Sitting of 30 June 1893

Preamble
The House met at Two of the clock.

NEW MEMBERS SWORN.
Andrew Commins, esquire, for Cork (South-East Cork Division).
William Abraham, esquire, for Cork (North-East Cork Division).

QUESTIONS.

  MILITARY STAFF CLERKS.
  MR. JEFFREYS (Hants, Basingstoke): I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether it is intended by Army Order No. 1 of 1893, with reference to the subject of Staff clerks, that the Military Staff clerks who have not elected to accept service in the Army Service Corps should be placed under the direct control of two distinct and separate Commanding Officers, one being the Staff Officer under whom these clerks work, and to whom such clerks are personally responsible, and the other being the officer commanding the Army Service Corps in the district in which such clerks are quartered; whether it is customary, as is the case with these clerks, to place soldiers under the immediate control of an officer commanding a corps in a branch of the Service in which such soldiers have not consented to serve, or to attach such soldiers, compulsorily, to a corps, for purposes of discipline to which they have declared their unwillingness to be transferred; whether it is known that these clerks are at present so situated against their desire, and that they have frequently been subjected to much inconvenience and annoyance in consequence of the dual control placed over them, which in some instances has materially interfered with the proper performance of their duties, by their being withdrawn from their legitimate work by the officer commanding the Army Service Corps without any reference being made to the Staff Officer to whom these clerks are responsible; and whether it is intended that these clerks should continue to remain in this position?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN, Stirling, &c.): Small bodies of soldiers are necessarily attached to some corps for discipline and administration, and the most convenient corps to which to attach Military Staff clerks is the Army Service Corps. When employed in an office they are, in their capacity of clerks, subject to the orders of the officer in charge of that office, but for discipline and all military purposes they are under the command of the officer commanding the Army Service Corps. This does not constitute any
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  duality of command, and is in accordance with the custom of the Service. It is not intended to change the system.

  THE LOSS OF THE "VICTORIA."
  MR. KEARLEY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether the Admiralty have considered, or will do so, the necessity of exercising the discretionary power given them under the 2nd Section of Act 47 & 48 Vict. c. 32, in order that the widows and orphans and dependent relatives of those noncommissioned offices and petty officers and men of the Royal Navy who have lost their lives through the foundering of H.M.S. Victoria may be awarded pensions and allowances in excess of the customary scale as tabulated under Chapter LV., Paragraph 2094, Section 3, of the Queen's Regulations and Admiralty Instructions, 1887?
  MR. MACFARLANE: May I ask whether there is anything in the circumstances connected with the loss of life in the Victoria which would justify the granting of larger pensions than are given in the case of sailors or soldiers who fall in battle?
  CAPTAIN BETHELL: I should like to point out, by way of caution to the Admiralty, that seamen and marines are constantly dying in all parts of the world in the execution of their duty, and that their families are as much entitled to consideration as those of the men who went down in the Victoria. Difficulties in connection with this matter arose in the case of the Captain, and I would ask the Admiralty before coming to any definite decision to consider the matter carefully.
  THE CIVIL LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. E. ROBERTSON, Dundee): The subject raised by the supplementary questions will, no doubt, be taken into consideration. The Admiralty will be prepared to exercise the discretionary power vested in them should the circumstances of any case appear to warrant the granting of an allowance in excess of the ordinary scale.

  LONDONDERRY BARRACKS.
  MR. ROSS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War what is the case of the continued delay in the re-construction of the Londonderry Barracks?
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: No unnecessary delay has occurred. The site has been settled. The Treasury have approved the purchase of the necessary land, and the Local Military Authorities have been instructed to prepare building plans. Some time must, however, still elapse before tenders can be invited for the works.
  MR. ROSS: Can the right hon. Gentleman say how long?
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I cannot.

  LIGHTHOUSE KEEPERS' SUPERANNUATION.
  MR. MAINS: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether, in superannuating lighthouse keepers, their services as mechanics prior to their appointment as lighthouse keepers were included; whether this practice was first discontinued in the case of William Callaghan; and, if such is the case, will his application for pension on his full period of service be favourably re-considered?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. MUNDELLA, Sheffield, Brightside): The Rule of the Service in superannuating lighthouse keepers is that their services as mechanics prior to their appointment as lighthouse keepers are not included, if their appointment as lighthouse keepers was subsequent to the year 1853. William Callaghan was not appointed a lighthouse keeper till 1859. This is not the first case in which this Rule has been applied.

  HOME CHARGES UPON INDIA.
  SIR B. SAMUELSON: In the absence of the hon. Member for Central Hackney, I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India whether he will lay upon the Table of the House the Reports of the Departmental Committee appointed by Lord Cross, when Secretary of State for India, to examine into the Home charges of the Government in India, with a view to their reduction?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. G. RUSSELL, North Beds.): If the hon. Member will confer with me on the form of this Return, I think there will be no difficulty on complying with his wishes.

  INDIAN CIVIL SERVICE EXAMINATIONS.
  SIR B. SAMUELSON: On behalf of the hon. Member for Central Hackney, I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India whether any dissents were recorded by members of the Indian Council, with reference to the Despatch of the Secretary of State, in regard to the proposal to hold simultaneous examinations for the Indian Civil Service in India and in England; and, if so, whether he will lay these dissents, together with the Despatch, upon the Table of the House?
  MR. G. RUSSELL: Yes, Sir. Several Members of the Council have recorded their opinions on the subject of the Despatch referred to in the hon. Member's question. A copy of the Despatch, together with the record of the opinions of those Members of Council who differed, will be laid upon the Table of the House as soon as the Despatch is in the hands of the Government of India.

  POLITICAL ADDRESSES TO THE IRISH LORD LIEUTENANT.
  CAPTAIN M'CALMONT: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland will he explain on what grounds His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland received an address from the Corporation of Limerick on Tuesday last, in which allusion was made favourable to Home Rule, and the granting of amnesty to the dynamite prisoners, seeing that he has declined to receive addresses from Public Bodies in Ireland opposed to Home Rule on the ground that they contained political matter?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. J. MORLEY, Newcastle, upon-Tyne): I have not had an opportunity of submitting this question to the Lord Lieutenant, who is still absent from Dublin. All I know is that his Excellency adheres to his view that political addresses are inappropriate, and in more than one instance where copies of proposed addresses in connection with this tour were submitted to him before he left Dublin political references were struck out at his request.
  MR. JOHNSTON: May I ask whether it is a fact that the

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  Enchantress, with His Excellency on board, is weatherbound at Carrigabolt, on her way to Tralee, and that the only sign of rejoicing in the last-mentioned place in anticipation of his visit was a display of Union Jacks from the Protestant Hall?
  MR. J. MORLEY: I have not been able to follow so minutely His Excellency's movements.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: Seeing that the Lord Lieutenant, either on his own initiative or on the advice of the right hon. Gentleman, refused to receive certain addresses on his accession to Office because they contained political sentiments in favour of the Union, will the right hon. Gentleman cause inquiries to be made as to whether His Excellency has now received addresses with political allusions to the dynamite prisoners and to Home Rule?
  MR. SEXTON: I beg to ask whether the right hon. Gentleman thinks it can be reasonably held that an appeal for the exercise of the prerogative of clemency should be described as a political allusion?
  MR. J. MORLEY: I must really disclaim any right or any intention to exercise a censorship over the Lord Lieutenant.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I beg to give notice that on the Vote for the Lord Lieutenant's Household I shall call attention to the question.

  THE OUTBREAK OF CHOLERA AT MURREE.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India whether the Government of India have now completed their inquiry into the outbreak of cholera, which occurred at Murree last autumn; whether it is the fact that this outbreak was due to culpable negligence on the part of the Indian Government, in ordering native troops, known to be infected with cholera, to proceed, without proper organisation or any sanitary precautions, to Kashmir viâ Murree. in disregard of the protests of the Local Authorities; and whether he will lay upon the Table of the House copies of the telegrams, letters, and Reports from the Civil and Military Authorities at Murree and Rawalpindi, commencing in April, 1892, in reference to the passage
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  of troops viâ Murree, together with copies of the Reports of the General Commanding, and the Civil Commissioner, upon the outbreak of cholera, and copies of the subsequent Correspondence relating thereto?
  MR. G. RUSSELL: The Report promised by the Government of India has not arrived. A telegram was sent yesterday to the Viceroy, to ask when the Report may be expected, but no reply has yet been received.

  THE GENERAL REGISTER HOUSE, EDINBURGH.
  MR. THORNTON: In the absence of the hon. Member for East Edinburgh, I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland what progress has been made in carrying out the recommendations made in the Report issued some time ago by the Committee appointed to inquire into the condition of the Register of Deeds Office in the General Register House, Edinburgh; and, in particular, whether the Deputy Clerk Register has executed the directions sent to him on the 20th February last to give effect to the recommendations of the Committee; whether the Treasury have given their approval to certain changes recommended, involving financial questions; and whether he is prepared to lay before the House any Minute embodying the Government proposals in the matter?
  THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Sir G. TREVELYAN, Glasgow, Bridgeton): Effect is being given to the recommendations of the Committee in respect to the administrative questions of the re-arrangement of the work of the Office and the conditions of the appointment and dismissal of the engrossing clerks. The financial changes which I recommended have been approved by the Treasury generally, and only some details remain for final adjustment. The formal Minute embodying the Government proposals will very shortly be laid before the House.

  THE FISCAL SYSTEM OF CEYLON.
  MR. F. SEAGER HUNT: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the Secretary of State for the Colonies contemplates any modification

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  or reform of the fiscal system prevailing in the Island of Ceylon?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. S. BUXTON, Tower Hamlets, Poplar): Her Majesty's late Government having effected a most material reform in the taxation of the Island of Ceylon by the abolition of the Paddy Tax, the Secretary of State does not feel in a position at present to entertain any further proposals for dealing with particular heads of taxation; but it may be added that the revenue is coming in more satisfactory than before the reforms effected by Lord Knutsford, and that the Island is in a flourishing condition.

  THE INSURANCE OF RAILWAY EMPLOYES.
  MR. NEWDIGATE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that at the present time the authorities of the London and North Western Railway Company contribute upwards of £8,000 per annum to a Mutual Benefit Society, upwards of £17,000 per annum to the Mutual Insurance Fund, and upwards of £7,000 per annum to the Locomotive Insurance Fund, the two latter sums being given annually in consideration of the employés contracting out of the Employers' Liability Act; whether he is aware that it is the intention of the authorities of the London and North Western Railway Company to withdraw these two sums if the Employers' Liability Act, as proposed, becomes law, in which case the employés of the London and North Western Railway Company would sustain an annual loss to their benevolent funds of upwards of £20,000; whether he is aware that, unlike the provisions of the proposed Employers' Liability Act, the employés of the London and North Western Railway Company receive a liberal compensation for injuries sustained during their employment, even when caused by their own default, which advantage they would lose were the proposed Act to become law and to be applied to them; whether he is aware that in a Circular Letter issued from the London and North Western Railway Insurance Society, Members' Executive Committee Office, Euston Station, on 12th June, 1893, it was alleged that wrong im-
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  pressions were conveyed throughout the Debate in Committee on the Employers' Liability Bill; and whether he will consider the advisability of complying with the desire of the employés of the London and North Western Railway Company to be allowed to contract out of this Bill and to remain in their present position?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. H. GLADSTONE, Leeds, W.): All the circumstances connected with these Societies have been fully considered, and were brought before the Grand Committee, and the Secretary of State has nothing to add to the answer given by him yesterday to the hon. Member for South Belfast.
  MR. NEWDIGATE: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this question was asked at the instigation of the Executive Committee appointed by the men employed by the London and North Western Railway Company to watch their interests?
  MR. H. GLADSTONE: I have no information as to that.

  LIVERPOOL POST OFFICE.
  MR. STOCK: I beg to ask the Postmaster General, in view of the fact that the employés in the Liverpool Post Office have been subjected to very heavy pressure of work, mainly due to having to work off large supplies of circulars without overtime, as formerly, whether he can hold out any hope of an improvement in their position?
  THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (Mr. A. MORLEY, Nottingham, E.): I do not clearly understand what is meant by the hon. Member's question. If the work referred to has fallen within the ordinary hours of duty of the officers concerned it would form part of their regular duty, and no extra payment could be granted for it. On the other hand, if the work has involved extra duty it will, as a matter of course, be paid for at the prescribed extra duty rates. If the staff in question are subject to any grievance, the existence of which I am not aware of, and if they take the usual course of representing it to their superior officers, I will take care that it is fully inquired into.

  LONDON MAIL CONTRACTORS.
  MR. KEIR HARDIE: I beg to ask the Postmaster General if he can state the number of contracts in existence, and by whom they are held, for the carrying of Her Majesty's mails in London, and when they expire; whether such contracts include a schedule of hours and wages for the mail cart drivers; and whether he will cause such schedules to be inserted in all future contracts, specifying that 6d. per hour shall be the minimum wage and that the working day shall consist of eight hours?
  MR. A. MORLEY: The contracts for the carrying of Her Majesty's Mails in London are four in number, namely:—

  For Town District Van and Cart Service.

  Held by Messrs. McNamara & Company. Castle Street, Finsbury Street, E.C.

  For Town Parcel Post Van.

  Held by Mr. J. Allen, Seward Street, E.C.

  For Suburban Van and Cart Services, Eastern Northern, and South Eastern Districts.

  Held by Mr. C. Webster, Campbell Road, Bow.

  For Suburban Van and Cart Services, remaining districts.

  Held by Mr. J. Birch, Cathcart Street, Kentish Town.

  The fixed term for which these contracts were entered into has expired, and any of the contracts can now be terminated by either side giving 12 calendar months' notice. No such notice has been given in respect to any of the contracts. The contracts do not include a schedule of hours and wages for the mail cart drivers. It should be understood that the work of the mail drivers is not continuous, there being many intervals between the runs, and this would render it very difficult, if not impossible, to arrange a working day of a certain number of hours for each man. I have consented to receive a deputation from the London Carmen's Union, who desire to lay a statement of facts and figures before me; and, under these circumstances, I should propose not to answer the latter part of the question.
  MR. KEIR-HARDIE: I beg also to ask the Postmaster General whether his attention has been called to the dismissal of six mail cart drivers employed by Messrs. McNamara and Co., Limited, who hold a Government contract for the car-
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  rying of the mails, the dismissal being for having attended a meeting of postmen; and what action he proposes taking in the matter?
  MR. A. MORLEY: I am assured by Messrs. McNamara's manager that they have no knowledge whatever as to which of their drivers did, and which did not, attend recent meetings of mail cart drivers (or meetings of postmen), and that certainly no man has been dismissed for such a reason.
  MR. KEIR HARDIE: Will the right hon. Gentleman receive a deputation from the men dismissed, so that they may state their case and prove the cause of dismissal?
  MR. A. MORLEY: I have no objection at all to receive a small deputation, but the men had better first submit their statement in writing.

  SWINE FEVER.
  MR. FIELD: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether the Report of the Departmental Committee appointed by the Board of Agriculture have recommended the provision of a compensation fund to be paid in cases of swine fever; whether such recommendation is likely to be carried into effect; whether the Local Government Board, in conjunction with the Board of Agriculture, will take steps to provide a fund for the compensation of owners whose property has been seized for tuberculosis in the public interest; and whether the Bovine Tuberculosis Report is yet issued, or when it may be expected?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. H. H. FOWLER, Wolverhampton, E.): The first two questions should be addressed to my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Agriculture. As to the third and fourth questions, the Government can take no action in this matter until they receive the Reports of the Tuberculosis Commission. I cannot state when that will be received.
  MR. FIELD: May I be allowed to point out that the President of the Board of Agriculture referred me to the right hon. Gentleman.
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: I have no knowledge of that.
  MR. FIELD: Is this reference to be final, or am I liable to be referred to another Department?
  [The question was not answered.]

  THE OPIUM DEBATE.
  MR. J. E. ELLIS: May I ask the hon. Baronet the Member for the Barnard Castle Division whether there is any truth in the report that he does not intend to press to a Division his Resolution on the Opium Traffic?
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Baronet has no Notice on the Paper.
  MR. J. E. ELLIS: I may, perhaps, explain I noticed that the hon. Member for West Waterford was in the House, and, therefore, I asked the question by arrangement with the hon. Baronet. Still, I will now ask the hon. Member for West Waterford if he intends to press his Motion to a Division?
  MR. WEBB: Certainly, Sir.
  SIR J. PEASE: May I say, with reference to the paragraphs in this morning's paper that those interested in this question are prepared to accept the conditions suggested by the Government, that they are without foundation. As the proposal differs from our views in many particulars, I am afraid we shall have to trouble the House to go to a Division.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (PROCEDURE ON THE GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND BILL).

    ADJOURNED DEBATE.
    Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment to Question [29th June]—
    "That the proceedings in Committee on the Government of Ireland Bill, unless previously disposed of, shall at the times hereinafter mentioned be brought to a conclusion in the manner hereinafter mentioned:—

    (a) The proceedings on the Clauses 5 to 8, both inclusive, not later than 10 p.m. on Thursday 6th July;

    (b) The proceedings on Clauses 9 to 26, both inclusive, not later than 10 p.m. on Thursday 13th July;

    (c) The proceedings on Clauses 27 to 40, both inclusive, not later than 10 p.m. on Thursday 20th July;

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    (d) The proceedings on the postponed Clauses, new Clauses, being Clauses, Schedules, and Preamble, not later than 10 p.m. on Thursday 27th July; and after the Clauses, Schedules, and Preamble are disposed of, the Chairman shall forthwith report the Bill as amended, to the House:

    Then at the said appointed times the Chairman shall put forthwith the Question or Questions on any Amendment or Motion already proposed from the Chair. He shall next proceed, unless and until Progress be moved as hereinafter provided, successively to put forthwith the following questions:—That any Clause or Schedule then under consideration, and any of the said Clauses or Schedules not already disposed of, stand part of, of be added to, the Bill:
    After the passing of this Order no dilatory Motion, nor Motion to postpone a Clause, shall be received unless moved by a Minister in charge of the Bill, and the Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith:
    If Progress be reported the Chairman shall put this Order in force in any subsequent sitting of the Committee:
    Proceedings under this Order shall not be interrupted under the provisions of any Standing Order relating to the Sittings of the House."—(Mr. W. E. Gladstone.)
    And which Amendment was
    In sub-head (a), to leave out the words "Thursday 6th July," in order to insert the words "Friday 14th July."—(Mr. Byrne.)
    Question again proposed, "That Thursday 6th July stand part of the Question."
    Debate resumed.
    MR. BARTLEYsaid, the object of the Amendment which they commenced to discuss on the previous night was to postpone the conclusion of the Debate on the first compartment of the Bill from the 6th until the 14th July. It was obvious that the great questions involved in Clauses 5 to 8 could not be adequately discussed in the four days that would remain after the passing of this Resolution. They had not only got to settle the details of the Executive power which was to be created for the first time in Ireland, but also the whole constitution and composition of the Legislature and the somewhat peculiar and certainly original proposal for settling disagreements between the two Houses. Such questions as these necessarily involved an immense amount of criticism, and that was only reasonable. Many hon. Members on the Ministerial side of the House were opposed to the proposals of the Govern-

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    ment as to the constitution of the two Houses, and it was well known that the extreme Radicals were among those opponents. On his side of the House it was contended that the Second Chamber was a delusion so far as it afforded any real guarantee that the interests of the minority should be considered, and the clauses bristled with difficulties, however carefully concealed they were. And yet for the consideration of these four important questions only four days were to be allowed! The only criticism on the Amendment that had been offered by the Chancellor of the Exchequer was that Friday was a private Members' night, and that the Bill could not be taken after 7 p.m. That could easily be got over by having an ordinary Sitting on Friday, July 14. Again, was there any reason why operations under his most prosaic proposal should commence on the 6th July? They heard much talk of this being a prosaic age. Personally, he was not. sentimental, but he thought that when it was considered that the Heir to the Throne in the second generation was to be married on the day fixed by the Resolution, it would be agreed that the beginning of this revolutionary proposal ought not to be fixed for that day. Not only did the Government refuse the House a holiday, but they actually wished their Gagging Resolution, which would destroy the liberty of the House, to have effect for the first time on that day. He thought that on that day they might fairly agree to sink political strife. To fix that day was a most ungrateful and unhandsome thing to do. He, therefore, strongly supported the Amendment of his hon. Friend, and hoped the Government—the head of which in the person of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian possessed a great deal of sentiment—would agree to it.
    MR. COURTNEYsaid, that bearing in mind the honourable understanding entered into on the preceding evening that the Resolution and Amendments should all be disposed of by 7 o'clock that evening, he did not propose to unnecessarily prolong the Debate. But he certainly felt that a longer time than four days ought to be allotted to the consideration of the next four clauses of the Bill. He did not press for the extension of time pro-
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    posed in the Amendment; but he was strongly of opinion that the Debate ought not to be closed before the Monday following the Thursday mentioned in the Resolution as the day for the application of the Closure. The clauses to which the Government proposed that they should devote four days only were most important. The first would set up a Ministry that should hold Office at the pleasure of the popular Assembly. This was a great innovation, and the question of the limitations that should be imposed upon the system could not be disposed of in a few hours. The 2nd clause of the compartment dealt with the composition of the Second Chamber, and upon no subject might there reasonably be greater differences of opinion than upon this. The principle of the clause was objected to even by some of the Government's own supporters. The proposal in the Bill was that the Chamber should be elective. An Amendment was to be moved for the purpose of making the Chamber partly nominative and partly elective. That must engage serious attention, and involved the question whether the nomination of Members should be for a fixed term or for life Another Amendment proposed that some Members should sit in the Second Chamber as ex officio Members by virtue of their positions. He thought himself that the presence of ex officio Members, holding dignified offices and representing certain important interests, would give the Chamber great weight and authority. As examples he might mention the four Roman Catholic Archbishops, the two Protestant Archbishops, and the Moderator of the General Assembly. On the clause relating to the composition of the Legislative Assembly would arise such difficult questions as the best mode of securing an adequate representation of the minority, and as to the method of settling disputes which might arise between the two Chambers. It was not reasonable to say that the discussion of those questions could be compressed into one single night, and he hoped the Government would agree to the suggestions which he had made, and at any rate extend the time until the following Monday.
    MR. T. M. HEALYsaid, that the arguments of the right hon. Member for Bodmin would have greater

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    influence upon him if he were ignorant of the fact that the Bill was going to be rejected by the House of Lords. Had it been otherwise, no one would have been more reluctant than himself to adopt closuring or restrictive proposals. The right hon. Gentleman and his friends had announced that the Bill would be thrown out without mercy in that branch of the Legislature; and, therefore, the House of Commons was engaged in what he might call a "mere performance." The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bodmin had suggested that time was required to discuss whether or not they should have four Roman Catholic Archbishops in the Upper Chamber, and to consider the delights of hon. Gentlemen there, the Moderator of the General Assembly, as well as the two Protestant Archbishops, and he asked them to lend their intellectual assistance to such a Debate in the full knowledge that two months hence the friends of the Duke of Devonshire and the Marquess of Salisbury would give effect to the announced determination to make the Bill a piece of waste paper. What hypocrisy! Surely the right hon. Gentleman should show some kind of respect for their intellects. When the Nationalist Members in former days indulged in what was called obstruction they were avowedly resisting a Bill which they believed to be bad and which they knew would be assented to in another place. They had the knowledge that if they refrained from opposing the Bill in that House they would have no chance of exposing its injustice and demerits elsewhere. But the position of the Unionists at the present time was quite different. If they wanted to make Amendments in the Bill, why did they not propose that it should be amended in the House of Lords? He was amazed that the right hon. Member for Bodmin should make this attempt to throw dust in their eyes. The right hon. Gentleman knew well that if they were to put the four Roman Catholic Archbishops, the two Protestant Archbishops, and the Moderator of the General Assembly in the Bill, or even the Pope of Rome himself, the Bill would be rejected by the Upper House. The Conservative Party wanted to waste the Session. They knew that very well, and there should be no hypocrisy about it. The Opposition were seeking to defeat by this policy not
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    only the Home Rule Bill, but also the Registration and the Parish Councils Bills. The seriousness of the right hon. Member for Bodmin and others was a little too much for one's patience.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid, he desired to congratulate the House on the fact that the hon. and learned Member for Louth had at last recovered the use of his voice. They had long desired to hear him, and his speech had now fallen like water on thirsty ground. So far as he was personally concerned, he had satisfied himself by resisting the principle of the Resolution. Although he should be very glad if more time could be secured for the discussion of the Amendments to the Bill, he must really suggest to the right hon. Member for Bodmin that it was hardly worth while for him to cast these pearls of his before—[Cries of "Oh!"] Well, he would not give the finish of the quotation; he would only say it was not worth the right hon. Gentleman's trouble to cast these pearls of his on the floor of the House of Commons, for they would not be appraised at their full value there. He should, of course, vote for all Amendments which he should consider reasonable; but, now that the gag was to be applied, he had no objection to Her Majesty's Ministers making that gag as effective as they possibly could.
    MR. R. G. WEBSTER (St. Prancras, E.)said, he had never heard a more unconstitutional speech than that just made by the hon. and learned Member for Louth. The hon. and learned Member actually seemed to think that, because it was reported that another Assembly was going to throw out the Bill, it was the duty of the Government to pass the measure through the House of Commons by the exercise of the Closure. When his ancestors were in that House the Liberal Benches were occupied by the defenders of the rights of the people. But it seemed to be very different now. If the Session was too short, why did not the Prime Minister fulfil his pledge in the spirit as well as in the letter and call the House together early in January as he led the constituencies to believe he would? So far as he could judge, the Unionist Members of the House had not in any instance in the course of the Debate occupied an inordinate length of time in their speeches. The hon. Mem-

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    ber for Louth seemed to forget how he and his friends had spoken frequently on Bills to which they were opposed until 2 or 4 o'clock in the morning.
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The Question before the House is whether the time allotted for the first batch of clauses is sufficient.
    MR. WEBSTERsaid, his contention was that, as the Bill made a great and important change in the Constitution of the country, the House ought to have due time for its consideration. Hon. Members really did not know what the Bill before the country was, as they were not aware whether Clause 9 was to stand or not. He contended that in the interests, especially of that part of the United Kingdom which had been so grossly disregarded—namely, Great Britain, they were entitled to consider the question in all its bearings—
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! Clause 9 is not in this compartment. I must ask the hon. Member to keep to the point.
    MR. WEBSTERsaid, his claim was that the Members of the Constitutional Party should have the opportunity of fully and fairly discussing this important measure.
    COMMANDER BETHELLsaid, he apprehended that it would be the duty as well as the policy of the Opposition, when the House again got into Committee, to calmly re-commence the discussion of the Amendments that were placed before them in order that they might probe to the bottom, as fully as time would allow, each of the important questions that came up for consideration. He imagined that the Opposition would not by any means be disposed to forward the view of the supporters of the Government by skipping over Amendments with the object of concentrating attention on some matter which was more important than others. Even the extended time proposed in the Amendment would, in his opinion, be scarcely sufficient for the discussion of the important points that were raised.
    MR. LOGANsaid, that, as a Representative of an agricultural constituency, he desired, in opposing the Amendment, to thank the Government for making it clear that it was their intention that the business of the nation should be proceeded with.
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    They might rest assured that people out of doors would not be satisfied with the plea of obstruction.
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! Perhaps it is right that I should explain to the hon. Member that the particular Amendment now before the House simply raises the question whether a sufficient time has been allotted to the clauses specified.
    MR. LOGANsaid, he bowed to the Speaker's decision. His only object had been to thank the Government for the course they had adopted.
    SIR E. CLARKE: I may perhaps be allowed to express my sincere sympathy with the hon. Member who has just sat down on the fact that he has not been allowed to deliver this afternoon a speech which—[Cries of "Question!"]
    MR. SPEAKER: As the hon. Member was out of Order, any comment upon his remarks will be out of Order.
    SIR E. CLARKE: I was not going to discuss his speech, and I will not, of course, make any further allusion to it. The hon. Member was not proposing to deal with the real question which the House has now to consider—namely, that of the time which has been allotted by the Government scheme for the discussion of the specific matters contained in these clauses. I think that if hon. Members will be good enough to read the clauses which it is proposed we should dispose of by 10 o'clock on Thursday night, they will have at once ample proof that the time which has been allotted is not sufficient for the work. The time—that is, between this Sitting and 10 o'clock on Thursday night—consists, at the outside, of 24 hours.
    MR. J. MORLEY: We have already begun the discussion of the 5th clause.
    SIR E. CLARKE: It is time that we began the discussion of the 5th clause on Wednesday, but it is proposed that between the end of this Sitting and 10 o'clock on Thursday next we should dispose of the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th clauses. Before the House desires that it is competent to deal with these matters within that limited space of time, I should like to point out how many hours will actually be at the disposal of the House and what the questions are that will have to be considered. Between the close of this Sitting and Thursday at 10 o'clock we

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    shall have about 24 hours available for debate—namely, seven hours on Monday, seven hours on Tuesday, about five on Wednesday, and five on Thursday. Well, what have we to deal with in that time? Clause 5 has hardly been discussed yet, although we have entered on its consideration. I do not think anyone will deny—and I am quite sure the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary will not deny—that Clause 5 is one of very great importance. It deals with the Executive Government of Ireland, and it is a clause which it is very difficult indeed to propose Amendments to, because it begins by asserting that the Executive Government in Ireland should continue to remain under the authority of Her Most Gracious Majesty. The question whether that clause is to be altered in any way, and whether the appointment of the Lord Lieutenant to exercise the Executive authority of the Crown ought to be subject to the same limitations and restrictions as, at the present time, affect the Crown itself, is surely a matter of very great importance, and I do not think anyone will say that a single sitting of this House, occupying about eight hours of debating time, will be enough for that clause. But, assuming that it is enough, let me point out what the House will have to dispose of on the Tuesday, Wednesday, and part of Thursday. It is no less than the constitution of an Institution entirely new to our domestic Government—the establishment of a Second Chamber not founded on the hereditary principle and with a different franchise from that of the First Chamber.
    THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. E. GLADSTONE, Edinburgh, Midlothian): That is already-decided.
    SIR E. CLARKE: Decided it may be that there shall be a Second Chamber, but that fact does not make the constitution and construction of the Chamber a perfectly easy and light matter. When we come to Section 7, we find it is one which, if it had been a Bill in itself, would have demanded the attention of Parliament for a very considerable time. It is perfectly well-known to all of us that of all the electoral anomalies which exist at the present time those which are to be found in Ireland are perhaps the worst. Section 7 proposes to stereotype these anomalies for six years and to
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    leave in existence a body of 103 Irish Members, appointed by the constituencies as they are at present arranged. I am quite sure that if the Prime Minister were proposing not a Home Rule Bill but a Reform Bill for Ireland, he would recognise that a much larger amount of discussion than could take place in two days would be necessary. Well, all these proposals are to be dealt with in 24 hours of Parliamentary time. Of course, the Government have the power, and I have no doubt they will exercise it, of strictly limiting the times allowed for debate according to their view of the exigency of the subject; but, at any rate, they must allow us to point out to them, before they impose their will on the House of Commons, how obviously insufficient is the time they propose to allow us for discussion.
    SIR T. LEAasked for some reply from the Government to the suggestion that had been made, that if the Amendment were not assented to the time to be placed at the disposal of the House for the discussion of the 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th clauses should be extended to the Monday following the Thursday mentioned in the Motion. There was one very important question respecting the representation of the Irish Government in the House of Commons. The Chief Secretary had said that the clause upon which this matter was to be discussed was the 5th clause. There were a great many of his (Sir T. Lea's) constituents who were expecting to leave their homes and their country. [Ministerial laughter and cries of "Oh!"] Hon. Gentlemen opposite might laugh, but he asserted fearlessly that there were thousands of people in the North of Ireland who expected to be driven from the homes which their ancestors had made for them when this Bill became law. They were, therefore, deeply interested in the discussion of these questions, and desired that their Representatives should have a reasonable time for their discussion.
    Question put.
    The Tellers reported the Numbers:—Ayes 268; Noes 244.
    MR. SEXTON: Mr. Speaker, before you announce the numbers, I have to state that the Member for South Tipperary who

