Sitting of 8 September 1893

QUESTIONS.

  INOCULATION EXPERIMENTS IN INDIA.
  MR. HOPWOOD:I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India whether he has received an answer to enable him to say by what authority Dr. Haffkine has been permitted to inoculate soldiers at Agra with cholera virus as an experimental precaution against cholera; by what authority was he allowed to inoculate 250 school children in elementary schools, and were the children voluntary subjects of the experiment; and if he has not yet received the answer, will he require the authorities to send the information at an early date?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. G. RUSSELL,): The reply to the Secretary of State's Despatch asking for information on this subject has not yet been received. The Government of India has been asked by telegraph to expedite their Report.
  MR. HOPWOOD: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India whether Surgeon Major King has been restored to the position from which he had been transferred for the use of lymph not now sanctioned by the Government; is the Government aware that the lymph in question is recommended in the Manual of Instruction on Vaccination, published by the Government in India, as formerly by the authorities here; and is the lymph in question variolous or small-pox in its origin, and how is it regarded by the medical advisors of the Indian Government?
  MR. G. RUSSELL: The question is the repetition of one which was asked me by my hon. Friend on the 11th July, when I informed him that the Government of India would be asked to furnish a Report. The Despatch was sent on the 27th July, and the answer has not yet been received.

  DIPHTHERIA IN THE ISLAND OF LEWIS.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether inquiry has been made by the County Medical Officer of Health for Ross and Cromarty into the serious outbreak of diphtheria at the Port of Ness, Island of Lewis; and whether, should the Board of Supervision investigate into the cause of the outbreak, it will do so through the agency of a member who is a medical man and not entrust the inquiry to a lawyer?
  THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Sir G. TREVELYAN,): Inquiry has been made into the recent outbreak of diphtheria at the Port of Ness by the Sanitary Medical Officer in charge of that part of the island—Dr. Ross, of Borve, a thoroughly competent official—and by the deputy Chief Medical Officer of the district, Dr. Macrae. They have notified to the County Medical Officer 18 cases of mild type at Ness and one at Barvas. The infected districts have been visited by Drs. Ross and Macrae, and reported on to Lewis District Committee, and instructions given to Sanitary Inspector as to necessary prompt action and precautions as to disinfection, &c. The Board of Supervision will be made aware of the outbreak at their next meeting on the 12th instant; but, in the circumstances above stated, it is improbable that they will think it necessary to make further investigations.

  THE DEER FOREST COMMISSION.
  MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether it is the fact that the crofters and other inhabitants of the country around Thurso were invited by the Deer Forest Commission to attend at Thurso, on Tuesday, 29th August, to give evidence at a sitting of the Commission; whether, on their arrival, they found that no sitting would be held that day in consequence of the absence of the Chairman and Secretary; and why no arrangements were made to furnish information to the persons who attended to give evidence as to when the sitting of the Commission would be held?
  SIR G. TREVELYAN: It is the fact that notices were issued in common form for a sitting at Thurso on Tuesday, 29th August, to everyone whose name had
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  been sent in to the Secretary as desiring to attend such sitting and give evidence. In consequence of a necessary change of arrangements it was resolved on Saturday, the 26th, to postpone that sitting, and on the same day the Secretary sent notices of the postponement by post to everyone who had previously received an intimation to attend and give evidence. It is right to add that the postponed sitting was held on Monday, 4th September, and continued into the following day, when everyone interested who came forward was afforded a full opportunity of giving his evidence.

  THE CASE OF HENRIETTA WARD.
  MR. POWELL WILLIAMS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the case of Henrietta Ward, a married woman with four children, who was convicted on her own confession at the Birmingham Petty Sessions on the 4th instant of stealing boots, and sentenced to six weeks' imprisonment with hard labour; whether he is aware that the woman had, up to the time of her conviction, borne a good character, and that the offence was the first of which she had been convicted; and whether, under all the circumstances, he will take the sentence into consideration, with a view of according to her the benefit of the First Offenders Act?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. ASQUITH,): I have carefully considered all the circumstances of this case, and I regret that I do not see my way to interfering with the sentence.

