carefully watching the processes which are proposed in aid of land.
  MR. CHANNING: Arising out of the question, may I ask whether the Reports of the Inspectors on the local inquiries could not be laid as a whole on the Table, so that we may know the result of their observation?
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: We cannot depart from the rule as to confidential Reports.
  MR. MATHER: Can I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, in the case of a Local Authority having proved to demonstration that the chemical process can purify sewage equally well to that
  1768
  which is done by the chemical process plus the land treatment, the Department will not relax their stringent rules, and allow that Local Authority to employ the chemical treatment without land?
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: When it has been proved to demonstration then that case will arise for consideration.

  THE CASE OF MAJOR RICHARDS.
  ADMIRAL FIELD: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been drawn to the evidence given by official witnesses before the Committee on Public Accounts, vide Second Report, July, 1893, pages 51 to 56, relative to the loss of stores in South Africa in 1886 to 1890, and to the treatment awarded to Major Richards, the officer in charge, who appears to have been placed on reduced half-pay of 4s. 6d. per day; whether it is a fact that the Ordnance stores were kept at three stations, Fort Napier, Pietermaritzberg, and Durban, 50 miles apart, so that, in the opinion of the Accountant General (Q. 1196), the most efficient officer could not have controlled mistakes, nor have prevented them altogether; whether he is aware that the Accountant General admits that the charge was too extensive (Q. 1137); that a man could not be held responsible for everything that went on at these different stations, and there ought to have been more officers in charge (Q. 1139); that the stations were so far apart that they could not fairly be placed under the charge of an officer at one of them (Q. 1140); and also that Major Richards reported that he was short-handed and required more assistance (Q. 1170), as stated before the robbery of arms by Natives took place; whether he is also aware that the Secretary of State for War and H.R.H. the Commander-in-Chief by letter, 8th January, 1892, recommended that Major Richards be brought back after 12 months on the first vacancy for re-employment, and that the Treasury refused their sanction; and that, on 8th April, 1892, the Accountant General wrote that His Royal Highness is still of opinion that the mitigating circumstances are such as would justify a relaxation of the severe punishment which has been inflicted upon Major Richards by placing him on a reduced

  1769
  rate of half-pay; and whether, in view of all the circumstances, and the time that has elapsed, he will reconsider Major Richards' hard case, and recommend that he may be allowed the proper half-pay of his rank?
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The extenuating facts referred to in the lion, and gallant Member's questions were duly considered when it was decided to recommend Major Richards' restoration to full pay; but, other serious deficiencies having been subsequently brought to light on his giving over his charge, the Secretary of State was unable to persist in his recommendation. Coder all the circumstances, I am not prepared to revise the rate of retired pay granted to him.
  ADMIRAL FIELD: Has the right hon. Gentleman read the evidence given before the Committee on Public Accounts?
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I have read that, and a great deal more than that.
  ADMIRAL FIELD: I beg, in consequence of the right hon. Gentleman s reply, to give notice that I will call attention to the subject on the Army Estimates if they are ever reached, and move a reduction of the right hon. Gentleman's salary.

  THE EASTBOURNE SCHOOL EDUCATION.
  MR CHANNING: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether it has been represented to him that the voluntary school managers at Eastbourne are prepared to supply 1,000 now school places; whether the plans of these proposed schools show sufficient area, playgrounds, &c, according to the Rules of Schedule VII. of the Code; whether it is satisfied that the promoters of these schools have at their disposal sufficient funds to complete them within a reasonable limit of time; if the representations made to him on these points are satisfactory; whether any proposal has been made for the provision of the 311 places remaining out of the 1,311, the final notice for which expired over a fortnight ago; whether a further deficiency of 365 places will be shortly created by the closing of the Wesleyan school; whether any substantial proportion of
  1770
  the 1,334 free places demanded by the parents in January last, the first notice for which was published on 20th March, has been supplied; and whether, in view of the deficiency both of school places, and of free school places, he will now give effect to the final notice, and set up a School Board?
  MR. ACLAND: The Committee of Voluntary School Managers have submitted plans of two new schools. The buildings proposed would accommodate 461 children each, or 928 in all. One of these plans satisfies the Rules of the Department, and has been approved. With regard to the other, the proposed site is too small for the school proposed to be built upon it. Her Majesty's Inspector has suggested another site which he thinks would be satisfactory. As to the third school which is necessary, the managers inform the Department that steps are being taken to secure a site. The closure of the Wesleyan school at the end of the current school year will cause in March next a further deficiency of 365 places. It has been pointed out to the voluntary managers that if at any time the Department is satisfied that the accommodation required by the final notice is not being provided with due despatch, it will be their duty under the Statute to order the formation of a School Board, and that in consequence of the closure of the Wesleyan school the Department will also be empowered to create a Board under Section 12 (2) of the Act of 1870 without issuing any further notices, and will be justified in suspending such action only in the event of immediate steps being taken to supply the impending deficiency otherwise. As regards the funds at the disposal of the Committee of Managers, they stated about a mouth ago that, in addition to the gift of the two sites to which I have referred, the sum of £6,850 bad been guaranteed, and that further donations were still coming in. It is obvious that, in order to supply the total impending and actual deficiency, this sum would have to be very considerably supplemented. As regards the question of free education, so many places have been freed since the Department issued their first notice in March for 1,334 children, that the number in the final notice now being issued is reduced to 567. The requirements of this notice will be

  1771
  satisfied if the new schools required (which, of course, must be free schools) are provided. Under all these circumstances, the Department is very carefully considering the question whether duo despatch is being used in accordance with the Act.

  MEDICAL ATTENDANCE FOR THE ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY.
  MR. P. J. O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he will state out of what fund the medical attendants to the Royal Irish Constabulary are paid in the several districts in Ireland, whether from Government sources or from a fund subscribed for the purpose by the members of the Force?
  MR. J. MORLEY: The allowance to medical attendants of the Royal Irish Constabulary is paid out of the Constabulary Vote.

  POSTAL ACCOMMODATION IN SOUTH WALES.
  MR. LOGAN: On behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr Tydvil, I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether he is now in a position to state when South Wales will be afforded postal communication with London more nearly equal to that enjoyed by other and competitive districts?
  THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (Mr. A. Morley,: Some time ago a proposal was made by the Railway Company for the improved service to which the hon. Member refers, and it was understood that the terms then mentioned represented little more than the bare cost which the altered train arrangements would involve. But the outlay required was of necessity large, and in view of the comparatively small increase of Postal Re venue I did not feel justified in pressing the scheme on Her Majesty's Government. No agreement was made with the Railway Company, and I think no good purpose would be served by my laying Papers on the subject on the Table of the House. As a matter of fact, most of the communications with the Company were verbal.

  CLASSIFICATION IN HER MAJESTY'S DOCKYARDS.
  MR. FORWOOD: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if the, Departmental Committee inquiring into the system of classification of pay adopted in Her Majesty's Dockyards have yet reported; and, if so, will he lay the Report upon the Table of the House; and when will the Return giving the rates of pay, and number of men at each rate, and the number promoted on the 1st November from a lower to a higher rate of pay, be furnished to the House?
  MR. E. ROBERTSON: The Report of the Committee alluded to is of a confidential nature, and it is not intended to make it public; but a statement of the decisions of the Board of Admiralty as to the future rates of wages, &c., will be laid upon the Table as soon as the necessary proceedings have been completed. (2.) The Return mentioned in the second paragraph of the question has been sent to the printers to-day.
  MR. FORWOOD: Will the statement be laid on the Table before the Estimates are brought in?
  MR. E. ROBERTSON: I can hardly say that.
  MR. FORWOOD: Well, I shall object to the Vote for shipbuilding until we have the Report.
  MR. E. ROBERTSON: The right hon. Gentleman need be under no apprehension. The statement will be made public cither before or at the time the Vote is brought on.

  THE CORK TAILORS' STRIKE.
  MR. M. AUSTIN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the interference of the police in a strike in the tailoring trade in the City of Cork; and whether he is aware that the police interfere and prohibit, under threats of arrest and prosecution, persons who wish to speak to and explain to the imported workmen the questions at issue between themselves and their employers, and who have proved by recent prosecutions in that city, under the Conspiracy and Protection of Property Act, were doing nothing in contravention of that Act;

  1773
  if so, by whose orders or instructions the dolice so interfere in such cases?
  MR. J. MORLEY: I do not think there is any foundation for the allegations contained in the question. I have watched this matter very closely, and I have drawn the attention of the authorities to it.

  STONEHAVEN HARBOUR.
  MR. CROMBIE: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland, with reference to the recommendation of Stonehaven by the Parliamentary Committee on Harbour Accommodation of 1884, as being from its geographical situation and natural advantages one of the seven places in Great Britain where improved harbour accommodation was most urgently needed and most effective in the interests of the shipping and fishing of a large stretch of coast, whether the fishermen of surrounding fishing ports have recently sent to him copies of resolutions passed unanimously at meetings held by them in favour of improving Stonehaven Harbour: and whether he has any scheme in consideration whereby the money may be found for improving Stonehaven Harbour?
  THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Sir G. TREVELYAN,): In reply to the hon. Member, I have received resolutions from three fishing ports in Kincardineshire in favour of a Harbour of Refuge at Stonehaven, the construction of which, on the Estimate of the Parliamentary Committee of 1884, would cost from £80,000 to £100,000. I regret to say that there is no fund at my disposal out of which any payment can be made towards such an undertaking. I may point out that there are other harbours similarly situated to Stonehaven, and that the question of a Harbour of Refuge on the East Coast of Scotland was settled by the Committee of Experts who sat in 1884, on whose recommendation a Harbour of Refuge is now in course of construction at Peterhead. If the authorities at Stonehaven have any smaller scheme in contemplation which would come within the scope of the assistance given by the Fishery Board, such a scheme would be considered, with others of a similar nature, when the Fishery Board has funds to undertake a fresh work.

  THE LOSS OF THE "THEKLA" AND THE "DOGGER BANK."
  COMMANDER BETHELL: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he can state whether the German Government instructed the German Consul at Talcahuano, Chili, to make inquiry of the officers and men of the German barque, Thekla, into the alleged sinking of the steam trawler, Dogger Bank, by the Thekla, in April last, or if any other steps have been taken in the matter?
  MR. MUNDELLA: As I stated in reply to the question put to me by the hon. Member on 1st dune last, Her Majesty's Government are in communication with the German Government with regard to the case referred to, but at present have no definite information as to their action.

  SIR DAVID BARBOUR AND THE INDIAN SILVER QUESTION.
  MR. CHAPLIN: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he can give the reference to the passages in which Sir David Barbour recalled his evidence given before the Gold and Silver Commission, and had changed his views as to the amount of uncoined silver in the form of ornaments or in hoard in possession of the Native population of India?
  MR. T. M.HEALY: May I ask you, Mr. Speaker, whether this is not an attempt to continue Tuesday's Debate on Indian Currency through the instrumentality of a question; and whether, in those circumstances, the question is not irregular?
  Mr. SPEAKER: In the Debate referred to a very definite statement was made with reference to Sir David Barbour's evidence, and in the circumstances I think it would be competent for the right hon. Gentleman to answer the question.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir W.HARCOURT,): The question has been put under some misapprehension. I made no such statement with regard to Sir David Barbour. I did refer to Sir David Barbour having said he had changed his opinion with reference to the hoarding of coined money—rupees—but, having looked at the report of my speech, I do not find

  1775
  any indication of my having made any such statement as Sir David Barbour having recalled his evidence given before the Gold and Silver Commission, and having changed his view as to the amount of uncoined silver. I said, "I am not going into the question of uncoined silver," and I also said—
  "To quote Sir David Barbour's evidence in 1888 against the plan which he sent to England, after recommending it and passing it through the Legislative Council in India, is ready unfair."
  I did not intend to say that Sir David Barbour had changed his views as to the amount of uncoined silver.
  MR. CHAPLIN: Perhaps the House will allow me, as a matter of personal explanation, to say that I only placed this question on the Paper because I understood the right hon. Gentleman to say across the Table during the Debate that in regard to the amount of uncoined silver Sir David Barbour had changed his views. I am very glad to find that that is not so, and I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that the question is no allegation against him.

  ALLOWANCES IN THE DIPLOMATIC SERVICE.
  COLONEL LOCKWOOD: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if any conclusion has been arrived at as to the extra allowance of £100 for Third Secretaries in the Diplomatic Service?
  SIR E. GREY: Pending the settlement of the new arrangement, Third Secretaries will be permitted, if they pass the examination in International Law, to draw the extra allowance of £100 as formerly.
  COLONEL LOCKWOOD: Will the extra allowance date from now, or from the commencement of the year?
  SIR E. GREY: It will operate in this way. Anyone entitled to apply for it, but not having applied for it during the last few months, will be enabled to apply now.

  THE NAVAL PROGRAMME.
  MR. FORWOOD: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he will furnish a statement, supplementary to the Navy Estimates, giving particulars of dimensions, speed, cost, and armament of the vessels proposed to be built or re-
  1776
  constructed, details as to which are not given in the Navy Estimates now before the House?
  SIR U. KAY-SHUTTLEWORTH: I have to-day laid on the Table a description of the two first-class battleships, Majestic and Magnificent. As I stated on July 28, in answer to a question of the noble Lord the Member for the Ealing Division of Middlesex (Lord G. Hamilton), the details of the design of the first-class cruisers have not yet been completed; but as full a description as practicable will be furnished before the Shipbuilding Vote is taken.
  MR. FORWOOD: The right hon. Gentleman has failed to answer my question. Is he aware that as to a large number of vessels proposed to be constructed or reconstructed no details appear in the Navy Estimates? Will he furnish those details? I will call attention to the cases of several of them.
  SIR U. KAY-SHUTTLEWORTH: I will look into the matter.

  THE PORT TALBOT DISASTER.
  MR. W. WILLIAMS: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he will cause a special inquiry to be made as to the cause of the boat accident at Port Talbot, by which over 20 persons have lost their lives; and whether he will take stops, by legislation or otherwise, to secure that all boats hired out to pleasure parties shall be registered and placed under the control and inspection of a Local Authority?
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: There will necessarily be an inquest in the case of the persons who unfortunately lost their lives in connection with the boat accident referred to, and I will obtain from the Coroner a copy of the depositions taken by him. From the reports which have appeared in the newspapers, it does not appear that, if the boat in question had been licensed and had been under the inspection of the Local Authority, the accident would have been avoided. All Urban Sanitary Authorities are empowered to license pleasure boats and to make bye-laws enforceable by penalties with regard to the boats and the persons in charge of them.

  QUOTATIONS FROM OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS.
  MR. STANLEY LEIGHTON: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether, having referred in the House to an official document relating to public affairs—namely, Mr. O. M. Edwards's Report on the Welsh Colleges, and in view of the fact that a Petition for the Incorporation of a Welsh University awaits the sanction of the House, he will lay Mr. Edwards's Report in its entirety upon the Table, in accordance with the rule that an official document referred to by a Minister must be produced?
  MR. ACLAND: If I understand the hon. Member's point it is this. He asked me a question yesterday as to a confidential Report which I have never cited, road from, or quoted in any speech in this House. It was therefore necessary for me to allude to it yesterday in answer to a definite question from him on the subject. He now suggests that, in consequence of this allusion, I am bound to lay the Report on the Table. The plan is ingenious, but it does not seem to be in accordance with the Rule of the House. I am unable to lay the Report on the Table.
  MR. STANLEY LEIGHTON: May I call your attention to this matter, Mr. Speaker, as a point of Order. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the document in question in this way. He did not state that it was confidential and refuse to refer to it at all, as the Chief Secretary for Ireland did to-day in another case, but he said—
  "I do not propose to lay it on the Table, but I am quite willing to inform the bon. Gentleman that the Report consisted mainly of information rather than recommendations;"
  and then the right hon. Gentleman went on to say—
  "Mr. Edwards did not report in favour of the inclusion of St. David's College, Lampeter, in the Welsh Universities."
  That was the very point. I understand from those words of the right hon. Gentleman that Mr. Edwards reported in favour of the exclusion of the College from the scheme, but his words are ambiguous. I beg leave to ask your ruling, Mr. Speaker, on the following point. In May's Parliamentary Practice it is stated —
  1778
  "It has been admitted that a document which has been cited ought to be laid upon the Table of the House, if it can be done without injury to the public interest."
  The document I asked for is an official document, which has been referred to and cited, and it is not pretended that it would be injurious to the public interest if it were produced. I wish to ask whether it is in accordance with the practice of the House that the right hon. Gentleman should refer to a document which at the time he does not say is confidential, and should afterwards refuse to lay it on the Table on the ground that it is confidential?
  MR. SPEAKER: The general rule of the House is well understood, that if a Minister refers to public documents or Despatches he should lay them before the House; but confidential documents, or documents of a private nature passing between officers of a Department and the Department, are not necessarily laid on the Table of the House, especially if the Minister declares that they are of a confidential nature. It would be a precedent dangerous to the Public Service to say that they ought to be laid. As I understand, what passed in this case was that the right hon. Gentleman only quoted a document so far as to say that Mr. Edwards did not report in favour of the inclusion of Lampeter College, and I think the House may take the word of a Minister when he says that the document was not confidential to that extent. If the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council now says that the document is generally of a confidential nature, I have no hesitation in saying that he is not bound to lay the document on the Table.

  SWAZILAND.
  SIR G. BADEN-POYYELL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the new agreement entered into with the Government of the South African Republic in reference to Swaziland needs, or has received, the sanction of the Volksraad; and whether its terms will he submitted to the judgment of Parliament before being finally ratified?
  MR. S. BUXTON: The Convention has not yet been signed by Sir H. Loch. It will subsequently require the ratification of the Volksraad. So soon as the

  1779
  Convention has been signed, I will make a statement to the House on the subject, and lay Papers including the agreement; and this will, I hope, be before Her Majesty's final and formal ratification is despatched from this country.
  SIR R. TEMPLE; Is it true that the British protectorate of Swaziland is being relinquished in favour of the Transvaal Republic?
  MR. S. BUXTON: The British protectorate over Swaziland has not been relinquished in faxour of the Transvaal, for Great Britain never had, or professed to have, a protectorate over the country.
  SIR R. TEMPLE: I beg to give notice that I shall draw attention to this subject on the Colonial Vote.

  PARLIAMENTARY VISITS TO THE DOCKYARDS.
  MR. WOOTTON ISAACSON: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government to make arrangements this year for Members to view the Fleet and Dockyards at Portsmouth?
  SIR U. KAY-SHUTTLEWORTH: It has never been the practice for Her Majesty's Government to make any special arrangements for parties of Members to visit the Fleet or the Dockyards, nor could the cost of such visits be properly charged to Navy Votes. The noble Lord the Member for Middlesex (Lord G. Hamilton) entertained a party of Members at Portsmouth last year at luncheon at his own expense, and arrangements were made to visit the Royal Sovereign and the new cruisers. The question whether invitations of such a character should be given in any year appears to me to be one for the private consideration of the First Lord of the Admiralty. The present summer has been darkened by the loss of the Victoria, and has not seemed an appropriate time for an entertainment like that of last year.
  MR. WOOTTON ISAACSON: May I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman could arrange for Members to visit the Fleet and Dockyards without anything in the nature of an entertainment?
  SIR U. KAY-SHUTTLEWORTH: Not only any Member of this House, but any taxpayer in the country, can visit the Dockyards without any special arrangements when a request of that sort is made.