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    did not hear the Question put voted in the wrong Lobby.
    MR. SPEAKER: Was the hon. Member within the folding doors?
    MR. SEXTON: He is in the vicinity of the Chair and will himself answer.
    MR. SPEAKER (to Mr. Mandeville): Did the hon. Member hear the Question put?
    MR. MANDEVILLE: I did not hear the Question put.
    MR. SPEAKER: Under those circumstances, the hon. Member's vote cannot be recorded.
    MR. SEXTON: His vote, I presume, will be deducted from the majority. [Laughter, and cries of "Minority!"]
    MR. SPEAKER: Ayes to the right, 267; Noes to the left, 244. [Cries of "No, no!"] Are these figures on the authority of the Tellers?
    THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. MARJORIBANKS, Berwickshire): No, Sir.
    MR. SPEAKER: I understand that these figures have not the sanction of the Tellers. I must ask them to make the necessary correction.
    Ayes 268; Noes 243.—(Division List, No. 180.)
    VISCOUNT WOLMERsaid, he wished to move an Amendment to extend the time allotted for Clauses 9 to 26 from Thursday, July 13, to Friday, July 21, at 10 minutes to 7 o'clock. The compartment to which the Amendment had reference contained within itself an extraordinary number of clauses of first-rate importance—Clauses 9 to 26 inclusive. In his opinion, in consequence of the importance of the clauses in this compartment, it was absolutely impossible that the House could discuss them in a week. These clauses related to finance—Clauses 10, 11, 12, 13, 17, 20, and 21. They were going to be negatived on the Motion of the Government, who were going to bring up fresh proposals at the end of the Bill. He submitted that when the Motion was made to negative the clauses, the Committee should be allowed to put various questions to the Government. Why should the Government desire to go back upon the plan they had announced as to the fair proportion and division between the Irish and the British taxpayer? This was the third financial scheme propounded
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    by the Government; and seeing that the British taxpayer had always been put in an increasingly bad position by the time they had arrived at their sixth plan, there would be no consideration left for him. When the Prime Minister himself had told them that the just, and even generous, proportion for Ireland to pay towards Imperial expenditure was 1–15th, why was she to pay only l–30th? Why was all that difference to come out of the pocket of the British taxpayer? Then Clause 18 dealt with Money Bills and voting the public Revenue of Ireland, and raised Constitutional questions of the first importance. It would be remembered that the Prime Minister had stated at an earlier period that in fulfilling his functions under the clause the Lord Lieutenant would be again acting in a dual capacity. He would have to select what Votes should be passed, a system altogether at variance with the practice in this country, where the initiative in the matter was left exclusively with the Cabinet of the day. It was impossible to exaggerate the gravity of the Constitutional question that the clause opened out, and could the Committee submit to having this most important function of the Lord Lieutenant slurred over or wholly neglected in discussion as would inevitably be the case? Then Clause 19 dealt with Exchequer Judges. The House would remember that the Exchequer Judges were the bulwark the Government proposed for the protection of the loyal minority in Ireland. If it could be shown in a case about to be tried that there had been anything in the nature of a contravention of the Act, any party to the action could apply to have it transfered to the Exchequer Judges. Those Judges, again, were to be the sole protection of the Revenue in all Revenue cases in Ireland; and it was the Exchequer Judges who would, for the first time, have to give decisions as to the, at present, wholly unascertained meaning of those cabalistic words "due process of law." Again, Clauses 22 and 23 dealt with the function of the Privy Council as the final interpreters of the Act. No Member of the Government could deny that really the whole interpretation of the Act, and through its interpretation its successful or futile action would, to a very great extent, depend on the decision of the Privy Council, and yet there

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    would be no time to consider the constitution of the Privy Council as the supreme Court on Constitutional questions. In the clauses contained in this compartment was to be found the only embryo of an Imperial Executive within the four corners of the Bill; that was to say, the Exchequer Judges were to have the power, under certain circumstances, of appointing an officer of their own to see that their decrees were carried out. That was the only trace in the whole of the Bill of an Imperial Executive officer, and it seemed to him nothing short of scandalous that the House should in Committee be absolutely precluded—as it would inevitably be—from considering the establishment of that officer. No one would dispute that the clauses he had referred to contained legitimate field for very serious criticism and deliberate discussion, and yet he could show that it would be impossible for the House, if it fulfils its function properly in this respect, because before any of these clauses could be reached the House would have to deal with Clause 9. It was no exaggeration to say that Clause 9 by itself in any Session, under any Government, would merit a whole week's discussion; but they did not know what Clause 9 was going to be.
    MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: I have stated that we do not intend to propose any alteration in Clause 9.
    VISCOUNT WOLMERwas much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for making that statement; but was it not possible that the hand of the right hon. Gentleman might be forced against his own conviction by his own supporters under the leadership of the Member for North Kerry? At any rate, the clause would have to be discussed to ascertain whether the Prime Minister had succeeded in doing what he had told the country it passed the wit of man to do. They would have to see whether he had drawn the line of distinction between Imperial and non-Imperial affairs; and they would have to ask him how, if it was not possible to do this in 1886, and if he saw the difficulties in drawing the distinction which he admitted in bringing in the Bill, he believed the scheme could possibly work. [Cries of "Order!"] If he were transgressing the Rules he apprehended that Mr. Speaker would
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    call him to Order. It would be necessary to point out that under the circumstances of this House as they had prevailed not in every Parliament, but in most Parliaments, since the Reform Act of 1832, Clause 9 of the present Bill, if it had been on the Statute Book, would have reduced the House to impotence. It was easy to find an illustration of his meaning. Suppose Clause 9 were part of the law of the land at this moment, in what position would they find themselves in the House? Would the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister remain in Office for a week? He (Lord Wolmer) could not imagine that he would, for the right hon. Gentleman and his Cabinet were pledged to the Newcastle Programme, and they knew—
    MR. SPEAKER: I would remind the noble Lord that the clause should not be discussed as if it were now before the House.
    VISCOUNT WOLMERsaid, it would be their duty to point out, when they came to Clause 9, that these difficulties would inevitably occur. It would be their duty to ask the Prime Minister how the clause could work, and how, with the clause in operation, he could carry on his Government? If during the discussion on Clause 9 an Amendment were carried against the Government it would have the effect of keeping in that House for all purposes the whole of the present Representatives from Ireland—a contingency about which it was impossible to speak with patience and without heat. It would be their duty to point out that the humiliating position in which Great Britain would thus be placed—[Cries of "Question!"] A permanent Irish ascendency would have been established in Great Britain; and he maintained that, under the possibilities he had foreshadowed, a week's discussion of Clause 9 alone would be the very least the country would expect from the House. It was a clause which would affect the House and the position of the British electorate for all time, and surely it was not one that ought to be disposed of in that portion of a week's work which might fall to it if all the clauses from 9 to 26 were equally distributed over the 30 working hours that would be available. At that rate the total amount of time that they would allow Clause 9, if they permitted the

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    other clauses to have an equal share of attention, would be two hours—two hours in which to discuss whether the House was to be reduced to impotence or the British taxpayer to permanent servitude. He begged to move the Amendment.
    Amendment proposed,
    In sub-head (b), to leave out the words "10 p.m. on Thursday, 13th July," in order to insert the words "Friday, 21st July, at ten minutes to Seven."—(Viscount Wolmer.)
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I only wish to put two questions to the right hon. Gentleman before he replies. My noble Friend has pointed out that there is an important matter in the concluding clauses that are reserved for this part, and he has also shown that the 1st clause is one which is likely to occupy a very considerable amount of time. He suggests that probably it will occupy the whole of the time allotted by the Government. Now, if that should be the case, there will be no discussion on Clause 10. I think the Government will agree that there should be something in the nature of a general discussion of the financial proposals in the Bill, and it is quite impossible with advantage to discuss those proposals in detail. Every single proposal which the Government has made must have relation to the whole scheme and to the estimated Irish Budget. We have not—owing to circumstances which have been beyond the control of the Government—we have not been able to have anything like a Second Reading discussion on the question of finance, and I think it is not unreasonable to ask for that. I also think that the Government will gain by allowing adequate time for that purpose. Now, I am under the impression that such a discussion might take place in Committee on the financial proposals, but I understand that the Resolution to be proposed in the Financial Committee will deal only with a very small part of the subject, and that it will be out of Order to enter upon a discussion of the whole financial scheme. Therefore, I take it that any discussion must be on the Motion to postpone Clause 10. If my noble Friend is correct—and I think there is good reason for what he has said—that
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    the discussion on Clause 9 is likely to occupy the whole of the time I would point out that there will be no opportunity for a general discussion on the financial scheme. My first question I wish to ask the Prime Minister is what arrangement the Government have made for the discussion on the financial proposals of the Bill? My second question is this: During these Debates the Government have promised a considerable number of Amendments in connection with the different clauses of the Bill. Those Amendments are not yet on the Paper, but there are upon the Paper a great number of Amendments connected with the altered financial scheme. I want to point out to the Government that all these Amendments may be shut out by this Closure Resolution. It is conceivable that the earlier portion of the Debate will occupy the time, and that there will be no opportunity in the Committee stage for the Government to propose these Amendments. I therefore wish to ask the Government, in the event of any of these Amendments, or of any of the Amendments already on the Paper, being shut out by the Closure, what arrangement they propose to make in order to introduce them? How do they propose to carry out their pledge?
    MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: With regard to the question of my right hon. Friend, the matter stands there. I do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the most convenient course for taking the discussion on the finance proposals of the Bill will be on the Motion to postpone Clause 10, although, no doubt, it would be desirable to have a general understanding that there should be power to bring together the main points of these proposals of the Bill. The proposal of the Government will be to negative Clause 10, and the reasons for negativing the clause, and for introducing financial proposals of a similar character, have already been indicated by me. Our reason for the proposed now financial scheme, which is strictly founded on the principles of the former scheme, is that, taking note of the enormous expansion which was given to this Bill, in consequence, I will say, of views conscientiously held by the Opposition, we have thought it our duty to make what contribution we could towards narrowing the field of discussion, and consequently we

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    have devised what we think a much simpler plan of finance than that originally incorporated in the Bill. That is the reason why we put forward this new financial scheme, and because the discovery of an error would not of itself have necessitated any change in the main proposals. That being so, it appears to me that the House would be in an entirely false position if it attempted to discuss the matter on Clause 10. I am not aware that anyone protested against the withdrawal of Clause 10, and therefore to debate the financial plans upon a clause which its authors rejected and which no portion of the House desired to adopt would not be a practical method of proceeding. My hope is that when the new clauses are reached an understanding will be come to in the Committee which will enable the convenient trial of such questions as are involved in the new plan of finance. My right hon. Friend has also asked me a question in regard to the Government Amendments. Well, we certainly will not be parties to such a prolongation of the Debate upon the earlier sections of the Bill as would lead to the absorption of these Amendments by the operation of the Motion now made. We have given, under this Motion, what we consider to be sufficient time for the discussion of all matters; but if, in consequence of the action of hon. Gentlemen holding different views, the time is absorbed by some of the early provisions and some of these Amendments are extinguished, I am aware of no course that can be taken except to propose them on Report. At all events, so far as the Government is concerned, the Amendments we have proposed, apart from those relating to finance, are not considerable or likely to occupy any great length of time. I, therefore, do not apprehend they will meet the fate my right hon. Friend referred to. The questions that legitimately arise in the section to which the Amendment refers are three in number. The first is Clause 9, in regard to which the noble Lord thinks a week the very smallest period that can be fixed for its discussion, and seemed to indicate that a month would be nearer the proper time. [Opposition cheers.] That cheer indicates what is at the root of the Amendment, and the fundamental and radical difference in the estimate made by one side and by the other as to the nature of
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    the provisions of the Bill and as to the nature of the Amendments which they ought to discuss in connection with it. I think it wise to abstain from characterising the Amendments, but I am bound to say that my view of them differs entirely and absolutely from that of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham. We have endeavoured to bring to an issue the great question of the scale on which the Bill ought to be discussed. Our proposal is that the time, which appears to us to be reasonable, and which will afford to the Bill far more time than has been given to any measure that has been before Parliament at any period of our lifetime, should be accorded and fixed. In our view the time accorded is ample for dealing with questions falling within the group of clauses now in question. In addition to Clause 9, the two other matters raised in this group are the question of the Exchequer Judges and appeals to the Judicial Committee. I have not heard of any serious differences of opinion in regard to either of these matters. With regard to Clause 9r differences may exist, but I do not agree with the supposition that they are of great multitude or diversity. The Government are bound to propose Clause 9, and to carry it as a substantial clause. There is a question between what is called the "in-and-out" method and the method of omnes omnia, on which I believe a good deal of difference of opinion prevails, but we have never indicated that we have any fixed or settled intention to push to all extremes the proposal of the Bill in preference to any other. I have been challenged to say whether we think we have done at last what it passes the wit of man to do—namely, to frame a perfect plan for the retention of the Irish Members in this House. No, we have not; and nobody has framed a perfect plan so far as I know. We have been guided by public opinion in regard to this question as a whole, and in respect of the details of the method under which the Irish Members are to be retained we consider ourselves fully entitled and bound to have regard to public opinion. I can conceive this to be a question on which Members may desire to express their preference one way or the other. I am not aware, though, that much light

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    can be thrown on the subject, and, in my opinion, we have allotted ample time for disposing of it, and also of disposing of the questions relating to Exchequer Judges and appeals to the Judicial Committee. In making the allocation of time, the Government proceed on the view which the majority of the House take as to the manner and method of treatment which the Bill requires, guiding ourselves in the main by the precedents supplied by our former history, and entirely declining to accede, as we have invariably declined to accede, to a view taken of the measure which would have the effect of rendering all progress impossible. The Government are, therefore, bound to resist the Amendment.
    MR. GOSCHEN (St. George's, Hanover Square): The right hon. Gentleman spoke of the majority which he thought would be inclined to assent to the course he is proposing; but that majority is a very small and declining one, and I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman still thinks that in the long run the majority to which he has alluded will be able to carry out this novel system of legislation by compartments. We are now to legislate, with regard to the position of the Irish Members in the Imperial Parliament, with our watches in our hands, noting how long we have to discuss whether the Irish, having a Parliament of their own, are to be the masters of British legislation. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of precedents in regard to this matter. Did he remember his own speech with regard to the extraordinary change that would be made if we had two separate classes of Members in the House—unlimited Members and limited Members? Does the right hon. Gentleman remember the enormous importance he attached to the question of equality between all Members? Does he think that is a matter which ought now to be decided in a few hours? It was pointed out last night, and I will point out again, that each of these compartments contain as great legislative changes as the Reform Act itself. The question of breaking up the Parliament; the question of whether we are to legislate in groups on groups of questions is at least as great a Constitutional principle as the reduction of the franchise and the redistribution of seats. I wonder what time the right hon. Gentleman himself
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    will think sufficient to discuss this Clause 9? The Chancellor of the Exchequer thinks one night will be sufficient. I would recall to the right hon. Gentleman a reminiscence. Does he remember his attitude on the Divorce Bill? Does he remember his opposition to that Bill?
    MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: That Bill was introduced on July 19; this Bill on February 4.
    MR. GOSCHEN: Yes, but divorce only forms one sub-section in this Bill, on which, I think, we were closured. What a difference between the rights the right hon. Gentleman was entitled to in those days and the rights he now thinks sufficient for the Opposition! Every clause in this Bill is an Act of Parliament, and because the Government put a number of sub-sections into one clause they think the House is too long upon the clause. The right hon. Gentleman thinks Clause 9 will be soon disposed of. A little more light has been thrown on the clause, and that seems to render it probable that it will take a much longer time than the right hon. Gentleman thinks. Let me point out the extremely astute course taken on Clause 9. The right hon. Gentleman is pledged to press it. He says he is going to propose it; but after the first words there comes an Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for Northampton, which practically has the effect of retaining the Members from Ireland in their full strength and with their full voting powers in this House, so that the Government will be able to get a vote on that before they put forward their own proposals. I think that is a very astute proceeding, but it will not be found so convenient as it now appears. I presume the House may assume that the Government mean to make as good an argument as they can for their own proposals.
    MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: I have done it already.
    MR. GOSCHEN: I understand the Government will stand by their proposals?
    MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: My right hon. Friend understands the Government will stand to their proposals. I must limit him to his own understanding.
    MR. GOSCHEN: The Government may stand by their proposal or they may not, or they may sit down. Perhaps we shall see the process we saw last night—a sitting down during the whole of the arguments. Is it quite fair of Her Majesty's Government to tell us how many hours we are to devote, watch in hand, to the question of the retention of the Irish Members, and at the same time to refuse frankly to tell us what they intend to do. Perhaps they will try to closure the debate on the Amendment of the hon. Member for Northampton. If the Government adopt that Amendment, allowing the Irish Members to remain in full force and with full voting powers, I should like to know what the country will have to say to it. If they do not accept that Amendment we will have to discuss the position the Irish Members will maintain in the House. Is it not preposterous, is it not grotesque, to say we are to debate a question of that importance in a couple of days? It is the greatest possible Constitutional change, and the right hon. Gentleman knows it. It has not been debated at all except by the right hon. Gentleman himself, when he made the excellent speech against the proposal by which he is or is not now going to stand, I do not know which. Is the arrangement to be temporary or permanent? Will there not be a Debate on the numbers of the Irish Members? Will the House not want to recur to the negotiations between Mr. Parnell and the right hon. Gentleman as to the number Mr. Parnell thought would be sufficient?
    MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: I do not know what words, of mine you are quoting.
    MR. GOSCHEN: I am not quoting any words of the right hon. Gentleman. I am too careful to quote any but the exact words of the right hon. Gentleman.
    MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: What statement of mine are you quoting?
    MR. GOSCHEN: I am not quoting any statement; I was alluding to the negotiations between the right hon. Gentleman and Mr. Parnell.
    MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: I have never given any account of them, and I am not bound by any account of them that has been given.
    MR. GOSCHEN: It is rather sad that in a matter so grave as this, when a statement was made by Mr. Parnell—
    MR. T. M. HEALY: Question, question!
    MR. GOSCHEN: The question is the numbers in which the House will continue to enjoy the society of hon. Members from Ireland. That is too interesting a question to be disposed of shortly. But I will pass by the allegation that the statement made by Mr. Parnell was fiction. It is for Mr. Parnell's friends to reply to it. I do not think that any language can be too strong to show the absurdity of asking us to debate Clause 9 in the short time the right hon. Gentleman thinks sufficient. The country must be informed as to the full scope of Clause 9 with the clause as amended by the hon. Member for Northampton, or that form of it which the Government on this question of high Constitutional importance will be prepared to accept, provided they only get the majority, for that is the point to which we are reduced. That clause will take so long that it is scarcely worth while to argue at any length any other clause in this compartment. Then there are the questions of the Exchequer Judges and the appeals on Constitutional questions. The right hon. Gentleman is about to constitute a Court to take in this country the place of the Federal Court of America. Is that a matter to be disposed of in a few hours? The right hon. Gentleman said he had not heard much about the Exchequer Judges yet, but we have not come to them. He will hear a great deal about them later on. The House wants to know what the machinery will be by which the decisions of the Exchequer Judges will be enforced. That is not a matter which can be tossed aside in a few hours. Then, with regard to the Financial Clauses, the time the Government are prepared to spare from their Newcastle Programme is so limited that, rather than give more time, they throw over the financial scheme which they have elaborated during the last six years. The real point of Clause 10 is placing in the hands of the Irish Executive the collection of the Revenue in Ireland. That most important scheme the right hon. Gentleman threw over because he had not the time to consider

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    it, and for six years he takes the collection of the Revenue out of the hands of the Irish Government. I am glad he has done so, but it is an enormous change. The right hon. Gentleman makes a temporary arrangement with regard to finance, so that six years hence we are to have the whole matter over again. Six years hence we will have the question of the Constabulary over again, and six years hence we will have to have a new Home Rule Bill. We are to begin the new century with a new Home Rule Bill. There are matters which the right hon. Gentleman treats as subjects which can be postponed. What guarantee can the right hon. Gentleman give that on the Motion relating to Clause 10 the hon. and learned Member for Waterford will not raise the objection which he has against the present plan of the Government with regard to finance? During the whole of this compartment business the Government cannot guarantee us against Amendments from their own side. The whole of the compartment now under consideration is full of the gravest questions, each of which deserves the fullest argument, and it is really an insult to the House to pretend the contrary. It is in order that the country may be prevented from understanding the bearing and effect of the proposals of the Government that we are to be shut up within the few days which the Government condescend to allow us.
    MR. R. T. REID (Dumfries. &c.)said, that in his opinion the country was thoroughly and heartily sick of the amount of discussion which had already taken place, and they were so because they did not believe that that discussion had taken place in good faith, with a view of amending or improving the Bill, and they thought that if an unlimited time were granted for further discussion the sole endeavour of the Opposition would be to defeat and hinder the Bill and make it, if they could, ridiculous and unworkable. The country was glad that the Bill should be split up into compartments, for it did not wish to see the time at the disposal of the House frittered away in vain and tedious repetitions of stale arguments against the principle of this legislation. Very few hon. Members on his side of the House had taken part in these Debates, and they had been
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    prevented from joining in the discussions by the dilatory tactics of hon. Members opposite. Members on his side of the House were loyal to the House of Commons and its traditions. They did not wish to see the opinion confirmed that that great Assembly was becoming incompetent to discharge its duties. Had there been fair discussion with a view to amending the Bill hon. Gentlemen on the Benches near him would have offered suggestions for the improvement of the measure. As it was, they had been obliged to sit still. He did not question the ability or fail to admire the eloquence of right hon. Gentlemen opposite, but to be compelled to listen to an almost unbroken series of speeches from the Bench which they occupied without the variation of a private Member taxed the patience of flesh and blood. If right hon. Gentlemen opposite would spare the House a little of their eloquence and give other Members whom the House would like to hear an occasional opportunity to speak he thought it would be well. It seemed to him that the subjects that were being discussed in this compartment had been many times discussed. He had only to say, with reference to Clause 9, that he was sure the Prime Minister would understand that, although his hon. Friend the Member for Northampton had placed an Amendment on the Paper, it did not follow from that that all hon. Members accepted the position of the hon. Member for Northampton, and some of them preferred the Bill as it stood.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The hon. and learned Member reproaches us on this Bench for having taken too great a part in these discussions. No one regrets more than I do myself that we have found it necessary to occupy so much time. I feel, however, bound to point out that one reason for that is that, if any hon. Gentleman behind us gets up and makes observations which do not exactly meet the views of the Government, he is invariably closured—a kind of treatment which is not encouraging. I do not accept the hon. and learned Gentleman as an exponent of public opinion. The hon. Member says that the public are sick of these discussions, and his public, no doubt, are thoroughly sick of them, and have every reason to be sick of them, and the longer they go on the more sick they will be. But the

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    public of the hon. and learned Member is a minority of the inhabitants of this Island. I, speaking on behalf of the majority, can assure the hon. and learned Member that the majority are not sick of these discussions, and do not approve of the proceedings taken to bring them to a conclusion. But I do not wish to waste powder and shot on a speech which was more appropriate to the Debate on Thursday, when the hon. and learned Member was not allowed to speak, than it was to the present controversy. On this afternoon, when hon. Members opposite know that the discussion must finish by a certain hour, they apparently feel that they have a licence to occupy as much time as they choose with irrelevant remarks. My chief purpose in rising, however, is to suggest that the discussion on the Amendment before us shall now be brought to a close, not because the subject has been exhausted, but because other important Amendments await consideration. On the next Amendment the question of the land necessarily arises, and on the Amendment after that the question of finance—two very large and important questions; and, although a good deal remains to be said on the question before us, I think, for these reasons, we should now take the opinion of the House upon it.
    Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 302; Noes 268.—(Division List, No. 181.)
    MR. HAYES FISHER MR. HAYES FISHER (Fulham) moved an Amendment, to leave out the words "10 p.m., Thursday, 20th July," for the purpose of inserting "10 minutes to 7, Friday, 28th July," the object being to give another week for the discussion of Clauses 27 to 40 inclusive. He said that every argument which had been advanced for an extension of time for the consideration of the clauses in the preceding compartment could be urged, with even greater force, for an extension of time respecting a compartment embracing no less than 14 clauses. By the Resolution they were allotted only 28 hours of Parliamentary time for the consideration of the 14 clauses in question—two hours only for each clause. Seeing the extreme importance of the matters with which the clauses dealt, the proposal of the Government was
    572
    absurdly inadequate, and the demand for such an extension of time as would give a day for the discussion of each of the clauses was certainly not an unreasonable one. The clauses embraced, among other matters, the whole question relating to the position, salaries, and duties of the existing Judges; the salaries, duties, and pensions of the Police and Civil Service—and nobody knew better than the Chief Secretary that the Police were greatly dissatisfied with the future conditions under which they would have to serve if the Bill ever became law; the privileges and qualifications of Members; the limitation on borrowing by Local Authorities; and, most important of all, the grave question of the land. Even if they compressed their remarks within the shortest space of time upon all these clauses, they were of such vital importance that it would be absolutely impossible to leave one single hour to a discussion of the clause relating to the great Land Question if they did their duty by persons affected by the other clauses. There were many important points connected with the question of land which required to be cleared up. The hon. and learned Member for Hackney, for instance, gave them to understand that not only was the Imperial Legislature to have control over the land for the next three years, but that before they parted with that control to the Irish Legislature they would be able to fix the terms and conditions upon which the Irish Legislature would be able to deal with it. That was a point that required to be cleared up. When they came to consider that the Land Question was almost admittedly the root of the Irish Question, it would be really extravagantly absurd to ask that they should give only 28 hours to the consideration of the Land Question; and how much more absurd was it, therefore, to ask that they should take the end of that period? If they were to do their duty to the Civil servants concerned the period of 28 hours must be entirely occupied with important and vital questions affecting them. He should be surprised if, when the Government came to consider the enormously important question they were asked to discuss in these 14 clauses, they did not make some concession as was asked for by the Amendment. Surely it was not too much to give them a further week

    573
    when they were framing an entirely new Constitution. Let them, at least, have another week to discuss the questions which were raised in this department, and the last person who ought to grudge the discussion of these questions was the Chief Secretary for Ireland, who should be regardful for the future of the Civil servants, who served him as loyally as they served his predecessor in the Irish Government. He hoped the Government would make the concession asked for, and if they did not he was perfectly certain they would not succeed in curtailing the discussion on this Bill, because all these questions must, in that case, be considered even more fully on the Report stage of the Bill. He begged to move the Amendment.
    Amendment proposed,
    In Sub-head (c), to leave out the words "10 p.m. on Thursday, 20th July," in order to insert the words "Friday, 28th July at ten minutes to seven."—(Mr. Hayes Fisher.)
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    MR. J. MORLEY: I am afraid I must return the same answer to the hon. Member's proposal that we have already been bound to return to similar proposals as to the two previous groups of clauses. The hon. Member who makes this Motion has appealed to me specially and personally, because this group contains the clauses dealing with the Constabulary and the Civil servants; and he says very truly that I must feel a special responsibility for the provisions for these great bodies of public agents being fairly discussed. I entirely share the sentiment which inspired that appeal of his. As he has truly said, these gentlemen, both Constabulary and Civil servants, are equally unstinted in the loyalty and fidelity of their service whatever Party or Government may be in power on this side of the water. As he probably knows, I have had interviews with the Civil servants and the Constabulary officers, and have taken an interest which I think they recognise in the clauses and Schedules affecting them. I quite agree with the hon. Member that there are three points of great importance; but I would observe that, though the points are important, there are not many of them. There are
    574
    few points—three or four—so far as these two great Departments are concerned. They are important points I quite admit, but they are very few, and they could be, I am convinced, easily and amply discussed in the time which would remain after the other clauses in regard to these departments have been dealt with. What are the other clauses? It is quite true that Clause 35 reserves the land for three years. Of course, if the Committee should be determined to go into the whole history of the past and the prospects in the future of the Irish Land Question, there can be no doubt the time allotted would be extremely inadequate. But that is not the position in which the question will come before the Committee. The proposition before the Committee has been the simple proposition to reserve the Land Question for a definite period. That is an important point; but where I differ, and where the Government differ, from hon. Gentlemen opposite, is upon this: they seem to think, because the point is an important one, that, therefore, an enormously long discussion is necessary upon it. I am perfectly sure that all those gentlemen who have been accustomed to take part in controversies, whether political or otherwise, will agree that very often the controversies that are most important are those where the leading points can be most concisely and shortly stated. I do not think I need make any further argument than that. I have considered, of course, the most important clauses in this group. I believe the most important clauses are those which the hon. Member believes to be so, and I think they can be easily and adequately despatched in the time we propose to allot to them.
    MR. CHAPLIN: I have been very sorry to hear the reply of the right hon. Gentleman; and, as I understand the Amendment which I had placed on the Paper would be inconsistent with what has been already passed by the House in a former portion of the Resolution, I ask permission of the House to say a few words in reply to the right hon. Gentleman. I can hardly adopt his estimate of the importance of the various questions which will have to be discussed in this department before we come to the Land Question. As far as I am able to form an opinion on the subject, it seems to me