  YORK CAVALRY BARRACKS.
  MR. BUTCHER: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether the Government contract for the painting of the Cavalry Barracks at York has been sub-let; whether the sub-contractor, to whom such contract has been sub-let, is paying his workmen employed in doing the work contracted for by such contract wages which in many cases are considerably below the wages generally accepted as current in the trade for competent workmen; and having regard to the Resolution of this House of the 13th February, 1891, what steps the Govern-

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  ment propose to take in regard to the matter?
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE WAR OFFICE (Mr. WOODALL,): A Report was recently received from the local Trades Union authorities to the effect that some work of this kind was being carried out by a sub-contractor. The General Officer Commanding at York has been directed to inquire into the matter.

  TRIAL BY JURY IN BENGAL.
  MR. PAUL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India whether any steps have been taken to extend the system of trial by jury in Bengal to districts of that Province where it does not now prevail, and in cases where it does not now apply, as recommended by the native members of the Commission which recently reported on the subject?
  MR. G. RUSSELL: No, Sir. The Despatch which I informed my hon. Friend on the 18th May the Secretary of State was expecting from the Government of India on the subject of the recommendations of the Bengal Jury Commission has not yet been received; and the Secretary of State is unable, therefore, to make any statement at present.

  SCOTCH RAILWAY RATES.
  MR. ANSTRUTHER: I beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works, as Chairman of the Select Committee on Railway Rates and Charges, whether any evidence has been taken by the Committee as to the rates in force for traders in the South and East of Scotland, especially between Edinburgh or Leith and Cupar Fife; whether the evidence already taken by the Committee will be circulated to hon. Members; and whether he can hold out any hope of a final Report, at an early date, on the question referred to the Committee?
  THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (Mr. SHAW-LEFEVKE,): Three witnesses have given evidence before the Railway Rates Committee as to the rates in the South and East of Scotland, but not with regard to Cupar Fife in particular. The evidence taken by the Committee has been reported to the House, and has
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  been ordered to be printed; but I cannot say how soon copies can be circulated to hon. Members. The Committee will meet to consider its final Report as soon as possible after the re-assembling of the House in November.

  MARKING OF FOREIGN MEAT.
  COLONEL HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture if the attention of the Government has been called to the evidence given before the Select Committee on the Marking of Foreign Meat, and particularly to the unanimous testimony of 44 witnesses, including several leading butchers, as to the frequent supply to consumers of cheap foreign meat as prime English, best Scotch, best Irish, or Welsh mutton, at prices genuine Home-produced articles command; and what steps it is proposed to take to carry out the recommendation of the Committee as to the registration of persons dealing in imported meat?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Mr. MUNDELLA,): My right hon. Friend has desired me to answer this question. The evidence taken before the Committee has not yet been circulated, and we cannot make any statement on the subject until we have had an opportunity of fully considering it.

  MAGAZINES OF HER MAJESTY'S SHIPS.
  MR. HANBURY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty what information the Admiralty possess as to the temperature to which cordite can safely be submitted in the magazines of Her Majesty's ships; whether in any, and, if any, in what vessels the magazines are placed between the boilers; and in what vessels, by means of non-conducting materials or otherwise, adequate precautions have been taken against the magazines becoming so hot as to render it dangerous to store cordite in them?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Sir U. KAY-SHUTTLE-WORTH,): The answers to the three questions are:—(1.) Cordite can safely be submitted to a temperature of 100 degs. Fahrenheit in the magazines of Her Majesty's ships without any sensible deterioration. (2) In the Sans Pareil, Nile, Trafalgar, the seven vessels of Royal Sovereign class,

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  and the Hood. (3) In all vessels where magazine temperatures of 100 degs. or above have been noted proper precautions have been, or are being, taken to keep the magazines within that limit.

  WEIGHING INSTRUMENTS IN GOVERNMENT ESTABLISHMENTS.
  MR. JESSE COLLINGS: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether scales and other weighing instruments used in dockyards and other Government establishments are required to have the stamp of the Local Authority in which they are used in addition to the stamp of the Local Authority in which they were made; and, if not, whether such scales and weighing instruments are being used in violation of the provisions of the Act of 1889?
  MR. MUNDELLA: I have no information that scales and other weighing instruments used in dockyards and other Government establishments are required to be re-stamped as referred to in the question of the right hon. Member; and the Board of Trade are advised that the Weights and Measures Acts do not require weighing instruments which are the property of the Crown to be stamped by the Inspectors of Weights and Measures appointed by the Local Authorities.