  SCOTLAND'S CONTRIBUTION TO IMPERIAL FINANCE.
  MR. COCHRANE: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, as he has announced the intention of the Government that Her Majesty should be advised to issue a Royal Commission to inquire into and report upon the question of the financial relations of Ireland to the Imperial Exchequer, whether the Government will either appoint a Committee to inquire into the financial relations of Scotland to the Imperial Exchequer, or will extend the terms of Reference so as to bring the case of Scotland before the proposed Royal Commission?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. E. GLADSTONE,): I think there will be much inconvenience in associating any inquiries that must necessarily partake of an historical character in respect to the finances of Ireland and Scotland, and they ought not to be dealt with by the same body. In regard to any separate measures in respect to Scotland, I have no doubt that if the public opinion of Scotland should be sufficiently declared in the sense of desiring such an inquiry, the House of Commons and also the Government will pay due attention to that expression of opinion.
  DR. MACGREGOR: I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is aware that Scotland at present pays to the Imperial Exchequer nearly £1,500,000 per annum beyond her fair share of taxations, and whether it is not high time that Scotland should be allowed to manage her own affairs?
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE; Scotland is, no doubt, entitled to speak with great authority on that subject; and if it does so speak, I have not the least doubt that its views will have due consideration given to them.

  GRESHAM UNIVERSITY.
  SIR A. ROLLIT: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he can inform the House when the Report of the Gresham University Committee is likely to be made?
  MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: It is hoped that the Report will be presented before the end of the year.

  REDEMPTION OF RENT (IRELAND) ACT.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I wish to ask the Chief Secretary if his attention has been called to the extraordinary language of Lord Salisbury in the House of Lords on Tuesday in reference to the Redemption of Kent (Ireland) Act, 1891?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! It is a Rule of the House not, to refer to statements made in the other House.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I understand, Sir, the noble Lord said that a Bill which was brought in by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Manchester was not a Government Bill, though it had the names of Mr. Arthur James Balfour and the Attorney General for Ireland on the back of it.
  MR. SPEAKER: Does the hon. and learned Gentleman wish to ask whether the Bill was a Government Bill or not?
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I wish to ask whether the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary has been called to this language—
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! It is a very wholesome Rule in this House not to allude to statements or Debates in the other House of the present Session, as to do so might bring the two Houses into collision. If the hon. and learned Gentleman likes to ask whether the Bill was a Government Bill or not, no doubt the right hon. Gentleman will give him an answer.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Then I will ask the Chief Secretary whether the Redemption of Rent Act was not a Government measure?
  MR. J. MORLEY: I believe there is no doubt about that. Lord Salisbury has, no doubt, forgotten it.

  THE DEBATE ON THE HOME RULE BILL.
  SIR E. MILNER: I beg to ask the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury a question of which I have given him private notice. Whether it is the intention of the Government that the remaining stages of the Home Rule Bill are to be carried by the same automatic proceeding that was adopted in Committee; and, if so, whether the Prime Minister
  1782
  would, for the convenience of Members on both sides of the House, state what days he proposes to fix?
  MR. SPEAKER: I do not think that is a fair question to put, because when a Minister makes a Motion he judges of the circumstances of the time, and it is impossible that he can say beforehand what he will do when a certain date arrives. It is not in accordance with the dignity of this House that questions like that should he asked or answered.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND BILL. (No. 428.)

    CONSIDERATION. [FOURTH NIGHT.]
    Bill, as amended, further considered.
    SIR H. JAMES SIR H. JAMES (Bury, Lancashire) moved to insert after Clause 5 the following new Clause:—
    (Transfer of certain powers and jurisdiction to the Lord Lieutenant.)
    "All the powers and jurisdiction to be exercised in accordance with the provisions of 'The Foreign Enlistment Act, 1870,' and 'The Fugitive Offenders Act, 1881,' by the Lord Lieutenant or Lord Justices, or other Chief Governor or Governors of Ireland, or the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, shall be exercised by the Lord Lieutenant in pursuance of instructions given by Her Majesty."
    Clause brought up, and read the first time.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir C. RUSSELL,: I have the authority of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister to accept this new clause.
    MR. SEXTONsaid, that in the eases referred to in the clause it was quite proper that the Lord Lieutenant should act as the Representative of Her Majesty: but he wished to ask whether, when the Lord Lieutenant was simply referred to, the Government had any objection to state in the Bill that on such case the Lord Lieutenant was acting on the advice of the Executive Committee of the Irish Privy Council?
    SIR C. RUSSELL: I understand that is the intention.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Clause added to the Bill.
    SIR H. JAMESrose to move the insertion of the following new Clause:—
    (Repeal of s. 16 of 21 & 22 Geo. 3, c. 11 (Irish Parliament).)
    "That from and after the appointed day the powers conferred in the sixteenth section of the Act passed by the Irish Parliament in the Session held in the twenty-first and twenty-second years of the reign of George the Third, intituled 'An Act for the better securing the liberty of the subject,' shall not be exercised, and the said section shall be and is hereby repealed as and from the said appointed day."
    By the last clause of an Act passed by the Irish Parliament in 1781 power is given to the Lord Lieutenant by Proclamation to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act in Ireland in cases of invasion or rebellion. That is a great power to be given to the Irish Executive. I do not wish to say anything of a controversial nature; but we have all gathered from these Debates that the protection of the Habeas Corpus Act is looked upon as most essential by the Loyalists of Ireland under Home Rule. Whenever we have suspended that Act in this country we always did it by the action of the Legislature, and not, so far as I know, by the action of the Executive. I do not know of any Statute of Great Britain which gives the Executive power to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act by Proclamation. The Executive Government in Ireland would be the judge whether there was an actual invasion or an actual rebellion. As regards the first, of course, there could be no doubt. Invasion could only happen in the case of war with a Foreign State. But rebellion is a different thing. Some may look upon a local riot as of great importance, and may conceive that it means rebellion. Then you may have a refusal to pay taxes, and it may be said that in that case also rebellion exists. We must contemplate the possibility of such things in Ireland; and if they did occur it would be the duty of the Lord Lieutenant to determine whether such a state of things amounted to rebellion, and, if so, to determine whether he would suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, and so arrest any subject of the Queen he thinks proper. Though I speak of the Lord
    1784
    Lieutenant, inasmuch as such matters would be matters internal to Ireland, this power would really be in the hands of the Irish Executive alone. I presume that, constitutionally, the Lord Lieutenant would be bound to accept the advice of the Executive. We are, therefore, about to give to an Irish Ministry, which is at least untried, the power, if they think fit, to declare any part of Ireland in a state of rebellion, suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, and arrest anyone they think proper. If this power does not exist in Great Britain, why should it exist in Ireland? [Nationalist cheers.] I know what that interruption means. But an Irish independent Parliament passed the Act in 1781.
    MR. MAC NEILL: It was not till 1782 that it became independent.
    SIR H. JAMES: It was passed by the Irish Parliament. It was not the Parliament of the United Kingdom that passed it. I say it would be a dangerous thing to place this power in the hands of the Irish Executive. If it is necessary to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, the Irish Parliament will still have the power to suspend it by legislation. I do not object to its suspension, if good cause be shown; but I do most strongly object to giving to any Executive whatever the power to suspend it. I beg to move the Amendment.
    Clause (Repeal of s. 16 of 21 & 22 Geo. 3, c. 11 (Irish Parliament,)—(Sir H. James,)—brought up, and road the first time.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."
    MR. T. M. HEALY: I think the right hon. Gentleman is quite wrong in his Constitutional Law. He says that this Act can only be put in force by the Lord Lieutenant on the advice of the Irish Executive. Will that be so? Clearly not; because, at the time the Act was passed, the Irish Executive was not in existence, and the Lord Lieutenant can only have been advised in reference to it by the Imperial Executive. At the time the Act was passed the Imperial Executive alone advised the Lord Lieutenant. Is not

    1785
    that so? Am I to be told that there was an Irish Executive in 1781? The thing is absurd, and, therefore, it follows that the Lord Lieutenant acted under Imperial advice; and now the proposition is this: that this Bill is to be made the vehicle, in case of rebellion or invasion, of weakening the hands of the Imperial Executive, and that is the proposal of the Unionist Party! Let the country and the House understand this: Here is a power in the hands of the Imperial Executive—in the hands of the Imperial Parliament—in the case of open rebellion and open invasion; and the person who wants to weaken the hands of the Imperial Parliament in the case of rebellion and of the invasion of a Foreign Power is the ex-Attorney General of Her Majesty! It appears to me that a more remarkable proceeding has seldom emanated from that distinguished gentleman. I should have supposed that, in case of rebellion or invasion, the Party most anxious to come to the aid of Her Majesty's Government would have been the Unionist Party. No, Sir. The tables are suddenly turned. Who propose to be rebellious now? Do not we know very well the object which the right hon. Gentleman has in his mind? And what is it he says? he says that it might not amount to rebellion at all, and that the Lord Lieutenant might take it into his head that the loss of 50 or 60 lives only amounted to a riot and did nor amount to actual rebellion at all. What is rebellion? Is there any definition in the Books? Is it not a jury question? How is the matter to be decided? Let us assume that the Lord Lieutenant issues his Proclamation at a time when there is no rebellion in the country, and that some gentleman is taken up under the Proclamation. Am I to be told that that gentleman would lie stopped from pleading that there was no rebellion, and that he would not have his action? Really if such an extraordinary state of the law existed for over 100 years, what a pity it is that that abominable condition of the law was not called attention to before now! Is it to be contended that the Lord Lieutenant could issue his Warrant, and, there being no rebellion and no invasion, could put every member of the Orange Order into gaol, and that he would have a complete answer to an
    1786
    action? A more extraordinary and remarkable contention I have never heard, even from the Benches opposite, and it seems to me that this is the most remarkable Amendment which ever proceeded even from that quarter.
    MR. COURTNEYsaid, the lion, and learned Member was exceedingly confident in his knowledge of Constitutional Law; but his speech showed that he had not made any acquaintance with the wording of the Act of 1781. That Act, which was an Irish Act, used the words—
    "The Chief Governor and the Privy Council of this Kingdom."
    and there was no question that the Privy Council referred to was the Privy Council of Ireland. The clause itself later on referred to "this Kingdom" and "Great Britain" as separate realms. The lion, and learned Member had not made himself in the slightest degree acquainted with the words of the section, and then expressed himself with the utmost contempt of his right lion, and learned Friend because he had. What would be the construction and meaning of those words supposing the Home Rule Bill were passed? What would be the "Privy Council of this Kingdom"? It would clearly be within the power of the Lord Lieutenant as the "Chief Governor" and the Privy Council of Ireland to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, and, if that were done, no Judge or Justice, except on the authority of the Chief Governor, would be at liberty to release the person in custody. The Act of 1781 was a most absurd Act; nobody could defend it, and the question was whether such an absurd Act should remain on the Statute Book, with the possibility of its being put into operation. The same power did not exist in Great Britain; if the occasion arose, Parliament was summoned and the Habeas Corpus Act was suspended. Was there any greater need for maintaining such an Act in the case of Ireland? He-thought his hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General and Her Majesty's Government would find great difficulty in defending its retention on the Statute Book.
    MR. MAC NEILLsaid, he had not played into the hands of the Opposition by trespassing much in these Debates; but the ignorance of the right hon. Gentleman opposite was simply so

    1787
    amazing that he was bound to interfere. The right hon. Gentleman (Sir H. James), who was twice Attorney General for England, was so amazingly ignorant of the most ordinary facts of the Irish Constitutional Law that he told them with a flourish of trumpets that the Habeas Corpus Act was passed by an independent Irish Parliament. The independent Irish Parliament came into existence in 1782, and the Irish Habeas Corpus Act was passed in 1781. The Habeas Corpus Act was passed in England in 1679, and from 1679 till 1781 be believed there was not a single Session of the Irish Parliament in which the Irish Habeas Corpus Act was not proposed and negatived by the English Privy Council. In 1774 a Habeas Corpus Act precisely similar to the English Habeas Corpus Act was passed by the Irish Parliament, and sent over to the English Parliament, and it appeared from the letter sent with it by the Lord Lieutenant that it was at that time regarded as a solecism in polities to make the Constitution of a Colony the same as that of the Mother Country. The following words also appeared in the letter as showing the attitude towards the Catholics at the time:—
    "The Catholics must be either admitted to the protection of the Habeas Corpus Act or excluded."
    At length in 1781, when the Irish Parliament was still a dependent Parliament, the Irish Habeas Corpus Act was passed, but the English Privy Council put into it this clause which was now being referred to. It was the work of the English Privy Council, and was simply put into the Act—as many such clauses were inserted in Bills—as an insult to the Irish Parliament. Once the Statute came back to Ireland the Irish Parliament had to take it or leave it. The Habeas Corpus Act as it was passed in England was nothing else than an exposition of the Common Law. If there was rebellion or invasion in the country, whether that Act existed or not, the Government would not be worth its salt which did not put down rebellion. Rebellion or treason or invasion were Imperial matters; and, therefore, under Home Rule the Irish Parliament would have nothing to do with this clause. It was not often that he spoke well or kindly of the Irish Judges, though perhaps
    1788
    sometimes he might feel kindly towards some of them; but in 1798 the Irish Judges withstood that Act. It was in the case of Mr. Wolfe Tone, to whom when he was arrested the Irish Judges granted the benefit of Habeas Corpus in spite of the Act. He could not congratulate the Opposition on having brought to their aid from the dark recesses of history a record of the iniquity of a past time.
    MR. ROSSsaid, he was at a loss to understand what was the object of the hon. Member's fiery oration. The hon. Member had delivered a lecture on Irish Constitutional history, but what that had to do with the present serious question he failed to understand. This House was not a school for the enlightenment of hon. Members at the hands of learned Professors, but a Legislative Assembly. He failed to see how the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bury (Sir H. James) was in error, because he gave the date of the Act, and the date or coming into existence of the Irish Parliament, which were exactly the same as the years given by the hon. and learned Member who had just sat down. Until this Act of Parliament was first mentioned by the right hon. Member for Bury, he, for one, was wholly unaware of it. Now he did know of it he was very much afraid of it, for it gave power by a stroke of the pen to suspend the liberties of every person in Ireland. The hon. and learned Member for Louth said that it would be a question for a jury as to whether an arrest under the Act in question was legal or not; but neither of the Law Officers on the Ministerial Bench had risen to corroborate the views of the hon. Member for Louth; and when the Act was looked at, it was clear that the Lord Lieutenant and Privy Council had an absolute discretion vested in them to see whether there existed a state of rebellion or invasion. It was equally clear that, as the Bill now stood, the Lord Lieutenant would be bound, in this matter, to act upon the advice of his Irish Ministers. This could not possibly be an Imperial matter. They had here an Act which, although it had never been used, the Irish Members were pressing hard to retain. They clung to it. They held on to every one of such woapons. Therefore, while the Irish Unionists still had an opportunity of making themselves

    1789
    heard, they emphatically expressed the opinion that this was a weapon which should not be intrusted to the hands of an Irish Executive. In his view the Amendment of his right hon. Friend was well founded and ought to be accepted by the Government.
    MR. SEXTONsaid, he must submit that this Amendment limited the Imperial power in Ireland. It related to a matter of Executive power—namely, the authority of the Chief Governor of Ireland by Proclamation to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act in cases of invasion or rebellion. It was evident that when the Queen delegated the prerogative in Executive matters to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, there would be a distinction between Executive action arising out of Imperial questions and Executive action in the sense of the second clause, dealing with matters exclusively relating to Ireland or some part thereof. In the latter case the Executive authority would be exercised on the advice of the Committee of the Irish Privy Council, but in all other matters it was clear that the delegation to the Lord Lieutenant would instruct him to act upon the Imperial advice. Invasion was not a matter exclusively relating to "Ireland or some part thereof," nor was rebellion, because the effect of it might be to separate Ireland from the Imperial Crown, and, therefore, rebellion and invasion were so clearly Imperial matters that any Executive power delegated by the Queen to the Lord Lieutenant would be exercised upon the Imperial advice, notwithstanding the Statute of 1781. If the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman were carried, the effect of it would be that in the case of invasion or rebellion the prerogative would have disappeared, and the Lord Lieutenant would no longer have the power to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act by Proclamation. Instead of the Lord Lieutenant being able to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act on Imperial advice by Proclamation, the Imperial power to that extent would be limited in Ireland, and it would not be possible to deal with the subject of Habeas Corpus otherwise than by legislation.
    MR. DUNBAR BARTONthought the House did not realise what was the meaning of this extraordi-
    1790
    nary section, which certainly surprised those who found it still on the Statute Book. It was to be found in the last edition of the Revised Statutes—the edition of 1885. No such power as that given by the section existed in Great Britain, or would be tolerated in Great Britain, and no such power had been exercised; but they now knew from the attitude of hon. Members that they wished to keep the power. The hon. Member for North Kerry had, in his opinion, shown that it ought to be repealed. Mr. Grattan was called to Order in the Debate in the Irish Parliament for protesting against the section. The hon. Member said the tables wore turned; yes, and men who formerly shouted for liberty wore now shouting for coercion. Let not the Government say that this Statute had been repealed by implication. If it had been repealed, let the Government point out when and where. He appealed to the Government that an enactment which their own supporters said was an iniquity should not be allowed to remain on the Statute Book.
    COLONEL WARINGconsidered the House was entitled to some answer from the Government as to whether this Act was obsolete or not. Surely, if this Act was repealed it was right it should be distinctly stated. At any rate, they were entitled to know whether such an iniquitous Act was to remain in force or not.
    THE SOLICITOR GENERAL (Sir RIGBY,): I think, on the whole question of habeas corpus, there exists considerable misapprehension. In Ireland the liberty of the subject does not depend on the Irish Act in question alone; it depends, in a much wider degree, on the Imperial Statute of 1816, which preserves in all cases—at any rate, that are not of a criminal or of a supposed criminal nature—the absolute rights of all the inhabitants of Ireland, subjects of Her Majesty. True it is that this particular Act of 1781 corresponds to a great extent with our earlier Act of Charles II., passed in the 31st year of that King. It deals with criminal matters, and, among other things, the important criminal matters of rebellion and the state of things arising in the case of an invasion. Now, as regards the case of rebellion or the case of invasion it may be quite