    575
    exceedingly probable that all discussion upon that extremely difficult and important question will be shut out altogether if we adopt the proposal of Her Majesty's Government. The right hon. Gentleman admitted that if the whole question of the land was to be discussed in this Bill the time allotted by the Government would be extremely inadequate; but he seemed to think that all we had to discuss during the passage of this Bill with regard to the land was the question of whether or not the Land Question was to be reserved and to be dealt with hereafter. I take issue altogether with the right hon. Gentleman upon that point. We think it is of great importance that this question should be discussed now this afternoon, inasmuch as we shall have no opportunity probably of discussing it hereafter. It is important, I think, that the Government should be reminded of the pledges that they have given by their individual Members on former occasions with regard to this question, and that the country should be informed that we are not to have any opportunity, in all probability, of discussing it in future. That depends entirely on whether the questions of Judges, Civil servants, pensions, the whole question of the police, and a variety of others can be disposed of in the course of a week; and unless they can we shall be debarred from discussing the Land Question at all. What is the position with regard to the land? In this Bill you provide, it is true, that no legislation shall be undertaken by the Irish Parliament with regard to the land for a period certainly of three years, and so far, I admit, so good. But what the landlords have to apprehend, in my humble estimation—and, I think, in the estimation of everybody who has given any impartial consideration at all to the Irish Land Question—is this: it is the action, or rather, I should say, the inaction, of the Irish Executive during all these years pending which they are not to deal with the Irish Land Question by means of legislation. Take the case of an Irish landlord who is impoverished already—and, unhappily, a great number of them, far too many, are in that position at the present time. Suppose—not a very unnatural assumption—his tenants may refuse to pay their rents, or even join some renovated Plan of Cam-
    576
    paign. The landlord is too poor to take action against the Irish Executive if we suppose for a moment it may either be slack in the performance of its duties, or that it may possibly refuse to the Irish landlord the protection which he asks for and the means of enforcing his just and legal rights. If that happens, he is too poor to fight the Irish Executive, and he is placed at the mercy of tenants who, in all probability, will deprive him of everything he possesses in the world. It has been said of us very often in the course of these Debates that we are most unjust in imputing these motives and this probable conduct to the Irish Executive under the new Irish Parliament. It is asked why do you persist in these charges of what would be irrational conduct against the gentlemen who are to compose that Executive in the future? I venture to say the answer to that question is simple, and, in my opinion, is absolutely complete. We do it because, first of all, we can form a very reasonable estimate of the composition of that Irish Executive, and, in the second place, because we pay them the compliment of simply believing their own words. These gentlemen whom we may not unnaturally suppose will compose the Irish Executive have over and over again expressed their opinion as to the way in which the landlords of Ireland are to be treated. One of them said they were to be treated like rats; another said they were to be hunted like foxes until they became as scarce in the country, and a third preached the doctrine of the abolition of all rent. Does the right hon. Gentleman deny the accuracy of these quotations?
    MR. J. MORLET: I do not think this is very relevant to the discussion.
    MR. CHAPLIN: I am arguing that in all probability we shall be unable to discuss the question of the land at all, because you have limited the time for the discussion of Clauses from 27 to 14 to a week and anterior to the time when the Land Question arises in Clause 35 you will have to discuss all the questions before that.
    MR. SPEAKER: Because there will, according to the right hon. Gentleman's argument, be no opportunity of discussing the Land Question later on, he is not entitled to discuss it now. He is entitled to show what are the elements of controversy

    577
    and the elements of importance in the clause; but he is not entitled on it to argue the general question of the land itself, or the relations of landlord or tenant.
    MR. CHAPLIN: I will endeavour to confine myself, Sir, strictly to your ruling, and the element of importance to which I wish to draw attention is this: the danger that will be incurred by the landlords in the event of the Irish Executive failing to perform their duty. I have the highest authority on the part of the Members of the Government themselves for entertaining the opinion that there will be the greatest possible danger in this respect, and if I am in Order I would refer to the very specific declarations on the part of one Member of the present Cabinet in particular. I do not refer to the statement of the Prime Minister, who declared that there was an obligation of honour and duty to settle this question before the Home Rule Bill passed. It is quite true that since then he has limited that declaration to the specific time it was made—namely, 1886. But no such limitation was placed upon the statements made by his Colleagues in the Cabinet, one being Lord Spencer, than whom there is none better acquainted with the Irish Question. He declared that it would be the most mean and treacherous thing in the world to abandon the Irish landlords to their fate. Then we have the specific declaration of the Chancellor of the Duchy, and I desire to call his attention to this. He stated in an article he wrote after great deliberation, in 1887, that the landlords of Ireland ought not to be left to the mercy of an Irish Parliament. All of them, he said, had legal rights founded on Statutes, and the honour of England was pledged to those rights.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER (Mr. BRYCE, Aberdeen, S.): What is the right hon. Gentleman quoting from?
    MR. CHAPLIN: From an article in The Nineteenth Century, and signed "James Bryce," written in the year 1887.
    MR. BRYCE: The right hon. Gentleman is mistaken. The article was written in January, 1886, before the bringing in of the Land Purchase Bill of that year.
    MR. CHAPLIN: Quite so; but I do not see that that has any bearing whatever on the question. The honour of England, he said, was pledged to these rights, and
    "We could not look other nations in the face if we were to throw over the men whose property we confirmed as lately as by the Act of 1881."
    He went on to make a still more specific statement, to which I most earnestly desire to call the attention of hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House. He says—
    "The conclusion follows that before any police control or any considerable legislative functions can be conferred on an Irish authority, whether central or local, the Land Question must be grappled with, and reasonable compensation must be offered to the landowners, and either prior to or concurrently with the settlement of these several questions this compensation must be secured."
    What has that got to do with the Bill of 1886 or 1891?
    MR. BRYCE: I would remind the right hon. Gentleman that the suggestion was made and was complied with by the bringing in of the Land Purchase Bill of 1886.
    MR. CHAPLIN: By the Land Bill of what?
    MR. BRYCE: The Land Bill of 1886.
    MR. CHAPLIN: Then the right hon. Gentleman, therefore, thinks that a Land Bill, which is brought in for a certain purpose which it does not effect, which is never carried into effect, and which purpose, he says, must be effected prior to dealing with the question of Home Rule, is a sufficient answer to the statement I have read on this occasion. I venture to remind him that the Land Question has not been grappled with—that the reasonable compensation he declared ought to be offered has not been offered. Neither prior to nor concurrently with the introduction of the Home Rule Bill has that kind of compensation been secured in the slightest degree whatsoever; and I venture to say that it is a serious thing when right hon. Gentlemen occupying the position of Cabinet Ministers appear to think that deliberate pledges which they have given may be lightly broken, and their statements may be disowned without discredit to themselves. I have the right to ask the right hon. Gentleman, not in a casual

    579
    interruption across the Table, but in an ordinary reply such as is called for, in my humble judgment, by an occasion of this kind, to reconcile his statement on that occasion with his attitude as a Member of the Government to-day. At all events, I am justified in saying this: that seeing the mode in which the Land Question has been treated up to the present time by Her Majesty's Government, and seeing and remembering the pledges which they have given in the past, and the manner in which those pledges, every one of them, has been broken, and remain unfulfilled, and seeing that now, by the Resolution which is placed upon the Table of the House, it is practically clear to everyone, we shall be debarred on any future occasion, during the passage of this Bill through Committee, of challenging them to meet and make good their pledges, of insisting on their fulfilling the pledges which they gave upon this particular question to Parliament in bygone days. I say, at least, the smallest thing we can expect of the Government on this occasion is that they should accept the Amendment of my hon. Friend, and give us the further time, even though it would not be full and ample time for the discussion of this question. The interests that are at stake are enormous, and I am astounded that a right hon. Gentleman like the Chief Secretary, who knows by this time the conditions of this country, who must be aware of all the statements that have been made by the gentlemen who are to form the new Executive of the Irish Government—and who must know all the dangers and difficulties which they imply for the Irish landlord in the future—should treat the matter in the light and heartless manner in which he has done, and should evidently be prepared to sacrifice the Irish landlords, without raising a finger to assist them, to whatever fate and misery may await them in future.
    MR. AMBROSEshould not have intervened in the Debate upon this point but for the observation which had fallen from the Chief Secretary with reference to the character of the Debate upon the Land Question in this very section. The right hon. Gentleman said it would not be open to discuss the whole Land Question, but that it would be confined
    580
    to the question whether or not the power of the Irish Legislature should be postponed for a period of three or four years. He would remind the right hon. Gentleman that this could not be so, because, although he should agree with him that the 35th clause was one of this group, it was only a mere transitory provision, and would, therefore, primarily only have admitted of the construction which the right hon. Gentleman put upon it, yet having regard to what passed in that Committee with, he believed, the full concurrence of the right hon. Gentleman that construction could not possibly be maintained. He would remind the Committee that he himself had an Amendment to the 3rd clause of the Bill, being a permanent exception of the powers of the Irish Legislature as regarded the Land Question and excluding all dealing with the Land Question, and all relations between landlord and tenant, whether by Act of Parliament or otherwise, from the powers of the Irish Legislature. That was one of the permanent matters to be excluded; but he was ruled out of Order on the ground that that Amendment belonged to the 35th clause, and that the question must be raised when they came to the 35th clause. He endeavoured to point out it could not come under the 35th clause, because it was a mere transitory provision; but he failed to make himself heard to the Chairman, so that his Amendment which proposed to deal with the whole Land Question, and to which he was looking forward with great interest, together with other Amendments on the same line, had been postponed, and he did not think it would be possible for the Chairman of the Committee or the Chief Secretary himself to object to the whole of the Land Question being discussed under the 35th clause when they arrived at that clause, and in the circumstances he had mentioned. It would, therefore, be a mistake to suppose that the whole Land Question was not going to be discussed, otherwise the House would have been misled.
    MR. RENTOULsaid, there were 14 clauses which were of importance, or they would not be in the Bill, and it was proposed that exactly 28 hours should be given to their discussion, or exactly two hours to each clause. The Prime Minister had stated that more

    581
    time had been given to this Bill than any other in his experience; but the Opposition considered that this Bill was of more importance than any 100 Bills that had ever been brought before that House; and, that being so, they considered it absurd in the highest degree to talk of the time given to other Bills when they were dealing with sections of this Bill, every one of which had been well said to be a Bill itself. If 58 days were given to the Committee stage of the Land Bill of 1881, which dealt with only a small portion of what was dealt with directly or indirectly under this Bill, how could the Government wonder if they (the Opposition) felt astonished at their proposals being brought forward for curtailing their time? The Chancellor of the Duchy had stated that it would be a gross betrayal of the landlords not to deal with the Land Question; but the right hon. Gentleman had told them that night that the case was altogether changed because a Bill had been brought in. The bare bringing in of a Bill which did not pass at all was supposed to change the whole matter! That was like the paper safeguards; they were expected to change the whole view of the Opposition. The Chancellor of the Duchy now told them that because the landlords were given a Bill which never passed they ought to be satisfied, and that because a Bill was put on paper that was sufficient, and on the same principle the paper safeguards had been put into the Bill. The Chief Secretary did not deny that there was a strong feeling among the Constabulary with regard to the provisions of the Bill dealing with the force.
    MR. J. MORLEYwas understood to say he did not make any statement on the point.
    MR. RENTOULsaid, that was what was acknowledged by the right hon. Gentleman—that that feeling existed. Well, considering the gravity of all these questions that had to be discussed, it was surely not too much to ask for the amount of time the Amendment asked for. Even that would not be enough fairly and fully to discuss all these questions, which were of such vital importance to the people of Ireland.
    Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 298; Noes 264.—(Division List, No. 182.)
    MR. CURZONsaid, he rose to move the omission of Sub-section (d). The procedure under this sub-section was much more drastic and intolerable than was the ease in the preceding sub-sections. Under it a paltry Parliamentary week at the fag-end of a Session was to be devoted to the discussion of measures which might very well occupy half a Session—nay, a whole Session—of Parliament if they were considered in the manner in which the House had usually considered questions of that magnitude. This sub-section of the Resolution was the repository of the changing opinions and the unredeemed pledges of the Government. It was the compartment in which they took refuge when their mind was in a state of flux, or after they had had an interview with the hon. Member for Kerry (Mr. Sexton). The most important matter dealt with in the sub-section was embodied in the Financial Clauses. What form these clauses would take by July 27 when they were to be closured it was impossible to say. It was possible that, just as the clauses which were first introduced had to be entirely changed by the revolt of one section of the Irish Party, another section of the Irish Party might have a similar effect on the new proposals. That would depend on whether the hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. J. E. Redmond) was able to apply his lash with anything like the skill and dexterity of the hon. Member for Kerry. At any rate, these clauses were introduced for the first time the other day. They had not been explained to the country, and many Members were ignorant of their full effect. They would certainly lead to friction between the two Parliaments; and, speaking from the point of view of an English Member, he believed they would constitute an intolerable tax and burden upon England and Scotland. They were the price which the people of this country were invited to pay for the privilege of having the heel of the hon. Member for Kerry planted on their necks. The sub-section also dealt with "new clauses being Government clauses." Were they to understand that no other new clauses were to be moved at all? Was

    583
    the prerogative of legislative addition to be entirely confined to the political geniuses who sat on the Treasury Bench? Was it not in the recollection of the House that Members sitting in different parts had been invited and encouraged and even commanded by the Chairman of Committees to postpone certain Amendments in which they took great interest on the ground that they could more properly be moved as new clauses? If all the new clauses were to be shut out, it would be act of mala fides to the Members who had brought them forward. The Schedules were also of importance. The first and second gave the names of the constituencies which were to return Members to the two Houses of the Irish Parliament, and the numbers of the Councillors and Members of Parliament who were to be so returned. He did not know whether the 2nd Schedule was still to be considered part of the Bill. It hung on Clause 9, and whether the latter was still in existence or was in a state of suspended animation—like Mahomet's coffin, half-way between heaven and earth—no one on the Front Bench opposite knew. Twice the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister had intervened in the Debate with a remark on Clause 9; but he (Mr. Curzon) ventured to say there was no man in the House who had any idea whether Clause 9 was one which the Government intended to adhere to, or one which they intended, under pressure from hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway, to slip away from and give up. These clauses, and the whole of the Schedules, two of which he had heard Irish Members say illustrated the incurable passion of a Radical Government for gerrymandering the constituencies—a passion which hitherto had only been curbed by the successful protest of another place—were to be disposed of in a single week. The 3rd and 4th Schedules he believed had been dropped, but the 5th and 6th remained; and they dealt with pensions of officers in the Civil Service, in the Royal Irish Constabulary, and in the Dublin Metropolitan Police. The first part of Schedule 6 dealt with the proposed disbanding of the Royal Irish Constabulary and the establishment of a new police force in its place. Was it not obvious that this was a question which concerned the whole future government and peace
    584
    of Ireland? It was a matter which affected the lives and properties and liberties of the constituents of numbers of gentlemen who sat in that House, and yet, coming as late as it did, it was highly probable that it would never meet with discussion at all. Then there was the 7th Schedule, which was a Reform Bill in itself—and finally there was the Preamble, that shadowy embodiment of the supremacy of this House which the Constitutional lawyers who sat opposite had assured them over and over again was to be the palladium of the rights and prerogatives of the Imperial Parliament. All these proposals, all these postponed clauses, the entire financial scheme, the Schedules, and the Preamble, which might well provide work for a Session of Parliament and material for many Bills, were to be crammed through the House of Commons in the inside of a Parliamentary week in much the same way as a man forced a charge of powder and shot by means of a ramrod down the muzzle of a gun. If the Resolution were carried, there would never have been a week so prolific in creation since the beginning of the world, which itself only took seven days to create. He asked whether this astounding method was not a reductio ad absurdum of legislation? If they were to pass these measures in a week, why not do it in a day, or in an hour? Why go in for a policy of enforced silence? Why not strangle the Opposition? Why gag it? Why not throttle it at once? If hon. Gentlemen wished to discredit and disparage and abrogate the privileges and prerogatives of the House, they could not find a better way to do it. Never before had such a procedure been adopted, and, to give the Government a last chance of a death-bed repentance, he begged to move this Amendment. He begged respectfully to offer to the Government this final fig leaf of decency with which they might cover their nakedness.
    Amendment proposed,
    To leave out the words—"(d.) The proceedings on the postponed Clauses, new Clauses, being Government Clauses, Schedules, and Preamble, not later than 10 p.m. on Thursday, 27th July; and after the Clauses, Schedules, and Preamble are disposed of, the Chairman shall forthwith report the Bill, as amended, to the House."—(Mr. Curzon.)
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    MR. W.E. GLADSTONE: These De-sates are simply repetitions of one another, mutatis mutandis—the words employed, it is true, are different, and fitted to the subject dealt with, but the principle is the same. We have proposed that a time should be allotted for the discussion of this Bill far greater than any ever given to any legislative measure. I do not dispute the contention of hon. Members opposite that the Bill is one transcending all other legislative measures in difficulty, complexity, and importance; but, in view of that fact, we have given, and we propose to give, a greater time than has ever before been given to a measure. But, so far from being contented with that proceeding, hon. Gentlemen opposite declare, on the contrary, that our demand is astounding. [A VOICE: Quite so.] We have fundamentally different ideas as to the spirit in which the Irish nation should be viewed—as to the treatment that this Bill requires, and as to the relation between it and the multitude of other Bills for other portions of the Empire which have given far larger powers, and which have never been supposed to require a tenth part of the discussion that this Bill is said to require. I was a little surprised that the hon. Member should have introduced the history of the creation into the discussion of this Bill, although that the volume of time which the Opposition would consume if unrestricted would equal the period of the creation is a proposition not much wider than the proposition which hon. Gentlemen have in their minds. But I observe that, to suit his purpose, the hon. Member enlarged the history of the creation a little beyond the strict historical fact, because he affirmed with just as much confidence and with just as reasonable confidence as that our proposition was astounding that the creation had extended over seven days. The hon. Member says we produced our new proposals with regard to finance under the pressure of some section of our Irish supporters. I will not ask the hon. Member what grounds he has for that assertion, because I know it is the privilege of those who sit around him to create assertions of that kind ad libitum in their own inner consciousness,
    586
    and disclaim altogether all reference to evidence or probability. I will tell the hon. Gentleman more than probably he knows on the subject: I believe the Motion towards this change of the financial plan did proceed from an Irish source. My hon. Friend the Member for Kerry (Mr. Sexton) in debate suggested that whereas the Government had proposed a plan apparently contemplating something like permanence, yet, considering that their knowledge of the facts might be greatly enlarged by experience and by a variety of other circumstances, he thought the adoption of a provisional plan and a large reduction in the terms we had proposed would be advisable. There is the terrible instance of the "administration of the lash" of which we have heard so much. I have made this confession, and I might add that when the hon. Member made this suggestion it was as absolute a novelty to the Government as to any gentleman sitting on that side of the House.
    MR. SEXTON: Hear, hear!
    MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: It seems to me that our proposal of a new plan in finance, our new provisions in finance at any rate, have caused considerable annoyance to the other side of the House. This is the consequence of the policy of making concessions. Well, Sir, the complaint at first was of the vast volume and complexity of the Bill. So, perceiving it was in our power in that important department to reduce the volume and the complexity, and to offer a much simpler plan to the House, we did that, with the result that there has been nothing but complaint upon complaint ever since. Those are the terms on which we are obliged to deal with the Opposition' throughout the whole proceeding from beginning to end. And notwithstanding that apparent dissatisfaction on their part, so far as our discussions have yet gone, though there have been plenty of complaints of alleged grievances, I have not yet found that there is much to be said against the plan we have proposed. But whatever else may be said it cannot with truth be said that this is a complex plan. The hon. Member says that the British taxpayer is to suffer severely. Well, he can raise that question with the greatest facility. He can propose to reduce the amount to be allocated to Ire-

    587
    land. So far as we are concerned, we have proposed a plan for drawing the financial questions together. We suggest an arragement we think fair, and we will do our very best to carry that arrangement; but it is open to everybody by a stroke of the pen merely, and not by puzzling their heads over the matter for a month, to alter fundamentally, or as much as they please, the proposal that we make. Then, as to the Schedules, the hon. Member has reverted to that most terrible word, that great acquisition to the English language for which, amongst many other benefits, the country is indebted to the Opposition—I mean the word "gerrymandering." The hon. Member in his accusation has shown that he has not the smallest perception of the ideas by which the framers of the Bill have been influenced. The Government hope that in a short time the arrangements respecting the composition of the Irish Legislature will be in the hands of that Legislature and that it will provide itself for the division of counties and the demarcation of boundaries. Then, as to the Civil Service, what a formidable question—how complex! It will present to you this simple problem—whether you will make certain allowances for 10, 11, or 12 years, according to the degree of your bounty and liberality, or of your thrift or extravagance? What difficulty can there be about deciding that matter? It appears to me that any man could make up his mind upon it in fewer minutes than it took the hon. Member to make his interesting speech. The Police Schedule will be mainly settled by the Police Clause, which is to be disposed of in a different division of the Bill. I believe that I have gone over all the points raised by the hon. Gentleman with the exception of his complaint as to the new clauses. Well, Sir, that is not a very large complaint. I am not sure whether there is an exact precedent for the course, but I believe we are acting on the principle which is well understood in other matters, that preference is given in the Business of the House to the discussion of the proposals of the Government. I believe I have dealt fairly with the questions mentioned by the hon. Member. The distribution of the various groups of clauses and subjects is as fair and equitable a distribution as the Government can devise. The difference between our-
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    selves and the Opposition is simply the difference which has been apparent in the Debates on 70 or 80 of the subjects out of the 84 on which we have divided. We have heard expressions and re-expressions and re-expressions upon that of fixed and determined views with regard to the people of Ireland and their competence and integrity, and as to the mode in which they should be treated by the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It is in the belief that we should get no further than we have got to-day if we were to extend the limit fixed for these discussions that we feel obliged to say "no" to the Amendment.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Only a very brief space remains for me to deal with the answer—if answer it can be called—which the right hon. Gentleman opposite has given to my hon. Friend on this Bench. I sometimes wonder, when I listen to the right hon. Gentleman, whether he is really convinced by the arguments he brings forward. The proposition of the hon. Member is not whether we take a right view of the Irish character or a wrong view; the question is not one general view on this Bill, but it is simply this: whether rive Parliamentary days, which include half of Friday and half of Thursday, are enough in which to discuss the future fate and general prospects of the Royal Irish Constabulary, and to deal with the whole question of the distribution of seats in Ireland and discuss the new clauses which Members on this side have been invited to put down, and, above all, to deal for the first time with the whole financial plan of the Government. That is the proposition the right hon. Gentleman had to defend, and how has he defended it? He has attacked my hon. Friend (Mr. Curzon) for having used the expression "gerrymandering." That, no doubt, is a very bad word for a very bad thing. But the Opposition are the people who invented the word, the Government are the people who invented the thing, and I would venture to point out to the Government that of the two offences that have been committed that of producing the thing for which a new name had to be found is worse than the act of finding that new name itself. I can promise the right hon. Gentleman that, if he and his Colleagues will refrain in the future from doing anything that

    589
    deserved this Transatlantic description, my hon. Friend will discard the use of the word and revert to those classical expressions which fall more naturally from his lips. Now, I wish to raise one more question on the speech of the right hon. Gentleman. He said, "We have as yet heard no objection to our new Financial Clauses." Well, of course, he has heard none, because we have never had an opportunity of making objection, and I think it very likely that he will never hear any objection, because he does not mean to give us the opportunity of raising it. Of course, if the right hon. Gentleman is going to adopt these methods of procedure he may flatter himself that his scheme is beyond criticism. If you never allow your scheme to be criticised it is impossible to prove whether objections are or are not well-founded. The right hon. Gentleman has given us a history of the way in which the Member for Kerry (Mr. Sexton) suggested a course which the Government had never thought of before and which the Government jumped at—putting something in the Bill' to please the Opposition. That was a very interesting biographical history, but it had nothing to do with this Amendment.
    MR. W.E. GLADSTONE: Why were we charged with following the dictation of the Irish Members if the subject was not relevant?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: My hon. Friend, in half a sentence, made a charge which it appears was not wholly without foundation, but I do not know that that justified the right hon. Gentleman in devoting at least one-third of his speech with this historical account of the tergiversations of the Government. But the real point is this: On the Second Reading of the Bill we had one plan, and we endeavoured to the best of our ability to discuss it. Now we have another plan, and have never had a Second Reading discussion on it. The plan is totally new, and there has been no opportunity to discuss it; and yet the right hon. Gentleman proposes that it should be disposed of, together with other important subjects, in the limited space of five days. Surely such an arrangement is absurd. I do not think I could add anything which would more clearly bring before the mind of any im-
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    partial critic the necessity for further discussion to enable these proposals to be freely examined and a fair verdict given upon them in this House.
    Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 300; Noes 267.—(Division List, No. 183.)
    Main Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 299; Noes 267.—(Division List, No. 184.)
    Ordered, That the Proceedings in Committee on the Government of Ireland Bill, unless previously disposed of, shall at the times hereinafter mentioned be brought to a conclusion in the manner hereinafter mentioned:—

    (a) The proceedings on the Clauses 5 to 8, both inclusive, not later than 10 p.m. on Thursday 6th July;

    (b) The proceedings on Clauses 9 to 26, both inclusive, not later than 10 p.m. on Thursday 13th July;

    (c) The proceedings on Clauses 27 to 40, both inclusive, not later than 10 p.m. on Thursday 20th July;

    (d) The proceedings on the postponed Clauses, new Clauses, being Government Clauses, Schedules, and Preamble, not later than 10 p.m. on Thursday 27th July; and, after the Clauses, Schedules, and Preamble are disposed of, the Chairman shall forthwith report the Bill, as amended, to the House:

    Then at the said appointed times the Chairman shall put forthwith the Question or Questions on any Amendment or Motion already proposed from the Chair. He shall next proceed, unless and until Progress be moved as hereinafter provided, successively to put forthwith the following Questions:—That any Clause or Schedule then under consideration, and any of the said Clauses or Schedules not already disposed of, stand part of, or be added to, the Bill;
    After the passing of this Order no dilatory Motion, nor Motion to postpone a Clause, shall be received unless moved by a Minister in charge of the Bill, and the Question on any such Motion shall be put forthwith:
    If Progress be reported the Chairman shall put this Order in force in any subsequent sitting of the Committee:
    Proceedings under this Order shall not be interrupted under the provisions of any Standing Order relating to the sittings of the House.
    It being after Seven of the clock, Mr. Speaker suspended the Sitting until Nine of the clock.

EVENING SITTING.
  ORDERS OF THE DAY.

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

    INDIAN OPIUM REVENUE.
    RESOLUTION.
    MR. WEBB*MR. WEBB (Waterford, W.) rose to call attention to the growth, manufacture, and sale of opium in India for purposes of revenue, and to move—
    "That having regard to the opinion expressed by the Vote of this House on the 10th April, 1891, that the system by which the Indian Opium Revenue is raised is morally indefensible, and which urged the Indian Government to give practical effect to that opinion by ceasing to grant licences and by taking measures to arrest the transit of Malwa opium through British territory, and, recognising that the people of India ought not to be called upon to bear the cost involved in this change of policy, that oppressive taxation, and the stoppage of expenditure necessary for the welfare and progress of the Indian people must be avoided, this House is of opinion that a Royal Commission should be appointed to inquire, both in India and in this country, and to report as to (1) what retrenchments and reforms can be effected in the Military and Civil expenditure of India; (2) by what means Indian resources can be best developed: (3) and what, if any, temporary assistance from the British Exchequer would be required in order to meet any deficit of revenue which would be occasioned by the suppression of the opium traffic."
    Sir, it is a source of satisfaction to me that the chances of the Ballot have brought me the privilege of opening a discussion and moving a Resolution upon the Opium Question. It is a question upon which I have long held a sincere and deep convictions; but my experience of the House of Commons has taught me that sincere and deep convictions count for little in Parliament unless accompanied by knowledge of one's subject. What I have to advance will not be of the same weight as that which will be advanced by those who will follow me, and I am glad to know that the hon. Baronet the Member for Barnard Castle will second this Motion, for he has studied the subject for many years, and will be able to supply the deficiencies of my statement of the case. There are few subjects which more engage the attention of thoughtful and philanthropic people outside the House of Commons than this does. Anyone who examines the newspapers will know the interest there is regarding it. We have only to notice the large number of Petitions that have been presented with regard to it to be also assured on the subject. We are, moreover, aware that there are several small periodicals published monthly, or at
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    greater intervals, entirely devoted to the question. There cannot be any doubt that the discussion and Division which took place here now over two years ago had a great deal to do with stimulating interest in the subject, and as the Motion then carried in this House by 160 votes against 130 was a very important turning point in the consideration of the question, I will take the liberty of reading it:—
    "This House is of opinion that the system by which the Indian opium revenue is raised is morally indefensible, and would urge upon the Indian Government that they should cease to grant licences for the cultivation of the poppy, and for the sale of opium in British India except to supply the drug for medical purposes, and that they should at the same time take measures to arrest the transit of opium through British territory."
    This Resolution was passed on the 10th April, 1891. The subject was then raised to a position which it had never before occupied, and it would be a great misfortune if this evening we went back on the opinion then expressed. Now, I know that, with regard to this and other questions, it is often urged that those who take them up are not thoroughly practical men—that instead of listening to the opinions of people in this country, enthusiasts as they are called, we should rather regard the opinions of those on the spot—officials and others who are supposed to have better opportunities of studying the question. I am glad, however, to know and believe, with regard to this opium question, that we have a large number of officials with us. At the same time, I am not at all inclined to admit that officials who may be most closely connected with a system are themselves best able to judge regarding the right or wrong of it. It is much to be regretted that those who have the best opportunities of judging have always combined to maintain systems which mankind have afterwards decided to be morally wrong, and worthy only to be swept away. It was so regarding slavery in America, regarding the Contagious Diseases Acts in this country, and the Cantonments Acts in India, which were supported almost to a man by those who had to do with their administration. I regret to have to believe that our experience may be similar on this question. But the fact that many who may be supposed to know more of the question take an