  APPLICATION OF RATES TO PAYMENT OF PENSIONS.
  DR. FARQUHARSON: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether County Councils are entitled under the existing law to apply rates to the payment of pensions or grants?
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALFOUR,): If I were to answer my hon. Friend's question in general terms, my reply would be in the negative, unless where such pensions are permitted by Statute; but if I were asked whether a County Council may, under special circumstances, and as part of an arrangement for the retirement of a deserving servant, make to him a superannuation allowance, I cannot say that this would be necessarily illegal.

  GREENWICH AGE PENSIONS.
  MR. E. J. C. MORTON: I beg to ask the Civil Lord of
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  the Admiralty if he is now able to state what steps the Admiralty will take to ensure that all those qualified to receive Greenwich Age Pensions shall receive them?
  THE CIVIL LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. E. ROBERTSON,): The Treasury having assented to the recommendation of the Committee on Greenwich Hospital Age Pensions that a sum of £16,000 a year shall be added from Naval Funds to the amount previously available for these pensions, additional pensions to this amount will be granted from 1st October next. An explanatory statement on this subject will be laid on the Table in a few days.

  AFFAIRS AT HARBOUR ISLAND, BAHAMAS.
  MR. GODSON: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the attention of the Secretary of State for the Colonies has been called to a letter from Mr. Julius Stafford Solomon, late Resident Justice at Harbour Island, Bahamas, to the Chief Justice of the Colony, in which Mr. Solomon intimates that he has been compelled by the Bahamian Government to reluctantly resign his position as a Resident Magistrate; whether any, and if any what, offence was alleged against Mr. Solomon; whether he is aware that, upon Mr. Solomon quitting office, the Resident Justice at Governors Harbour, Bahamas, was transferred to his post at Harbour Island, and a Mr. Austin Thompson, a brother-in-law of R. H. Sawyer, a member of the Executive Council, was provisionally appointed as Resident Justice at Governors Harbour; whether he is also aware that, after an inquiry recently held before the Executive Council of the Colony into some alleged misconduct of the Postmaster of the Colony, the said Postmaster was suspended from office and Mr. Austin Thompson appointed provisionally to fulfil the duties of Postmaster; and whether the Secretary of State will cause inquiry to be made both into the circumstances attending Mr. Solomon's quitting office and Mr. Austin Thompson's appointment as Resident Justice and acting Postmaster?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. S. BUXTON,): Mr.

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  Yelverton, the Chief Justice of the Bahamas, has in a Letter received to-day communicated to the Secretary of State a letter addressed to him by Mr. Solomon, late Resident Justice of Harbour Island, in which he implies that he has been compelled to resign his office. The Secretary of State is not aware that any offence has been alleged against Mr. Solomon. The Governor reported that Mr. Solomon had retired on a pension, but we have no information of the circumstances which led to his retirement; but, in view of Mr. Solomon's letter, further inquiries are being made. On the retirement of Mr. Solomon, Mr. O'Halloran, the Resident Justice of Governors Harbour, was provisionally appointed Resident Justice of Harbour Island, and Mr. Austin Thompson was provisionally appointed Resident Justice of Governor's Harbour. These provisional appointments have been duly reported to the Secretary of State, but have not yet been confirmed by him. The Postmaster of the Bahamas has been suspended from his office. Pending the appointment of a new Postmaster, the officer administering the Government has appointed Mr. Austin Thompson to be acting Postmaster.
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Was Mr. Solomon retired on account of his age?
  MR. S. BUXTON: The only information received by the Colonial Office is that he retired on a pension.