    1791
    right and proper that there should be prompt means of dealing with such a state of things as might probably arise when there is a rebellion and when there is an invasion. A rebellion breaks out suddenly; invasion comes when you least expect it, and in these cases it may be desirable to act at once. At any rate, the retention of that Act of 1781 would leave to its full operation the Habeas Corpus Act of 1816, which is by far the most important of this series of Acts, and would not allow such an interference as is supposed with the case of the ordinary subject. The latter part of the clause, which the right hon. Member for Bury did not read to the House, goes on to say—
    "No Judge shall admit to bail or try persons who are suspected of being concerned or are charged with being concerned in such invasion or rebellion,"
    so that this Amendment is put forward on behalf of persons who are charged with rebellion and invasion and nothing else. Of course, I know the charge may afterwards be disproved, but it is only when a man is charged with rebellion or invasion that any harm can arise from this provision in the Act of 1781. It does appear to me that when the ordinary subjects of Her Majesty have the full protection of the Act of 1816, referring to all civil cases, the ordinary liberty of the subject being expressly reserved by that, there can be no hardship at all in leaving on the Statute Book a clause which simply deals with rebellion and invasion.
    SIR E. WEBSTER: I must say that I can understand the hesitation on the Treasury Bench. If my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General—for whose great learning and ability he knows I have the greatest admiration—had no other case than that he put before the House as a justification for the retention on the Statute Book of this section, I am not surprised that there was hesitation on the part of the Government in allowing that case to be put forward. There is much more importance in this matter than appears in the mere form of the question or discussion as it is treated on the Treasury Bench. Aye or no, do they say that this Statute is repealed? Is it repealed by implication or not? Is it repealed expressly or not? Neither
    1792
    of my hon. and learned Friends will say it is repealed expressly. If they do, there would be an end of the discussion. They have not been able to say it is repealed by implication; and if it had been it would be the strongest argument in favour of the right hon. Member for Bury (Sir H. James), because a repeal of this kind of Statute by implication is what the Courts disapprove of and what the Judges will say ought not to take place. I now come to a part of the Solicitor General's argument which strikes me as being most deplorable. He says the Act is of no account. Why? Because he says that the protection of the liberty of the subject is much better safeguarded by the Act of 1816—which for this purpose I will assume, of course, to apply to Ireland as well as to Great Britain—than it is by the Act we are now asked to deal with. Does my hon. and learned Friend suggest, having read the Act of 1816, that that Act either touched the present subject-matter, or purported to touch it? What happened is this: The Act of 1816 was passed for the simple reason which no lawyer will dispute when I have stated the point. Habeas corpus with regard to criminal proceedings was not touched; but it being found there was delay in the matter of issuing the writ of habeas corpus in civil proceedings, it was suggested that, notwithstanding the Vacation and the fact that the Courts were not sitting, the Judges should be ordered peremptorily and immediately to issue a writ of habeas corpus in civil proceedings, and I say, subject to correction from either of my learned Friends, that the Act of 1816 does not touch the subject-matter of the Act of 1781.
    SIR J. RIGBYsaid, he distinctly stated that the Act of 1781 dealt with criminal matters, whilst the other Act applied to civil cases, and he then went on to point out that the only people who could be affected by the existing clause would be those who were charged with rebellion, or with being concerned in rebellion or invasion.
    SIR R. WEBSTER: I may not have expressed myself as clearly as I wished but accepting the lucid explanation of the Solicitor General, what was the object of referring to the Act of 1816 as affording protection to persons in respect of the Habeas Corpus Act? I under-

    1793
    stood his argument was this: "You need not mind about, this obsolete Statute standing in the Statute Book; there is no reason why it should not, because loyal subjects in Ireland have simple protection under the Act of 1816." If that argument had been sound, we might have had a case to meet. We have, at any rate, elicited this: that from the point of view of the discussion in which we are engaged, the Act of 1816 may be put out of the question. It does not touch the case of persons who would be charged with quasi-criminal offences, or criminal offences under the Act of 1781. I dismiss the Act of 1816 and the case made by the learned Solicitor General by saying it was frankly admitted it was applied and limited to civil proceedings. That being so, we come now to the terms of the Act itself, and I again ask the Law Officers of the Crown what justification they have got for retaining this particular section? That is the case we have got to consider. We have not got to consider the argument as to whether there be some loophole out of it. Solicitor General said that a man might be charged, but that afterwards the charge might be disproved. Yes, but the mischief is done. The unfortunate man has been kept in prison a fortnight or a month, or a much longer time, because he cannot get six Members of the Privy Council to direct a Judge to bail him. The answer the Solicitor General has given—namely, that, upon the facts and merits there may be a defence, shows the abuse the section may be put to in the hands of persons who were determined to use it, not for the purpose of dealing with cases of invasion or rebellion, properly so called, but in other cases in which it might be employed. The hon. Member for Kerry raised a point which I do not think the Members of the Government will be prepared to endorse. He said, for the purposes of this section, rebellion and invasion must be Imperial matters, and that there is amply sufficient protection under Clause 5 of the Bill, as it is now proposed; therefore, we need not discuss the matter further at all. But I cannot altogether assent to the view that rebellion, in the sense in which it would be understood by hon. Members below the Gangway, would necessarily be an Im-
    1794
    perial matter. It must be remembered that this kind of enactment would be made use of in times of excitement, when men's judgments would not, perhaps, be so calm and clear as the judgment of the Solicitor General, when he made the best defence he could make for the Government on the present Amendment. But I want to know, when we come to look at the real merits of this clause, does the Prime Minister think that if his view of the future of Ireland is right there could be the slightest possible justification for enacting such a clause as this? And I want to know if this clause is now being insisted upon, how is it they do not propose, either by some Act, or even in this Act, that this clause should be extended to the United Kingdom? for I must say I fail to observe why this particular engine—obsolete, it is admitted, and not used for 90 years—is to be kept in store for the possible claims of the Irish Executive and the Irish Privy Council. There must be a grave question if this Act passes as to who are the Chief Governors or Governors for the time being; but the right hon. Member for Bodmin (Mr. Courtney) absolutely disposed of the suggestion that "Kingdom" did not mean Ireland. It is perfectly plain in that section that "Kingdom" does there mean Ireland. I want to know what "Privy Council" means? I submit it is open to doubt; and if there is any doubt it is sufficient for our purpose, and this matter ought to be placed beyond the shadow of a doubt. I rely upon the latter part of the section as showing the paramount necessity for a repeal of this enactment. Granted that the question of invasion may possibly be a matter which must be so pronounced that it must be taken as an Imperial matter; it is not merely on the proclamation of rebellion, but after that event has taken place that—
    "No Judge or Justice of the Peace shall bail or try any person or persons charged with being concerned in such invasion or rebellion, without the Order of the Lord Lieutenant or Deputy or Privy Council of this Kingdom."
    Hon. Members below the Gangway have not been slow to indicate what might be done in certain circumstances with reference to the Loyalists of Ulster, and I am quite unable to understand why this obsolete weapon is to be placed in the hands of the Irish Government to be em-

    1795
    ployed in all probability against the personal liberty of subjects in Ireland. I began by saying I was not surprised at the hesitation on the Government Bench. It may be, before this Debate is over, we may have some other defence; but I cannot help thinking that if there be no better case, the virtue of necessity may be accepted at once, and the repeal of this clause accepted also.
    SIR C. RUSSELL: In the speech of my hon. and learned Friend, as, indeed, in all the speeches—even the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Bodmin (Mr. Courtney)—there has been a great tone of exaggeration, and the importance of this question has been most unduly magnified. And, Sir, in reference to one concluding observation of my hon. and learned Friend who has just spoken, let me remind him that this is not a question of a new enactment, or of some fresh provision of stringency; but it is a question of whether an existing law, which is on the Statute Book and whose authority might at any moment by existing Governments be invoked, shall or shall not be repealed. It is not, therefore, a question of a provision of a restrictive character, but whether there are sufficient grounds for sweeping away an authority and power which, rightly used in a case of sudden emergency, may be of great importance in the preservation of the public peace. I say that the extent and importance of this question are greatly exaggerated. It does not touch the general protection that the Law of Habeas Corpus gives. It deals with two cases, and two cases only—namely, cases of rebellion and cases of invasion, and it provides that in such eases—[Mr. MATTHEWS dissented.] Does the right hon. Gentleman challenge that statement.
    MR. MATTHEWS: Certainly I challenge it. The latter part refers to two cases only, but the suspension of the Act applies to all cases.
    SIR C. RUSSELL: The right hon. Gentleman, I am afraid, has only hastily read it. It provides that—
    "It shall be lawful for the Chief Governors or Governor for the time being and the Privy Council of this Kingdom to suspend this (Habeas Corpus) Act by Proclamation under the Great Seal of this Kingdom during such time" (and during such time only); "as there shall be actual rebellion or invasion in this Kingdom or Great Britain."
    1796
    Therefore, they cannot suspend it by Proclamation except in case of invasion or rebellion. Of course, if they suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, they suspend it. I am dealing with cases in which they could suspend it—namely, cases of rebellion and invasion; and, having suspended it, the result is this: That—
    "No Judge or Justice of the Peace shall bail or try any persons or person" (that is, during such time only) "who is charged with being concerned in such invasion or rebellion."
    But even in such cases there may be an Order of the Lord Lieutenant or Deputy and Privy Council of the Kingdom, who may, notwithstanding that provision, admit the person so charged to bail; so that the authority of the Act can only be invoked in the two cases of actual invasion and rebellion. The suspension can only continue during the continuance of such invasion or rebellion, and persons charged with offences relating to invasion and rebellion may be bailed by the Order of the Lord Lieutenant, or Deputy, or Privy Council. I say, therefore, that the scope and extent of the section, and, therefore, the gravity and importance of the question, are from any point of view greatly exaggerated. Now I wish to turn to another point referred to, oddly enough I am surprised to say, by my learned Friend who has just spoken. He said that invasion would involve an offence against the Crown. Of course, no one can doubt that. My learned Friend went on to say that what hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway would consider rebellion would not be rebellion within the meaning of the Act.
    SIR R. WEBSTER: I was dealing solely with the question of what were Imperial matters. I discussed it from the point of view whether it would be an Imperial matter.
    SIR C. RUSSELL: Does my right hon. Friend suggest that rebellion against the Crown is not an Imperial matter? Does he suggest that it can be anything but an Imperial matter, or that there can be any rebellion which is not against the Crown? I want to know, is there any lawyer or anyone else who can say there can be rebellion which is anything else but rebellion against the Crown? Very well, that being so we find that we are immediately face to face with subject-matters as to which the Irish Legislative Body have no power to legislate—either

    1797
    as to offences of treason or offences of that character. Then what are the steps that must be taken before the authority of this Act and the Proclamation itself can take place? The events are events of sudden emergency calling for prompt and specific and adequate remedy on the spot, and dealing with offences against the Crown. That being the state of the case, I do not stop to consider whether, according to the construction of this Act, the Lord Lieutenant could—I think he could—with the assent of the Irish Privy Council, issue a Proclamation suspending the Act—I do not stop to dwell upon that, but I say in practice and in fact it is impossible to consider that the Representative of the Crown in Ireland in such circumstances could act, or would act, except upon the responsibility of the Imperial Executive; therefore, I think the argument of my hon. Friend the Member for North Kerry (Mr. Sexton), was one which well merited, and ought to have, the attention of the House. I may remind hon. Members that the House has decided more than once that it leaves these matters of criminal procedure to be dealt with by the Irish Legislative Body subject to what we conceive to be sufficient checks and safeguards to be found in the Bill itself; therefore, it would be within the competence of the Irish Legislative Body, if so advised, and with the assent of the Lord Lieutenant, to pass a Bill in the sense in which this Act of 1781 now speaks, and speaks with the authority of a long existing Statute. I submit to the judgment of the House that, although it must be admitted that this is not a provision that exists in the law relating to England, and probably would not now be enacted in the case of Ireland by Parliament, the question is whether a sufficiently strong case is made out in the circumstances and in view of the suggestions I have made to justify the House in repealing that which is already on the Statute Book? In truth, the question raised by the Amendment is of small practical importance.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: It is to be admitted that the gentlemen on the Treasury Bench are good men struggling with adversity. They have, I suppose, had many bad cases to defend in the course of this Bill, and they have been put to very strange shifts in defending them; but never till the pre-
    1798
    sent time have they had so bad a case, and never have the shifts to which they have been put been more eccentric and extraordinary. Let me remind the House that what we are dealing with at the present moment is a Statute which has never been put in force since the Union, which, by the confession of everybody, is an abridgment of liberty, or involves an abridgement of liberty, and which throws into the hands of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland the power to abrogate the Habeas Corpus Act for the whole of that country and for every inhabitant of that country. The learned Gentleman, I think, rather shifted his ground towards the end of his speech; but during the first part he appeared to suppose the Act was only suspended in the case of people who committed rebellion or abetted invasion, or who were charged with these two offences; and the learned Solicitor General, to whom I shall have to refer, turned round to us and said—"Do you mean to come forward and suggest an amendment of the law in favour of those who commit rebellion or who abet invasion?" The Habeas Corpus Act can, no doubt, only be suspended if, in the opinion of the Lord Lieutenant, there is rebellion or there is invasion; but that is to be judged by the Lord Lieutenant, and the Lord Lieutenant alone. The question now before us is whether we are to give to the new Government in Ireland, whose action we have thought it right, to fetter and to limit in every direction because we think it might abuse it, power which we ourselves have not got in Great Britain and which no Government would dare to ask this House for. I hope the House understands the position. Let us now see the defence of the policy of the Government, which has been put forward by various Members. To the hon. and learned Member for Louth I need not allude, because lie made his defence without having apparently read the Act. Then came the hon. and learned Member for North Kerry—not learned, though, indeed, he is ingenious enough to succeed in any Court of Law in the United Kingdom. The Member for North Kerry came forward to rescue the Government and to supply the Attorney General with an apology—the main apology—for the argument with which

    1799
    he has favoured the House on this occasion. The argument is that rebellion and invasion are Imperial matters, and that, because they are Imperial matters, they are outside the purview of the Irish Government.
    SIR C. RUSSELL: The Irish Legislature.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: We are not now dealing with the Legislature. We are dealing with the Executive Government. For that reason it is argued that the power of putting this anomalous and antiquated Act in force would rest with the British, as distinguished from the Irish, Government. Is there any proof of that? We profess to be passing an Act for the peace, order, and good government of Ireland; but, apparently those who are to be responsible for the peace, order, and good government of Ireland are not to be responsible for rebellion. They are to have nothing to do with it; they must not legislate about it; they must not deal with it, either in their Legislative or Executive capacity. But let me remind the hon. Member for Kerry that his argument goes further than probably he supposes; for if what he says be true, in the case of a rising in Ulster the Irish Legislature would have nothing whatever to do with suspending the Habeas Corpus Act.
    MR. SEXTON: Criminal procedure.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: But criminal procedure with regard to an Imperial matter is, according to the hon. Member, outside the power of the Irish Legislature. It is difficult enough to distinguish between Imperial affairs and purely Irish affairs; but if you are going to give to an Irish Executive the responsibility of looking after the peace, order, and good government of Ireland, and if you are not going to include within the peace, order, and good government of Ireland the power to deal with rebellion, I should like to know what power you do leave them? I pass with pleasure from the arguments of the hon. Member for Kerry to deal with the speech of the Solicitor General. I have had reason upon previous occasions rather to complain of that learned Gentleman for dealing with questions, and which I thought broad political matters, in the spirit of the learned lawyer, raising mere technical objections, when he might have dealt with the questions in the broad spirit of the states-
    1800
    man. But the present speech is quite different. There were no petty technicalities about it. There were no small legal objections taken to our suggestion that we should abolish this Irish Act of 1781. The hon. and learned Gentleman approached the question as a statesman and a politician. He said—"Don't abolish the Act. It is a good Act; I like it: keep it on the Statute Book." I suppose the learned Gentleman will bring in a Bill to extend this admirable Act to England and Scotland. The learned Gentleman likes it. It deals only with traitors and rebels. What mercy does the law allow to traitors and rebels? None. We have been accustomed to talk of the liberties and rights of the subject, but the man who is charged with rebellion and abetting invasion is outside the pale of English liberty and law, and must be treated as the most arbitrary Foreign Government treats the least loyal of its subject population. That may be very good policy, but I am surprised to hear it from the mouth of a gentleman of approved Radical convictions. I am surprised to hear it from the mouth of one of the spokesmen of an anti-Coercionist Government, and I should like to know, does the Prime Minister share the enthusiasm which burns and glows in the generous frame of the Solicitor General? I suppose the Government are going to adhere to the absurd position they have taken up. The only conjecture which I can throw out to the House as giving even a plausible explanation of their astonishing conduct is that this Act was passed when Ireland had an independent Parliament.
    MR. J. MORLEY: No.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: It was passed, at all events, before the Union. It was passed when there was a Legislative Assembly sitting in College Green, and when, therefore, some few of the blessings which the right hon. Gentleman hopes to confer on Ireland by this Bill were enjoyed by that unhappy country. Though the Act was not passed by Grattan's Parliament, I am not aware that Grattan's Parliament showed any special objection to it.
    MR. MAC NEILL: They did.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Well, they did not repeal it. The Act has never been put into operation since the Union;

    1801
    and, therefore, I am driven to the sap-position that the application of this Act is one of the grievances and injustices which the Union inflicted on Ireland, and which the right hon. Gentleman desires to restore. For 93 years Ireland has been deprived of the blessing of having her Habeas Corpus Act suspended at the will of the Executive Government. Let that state of things come to an end, and let us restore the happy condition of affairs before 1800. Let us give the Irish a Parliament to sit in College Green, and then these hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway can exercise in Ireland, or advise the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to exercise, powers which Ave in England would no more give to the Executive Government than we would abolish the Habeas Corpus Act itself. I think the Government must feel that the course they have pursued was the strongest commentary upon the limitations put upon the Irish Parliament. They have always complained of us for thinking it possible that the powers granted to Ireland might be abused. The Prime Minister has never been weary of informing us that we credit hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway with a double dose of original sin. Well, even take the other theory—what has been called the angelic theory—is it too much to ask the right hon. Gentleman if he is willing to give them a power which he would not dare to ask for himself, or for the Executive authority, in this country; to give to the Irish Executive the right at any moment on their own judgment and on their own interpretation of the facts of the case, to deprive every single subject of Her Majesty in Ireland of that which we all believe to be the most precious birthright of Englishmen?
    MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: I am sorry that I was precluded from following the late Attorney General, because after hearing the speeches of my hon. Friend the Member for Kerry and my right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General I had arrived at the point of view that there was no occasion to make this a matter of division between the two sides of the House. But the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition in the remarks he has made has done nothing but try to throw difficulties in our way. He has done nothing but follow the
    1802
    course usual with those sitting on the opposite side of the House—I do not include the late Attorney General, whose whole argument was such as might properly be addressed to the House—the right hon. Gentleman has cast into the Debate every provocative and exasperating element. I admit no syllable of what the right hon. Gentleman has said about the position of the Government, and much less the extravagant and misrepresenting account he has given of the speech of my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General. I cast out of this discussion all considerations of an angry and controversial character which the right hon. Gentleman has done his best to introduce into it for the purpose of poisoning the Debate. I have done with the right hon. Gentleman and mean to address myself to the question, and therefore not the question as it has been treated by the right hon. Gentleman. To him it will seem strange and incredible, but it is nevertheless a fact, that the Government are anxious, in looking at the second Amendment of my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bury, to treat it in the same spirit as we treated the first. The first was more easy to master than the second, and we accepted it, intercepting even the speech the right hon. and learned Gentleman would perhaps have been glad to deliver, and Ave, of course, ready to hear. That was the spirit in which Ave desired to approach the second Amendment. It was not easy, at any rate, for me, being the person greatly responsible for this Bill, and not having the advantage of a legal training and knowledge, to obtain the clear view of the law as it stands, for which I am indebted to the Law Officers of the Crown. I admit that there were in my mind two presumptions adverse to the Amendments. As to the first I thought—Here is a question on two Irish Acts not easy to master on its merits; are we, having been led for 70 odd days through the ambages of this Bill, by the ingenuity of the hon. Gentlemen who form the two sections of the Opposition, to be led into a fresh hopeless impasse—namely, this: that it is our duty to review the Statute Book of Ireland, and our duly to form an opinion upon the provisions found in that Statute Book, and our duty to repeal in this Act everything Ave are not prepared on principle to de-