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    opposite view from us who are opposed to it, must not be taken as a strong argument. Our conceptions of duty as regards India and the other countries under our sway have much deepened of late years, partly owing to the closer connection between the Empire and the Dependencies, but more to the system by which appointments are now made by examination rather than favour, and to the conditions by which all classes of the community are now interested through officials, friends, and others in every portion of the Empire. I, for myself, would like to say, parenthetically—although it has not exactly to do with the subject—that one reason why I hold such very strong opinions regarding the desirability of a change of Government in my own country—Ireland—is that I believe that that change would bring about a deeper and truer feeling of responsibility in my country towards other parts of the Empire—that feeling of responsibility which I think we should all entertain and desire to cultivate. The tone of feeling in these days regarding our great Dependencies is more wholesome than it used to be. In my younger days many said that we had no business in India at all, and that, seeing that we had often extended our power by wrong means, the sooner we withdrew from this responsibility the better. I do not know that in any portion of society there is that feeling at present. The conviction is that, however we may have attained power, we are bound, where we possess it, to exercise it to the best of our ability, for the good of all, and especially not to use it for our own advantage, but for the advantage of the countries which we govern. We must be struck at the outset, in our examination of this Opium Question, with the great increase which has taken place in the life time of many of us, but especially of late years, in this trade in opium. It is said by Mr. M'Culloch that in the first 10 years of the present century the exports of opium from India—to China chiefly—only amounted to 2,500 chests, having a value of £250,000. By 1851 the trade had increased to 53,000 chests, value £5,459,000; by 1861 to 59,000 chests, value £10,184,000; and by 1871 to 89,000 chests, value £11,790,000. It appeared to reach its
    594
    fullest expansion between 1876–80, when it was about 102,000 chests, having a value of £12,640,000. Nearly all this export was to China. Since that period it has not tended to increase, in consequence of the greater cultivation of the poppy in China itself. At the outset of this question, we are also confronted with the statement that, after all, opium is not worse than alcoholic liquors, in fact that the evils are not so great from opium as from drink, and that we should rather direct attention to the restriction of the drink traffic than to the restriction of the opium traffic. On this point I would say that I think that those people who are paying the most attention to the evils of the opium traffic are the very people who are also already trying to restrict the evils of the drink traffic. There is, however, this great difference between the drink traffic and the opium traffic: that drink is believed by most people to be not an evil in itself. I do not know what the proportion is, but certainly I think that out of 100 people who drink there are 99 who do so in moderation and suffer no harm. The use of alcohol in one form or another is considered beneficial, if not necessary, by the overwhelming majority of civilised mankind. I do not myself assent to this. I am but stating the fact as to what the opinion is. With regard to opium it is entirely different; for, so far as my researches have gone, I think that we may reverse the proportions. The vast mass of those who take it are led on to indulge in it to too great an extent. In addition, there is this remarkable difference between the case of alcohol and that of opium: that whereas alcohol is consumed in this country, and the sale of it is arranged (or controllable) entirely by the people, who have the power to restrict it if they wish, opium is consumed in China and in India, where the people, however much they may wish to restrict the traffic by law, have not the power to do so. It is stated by others that, though opium is deleterious to Europeans, it is not to the natives. This was strongly urged in the Debate in 1891, when it was said—
    "'Opium is not deleterious if taken in reasonable moderation;' 'it is not the case that opium leads to crime;' 'opium is perfectly harmless if taken in moderation, and it is taken by many classes in Western India without any mischief whatever, or without anybody being

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    acquainted with the fact that it is taken at all. We have heard evidence to-night that it is taken by the most stalwart and enduring races in Western India and in Eastern India,"
    and so forth, and so forth. This is entirely against the weight of medical missionary and native evidence. It was also, in the course of the Debate, asserted that opinion was necessary for guarding off malaria; but the curious fact stands undisputed that opium in India, and also in China, is most used in districts which are not malarious, and not in districts which are. I understand that in one of the most malarious districts of all—the delta of the Irawaddy—it is quite forbidden. These statements about opium not being deleterious are traversed by a cloud of witnesses, but it would be wasting your time if I were to bring forward all the extracts I have among my notes. I hope that those who have been kind enough to direct me to sources of information on this matter will not take it unkindly if I do not make reference to all of them. There are, however, two pieces of evidence on this subject which I would like to lay before the House. One is a remarkable declaration, signed by some of the most eminent British physicians, Sir Benjamin Brodie and several others—I am not sure of the date, but it was before 1858. They said—
    "However valuable opium may be when employed as an article of medicine it is impossible for anyone who is acquainted with the subject to doubt that the habitual use of it is productive of the most pernicious consequences, destroying the healthy action of the digestive organs, weakening the powers of the mind as well as those of the body, and rendering the individual who indulges himself in it a worse than useless member of society."
    The other piece of evidence on this subject was published last year. It is a declaration signed by no fewer than 5,000 of the Medical Profession in Great Britain and Ireland regarding opium. It also received the approval of many of the profession in India.
    "We, the undersigned members of the Medical Profession, are of opinion, first, that the habit of opium-smoking or of opium-eating is morally and physically debasing; second, that the unrestrained sale of such a drug as opium is immediately associated with many and grave dangers to the well-being of the people of India; third, that the drug (opium), ought in India, as in England, to be classed and sold as a poison, and be purchaseable from chemists only; fourth, that the Government of India should prohibit the growth of the poppy and the manufacture and sale of opium, except as required for medical purposes."
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    I could give plenty more evidence to a similar effect, including a petition which was handed to me to-day signed by a number of Indian medical gentlemen who have taken their degrees in the United Kingdom. When it is urged by some that opium is not an evil, I think that the attitude of the Government concerning it should be enough to prove the contrary, for the Government does not directly support or advocate the use of opium, but always tries to show that within the limits of its powers it is always doing its best to curtail the use. Our Indian policy of making money out of the growth and sale of this drug has been bad enough, but it is nothing in comparison with the iniquity of our action in forcing it on the Chinese and introducing it into Burmah. I doubt whether a greater or more cowardly crime was ever committed by one nation against another than was committed by us in our wars with China to force this drug upon her. The demoralisation of a people is worse than their decimation. The dead are at least at rest. But a demoralising habit may be ever-increasing in its influence for evil. I was particularly struck with an expression of opinion on this subject by the First Lord of the Treasury.
    "The evil may be put down at last, but think of the human misery and sin that have been engendered in the interval caused by delay."
    I know that there is an effort on the part of some writers to make out that our wars in China had nothing to do with opium. It is an extraordinary statement. It reminds me of a jeu d'esprit I read some time ago by Archbishop Whateley, to prove that Napoleon never lived. He argued that it was impossible that any man could have acted as Napoleon was said to have acted, and that, therefore, there could have been no Napoleon. The same might be said with regard to our wars with China—that it is so improbable that we should ever wage wars to force the sale of opium on a people that they could never have been waged at all. No one can read without a feeling of the deepest disgust and indignation the history of the inception of these proceedings in 1840. The hon. Member for Longford (Mr. Justin M'Carthy), in his History of Our Own Times, says—

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    "In the beginning and very origin of the quarrel we were distinctly in the wrong. We asserted, or at least acted on the assertion, of a claim so unreasonable and even monstrous that it never could have been made upon any nation strong enough to render its assertion a matter of serious responsibility. … All traffic in opium was strictly forbidden by the Government and laws of China, yet our English traders carried on a brisk and profitable trade in the forbidden article."
    The morale of the question is clearly set forth in the following passage from a letter of the Chinese Commissioner Lin to her present Majesty in 1893—
    "How, then, can you benefit by means of an article injurious to man, and without compunction of conscience seek thus after gain? Let us suppose that individuals of another nation were to take opium to the English country to sell, and were to seduce your people to purchase and to smoke it. You, the Sovereign of your honourable Kingdom, would also be vastly incensed, and with painful anxiety would you also exterminate it. …Do these calamities end with the termination of a solitary life?"
    Regarding a later opium war, General Gordon wrote as follows:—
    "I also say that it is not fair to force anything on your neighbour; and, therefore, morally it is wrong, even if the thing were eggs. Further, I say that our thrusting this opium on China caused the wars with China which shook the prestige of the Pekin Government, and the outcome of these wars of 1842 was the Taeping Rebellion, with its death of 13,000,000.… China is the only nation in the world which is forced to take a thing which she does not want."
    In Westminster Abbey there is a monument to Sir Herbert Edwards, placed there by the Indian Secretary of State in Council, and bearing testimony to the value of his services. He was the personal friend of Sir Henry Lawrence and other noble men to whom our Indian Empire owes so much. After the Indian Mutiny, in 1857, he wrote a paper in which he pointed out what he believed were the national sins which had drawn down that national chastisement. After naming several, he says—
    "I would name the connection of the Indian Government with the opium trade. … No theories can get rid of the following serious facts:—That India grows opium for China; that opium is ruining the Chinese people; that wherever grown in India Government is an interested party in it; that in Bengal it is actually grown for Government, and for no one else."
    On 8th April, 1840, the present First Lord of the Treasury delivered a speech in this House upon the same question.
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    He is reported in Hansard to have said—
    "It was of importance to show that the Government of China, before it had resorted to violent measures to suppress the opium trade, had exhibited great moderation in the measures which it had adopted, and that by appeals to individuals and their agents, by serious warnings, by the constant confiscation of the opium found in the possession of natives, and, in a word, by every means that could be devised, it had attempted to prove the sincerity of its endeavours to put an end to that illegal traffic."
    It would be impossible fully to picture the horrors of those shameful opium wars. Never was the British flag so disgraced. Mr. John Bright said with regard to them—
    "Looking back upon our transactions with China during the last few years, I believe nothing more vicious can be found in our history. No page in our annals is more full of humiliation, because full of crime, than that on which is recorded our transactions with China; and because I feel this—because I want the Government to live and prosper—because I wish this House to stand in honour before the country—because I wish the country to hold a position of repute and morality before the world, therefore it is I warn the Government and this House against proceeding with a policy which no man here can say in his conscience is not a policy conducted in defiance of the laws of Heaven and those principles of justice without which human society itself cannot be held together."
    We know that the second Chinese War led to the retirement of Mr. Bright and Mr. Cobden for a time from Parliament. But why, it may be asked, dwell on these events now and rake up old memories? A responsible Minister has declared that in these days this country would not expend £1 in powder and shot, or lose the life of a single soldier, in an attempt to force opium upon the Chinese. It is not, however, sufficient to be sentimental over the past. We must try to amend our evil-doing—repentance to be sincere must be practical. We have encouraged and fixed a terrible evil upon the Chinese people. We have even driven them to the cultivation of the poppy themselves. It is not now enough that we permit them to fix as heavy a duty upon the imported as upon the native-grown article. The Chinese, in making Treaties with other Powers—with the United States, with Brazil, and with Russia—have stipulated against the introduction of opium by the citizens of those countries, and they have in the words of one of their diplomatists

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    "Recognised the arrangement as being in accordance with the precepts of the Christian religion."
    We, who Lave done the Chinese such irreparable injury in the past, should be prepared to concur in a similar arrangement. The uselessness of the Chinese seriously setting about the suppression of the trade in native opium so long as the entry of foreign opium is permitted is strikingly set forth in the following extract from the current number of The Church Missionary Intelligence:—
    "The Rev. J. S. Collins, when calling on one of the Kien-Ning City Mandarins, carefully explained the plan of suppression by means of raising the tax on imported opium; but he smiled, and said that, no matter how high the tax was, if the people wanted it some way would be found of smuggling opium into China. No one who knew the bribery and corruption that existed at the local Customs could doubt this. He said most emphatically, 'England must move first, England must move first,' and then added, with a meaning smile, 'But your Queen would not be willing to allow so profitable a trade to be stopped;' neither would he believe a word in contradiction of that kind.…The Mandarin in question is a very active man, and neither smokes opium himself nor allows anyone among his retinue to smoke it."
    The Mandarin informed Mr. Collins that no matter what the Chinese Authorities did to protect their people some way would be found to smuggle the opium into China unless the Indian Government co-operated with them. On this point I am reminded that, having encouraged and extended the use of opium in Burmah, we are now making efforts to restrict its use as far as possible to Chinese and other foreigners. But all experience proves that so long as the sale is at all permitted it will be impossible to restrict the use of the drug to any one section of the community. During a residence in Australia many years ago I witnessed the gradual destruction of the native population mainly through drink, although its direct sale to them was forbidden under heavy penalties. As regards the commercial aspect of this question, it must be remembered that the trade in opium has interfered with more legitimate articles of commerce. Our general trade with China has to a great extent stagnated, whilst that with Japan (where we are forbidden to introduce the drug) is of an expansive character. The acreage under the poppy in India implies the restriction of the growth of corn, and
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    consequently a greater liability to famine. Large economies are said to be possible in Indian finance; but under no circumstances must we salve our conscience at the expense of our Indian fellow-subjects, either by restricting grants for works and education or by imposing heavier burdens. If no other method of abating this evil is possible we must be prepared to put our hands in our pockets. It would be a fatal mistake to suppose that by dwelling on the virtues, heroism, and self-abnegation of others we thereby in some measure take to ourselves such characteristics.
    "Is it right.
    Whilst our unnumbered brethren toiled and bled,
    That we should dream away the entrusted hours
    On rose-leaf beds, pampering the coward heart
    With feelings all too delicate for use?"
    If other times made sacrifices we should make them now. The whole world has-been filled with admiration at the heroic death of a distinguished sailor—Admiral Tryon. But we forget that in the course of our lives we have just as great opportunities of showing heroism as those who are privileged to die such deaths. We are amply rich enough in this country to be able to make some sacrifice of money in this matter. No country ever before rolled up wealth as we have rolled it up. Even in these days of so-called depression the exports and imports of the United Kingdom have increased by £29,000,000 within the past four years. According to Mr. Mulhall, the average income per inhabitant of the United Kingdom has nearly doubled within the 50 years ending 1889, having risen from £19·2 in 1840 to £33·6 in 1889. Mr. Giffen estimates that the United Kingdom, in the 20 years between 1865 and 1885, saved £3,924,000,000, or £196,000,000 per annum. The Income Tax, which at its-first levy produced £700,000, now returns £2,245,000 per 1d. in the £1. In the words of the late Chancellor of the Exchequer—
    "There is a mighty trade going on, there is wealth being rolled up, wealth of which no public statistics exist, but which is, nevertheless, accumulating and adding to the capital of the country."
    We are then, surely, rich enough to be honest. We may rest assured that if Her Majesty's Government will go boldly forward towards the suppression

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    of this baneful trade it will be gladly supported by the better feeling of the Empire at large. I have necessarily dwelt upon certain phases only of the question. I have no desire to minimise the efforts put forth by the Government of late years to diminish and circumscribe this great evil. I have already occupied too much of your time, and must now leave it to others to complete the case for the Resolution which I now move.
    SIR JOSEPH PEASE: I have great pleasure in seconding the Motion which has been so ably moved by my hon. Friend the Member for West Waterford, with whom I have had the pleasure of working on this subject for many years. We attack to-day, as we have attacked before, the entire revenue derived by India from opium. We attacked it in all its three branches—in respect to the foreign trade with China, which is the most important branch, in respect to the home trade, which is comparatively insignificant, in respect, to the transit duty charge. We hold that this revenue cannot be defended; that it is earned by pandering to the lowest form of sensual indulgence; that it is earned in violation of all the principles of morality, and all the dictates of Christianity. I do not deny that there are men who take opium in larger or smaller quantities whose bodily constitution, whose food and other circumstances, enable them to take it with comparative impunity. But by far the largest portion of the trade is an immoral trade, because, as I have said, it panders to the lowest form of vice. Looking at the figures, I find the highest Revenue ever earned by India was in 1880–1, when it was 8,451,382 in tens of rupees. The Bengal Opium Revenue was in that year 5,926,924 in tens of rupees, and the transit duty was 2,524,458 in tens of rupees. The Estimate of 1892–3 shows that this Revenue has guadually gone away from the Indian Government. The total Revenue for 1892–93 is put down at 5,399,800 in tens of rupees. The amount for Bengal was 3,571,000 in tens of rupees, and the amount of transit duty 1,747,000 in tens of rupees. It will be seen that the total Revenue has been going lower and lower, being roughly 3,000,000 in tens of rupees less in 1892–3 than in 1880–81. The net Budget Estimate for 1893–4 is said to be
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    5,061,100 in tens of rupees. The probable amount for Bengal was 3,460,000 in tens of rupees, and Bombay 1,600,000 in tens of rupees. The whole Revenue will thus be, in pounds sterling, £3,374,000. [Mr. W. E. GLADSTONE was here understood to express dissent.] I do not think my right hon. Friend at the head of the Government will find these figures inaccurate. Then, the Indian Blue Book shows that nearly the whole sale of this opium is to China and the Straits Settlements. In 1879–80, when it was at the highest point, the Chinese trade was 94,835 chests; in 1886–7 it was 83,124 chests; and in 1889–90 it was 70,102 chests. As regards the Straits Settlements, it was at its highest point in 1890–1, when it was 20,328 chests; and at its lowest in 1883–4, when it was 10,733 chests. It is from the Chinese and the Straits Settlements opium trade mainly, that the Indian Revenue is derived. The home consumption was small in 1889–90, being 6,320 chests. The average cost price per chest was about 427 in tens of rupees. Here I may say that whilst, at one time, the Indian officers were endeavouring in every possible way to stimulate this trade, a change has come over the spirit of their dream, for they know the harm it does to the population. I find, from the Blue Book, in the Correspondence issued by Lord Cross, that there is hardly a single Representative of the Government in India but who is doing his best to keep the trade in bounds so far as India is concerned. We, therefore, attack the China trade as far the most important, though, of course, we are anxious to do away with the home trade as well. The battle has been a long one. In 1840 Lord Shaftesbury attacked the opium trade in the House of Commons. Had he proceeded further, and pressed the matter more, he might have saved India much disgrace and many of us to-day great trouble. Recently we fought for the ratification of the Convention of Chefoo. Unfortunately, the Article which would have given the Chinese complete control of the Li-kin duties was refused. Lord Salisbury stated in the House of Lords that if we accepted the Convention as arranged by Sir Thomas Wade we should reverse all our policy with regard to the drug. It was only after nine years' fighting in this House—from 1876 to 1885—that

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    Lord Granville arranged a compromise so as to allow China to levy Li-kin duties of 80 taels per chest. Then our India-China trade began to fall away from 8,451,000 in tens of rupees in 1880 to 5,060,000 in tens of rupees in 1893—a difference of 3,391,000. Now, the House knows very well that we want no new laws in India on this subject. The position of the Indian Government is a position which is terribly unique. The Indian Government licenses every poppy plant that is grown; the Indian Government subsidises the whole of the cultivators of the crop; they frequently have as much as £2,000,000 out in subsidies on the crop. The Indian Government are the people who were responsible for this. They are the people who license and who decree more or less growth according to the exigencies of the trade. It is a position which, as I have said, is perfectly unique. They subsidise the grower, they buy the crop, they manufacture the drug, and they sell it by auction at Calcutta. This is the position of a professing Christian nation. We do license public-houses, but we do not carry on a trade in public-houses. We are not the manufacturers of all the whisky used in this country; and, if we were, we should hesitate before trying to force our whisky crop according to the exigencies of the trade. As a moral and as a Christian nation, we have no right to trade in that which does others harm, and which is one of the greatest causes of misery to the human race. That is the simple point I endeavour to make. The hon. Member for the Kingston Division says if I convince him of the moral wrong of the traffic he will vote with me. I do not know whether I shall be able to succeed. [Mr. CURZON: No!] But I have convinced already a great many people that it is a moral wrong. It is a moral wrong, because the trade is merely a trade for money. No man can be found who says we are carrying it on for the good of the people of India. Except for the purposes of gain we should not carry it on, and we make that gain at the expense of our neighbours. We have not to ask the people of India whether they like it, but whether we are justified in making it and selling it to them, or in producing that which causes so much misery in the world. One of the Predecessors of the
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    Under Secretary of State for India declared that no man had got up on that Front Bench to defend this question on moral grounds. This has been a long and steady fight. It has been a soldier's battle against the authorities of India. No one but those engaged in the Indian opium trade have said a word in its favour. The Indian officials have been against us; but the moral and religious feeling of the world has been with us. The Churches are with us and the Bishops are with us, and we have won our battle by the force of the feeling of the people of the country. The last Parliament practically, by a majority of 30, declared this trade to be an immoral trade. Sir James Fergusson said not a soldier or a sovereign of English money should again be used to coerce China, and the late Mr. Smith told us that the policy of the Government had been greatly to reduce the acreage of the crop, and that that policy would be continued. My hon. Friend opposite, whose courtesy on these matters is well known, gave me a little while ago the figures relating to the opium crop, showing that that policy has been acted upon. The 500,000 acres under poppy cultivation has been reduced this year to 467,000 acres, or at the rate of 7½ per cent. on the year. The 57,000 chests offered for sale has also been reduced to 54,000, which is about the same ratio. This shows that the late Mr. Smith, the Government, and the authorities thought this an immoral trade, and that it ought to be discouraged. The Amendment my right hon. Friend proposes to move tonight does not so one whit further than that. Lord Cross, when Secretary of State for India, carried out certainly two important reforms. He advised that smoking opium should not be allowed on the premises where it was sold, and that the clause which levied a fine in the Bombay licence where the minimum quantity was not sold should be repealed. And this Government only the other day has put down its foot at last in Burmah, and declared that the use of opium should be abolished in both Lower and Upper Burmah, except to licensed smokers, and that there should be no new licences to the Burmese. The Government have thus said that the trade is immoral in Burmah, and can any hon. Member say that that which is immoral in Burmah is moral on

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    the other side of the Bay of Bengal? If the Government come to the conclusion that it is unnecessary for the people of Burmah they cannot but come to the conclusion that it is necessary for the people of India. This is a curious problem altogether, and the more one looks at it the more curious it becomes. In Burmah the Government has put down by a few sweeping sentences, the smoking of opium. What is the clause? The two opening sentences of the Government Proclamation, dated Rangoon, the 11th March, 1893, run as follows:—
    "The Government has decided, after consultation with its officers, and with its priests and most respectable persons, to prohibit the possession or use of opium in any form by Burmans in Lower Burmah, just as in Upper Burmah. The use of opium is condemned by the Buddhist religion; and the Government, believing the condemnation to be right, intends that the use of opium by persons of the Burmese race shall for ever cease."
    Has it come to this—that we have to quote from the dictates of Buddha or any other heathen philosopher? Has Christianity nothing to do with the question? It seems to me it has a great deal to do with it, and whilst we are talking about Buddha and the Burmese religion, is it not well to ask how about Christianity? What does Scripture say? "Lead us not into temptation," and "If meat maketh thy brother to stumble, destroy not him with thy meat for whom Christ died." But now I come to another point of the question. In the Division on the Resolution which I moved in this House on the 10th April, 1891, I had the honour of the support of Mr. Acland, the Vice President of the Council, Mr. Asquith, the Home Secretary, Mr. Mundella, the President of the Board of Trade, Mr. J. Morley, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Mr. Arnold Morley, the Postmaster General, Mr. H. H. Fowler, the President of the Local Government Board, Mr. Asher, the Solicitor General for Scotland, Mr. Burt, the Vice President of the Board of Trade, Sir W. Foster, the Secretary to the Local Government Board, Sir E. Grey, Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Mr. M'Arthur, Junior Lord of the Treasury, Sir C. Russell, Attorney General, Mr. H. Gladstone, Under Secretary of State for the Home Department, Mr. Seale-Hayne, Paymaster General, Mr. Marjoribanks,
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    Patronage Secretary, Mr. R. C. Spencer, Vice Chamberlain; and Mr. H. Gardner, President of the Board of Agriculture, wrote that illness alone prevented his attending and voting in favour of the Resolution. I ask now these right hon. and hon. Gentlemen whether having voted for that Resolution they did not declare, in effect, that this trade was one which was morally indefensible—are they now prepared to vote for the Resolution of my hon. Friend? Are they going to say to-night that it is sufficient that this great question of the prohibition of the manufacture and sale of opium should be referred to a Commission; whether it is to be prohibited in British India? If they thought it immoral two years ago, surely it is not made moral by the lapse of time. If they were right in voting then, surely they will vote with me tonight. They cannot possibly vote for the Amendment, which proposes to leave a question of morality to a Royal Commission. If the Amendment is amended and the ultimate disestablishment of the poppy in India was agreed upon, I will gladly give such time as is reasonable for the carrying of it into effect, looking to the finances of India and the somewhat difficult position the Government of India are in owing to the great poverty of the people. You cannot tax the people of India more than they are taxed now. Thanks to right hon. Gentlemen opposite and the policy stated by the late Mr. Smith, the acreage of the poppy cultivation has decreased; smoking is prohibited in the places of sale; the quantity sold is reduced; the clause which levied a fine in the Bombay licence where the minimum quantity was not sold has been repealed; the prohibition in Burmah is absolute. This House many years ago, in 1847, declared that
    "The demoralising influences of the opium trade are incontestable and inseparable from its existence."
    If then, and in 1891, the House approved the substantive question that the system by which the opium revenue is raised is morally indefensible, where, then, is the defence? Are the Burmese so different to the Chinese, or to the natives of Northern India, that that which is a curse in one part of our Indian Empire is a blessing in another? Can that which is to be decreased be a blessing? These are the reasons why I cannot accept, and

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    why my friends cannot accept, the Amendment which is proposed. Now. Sir, I want to give the House the opinion of Indian officials as collected from Lord Cross's Blue Book of 1892, and from the Indian Authorities. On the previous occasion I quoted authorities of a more or less religious and philanthropic character; but to-night, in respect to the Indian trade, I will give a few quotations entirely from the mouths of Indian officials themselves. As far back as 1817 the Directors of the East India Company, in a Despatch to Lord Cornwallis, said—
    "The sentiment expressed in our Despatch of the 18th September, 1816, will have prepared you to expect our approbation of the measures adopted by you for the purpose of supplying from the Government Stores a quantity of opium for the internal consumption of the country. We wish it, at the same time, to be clearly understood that our sanction is given to these measures not with a view to the revenue they may yield, but in the hope that they will tend to restrain the use of this pernicious drug, and that the regulations for the internal sale of it will be so framed as to prevent its introduction into districts where it is not used, and to limit its consumption in other places as nearly as possible to what may be absolutely necessary. Were it possible to prevent the use of the drug altogether, except for the purposes of medicine, we would gladly do it in compassion to mankind."
    Again, when a proposal was made by the Board of Revenue that the cultivation of the poppy should be introduced into the Bombay Presidency, it was resisted by the Government of Bombay in the following strong language:—
    "The Government consider there are very strong objections to the introduction of an industry so demoralising in its tendency as opium cultivation and manufacture into a Province where at present it is unknown, and, so far as His Excellency in Council is aware, not asked for by the people. If opium cultivation were allowed in Scinde it could not with consistency be prohibited in the rest of the Presidency. It has already been tried at Guzarat, and the result was widespread corruption and demoralisation. At present the consumption of opium in this Presidency is very limited; but if the cultivation of opium and manufacture of opium were permitted, every village might have its opium shop, and every cultivator might contract the habit of eating a drug which is said to degrade and demoralise those who become addicted to it. On the ground of public morality, therefore, His Excellency, the Governor in Council, would strongly, deprecate the grant of permission to cultivate the poppy in Scinde or in any other part of this Presidency."
    Now, Sir, let us look at some of the authorities whose opinions are stated
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    in Lord Cross's Blue Book. What did these gentlemen say. In Assam, Mr. F. C. Dankes stated—
    "In regard to licences for the sale of narcotic drugs, I am to point out that while it is true that the number of shops for the sale of narcotic drugs rose between the years 1879–80 and 1888–9, yet the numbers for the first four years have been almost constant, and that the number of such shops was reduced to 279 for the year 1890–91."
    Mr. J. J. S. Briberg, also speaking in regard to Assam, said—
    "These shops must be kept down to the smallest number consistent with the absence of inducements to smuggle, and must be still further reduced as opportunity offers."
    Mr. C. A. Galton, of Madras, says—
    "A perusal of the Appendix attached to the Board's proceedings, forwarded herewith, will show that this Government has been endeavouring to reduce the consumption of opium in these tracts as much as possible."
    I have got a great many of these extracts, but I cannot detain the House by reading all of them. Colonel Trevor, of Ajmere Merwara, says—
    "A man who frequents a liquor shop is not so likely to become a confirmed drunkard as one who pays even a few visits to an opium den is likely to develop into a confirmed opium eater or smoker; it is to the interests of the vintner not to let him get intoxicated on the premises for fear the licence should be revoked, and for the same reason not to encourage drinking that makes men disorderly. The liquor having issued from a Government distillery, its quality has been tested, and, as a rule, it does not pay the vintner to change the quality, except by dilution, which is common enough. These conditions do not, I believe, apply to the case of the opium den, at any rate, in equal degree. There, no attempt is made, or, if made, it is more difficult to check excess; and though excess may not lead to crime in the same way as liquor does, it produces a more lasting effect upon the individual, and through him or her on future generations."
    Mr. R. M. Dane (Punjab) says—
    "Opium smoking is another matter. Unlike opium eating, the practice appears to have been of comparatively recent growth in this Province, and its evils have already been recognised, and all licences for the sale of chandu and madak withdrawn."
    I could go on with these witnesses indefinitely. The Collector at Satara, says—
    "The vice of opium smoking evidently possesses a fearful fascination when once it is acquired, and its effects are deadly, depriving the victim of all moral resolution. With these facts made palpable, it is a serious thing for the Government to offer any facility for acquiring the vice, where any one is at liberty to make a trial."