  THE BEHAR CADASTRAL SURVEY.
  MR. WEBSTER: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India whether, under the Bengal Tenancy Act of 1885, any limits are imposed as to the area within which the Government is empowered to make a compulsory survey at the expense of the landlords and tenants; and, if so, whether the Government of Bengal would be instructed to observe those limits in its operations in connection with the Behar Cadastral Survey?
  MR. G. RUSSELL: Section 101 of the Bengal Tenancy Act of 1885 permits the Local Government to make a survey and record of rights in a local area without any limitation with the previous sanction of the Governor General in Council, and permits the local Government to do so without such previous sanction in four specified cases. Section 114 of the same
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  Act provides for the defrayal of the cost of such operation, in either case, by the landlords and tenants. The Secretary of State is confident that the Government of Bengal are duly observing the requirements of the law in this matter.

  A CRIMEAN VETERAN.
  VISCOUNT WOLMER: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether his attention has been called to the case of David Gordon, late No. 6,024, who has served in the Crimea, and was discharged from the Grenadier Guards on January 26, 1861, with a good character, and with the record of 10 years' service in the Army certified on his parchment discharge certificate; and, if so, whether he will state the reason why Gordon has been informed in an Official Letter of May 20, 1893, that he is not eligible as an applicant for a special Crimean pension because he has only nine years and 364 days' service in the Army reckoning for pension?
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE WAR OFFICE (Mr. WOODALL,): Private Gordon served from December 30, 1850, to January 26, 1861—i.e., 10 years and 28 days; but he forfeited 29 days' service, and consequently could only reckon nine years 364 days towards pension. As 10 years is the minimum qualifying service for the special campaign pension, he is not entitled thereto. It must not be forgotten that the number of these special campaign pensions is limited, and, though 10 years is the minimum service qualifying, there are very many of the unsuccessful applicants who have served a much longer time, and whose cases naturally have precedence.
  VISCOUNT WOLMER: I wish to ask whether the hon. Member observes that the application made by this man is to be enrolled among the applicants; and whether, although this man's discharge certified that he had served 10 years, the Treasury refuses to hold him eligible because his term of service was one day short of the 10 years?
  MR. WOODALL: I admit that it is a very hard case; and if the 10 years, instead of qualifying as an applicant, qualified for pension, we should, of course, press the claim upon the Treasury;

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  but, as a matter of fact, the man stands a long way behind other claimants.
  VISCOUNT WOLMER: May the man not be allowed to be enrolled among the applicants, and then his application would take its chance among the rest?
  MR. WOODALL: I will promise to go into the matter if I see the smallest chance of his obtaining a pension in the event of his title as an applicant being admitted.

  FOREIGN NAVIES.
  MR. HANBURY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether he can state what is the amount estimated for new construction during the present year in the Navies of Germany, Russia, France, and Italy respectively?
  SIR U. KAY-SHUTTLEWORTH: Germany, £947,725; Russia, £1,692,124; France, £2,918,120; Italy, £1,000,000. The corresponding estimated expenditure in cash and stores (including contract ships under Naval Defence Act) for this country is, for 1893–4, £2,982,086.

  THE NATIONAL TELEPHONE COMPANY.
  CAPTAIN BAGOT: I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether, in view of the fact that the Report of the Select Committee on the Telegraphs Bill, on which the agreement between the Post Office and the National Telephone Company is to be founded, was arrived at without any evidence being taken either from any Municipal Corporation or from any representative of the telephone-using public, and that the Committee was appointed on the eve of the Dissolution, he will consider the advisability of the reappointment of the Committee to take further evidence in the interests of the public before concluding the agreement with the National Telephone Company?
  MR. SAUNDERS: I beg to ask the Postmaster General if he will give the London County Council an opportunity of considering the proposed agreement with the National Telephone Company before it is completed?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether, in view of the desire to that effect expressed in several large Provincial centres, he proposes to lay upon the Table the agreement in regard to telephones made with the National Telephone Company before its final conclusion; whether that agreement is in accordance with the heads of agreement signed by his predecessor and with the Report of the Select Committee of 1892; whether it leaves him at his discretion to grant licences to other Companies and to Municipalities; and whether it extends at all the present licence of the National Telephone Company?
  MR. J. STUART: I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether, in the proposed agreement between the Post Office and the National Telephone Company, there is any clause which directly or indirectly interferes with the power of the London County Council to establish and carry on at any time hereafter, if licensed, Telephone Exchanges in the Metropolis?
  THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (Mr. A. MORLEY,): There appears to be some doubt as to what was intended by the Report of the Committee on the Telegraph Bill of 1892. I am informed that some Members of the Committee understood by the words used that the agreement should be laid on the Table before final ratification, while the right hon. Gentleman the late Postmaster General and the right hon. Gentleman the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, both of whom served on the Committee, and the latter of whom was its Chairman, understood and intended the words which were used to mean that Parliament should be informed of the terms of the agreement after it was concluded. My right hon. Friend is aware that the proposed agreement is intended to carry out the policy for which he became responsible, and, indeed, will be the document embodying in legal form the heads of agreement which he