    1803
    fend? I am not ashamed to say—and I do not think the House will be displeased to hear it—that, in my opinion, that was an absurd proposition; and I do not want, if I can avoid it, to be led into the defile of a new Thermopylæ. From day to day and week to week, in the course of these discussions, there have been raised, in the aggregate, scores of questions, always with the declaration on the part of the speaker that the point he was about to raise was, perhaps, the most important of all. It did not signify whether the point was the size of a mountain or the size of a mouse. This has been the habitual and invariable practice. On that ground, therefore, I had a presumption against the Amendment. These things come up rapidly, and we have not time for full consultation on the subject; but I admit that I had a presumption against the Amendment, and it will be admitted it was perhaps not unnatural. I had another difficulty. It was that the Amendment touched on a purely Irish matter, a matter which it would be most equitable and most considerate for this Parliament to leave to the Irish Parliament. I do not ask the Leader of the Opposition to accompany me in that statement. He is justified in looking at me as I look at him—under the influence of an inveterate and blinding prejudice. But I had that impression. It was my first impression that this was a matter that ought to be left to the judgment of the Irish Parliament. We have shown, I hope, that we intended to act loyally by that Parliament. We have debated the whole subject of the legislative power of that Parliament to deal even with the great and solemn subject of the habeas corpus. But as regards this question, applying all your magnifying glasses to it, you cannot extend it very much beyond the dimensions of what is called an animalcule. It was a small affair. It is a question of a particular provision existing on the Irish Statute Book, with regard to which, although, as my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General has most properly shown, it may be beneficially used on certain occasions, yet it is not defended on its merits in the sense of saying that if it did not exist, and if it was a question of passing it, we would be ready to support and defend it. It is a matter of some interest to consider what is the
    1804
    history of this Statute. I do not say that we know it exactly, but I know this: that during the last half of the last century—I do not speak to the right hon. Member for Bodmin, who said that I knew nothing about Ireland, so that I will beg my right hon. Friend to shut his ears.
    MR. COURTNEY: I never made that unqualified statement.
    MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: The statement admits of little qualification. What was the history of the Irish Parliament during the latter half of the last century? No doubt it was a Body subject to enormous and almost enslaving influence, largely tainted, through English influence and through the incessant action of the English Executive, by pecuniary corruption. Yet such was the virtue of the representative principle that that Parliament was a patriotic Parliament, and it began in the time of Mr. Lucas, and it carried steadily forward, according to its limited means of operation, a crusade of liberty, partly against the influence of the aristocracy—which I admit had the national spirit—and, above all, against the crushing power of what was called the Protestant ascendency, with which I by no means identify the Irish aristocracy of the last century, and against the English Government which inspired and sustained that Protestant ascendency. Therefore came the long battle of the Octennial Bill. No better instance could be found in any piece of Parliamentary history of a gallant struggle, maintained and won with forces apparently slender, against an overwhelming host, in opposition. Long was the fight for the Septennial Bill. At last, when the English Government gave way, they had not the grace to give way without making a change, so the Septennial Bill, in a tyrannical and narrow spirit, was changed into an Octennial Bill. It is permissible to construe a later series of incidents by examining the character of a former series. Perhaps it cannot be demonstrated, but it is agreeable to all analogy, that the Act for introducing into Ireland the privilege of the habeas corpus in 1781, when Poyning's law was still in force, was duo to the same gallant national spirit that had carried the Octennial Act. That is how I read Irish history. But the power in the Irish Act is not one I am disposed to cling to. It

    1805
    was not the right hon. Gentleman the I Leader of the Opposition that converted me. I was converted by two speeches, one of which he censured, while of the other he took no notice at all—that of the hon. Member for North Kerry. [Opposition laughter.] What! will you not allow the hon. Member for North Kerry to convert me to your views? That is really most astonishing. Do allow the hon. Member for Kerry, at all events, that degree of liberty. I entertain a shrewd suspicion that if the hon. Member were to make a speech that entirely coincided with your views and feelings, you would give him just as enthusiastic cheers as you now awarded, not from inveterate love of the individual, to the right hon. Member for West Birmingham (Mr. J. Chamberlain). The hon. Member for North Kerry argued—and argued boldly—that this matter of exception from the right of habeas corpus made by the proclamation of the Executive Government is, and must be, an Imperial matter. I confess I think there is very great force in that statement. The Attorney General took particular notice of that statement, and he arrived at a conclusion which was not quite the same as that arrived at by the late Attorney General. I do not say it in a controversial spirit, but I think my hon. and learned Friend absolutely demonstrated that this is an Imperial matter; that foreign invasion is war, and as war it is shut out from the powers of the Irish Legislature; that rebellion is rebellion against the Crown; and that proclaimed rebellion striking at the very heart and centre of the Government is likewise war levied against the Queen, and is distinctly and indisputably an Imperial matter. As I listened to the argument of the Attorney General, I was confirmed in my acceptance of what has been said by the hon. Member for North Kerry. My hon. and learned Friend has so entirely cut the ground from beneath the feet of myself and the Chief Secretary that we feel we cannot carry out our desire to leave this matter to the Irish Legislature. The Government are now convinced that the matter is beyond the cognisance of the Irish Legislature, and I think the best course is to do what we have done in relation to the supremacy, and what we have done to the best of our ability upon every occasion
    1806
    without exception on every Amendment and every clause that has been proposed during the course of the Bill, and that is to accept it unless there is a good case against it. In that manner we wish to deal with the Amendment of my right hon. Friend, and we shall consequently not oppose it.
    MR. BLAKE: I heartily rejoice to hear the conclusion at which the right hon. Gentleman has arrived. I think there can be no doubt whatever as to the true interpretation of this clause which it is sought to have added to the Bill. There can lie no doubt whatever that the offences are Imperial offences, and that by one mode or the other, cither by the train of reasoning suggested by my hon. Friend beside me (Mr. Sexton) or that suggested by the Attorney General, it is plainly made impossible to conclude that, with reference to invasion or to rebellion, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland could, in his position under this Bill, act upon the advice of the Irish Executive. But, Sir, whether he acts upon the advice of the Irish Executive or not, or whether the question to be tried is a question of rebellion, or that minor question of Ulster resistance which has really given rise to this proposed clause, I equally resist, from my point of view, the maintenance upon the Statute Book of this authority, as opposed to the spirit of liberty, as putting Ireland in an inferior position to the Sister Island, and as imposing a mark of degradation on her which I do not believe she deserves. Sir, if from these Benches that proposition which has now been accepted by the Government had been made, if the proposal had been made which has fortunately been made from the opposite and unsuspected Benches, that the arbitrary power which has remained since before the Union in the hands of the Executive, capable of being used upon emergency, and which still so remains, should now be taken away, we should at once have been told that we wore anticipating the separatist tendencies of the Bill, that we wanted to pave the way for them to make it easier to rebel and to accept the embraces of the invader. I rejoice to receive this testimony from the Liberal Unionist and Conservative Benches that the security which has existed upon the Statute Book against rebellion in Ireland and

    1807
    against invasion in Ireland up to this date may be appropriately and with safety removed coincidently with the granting of self-government to Ireland.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Clause added to the Bill.
    MR. SPEAKER: The next new clause is out of Order—namely:—
    Lord George Hamilton—Page 2, after Clause 3, insert the following Clause;—"The Irish Legislature shall not have power to pass Resolutions, or discuss any question affecting the Navy, Army, Militia, Volunteers, and any other military force, permanent military force, permanent military camps, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings, unless the assent of the Lord Lieutenant has been previously obtained."
    The new clause following is outside the scope of the Bill—namely:—
    Mr. Maclure—Page 5, after Clause 8, insert the following Clause:—"In elections for the Irish Legislature, women who possess the qualifications which entitle men to vote shall be equally entitled with men to be registered and to vote."
    And the clause following would be more appropriately moved as an Amendment to Clause 3—namely;—
    Sir John Gorst—To insert the following Clause:—"Unless and until Parliament shall otherwise determine the Irish Legislature shall not have power to make laws in respect to the following matters:—

    (i.) The hours and conditions of labour of persons employed in factories, workshops, and mines;

    (ii.) Bills of exchange and promissory notes."

    The first new clause in Order is that in the name of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bury.
    SIR H. JAMESsaid, he rose to move in page o, after Clause 9, to insert the following Clause:—
    (Register of electors.)
    "After the appointed day there shall in every constituency be a separate register—

    (1) of the electors of Councillors of the Legislative Council;

    (2) of the electors of the Members of Legislative Assembly; and

    (3) of the electors of Members of Parliament;

    and no elector shall be entitled to be placed on more than one of such registers in respect of one and the same qualification: Provided that every elector may select the register which his name shall be placed."
    It was possible that the Government might have had their attention brought to
    1808
    this matter, and might be of opinion that this Amendment, too, might be a good addition to the Bill. His object in bringing forward the clause was to call attention to the great discrepancy that would exist if this Bill were passed as it stood between the power of voting which would be conferred by the Bill on the Irish electors, and that which would remain in the hands of the British electors. There were two points of view from which the Amendment could be considered:—In the first place, from the point of view of the right to vote of the British and Irish voter; and, in the second place, from the point of view of the effect it would have in Ireland, and on the different class of voters existing in that country. Of course, this Bill did not touch the British elector at all; and, therefore, he would remain possessed of his present power to vote for a Member of the Imperial Parliament in respect of one qualification. He understood there were many hon. Members in the House who desired equality as regarded voting power, and who thought that the possessor of one qualification and the possessor of many qualifications should each have only one vote. He was accepting the view of the Liberal Party for a moment, and was making a special appeal to Members of that Party to extend that principle of equality of voting power to every voter of the United Kingdom. This had been the principle that the Government had been urging during the whole conduct of the Bill. They had chided their opponents when they had asked for different electoral laws as between Ireland and Great Britain. The other night, on the subject of illiterate voters in Ireland, the Government told the Opposition—"You have made out a case for altering the privilege given to illiteracy in Ireland; but we cannot carry out the change unless it is applied to the United Kingdom, because there must be equality alike in the case of privilege and abolition of privilege throughout the Three Kingdoms." Well, let them carry that principle into effect now. Why should the Government refuse to give equality of voting power in Great Britain and Ireland? How could they defend proposals that would give an enormous preponderance of this voting power to the Irish elector as compared with the power exercised by the

    1809
    elector in Great Britain? Would the House mark what would be the voting power which would be exercised by the Irish elector? He would, in the first place, possess the same voting as that which the British elector would possess. He would record his vote for a Member of the Imperial Parliament, and in that respect England and Ireland would be on equal terms. But what voting power would the Irish elector possess besides? He would have a right to vote for the Irish Legislature, and in some constituencies he would vote for three Members for the Irish Assembly. He would, therefore, in those constituencies have the power of returning 1–34th of the whole Assembly, and if he had a £20 qualification he would get another vote, and would have power to return 1–48th of the Legislative Council. Consequently for one qualification he would have power to give three Parliamentary votes; and, instead of being allowed to vote for only one Member of Parliament, he would be allowed to vote for five Members. Was that equality? On what principle was this voting power given to Ireland and withheld from Great Britain? Was it on the ground of superior intelligence? That had already been met by the proof of the illiteracy in Ireland and the extent to which it existed. Was it on the ground of superior loyalty, or of greater interest in all that concerned this country and this Empire? He knew of no reason for giving this superiority to Irish voters unless it was the necessity of the Bill, and because the Government desired to carry Home Rule into effect. Well, if they wished to carry it into effect, they should do so on sound lines. They should not do it by creating anomalies, and an absurd superiority of one part of the United Kingdom over another. A great many who thought on those matters were of opinion that the end of attaining Home Rule did not justify the means in the shape of putting such powers as these into the hands of one body of men. There was no argument for had inequality, unless it was said that in Great Britain the elector had the right of voting at County Council elections. But a County Council was only a Local Body, and he assumed that the Irish Legislature would establish similar Local Bodies in Ireland for which the Irish elector would vote.
    1810
    If he was told that it was necessary to give this power to the Irish elector, in view of the fact that these Legislative Bodies were created, then he maintained that it demonstrated the absurdity of Home Rule altogether. When they came to consider the Irish aspect of the case he admitted that there was more difficulty in dealing with the clause: but the question of the effect of the proposal under the £20 qualification on Nationalists and Unionists he would leave to be discussed by the Irish Members, who would, naturally, be more qualified to speak on the matter than he was. It was upon the enormous superiority which would be given to the Irish elector that he desired to take his stand. It might be necessary to keep three registers, or to use three columns in the one register. The elector would be free to choose for which Assembly he would record his vote.
    Clause (Register of Electors,)—(Sir H. James,)—brought up, and read the first time.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."
    THE CHANCELLOR Of THE EXCHEQUER (Sir W. HARCOURT,)said, he confessed that when he saw the Amendment on the Paper he was at a loss to understand its object. He gathered from the right hon. and learned Gentleman that it was to exhibit the absurdity of Homo Rule. Well, he had no doubt that, from the right hon. Gentleman's point of view, that was an adequate object; but it was not an adequate object from the point of view of the Government. He regarded the proposal as absurd. The right hon. Gentleman proposed that an elector who voted for a Member of the Irish Parliament should not vote for a Representative at Westminster. That might be extremely convenient for the Irish Unionists, for the Nationalists would, naturally, vote for Members of the Irish Assembly; they would be disqualified, for voting for Members of the Imperial Parliament, and that would give the Unionists the opportunity of electing all the Irish Representatives at Westminster. That was hardly a proposal the right hon. and learned Member could expect the Government to accept. The right

    1811
    hon. Gentleman had said that to give the Irish elector the power to elect Members of the Irish House of Commons and for the Irish House of Lords would be to give him au enormous advantage over the elector of the United Kingdom. But, as a logical result of his proposition, why did he not say that au Englishman should vote for the House of Lords? He was glad to see the right hon. Gentleman entertaining such advanced views—because he considered it an enormous advantage to the Irish elector that he should be able to vote for a Second Chamber. But the Government could not accept the Amendment, which he could hardly treat as serious, when it proposed that, because an Irish elector had a vote for a Representative to look after his local and domestic interests, he should not have a voice in the election of a Member to look after his Imperial interests. He did not think it worth while occupying the time of the House in discussing the proposal.
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAINdid not think that the Chancellor of the Exchequer was justified in disposing of the Amendment so cavalierly as he had done. He confessed he shared a little the view of the Chancellor of the Exchequer which led him to object to the Irish elector being deprived of a vote for the Imperial Parliament because he had a vote for the Irish Parliament, because, so far as they had succeeded in distinguishing between the business which was to be carried on in the two Parliaments, undoubtedly there were two interests in which every individual ought to have a share. It was right that he should have a vote for the Imperial Parliament and for the Irish Chamber; but that did not touch the anomaly that the Bill would give him two votes for the Irish Parliament if he happened to be a £20 holder. He did not, however, feel that the matter was of very much importance; but when the Government were defending the proposal of a Second Chamber they did so on the ground that the Chamber was to be something different from the Lower Chamber—a Body which was to secure time for deliberation on all questions discussed. If anything like extreme or doubtful measures were proposed in the Lower Chamber, the object, as stated by the Government itself, was that the
    1812
    Upper Chamber should be a Conservative Body whose action would be likely to give time for the further discussion of those doubtful questions. That being so, they ought to have a separate constituency for that Body to secure "a conflict of interest"—which was one of the expressions used by the Government. This was one of the objects his right hon. Friend had in view, and it was one to which the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had not paid the slightest attention. This, however, was not one of those questions they need press at any length; therefore, if the Government would not accept the Amendment, he would ask his right hon. Friend to withdraw it.
    MR. SEXTONsaid, he did not know whether the Unionist Members from Ireland would agree with the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman. What was that suggestion? It was that the voters who were qualified to vote for Members of the Upper Chamber should not vote for the Lower Camber. The result of that would be that if the 170,000 persons who voted for the Councillors of the Upper Chamber were not to vote also for Members of the Lower Chamber, the popular side with which the present Irish Party were supposed to be identified would be, undoubtedly, increased, and the strength of the loyal minority would exist in the Upper Chamber. He would like to ask any of the elected Representatives of the Unionists in Ireland whether the loyal minority in that country would agree to that suggestion? According to it the prospective minority, the 170,000 £20 electors, while having votes for the Upper Chamber, should be entirely excluded from elections for the popular and more powerful Body. The right hon. Gentleman suggested that the electors would exercise a choice, but the effect of the present Amendment would be that the £20 electors would vote for the House which would only have the power of veto, and would have no vote at all for the House which would have the final power of passing the Bill into law in the joint Session of the two Houses. He thought that no Member of the Unionist Party, no Loader of the Opposition, no English Member even would suggest that that would be a wise or considerate manner in which to deal

    1813
    with the question as regards the loyal minority. The Amendment seemed to him unintelligible. It was partly superfluous and partly nonsensical. The first part was nonsensical and the latter was superfluous. There would, in any case, be three registers. There would be a register for the Council, because the qualification was a £20 rating. There would also be a register for the Legislative Assembly and one for the Imperial Parliament, because the number of Members to be returned to each Body was different. The areas would be different, and there would of necessity be separate registers. Therefore it did not need the intervention of the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment to secure that there would be three registers. The Amendment provided that each election should he only on one register, and he must select, therefore, which one he would be on. But, suppose an elector did not select a particular register, there was no power in anyone to make a choice for him, and he would be shut out altogether. Then, suppose the electors all selected to vote for the Irish Legislature, there would be none left to elect Members to the Imperial Parliament. Then, again, there might be some strong Imperial interest or some important Irish interest to be decided by the Imperial Parliament, and electors might choose to be on the Imperial register, so that there would be none loft to elect the Irish Legislature, which would then fall through. Considering the acute, plain-thinking intellect of the right hon. Gentleman (Sir H. James), he was surprised to find him responsible for this clause, which was the greatest piece of blundering that he had yet seen in connection with the Bill.
    MR. ROSSsaid, the hon. Member who had just sat down was anxious to know, what wore the views of the Ulster Conservative Members on the Amendment. Well, he (Mr. Ross) thought he was expressing the views of those Members when he said that, as they believed that the Legislative Council would afford them no protection whatever, they did not take the feeblest interest in the mode in which it was to be elected. They did not regard it as in any way distinct in point of character from the more popular Assembly; and, therefore, they eared very little about the manner in which the two Bodies were to be elected. But now that
    1814
    the Amendment was before the House he wished to point out the extraordinary condition to which Ireland would be reduced by the Bill. It seemed to him that the entire time of the population would be taken up with elections and by looking after the registers. They had just heard from the hon. Member for North Kerry the statement that there would be three registers in Ireland. He (Mr. Ross) agreed with that. But that would necessitate the holding of three Revision Sessions for the purpose of finding out who were the proper persons to be put on the lists. Considerable time would be taken up by this. They would have the Parliamentary franchise to elect 80 Members to the Imperial Parliament. In a short time, it was said, a system of Local County Government would be set up. A different register would be required, so that the Irish elector would have to spend the best part of his time in getting himself placed on the lists, and in exercising the privilege so conferred upon him. He thought it was perfectly clear that if they had no other objection to the Bill they had this one—that it was deficient in simplicity.
    MR. BLAKEsaid, the hon. Member who had just sat down had announced that the Irish Unionist Members would take no interest at all in the question of the elections for the Legislative Council, not for the Irish Assembly. He noticed that yesterday, on the exclusion clause, the Irish Unionists showed, not only by speech but their votes, that they entirely repudiated all concern with the Imperial Parliament. Therefore, they might take it that the Irish Unionist Members were prepared to abnegate all political interest in the affairs not only of their own country, but of the Empire about which they talked so much.
    SIR H. JAMESasked permission to withdraw the now clause.
    Motion, and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
    Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,
    MR. MILDMAY MR. MILDMAY (Devon, Totnes) moved, in page 4, after Clause 5, to insert the following Clause:—