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    Mr. Campbell (Bombay) says—
    "Though the description under review maybe overdrawn and misleading, the practice of opium smoking is evil and wasteful. It would be well if it did not exist."
    Now, Sir, there is another aspect of this question. Out of the same Blue Book I find Colonel Clarke says—
    "These shops are the resort of the most worthless and depraved characters in every town, and such gatherings might well be interdicted by law."
    Mr. H. E. M. James, of the Southern Division of Bombay, says—
    "Some respectable persons might continue to smoke privately by themselves, while the lowest and most degraded would, as now, frequent the shops."
    Rao Bahadur Munsukram Mulji, an Inspector of Police of Ahmedabad, says—
    "The persons who have got this habit generally belong to the lower classes of the community, and most of them live upon gambling and other offences, such as petty thefts, cheating, &c."
    Sir, here is a most extraordinary case, where the vice of opium smoking is to be carried forward, so says the Inspector of Police, as suggested in another Despatch, in order that he may catch his victims most easily in the opium den. Colonel Clarke again says—
    "The District Magistrate, whom I have consulted, considers that 'The use of opium and ganja does not exhibit any abnormal signs of increase, alcoholic drinks, the consumption of which is increasing, being a counter attraction.' But he is in favour of reducing the number of opium and ganja shops, as the evil effects of the indulgence in these drugs are perceptible in the large towns."
    One more and I shall finish. A Memorandum of the Government of Madras is to the following effect:—
    "The Government is aware that the opium traffic is carefully watched by the agents and their assistants, and that, so far from teaching the people to rely on opium as a febrifuge, we are doing all we can to gradually wean them from their hereditary habit of using it on all occasions."
    Now, Sir, I do not think I will trouble the House further with these. I have had a telegram to-day from Bombay which I am told upwards of 1,000 missionaries have signed as a protest against the opium traffic. Who are these missionaries? They are men paid by Christian Churches, principally of the United Kingdom, in order that they may
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    preach and teach the Gospel of Christ. There are one or two other points with which I will conclude. There are the medical arguments against the use of opium which have been dealt with to some extent by my hon. Friend. The Lancet, after the Debate in this House, has declared that opium is a drug, and nothing but a drug, and that it has ever been treated as a drug. I have several authorities here which show that even in malarial districts opium is no safeguard whatever against malarial fever. As a febrifuge, quinine is more effective, and the use of opium finds a man more ready for malarial fever than without. There are one or two extracts I should like to read to the House in passing. The Rev. C. S. Valentine, principal of the Medical Missionary Training Institution at Agra, says—
    "I have been as nearly as possible for 31 years a medical practitioner in India. I can read both Hindi and Urdu, and converse freely in these languages and in several of their patois. As a missionary I have for months at a time moved about among the towns and villages of Rajputana. I have visited the people in their houses and preached to them under the spreading branches of the village tree. I have entered into conversation with them, and made myself conversant with their ideas and opinions about most subjects that interested them. I have held the appointment of surgeon to a native regiment, and for years have been connected with gaols, and have come in contact with thousands of opium-eating prisoners. For 14 years I was private physician to H.H. the late Earn Singh, Maharajah of Jeypur. In that position I mixed with the nobles of the State, lived in their forts, their castles, and palaces, and know their manners, customs, and opinions in a way that has rarely fallen to the lot of any European. In the course of my medical practice I can truthfully say that I have been called upon to treat hundreds, if not thousands, of cases of confirmed opium eating. With all this experience, it was with perfect amazement that I read a recent paper by Sir William Moore, a retired Indian official, in support of the opium traffic. I declare that anything more ludicrously and recklessly false in statement and reasoning I have never seen. Indeed, had I not been certain of the respectability of the journal that reported this paper, and had I not been previously and personally acquainted with Sir W. Moore, I would have come to the conclusion that someone copying his style had put words in his mouth which he could never have uttered. From my experience in Rajputana, I can testify to the following facts:—(1) That a large percentage of the mortality among children is due to opium; (2) a large percentage of crime is committed through the influence of opium: (3) a large percentage of murder is due to opium poisoning; (4) a large percent-

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    age of the diseases a medical man is called upon to treat in dispensary, hospital, and private practice is due to the habitual eating of opium; (5) I have never, so far as I can remember, found an opium eater who defended the practice. He would apologise for its use by stating that it had been prescribed to him for a disease from which he was suffering years before, and begged and prayed for some medicine that would cure him of the evil habit; (6) I have never known of a single instance in which a confirmed opium eater or opium smoker was able of himself to leave off the habit. Medical men, such as Dr. Maxwell, of Chinese experience, and Drs. Partridge and Pringle, of Indian experience, have been accused of exaggerating the evil effects of this pernicious habit. From my own experience I can affirm that so far from this being the case, I believe they have understated them."
    There is another point raised against us, and it is one dealing with the question of compensation to the ryots. Why, Sir, the difficulty which the Indian Government has had to deal with for a long time past is that the ryots can hardly be got to cultivate the poppy owing to the greater attractions of cultivating other crops, the subsidy of money offered for the cultivation of other crops being better than that offered for the cultivation of the poppy. Did the ryots receive compensation when the acreage under opium cultivation was reduced from 500,000 to 463,000. The ryots require very little compensation, and I have in the papers beside me facts showing that they are trying to cultivate crops much more profitable to themselves and more useful to the State. Then as to the question of smuggling, the argument that smuggling would prevail falls to the ground as soon as the Government cease to depend upon opium cultivation for revenue. The extracts that I have here from the Blue Book show that they do not fear smuggling half as much as they fear the effect of the opium drug. I desire now to call attention to the Amendment that has been put down upon the Paper. We say that the Indian people cannot bear any fresh taxation, but we also believe that if the finances of the Indian Government are properly investigated it will be seen that India is perfectly well able to pay for everything she requires and to ask for nothing from this country in regard to the opium question. What are the facts? The Indian Revenue has gone up by leaps and bounds. The gross Revenue of India in 1880–1 was
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    Rx.74,290,112, whilst the Estimate for 1892–93 is Rx.88,368,000. In 10 years the Revenue has gone up Rx. 14,000,000. Where has the money all gone to? There is the Famine Fund, Rx.11,500,000 a year, which a good many men say would be little required if other crops were cultivated instead of the crop we so much complain of. In 1881–8 the Army charges in India, exclusive of the Afghan War, were Rx.13,745,000, whilst the Estimates for 1892–93 were Rx.21,159,500 and for 1893–4 are Rx.22,242,300, a rise of Rx.8,500,000 in 13 years. The Indian Revenue from opium has gone down Rx.3,500,000, whilst the general Revenue has gone up, as I have said, Rx.l4,000,000. In 1883–4 there were 63,000 British soldiers in India, and on the 1st of April 1891, 71,000. In 1883–4 the number of native soldiers was 126,019, whilst on the 1st of April, 1891, the number stood at 149,129. The Army has been increased since 1884 by 31,000 men, and the Army expenditure Rx.8,500,000. Now, Sir, some of these are Home charges, and should be borne at home. No wonder, with such an expenditure, you run the risk of deficits. India, it seems to me, has to pay more in military charges, like many other countries, and I should like the House to be in a position to judge whether all these soldiers are required, and what the policy of the Indian Government is with regard to constant annexation, fortifications, and military railways. This House at the present moment has no more control over the Indian finances than the man in the street. The Indian Debate comes on generally in the month of August, and hardly any of us have found much more than a quorum of the House sitting when the whole of this vast system of finance has to be looked at. We ask that this moral iniquity, the opium traffic, shall be put an end to, and we think the question is a very proper one for the House to decide. There are three courses open to us to enable that to be done—economy, development, and subscription from the English Exchequer. Sir, I thank the House for having heard me so patiently on a subject in which for many years I have taken a deep interest. Now, I appeal to my hon. and right hon. Friends, who will not support us on this occasion. We have all the Christian Churches with us; we have the two Convocations of York and Canterbury; we have the

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    Wesleyans; the Methodist Free Church; the Baptists; the Congregationalists; the Presbyterians of England; the Scotch Church; the Free Kirk; the Society of Friends, and the Unitarians. All the missionaries in China, some 1,500, and almost all the missionaries in India are with us, and the Bishop of Bombay telegraphs that he and 300 clergy are with us. The late Cardinal Manning and all the Roman Catholic Bishops forwarded a Petition in favour of the Bill for the suppression of the opium traffic; the clergy of London did the same; and a Memorial handed in by the Prime Minister was signed by two Archbishops and 12 Bishops, the Archbishop of Dublin, and 30 Mayors and Provosts on this question. California has passed an Act of Parliament against the use of this drug. Australia has Acts of Parliament before her now, and China has Treaties with other Powers prohibiting the importation of opium. We still hold on our way manufacturing it and sending it to China, debauching the people there as well as in India. I have hardly touched upon the China question to-night. Let me read two extracts. ["Oh!"] I shall not trouble the House much more. I have to prove that this is an immoral trade. Dr. Maxwell says—
    "There are 1,500 missionaries in China They are absolutely unanimous that the bondage in which the vice holds its victims, in the degrading and evil influences which surround and are everywhere associated with the opium habit, and in the particular relation in which, rightly or wrongly, we stand in the minds of the Chinese toward the spread of the vice over China, we have created a great and grievous obstacle to the progress of the Gospel. They tell us from all parts of the Empire that it is quite impossible for them to look upon the habit of opium smoking as otherwise than immoral, that there can be no compromise on the question on the part of the Church, and that having regard to the universal judgment of the native Christians, as well as to public opinion in China outside the Church, the opium smoker must be excluded from fellowship in the Church of Christ. The Roman Catholic Church has by its missionaries taken up the same position."
    My hon. Friend opposite the Member for Kingston (Sir R. Temple) says that China will find opium for herself. I have nothing whatever to do with what China does. I have to look to what we are doing as a nation. Are we going to continue to send opium to China when all the missionaries give us this testimony
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    that it is debauching. I can only say in conclusion, whatever may be the result of to-night's Division, the question is one that has to be solved. I and my friends around me have worked for a long time for it, believing that we are trying to do some work for the benefit of mankind, and trying to wipe from the national escutcheon that which all civilised nations have pointed at as a disgrace to us—the traffic in opium. I beg to second the Resolution.
    Amendment proposed,
    To leave out from the word "That," to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "having regard to the opinion expressed by the Vote of this House on the 10th April, 1891, that the system by which the Indian Opium Revenue is raised is morally indefensible, and which urged the Indian Government to give practical effect to that opinion by ceasing to grant licences, and by taking measures to arrest the transit of Malwa Opium through British territory, and, recognising that the people of India ought not to be called upon to bear the cost involved in this change of policy, that oppressive taxation and the stoppage of expenditure necessary for the welfare and progress of the Indian people must be avoided, this House is of opinion that a Royal Commission should be appointed to inquire, both in India and in this country, and to report as to (1) what retrenchments and reforms can be effected in the Military and civil expenditure of India; (2) by what means Indian resources can be best developed; and (3) what, if any, temporary assistance from the British Exchequer would be required in order to meet any deficit of revenue which would be occasioned by the suppression of the Opium traffic,"—(Mr. Webb,)
    —instead thereof.
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. E. GLADSTONE, Edinburgh, Midlothian): I wish to commence the remarks I have to make by a proposal in the interest of all parties. There are only two suggestions before the House; both of them agree up to a certain point, and both of them includes the appointment of a Committee for the purposes of very important and comprehensive inquiry. I think the House will feel it is for the advantage of all persons interested in this important question that these two methods of application should be into close connection, so that the House may have the merits before them as a direct issue. That, at present, is not the case. The Motion has been made that the Speaker do leave the Chair for Supply,

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    and the Motion of the hon. Member is moved as an Amendment upon that proposal. Now, Sir, what I would suggest is this, that before we proceed further, or when I have concluded what I have to say to the House—though I think the present moment might be more expedient—we should withdraw the Motion for Supply, or allow it to be negatived if that be necessary, but at any rate get rid of it, and then allow the Motion of the hon. Gentleman to become the Main Question, and the Motion of my hon. Friend near me, the Under Secretary of State for India (Mr. G. Russell), could be subsequently moved as an Amendment. We should then have the issue before us in a satisfactory form. I gather that is agreed to by the promoters of the Motion, and if so I would sit down and propose that that form of proceeding should be followed and the Original Motion either withdrawn or negatived.
    Question put, and negatived.
    Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
    MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: I think now we have the question before us, and my hon. Friend will be able to move this Amendment, so I shall proceed to the general subject. So far as I have been able to hear the speech of the Mover—I am sorry to say it was very imperfectly, owing to my own defects—I sympathise wholly with the general tone of his remarks, which, I think, tended to elevate and purify the atmosphere of this House. I must make an admission. I do not think that in this matter we ought to be guided exclusively—perhaps, even principally—by those who may consider themselves experts. It is a very sad thing to say, but unquestionably it happens not infrequently in human affairs that those who ought, from their situation, to know the most and the best, yet from prejudice and prepossessions know the least and worst. Eminently it was the case in the great question of the West Indian slavery, when this House and the country for a long time were discouraged and abashed by the assurance that those who were in favour of that great and radical change were in favour of it only because they did not understand the negro character. There may be something of that element in
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    this case. I certainly, for my part, do not propose to abide finally and decisively by official opinion. Independent opinion—independent, but responsible—is what the House wants, in my opinion, in order to enable it to proceed safely in the career upon which, I admit, that it has definitively entered. My hon. Friend who has just sat down says that the course proposed by the Government through the Amendment of my hon. Friend near me, which has been read, no doubt, by other hon. Members, is simply the adoption of the words used by Mr. Smith on the part of the late Government. Mr. Smith used words implying a pledge which I believe that he and those for whom he spoke fulfilled. It appears to be admitted that that is the case. But I think, Sir, it is entirely erroneous to say that the Amendment of my hon. Friend stops at the same point as the words of Mr. Smith. The words of Mr. Smith contemplated a reduction in the cultivation of opium; the words of my hon. Friend near me contemplate a comprehensive, searching inquiry into all the points directly associated with the practicability and with the method of acting against the traffic as a whole; and our contention will be that you cannot safely or wisely or with a hope of substantial results pledge yourselves further as to that contraction of the traffic without including in your proceedings operative means for going to the very root of the question. It must be admitted that has not yet been done. My hon. Friend the Seconder of the Motion has referred to the case of Burmah, and I hope the case of Burmah may be taken as an indication of the intention and desire of the Indian Government in respect to this question. But the case of Burmah is not necessarily the case of India. In the case of Burmah, it is admitted on all hands that there was conclusive evidence of the mischievous, and the almost entirely mischievous, operation of the use of opium in Burmah. There was no doubt in the minds of those who were in authority as to the character of the practice. But there was another important point, as was truly said by my hon. Friend. Burmah is a country that we have just conquered—a country held by the undisguised and unquestioned might of the sword, and in a country

    617
    where you so stand you have it in your power—quite irrespective of the difference between a population of 7,000,000 and a population of 200,000,000—to do many things which are beyond your power in a country where your relations with the masses of the population have become thoroughly peaceful, where local public feeling has begun to form itself, and where you are bound to pay a certain amount of respect to the conditions that exist. My hon. Friend justly affirms that there is much of a moral character in this question. Sir, I am the last to deny, and I am also ready to allow and affirm that where a moral character attaches we should be very jealous of the intrusion of secondary motives which are to prevent our giving effect to the moral considerations. But I observed that even the rigid virtue of my hon. Friend relaxed a little when he said that, notwithstanding the exclusively moral character of this matter, yet if we once admitted that the thing was to be done he was ready to look at the financial difficulties with regard to intervening circumstances. That appears to me to be perfectly reasonable. Now, Sir, I go to the points directly connected with it, and I will tell the House why we are unable to affirm the Motion of my hon. Friend with the purport of which we have a great deal of active sympathy. I cannot subscribe to the recital contained in this Motion of what has already taken place, because we are called upon in the first line of the Motion to assert that an opinion has been expressed by the House upon the subject. Far be it from me, Sir, to deny for a moment that there had been most important indications of opinion and a tendency given by the House upon this question. But I cannot admit—on the contrary, I contest the assertion that an opinion has been expressed by the House which can safely be recited in a Resolution. I am very far from founding that statement in a mere difficulty of form. We are all aware that the first step that was taken when this matter was discussed, was that a majority of the House—not an enormous majority, but a moderate majority, which, however, proved perfectly effectual—did substitute for the original Question that night a Motion which in principle entirely condemned the opium traffic. Yes, Sir;
    618
    but then the proceedings were interrupted before those words, which had become the Motion, were put from the Chair. I should be very sorry indeed to take my stand upon the simple fact that they were not so put from the Chair, but there was a much more important element, and it was this: that the discussion was recognised as an incomplete discussion; that the late Sir Robert Fowler, the respected Member for the City of London, gave notice of an Amendment, which showed that he, while agreeing with the Motion, had regard to financial difficulties, and proposed to make an addition to that Motion, which might vitally have affected its character. That addition has never been discussed, nor that trial brought to issue. So that, though it was recognised that there ought to be further discussion, it never happened to be in the power of the Government of the day to assign a period for it. I am bound, therefore, to confess that that proceeding appears to me essentially incomplete, and one to which I cannot refer as a complete proceeding, which is what the Motion calls upon me to do if I were to vote for that Motion. I hope to make clear to the House what is the difficulty I feel. I am not standing upon a question of form, but upon this, that as regarded the substance of the matter, it had not been brought to a completion when it was allowed to drop. Well, Sir, the Motion moved and seconded to-night commits the House to the abolition of the growth and traffic in opium before we have considered the obstacles in the way and the mode in which they are to be surmounted. I remember, with shame and contrition, the condition in which the House stood in respect to the opium traffic 50, 40, or perhaps only 30 years ago. At that time we not only grew the drug and made money by it, but forced the consumption of it upon the Chinese people; and because the Chinese rallied themselves in a manner which, though not wholly diplomatical, yet was human, and in its basis legitimate, against the opium traffic we were forcing upon them, we in the year 1840 made war upon them, and it is rather to me a pleasing reflection, among the reflections less pleasing in that Debate in 1840, that I took what I thought the best part in my power. We have ceased that operation

    619
    of forcing the trade upon China. We have left that matter to China herself, except that undoubtedly, as I admit, the opium which we allow to be exported, and from which we derive a large revenue, is sent to that country to be received by China if she chooses to receive it. But a great progress has been made in that respect—that at least we do not do anything in relation to any foreign country for the supply of opium, except that which the free will of that country admits and desires, and it is also true that as regards the domestic growth of opium my hon. Friend has gladly recognised that important steps have been made towards its restriction. Notwithstanding the testimonies that we read on the one side, notwithstanding the forces of intelligent official opinion on the other, I cannot find myself competent to form a conclusive judgment, and to deem myself authorised to say exactly what is the character of this opium traffic, nor to say what is its character in one country in one district with one race and then in other countries with different races. My impression is that it is very different; but, at the same time, I call for no sanction to it whatever. We lay open everything that bears upon it by the Motion which my hon. Friend will make on behalf of the Government. We have no prepossessions at all in its favour. It may be that my hon. Friend who has moved this Resolution is absolutely right in thinking this case of opium is far worse than that of alcohol, which God knows, under our laws, is bad enough. It may be he is perfectly right in that, and I do not ask him to abate one syllable in any assertion he has made with regard to it. What I do say is that, viewing the absolute necessity and duty of performing our great function of governing 200,000,000 people in India, it is our first duty, before we commit ourselves by absolute declaration of a binding character, to learn to the best of our power the mode in which we can carry it into effect. That is my proposition, and that is the proposition which I intend to press upon the House. The Motion before the House binds us absolutely to the extinction of the traffic. I do not say it ought not to be extinguished. The Government wish to reserve a perfectly free mind on the
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    subject; but I cannot consent to be a party to promising extinction till I know it can be done. The Motion of my hon. Friend says that India is to pay nothing. That is a very chivalrous, high-sounding, magnificent declaration. It may be just and true—
    SIR J. PEASE (interposing): I beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon. The Motion does not say that the cost will not fall upon India if Indian resources can pay for it. I say that the development of India ought to be made to pay for it, and I ask for a Commission to examine and ascertain how best that development can be carried out.
    MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: My hon. Friend's Motion recognises that the people of India ought not to be called upon to bear the cost.
    SIR J. PEASE: That means the whole cost. The Motion is quite clear—
    "What retrenchments and reforms can be effected in the Military and Civil expenditure of India; by what means Indian resources can be best developed; and what, if any, temporary assistance from the British Exchequer would be required in order to meet any deficit of revenue which would be occasioned by the suppression of the opium traffic."
    MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: My hon. Friend has joined together portions of the Motion which are totally apart from one another.
    SIR J. PEASE: I beg pardon.
    MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: This declaration I have made is a separate member of the sentence, and there is a distinct recognition that the people of India ought not to bear the cost. I do not affirm it is right India should bear the cost. I think that is one of the questions which must be examined to the very bottom; but I say that, in our present state of knowledge with regard to Indian opinion, with regard to Indian resources, and with regard to British willingness to do what may be found requisite to be done, it would be premature for us, for this great branch of the Legislature, to recognise it as demonstrated, and to adopt it. My next difficulty is this: There is a promise of temporary assistance from the British Exchequer. Well, Sir, "temporary assistance" is a most ambiguous phrase.

    621
    Temporary assistance sometimes means a loan for which we take interest, and which on the expiry of a term we repay. Is that the temporary assistance meant? Other assistance there may be which is temporary inasmuch as it ceases after a certain time to be provided, but which, while it continues, is absolutely final. The subsidy which was paid to almost every Continental Power in the great war of the Revolution was temporary assistance, not one farthing of which ever came back again. Which kind of temporary assistance are you going to prefer? In my opinion we ought to know. We ought to have some determination, some one definite course in regard to making this country liable for the assumption of the pecuniary burdens which this important change may possibly require; therefore, Sir, I am obliged to object to that part of the Motion as being tainted with the modern sin of ambiguity, and such ambiguity that under it may be contained either the slightest and most shadowy measure, or the most enormous and most important. Those are points which, in my opinion, we are bound carefully to examine. I am prepared, Sir, to place, side by side, our Commission and the Commission proposed by my hon. Friend, and to say that our Commission will and must go to the root of this great subject—will and must, if proper persons be appointed, and the appointment of these proper persons will be the most solemn and responsible duty of the Government—will and must go to the root of everything that bears upon our further progress in the matter of the opium traffic. I am sorry to say I have not at all the same confidence with regard to the Commission proposed by my hon. Friend. There is no use in laying on the shoulders of a single set of men an amount of inquiry which it is impossible for them satisfactorily to discharge. In my opinion the examination of the opium question, if it is to be done thoroughly, will give ample work to a Commission, and necessitate the expenditure of an amount of time, though not enormously extended, which may not be inconsiderable. But my hon. Friend has the advantage that his Commission does not contemplate any examination of the opium question. All these questions as to the state of
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    opinion and the practice in India, and as to the means that may be provided for dealing with them, as to the amount of pecuniary burdens that would be entailed by the abolition of this present system—all these, I grant, have been passed by in his instruction. This instruction of my hon. Friend holds out vast promises of retrenchment and reform, but of retrenchment and reform which do not form proper objects of this Motion, which are introduced collaterally and incidentally as a means of getting over the difficulty for which no other means have been found by my hon. Friend. This Commission of my hon. Friend is proposed, in the main, as a Commission which is to do three things. It is to inquire, both in India and in this country, and to report as to what retrenchments and reforms can be effected in the Military and Civil Expenditure of India; secondly, by what means Indian resources may be best developed; and, in the third place, what, if any, temporary aid from the British Exchequer is to be afforded, though no instruction is to be given to the Committee to examine or report upon the amount of temporary aid that may be required. How can a Commission be supposed or expected to inquire in India and in this country into the mode of developing the resources of India, and into the whole question of retrenchment in the Military and Civil Expenditure? Let it not be supposed for one moment that I want to discourage my hon. Friend, or other patriotic and able men, from examining into these questions. They are of the extremest gravity. The Expenditure of India, and especially the Military Expenditure, is alarming. The nature of the demands made upon her by this country is of itself a most serious question; but I must tell the House that the nature of the burdens imposed upon the military system of this country by the necessity of keeping a military bank to be drawn upon to any extent whatever for the purposes of India is also a question of not less importance. To do all these things, and at the same time to examine into all the questions directly connected with the opium trade, is what my hon. Friend has set forth in his Amendment. There are, in my opinion, serious obstacles in our way. If you remove them, then the

    623
    putting down of the traffic might be made the subject of some arrangement. That is clearly the question fully opened up by the Amendment of my hon. Friend, though my hon. Friend near me says that, even if that be so, still you must measure, and measure beforehand, the obstacles you have to surmount. The pressing question of these obstacles is cost. What will be the cost? Do not let us hold out retrenchment, not yet ascertained to be practicable, as a ground for incurring deficiencies which you are immediately to bring upon yourselves. If you are to plead retrenchment—and I hope the day will come when you may plead it—as a reason for undertaking very large pecuniary liabilities, you must first ascertain if your retrenchment be possible. I recollect very well a most worthy Member of this House, Mr. Rylands, who was an economist. He was also a patriot, and being a patriot he desired a large extension of the Navy. He said—
    "You have not got nearly enough ships, you must build more, and build them out of money saved by economies in the Government."
    To place the country under vast liabilities, and so disable her for the performance of important duties, on the strength of economies in a very distant perspective, is a practice which would ultimately be found to be very demoralising. I remember that in the case of the abolition of slavery the first idea of the Government of the day was that they could get rid of the pecuniary difficulty by advancing in the way of "temporary assistance" to the planters a sum of £15,000,000. But before they had advanced very far in their bold, philanthropic, and most wise career, they found it necessary to convert the loan of £15,000,000 into a gift of £20,000,000. I hope that the present generation are not below the wisdom and courage of those days; but it is necessary to form some idea of the way in which, if a revenue of £4,000,000 a year is to be abandoned, and liabilities for compensation estimated at £2,000,000 are to be incurred, the vacuum is to filled. This obligation of strictness in financial proceedings belongs to a very high morality; and political morals cannot be upheld if financial laxity be allowed to come in and obscure the relations between liabilities
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    undertaken and the means possessed for meeting them. My own impression is that this would be a heavy affair. The figures supplied to me from the Indian Department put the revenue derived last year from opium at £3,800,000, and, on an average of some years, at about £4,500,000. This is almost the only revenue in the world derived not from the native population, but from a foreign nation; and, by the destruction of it, the means of the Indian population for meeting the demands upon them are not increased. The abolition of that revenue would be a most serious affair, in which the country could not go forward without some light thrown on the path in which it is to tread. My next point is that it is an absolute duty to examine into the state of the case in India. I have the greatest respect for the motives and conduct of Christian missionaries; but I am not sure that they are the men most remarkable for calmness combined with comprehensiveness of view. What is the state of public opinion in India, and is the Government bound to regard it? I think so. I observe that strong promoters of the anti-opium movement are not very apt to give any weight at all to the public feeling of India. I am of opinion that, considering whom the country has to govern in India, it is impossible to overlook the public opinion of India. There is a large portion of the population of India which is very nearly, even to this hour, passive in the hands of the Imperial Government; but there is a large portion of the population which is not at all so passive. There is a large portion of the population composed of warlike races, of fine physical development, of considerable independence of character, capable of forming for themselves their own habits of life. I cannot go full galop over the heads of these populations without knowing what they wish, and why they wish it. But there is a good deal of opium used among the lowest parts of the Indian population, and in some cases they use it as a febrifuge; but whether this is so or not, I ask whether the House is competent to decide the question? In the Punjab and other Provinces opium is consumed by the flower of the population. Few look upon it as degrading, and many of the races in those Provinces

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    say that they cannot do without it. It is necessary, also, to notice the case of the Native States, and it appears to me that this is one portion of the case which needs a thorough examination to the very bottom, even more absolutely than the financial matter. Here the Native States are not limited partners in this concern. Out of 75,000 chests of opium they supply no fewer than 30,000. It is easy to say, "Prohibit the transit"; but what is to be done with respect to the subsistence of the population concerned in raising those 30,000 chests? They are not our subjects at all, but the subjects of Powers with respect to whom we have a heavy responsibility, and whose tranquillity we are bound to consider, and with regard to whom every step ought to be taken with the utmost deliberation and most careful circumspection. The Rulers of those States might listen readily enough as to decreeing the abolition of opium if we went to them with handsome subsidies in our hands; but, even so, where are we to find within those Native States the Executive means for insuring the permanent enforcement of the prohibition? Surely the House cannot say by a Motion this evening that the Government ought to overlook a question such as this. It is an enormous one, involving the peace of the Native States, the question who is to be responsible for their Executive, and our relations with persons to whom this country is under the most solemn obligations. The question of smuggling is not a question of Revenue at all. Here is an extremely valuable drug which has to be counted in shillings per pound. Anything sold in shillings per pound is a promising subject for the smuggler; and in the Native States there is no police sufficient to prevent the cultivation and the production of the drug. If, therefore, on the borders of a Native State there is a population who love the drug and want to buy it for consumption, who is to prevent the smuggling of the drug? It is our duty to inquire on all these points, and, above all, to take care that a deliberative Assembly like this shall not make promises, hold out hopes for wild expectations, or preach philanthropic doctrines without any knowledge of the way in which it is to bring up its
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    conduct to the standard which has been laid down.
    Amendment proposed to the proposed Amendment,
    To leave out from the words "having regard to the," to the end of the proposed Amendment, in order to add the words," strong objections urged on moral grounds to the system by which the Indian opium revenue is raised, this House presses on the Government of India to continue their policy of greatly diminishing the cultivation of the poppy and the production and sale of opium, and desires that an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying Her Majesty to appoint a Royal Commission to report as to—
    "1. Whether the growth of the poppy and manufacture and sale of opium in British India should be prohibited except for medical purposes, and whether such prohibition could be extended to the Native States.
    "2. The nature of the existing arrangements with the Native States in respect of the transit of opium through British territory, and on what terms, if any, these arrangements could be with justice terminated.
    "3. The effect on the finances of India of the prohibition of the sale and export of opium, taking into consideration (a) the amount of compensation payable; (b) the cost of the necessary preventive measures; (c) the loss of revenue.
    "4. Whether any change short of total prohibition should be made in the system at present followed for regulating and restricting the opium traffic and for raising a revenue therefrom.
    "5. The consumption of opium by the different races and in the different districts of India, and the effect of such consumption on the moral and physical condition of the people.
    "6. The disposition of the people of India in regard to (a) the use of opium for non-medical purposes; (b) their willingness to bear in whole or in part the cost of prohibitive measures."—(Mr. W. E. Gladstone.)
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the proposed Amendment."
    MR. CURZONsaid, he could not refrain from congratulating the right hon. Gentleman on being able, after a week of tremendous labour, to come to the House that night and deliver such a powerful speech as that which he had just concluded—a speech full of force and argument, and showing a wide grasp of this enormous question. That speech had the great advantage of bringing a direct and practical issue before the House through the Amendment of the Under Secretary of State for India, in

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    whose behalf the right hon. Gentleman had moved it, and upon which hon. Members could give a direct vote. It was extremely useful, also, to observe the effective manner in which the right hon. Gentleman had examined, dissected, and pulverised the Motion of the hon. Member for West Waterford, and the manner in which he had pointed out the difficulties and obstacles in the path of some of those who desired to advance so hastily in the path of reform. As to the proposed Royal Commission on the subject, the terms of Reference moved by the right hon. Gentleman were studiously wide and statesmanlike, and since, further, they had his assurance that the inquiry must and would go to the root of this great subject, and that one of the principal topics to be submitted to the Commission would be native opinion on the question in India as well as opinion in this country, he hoped the House would accept the Amendment. The main question had been so well covered by the Prime Minister that he would say little upon it, though, as a student of the subject, he should like to refer to one or two remarks that had fallen from the hon. Members who had moved and seconded the first Motion. Before doing so, however, he would take that opportunity of publicly protesting against the literature which was circulated on the question by those who opposed the opium traffic. That literature was a scandal. It was wholly sensational, and much of it was false; yet week by week, and year by year, the constituencies were flooded with it, and it was not surprising that it had some effect upon ignorant and innocent minds. Appeals were constantly being sent to Members of that House urging them to vote against "this great national sin." So far as he was personally concerned, he had always given a clear and consistent answer to those appeals, for he had said boldly that he would vote, and, if he had the chance, he would speak, in favour of this so-called national sin. They had had repeated to-night the old, exploded fiction—to which he was sorry to say that the right hon. Gentleman had lent the sanction of his authority—that we had forced opium upon China. There was not a single
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    historian of any repute, or a single diplomat who knew anything of the matter, who would support that proposition. It was an equally grotesque and untrue statement that we forced opium upon China now. Under a clause of the Cheefoo Convention of 1886 it was possible for the Chinese Government, upon giving 12 months' notice, to abrogate the Treaty, or to put an Import Tax on the article, or even, like Japan, to prohibit its introduction altogether into any of its ports. To say that we forced opium upon China was monstrously untrue. One would imagine from what had fallen from some hon. Gentlemen that opium smoking was a common habit—or vice if they liked—in India. But, though 80,000 chests were turned out by the Indian Government, by far the larger proportion was intended solely for consumption in China. The consumption in India was only 6,700 chests per annum, and out of a population of 220,000,000 in British India there were calculated to be only 400,000 confirmed opium smokers, or a proportion of 1 in 550. He wished he could say the same of the analogous liquor traffic of this country. One might imagine from what hon. Members said that opium was a deleterious article of consumption which poisoned the body, impaired the mind, and destroyed the soul of any man who used it. Well, everyone who had been, as he had, in the East—and there were many in the House who had a far greater knowledge of that part of the world than be had—knew very well that opium was nothing of the kind. It had been used from time immemorial as an article of every-day diet and stimulant in tropical countries just as alcohol was used in other countries and by many Members of the House. Not only that, but it was a stimulant less likely to produce serious and aggravated consequences than alcohol. No doubt, taken to excess, opium was dangerous and deleterious to the constitution, just as excessive smoking or drinking were dangerous; but if taken in moderation opium, in the opinion of all Eastern peoples, was harmless and agreeable, and sometimes a necessary article of sustenance. He had expected to-night that they would hear from the hon. Baronet some of the usual stories and evidence from doctors and surgeons of Eastern