    1815
    (Protection of the subject in Ireland.)
    "(1.) Every subject of the Queen in Ireland shall be entitled receive full protection and assistance from the Executive Government, so as to enable him to do any act he has a legal right to do, or to abstain from doing any act he has a legal right to abstain from doing; and if any Executive officer, whose duty it shall be to afford such protection or assistance, shall neglect or refuse to afford it, the person injured thereby may sustain an action before the Exchequer Judges in respect of such injury, and may recover damages in consequence thereof."
    He remarked that one of the principal points at issue between Government and Opposition speakers on the Second Reading of the Bill was whether the effective supremacy of the Imperial Parliament was safeguarded under the Bill or not. It was contended by some speakers that such supremacy involved control not only over the making of laws, hut over their enforcement; and, further, that the supremacy was not real under the Bill, because the Imperial Parliament I parted with its control over the Executive, and the Irish Nationalist Members would be in a position to enforce those laws, and those laws only, which they thought it desirable to enforce. The clause he asked the House to accept sought to guarantee to every individual in Ireland engaged in lawful pursuits the right to the protection and assistance which every subject of the Queen was entitled to claim. All the safeguards at present in the Bill had been inserted with the view of guarding against possible sins of commission. It was no less important to guard against sins of omission—omission to fulfil the obvious duty of an Executive to protect individuals in doing things they had a legal right to do, and to enable them to abstain from doing things they had a legal right to abstain from doing. In many districts in Ireland in times past the lives of men who fulfilled their legal obligations were not worth a day's purchase. If police protection had been removed from a man who had given evidence against a man guilty of agrarian crime, and he had been left to the tender mercies of those who vowed vengeance against him, everybody knew what his position would have been. This clause sought to insure protection to such a man, and it provided that if such protection was refused, he should have no action for damages against the Executive officer who was responsible. The Chancellor of the Duchy (Mr. Bryce), in an
    1816
    article in The Nineteenth Century, before the introduction of the Home Rule Bill, said that with the police of Ireland under the order of an Irish-elected authority, the landlord might whistle for his rent, and that his property would be gone without any need of confiscatory legislation. Would protection be afforded in future to landlords in Ireland. The Nationalist Members had made direct assertions to the contrary. The hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon) had said it would be the duty of the Nationalists to break up the Irish Constabulary, and that then he would like to see the Irish landlord who would dare to face the Irish tenant. Until the hon. Member for Mayo had given a more satisfactory explanation of his speech than he had given on the Committee stage of the Bill Members could not afford to disregard his words. [A NATIONALIST MEMBER: One individual.] An hon. Member said "one individual," but these speeches had been constantly made in Ireland. Members opposite waxed very indignant when their own speeches were quoted, and they seemed to take it almost as a personal insult that they were sometimes taken at their word. He had no doubt they now repudiated the policy advocated by the hon. Member for Mayo, and he quite accepted their repudiation; but it must be remembered that these doctrines had been preached throughout Ireland for the last six or seven years, and, therefore, the mischief had been done. Who knew how long these gentlemen would continue to represent Irish constituencies? There must be many who thought that, in view of the repeated declarations of the Irish Nationalist Members, some protection was necessary for men who had been true to the Imperial Parliament, trusting that the Imperial Parliament would be true to them. In the South and West of Ireland these men were in a very difficult position. They had trusted in Parliament, and Parliament was responsible for their safety. He maintained that Parliament would be guilty of a deliberate betrayal if they left these men without a shadow or shade of protection in the face of the repeated declarations of the Irish Nationalist Members, and in the face of the teaching of those Members that in the days of the Irish Parliament these men were to be remembered.
    Clause (Protection of the subject in Ireland,)—(Mr. Mildmay)—brought up, and read the first time.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."
    THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. J. MORLEY, Newcastle-upon-Tyne): I could have wished that the lion. Member who has moved this clause had abstained from those incendiary references to which he devoted a large portion of his speech. He says he does not doubt the sincerity of the repudiation by gentlemen opposite of utterances which under certain circumstances wore, in my judgment, not unnatural. We need not, however, go into that, because the hon. Member does not question the sincerity of the repudiation. The point before the House is a very plain one. The clause moved by the hon. Gentleman is either in the law as it now exists, or it is not. If this provision is met by the existing law the hon. Member's new clause is not required.
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: Do you mean the law of the land, or the law of the Bill?
    MR. J. MORLEY: I mean the law of the land. If it is not provided for in the law of the land, then I submit that the clause is so vague in its terms as to be utterly unfit to be used as a ground for legislation. It cannot be denied that two Chief Secretaries have come more or less directly under the criticisms of the Courts of the land within the last six or seven years for failing to do exactly what the hon. Member, by his own clause, imposes upon them. The first case was that of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bristol (Sir M. H. Beach), who was then Chief Secretary for Ireland, and his action was criticised by the Lord Chief Baron in a very well-known judgment. If that judgment is good, the provision which the hon. Member proposes to make in this new clause is entirely unnecessary. There has also been a case during the time of my Chief Secretary ship when the Court of Queen's Bench gave a decision founded on precisely the same principle as that laid down by the Lord Chief Baron. Therefore, I submit that, as the law now stands, there is ample security that the end which the hon. Member seeks to
    1818
    attain will be guaranteed. As to the first part of his new clause, I should, without disrespect to him, call it a mere platitude, as it declares nothing which no Member of this House would deny, while, as far as the latter part of the clause goes, it is entirely superfluous. The hon. Member seeks to secure protection in the shape of action against the Executive Government. But no lawyer will get up and say that the law as it now stands is not perfectly able to cope with the matter the hon. Member contemplates; and, that being so, we cannot assent to this new clause.
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I am rather glad that the audience is scanty, because I do not wish to appeal to passion or prejudices, but to the reason of right hon. Gentlemen who sit on the Treasury Bench, and for that purpose a small audience is best. The Chief Secretary has dealt with this matter, which has been raised by my hon. Friend in an extremely clear and able speech, with great fairness. He began, it is true, by regretting that my hon. Friend who proposed this clause had made incendiary references. The Chief Secretary, no doubt, meant that my hon. Friend had made reference to incendiary speeches. I do not regret the reference, but I do regret the speeches, and I think that really my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary will be inclined to agree with me in that. It is not possible to carry on discussion upon this Bill without some reference to these speeches—not, indeed, in order to condemn hon. Members opposite, about which I do not care two straws, but in order to indicate certain dangers of the situation. The Chief Secretary says that the early part of the present clause is mere platitude. It says that every subject of the Queen shall be entitled to receive protection and assistance from the Executive Government. My right hon. Friend says that not only is every subject of the Queen entitled to protection and assistance; but that it is the duty of the Legislature to secure that he shall have it. But will he have it under the Homo Rule Bill? My right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary says that security is afforded by the law of the land. But the law of the land will very shortly give place in Ireland to the law of the Irish Legislature if the Home Rule Bill should pass. The Irish Legis-

    1819
    lature is to have power to repeal every law of the land, except those which it is specially precluded from touching. It will, moreover, have the right to make its own laws; and how can the Chief Secretary insure that the law of Ireland shall not be something very different from the law of the land as it at present exists? But this is not all. Granting for the moment that the law of the land is not alterable; granting that it will be the duty of the Executive in Ireland to maintain all the precautions for the security of the lives and property of all persons who are acting within the law, what security has my right hon. Friend that the Executive in Ireland will carry out the law? I would remind my right hon. Friend of the view which he himself formerly expressed, and which I think he has never changed, that the greatest difficulty and danger will exist in Ireland so long as the agrarian question remains unsettled. My right hon. Friend will not, I believe, say that he has changed his views on this subject. When my right hon. Friend first considered the question of Home Rule, he stated that it would not be sufficient to give a National Government to Ireland unless, at or about the same time, the Land Question was also dealt with. So even hon. Members opposite say that is not true. Do they not think that if the Irish Parliament is left without the power of dealing with the Land Question they will find it almost impossible to meet the difficulties in their way? The late Mr. Parnell said so in so many words on more than one occasion. Mr. Parnell said that the settlement of the Land Question must either precede Home Rule or else the Home Rule Parliament must be allowed a free hand in dealing with the Laud Question. Let us look at the facts as they stand at present. There have been three discussions as to the condition of County Clare.
    MR. BODKIN: Hear, hear!
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: The hon. Member has made a foolish and irrelevant observation. No good can result from it. So long as there is a district in Ireland in a state of anarchy, in which murder and outrage stalk through the land unchecked, this Parliament will be entitled to discuss such questions. The interruption of the hon. Member opposite
    1820
    shows the spirit in which Nationalist Members even now, when they are on their best behaviour, regard these questions of agrarian outrage. I feel sure that no man regards with greater disgust and loathing the state of Clare than the Chief Secretary. I assume that my right hon. Friend is doing that which he himself believes to be best to alter that state of things, and I am sure also that the leaders of the Party opposite, not the rank and file, who sneer at those outrages—
    MR. BODKIN: That observation applies to me. I did not sneer at outrage. I sneered at the right hon. Gentleman's suggestion that murder stalks unchecked through the land, inasmuch as no murder of an agrarian kind has been committed in Clare. I have just as little sympathy with crime as the right hon. Gentleman, who makes crime his stock-in-trade in this House.
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I said that my right lion. Friend has done his very best to prevent the outrages in Clare. I was going on to remark that no doubt the Leaders of the Party opposite have done their best to stop crime in County Clare at the present time. It is their interest to do so. I take it for granted that all their energies and influence are directed to prevent those disgraceful scenes in Clare which are so hurtful to the Home Rule cause. But my point is that, in spite of that, crime goes on, and I desire to impress upon the House the seriousness of this as tending to show that, so long as the agrarian question remains unsettled, we will have outrages.
    MR. J. MORLEY: The unfortunate state of things in Clare does not arise from agrarian questions.
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I am surprised at that interruption, for, although the outrages are not technically described as agrarian, they undoubtedly arise from quarrels between owners of land and their tenants. If these quarrels did not exist nine-tenths of the crimes would not be committed. I have shown, what I think cannot be disputed, that every interest of hon. Gentlemen opposite now lies in the direction of preventing those outrages. Still, so long as this perennial quarrel exists, it will be impossible to stop them. The Chief Secretary has recognised this as clearly, more clearly, than any other Member on

    1821
    the Treasury Bench. Lord Spencer takes the same view, and says that there is an obligation of honour on this country to protect the landlords. The Chancellor of the Duchy and every man who has written or spoken intelligently on the subject has impressed upon the country the importance of settling the Land Question. We know that when the Home Rule Bill was introduced in 1886 it was made almost a condition by the Prime Minister that the Laud Question should be settled at or about the same time. The Government, for one reason or another—chiefly, I believe, because they did not carry the country with them on the point—have dropped that part of their plan. I am not saying whether they did right or wrong, but they must take the consequences. The Irish Parliament cannot touch the Land Question for throe years. The Government must anticipate that, by the necessity of the case, there will be disturbance of order and a conflict between the owners and the tenants of the laud even under Home Rule. How do they propose to deal with the matter? Is it the argument of the right hon. Gentleman that the Irish Members will do for the landlord what the British Government did for him? Will they protect him in doing what he has a legal right to do? Will they protect him from intimidation to force him to do things which he has a legal right not to do? That is what the British Government is doing to-day. Does the right hon. Gentleman pretend that the Government he is about to set up in Ireland will do the same thing. The Chief Secretary knows that the Government which he is going to set up will consist of men holding altogether different views in reference to agrarian questions from the occupants of the Treasury Bench—men who have been connected with the Laud League, the National League, and the Plan of Campaign; men who have expressed opinions which no Member of the Government will attempt to defend: and under these circumstances the Chief Secretary cannot pretend that in the Bill he has taken security that justice will be done. Hon. Gentlemen who are likely to form the Irish Government under the Home Rule scheme have been actively engaged in an agitation which treated as lepers men who had taken farms from which others had been evicted. How is
    1822
    it that the lives of such persons have been preserved? Does the Chief Secretary doubt that if he removed protection from some of these people their lives would not be worth a day's purchase? How are the Government going to protect these men, innocent according to law, in danger according to the statements of right hon. Gentlemen themselves, from the attacks that are almost certain to be made upon them? I have got quotations. [Ironical Nationalist laughter.] Why should that be the subject of ironical laughter? Am I disentitled to quote? [An hon. MEMBER: Read, read!] I should have thought the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon) has had enough quotations. I ask why should exception be taken to these quotations? I will drop them at once if anything like a frank repudiation is made, or a frank declaration of change of opinion; but so long as lion. Gentlemen opposite, having put these views on record, abstain from an ample retractation and apology, I will continue to believe that they represent their real opinions, and as such are very important elements and factors in the controversy. The hon. Member for Mayo asks for a quotation.
    MR. DILLON: No; I did not. The right hon. Gentleman, speaking across the floor, insinuated, as I understood, that we were afraid of quotations. I do not wish to hear my own speeches re-read in this House; but if it amuses the right hon. Gentleman I have no objection to it.
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I see the hon. Gentleman does not wish the quotation read, and I will not read it. But it is on record in many official documents that again and again threats have been used of what would be done to the police and the Resident Magistrates if power were placed in the hands of a National Government in Ireland; and it is perfectly certain, owing to the totally different sentiment that prevails in the two countries, that there will be no security for life and property so long as the Land Question is unsettled. In these circumstances the Government cannot fail to recognise the necessity for some such provision as is now proposed if they meant to keep their pledges. The object of the clause is to make it so essential a necessity of all concerned

    1823
    with the Executive in Ireland to carry out the law of the land that any failure would be almost impossible. It proposes that if a Sheriff in Ireland refuses to give necessary protection to a tenant on an evicted farm he will be liable in damages, and I cannot help thinking that a provision of that kind will probably be more efficient than such Court swords as the supremacy of the British Parliament and the veto of the British Crown. If the Government recognise their own responsibility and carry out their own promises, they will provide, in some shape or another, against what is the greatest danger of all under the new scheme—that of a conflict between the interests of the tenants and the interests of the landlords.
    MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERsaid, he desired to give his most earnest support to the Amendment. A protection of some kind was obviously necessary, and he pressed the proposal in the clause on the acceptance of the Government because it had an exact analogy in the existing law of the laud. There was the remedy of the Habeas Corpus. That remedy was assured to the subject by law, and the officer of the law who refused to give the relief of Habeas Corpus to the person seeking it was made to suffer for his conduct. That was exactly the kind of remedy that would be needed for the state of things in Ireland under the Home Rule Bill. The Chief Secretary had said that the Mover of the Amendment had introduced incendiary references. He would venture to say that this was not a question of mere incendiary references. Hon. Members opposite, and those who thought with them, might talk for ever in that House, and no one would be justified in taking serious notice of their speeches, if that were all that was concerned; but they had in their minds the recollection of 16,000 felonies and misdemeanours, which had been described by the responsible officers of the British Government as agrarian offences, and which they believed were rightly associated with those speeches which had been referred to as incendiary. It was because they know of those 16,000 felonies and misdemeanours taking place that they gave serious importance to the protection of British subjects in the future, and wished
    1824
    for something the poor and defenceless man could appeal to in order to get immediate and effective redress. Ostracism had advanced into a system which had obtained the approval of every Member opposite, and there was not the slightest reason to suppose that system of ostracism would be abandoned in the future. He had many cases in his mind—one a recent one, in which a man, who had abandoned a farm for five years, on his return from the United States of America claimed the right to re-possess himself, without compensation, of the farm, though it was another man's property, which had been bought and paid for. The tenant refused to give up possession, and a meeting was immediately summoned through the public papers in the district, and was held. At the meeting it was decided that the occupier should pay a compensation of £150 for the right to retain his own farm, and the only amendment moved to that resolution was that the penalty should be increased to £250. That was a thing done openly and in the face of all men; and what were the chances, supposing this Government was established and set up in Ireland, that this Government would institute a prosecution against those who issued this illegal decree? They wanted some plan by which a person so defrauded should be able to go to a properly constituted authority and say—"I have been wronged, and I ask you to give me my rights."
    An hon. Member: How has he been wronged?
    MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERsaid, the lion. Member asked how the man had been wronged, when, without law, he was to be deprived of property he had bought and paid for, and that property was to be handed over to a man who had no more title to it than the hon. Member himself. He (Mr. Arnold-Forster) must say he could not explain the matter any differently to the hon. Member.
    An hon. Member: But he cannot be deprived of his property.
    MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERsaid the remark of the lion. Member only showed him—what he had long been convinced of—how little the hon. Member knew of Ireland, how little he knew of the way in which men who had been driven out

    1825
    of their property by a process of law, perfectly well-known to anyone who was acquainted with the terrorism exercised in Ireland. Then there was the question of personal protection. He remembered when there were no less than 160 persons in Ireland under personal protection. Of these 160 persons he only knew of two whose lives were attempted, and in that case the person protected and the man who protected him were shot dead at the same time, lint the danger was there, and it had been one of the greatest characteristics of this agitation that to be dangerous was to be safe. The moment they deprived these men of the protection which alone preserved their lives, they were exposing them to the penalty which had invariably, in every county South of the Boyne, been inflicted upon such persons. Protection was given now because they had an Executive winch administered the law in accordance with the ideas entertained by the Executive of the United Kingdom; but would that protection be afforded by an Executive composed of the Members who took a diametrically opposite view of the obligations of the State towards its citizens to that which they, in this country, had been accustomed to take. It was said there was some legal remedy for this. He was no lawyer, but, he supposed it was meant that it was open to any person aggrieved to apply for a mandamus to compel the Courts to do their duty. What was the value of that remedy to any poor man in Ireland? Further, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary (Mr. J. Morley) had himself admitted there was a conflict at this moment between the legal authorities as to whether there was any such right given to the individual at all. But they had not got to contemplate the law as it stood only—they had to contemplate it under its changed circumstances, to look to the Courts when the whole procedure of those Courts should have been altered, when the Courts were occupied by Judges and appealed to by lawyers who had learned from the school of hon. Members opposite. They knew the kind of principles that commended themselves to hon. Members opposite. Already they had had some indication of the injustice that appeared to them to be justice. There were other very grave elements that were certain to arise. They had had this ques-
    1826
    tion argued by an hon. Member who had asked for a return of the nationality of the men employed in the Haul bowline Dockyard. It was an Admiralty Dockyard, supposed to be under the control of the Admiralty, and open to promotion by merit and seniority only, and the Secretary to the Admiralty (Sir U. Kay-Shuttle-worth) was asked if he would give the Return of the nationality of all employed in the Dockyard. What did that mean? It did not mean they were to be told whether these men were Frenchmen or Germans, but whether they were Irishmen, Scotchmen, or Englishmen, and he said the animus of this question was plain, and went to this—that there was an intention to distinguish between persons who were born or resident in England and persons born or resident in Ireland. Another question was put down on the Taper of the House—whether asked or not he did not know—but it illustrated the animus to which he had referred. The question was whether it was intended to appoint Roman Catholics and Irishmen, instead of Protestants and Englishmen, to the Post Office in Dublin? This was an Imperial service, and the only signification of a question like that was that there was an intention to differentiate between citizens of the United Kingdom—between the place in which they resided and that in which they happened to be born. They were in danger, if this Bill passed, of there being some attempt to differentiate, and if this differentiation were made it ought to be open to every one of Her Majesty's subjects who felt aggrieved to appeal to some tribunal which would give speedy and effective remedy under the compulsion of a large personal mulct if justice was not done. There had been, throughout the whole argument in support of the Bill, an attempt to degrade the citizenship of Her Majesty's subjects in Ireland, to put them on a subordinate footing, not upon an equality, with Her Majesty's subjects in England and Scotland. There were many persons in Ireland who believed one of the first things that would happen on the establishment of this Irish Parliament would be to realise the intensity of that degradation, and make them feel they were subject to that inferiority and deprived of the rights which the subjects of the

    1827
    Queen in England and Scotland could claim and exercise without danger; and it was for such persons as these, who would all belong to one Party, that the hon. Member below him moved this clause. Not long ago it was laid down as a doctrine to be accepted that it was the duty of debtors in Ireland so to fashion their debts that a certain class of creditors should be excluded. That was at variance with the law of the land, and yet it found favour with hon. Gentlemen opposite, was conceived by them, and was their settlement of a certain economic difficulty. If such a thing were done, surely the aggrieved were entitled to a remedy. They were told these remedies existed already, but they did not and could not exist under this Bill, and the proof of it was contained in the four corners of the Bill itself. A citizen in Ireland would enjoy divided liberty; part of that liberty they would enjoy under the Constitution, and part under the laws of the Irish Parliament. So far as the laws of the Irish Parliament were concerned, it might be said that the Irish Executive would properly enforce them; but when they came to the rights of the British citizen they required further Executive power which would guarantee to a British citizen in Connaught exactly the same redress that was obtainable by a man in Yorkshire or Middlesex. The fact that they had brought in the Exchequer Courts was proof that to the minds of the Government there was necessity for a tribunal of this sort. What was the need for this tribunal if the Irish Courts, as constituted by the Irish Legislature, would do all that could be required by the subject in Ireland? It was conceivable something still remained to be done. What his hon. Friend below him, wanted was that access to those Courts should be easy, that the remedy should be prompt and should be effective, and until that was granted there would be in the minds of a large number of people in Ireland, the feeling that they would be subject in the future, as in the past, to a differentiation of their just rights which in the past had been taken from them by the action of an irresponsible and illegal body; a body which, no doubt, had arrogated to itself immense and excessive powers, and in many cases, until its power was happily broken by the late
    1828
    Chief Secretary, was able to impose its will. That power would be exorcised by the same men acting on the same principle, and prosecuting the same ends under the warrant of enactments which they would have passed into law. What they wanted was some cheap and effective remedy whereby those who felt themselves to be affected might appeal to the broad sense of justice and the broad English law in its widest and best sense. He did not believe that security existed in the Bill as it stood. It was for the man on the hill-side, for the man in the cabin, who had no hope outside the protection given to him by that House, for whom he appealed. It was a presssing and an urgent necessity, and he had great pleasure in supporting the Amendment before the House.
    MR. D. PLUNKET: I desire to support this Amendment, because I believe that it touches one of the most formidable consequences that must arise upon this Act taking effect, if it is possible to suppose this Bill coming into effect. I believe most confidently that great as are the dangers to which the minority in Ireland might and will be exposed from the unjust action of the Legislature, that the risks that they will run from the unjust action of the Executive will be far greater. This new clause was proposed in a very clear and, as I think, very persuasive speech by the hon. Member for the Totnes Division (Mr. Mildmay). How was it answered by the Chief Secretary (Mr. J. Morley)? In about three sentences. I always observe that any topic, any proposal in the discussions of this Bill which touch on the Irish Land Question are disposed of in the briefest possible way by whoever may be the spokesman of the Government. What did the Chief Secretary say? He said either the matter provided in this clause is provided for already in the law as it stands or it is not, and his second proposition was that if it was not provided for, then the clause proposed was far too vague for the purpose. How did the Chief Secretary test his proposition that the dangers suggested were already provided for? He cited two instances in which the head of the Executive for the time being had been brought to book for conduct on his part in not giving the protection that was required by the action

    1829
    of the Courts. Yes; but the question is what will be the Courts which, in the future, will have to deal with such questions as this if they should arise? and I observed the very strange circumstance that the Chief Secretary never referred at all to our desire to have speedy and prompt action of the Court of Exchequer in Ireland, which he must know was the whole operative part of the clause we propose. But his argument was carried a little further on a previous occasion by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Bryce). I remember that when I pressed him on an Amendment that was proposed by the lion. Member for Guildford (Mr. Brodrick), and I asked what was there in the Bill that provided any protection to the minority in Ireland against oppressive action on the part of the Irish Executive? The Chancellor of the Duchy said it was the belief of the Government that the reserictions which were placed by Clauses 3 and 4 on the action of the Legislature equally applied to the Executive, and by a roundabout kind of argument he seemed to contend that the Exchequer Judges would have the power of taking into consideration anything which touched upon matters which were reserved from the jurisdiction of the Irish Legislature. I think I can show in a minute that even that argument will, so far, at all events, as it effects the Land Question, very speedily break down. But what we desire by this Amendment is this: to have this benevolent belief on the part of the Government that the Executive will be controlled by the clauses of this Bill, distinctly declared; what Ave want is, that it should be made perfectly clear that those who may be, or who may consider themselves oppressed by the action of this Executive, should have prompt and speedy access to this Court of Exchequer. The Chief Secretary complained also of the wording of the clause being too vague. If that is so, that is a matter that can easily be remedied, and there are Amendments on the Paper standing in the name of the hon. Member for the Southern Division of County Dublin (Mr. H. Plunkett) which would make it plain. If the clause were read a second time, those Amendments could be introduced, and they would be necessary because, as we understand it, the police of the future are
    1830
    to be under the Local Authorities, and it would certainly be well to make provisions not only against the failure to carry out its duty by the Executive and by those officers immediately dependent on the Executive, but also against a like failure on the part of the Local Authorities. But, after all, this was more of a technical point. The Chief Secretary made no attempt whatever to deal with that which is the main purpose of the clause, the questions will there be danger to the minority in Ireland; will there be danger especially on questions connected with the land, against which it is necessary there should be provided for them some other protection to that they get from the Irish Legislature as it is proposed to be constituted by this Bill? The Government themselves have introduced this Court of Exchequer, clothed with special powers, as a kind of city of refuge to the oppressed minority of Ireland—fleeing for safety from the evils which are coming upon them. But what we want to know is this—Are means provided by which those who consider themselves thus oppressed will, in fact, be able to take advantage of the protection of that Court? Now, Sir, the first question is, will it be possible for the Irish Executive, if they were so disposed, easily to interfere with the property and freedom of the Queen's subjects in Ireland who might belong to an unpopular minority; and, secondly, is there reason to apprehend, if they should have that power, would they be likely to use it; is there reasonable ground for apprehension that danger will really exist for the minority of Ireland? It would be easy to cite cases; it would be easy to cite classes of cases in which individuals who belong to an unpopular minority in Ireland might suffer oppression. They were summed up in a well-known sentence by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Scotland. When speaking in 1886 he declared—
    "The poor, the helpless, the uninfluential, the farmers and labourers throughout the South and West of Ireland, who, at a terrible risk of life and limb, insisted on fulfilling their obligations, the smaller and humbler officers of the law who do their duty in the bad times, will now be left to the pity of those who have not concealed their intention of paying them out whenever they get the chance of doing so."
    That was spoken in 1886, and it applies with equal force to circumstances which

    1831
    surround the present Bill. But I desire this evening to occupy as much of the time as I may claim of the House in calling attention especially to the position of those connected with the land in Ireland, for it is a strange thing that all through these Debates the Government had never given any explanation whatever of the amazing change of front which they have displayed on this all-important question. Let me first ask, in passing, an answer to the point suggested in the Committee by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Bryce). Assuming, for the sake of argument, that the Exchequer Courts will he clothed under Clause 17 of this Bill with the power of interfering in questions connected with the land, because it is a matter which is withdrawn for three years from the authority of the Irish Legislature; supposing they bad that power at the time of the passing of this Bill, at the end of three years that restriction would be taken away, and then the only ground upon which, so far as I know, these questions could be brought under the cognisance of the Court of Exchequer would have disappeared. I wish for a moment or two to call attention to the extraordinary course that has been pursued by the Government on this question of the land.
    MR. J. MORLEY: I really must interrupt my right hon. Friend and ask whether this is the proper place to raise the Land Question? There are other Amendments on which it can be raised.
    MR. D. PLUNKET: I have no intention of raising the Land Question. But of all those who will be in danger, I believe that those connected with land in Ireland will most of all for many years to come require the protection of the Executive in their every-day dealings with their property, and I claim the right not only to call the attention of the House to this subject, hut to ask explanations from the Government upon it.
    MR. J. MORLEY: On a point of Order. The right hon. Gentleman now says he wishes to ask for an explanation from the Government on the Land Question. [Cries of "No, no!"] Well, upon the action to be taken by the Executive in reference to landowners. Is this a proper time to put such questions to the Government?
    MR. SPEAKER: I understand the object of the right hon. Gentleman is to show that if any persons are likely to be oppressed in future by the action of the proposed Executive with reference to the land they have no proper and adequate protection under the Bill. He is in Order if he is about to show they are entitled to protection, and do not get it.
    MR. D. PLUNKET: That is all I intend to discuss with your permission and the permission of the House. But I contend, apart from that argument, that there is a special danger to be apprehended by the landowners in Ireland and those who are dependent upon them from an Executive such as it is proposed to establish under the present Bill. I was about to call attention—but I shall not do so for fear I might trespass upon your ruling—to the way in which this question has been debated up to the present time. I pass away entirely from that part of the subject, and proceed to ask these two questions—Would the Executive easily have the power to oppress in the manner described in this clause—namely, by withholding protection and assistance from those who demanded it—and although that question is not by any means restricted to the owners of land, but applies to all the classes I have already mentioned, I propose at present to confine the observations I desire to submit to the House to that particular part of the subject. Now, Sir, I ask would the Executive have the power easily to oppress by withholding protection and assistance from the landowners of Ireland? When I refer to landowners, I speak not only of individuals who have their property invested in land, whether acquired by inheritance or purchased, under laws passed by this Imperial Parliament, but I speak also of those dependent for means of existence on the rents which landlords have a right to receive. I refer to the families of landlords and those who have charges on their property, and I contend that it would be easy for the Executive Government of Ireland, if it were so disposed, to practically ruin their property and deprive them of the means of existence by proceedings which it would be difficult to call in question in any other way if they had not an opportunity of making an appeal to the Exchequer Court, poor as that remedy would be, especially if an Irish jury were to have anything to do

    1833
    with the case! That is the only shred of protection provided for this unhappy class against impending dangers which were clearly pointed out by the Prime Minister in 1886. It would be easy to suggest instances in which this oppression might be suffered. The House remembers with what difficulty it was, even under the late Government, which did its best, impartially and justly, to sustain the rights and protect the property of the minority in Ireland, for the landlords to recover their rents, which had been fixed for them by the laws which were passed by the Imperial Parliament, but what would be the case under an Executive Government which was not only not in harmony with the interests of the minority in Ireland, but many of whose leading Members were pledged by their oft-repeated declarations in recent years against the very principle and basis upon which the lauded property in Ireland is held. I will not quote again the sentence, which has been already referred to, spoken by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy, about landlords having no chance of securing their property under an Irish Executive, and that it would be well for them if they escaped with a whole skin; but I call upon the House to remember that in the future, in all probability, every Executive officer, from the highest to the lowest, will not only be dependent on the heads of the Executive in Dublin, but in all probability will be greatly in sympathy with them, and have his sympathies excited against the minority, who will have to call upon him for protection. I ask, under such circumstances, what chance would a Member of the unpopular minority in the South or West of Ireland have of doing those things which he had a right to do, and of abstaining from those things he had a light to leave undone? Take the ease of a landlord desirous of recovering his just rent; the tenant who desired to sell the farm; the man who desired to sell his interest in a shop which had been boycotted owing to the prevailing opinion of the inhabitants of the district? What safety would a boycotted man have; in leaving and returning to his house, if he had to depend on appeals for protection and assistance to those who were not only not in sympathy with him, but who hail been excited against the exercise of the very right he desired to enforce? I ask, are
    1834
    not the minority so placed entitled to all the protection that can be given them? What other protection would they have in Ireland if they had it not through this solitary means of obtaining the inter ference on their behalf of the Exchequer Court? How idle it would be for any Representative of their own—if there were such a Representative in the Irish Legislature—to appeal for protection in such cases! Imagine the Representative of the landlords appealing to a Legislature, the leaders of the majority of whom would probably be such politicians as the hon. Members for East Mayo or Cork. Would it not be absurd to appeal to them to control the Executive in order to compel them to give just and sufficient protection for the purpose of carrying out, we will say an ejectment decree, or to protect some unfortunate man who might be the occupier of an evicted farm? It is not necessary for me to pursue further the cases in which it would be easy for a hostile Executive to practically prevent the Members of the minority in Ireland, who are interested in this question of land, from obtaining their just rights to which, as citizens and as subjects of the Queen, they are entitled. But I ask, in the second place, is it or is it not to be expected that such an Executive would act with impartial justice, would act fairly, or would be likely to oppress a minority so situated? It is not necessary for me to make any number of quotations from speeches of hon. Members, who would, in all probability, be the Leaders of the future Government in Ireland. I might refer to old speeches of Mr. Davitt, who, and, no doubt, properly from their point of view, would be one of the most influential Leaders of the Irish Legislature of the future. He has laid it down over and over again that, however he may consent to temporising measures, he does not admit that the Irish landlord is entitled even to a ticket which would take him to Holyhead. I will quote one instance, because it is a comparatively recent one—since the introduction of the Home Rule Bill in 1886. Here is what was said by an hon. Member of this House, who, I dare say, is in his place at the present time, and reported in The Sligo Champion of October 22nd, 1892. The hon. Member for North Leitrim said—

    1835
    "Before I say a word on the question of the reduction of rents, allow me to say I hold the opinion that there should be no rent paid to the landlords at all. I hold that the land of this country was created for the use and benefit of those who till it, and until this question is settled, as it must be settled soon, there can be no peace as between landlord and tenant in this country."
    That, I think, is a tolerably strong declaration of the principles which would he likely to actuate the leading Members of the majority in the Irish Legislature of the future. But, Sir, I do not desire to introduce what the Prime Minister calls poisonous matter into a Debate of this kind, and, therefore, I will go to a different class of authorities on this subject altogether. I am arguing now, Sir, that it is probable the minority in Ireland might suffer oppression from such an Executive as would be created under this Home Rule Bill, and here is what the right hon. Gentleman, who is now the Secretary for Scotland, said on the 30th of June, 1886, after the introduction of the first Home Rule Bill of that year. He said—
    "There was another reason why he objected to handing over law and order to the new authorities it was proposed to set up. The Parliament in Ireland would be dependent upon the votes of the small farmers, who had been taught that rent was robbery. Again, an Executive would be set up in Ireland the Members of which had for years been preaching the same doctrine. Now, Mr. Gladstone and his Colleagues were just men. They were determined that the Irish landlords should not be ruined by being exposed to the action of the Irish Parliament and Irish Executive. They knew that under the proposals they were bringing before the country the Irish landlords would be ruined, and so they brought in the Land Purchase Bill."
    Well, will anybody contend after that that there is not a danger that the Irish landlords, unless protection be given, will be ruined by the Executive of the future, and if any argument to the contrary should be put forward, I will call upon the Secretary for Scotland to answer it. But, Sir, I will go to a higher authority still. What said the Prime Minister when introducing his Land Purchase Bill of 1886? The basis of his argument was that the scheme was to protect and do justice to the interests of those who depended on Irish land. I do not wish to adopt without protests, some of the views put forward by the right hon. Gentleman. Of course, it was no part of his purpose at the time
    1836
    to throw any doubt upon the way in which the Irish Members of the future would conduct their Parliament and their Executive, but he did use arguments gathered from a different point of view—namely, the results produced by the action of the landlords in order to strengthen his case, and I claim every word which was spoken by the Prime Minister on that occasion as part of my argument here to-night; and however inconvenient it may be for Ministers to answer and explain every word which I am now going to quote from the speech of the Prime Minister in introducing his Land Purchase Bill—
    MR. SPEAKER(interposing) said, the right hon. Gentleman was not in Order in reviewing legislation with regard to Irish land. He would only be in. Order in showing that those connected with the land would be oppressed or were likely to be deprived of their rights without remedy or redress.
    MR. D. PLUNKET: Of course, Sir, I bow to your ruling. I was going to refer to the observations not for the purpose of continuing the argument at all, but for the purpose of showing that the state of the Irish Land Question which the Prime Minister then reviewed was such as to produce danger to that minority which has to do with the ownership of land in Ireland, and for whom in his Land Purchase Bill the right hon. Gentleman proposed to provide a means of escape. Of course, Sir, as you have ruled that I cannot pursue that subject further on this clause I shall defer to a future occasion what I had proposed to say on that question, merely stating once more that we are placed in an extremely difficult position, from the fact that the Government at present have given no explanation whatever, but, as far as I can see, have done their best to avoid any explanation of their complete change of front on that subject. I will simply say in conclusion, that I believe that unless it is made clear that the minority in Ireland—landlords, tenants, or whoever they might be—who might be brought into collision with the predominating forces in the Irish Legislature are adequately protected through this Court of Exchequer and the Exchequer Judges, and not left to the tender mercies of the ordinary class of common jurors who try agrarian cases in Ireland, they will be

    1837
    left without a shred of protection under this Bill from the dangers which they firmly, and as I think justly, believe are sure to await them at the hands of an Executive from whom they cannot expect to receive fair and impartial treatment.
    MR. PARKER SMITHthought it would conduce to the more rapid progress of business if the Government would answer speeches like that which they had just heard. The Irish Chief Secretary said that this clause was a platitude in this country. [Mr. J. MOKLEY: The first half of it.] It was true that in this country it was a platitude. Every subject of the Queen here was entitled to receive full protection and assistance from the Executive, and did receive it, but it did not follow at all that everywhere and always that was a platitude. He would remind the House of the celebrated remark—"John Marshall has given judgment; let him put it in force if he can." That was the state of things in the United States where the Legislature and Judiciary declared its will, lint could not obtain the assistance of the Executive to carry it out, and it seemed to him that it was exceedingly probable, if this Home Rule Rill came into effect, there would be that same difficulty that there was in America. The Judiciary might declare the law as firmly, as fairly, and as justly as it chose, but it was likely to find a great deal of difficulty in inducing the Executive to use its power to carry that law into effect. There was an enormous amount of vis inertiœ in the Executive if it declined to back up the decision of the Judges, and that amount of vis inertiœ was what might have serious consequences to a large number of individuals in Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman said the first half of this clause was in the law already. To a certain extent that was true. No doubt it was part of the Common Law, but thou this Bill must be taken as being a kind of declaration of rights—a Bill which laid down the main principles, whether they were Common Law or not, upon which they desired the Irish Parliament should go. What else was the meaning of the 3rd clause, and more especially of the 4th clause? Most of the declarations in the 4th clause were declarations in so many words of the principles at Common Law. But here in Great Britain it did not much matter
    1838
    whether any principle was part of the Common Law or part of the Statutes. This Parliament had equal power to modify any principle, whether it was a principle of Common Law, or whether it was a principle of the Statute; but it would not be the case with regard to the Irish Parliament. The Irish Parliament would have full power to alter the Common Law as much as it pleased, but it would not have power to alter this Statute, which would be the fundamental Statute on which they would be working, and, therefore, it was of the first importance that they should have embodied in this Act the great principles of the Common Law. The second half of the clause was no platitude, but the most important enacting part of the clause, and that was the part which referred these questions to the Exchequer Judges. It did not leave the remedy to any Judge in any Court in Ireland, but gave a special power to anyone aggrieved to go to the Exchequer Court and obtain his remedy from them. By the scheme of the Bill it was felt that the Exchequer Judges would administer the principles of the Common Law more in accordance with our British ideas than the ordinary Irish Judges, and that was a special reason why the clause should be added to the Act. The Prime Minister himself had declared in the most emphatic terms that there were no questions more important than questions of personal liberty. The questions dealt with in this clause were questions of personal liberty, of personal freedom to exercise rights given by the law of the land, and what, they asked was that those rights should be secured to their fellow-subjects in Ireland under the new Irish Parliament.
    MR. CARSONsaid, he should not so far offend the susceptibilities of the right lion. Gentleman opposite as to describe the present Amendment as the most important introduced into the discussions on this Home Rule Bill. It was not so very important, because, after all, it only dealt with the liberties and properties of the Unionist minority in Ireland. But if it was not one of the most important Amendments that bad been brought forward, he ventured to think the conduct of the Government showed that it was one of the most unanswerable, because while argument after argument had been adduced