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    gaols in regard to the use of opium. In his travels he (Mr. Curzon) had always looked up the surgeons of gaols, and had inquired as to the truth of this matter. The surgeon of a gaol in the Punjab had written him a letter in which he declared that the moderate use of opium was not injurious, and that to stop its use entirely to the old opium-eater would mean death. The surgeon to the Hong Kong Gaol, which was almost entirely filled with Chinese, reported that he had been 16 years in the gaol, and during that period over 1,000 prisoners addicted to the use of opium had passed through, and there had been only one death amongst them, which in no way had any relation to the opium habit. In one case a man had been in the habit of consuming 8 oz. of the drug a day for 19 years, and was a stout, strongly-built, and healthy person. He had mentioned these things to show that if it were a matter of medical testimony quotations quite as strong as those used by the hon. Baronet could be given on his side. The hon. Baronet had held up India to odium, because he said that the Government of that country manufactured, distributed, and sold opium, and he gave the House the idea that the Indian Government was an immoral huckster, which did so to put money in its pocket, and had no consideration for the people under its sway. But the system adopted by the Indian Government was the only way by which they could keep a check upon the amount of opium sold, by which they could raise the price and restrict the consumption, and it was the only way by which they could prevent the wide distribution and the dangerous consumption of bad opium and the smuggling of the drug into India. Every licensed vendor was himself a party interested in checking and preventing the distribution of contraband opium, and in that way a great preventive force was obtained. If they had any other system similar to those mentioned by the hon. Baronet they would have to supply an enormously greater and more expensive protective force. He hoped the House would find, when it had to choose between the alternative of voting for the Amendment of the Prime Minister and the Motion which stood first on the Paper, that it had no difficulty in making up its mind on the subject. If the Motion were carried in the form in
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    which it stood, he could tell the House what it would not do. It would not prevent the consumption of a single grain of opium in India. It would not prevent a single pound of opium from being consumed in China, because not only did China grow four-fifths of the opium she consumed within her own border, but she could get the remaining one-fifth from Persia or other parts of the East. If the Motion were carried he did not believe it would do an atom of moral good to a single soul. But if those were the things which it would not do, let him broadly state what it would do. If the consumption of opium in India were prohibited, the distribution and use of more dangerous stimulants would soon become common; an economic loss would be inflicted on the agricultural population interested in the growth of the poppy; friction and trouble would arise between the English Government and Native States with whom we had entered into Treaty obligations; great dissatisfaction would be felt by the civil population, and the sympathies of many of the best soldiers of our Indian Army would be alienated; and, lastly, the Government of India-would be deprived of a revenue of between £3,000,000 and £4,000,000, the value of which had been estimated by the present Secretary of State at £15,000,000. That being the present state of the case, he hoped that when they proceeded to vote both sides of the House would see their way to support the Amendment moved by the Prime Minister, and would not lend any further encouragement to the Motion of the hon. Baronet, which, however honourable and pure the motives with which it had been moved, was, in the opinion of many who sat on both sides of the House, really a mischievous and delusive fad.
    SIR G. CHESNEYsaid, the hon. Baronet had suggested that with a view of recouping the Indian Government for the loss of revenue on opium inquiries should be made with a view to recouping the Indian Government for the loss of the revenue on opium by effecting a reduction in the Military and Civil expenditure. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister had effectually disposed of that part of the case. The hon. Baronet did not seem to be aware that the question

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    of the Civil and Military Expenditure in India had already undergone inquiry after inquiry during the last quarter of a century. That field had been already thoroughly reaped, and the assumption that any considerable saving could be effected was a thoroughly delusive one. Moreover, the question of saving Military and Civil Expenditure was really one of policy which lay far beyond the ken of a Commission. The amount of our Military Expenditure in India depended on the policy of Her Majesty's Government and of Foreign Powers, and no Commission could usefully deal with that great subject. Next, he would observe that, even supposing that economies were possible in India, the benefit of reductions in taxation ought to go to the taxpayers, and not to the carrying out of the policy of a certain Party, or even of this House. If saving was to be effected, then the Indian taxpayer was the first person who ought to be relieved. The money saved could not be applied to the carrying out of speculative views. He was glad to observe that the Prime Minister drew attention to one most important point which was wholly passed over by the Mover and Seconder of the Resolution, and that was that in our legislation for India the first consideration was the feelings and wishes of the people of India themselves. The very circumstances that the people of India had no Representative Institutions ought to make us especially careful and to practise even an extra delicacy in regard to forcing measures upon them about which they were not consulted, and which possibly might be opposed to their own wishes. His hon. Friend who had just sat down had pointed out the extreme danger of rash legislation. Well, he hoped that by the instrumentality of the Commission proposed by the Prime Minister the House and the country would learn for the first time the actual facts of the case. Every fair-minded man wished to know the truth about the opium traffic, for at present they were far from having complete knowledge on this subject. The pamphlets published by the opponents of the traffic left one side of the case entirely out of view, and dwelt upon the other side in a very exaggerated way. It was possible, also, that those who opposed the anti-opium policy to a certain
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    extent overstated their case. But those who had heard both sides must be perfectly aware that there was an answer to almost every allegation that had ever been made against the traffic.
    MR. NAOROJIsaid, he was not speaking on this question now for the first time. He had been studying it for years, and as far back as 40 years ago he had edited a pamphlet against it. He had studied it from all points of view, and he had come to the conclusion that the opium traffic was a curse both for England and India. In this country opium was declared to be a poison by Act of Parliament, and its sale was under very stringent restrictions. How could that which was a poison here be harmless in other portions of the Empire? As far as he was concerned, he could not believe in the sincerity of those who said that opium used in moderation was not injurious. The question of opium, however, was nothing. It was the mere fringe of the great question of Indian administration under the present system. The pity was not only that time would not allow, but that the subject would not permit, of their entering into the great question which caused all the mischiefs and evils from which India was suffering. These problems—the opium question, the Salt Tax question, and kindred matters—were constantly cropping up, but this House was never able thoroughly to grapple with them. And they never would be properly grappled with until the advice of John Bright was adopted, that statesman having said—
    "That if a country be found possessing a most fertile soil, and capable of bearing every variety of production, and that, notwithstanding, the people are in a state of extreme destitution and suffering, the chances are that there is some fundamental error in the government of that country."
    He (Mr. Naoroji) maintained that so long as the House did not set itself to find out this fundamental error and endeavour to remove it, all these minor questions, which must be regarded as the fringe of the great problem, could never be dealt with satisfactorily. To bring the matter to a practical issue, why could not the Commission be instructed to go into the

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    whole question somewhat in the way in which inquiries took place every 20 years under the rule of the East India Company? for then, and then only, would this House understand the mischiefs under which India was suffering; then, and then only, would they know how it was that, after 100 years of the rule of the best administrators, and the most highly-paid administrators, India should be the poorest country in the world. He could adduce testimony from the beginning of the century down to the present time to show that there was nothing but poverty in India. That could not be satisfactory to England, who desired that India should appreciate British rule, though how that could be expected he could not understand, seeing that an income of £6,000,000 or £7,000,000 a year was made by poisoning another great people, and that taxes—the most cruel that had ever been conceived in the whole history of mankind, such as the heavy Salt Tax—were imposed. Such should not be the method of British administration, and such should not be the result of British rule. There was no reason why it should be so. If the existing errors and evils were discovered and grappled with, he had no doubt that India would bless the name of British rule. He would ask the Prime Minister, therefore, to enlarge his Amendment, and to declare in it that the Royal Commission should inquire into the whole condition of India.
    SIR J. FERGUSSONsaid, he would not have intervened, but he felt that there had been one omission in the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister. This Commission which was to inquire into a subject quite large enough, without going into the wide field described by the hon. Member who had just sat down, he ventured to think ought to inquire in India and not in this country. It was only on the spot it could be satisfactorily carried out. It must be remembered that some of the most necessary works for the development of India were being delayed on account of shortness of Revenue. He referred to the light railways and feeder loads. If they were to have £4,000,000 or £5,000,000 off the existing revenue,
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    how on earth would it be possible to carry on these works?
    Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the proposed Amendment."
    The House divided:—Ayes 105; Noes 184.—(Division List, No. 185.)
    Main Question, as amended, put, and agreed to.
    Resolved, That, having regard to the strong objections urged on moral grounds to the system by which the Indian opium revenue is raised, this House presses on the Government of India to continue their policy of greatly diminishing the cultivation of the poppy and the production and sale of opium, and desires that an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying Her Majesty to appoint a Royal Commission to report as to—

    1. Whether the growth of the poppy and manufacture and sale of opium in British India should be prohibited except for medical purposes, and whether such prohibition could be extended to the Native States:

    2. The nature of the existing arrangements with the Native States in respect of the transit of opium through British territory, and on what terms, if any, these arrangements could be with justice terminated:

    3. The effect on the finances of India of the prohibition of the sale and export of opium, taking into consideration (a) the amount of compensation payable; (b) the cost of the necessary preventive measures; (c) the loss of revenue:

    4. Whether any change short of total prohibition should be made in the system at present followed for regulating and restricting the opium traffic and for raising a revenue therefrom:

    5. The consumption of opium by the different races and in the different districts of India, and the effect of such consumption on the moral and physical condition of the people:

    6. The disposition of the people of India in regard to (a) the use of opium for non-medical purposes; (b) their willingness to bear in whole or in part the cost of prohibitive measures.

    SUPPLY,—Committee upon Monday next.

    REDEMPTION OF RENT (IRELAND) ACT (1891) AMENDMENT BILL (No. 390.)

      SECOND READING.
      Order for Second Reading read.
      MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid, he wished to move the Second Reading of the Bill, the object of which was to enable a very small number of long leaseholders to obtain the benefits of the Act.
      COLONEL WARING: I object.
      MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid, the Bill had become necessary owing to a decision of the Court of Appeal. He hoped the hon. and gallant Member would not persist in his objection, and so frustrate the intentions of the late Government.
      COLONEL WAKINGthought the Bill was one which should be explained.
      MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid, the Bill did not involve a new principle, or even an extension of the principle sanctioned by Parliament. Long leaseholders had been for a long time excluded from the benefit of the Land Act. They were admitted to its benefit by the late Government; but a small number of them had unintentionally been left out, as was discovered in a recent decision of the Court of Appeal. The Bill was intended to cover those left out by a technical mistake.
      MR. T. M. HEALYsaid, it would be unfortunate that a Bill brought in by the hon. Member for South Tyrone, which was to benefit the tenant farmers, should be blocked by the Conservative friends of the hon. Member. This would expose the hon. Member to great obloquy, and he therefore appealed to the hon. and gallant Member not to persist in his objection.
      COLONEL WARINGsaid, the real object of the Bill had not been explained. They had not been told why these long leaseholders had been excluded.
      MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid, that long leases made before 1860 had been excluded from the Act by a mere mistake in the drafting, although long leases made since 1860 were included. The Chief Secretary for Ireland was in favour of the Bill. The number of long leaseholders to whom the Bill would apply was a mere handful, and he thought it would be very unjust that they should be excluded from the benefits of the Act by reason of a purely technical mistake.
      COLONEL WARINGsaid, that after this explanation he would not persist in his objection.
      Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. T. W. Russell.)
      Motion agreed to.
      Bill read a second time, and committed for Monday next.

    ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDER (No. 5) BILL [Lords].—(No. 394.)
    As amended, considered; to be read the third time upon Monday next.
    PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES.
    Part of Lords Message [15th June] requesting Copy of Report, &c, of the Select Committee on Parliamentary Debates considered; Printed Copy to be communicated.
    HOUSING OF THE WORKING CLASSES ACT (1890) AMENDMENT BILL.—(No. 398.)
    Considered in Committee; Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Monday next.
    SHOP HOURS ACT (1892) AMENDMENT (No. 2) BILL.—(No. 333.)
    Considered in Committee; Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Monday next.

    SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).
    SIR JOHN MOWBRAYreported from the Committee of Selection; That they had discharged the following Members from the Standing Committee on Trade (including Agriculture and Fishing), Shipping, and Manufactures:—Mr. Asher, Sir Mark Stewart, and Sir George Trevelyan.
    SIR JOHN MOWBRAYfurther reported from the Committee; That they had added to the Standing Committee on Law and Courts of Justice, and Legal Procedure the following Fifteen Members, in respect of the Fatal Accidents Inquiry (Scotland) Bill:—Mr. Asher, Mr. Baird, Mr. Birrell, Mr. Dalziel, Mr. Hozier, Sir John Leng, Mr. Macfarlane, Mr. Graham Murray, Mr. Paul, Mr. Renshaw, Mr. Harry Smith, Sir Mark Stewart, Sir Thomas Sutherland, Mr. Thorburn, and Sir George Trevelyan.
    Reports to lie upon the Table.

    MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
    That they have agreed to,—Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 6) Bill.
    House adjourned at half after Twelve o'clock till Monday next.

LOSS OF H. M. S. "VICTORIA."

  QUESTION. OBSERVATIONS.
  LORD KNUTSFORD: My Lords, as the First Lord is in his place, I will ask him whether any arrangements have been made to enable sailors who have survived from H. M. S. Victoria to telegraph home to their relatives from Malta?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Earl SPENCER): In answer to my noble Friend, I can inform the House that we received a letter at the Admiralty to-day from Sir John Pender, as follows:—
  "The Eastern Telegraph Company (Limited), Winchester House, 50, Old Broad Street, E.C., London, June 29.
  Dear Admiral Hoskins,—It has occurred to me that many applications will be made to you for information from Malta on the part of relatives of the officers and crew of the ill-fated Victoria. As these inquiries will, as a rule, come from people who cannot afford to pay for telegrams, I shall be glad to forward free any messages which in your judgment are entitled to this privilege. The telegrams should be as short as possible and forwarded to Mr. George Draper, the Secretary of the Company. If telegraphed the registered address 'Eastern, London,' will be sufficient.
  Yours very truly,
  JOHN PENDER, Chairman."
  I think your Lordships will be of opinion that this is a very thoughtful and generous action on the part of the Eastern Telegraph Company, and that it deserves our thanks. I am glad to take the first opportunity of publicly thanking the company for their offer. We have telegraphed to Admiral Tracy, the senior officer in command of the Mediterranean Fleet at the present time, and informed him of this proposal, and he will make it known to the survivors who have now reached Malta that they will be able to telegraph home, in accordance with the offer which has been made by the Eastern Telegraph Company. I think it right to make this public acknowledgment, and I trust that the announcement will be received with satisfaction by those who otherwise would not be able to communicate with their friends at home.
  THE DUKE OF ARGYLL: May I ask my noble Friend whether the Government have received any further information with regard to the details of the catastrophe to the Victoria?
  EARL SPENCER: We have no further information with regard to the disaster beyond what has already been communicated to the House, but the Government expect to receive the official Despatches of Admiral Markham on Sunday morning, when they will be at once made public.

RECENT FATAL DISTURBANCES IN DOMINICA.

  MOTION FOR AN ADDRESS.
  THE EARL OF STAMFORDasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he had received any further information as to the late fatal disturbances in the Island of Dominica; and, if so, to move that copies or extracts of the Correspondence on the subject be laid on the Table of the House. He presumed it was necessary that he should say a few words in regard to the serious circumstances which led to the question. The Island of Dominica, as their Lordships were aware, formed part of the Leeward Islands Colony. It was fertile and beautiful, but hitherto had been unprosperous. At present the population was decreasing, and somehow or other the Island did not prosper under English rule. The seat of Government in the Colony was about 150 miles from Dominica, and the Local Government of the Island consisted of a Resident Commissioner, who supplied the place of a Lieutenant Governor, an Executive Council, of which it appears the number had not been filled up for some years past, and the Legislative Assembly comprising 14 members, one-half of whom were elected by the people. The local taxes had long been complained of by many of the residents, and especially the Laud and House Tax. A few months ago, at La Plaine, a district about 20 miles from Roseau, the capital of Dominica, warrants of ejectment were issued against certain persons who had neglected to pay that tax. The bailiffs who endeavoured to execute the warrants were forcibly resisted. At the beginning of April last the District Government officer, Mr. Jarvis, together with the

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  Inspector of Police and a few policemen, endeavoured to eject one Pierre Colar, a defaulter. They were driven off with stones and threatened the next day by a mob of the peasantry of the neighbourhood. The Commissioner of Dominica, thinking the aspect of things somewhat alarming, telegraphed off on the 7th April to the Governor of the Leeward Islands, who promptly sent down the Inspector of Police from Antigua and nine policemen armed with Snider rifles. Immediately afterwards, on the 11th, Governor Haynes Smith himself arrived on the scene of disturbance by H. M. S. Mohawk. He appeared to have acted with great discretion in the first instance. He landed almost unattended, in company only of Captain Bayley, the Commander of the Mohawk, Mr. Le Hunte, the Commissioner of Dominica, the Inspector of Police, and an interpreter or secretary. At the Governor's request, the people of the district were summoned by the parish priest; and the Governor, on their assembling, addressed them. Then he called for Colar, and tried to induce him to sign an undertaking to pay the amount of taxes in default (amounting to 13s. 4d.) when he was able to do so. This the man refused to do, because he could not understand the undertaking he had to sign, being ignorant of the English language, and unable to read or write. The Governor then called to his assistance armed force. A signal was made to the Mohawk, which was lying off La Plaine, and nine Antigua policemen and 20 sailors were landed in order to enforce the warrant of ejectment against Colar. Then, for some reason or other, general stone-throwing ensued. The negroes in that place are an excitable race, and stone-throwing is their usual method of expressing their indignation or anger. An order was given to the sailors to fire in the air; and, from some cause at present unexplained, the police, too, fired, but into the middle of the mob, and killed four men, as often happens on such occasions, killing innocent people who were taking no part whatever in the disturbance. The next day Mr. Le Hunte, the Commissioner of Dominica, in pursuance of his office as Magistrate of the La Plaine district and Coroner, went with Mr. Thompson, the Inspector of Police from Antigua, and Dr. Hunter, the surgeon of the Mohawk, to hold an in-
  492
  quest. A jury was empannelled, and a verdict was given that—
  "The four men came to their deaths by bullet wounds received from Snider rifles, but under extreme provocation, and without orders from, the superior officer."
  That was, briefly, the sad story of the disturbances in Dominica. Comments unavoidably suggested themselves, and it was to be hoped that satisfactory explanations would be elicited. The stone-throwing was said to have been due to violent treatment of a man who resisted the police. He might mention to their Lordships that he had studied the accounts given in the newspapers, both on the official side and on the non-official side. In the first place, it appeared that the district officer, Mr. Jarvis, the man who had the duty in the first instance of carrying out the warrant of ejectment, was a young, inexperienced man, quite ignorant of the language spoken in Dominica, which was a French patois, and concerning whom representations had been made before to the Governor protesting against his appointment in the district. A rather grave assertion was made that Mr. Jarvis, at the time the firing took place, seized a rifle and himself fired into the mob. In connection with the circumstances a suspicious fact was that Mr. Jarvis found it convenient to leave the Island by the next mail steamer—a week after the occurrence—and took passage for Barbados. It might be asked whether the Riot Act was read on the occasion? No record could be found that that had been done before these violent measures were taken. It would be interesting also to know the view taken by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Roseau of the matter. The Government had applied to him apparently to send instructions to the priest at La Plaine to afford every facility for the assembling of the people, and so forth. He understood that the Bishop had written to the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for the Colonies protesting against the action taken by the Governor upon the occasion. A Memorial had also been sent to the noble Marquess by the seven elected Members of the Legislative Assembly. From his knowledge of Dominica some 10 or 12 years ago, though not acquainted with the names of all the signatories to it, he could say that more than one of them

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  were well-known and respected in the Colony. In that Memorial strong complaints were made of the Governor's methods of administration, and the blame for this tragedy was distinctly put upon him. As to Mr. Le Hunte, who acted as Lieutenant Governor of the Island, besides being Magistrate and Coroner of the district in which La Plaine was situate (the scene of the tragedy), it appeared to have been observed in Dominica that he had always avoided his duties as Coroner until this occasion, when the verdict mentioned was returned. Vehement complaints had been made for some time past by the representatives of the people in Dominica of the Governor's methods of administration. But from all he had been able to gather, Governor Haynes Smith appeared to be a thoroughly high-minded and well-meaning man, though he seemed to be imbued with the views set forth by Mr. Froude in his work on the West Indies as to the ideal method of governing such a Colony as this, a method which might be briefly summed up as being "benevolent despotism tempered with sugar." It was complained that the Governor consulted no one of local experience, but that he undertook everything on his own responsibility, and disregarded the advice of his Executive Council and of the Legislative Assembly. At the same time, his intentions seemed to have been generally good throughout, and he appeared to have adopted every method of conciliation in dealing with these poor men. The spirit in which he acted was very clearly set forth in the Despatch sent him by the noble Marquess on the 9th May last, in which the noble Marquess said—
  "I am happy to be able to express my approval of the spirit in which you acted."
  Everyone would no doubt approve of the spirit in which he acted, but whether his action was altogether wise was another question. This was not the first time a similar occurrence had taken place in the West Indies. The negroes were excitable and violent at times, but were easily overawed by a calm and temperate display of superior force. Only some two or three months ago a similar affair occurred in the Island of St. Vincent; but upon a man-o'-war being sent to the scene of dispute the whole matter quieted down immediately. In Dominica itself, also, a similar disturbance had happened
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  some 20 years ago at Roseau, the capital of the Island; and when a man-o'-war was brought on the scene the disturbance was quelled without the slightest bloodshed. So that it was to be feared that in this case some terrible bungling had occurred somewhere, and certainly, according to the verdict of the Coroner's jury, homicide was committed. These poor people apparently were killed by bullets fired from the rifles of the Antigua police, and one woman, it seemed, was wounded by a bullet from the Martini-Henry rifle of one of the bluejackets. This lamentable occurrence must have been due to some lack of wisdom in some quarter or other; and it is to be hoped that some legal inquiry will be made by some properly-constituted authorities in the Island itself. Meanwhile, as these grave questions had arisen, he hoped the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for the Colonies would be able to state whether he had received any further information upon these various points; and, if that were the case, he would move that the Papers on the subject be produced.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (The Marquess of RIPON): My Lords, there are two questions involved in the remarks of the noble Earl, and, in replying to him, I will take them separately. First, I will deal with the lamentable occurrence on April 13 last, when four lives were lost and several people were injured. I am very glad to hear the noble Earl say that he agrees with the Despatch expressing the approval of the Colonial Office of the spirit in which the Governor acted. I will with pleasure lay on the Table the Papers connected with the question; and when your Lordships see those Papers you will agree that on this lamentable occasion the Governor acted with great patience, courage, and forbearance. As the noble Earl has already related the earlier circumstances of the case, I will not repeat them. When the Governor lauded from the Mohawk, he proceeded to the house of the parish priest, and called together the leading persons of the district, to explain to them the proceedings which had been taken for the recovery of certain taxes. The Governor spent some hours in endeavouring to explain the facts, and he hoped, and tried, to obtain from the

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  person against whom proceedings had been taken an undertaking that he would pay the taxes due when he was able to do so. As some believed, the Governor was not far from arriving at a settlement; but untoward circumstances intervened which led Pierre Colar to refuse to sign the document. And then the Governor, having called to his aid a certain number of police and blue-jackets of the Mohawk, proceeded to take formal steps—and they were intended only to be formal—for carrying out the law. While that process was going on the crowd became excited, and began throwing stones, which were large and very formidable missiles. Several of the police were struck and wounded; and the Captain of the Mohawk, who discharged his duties in a manner which entitled him to the thanks of the Colonial Office and of the Government, was struck on the back of the neck by a stone. If he had not been a powerful man he would have been undoubtedly felled and very seriously injured. Then, I regret to say, the police fired without orders. Of course, no justification can be offered for police who fire without orders; but it was under great provocation. Their lives were in danger, and the Governor, who himself was in danger also, displayed, as Captain Bayley, the Commander of the Mohawk, and others say, great courage on the occasion. Directly after the police had fired, the officer immediately under Captain Bayley—not Captain Bayley himself, but his Lieutenant—ordered the blue-jackets to fire in the air, and they did so. The Governor then ordered all firing to cease, the people gradually dispersed, and the events of that unhappy evening came to a close. The noble Earl said that one woman was wounded by a Martini bullet, which means that a blue-jacket fired the shot. But according to the last advices which I have received, the information of the noble Earl on that point is not correct. I have before me the statement of the Governor himself. I have also received Reports from people who were present, and I have the perfectly impartial account of Captain Bayley; and they all agree that great forbearance and courage was displayed by the Governor. Therefore, I see no reason for instituting an inquiry into the conduct of the Governor, for that course
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  would imply some degree of censure on him, and no censure is deserved. With respect to the other official, Mr. Jarvis, the statement that he himself fired a gun is not correct, as far as I know. If that were established, it would, of course, present a new and grave feature in the case. But Mr. Jarvis has ceased to hold the position which he formerly held in the Island, and has been given an appointment elsewhere; and in that respect I think the Governor was perfectly right. I cannot see that there is any justification for the statement which the noble Earl has made, that Mr. Jarvis ran away after the riot. I agree in thinking it inadvisable that a man should hold such a position as that which Mr. Jarvis held, not being able to speak the local patois, if another can be found who understands the language of the people. It is much better that such an official should have that important qualification. I do not think it is fair to say that Mr. Jarvis gladly ran away from the results of his conduct on that occasion. With regard to Mr. Le Hunte acting as Coroner, I quite agree with the noble Earl that it is not desirable that the same person should act both as Magistrate and Coroner; but the noble Earl knows very well that in the case of these small Colonies there are no funds to enable the Government to have a separate officer in all cases for each office, and that an accumulation of offices is often unavoidable in the smaller islands. All the evidence I have before me leads me to think that the verdict at the Coroner's inquest was a legitimate and just one, and I have no reason to suppose that Mr. Le Hunte acted improperly in his position as Coroner. I have received a letter from the Roman Catholic Bishop of the Island, and have included it in the Papers. It was a very natural letter for the Bishop to write under the circumstances of so sad an occurrence; but I do not think it will add much to the evidence, for the Bishop was not present on the occasion in question. Then, as to the second part of the question, I am bound to say that the state of things in Dominica is not satisfactory. Riots and disturbances have taken place in that Island before. There was a tumultuous assembly when Lord Gormanston was Governor of the Leeward Islands, and signs have not been

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  wanting for some considerable time that there is a state of uneasiness in the Island, and a feeling among the population of dissatisfaction with their condition. Unfortunately, also, at the present time, the seven elected Members of the Legislative Assembly of 14 have had serious differences with the Governor, and have joined unanimously in the representations made to me with respect to the recent riots, and also with respect to certain complaints which they make about the general condition of the Island. The evidence before me leads me to think that the condition of the Island is such as to require an impartial investigation. We have had such investigations before in the West Indies; and here appears to me to be a case of chronic discontent among the people, and dissatisfaction on the part of the elected Representatives of the community, which establishes a legitimate reason for an inquiry into the condition of the Island, and for considering the measures which can be taken to bring about a more satisfactory state of things. With that view I have asked Sir Robert Hamilton, the late Governor of Tasmania, to undertake the duty of inquiring into the state of the Island, and as to the remedies which can be found for the evils, if they exist, into which he will carry his investigation. But in taking that course I do not wish to imply that I censure the Governor in any way, for nothing is further from my intention, and Sir Robert Hamilton will not make any inquiry into the conduct of the Governor, or take any course which would imply censure upon him on my part. When I asked Sir Robert Hamilton to undertake this not very agreeable duty, he at once consented without the slightest hesitation. I need not say anything about his services or official experience, but I will remark that he has this special advantage—that while he will be perfectly impartial in the inquiry, he has has a certain knowledge of West Indian matters, because in 1881 he was employed to conduct an inquiry in Trinidad, which was not altogether dissimilar from that with which he is now entrusted. He will proceed to Dominica as soon as the atmospheric conditions enable him to do so with safety to his health; and he will there conduct an inquiry, as I have said, not into the conduct of the Governor, but into the general con-
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  dition and circumstances of the Island. It will be necessary, however, if the inquiry is to take place, that the Legislature of Dominica should find the funds for the purpose, inasmuch as we have no available funds at the Colonial Office, and a proposal to that effect will be made to the Legislature of the Island as soon as possible. The noble Earl will find the details of the whole question relating to the riots in the Papers which I propose to lay upon the Table of the House.
  LORD KNUTSFORDasked whether the terms of the Commission to Sir Robert Hamilton would also be laid upon the Table?
  THE MARQUESS OF RIPON: The terms of the Commission have not yet been drawn up; but I shall be quite willing to give them when they are ready.
  THE EARL OF STAMFORDthanked the noble Marquess for the light he had thrown on the subject, and for the promise he had given. He, therefore, begged to move—"That copies of the Papers and Correspondence with regard to the late disturbances in Dominica he laid on the Table of the House."
  Address for copies or extracts of the Correspondence on the subject of the late fatal disturbances in the Island of Dominica.—(The Earl of Stamford.)
  Address agreed to.

SECONDARY EDUCATION IN SCOTLAND.