    1839
    in relation to this action that the Home Rule Government were likely to take upon certain questions affecting the property, and liberty, and privileges of Irish citizens, they had not had one single answer or one single reason put forward by gentlemen on the other side of the House as to why this Amendment should not be accepted. It was certainly a matter for reflection that for the purpose of withdrawing an Amendment the right hon. Gentleman took at least half-an-hour, whilst for the purpose of answering an Amendment which dealt with the preservation of the liberties and property of the Unionist minority in Ireland the right lion. Gentleman opposite did not deem it necessary to say one single word in answer to the arguments brought forward on those (the Opposition) Benches. The question seemed to him to be one they ought to press upon the Government, and it was certainly a question which those representing Unionist constituencies in Ireland were bound to press upon the Government. He wished to put the question in two ways. First, should the subjects of the Queen in Ireland have the rights which this Amendment proposed to give them? In other words, should the subject of the Queen in Ireland be entitled to receive full protection and assistance from the Government to enable him to do that which he had a legal right to do or abstain from doing that which he had a legal right to abstain from doing? Should he have that right or not? Would any hon. Member on the other side of the House get up and say he should not? The Chief Secretary who gave a perfunctory kind of argument during the dinner hour, got up and made use of a proposition which none of them would contradict. He said that this was either the law of the land as it at present stood or it was not. Then he went on to say that, assuming it was not, the Amendment was too vague. He (Mr. Carbon), as a lawyer given to taking technical views of words, could not see where the vagueness existed. The words had been taken from the Trade Union Acts and also from the Criminal Law Procedure Act, and even if they were vague surely the rights and liberties of the minority in Ireland were worth an attempt on the part of the Government to frame the clause in such a way as to
    1840
    secure the objects which they all wished to attain. To use the phrase of the Prime Minister, they were not wedded to the particular form of the Amendment. What they wanted was that the principle should be made clear that the liberties and properties of the loyal minority should be protected by such a provision as this. As regarded the contention that the citizens in Ireland ought to have these rights, no answer had been vouchsafed by the Government. There remained one other question, and that was—Was there any reason to fear that these rights would be infringed? Nationalist Members had declared time after time that when they came into power they would take care that those rights would be infringed. [Cries of "No, no!"] The right hon. Gentleman opposite said "No, no," but what was the meaning of the speech—
    "When we come out of the struggle we will take care that our friends shall receive their reward and that we shall take vengeance upon our enemies "
    It was all very well to pooh-pooh these matters, but he was prepared to put these questions to hon. Members below the Gangway. [Ironical laughter.] Yes; that was the way hon. Members treated arguments. They laughed and scoffed. Anything, they thought, was good enough for the followers of the Government. These hon. Members, when they went over to Ireland, made their serious speeches; in that House they made their perfunctory and performing speeches. He should like to ask the Irish Members below the Gangway this question—Would they got up in that House and withdraw all they had said as to boycotting evicted farms? Would any Irish Member get up and say that it was a proper and a light thing for the Irish Government, when it was formed, to give protection to those who had taken an evicted farm? Would any Member get up and say that? [An hon. MEMBER: To please you.] It was not a question of pleasing him. He did not want to be pleased, but what he wanted was an answer to the question as to whether they withdrew the speeches and renounced the doctrines they had been preaching in Ireland during the last 10 years? Would they now say that they would afford the protection of the law under an Irish Parliament to those who had taken

    1841
    evicted farms, and if they refused to give protection in such cases the Amendment was necessary. All that was asked by the clause was that some remedy should be left to an Irish citizen who, he supposed, had a right to take an evicted farm unless hon. Members opposite who supported the Government had adopted the theories of the Land League instead of the law of the laud. If the Irish Government did not give this protection, what was the remedy which the Irish citizen was to have? Was he to have the remedy contained in the clause or not? If not, then, he said, the Government were prepared to hand over to the Irish Executive the full power to abrogate the fundamental conditions of social life and property in Ireland. They were entitled to know what were the views of hon. Members below the Gangway as regarded the intimidation of those who had exercised their legal rights, whether in taking evicted farms or in other ways. Was it their view they should be protected from that intimidation? Every one of those Members—certainly the chief of them who would form the Government of Ireland—had been found guilty by a Special Commission. [Ironical cheers and laughter.] Yes; there it was again. The supporters of the great English Liberal and great English Radical Party took as arguments the ironical cheers of hon. Members below the Gangway. Was it a fact, or was it not, that they had been convicted, by a tribunal constituted by that House, of having themselves practised intimidation and encouraged intimidation to those who had taken evicted farms? The matter was upon record in that House. [An hon. MEMBER: What about Pigott?] Hon. Members below the Gangway always wished to go off on some irrelevant matter. They were always anxious to get away from the real question, and their English allies were always anxious to assist them in doing so. He had put a question in relation to the boycotting of evicted farms, and he had quoted the judgment of the Special Commission that had found Nationalist Members guilty of preaching and teaching intimidation. Would any Nationalist Members get up now and say when they were entrusted with the government of Ireland they would take care that no such cases should occur again, that they would pre-
    1842
    vent this intimidation? Not one of them could get up. They dare not. And why? Because they knew very well that, however they might repudiate these matters in that House, they would not for one moment hold the position they did as Members of that House were it not that they were prepared to carry on this doctrine of rapine and plunder by preaching this doctrine of intimidation in Ireland. If that was the case—and nobody could say it was not—[Mr. W. E. Gladstone (ironically): Hear, hear!] Hoes the right hon. Gentleman admit it is the case?
    MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: No, no! I simply cheered ironically what appeared to me to be a most ridiculous statement.
    MR. CARSON: I suppose the right hon. Gentleman thinks that a proper kind of interruption.
    MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: I gave a cheer which was not loud or indecent, but which was drawn from me by sentiments which I thought required it. The hon. and learned Gentleman invited me to rise, and then finds fault with me for doing so.
    MR. CARSONsaid, he should be sorry in any way to charge the right hon. Gentleman with any indecency in relation to the proceedings of that House. All he could say was that when the right hon. Gentleman told him that his proposition was ridiculous he was going against every fact which he at one time had admitted, and which had subsequently been proved in a Court of Justice before the Special Commission. The right hon. Gentleman had been challenged that evening to disprove those facts, but he had not thought it worth while to do so. What did the right hon. Gentleman mean by saying that the Irish Members were marching through rapine and plunder to the dismemberment of the Empire? What was the meaning of that phrase? The meaning was this. The rapine and plunder was the rapine and plunder of Irish landlords by teaching people they need not pay rents; that no Government ought to compel rents to be paid, and that no Government ought to carry out evictions. That was the rapine and plunder, and these were the methods which the right hon. Gentleman said were adopted by hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway for the purpose of getting him

    1843
    to adopt the policy of Home Rule. In these circumstances, he wanted to know, were not they, who represented the Unionists of Ireland, entitled to ask for protection against those doctrines of rapine and plunder when the men who preached them should have been put in power? That was the matter that was put forward by this clause, and it required an answer. The Solicitor General knew the law and the meaning of the clause. [The SOLICITOR GENERAL made an observation which was inaudible in the Gallery.] The hon. and learned Gentleman said he was hanged if he did. Perhaps the hon. and learned Gentleman would explain to the House why he had gone through that painful operation. He (Mr. Carson) contended that the meaning and object of the clause were perfectly clear. If the officers of the Executive Government in Ireland were not prepared to carry out the elementary functions of Government, the citizens of Ireland would, under the clause, have a remedy in the Court which the right hon. Gentleman had thought it necessary to set up for the protection of Imperial interests, and would be able to obtain such damages as be might have suffered by reason of not obtaining the ordinary protection which every citizen of this United Kingdom had hitherto been considered entitled to. What was the objection to this Amendment? They were entitled to some answer, and he invited one from the Secretary for Scotland. Why should a member of the Irish minority, who had been refused protection, or who had found the Irish Executive unwilling to give him that assistance which he had a right to expect, be driven into a Court which would be responsible to the Irish Government alone? He expressed the hope that this clause—which, in the first place, declared the elementary rights which must be the foundation of society in every civilised community, and, in the next place, gave the protection of the Courts which were established to deal with Imperial matters—would be added to this Bill, which proposed to create an entirely new Constitution for Ireland. He heartily supported the Amendment.
    THE SOLICITOR GENERAL (Sir J. RIGBY,)said, he had listened carefully to the speeches in this not very
    1844
    short Debate for some reference—some apt reference—to the Amendment before the Committee. He had, however, heard nothing that he could construe into such reference until two sentences fell from the lips of the hon. and learned Gentleman who had just sat down. Again, he was anxious to know what meaning was put upon the Amendment by any of its own supporters? True, he heard what they had heard 50 times before in the course of these Debates, of dangers to life and property. The right hon. Member for West Birmingham (Mr. J. Chamberlain) dwelt mostly upon the danger to life that was apprehended by the altered state of things in Ireland, and he supposed the right hon. Gentleman imagined that that had something to do with this Amendment; but he failed to point out what it had to do with it, nor was he able to see how he could have done so. They had got, at last, a sort of explanation from the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Dublin University, and what was it? According to the hon. and learned Gentleman, the first part of the Amendment contained a statement of the most elementary rights. But if it were an Amendment of the Common Law it was an Amendment couched in terms so vague as to be utterly unfit to serve as the basis of legislation, and in terms so general as to include matters which ought not, in any system of legislation, to be included in any enactment. Let them see what the proposal really was. It was not that there should be the protection and assistance which the elementary rights of a subject of the Queen gave, but that there should be protection and assistance to a definite end and purpose, which was no less than this—to enable any man to do an act he had a legal right to do, or to abstain from doing an act which he bad a legal right to abstain from doing. [Sir H. JAMES: Hear, hear!] Would the right hon. Member for Bury (Sir H. James) undertake to say that it was through the action of the Executive Government that subjects in Great Britain or Ireland were now enabled to enjoy their legal rights? If so, he would entirely join issue with him, and deny it absolutely. The action of the Law Courts, which wore justly independent of the action of the Executive, afforded to the subject reasonable and

    1845
    fair protection; and he said without the slightest doubt upon the matter that the Amendment introduced a vague and at the same time a general and sweeping test of the action of the Executive Government which had never before been attempted or conceived by any legislation, or attempted by any Houses of Parliament that they had known of Undoubtedly the hon. and learned Member for Dublin University was well-founded in saying that the words of the Amendment were not absolutely new. They were taken from the Conspiracy Act of 1875, and from a more recent Act dealing with Ireland. But in those enactments the words were used in what context? They were Criminal Acts, and the sanction of them depended, not upon the assistance and protection of the Executive Government, but upon the due administration of the criminal and I other law in the Courts of Justice. What was there in that Amendment that had to do with the administration of the j law in the Courts of Justice? Absolutely nothing. For his part, he did not profess to know all the decisions that had been given, and his views might be utterly wrong; but he would be astounded indeed if anyone could bring forward a series of authorities in our law showing I that the protection and assistance of the Executive Government, not in an elementary manner, but so as to enable all the results set out in the Amendment to be achieved, ever had been the law of the laud. But that was the Amendment. They were told that there were great dangers. The Government considered that these fears were greatly exaggerated; but be would assume, for the sake of argument, that the dangers which were apprehended were real. What then? The existence of these difficulties and dangers was not before the House, but the remedy against them. It was quite an unprecedented remedy—namely, to apply to set aside or render unnecessary the action of the Courts of Law, and to throw new duties upon the Executive Government. To carry out the provision of the Amendment someone must be provided in some way with the means of knowing what the legal rights of an aggrieved subject were. How could that be determined in the absence of a decision of a Court of Law? Who gave jurisdiction to any officer of the Exe-
    1846
    cutive Government to determine what was a crime and what was not? Every Executive officer would be liable to afford protection and assistance. As he understood it, as a matter of English language—though he had already said that he did not know what the author of the Amendment was driving at—the words would imply that every Executive officer should afford such protection and assistance as would enable every subject of the Queen to enjoy every legal right that he possessed. "Elementary rights" indeed. Why, they were unheard of, unknown rights, which ought not to be given to individuals at the cost of Executive officers. If such a law were enacted the Government of the country could not be carried on. No one would be mad enough to become an Executive officer if he were required to become the guardian of the rights of every person with whom he might come into contact, lie would call attention to the words of the clause. It said—
    "And if any Executive officer, whose duty it shall be to afford such protection or assistance, shall neglect or refuse to afford it, the person injured thereby may sustain an action before the. Exchequer Judges in respect of such injury, and may recover damages in consequence thereof."
    It came to this—that any individual who failed to procure his rights, if he thought that due assistance had not been rendered him, would have right of action against the Executive officer. A man might say—"I have not been assisted by the police; I have sustained loss; I am still alive, and am in possession of my faculties; I want compensation." What could he recover on? He ventured to say that hon. Members who had spoken on the clause had misunderstood it in divers ways, none of them agreeing with each other. The hon. and learued Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Carson) had actually persuaded himself that the clause recognised "elementary rights"—as though elementary rights could not be left to the ordinary law. The ordinary law was to t he effect that the Executive officer had certain duties cast on him, and that if he neglected to discharge them he was criminally responsible. Moreover, if by such neglect a citizen sustained injury, the Executive officer, he believed, could be held legally responsible. He believed the law extended to that, and if

    1847
    he were asked to give an opinion on the j point he should say that it did, though there would be vast difficulties in the way of proving any particular case. ["Hear, hear!"] Yes; but because difficulty might be in the way of giving proof it did not follow that the principle was not a sound one. Hon. Members were surely aware that there were many eases in which the difficulties in the way of arriving at a conclusion were insuperable, but in which, if the facts were once admitted, the remedy would immediately follow. He ventured to say that this clause was an absolute novelty, which would throw on the Executive Government, in language that was vague and general, a vast amount of duty which, so far as he knew, no Executive Government in any Constitutional country had ever before been expected to perform. The Opposition might say—"If you do not like the language in which this proposal is couched bring in a clause of your own." But the Opposition did not like the language, and they did not like the principle. [Opposition cheers.] Gentlemen who cheered so loudly should tell him what the principle of the Amendment was. Did they know anything at all about it? He, at any rate, knew this about it—that it contained a principle which the Government condemned and could not accept. They could not agree that from the ordinary Courts of the country should be taken the duty of insuring citizens in their rights—a duty which had hitherto been fulfilled in 99 cases out of 100, or in 999 cases out of 1,000 by the Law Courts as distinct from the Executive authority. They certainly could not agree that this should be done by an ill-considered clause which contained the germs of infinite litigation, and would put on the shoulders of Executive officers duties which they had never before had to perform.
    SIR H. JAMESsaid, that it had been difficult to follow the hon. and learned Gentleman who had just sat down through what seemed to be a rather involved argument. He (Sir H. James) admitted that he did not altogether appreciate the view the hon. and learned Gentleman took on the question. But one or two of the sentences which had fallen from the hon. and learned Gentleman he quite appreciated. A great many supporters of the Government said that
    1848
    they would never consent to any measure that would not sufficiently protect the minority in Ireland. What was the protection they were now affording in the Bill? From what source was it to come unless from an efficient and vigilant Executive ever ready and willing to protect the minority? It was with the desire that such protection should be afforded that this Amendment had been framed. They were told by the Chief Secretary that, though he had some doubt on the subject, he believed this clause was unnecessary. But the Solicitor General said that he objected to the principle of the clause, although it only declared the law as it now stood according to the Chief Secretary. According to the right hon. Gentleman, the law as it now stood afforded sufficient protection to the minority, and the Solicitor General objected to giving that protection. His hon. and learned Friend said he did not understand this language. He would tell the hon. and learned Gentleman what they intended it to mean. They did not intend that if a man was injured in his person or his property the clause should apply, for in that case civil damages could be obtained. It was an endeavour to prevent the commission of crime; not to punish it after it had been committed. What consolation was it to a man whose cattle were mutilated, whose property was destroyed, whose house was fired into, to tell him, "It is true there was no policeman on duty there, and no one to check the offender; but you can go to a Court and find your remedy?" That was not protection. To give protection care should be taken that there was sufficient police—a loyal police—and that the subjects of the Crown should see that there were those who would stand between them, when they conducted themselves properly, and the commission of crime. Did the Solicitor General object to that principle? Did he content himself with pointing out where compensation could be obtained for an evil, and had he no care to prevent that evil? Why should he say that he cared not if crime was committed, provided the man who was injured obtained compensation? That did not represent the peace and good government of a nation. That was I the view of a lawyer; it was not the view of a peaceable citizen. That was not the principle on which they could