  QUESTION. OBSERVATIONS.
  LORD BALFOURasked the Government whether it was correct that the Secretary for Scotland had promised a deputation of members of School Boards in Scotland and others that early next year important changes would be made in the Minute of Committee of Council of 1st May dealing with secondary education in Scotland; and, if so, whether those changes would include the reservation of a considerable portion of the funds available for distribution in the form of grants to schools which provide efficient higher instruction for rural districts of Scotland; whether any information could be given at an early date as to the amount of the sum to be reserved for that purpose, and the principles on which it was likely to be distributed, so

  499
  that the County Committees might be able to take these matters into consideration when entering upon the duty of framing schemes for their respective localities; whether the Secretary for Scotland would, by Circular or otherwise, make it clear to the Committees appointed by his direction for purposes of deliberation and inquiry that they were not to exercise administrative functions of any kind in regard to the schools within their districts, whether landward or burghal; whether the House is to understand that the principle of distributing the Equivalent Grant for Scotland for the years 1892 and 1893 in a fixed ratio according to population only will be adhered to; and, if so, whether the calculation on which the distribution contained in the Appendix to the Letter of the Secretary for Scotland of 1st May is founded can be laid on the Table of the House? He said, their Lordships need not be alarmed that he was going to make a speech commensurate with the length of the question. Of course, it had reference to the Debate and Division which took place a few days ago. They had since received the answer to their Resolution that Her Majesty had been advised to make no change in the Minute. He had read the answer with a feeling of mild surprise, for he thought that on the merits they had made an excellent case. But his surprise at that was nothing as compared with what he felt at the latter part of the Message—that,
  "If the Committee should come to the conclusion that alterations were necessary, those alterations would be made."
  That was on the 22nd June. On the 8th June the Secretary for Scotland (Sir George Trevelyan) had made an absolute promise to the deputation which went to him that very material changes would be made in the Minute for next year. He understood, from an answer given in another place, that £200 was to be given absolutely to every county next year apart from any division of the money according to population; but to give that sum to each county irrespective of its size, needs, or the number of schools in it was, in his opinion, a wholly illogical and improper method of division. His question had reference to that promise of the Secretary for Scotland. Again, the County and Burgh Committees had to frame schemes; but unless they knew
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  what they had to spend, they could not frame such schemes, and he understood no information had been given to them. He desired to know whether that information could be given at an early date? His fourth question was, whether the Secretary for Scotland would, by Circular or otherwise, make it clear to the Committees that they were not to exercise administrative functions in regard to the schools in their district, the Secretary for Scotland having in his place in Parliament and, in answer to the deputation, disclaimed any such idea. Many School Boards in Scotland had taken alarm as to the powers of those Committees, and the belief existed in burghs as well as in counties that they were intended to be set over the School Boards, and actually in some matters to control them. He thought that a fair construction of the Minute was that the Committees were to have such powers. At the same time, he personally accepted the Secretary for Scotland's disclaimer that those Committees were not to exercise administrative functions; but he thought the fact should be made abundantly clear to the School Boards concerned, in order that their feeling of alarm might be allayed, as it was most important that it should be allayed as soon as possible. He still thought a serious mistake had been made in departing from the Minute of January, and that it would have disastrous results for many years to come in the higher education of Scotland. The next matter was of more or less local concern. Sir George Trevelyan gave in the Appendix to his Letter of the 1st May a table of the amounts of money to be distributed to each county in ratio to its population; and he wished to know what method of calculation had been adopted for that purpose, for by no arithmetical process had he been able to make the sum allotted to his county come out according to its population? It was not a large county, but it looked after its interests with great zeal. It had only got an amount which should be allotted to a population of 26,000, whereas it bad 33,000, which, on the division, would give £467 instead of £376. Probably the Education Department had overlooked the fact that under the Local Government Act the Boundary Commissioners had added the large and populous

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  parish of Alva, formerly in the County of Stirling, to that county, and out of the small pittance given it would have to provide for higher education for the 6,000 taken from the large and prosperous County of Stirling, which would be relieved to that extent That was a great hardship, which there should be no difficulty in remedying. If the Census of Clackmannan for 1891, plus the added parish, were taken, a more just division would be arrived at.
  THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (The Earl of KIMBERLEY): My Lords, I am much obliged to the noble Lord for having put his question in this form. I will not now go into details, but at once answer the inquiries he has made. My answer to the first question is, that it is the case that the Secretary for Scotland undertook, to a deputation of the kind named, that next year a change will be introduced into the Minute of May 1, dealing with the grant for secondary education in Scotland, whereby, before the grant is divided in proportion to population, a sum of £200 will be paid to each Burgh and County Committee, which, if they so recommend, may be allocated to higher class schools at the burgh class, which class was recognised as proper recipients of a special grant under the Minute of January 31. We think that these higher schools deserve special encouragement, and are of benefit at once to the burghs and the rural districts; and where they do not exist in any county we desire to offer encouragement to their establishment. Where no such school exists in any county the sum will still be paid to the County Committee, so as to increase to some extent the share of those districts to which the principle of population brings an unduly small allowance. Upon the other point the noble Lord refers to the fear entertained that these Committees will exercise some administrative functions, and he is desirous that a special Circular should be issued upon that point. In the opinion of the Department no special Circular is required, and for the reason that there is nothing in their functions which can be of an administrative character, and a Circular telling them that they have no administrative functions is therefore unnecessary, because
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  none have been assigned to them. A Circular has already been sent to the Burgh and County Committees asking them to send in their Reports and proposals; but it has already been fully explained that their functions are not in any way of an administrative kind in regard to the schools within their districts, whether landward or burghal. With regard to the second question which the noble Lord asks about the population, the portion of the Equivalent Grant which is assigned to secondary education will be distributed for the financial years 1892 and 1893 on the principle of population. He is correct in saying that the tables do not correspond precisely with the present population. The calculations on which the distribution contained in the Letter of May I was based were made upon the latest Returns of the School Board district populations issued by the Registrar General. The noble Lord is, I dare say, aware that these calculations are governed by the Returns which the Registrar General is required to furnish to the Department.
  LORD BALFOURsaid, the alteration was made two years ago.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: The Registrar General has never issued any certificate of changes to the Education Department which would enable them to act. Subsequent alterations by the Boundary Commissioners have not been embodied in any Returns of School Board population by the Registrar General; but the Department has been in communication with him on the subject, and, in conjunction with him, has ascertained the effect of these changes upon the population of each district. The differences are very immaterial in all but the cases of Perth and Clackmannan, the relations of which have been altered to an extent which influences the grant by less than by £100. We have every hope that the Registrar General will furnish a certified Return of any changes, and before actually making the allocation in these cases we shall use every means to adjust the matter correctly.
  LORD SHANDurged upon the noble Earl and upon the Department that in future years greater consideration should be given to the position of the Board schools which should receive larger sums. This year a large sum was to be distributed

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  upon principles, as had been practically admitted, which the Department could not justify. When the fund became available great hopes were held out to the Board and burgh schools that the means of extending their usefulness would be supplied to them. The serious evil under which the present system of education in Scotland laboured was generally felt to be that the children were taken from the schools at too early an age—12 or 13—and put to employments for which they were utterly unfitted; and this money, if handed to the Board schools for purposes of secondary education, would enable the children to be kept longer in them. He was far from undervaluing what had been done by the endowed schools; but it was rather hard that the greater part of this money now available should be handed over under this Departmental Minute to schools already richly endowed, while children were obliged to leave the Board schools at so early an age for want of the means of retaining them. He sympathised very much with what Lord Balfour had said as to the Committees set up to intervene between the Department and the School Boards. That was all very well as a merely temporary expedient in January; but it had now been made permanent, and something in the guise of Home Rule under the Department had been made permanent in Scotland. It would not do to say that the Committees would not interfere in the management of the details of the schools, for they would, undoubtedly, have a most potent influence if they were able to frame schemes and say they would not recommend particular schools who would not adopt their views. That was an evil which would require to be jealously guarded against. He would have been glad, therefore, if a caution could have been given to those Committees. If it were not to be given the administration of their functions must be very carefully attended to. A further observation should be made in regard to the administration of the funds in future years, as to the composition of these Committees. Though in the counties half the members were to come from the representatives of Board schools, those schools were only, in the burghs, to be represented to the extent of one-third. That would prove in the result a serious matter, because, if the other two-thirds were deeply inte-
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  rested in the endowed institutions, the schemes suggested to the Department would be much more favourable to them than should be the case. This was a matter on which the Board schools had naturally taken great alarm. The Education Department could not be congratulated upon the course they had taken in this business. They had first asked the advice of the different Committees as to how the money should be distributed, and had then changed their policy in the face of that advice. Next, when the Minute was laid on the Table of the House, Lord Playfair, who had to support it, began by saying he disapproved of its main features. In the third place, the House had, on Motion of Lord Balfour, condemned the Minute. Notwithstanding, in the face of all those things, the Department had passed it. The result had been that they had produced great discontent in the distribution of the fund; and it would be but poor consolation to the School Boards for them to say now—"We admit we have blundered hitherto, but we will put it right next year." The Department should in future years take these matters into consideration, and he trusted that the claims of the Board schools would be more fully considered in the future, and that an adequate amount of funds would be distributed to them.
  [The subject then dropped.]

HOME RULE FOR SCOTLAND.

  QUESTION. OBSERVATIONS.
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNcalled attention to the present condition of the Home Rule Question as regards Scotland; and asked whether the Government was in favour of creating a separate Parliament or Legislature in that part of the United Kingdom? He said this was a very simple question, and one which no Government deserving of the name of a Government could have any difficulty in answering—whether they were in favour of establishing a local Parliament or Legislature for Scotland? It might seem strange that he should have to put such a question as that; but they were absolutely in the dark in Scotland as to what the opinion of the Government, as a Government, might be upon this subject. It was a point which was absolutely vital to Scotland. They wanted to know particularly whether they were to be favoured, like

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  Ireland, with a separate Legislature, or anything of that nature? This question was, moreover, important to the whole United Kingdom. If the Government established a separate Parliament in Ireland, the Imperial Parliament, as people in Scotland thought, would have enough, and more than enough, to do in correcting the eccentricities and the centrifugal tendencies of the Irish Legislature. If the Government were going further than that, if their idea was to have more than one Legislature in other parts of the United Kingdom, then the whole question of Home Rule changed. In fact, it disappeared. It was no longer a question of Home Rule; it was a question of Federalism. There would be three Legislatures at least, possibly more, and their control would require the best efforts of any Imperial Parliament. Was the Government embarking on a policy of Home Rule or a policy of Federalism? That was a point which they must have thought out. He would not insult the Government by supposing that they had not thought it out. It was absurd to suppose they would attempt to set up a separate Legislature for Ireland without knowing whether they would drift on to separate Legislatures for other parts of the United Kingdom. As to the history of the Home Rule Question in Scotland, there had been Home Rulers there ever since the Union; but the question had assumed a more open shape since Mr. Gladstone's declaration in 1886. A Scottish Home Rule Association was founded, and it had shown a remarkable degree of activity and ability. Whatever might be said of their views, it was composed of honest men; loyal subjects of the Crown, and attached to the British Empire. What was the course they had taken? A Petition was presented to Parliament in July, 1890, through Mr. Gladstone, in favour of Home Rule; and arguments were used which it was difficult for Mr. Gladstone, as a Home Ruler, to combat, pointing out that under the present system Scotland suffered financially, politically, and socially. Then a Resolution was moved in the House of Commons, and 114 Members voted in its favour. Mr. Gladstone spoke in favour of the Resolution and voted against it. In 1891 a similar Resolution was counted out, and in 1892 a Scotch Home Rule Bill, introduced by the Member for
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  Aberdeen (Mr. Hunter) was likewise counted out. If this showed nothing else it showed that the Members of the present Government did not take any very large amount of interest in promoting that Bill. Mr. Gladstone himself had not said anything further in Parliament on this matter; and he was, therefore, compelled to look at the speeches delivered since that time, in order to obtain some light as to Mr. Gladstone's opinions on the subject. Last summer the Home Rule Association addressed to Mr. Gladstone several questions, and in reply he said that
  "If Scotland considered it her duty as well as her right—for it was her right—to have such a measure, he had not the least doubt it would be given."
  Did these words mean that Mr. Gladstone would give Home Rule to Scotland, or that he was in favour of it, or that his Government was in favour of it? Not at all; he did not say anything of the kind; he did not give any means of arriving at a conclusion as to what his opinion was. A few days ago a Resolution on the subject was brought forward in the House of Commons; but Mr. Gladstone being now in power, for some reason or other, was absent. If it was necessary for him to take rest, was it not incumbent upon him to entrust some prominent Member of the Government with the duty of announcing his views? So far from that it was declared to be an open question. The Secretary for Scotland (Sir G. Trevelyan) made a speech which must have cheered the hearts of the Home Rulers, for he pointed out that in this Parliament Scotland could not get any share of legislation, though he did not explain that that was because the Government had taken all the time of the House of Commons for the Irish Home Rule Bill. Sir G. Trevelyan spoke for himself as an individual, but when the Division came every Member of the Government who was present, including the Home Secretary, the Secretary for Scotland, and the Lord Advocate, voted in favour of a separate Legislature for Scotland. How, then, could this be called an open question? The absentees included the Prime Minister, the Secretary for War, and Mr. Marjoribanks; and it was fair to presume that, as all the Ministers who were present voted for the Resolution,

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  those who were not present were not in favour of it. The Government, as a Government, had delivered no opinion whatever; but individual Members had spoken, some in one direction and some in another. Then, what did they know of the opinions of prominent Members of the Government on the question? The noble Earl the Foreign Secretary exercised great influence in Scotland; and their Lordships would perhaps like to hear some of the statements made in speeches of the noble Earl for the last year or two. On November 22, 1889, at Glasgow, the noble Earl said he was in principle in favour of Scotch Home Rule, and he told the audience they must consider exactly what they wanted; he added that he believed the first step was to get Private Bills attended to in Edinburgh, and then, after that, it would be time enough to settle the question with regard to Public Bills. He continued—
  "What you ask is a local Parliament for Scotland as for Ireland; that means a local Parliament for England, which England does not want, and which, in its present mood, England is determined not to have. You have to overbear the solid reluctance of 500 English Members on whom you wish to confer a local Parliament which they do not want."
  And he concluded by saying he believed the principle to be universally sound, and that it was a matter of national option and a question of what they wished. But from beginning to end the noble Earl did not say whether he was in favour of setting up this Home Rule Parliament; he said he was in favour of the principle; but as to practice that was quite a different thing. The effect of the speech was to throw as much cold water as possible on the claims of the Scotch Home Rule movement; that was the opinion of the Scotch Home Rulers themselves. At a subsequent meeting the noble Earl spoke very much in the same sort of way. On the 2nd April, 1890, he said that Scotch Home Rule was a question of great importance which did not meet with an altogether unanimous response from the Liberal Party, and he thought that if it was adopted by the Liberal Party it would become a question of extraordinary significance. Anyone could have said the same thing without enlightening the audience very much. What they wanted to know was whether the Liberal Party were going to adopt it and carry it out as soon as they got
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  the opportunity? On May 13, 1892, the noble Earl threw as much cold water as he could on a Home Rule Bill of Mr. Hunter's. He said—
  "I respect very much the effort made by Dr. Hunter to formulate a deliberate proposal for a Scottish Parliament. I think the more discussion that question receives the better; but I will say, in all seriousness, I have very grave doubts as to whether the proposition for a Scotch Home Rule Parliament is best carried out by making the Scotch Members of the House of Commons your Representatives."
  He said, further—
  "If you want to have a local Legislature for Scotland, you will have to draw a distinction between the persons you want for Imperial Representatives and those you want for local purposes. I have not always been supposed to see my way very clearly about Scotch Home Rule, for I see the difficulties in the case."
  He agreed entirely with the noble Earl in what he had said; he "saw the difficulties in the case"; but he wished to point out that the difficulties were now less insuperable than they were at that time. There were then 500 English Representatives in the way; but the Government had now, as they were never tired of telling them, a majority in the House of Commons; and it was by dint of that majority that it was doing its best to force Home Rule for Ireland down the throats of a very large minority; and the difficulty was not the same practical difficulty that it was three or four years ago. The noble Earl had thrown as much cold water as he could on the question; but was he going to vote for Scotch Home Rule or against it? What were the Government going to do, and what were their supporters going to do? [A laugh.] The noble Earl laughed, but not long ago a piteous appeal was made to the Government that they should introduce a moderate measure which moderate men could vote for. He believed that some noble Lords on that side of the House would be prepared to vote for any measure of Irish or of Scotch Home Rule which the present Government might lay before them; but what he desired to know was whether the Government was in favour of such a measure for Scotland? What he was afraid of was that some morning they might hear, as they heard with regard to Scotch Disestablishment, when it suited the purposes of the Government, that Scotland had spoken, and that Home Rule would be granted to her. Had the

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  Government a policy upon this question, and, if so, would they declare it? If they were opposed to Home Rule for Scotland, he, and others who thought as he did, would support them; if they were in favour of Home Rule for Scotland, let them say so, and the country would then understand their position. These shifts were adopted by the Government because they could not afford to say "No" to any section of their supporters. They were dependent on many sections, and if any one of those sections should fall off from their allegiance their position as a Government would be immediately placed in danger. That, however, did not afford them any excuse, nor would it prove of any advantage to them in the long run. The policy of concealment which had been practised with respect to Ireland, which was being carried out in regard to Scotland, would deceive hardly anyone, and, least of all, anyone in Scotland. He concluded by asking the question which he had placed upon the Paper, whether the Government were in favour of establishing a Home Rule Legislature in Scotland?
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: My Lords, I congratulate myself on one point, and that is that I have never, so far as I am aware, opened my mouth before upon the subject of Scottish Home Rule. If it were otherwise, the noble Earl would doubtless have reminded me of my speeches upon the subject.
  THE EARL OF CAMPERDOWNsaid, he most certainly should.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: No doubt, and I congratulate the House on being spared having had to listen to quotations. I am not quite sure whether my noble Friend is a Home Ruler in regard to Scotland, and I doubt whether his real object was to bring before the House the subject of Scottish Home Rule—whether he had not rather in his mind the subject of Irish Home Rule. He put a question as to the opinions of the Government on Federalism. Now, Federalism is a very interesting subject. I have seen it discussed in different publications, and there are some people who think that some day or other this country will probably adopt a Federal system; but I am certainly not now prepared in this Assembly to deliver an opinion upon that subject. As to Home Rule for Scotland, I think the noble
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  Earl gave an answer to his own question, because he very naturally reminded the House that Sir George Trevelyan recently stated in the House of Commons that this is an open question, so far as the Government is concerned. In those circumstances, how can he now ask the opinion of the Government on the same subject? An open question means that the Government, as a Government, have not adopted any particular policy. That is the position of the Government in the matter. They have not adopted any particular policy as to Home Rule for Scotland, and I am not prepared to give my noble Friend any other answer to his question. My noble Friend is not entitled to cross-question me or any other individual Member of the Government as to our particular opinions on any subject. He has a right to ask, no doubt, whether a particular policy has been adopted by Her Majesty's Government; but the adoption of a policy by a Government is a different thing from the opinions held by its Members as individuals. In all Governments individual members have particular opinions; but when a Government has adopted a policy, that is an act of great significance and entailing great responsibility. It is perfectly true that the question of Scotch Home Rule has attained a position of importance to all who take an interest in these matters. On the introduction of the Bill in the House of Commons no less than 40 Scotch Members voted in favour of it. That is an important fact; but when a question which has not been adopted by Government is under public discussion, opinions may be held by individuals which they are perfectly entitled to entertain, but which they are not called upon forthwith to express, nor to say whether the Government would, in their opinion go in this or that direction in the event of a Resolution being at some time or other proposed. Does my noble Friend—does any reasonable man think that the present Government have not quite enough in hand now without proposing Home Rule for Scotland? Does he think that any Government would burden itself with such a question, which, when it does arise, may be dealt with in this or in that way—I am not concerned to say how, and which may be affected considerably by what may take place as regards Home Rule in Ireland? This may be a ques-

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  tion of the future, and I say nothing whatever one way or other upon it; but I answer my noble Friend's question plainly and distinctly—that Her Majesty's Government, as a Government, is not prepared to give any opinion as to the creation of a separate Parliament or Legislature in Scotland.
  THE DUKE OF ARGYLL: My Lords, I think it must be obvious to the House that the question and answer which we have just heard open up the whole of our political situation. There is nothing to which you may not have access through the door of the speeches which have been delivered, and I, for one, am very glad this question has been raised, for the time has, in my opinion, arrived when this House can no longer maintain that attitude of passive and dignified reserve which it is usually our proper attitude to assume until measures passed by the other House come up for our assent. We are all aware that a new duty has been cast upon us. We hear by public rumour, which we may assume to be authentic, that the other House of Parliament has been successfully gagged. It is, therefore, the more important that the House of Lords should not be gagged. I do my noble Friends opposite the credit to believe that even if they had a real majority they would not venture to propose such a measure as we are discussing; but as we are not gagged it is our duty to take an immediate and earnest part in discussing those subjects which will now be precluded in the other House of Parliament. It is our duty to take our part in educating the people of this country upon the immense issues at stake, because my own impression is that even now the constituencies, although they are gradually opening their eyes, are still, to a large extent, almost entirely ignorant of the tremendous issues which are at stake. A great many people in this country think—and this I derive from personal observation and experience—that it is a mere question of setting up a new Municipality in Ireland or Scotland; and I think it is our duty to take part in discussions which show that the life, liberty, and property of every subject of the Queen is at stake upon this question. I rejoice that my noble Friend, in asking the question he has now put to the noble Earl opposite, has begun Debates which
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  I trust will not close until this matter has been, at least for a time, disposed of. It may, of course, be said that there are difficulties in the way of our discussing this great question. It is not according to the Rules of the House to discuss a Bill which is under debate in the other House of Parliament. But we have ample access to the question before us, both as regards Ireland and as regards Scotland. We know the Bill of 1886. That is an historical document. We have as free right to discuss the Bill of 1886 as we have to discuss any other measure which has been proposed in any former Parliament.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (The Earl of ROSEBERY): On a question of Home Rule for Scotland?
  THE DUKE OF ARGYLL: On anything. What I want to put before the House is this: that we have a full right to discuss, and full access to, the whole principles involved in the question of Home Rule in the Bill of 1886, which is before us as a historical document.
  THE EARL OF ROSEBERY: So is Magna Charta.
  THE DUKE OF ARGYLL: And we have also access to all the Debates of former Parliaments. There is no breach of Privilege in quoting any speech made in the other House of Parliament upon that Bill. We have, furthermore, an official knowledge from the Queen's Speech that there is a proposal by the Government before Parliament for the better government of Ireland; and we have a right to ask the Government what are the principles involved in that proposal for the better government of Ireland? The Government have been asked by my noble Friend their opinions upon this question as regards Scotland. Their answer was that they have no opinions. That is their position on a great many other questions. They are, in fact, afraid on many questions to express an opinion, for they are dependent upon the chance majorities which they may collect from various sects and factions and Parties in the House of Commons, and they dare not risk offending any one of them. Now, the first thing we ought to impress upon the people of this country is, that this is not a time when the present Government can safely deal with the great issues involved in this question

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  that is before Parliament. On this point we have the opinion of the Prime Minister himself, expressed with great clearness in several passages which have been frequently quoted—
  "That no Government could safely deal with that question unless it was in possession of a clear majority in the House of Commons."
  No doubt, when those declarations of the Prime Minister were lately quoted by the noble Duke who is the Leader in this House of the Liberal Unionist Party a statement by Mr. Gladstone's secretary was published in the newspapers denying the accuracy of the quotations; but I am now prepared to maintain that those quotations were substantially accurate. As I have myself, on more than one occasion, quoted these passages on public platforms, and as I will not incur an accusation of having quoted anybody unfairly, I wish to read to the House the words used by Mr. Gladstone in 1885, of which I have an authorised report. These are The Political Speeches of Mr. Gladstone, Authorised Edition, delivered in November, 1885. In his famous speech delivered by the right hon. Gentleman at the Albert Hall, Edinburgh, on November 9, 1885, not once only, but four times, he reiterates and impresses upon the people of Scotland that this subject could not be dealt with, with even tolerable safety, unless by a Party which commanded a large majority in the House of Commons. The words are these—
  "But, quite apart from the names of Whig and Tory, this one thing I will say, and will endeavour to impress, and it is this: that it will be a vital danger to the country if at the time that the demand of Ireland for large powers of self-government is to be dealt with—it will be a vital danger to the Empire if there is not in Parliament ready to deal with that subject, ready to influence the proceedings upon that subject, a Party totally independent of the Irish vote. I will now suppose, gentlemen, for argument's sake—I will suppose it possible that the Liberal Party might be returned to the coming Parliament—this is rather a staggering supposition, I beg you to indulge me for an instant—might be returned to the coming Parliament in a minority, but in a minority which might become a majority by the aid of the Irish vote. And I will suppose that, owing to some cause, the present Government had disappeared, and that the Liberal Party was called upon to deal with this great Constitutional question of the government of Ireland, in a position where it was only a minority dependent upon the Irish vote for converting it into a majority. Now, gentlemen, I tell you seriously and solemnly that, although I believe the -Liberal Party itself to be honourable, patriotic,
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  sound, and trustworthy, yet in such a position as that it would not be trustworthy. In such a position as that it would not be safe for it to enter upon the consideration of the principles of a measure with respect to which at every step of its progress it would be in the power of a Party coming from Ireland to say—'Unless you do this, and unless you do that, we turn you out to-morrow.'"
  Is not that exactly what we see taking place at this moment? But Mr. Gladstone was not satisfied with that. He generally reiterates a good deal in his speeches; and he returned to the subject, for on the same occasion he went on to say—
  "Let me remind you, before I close these remarks, that this is a matter of the highest importance. We have had our little arguments, and. controversies, and anticipations, and desires about one question and another question. These are all very well in their way and at their time; but rely upon it that if such a matter comes forward at the outset of the proceedings of the new Parliament as I have described—namely, a demand made constitutionally by the vast majority of the Representatives of Ireland for the concession of large local powers of self-government, accompanied with an admission that the unity of the Empire is not to be impaired—the magnitude of that subject and its character will sweep into the shade for the moment all those subjects of ordinary legislation on which I, or on which others, have addressed you, and the satisfactory settlement of that subject which goes down to the very roots and foundations of our whole civil and political Constitution will become the first duty of the Parliament. A mistake in it, as I have shown you, would be of the most vital consequence. In order to avoid a mistake, in order to have, humanly speaking, every rational certitude of an upright treatment and of a satisfactory issue, it is absolutely necessary that there should be in the Parliament a Party able to deal with that question, and able to deal with the promoters of that question, in a liberal and in a kindly spirit, but with a perfect independence of them, so as to maintain every dictate of the principle that maintains the unity of the Empire. That is a matter of absolute necessity. That necessity can only be met, as I think I have shown, by the return of a great and a united Liberal majority to Parliament. Observe, gentlemen, I am not now pressing upon you that which is our assertion alone. It is not our assertion alone; it is the admission of the opposite Party that they do not look for a majority of the House of Commons, but they look for such a minority as may become a majority by the aid of Mr. Parnell, and unhesitatingly I say, if that be so, you cannot safely be entrusted with the duty of dealing with this great subject. I do not mean to say that, under the check and watch of a Liberal majority, that might not be possible; but nothing can make that dealing safe except the presence of a majority, which can only be a Liberal majority, and which shall be sufficient to maintain the independence of the House of Commons as a whole in dealing with this great subject."

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  Where is the independence of the House of Commons now? By a majority, as we are told, composed entirely of Irish Members, though much less in number than the body of Irish Members, in the face of a large and decisive majority of British Members, it is being attempted to force upon the country a measure of Home Rule for Ireland during the present Session, and that large and decisive majority of British Members is to be silenced. That is a very serious state of things, and I think it is one which we ought to impress upon the attention of the people of this country. Mr. Gladstone says this question "goes down to the roots of our civil and political Constitution." Those, my Lords, are very large words, and we know that they are perfectly true. We know the plan of Home Rule for Ireland, and I imagine that it would involve precisely the same principle as applied to Scotland. I do not see where they can make a difference. We have not the old religious animosities in our country, or the old civil factions which make the experiment doubly dangerous in Ireland; and, therefore, I suppose we may assume that all those who are willing to vote for Home Rule in Scotland are willing to proceed on the principles which we find in the Bill of 1886. We know that that plan will involve what Mr. Gladstone called "the breaking up of the Imperial power." That we know. We also know that the civil liberties of the minority of the Irish people are to be sold for a sum of money. A tribute is to be exacted from Ireland. The Irish people are not to be trusted—the "union of hearts" is not so perfect as that. The Irish Parliament is not to be trusted with the Votes which may be necessary to discharge its duty to the Empire; they are to be imposed as a tribute, and for that tribute the lives, liberties, and property of the loyal minority of Irishmen are to be placed at the absolute disposal of the majority, which has so long been hostile. That is what we know of the principles of Home Rule. Then we know, also, if we go to the Bill of 1886, that there will be no guarantees for the liberties of the minority such as are provided in the American Constitution. We do not, as a House of Parliament, know the details of the present Bill; but though we know nothing of them as a House of Parlia-
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  ment, as individuals we know a good deal. There is a bogus pretence—a mere imposture—of importing into this plan for Ireland some of the securities of the American Constitution. And none know better than the Members of Her Majesty's Government that that supposed insertion is a pure imposture. This plan contains none of the securities which are given in the Constitution of the United States. All that we know from the Bill of 1886. Then, my Lords, we know further that, considering the state of Ireland, these tremendous powers given to a majority are not unlikely to result in civil war—not at all unlikely. I, for one, hold the opinion strongly—I will not say what I think it is the duty of the minority in Ireland or of the people of Ulster to do, but this I do say—that we have no right to demand the allegiance of those whose liberties we cease to defend. In my opinion, allegiance and protection are absolutely conjoined. From those whom you do not protect, over whom you do not keep the ægis of the Imperial power, you have no right to demand obedience. Then, is there no danger of civil war? My noble Friend (the Earl of Camperdown) referred to a good many speeches of the noble Earl opposite who is now at the head of the Foreign Office. Well, I remember one in particular. The noble Earl is very fond of jokes, and some of his jokes are very good—some of them are highly instructive; but I was very much struck with one which the noble Earl made shortly before the General Election—in fact, when he was on the stump for his friends at Kelso.
  THE EARL OF ROSEBERY: And successfully.
  THE DUKE OF ARGYLL: He denied with some ridicule the idea that the Ulster people were in any danger; and the point of his argument was illustrated by a joke. He told his audience the story (it is not a new one, and many of your Lordships have, no doubt, heard it before) of the sailor and the Cossack in. the Crimea. He said—
  "You cannot sell a third of the population into slavery to the other two-thirds. It would be like the sailor who captured the Cossack in the Crimea, and made him a prisoner; but when his officer told him to bring the Cossack along, he said, 'Please, sir, I can't bring him along; he won't let me.'"

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  And the noble Earl said that, in like manner, it was impossible for the people of Ulster to be coerced by the rest of Ireland, because they would not allow it. That was a very ingenious and very good illustration, and I believe it is exactly what will happen—that the prisoner will not come: he will not obey his captor. That, my Lords, is the danger—a danger not remote—of civil war and contest in Ireland. I quite agree with the noble Earl. [The Earl of ROSEBERY dissented.] The noble Earl shakes his head; but those are his words, and that is the only interpretation I can put upon them. The whole point of them is that physical force should be resorted to, and that that is the justification for not obeying the commanding officer. If that is not the interpretation, I do not know what it can be. I admit that would not be so in Scotland. But as regards Ireland, in whose hands are you placing these tremendous powers over the minority? I happened to be at Paisley the other day at a public meeting, and I thought it worth while to look back at a speech which I knew the noble Earl had made some few years ago at the same place, in 1885, when it was suggested by the Conservative Party that this was a mania which had taken possession of Mr. Gladstone, and that—and this, my Lords, has I think a great deal to do with the matter—he wanted to get before the Tories lest they should give Home Rule to Ireland. I really believe that has a great deal to do with it. These were the words of the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary, speaking at Paisley in October, 1885—
  "We know the friendly feelings of Mr. Parnell towards this country. If I were an elector, my whole object would be to sink all minor differences and take care that that alliance"—one between the Tories and the Irish—"should be fruitless—an alliance which is not merely striking a mortal blow at political principle, but involves a danger to the Empire itself."
  And that is our doctrine now. That is exactly what we think. The duty which the noble Earl impressed upon the electors of Paisley was to take care that the supposed alliance between the Tory Party and the Parnellite Party should have no effect. We think it our duty now to take the same care that the alliance between the Irish Nationalist
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  Party and what is called the Liberal Party shall have no effect. And the noble Earl went on to explain that that supposed alliance
  "Was not merely striking a mortal blow at political principle, but involved a danger to the Empire itself."
  This, my Lords, is our language now in showing this danger—a danger which at a later period the noble Earl has taken his share in describing as no danger at all. There was danger he said in 1885, when there was a supposed alliance between the Conservative Party and the Parnellites; but there is none when the alliance is with himself. That is the logic of the noble Earl. But he goes on further to explain why there is one great and essential difference between Ireland and the Colonies upon the question of Home Rule. He said—
  "The difference is this—that the Colonies are loyal, and Ireland, I greatly fear, is not loyal. I wish I could believe that it was loyal, but I cannot."
  [The Earl of ROSEBERY: Hear, hear!] I am very glad to hear the noble Earl cheer, and that he still retains the sentiments which he uttered to the people of Paisley, when he said he "wished he could believe that Ireland was loyal, but he could not." Then we have the confession of the noble Earl that the Government with which he is connected is, perhaps reluctantly, but none the less certainly, pressed by his colleagues and by the necessities of his political position into handing over to a Party whom he has described as disloyal the lives, liberties, and property of a large minority of the Irish people. Well, then, my Lords, the answer of my noble Friend the Lord President has been such as he might have been expected to give. My noble Friend the Earl of Camperdown did not, I suppose, think that the Government would confess to any policy on the subject of Scottish Home Rule. The noble Earl's answer was like all the answers which he gives in this House—temperate, candid, and rational; but that is not the temper or spirit of those elsewhere with whom the noble Earl is acting—they are not temperate, they are not candid, and they are not rational. Their policy from the beginning has been ambiguity and concealment—concealment from the people of everything that they ought to have

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  been told. We have in our hands a proposal going, as you say yourselves, to the roots of the whole civil and political Constitution. You drew up a Bill in the course of some six weeks—in itself a monstrous assumption, considering that what was involved was nothing short of the British Constitution—and when that was rejected by an indignant Parliament you said—"We will start anew." You shut up your book, and from that moment nothing could induce any Member of the Government to disclose what was in their minds. Three years ago, in discussing the intentions of the Government at a large meeting in Manchester, I said that the Government plan was pretty well known, in outline, at least, from the Bill of 1886; and the answer of the noble Marquess opposite was that it was impossible for anybody to know anything about their intentions. That is exactly what I say. Those who have time to follow the Debates in Parliament, the Party speeches, and the clauses of Bills, can arrive at a very good idea of those intentions; but the mass of the people were kept in complete and absolute ignorance. It reminds me of a definition which the present Prime Minister once gave of one of the many Parties with which he has been connected in the course of his political life. I have no great admiration for the man who, having left one Party and joined another, devotes his energies to the vituperation of those with whom many of his best years have been spent. It is never a fair spirit, and it generally ends in injustice. But the Prime Minister ventured on a definition of the Conservative Party as distinguished from the Liberal Party, and he said—
  "The principle of the Conservative Party is distrust of the people qualified by fear. The principle of the Liberal Party" ("of which I am now the Leader," he might have added) "is confidence in the people qualified by prudence."
  All along, in relation to this Home Rule Question, the policy of the Prime Minister would have been more properly described as "contempt of the people qualified by cunning." Deliberate and persistent concealment of everything the people ought to have been told has been the policy of the Government. My noble Friend seems to object to that—
  THE EARL OF ROSEBERY: No; I merely smiled.
  THE DUKE OF ARGYLL: I am quite aware that I am speaking this Session for the first time in a tone of political opposition to which this House is not accustomed. But the time has come to speak out. We are bound to speak our minds, to speak the truth, and we are in a position to do it. That is the position. The people have hitherto been kept in complete ignorance of the principles involved in the Government plan. And now, with regard to Scotland, I wish to add a few words. [The Earl of ROSEBERY: Hear, hear!] I hope the noble Earl will not think that, because I have spoken of Home Rule in general, I do not think of it as regards Scotland. I know of no country in the world of which the history is more in favour of the principle of union than Scotland. Though a small and poor country, it has attained a high place among the nations of the world. It was great in arms; great in literature and art; highly distinguished in science. And yet it sprang from small and poor beginnings, and from no less than four or five separate and well-distinguished nationalities. As late as the time of Bruce and Edward, before Bannockburn, all the early Scottish Kings, in addressing their armies, had to address themselves to four or five different nationalities. Their orders and exhortations to armies were addressed to Scots, to Angles, to French or Normans, and, lastly, to the Gaels or Celtic races. My noble Friend opposite (Lord Playfair) knows their history well. Out of these heterogeneous elements one Central Monarchy and Government was established, and from that moment the prosperity of Scotland began. But Scotland had a specimen of Home Rule for many years in the Hebrides and Western Islands, and theirs was a miserable history of continued anarchy and bloodshed. It was worth remembering that that prevailed until the Union in 1603. No country ever had a more extraordinary experience than Scotland of what is often confounded with Home Rule, but was wholly different—municipal local government. It seems to be a new doctrine or fad with a certain section of the Liberal Party that local government carried to any extent is in itself a cause of great prosperity. There cannot be a greater mistake. No one has a greater regard for Municipal Institutions under

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  the limitation of our Constitution than myself. That is a system under which the life and liberty of all are under the protection of the Central Government. But in Scotland the great burghal Corporations in the Middle Ages were monopolist to the last degree. They had chartered privileges. Nobody could open shops without the leave of the Magistrates. There was not even power to buy and sell except under their regulation. The burghal Corporations were the great monopolists, and the landlords were the Free Traders of that time. Well, what was the result? The result of that dangerous degree of local government was the same in Scotland as in France before the Revolution—an absence of growth in wealth—poverty among the people. Cromwell in 1651 anticipated the Union of 1707. He did all he could to effect a Union in Scotland, and not long afterwards a majority of the burghs voted for an amalgamation with the Parliament of England. They saw that it would increase their prosperity. In 1690 the burghs were so discontented with their position that they appointed a Commission of Inquiry. The moment the Act of Union was passed the prosperity of Scotland began. Why should Scotland undergo the danger and risk of interfering with her present happy condition under the Union? The Imperial Parliament has hitherto been responsive in a lively manner to the desires of the Scottish people expressed through their Representatives. I have no belief whatever that any sensible Scotchman desires to risk the Union; and when the noble Earl at the head of the Foreign Office threw cold water on the whole scheme, that, in my opinion, was the proper way to treat it. There is a great deal in national sentiment; no one has it stronger than I have. I am proud of Scotland's position as an integral part of the British Empire, and I would never for a moment consent to sacrifice any part of the position of the Scotch Members in the Imperial Parliament for the sake of a base copy and imitation of Home Rule such as that which is clamoured for by a disloyal faction in Ireland, which desires to break up the integrity of the British Empire. My Lords, I only wish to say one word more, and that is about Free Trade and Protection. My noble Friend ridiculed any danger to Free
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  Trade in the proposals of the Government, and he said the reason Mr. Gladstone would not venture to propose any interference with Free Trade was that nine-tenths of the people would be against him. But Mr. Gladstone has distinctly laid it down as his doctrine that the Irish people have a full right to demand full control over the Customs and Excise. He does not put it upon the ground of Imperial right, but he says they have "generously agreed." That is all very well. Mr. Gladstone may have persuaded himself, and noble Lords opposite may have persuaded themselves, that those promises are sincere. But what right, let me ask, have you on the mere strength of your credulity and Party interests, to imperil the integrity of the Empire? My own opinion as regards Ireland is that that peril is a real one. My belief is that one of the main objects of the Irish Members is to secure the power of establishing some form or other of Protection in Ireland. I have thought it right to say a few words upon this occasion in your Lordships' House, because it is the first occasion since we have known the plan of the Government upon which your Lordships have had an opportunity of discussing the principles of Home Rule; and I confess, I think, that the whole question has been treated by the Government in a spirit of extraordinary rashness and levity, which gives us but little confidence in the wisdom of their measures.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (The Earl of ROSEBERY): My Lords, I never had a less idea of troubling your Lordships than when I entered the House this afternoon. I was engaged in the Foreign Office till late, and I have been engaged in Foreign Office business since I have been here. I came down partly to listen to an abstract discussion on a topic which is capable of being made full of interest and eloquence; but I little thought that in discussing that very interesting topic we were to be regaled principally with extracts from my own speeches, which, I confess, have not impressed themselves so deeply on my mind as they have on my noble Friend behind (the Earl of Camper-down) and on my noble Friend in front of me (the Duke of

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  Argyll). I do not know what your Lordships' sensations are when people begin to quote from your former speeches. Mine is one of unmixed uneasiness, and it was with a very sensible relief that I heard my noble Friend read out several passages from my speeches, and conclude by saying that he had no fault to find with them. That is a very considerable tribute to pay, and for the life of me I cannot find why they were quoted; but the whole Debate has assumed so desultory an appearance that I, for one, have been completely bewildered ever since my noble Friend inaugurated it. I have of late been very little in this House, and I have consequently heard very few discussions here; but I have been in an assembly of a much more vivacious character, much newer, and without any tradition such as those with which this House is gilded and adorned, and where they have certain elementary Rules of Procedure which I had entirely forgotten that this House had risen superior to. One of those Rules—one which, I suppose, will never be introduced into this House, but which practically preserved my life in the time when I presided in the London County Council—is the limitation of all speeches to a quarter of an hour. The other Rule, which I thought had still some force in deliberative assemblies, I find is relegated to Saturn with other extinct notions. It is that the discussion should have some remote relation to the subject on which it is founded. No one will assert that, valuable and interesting as was the speech, or rather the series of confessions or obiter dicta, with which we have been favoured by the noble and eloquent Duke, that they had any but the very remotest connection with the present subject. The noble Duke says that I am fond of jokes and stories. I declare that in a public speaker I do not think that that is altogether a detestable quality. The noble Duke deals with graver weapons and figures of oratory than I do. I will tell him a story which I hope, if he digs it up from its forgotten grave 10 years hence, he will quote more accurately than he has quoted to-night. President Lincoln was once invited to a wedding feast, and, in virtue of his high position, was asked to take a prominent and honourable seat at the table. The Presi-
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  dent, who also laboured under the fatal imputation of humour, said, "No, thank you; I do not think I will sit down. I will just browse about." And in the course of walking from table to table he managed to get an ample and satisfactory meal. We came down to the House and expected, as usual, that the noble Duke would sit down and enable us to partake, with him, of the rich intellectual feast he always provides; instead of that, he preferred to browse about. Now, my Lords, into what devious paths am I to follow the noble Duke? To begin with, was there ever such a question addressed to a Government before as that addressed to us by the noble Earl to-day? Is this Motion to become a fatal precedent for future deliberations? If so, I can conceive what will happen. Some noble Lord will rise to ask the opinion of Her Majesty's Government about the creed of St. Athanasius. No one will deny that it deals with subjects much more vital and much more important, and on which it is much more imperative to form an opinion, than on the question of Scottish Home Rule. We shall be asked that question, and the noble Duke will get up and deliver a speech, not on the creed of St. Athanasius, but on the state of the British drama, on political economy, on the science of ballooning, and on many other topics which, in the course of his vivacious remarks, he has only to touch to adorn. The foundation of this question is this—that Her Majesty's Government have introduced a measure for Irish Home Rule. Very well; we have not introduced any religious matter; therefore, you may say that the creed of St. Athanasius does not come into point. But we have introduced, or are about to introduce, a Bill—I really do not know which—for dealing with the Welsh Church. Everyone on that ground has a perfect right to come down and ask Her Majesty's Government what is their opinion of the English Church Establishment; and, having done that, to pursue the ordinary method of rhetoric and take up a few pages of the 5,000 speeches that Mr. Gladstone has made in his life, and ask the Government to offer some marginal notes or commentaries upon them. There was an old English pursuit to which this system of debate has some not remote resemblance. It was abolished by Act of Parliament,

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  because it was considered to be wanton, barbarous, and obsolete—it was the practice of bull-baiting. You fastened the bull to a stake—that is, to the Government Bench, and you then set all the dogs you could find to bait him for your amusement. I cannot help thinking that my noble countrymen who have addressed us this evening have adopted this as a solace to their moments which they have not sufficient work to fill up, and they come down and catechise Her Majesty's Government—who have their own work to do, and not much leisure to do it in—on every imaginable topic that may suggest itself to them. That is all very innocent and harmless; but there is a practice which is not innocent or harmless, and that is the practice of coming down to the House and delivering speeches which have no relation to the subject, and of taking out passages from speeches delivered by former friends sand political opponents and asking one's opinion as to these passages, whether they have anything to do with the subject in hand or not. The noble Duke gave us an eloquent description of how it became those who had ceased to be friends, and partisans who had left their Party to be very careful and tender towards their former colleagues. I have sat behind the noble Duke when he filled various Cabinet Offices as one of the Liberal Party; and when I see him sitting perched on the Tory Benches in all the complacency of his political morality, I cannot help thinking how much better a little practice would be than all the pages of preaching with which he has favoured us. The noble Duke ranged over a vast variety of topics. He talked sometimes of the Scotch burgh system, of points of political economy, sometimes of the character of Mr. Gladstone—he spoke more, perhaps, of Mr. Gladstone than upon any other topic—and sometimes of the conduct of the Home Rule Bill by the present Advisers of Her Majesty. What those topics have to do with Scottish Home Rule I do not know. Then the noble Duke touched not only freely on my acts, but he quoted liberally from my speeches. Where did he begin and where did he end? He began with a speech of mine delivered in Paisley in 1885. That speech has been the providence of Her Majesty's present Opposition. It comes up at periods, like the big goose-
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  berry or the frog that is found in a stone; it comes up in a dull season to refresh, the flagging energies of the Conservative Party. I think the noble Duke below the Gangway (the Duke of Devonshire) has referred to it more than once. I have received many letters asking questions on the subject, and I do not doubt that the noble Duke's reference to the speech this evening will induce many other letter-writers to address like inquiries to me. I have explained that speech at great length and on various occasions, and I will send the noble Duke a copy of those speeches, which I have no doubt will furnish him with further food for reflection. But that speech must be taken as a whole, and extracts ought not to be taken out here and there without seeing the real bearing of the whole. The bearing of the speech was this: that it was proper and right to give Ireland all she demanded consistently with the safety of the Empire; and so much was it considered a Home Rule speech in days when Home Rule was not, perhaps, so widely diffused as it is now, that I remember as soon as it was road next morning I received an invitation, which I declined, to attend a Home Rule soirée in the neighbouring City of Glasgow. The noble Duke read a passage from that speech referring to the alliance of the Tory Party and the Parnellites, which he said I blamed. I did blame the alliance, and I will tell you why. I do not care to dig up these old bones; but if the noble Duke digs them up, I shall not be failing on my part to share the plunder. We fear that alliance because we had been through a terrible crisis in the government of Ireland. No one can forget that horrible event of the 6th May, 1882, which must be branded on the memory of every noble Lord here; and it was necessary, in view of the symptoms of disloyalty of the Irish people, that Her Majesty's Government should adopt some measure of repression in order to vindicate, at any rate, the just susceptibilities of the English people in favour of law and order. Her Majesty's Government at that time were constantly taunted, not with their tendency to Home Rule, but with the fact that they had not kept a sufficiently tight hand upon Ireland during that period, that the Coercion Bill was not sufficiently severe. Well, on some other question, I forget

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  whether it was Egypt or beer or something else, but the Government went out, and it was beaten by that very coalition of the Tory Party and the Irish Party, which, in other quarters, the noble Duke regards with so much disfavour. What did we see? The noble Marquess opposite came down to the House to make his Ministerial declaration. But there was one part of the declaration which he did not make; he left it to the late Lord Carnarvon; and the late Lord Carnarvon, with a penitential aspect which I shall never forget, announced that the policy of repression was over in Ireland; that Her Majesty's Advisers intended to inaugurate something like a new era in Ireland—that which we hope to be able to inaugurate now. What happened? I was not in the House of Commons, but we read next morning what passed in the House of Commons on that occasion, when the Secretary for India, the foremost man on the Government Bench at that time, took occasion to flout the Government of my noble Friend with regard to one portion of the Programme of that Government which was most earnestly reprobated by friend and foe. If the words were to be said over again, I should not hesitate to say that I distrust that alliance equally now. The noble Duke quoted another passage in which I said that Ireland, I feared, was not loyal. I said in 1885 that the disloyalty of Ireland was a matter of notoriety. It had followed a long system of repression, and some of the Irish Leaders were going about and praying for the success of any enemy that might defeat the arms of Great Britain. Since that time a great Party has deliberately allied itself with the hopes and aspirations of Ireland so far as they can be consistently maintained with Imperial unity. You may think that they cannot consistently be so maintained; that is a point on which we may agree to differ; but do you consider that no change has been effected in Ireland by the six or seven years of steady co-operation between the Liberal Party and the Irish Party there? Do you believe that the Irish are now in the same frame of mind as they were in September, 1885, when I made that speech? If the noble Duke believes that to be the case, then I can only say that he must have been even more secluded in his Highland fastnesses
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  than I thought he really was. I am very loth to detain your Lordships a moment longer; but, as a matter of fact, this Debate has taken less the form of a discussion on Scottish Home Rule than of a personal impeachment of myself. That impeachment I am quite prepared to sustain; but, having made a very few speeches on this subject during the last few years, I do honestly say that I should have liked a little more opportunity for preparation than has been afforded to me, and I think the noble Duke ought to have given some indication, some warning to the person he was going to attack, in order that his adversary should have had the opportunity of furbishing up his ancient extracts. The Debate, however, has taken this form, and I see nothing to reproach myself with, or to particularly regret, in the extracts that have been read out to your Lordships. One thing is certain: that some of us are Home Rulers on one ground and some on another. My noble Friend on the Back Bench wishes to know whether I am a Federal Home Ruler. That is a question rather between me and my conscience than one of any practical utility to this Chamber. I am in favour of closer Federal relations between the Colonies and the Mother Country, and my noble Friend is quite free to make what deduction he pleases from that fact. At the same time, he very truly says that I have exercised a discouraging influence on the course of Scottish Home Rule. This view is also shared by those excellent and amiable people on whom my noble Friend did not lavish too much eulogy—the Scottish Home Rulers themselves—because they never hold a meeting without passing a vote of censure on the humble individual who now addresses you. But surely Home Rule is not so limited an expression that it must mean the same thing for Scotland as for Ireland. Are all the people who form the Scottish Home Rule Association, of which the noble Marquess is President, Home Rulers of one pattern, with one idea? Are we to understand that Home Rule for Scotland is to imply the revival of her ancient Parliament, as I think some of the principal Scottish Home Rulers say; that we are to have one Chamber, with three or four Orders sitting in it, with the Lords of the Articles and all the ancient apparatus of

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  that venerable Legislature? Or are we to understand that under the guise of Scottish Home Rule there is to be some system by which local affairs and Private Bill legislation may be better attended to in Edinburgh or Glasgow, or her County Councils federalised in some sort of Central. Council which would enable her business to be transacted in Scotland in a way in which it certainly never is at Westminster? I am not throwing this out as my opinion; I am only pointing out that there may be a form of Scottish Home Rule which many even on the Conservative Benches may be able to vote for, and which may be consistent with the austerest and strictest views of the integrity of the Empire. More than that I am not prepared to say at this juncture. I am not empowered by Her Majesty's Government to say even that much. I have not the gift of enthusiasm possessed by my right hon. Friend the Secretary for Scotland, which carries him a great deal further than that, and I am not responsible for all his opinions on abstract questions any more than he is responsible for mine. But if you ask him a question like that which has been asked of the Lord President of the Council I think he will only be able to reply that the Government have formulated no policy with regard to Home Rule in Scotland; and by that declaration they intend to abide. I do not understand that there is any complaint of there being a deficiency of Bills presented to Parliament by the Government. I am not aware that the Speech from the Throne, which they recommended the Queen to deliver, was a speech particularly meagre in subjects of legislation. I am not aware that there is any vacuum that demands to be filled in the legislative arrangements of the other Chamber, and therefore I confess that it is with dismay, almost with stupor, that I view the prospect before us not merely of being catechised on the subjects introduced in the Queen's Speech, but on all the subjects which the Opposition think that we might, should, or ought to have introduced into it.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: My Lords, I must congratulate the noble Lord on having wandered through a very difficult and thorny country, and on having touched on a great many burning topics, without having committed the mistake of confiding to us on any
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  subject the opinions that he really entertains. His views with respect to the integrity of the Empire are evidently of an elasticity which will give every opportunity for any subsequent evolution that may be necessary. His views also with respect to the unity of the Cabinet have the same happy quality. I should not have risen, however, to answer him on a matter which does not specially concern me, as I have not the honour to be a Scotchman, if he had not made some allusions in the course of his speech to the digging up of old bones and to the controversies of 1885, with regard to which I feel bound to correct some historical errors which he made. He defends himself for having deprecated an alliance between the Tories and the Parnellites on the ground that there was such an alliance in that year. That was a statement of the Prime Minister, like thousands of other statements he so constantly throws about and has repeated, which is entirely and absolutely without foundation. I defy anybody to produce anything approaching to proof of it. It is perfectly true that the forces of Mr. Parnell and our forces were in the same Lobby on the night the Government were turned out. We voted on a fiscal question on which we felt strongly—namely, the question of the relief of land from local taxation, and the Irish Party thought fit to support us. I have no doubt they had good reasons for it, but that is not an alliance between the Conservatives and the Parnellites. It is not the kind of alliance which now exists between the Irish Party and the Liberal Party. We did not bring in measures at the bidding of the Irish Party, and we did not hold ourselves bound to modify them at the will of the Irish Party. We did not hold out a bribe to the Irish Party, and we did not depend on the Irish Party for every step we took in carrying through the measures that we recommended to Parliament. And, again, I demur strongly to the statement that we reversed the policy of the previous Government in respect to the Crimes Act. The noble Earl has thought it convenient to ignore entirely the very peculiar state of affairs in Parliament at that time. The Government had resigned, but no Dissolution was possible before the Reform Bill was passed, and we had to go on for six

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  months, during which we could not obtain a majority of the House of Commons or appeal to the country to give us that majority at the poll. We were utterly without power to pass anything through the House of Commons, and when called upon to take Office at the beginning of July we had the necessary financial business of the country to carry through. We knew that to suppose that we could produce a Crimes Bill and pass it before the Prorogation was simply a chimera. We knew that all we should do if we attempted it would be to destroy our power for carrying on the Government for those six months, which the very exceptional circumstances forced us to carry on in the position of a minority. But nothing that I ever said—nothing Lord Carnarvon ever said—ever renounced the policy of the repression of crime in the disturbed parts of Ireland. With regard to the noble Earl (Earl Spencer), I feel bound to say—speaking of the observations made with respect to his policy—that if we had had any idea at that time that he was going to renounce the opinions of a lifetime our enthusiasm would have been much less pronounced. I wished to make that explanation, but I shall not detain your Lordships upon this subject. I should like to point out that the consideration which has been given to two questions of Home Rule at the same time is not so anomalous as some speakers have tried to represent. We wish to know at what point are we in the genesis of the project for Scotch Home Rule. The noble Earl (the Earl of Kimberley) informs us that he has not made up his mind, and that he does not intend to tell us what he thinks about Scotch Home Rule. Well, that represents, I suppose, the sort of speech which he might have made with respect to Irish Home Rule in 1885. But we have now learned by sore experience that the disclaimer of future intentions on the part of Members of the Government is no proof of the state of mind of the most influential Member of the Government on the subject. We know that there is a certain process, a succession of phenomena in the evolution of opinions as they are displayed by the head of the Government. We know that Irish Home Rule some 20 years ago was less—much loss—in his
  532
  view than Scotch Home Rule is now. No one could express his hatred of it or his contempt for it more strongly than Mr. Gladstone. He treated it with ridicule, much as the noble Earl has treated Scotch Home Rule. That is the first stage; but we have passed that stage with regard to Scotch Home Rule, and we are now to speak of it with respect. The next stage is that the Prime Minister makes up his mind to advocate Home Rule; but he keeps his secrets so carefully from all his colleagues that they go about the country denouncing it in the most unmeasured terms. I need not remind your Lordships how Home Rule was spoken of in 1885 by Sir W. Harcourt, the present Chancellor of the Exchequer—Mr. Gladstone's right-hand man, who had a right, if anyone had, to know the secret counsels of that mind—and yet within, I think, three weeks or a month before the great change, the announcement of the great betrayal, there was Sir W. Harcourt denouncing the Tory Party and expressing the hope that they might be "allowed to stew in their Parnellite juice." I do not know whether we have passed that stage yet in respect to Scotch Home Rule. I rather think we have, for although Sir G. Trevelyan speaks of it with enthusiasm, the noble Earl—who speaks of Sir G. Trevelyan. with scant respect—avoids committing himself to any metaphors of that violent description into which Sir W. Harcourt plunged, and is more careful. Knowing that the noble Earl is a literary man, I should not expect him to use the figure: "stewing in Parnellite juice"; it would never occur to him to use that figure of speech in this House. Then we go on to another stage. The Ministry were turned out on the Home Rule Bill, and when they were taunted with its provisions the reply was that the Bill was dead and buried—there was an end of it; and during six or seven years, until February last, they succeeded in concealing with absolute and complete, success every hint of the species of measure they intended to introduce. If they had not liked to do it in Opposition, one would have thought they would have given some hint when they came into Office. No so. Until the Bill was fairly laid before the House of Commons, no one had a conception of what its clauses were going to be. Even then we

  533
  did not know them. The process of insidious concealment was not over then. The most important, as we know now, of the clauses—that portion relating to the presence of the Irish Members in the Imperial Parliament and the clauses relating to the financial arrangements between the two countries—the two vital questions—were they, when the Bill was at last presented, confided to the world? Not a bit of it. Before long the financial proposals were formally withdrawn, and it was intimated pretty clearly that the Government were not unpersuadable as to the presence of the Irish Members in the House of Commons, and they succeeded in pushing the policy of concealment so far that they kept back their intentions—their definitive intentions—in respect to these two vital clauses of their Home Rule Bill until they had reached the point at which they ventured to demand that the gag should be placed on the House of Commons. They deliberately held those matters back until their guillotine was ready; they have held them back until they were able to say to Englishmen and Irishmen alike—"You shall pass this measure, which vitally concerns the institutions of the country, as no other measure ever concerned them before, without having the power to amend or discuss them, and without being able to enlighten the public as to their real bearing and effect." This has been the subtle, insidious policy which has been pursued from the first moment. Their dread was that the disclosure of their long-meditated scheme would arouse public discussion—an ordeal to which they dared not expose themselves—and would even overcome the apathy shown by many of the English constituencies. Every art, therefore, has been exhausted, and every Parliamentary tradition violated, in order that the true situation should not be presented to the country; that the educating process should not go on, and the constituencies be enlightened as to the real nature of the revolution which they are attempting. Now, my Lords, I say the revelation of this sinister process throws a great light on what is passing with respect to Scotch Home Rule, and absolutely justifies the noble Lord in bringing this matter before the House. It is of the most vital importance to us, and to Scotchmen still more, that we should know where we
  534
  are, and that, if possible, we should have revealed to us what is passing in that all-powerful mind from which these sudden decrees unexpectedly issue. It is of vital importance that we should be able before it is too late—before great damage and injury has been done by proposals of this revolutionary kind—to draw the attention of the constituencies and of the whole country to the dangerous path along which they are invited to go. I cannot say that we have been very successful in obtaining any enlightenment as to the state of opinion of Her Majesty's Government, and I have no doubt the noble Earl is perfectly accurate when he says that he knows nothing about it.
  THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: I hope the noble Marquess will not put words in my mouth. I did not say I knew nothing about it. What I said was that with regard to Scottish Home Rule the Government had no policy to announce; that they had not undertaken to propose Home Rule for Scotland. I said nothing whatever about my own opinion on the subject. If the noble Marquess wishes to know, I have an opinion on the subject, but I do not think it necessary to tell it him.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I did not say that the noble Earl knows nothing about the subject, but that I understood him to say he knew nothing about the opinion of the head of the Government, which is the important point; and I think it is possible he will know little about it until the project is launched to the world. I can only end my speech as I began, by complimenting the noble Earl (the Earl of Rosebery) on the extraordinary success with which he has concealed his opinions. I have no doubt he has learned that among other arts of diplomacy which he practises so well. If I were with noble Lords opposite—if I were in the place of my noble Friend (the Earl of Camperdown)—I should not be satisfied with being put off with protests of this kind. The matter ought not to be allowed to sleep. Parliament and the electors of the country, particularly of Scotland, ought to have their attention constantly directed to the object that may be in view, or else some day we shall have started upon us that scheme of Federation, as yet but dimly shadowed, which, in the words of Canning, will

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  restore the Heptarchy and will degrade England from her position in the world.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord HERSCHELL): My Lords, I do not propose to prolong this discussion, because I think the observations of the noble Marquess show the inconvenience of a Debate of this sort with regard to proposals said to have been made in another place. From the language the noble Marquess has used, I cannot but think he must be really inaccurate in his statement of the proposals which have been adopted in the other House. The Resolution which has been adopted will permit of as lengthened discussion as has ever taken place with regard to the same number of clauses in any Bill. The noble Marquess said that in 1885 his Government did not renew the Coercion Bill because of the difficulty with which they were confronted in not having a majority.
  THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: I denied that we had renounced the policy of taking measures for the repression of crime if the necessity for it should arise.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR: I recollect the announcement made by Sir Michael Hicks-Beach on the part of the Government, and I propose, with your Lordships' permission, to read it. He said—
  "Parliament has granted to Ireland the freedom of Parliamentary election by the Ballot and extension of the franchise; and it is absolutely inconsistent with that complete political freedom to continue permanently the old-fashioned government of Ireland by a system of coercion."
  That was a declaration of a new policy. I cannot help thinking that that change was resolved upon and was known before the critical vote to which the noble Marquess alluded. I have a lively recollection of the shouts of triumph that were heard when the numbers were declared; and among the most prominent cries which arose was that of "No more coercion."
  [The subject then dropped.]

PIER AND HARBOUR PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 3) BILL.—(No. 128.)
Read 3a (according to Order), with the Amendments, and passed, and returned to the Commons.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 14) BILL.—(No. 154.)
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 16) BILL.—(No. 155.)
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.
LOCAL GOVERNMENT PROVISIONAL ORDER (HOUSING OF WORKING CLASSES) (No. 2) BILL.—(No. 163.)
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.
EDUCATION PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (LONDON) BILL [H.L.] (No. 94.)
House in Committee (according to Order): The Amendments proposed by the Select Committee, made: Further Amendments made: Standing Committee negatived: The Report of Amendments to be received on Monday next.
FRIENDLY SOCIETIES ACT (1875) AMENDMENT BILL.—(No. 147.)
House in Committee (according to Order): Bill reported without Amendment; and re-committed to the Standing Committee.

SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS (IRELAND) BILL [H.L.]—(No. 154.)
Read 3a (according to Order), and passed, and sent to the Commons.
House adjourned at half past Seven o'clock, to Monday next, a quarter past Four o'clock.