    1849
    conduct the affairs of the State, saying—"We will not interfere to prevent crime." With regard to compensation for injury, it would not be given unless the tribunal—that was to say, the Exchequer Judges—were satisfied, first that there was injury, and, secondly, that the amount of compensation apportioned to it was a proper measure of compensation. The Solicitor General said that the Executive Government would not always be able to tell whether the claim for protection was rightly made or not. But suppose a subject of the Crown said he was in danger, and he asked the Chief Secretary for protection. The Chief Secretary might say—"I know you ask for protection, but I cannot give you what you desire." In consequence of the want of protection damage ensued. Why should not the responsibility fall on the Executive Government? They had the power to afford protection, and if they wilfully abstained from giving it they should be held responsible. What the clause proposed was a most proper right, and one which a person ought to be able to enforce. It was asking for nothing more in the shape of protection than was given in this country. The Solicitor General said it was neither in this country nor in Ireland that a citizen required protection to enable him to do a legal right. They did not see much of it in Great Britain, but in Ireland at this moment men were unable to do what was legally right without protection. They had been acting under protection, and their fate would have been sad if they had not received it.
    MR. SEXTON: I do not think that what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bury (Sir H. James) ventured to anticipate in his concluding remarks is likely to occur. The right hon. Gentleman misquoted my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland. I listened to every word of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, and he said nothing like what has been imputed to him. The right hon. Gentleman put two alternatives. He said, either it is so or it is not, and he then proceeded to an argument in which he considered the two alternatives. This Amendment—I must be pardoned for saying so—is an absurd attempt to apply a provision in the Coercion Act of 1887, a provision intended to affect the relations between
    1850
    one individual and another in regard to wrong done and in regard to crime committed, to apply that provision to the relations between the Executive Government of the country and every individual in the community in regard, not to the acts done or crimes committed, but in regard to what any individual may be pleased to anticipate with regard to himself. Now, Sir, might I ask the House for a moment to attend to the terms of the Amendment—
    "Every subject of the Queen shall be entitled to receive full protection and assistance from the Executive Government, so as to enable him to do any act he has a legal right to do."
    Well, a legal gentleman on this side of the House has just suggested that if a man desired to remove his furniture, a perfectly legal act which be has a right to do, he would be entitled under this Amendment, not only to claim the police to protect the furniture, but also porters to make the transfer, because he is entitled to receive not only protection, but "assistance to do any act that he has a legal right to do." Observe the effect of that Amendment. It covers every act of a man's life which is a legal act. The Government of Ireland is not unlikely to be harassed by persons disaffected to the system of Home Rule, and all any man in Ireland would have to do by the nature of this Amendment would be to go to the Executive Government, or, in the wide language of the lion. Gentleman, to any subordinate of that Government, and say, "I am about to do this, that, or the other thing which I have a legal right to do," and, without submitting any proof that he was in any danger, or that the legal act was likely to be impeded or hampered, he might claim protection; for it is not stated that he is bound to submit to the Executive Government any proof of the need for protection, and the Executive Government, on his application, would be obliged to afford it. I ask is the Executive Government to have any discretion? Evidently not, because, if they had discretion, and they in their discretion refused the assistance, then no action would lie; but clearly the intention is that the Executive Government of Ireland raises public moneys at the cost of the community to pay a public force to preserve the peace, to maintain good order, to secure good government for the whole community, yet any con-

    1851
    course of individuals scattered over the country might by requisition on the Government claim to have that force diverted from the service of the public and applied to their imaginary needs. No Government could be carried on under such circumstances. And not only that, but they might ask protection to enable them to abstain from doing any act they have a legal right to abstain from doing. Really, Sir, we have passed from the realms of actual life into the realms of imagination. Because any man has only to go to the Executive Government to imagine some act he wants to abstain from doing, and state that in that abstinence he wants to be protected. I do not see if this Amendment were carried what reply the Government would have to a demand like that. If they say, "We do not think anybody will prevent you," he says, "Well, I want the protection," and it appears to me it is his discretion and not the discretion of the Government that is final. If the Executive deny him that protection, they would be liable to be haled before the Exchequer Judges to answer for the refusal. This Amendment, then, is the most absurd of all the Amendments yet brought before the House; and then what happens when such a matter as I have referred to occurs? You give the Legislature of Ireland power to make laws for every matter exclusively Irish. You give them power to appoint an Executive Government, to appoint Judges for the administration of the law. You have determined that wherever Revenue is concerned, or any action arises in regard to an Imperial Statute which cannot be altered by the Irish Legislature, or with reference to any Act passed after Home Rule is granted, it shall be tried by two Exchequer Judges. But what extension is here proposed? That in regard to any matter whatever, even a matter within the power of the Irish Legislature to make laws upon, if any individual anywhere in Ireland chooses to allege he has suffered injury because of the refusal of any officer of the Government to place at his personal disposal the public forces, this complaint is not to be tried by any Judge in Ireland responsible to the Legislature, but by two Judges in no sense responsible to it. Even in regard to such an ordinary matter as a difference between
    1852
    an officer of the Government and a citizen, it cannot be tried by any Judge appointed by the Irish Government, but you must have two special Judges. When cases of this kind arise it simply means nothing more or less than this—that the whole of the forces provided to secure peace and good order to the whole community might be placed at the disposal of any congregation of individuals to supply and carry out their private purposes. Therefore, I say the Amendment should not pass.
    MR. GOSCHEN (St. George's,: I think the hon. Member for North Kerry has been stimulated by the compliment—the very fair compliment—paid to him by the Prime Minister with regard to his legal acumen in the earlier portion of the evening into giving a legal exposition of the clause which is now proposed to the House. The hon. Gentleman showed considerable eloquence, but he did not show any particular legal knowledge, for he omitted to notice the words—as also did the Solicitor General—
    "And if any Executive officer, whose duty it shall be to afford such protection or assistance shall neglect or refuse to afford it, the person thereby injured may sustain an action before the Exchequer Judges in respect of such injury."
    MR. SEXTON: The duty of the officer is the duty established by the first part of the clause.
    SIR J. RIGBY: I said I did not agree with these words, and I answered the inquiry in the manner the hon. Member for North Kerry has adopted.
    MR. GOSCHEN: I do not thing that the ordinary common-souse person reading the paragraph would come to that conclusion. If the reading of the first part of the clause be objected to, a very slight change will put it right, and we have found the Government perfectly ready, when they were interested in a proposal, to assist in putting into proper language any such Amendments as have been moved. But the Government from the beginning of this discussion have shown that it does not interest them. The hon. Member for North Kerry (Mr. Sexton) says this is a dilatory clause. I think that anyone who has listened to the arguments will see that it is not a dilatory clause, but that the Opposition would not have done their duty unless they had submitted to the House some opportunity of affording protection in the

    1853
    direction indicated by the clause. We have to deal with a state of things in Ireland which was described by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy (Mr. Bryce) when he said—
    "With the police under elected Boards the landlord might whistle for his rent. He would be lucky if he kept a whole skin."
    That is the case with which we have to deal. The Irish Members were challenged by my right hon. Friend (Mr. Plunket) to take the opportunity of disclaiming the language they have used. I When the hon. Member for North Kerry rose I thought it was not to play the rôle of the lawyer, but to state that lie and his friends had abandoned the whole of those views with regard to evictions, land grabbers, and the protection which ought to be afforded to tenants who try to do their duty in Ireland.
    MR. SEXTON: No, Sir. I think I am entitled to say I do not think that a gentleman who said in this House that he would be loyal to England only as long as England was loyal to him has any right to challenge us.
    MR. GOSCHEN: I thought the lion. Member for North Kerry was qualifying to be Chancellor of the Exchequer of the Irish Government. I see now that he has changed his rôle and intends to be the Attorney General. I must call his reply a simple quibble—that is not too strong a name—for getting out of a serious challenge. The public will not be deceived by it. A challenge has been given, and all the friends of the hon. Gentleman have sat silent around him. The challenge has been thrown down not only by my right hon. and learned Friend, but by several gentlemen opposite. [A NATIONALIST MEMBER: They despise it. I Do they despise the words of the Chancellor of the Duchy (Mr. Bryce)?
    DR. COMMINS: They despise the challenge and the challenger.
    MR. GOSCHEN: These are interruptions, Mr. Speaker, which will not promote the Debate. I am perfectly entitled to put this as the argument which has mainly been before the House—that the speeches of the right hon. Gentleman opposite have shown the public that the Land Question is at the bottom of the Irish Question in many senses, and that until that question is
    1854
    settled special protection ought to be given to the loyal minority in Ireland. Declaration after declaration has been made by the Members of the Government to that effect. Of course those words were pronounced in a different state of circumstances, and before the angelic time had set in. We really do ask that we should hear from the angels, at all events, that they have repented. We say to the Government—"Are you satisfied to leave your declarations standing as they are, and yet, without explanation, to refuse to accept the protection we offer, or, if you dislike that, to suggest some other protection?" The Solicitor General (Sir J. Rigby) has returned the great service which the Prime Minister had rendered to him earlier in the evening, when he covered the defeat of the Solicitor General and the Attorney General (Sir C. Russell) in a cloud of words. The Solicitor General has returned the service by diverting the attack on the Prime Minister by producing a very foggy cloud of technicalities. He certainly had this ad vantage—that neither the Prime Minister nor the Secretary for Scotland, nor the Chancellor of the Duchy, nor any of these men who have held strong views in regard to the land, have stood up and said what they might say on the question. They leave us entirely without light, and put up the Solicitor General to answer with legal technicalities. All I can say is that this is quite of a piece with the whole method the Government have employed in dealing with the question of land since the First Reading stage, when the Prime Minister forgot to state that that question was to be withheld from the Irish Parliament for three years. Now that an opportunity is afforded for debating the question of protection for the minority the Government shirk it, and show no interest in it. We know with what charming eloquence and vigour the Prime Minister addresses us when his heart is in the subject before the House. On this question we have been kept studiously in the dark by the right hon. Gentleman, and no Member of the Government has thought it worth while to say why they no longer think it necessary to afford the protection we seek to give in this clause, not only to the landlords, but to the honest tenants and others who are engaged in agriculture.
    Question put.
    The House divided: — Ayes 158; Noes 198.—(Division List, No. 261.)
    MR. COURTNEY MR. COURTNEY (Cornwall, Bodmin) moved to insert, after Clause 8, the following Clause:—
    (Attendance of Member of Executive in Legislature.)
    "Any Member of the Executive Committee may attend and speak at any sitting of either House of the Legislature, but shall not be entitled to vote unless entitled as a Councillor, or as a Member of the Legislative Assembly."
    He said this proposal was not intended to serve any Party purpose, and would excite no political passion. He did not know why the Government should not accept it at once, except that it was of a somewhat novel character. Its object was to facilitate the action of the Executive Government in connection with the Irish Legislature. The system he advocated was in vogue in France, and he thought it also prevailed in Germany. He need hardly explain to those who were familiar with the British practice that if such liberty of action prevailed at Westminster it would be attended with many advantages. A project of law which was thought needful by the Government was supported in one House by the Member of the Government who had elaborated it, who was familiar with all its details, and who knew the best arguments to be used in support of it. It was then sent to the other House, and, instead of being followed by its author, was handed over to someone who had only a secondary knowledge of it, and did not know how it hung together. This was a very inconvenient state of things, for it must be clear to everyone that the author of a measure was the best person to defend its provisions and to answer the arguments used against it. If, for example, the Home Rule Bill could be followed to the other House by its distinguished author the imagination would conceive what a very different result would be produced than was likely under present circumstances to be produced when a helpless and hopeless Peer addressed a strong Opposition with a feeble apology for an explanation of the measure. When a Bill was brought in by the Home Secretary he was obliged to get hold of some Lord of the Household or other person holding a purely
    1856
    domestic appointment to explain his measure for him in another place.
    It being Midnight, further Proceeding on Consideration, as amended, stood adjourned.
    Bill, as amended, to be further considered To-morrow.

  ELEMENTARY EDUCATION (SCHOOL ATTENDANCE) BILL.—(No. 241.)

    COMMITTEE. [Progress, Clause 1, 2nd August.]
    Bill considered in Committee.
    (In the Committee.)
    [Mr. Roby in the Chair.]
    Clause 1.
    Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 7, afer the word "total," to insert the words "or partial."—(Mr. Arthur Acland.)
    Question proposed, "That the words 'or partial' be there inserted."
    MR. TOMLINSONsaid, that since the question was last before the Committee he had been satisfied that there were cases in which such an Amendment was required. He might say, however, that there was great dissatisfaction with reference to the limitations of the half-time system. Girls very often lost opportunities of learning domestic duties under the present rules, and it would be very desirable if the half-time system could be extended to such cases. There wore also cases in which parents carried on small shops and desired to bring up their children to manage such shops. It would, he thought, be useful and desirable that such children should be allowed to become half-timers.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Amendment proposed,
    In page 1, at the end of Clause, add "and in section seventy-four of 'The Elementary Education Act, 1870,' 'eleven' shall be substituted for 'ten.' "—(Mr. A. Acland.)
    Amendment agreed to.
    THE CHAIRMAN: I think the new clause (Abolition of certificates of proficiency for purposes of employment), placed on the Paper by the hon. Member for the Kingston Division (Sir R.

    1857
    Temple) is out of Order. Clause 1 distinctly contemplates a standard or examination, and as the clause proposed by the hon. Member strictly abrogates any reference to a standard of efficiency, it is inconsistent with the first clause, and is, therefore, out of Order. The second proposed new clause (Amendment of law as to certificates of due attendance) is consequent, I think, on the first, and is, therefore, also out of Order.
    SIR R. TEMPLE: It will be open to mo, I presume on the Report stage, to move an Amendment to Clause 1?
    Bill reported; as amended, to be considered To-morrow.

  CONTAGIOUS DISEASES (ANIMALS) (SWINE FEVER) BILL.—(No. 427.)

    COMMITTEE.
    Bill considered in Committee.
    (In the Committee.)
    [Mr. Roby in the Chair.]
    Clause 1.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
    MR. CHAPLIN: I rise not for the purpose of opposing the Bill, but to ask for one or two explanations with regard to it, and I think that probably I shall have to move to omit Sub-section 3 of this 1st clause. The first question I want to ask is as to the principle on which the division of the funds for the purposes of the Act is to be determined as between Ireland and England? Under the Pleuro-Pneumonia Act a certain sum was awarded to England, and another sum was placed at the disposal of the authorities in Ireland. There is no mention of such a method being adopted in the present Bill. I should, therefore, like to know how much of the fund which is granted out of Imperial funds is to be placed at the disposal of England, and how much at the disposal of Ireland?
    COLONEL NOLANsuggested that the sum should be fixed in accordance with the number of pigs in each country. He did not know what the respective numbers were.
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (Mr. H.GARDNER,): As the right
    1858
    hon. Gentleman I think knows, the original proposition in the Pleuro-Pneumonia Bill was that a certain sum of £20,000 should go to Ireland, but in the practical working of the measure that system broke down, and it was found to be necessary to make grants-in-aid to Ireland out of the surplus of the amount allocated to England. We intend to follow the precedent thus established with regard to swine fever, and to allocate to Ireland as much of the money as is necessary to meet the requirements of the ease.
    MR. STRACHEYasked whether the recommendation contained in Paragraph 37 of the Report of the Departmental Committee, with reference to giving the Board of Agriculture necessary power to slaughter and pay all the costs of administration of the Act, was embodied in the Bill?
    MR. H. GARDNER: It was found necessary that we should have more powers than were given by the Pleuro-pneumonia Act, as it would be necessary in some cases to destroy premises entirely. The right of entry which we have for foot-and-mouth disease is not sufficient. We therefore take powers in the Bill to destroy pig-styes.
    MR. H. HOBHOUSEsaid, no limit was fixed as to the amount of compensation that might be given under Sub-section 2. He imagined that the Board of Agriculture would adopt the limit mentioned in the Report of the Committee. If not, he thought the House ought to have some notice of the kind of rule which would guide their proceedings. On another point, there was nothing in the Bill to show that Great Britain would receive a due proportion of the money that was to be divided between Great Britain and Ireland.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: Is this the Home Rule Bill?
    MR. H. HOBHOUSEsaid, he was sure he would be called to Order by the Chairman if he was out of Order. Although Unionist Members had always been subjected to interruption on the Home Rule Bill, be trusted that this non-controversial measure might be discussed without interruption. He wished, further, to know whether, supposing there was a larger surplus from the Pleuro-Pneumonia Fund

    1859
    than the £50,000, it could be used for the purposes of the Bill?
    THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Sir J. T. HIBBERT,)pointed out that the allocation of a certain sum for Great Britain and a certain sum for Ireland under the Act of 1890 was done away with by the Act of 1892, which provided that the whole sum should be apportioned as the Treasury might direct. That plan had been adopted in the present Bill. At the same time, the intention was that if more money than the £50,000 was required, and there was a balance of the Pleuro-Pneumonia Fund, any portion of the balance should be used by the Treasury in aid of the expenses arising under the Bill. If these funds were not sufficient, the Local Taxation Account in Great Britain and the equivalent Fund in Ireland would be drawn upon.
    MR. CHAPLIN: I want to ask a further question on this point, because, although I understand the right hon. Gentleman to a certain extent, I do not think the whole matter is cleared up. Assuming that there happens to be no pleuro-pneumonia in existence, how can there be any funds to the credit of the Pleuro-Pneumonia Account? Do I understand that in such a case the President of the Board of Agriculture would go to the Treasury and ask for funds to be placed to the Pleuro-Pneumonia Account to be used for the purposes of the Bill? If there was no pleuro-pneumonia to be dealt with, which seems to me to be extremely probable, it appears to me that the only funds that would be at the disposal of the Board of Agriculture for the purposes of the Bill would be the £50,000 for the financial year 1894–5. If that is so, I shall be bound to move an Amendment to Sub-section 3. I have one word only to say with regard to the suggestion that has been made to limit the compensation to be given for the animals slaughtered. I hope the President of the Board of Agriculture will not entertain that suggestion. It is true that under former Acts the compensation was limited, but I think that was very hard. I know many cases of pigs belonging to labourers which, when fattened for Christmas, are worth £8 or £10. I think the amount of compensation should be left to the discretion of the Board, which, I presume, would pro-
    1860
    ceed under a system of valuation, in which case no harm could arise.
    SIR J. T. HIBBERT: As far as my own information goes—and, of course, I cannot commit myself on he point—I should say that any President of the Board of Agriculture would be very unwise if he did not ask the Treasury to assent to a sum being set apart for the purpose of a Pleuro-Pneumonia Fund, because, although there may be little or no disease, of course you cannot tell what may happen. That sum, if not needed for dealing with pleuro-pneumonia, would be available for swine fever. Of course, I cannot commit any future Chancellor of the Exchequer or Secretary to the Treasury, but in my opinion it would be proper to have a sum voted for the purposes of the Pleuro-Pneumonia Act, whether the disease existed or not.
    MR. CHAPLIN: It would be in the power of the Treasury, under this Bill, to allot that sum for the purposes of swine fever?
    SIR J. T. HIBBERT: Yes.
    MR. WINGFIELD-DIGBY: Does the Bill provide for compensation for destruction of property if the styes are destroyed?
    Mr. H. GARDNER: Yes.
    Mr. HENEAGEsaid, he was not quite satisfied with the opinion of the Secretary to the Treasury, that it would be in the power to set aside a sum of money for pleuro-pneumonia if there was no pleuro-pneumonia in existence, but no doubt the question would be looked into by the Government before Report.
    SIR R. WEBSTERsaid, it was rather important that the Government should ascertain whether such a power existed, and he hoped it would be considered.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Bill reported, without Amendment; to be read the third time To-morrow.

  PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO CHILDREN BILL.—(No. 134.)

    COMMITTEE. [Progress, Clause 1, 16th March.]
    Order for Committee read.
    SIR R. WEBSTER,in moving that the Order be discharged, said he much re-

    1861
    gretted that, owing to public duties, he had been unable to press the measure forward this Session, as he thought there was urgent need for the amendment of the law. He hoped that the Home Secretary might take up the Bill, but, if not, he himself trusted that be would be able to bring it forward himself next Session.
    Order discharged.
    Bill withdrawn.

    BLACKEOCK AND KINGSTOWN DRAINAGE AND IMPROVEMENT (re-committed) BILL [Lords].
    Reported, with Amendments; Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed.

    MARKET GARDENERS' COMPENSATION BILL.—(No. 22.)
    Order for Second Reading read, and discharged.
    Bill withdrawn.

    ISOLATION HOSPITALS BILL [Lords].
    Read the first time; to be read a second time upon Tuesday next, and to be printed. [Bill 436.]
    House adjourned at twenty-five minutes before One o'clock.