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  settled with the Company, and which were signed by him on behalf of the late Government before he left Office. Under these circumstances, and as I understand he suggests that the document should be laid on the Table of the House before its final conclusion, and considering the difference of opinion which appears to exist as to what was intended by the Report of the Committee, I have decided to take the course suggested, and to lay the proposed agreement on the Table before it is signed. The draft of the agreement is now under the consideration of the Company. I am advised that it is in strict accordance with the heads of agreement, which were, as I have said, signed by my predecessor, and with the Report of the Select Committee, as well as with the Treasury Minute which was laid before Parliament. It in no way limits or affects the discretion of the Postmaster General to grant licences for telephone exchange business. It does not extend the term of the licence of the National Company. It restricts the operations of the Company to specified areas, and withdraws from them the right to establish and work trunk wires between these areas. But it confers on the Company the right to exercise the powers which are conferred on the Postmaster General himself by the Telegraph Acts of 1863 and 1878, and by the provisions in the Telegraph Act, 1892, relating to Provisional Orders. But this right is subjected in every case to the veto of the Local Authorities specified in Section 5 of the Telegraph Act of last Session.
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether power is given to take up streets without the consent of the Local Authorities?
  MR. A. MORLEY: No; it is subject to the veto of the Local Authorities.
  MR. TOMLINSON: Will an opportunity be given to the House for discussing the agreement?
  MR. A. MORLEY: As soon as the agreement is come to it will be laid on the Table of the House.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the agreement, though it does not give power to take up streets against the
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  wishes of the Local Authority, does exclude any other Body from doing so?
  MR. A. MORLEY: The agreement does not give any special powers that would not be given to any other licencees.
  MR. PROVAND: If the Telephone Company get these powers will it shut out any competing Company, or the Municipality itself, should it desire to establish telephones?
  MR. A. MORLEY: That is a matter for the Local Governing Authority to decide.
  MR. A. C. MORTON: Will sufficient time be given to Local Authorities to consider the terms of the agreement?
  MR. HOZIER: Will the right hon. Gentleman kindly arrange to have the agreement considered by the House during the Autumn Sitting, and not during the present Sitting?
  MR. A. MORLEY: That will depend on when the agreement is made. In reply to the hon. Member for Peterborough, I have to say that there will be ample time for the Local Authorities to consider the agreement.

  THE NIGER COMPANY.
  MR. T. BAYLEY: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will take steps to get at the truth of the report freely circulated in the papers, that natives who attempted to cross the territory of the Royal Chartered Niger Company from one region outside the Company's jurisdiction to another have been summarily shot?
  SIR E. GREY: If any specific case, supported by trustworthy evidence, is reported to Her Majesty's Government, they will make inquiries, but they cannot do so on mere hearsay.
  MR. T. BAYLEY: Do I understand the answer to indicate that Her Majesty's Government have no Representative in the territory of the Niger Company?
  SIR E. GREY: The Niger Company is primarily responsible for the administration of its own territory. The Government have no Representative in the territory.

  PUBLIC HEALTH REPORTS.
  MR. JESSE COLLINGS: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether, in view of the importance of the Reports of the Medical Officer of Health, he will cause such Reports to be sent to the officers of health of the Sanitary Authorities throughout the Kingdom, and also to free libraries and to village reading rooms?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. H. H. FOWLER,): I may say that I sympathise to a great extent with the desire of the right hon. Gentleman. The Local Government Board are in the habit of forwarding Medical Reports to the Local Authorities and the Local Public Officers. I would point out that the Treasury did not agree with my predecessor, Mr. Ritchie, as to a further extension of this distribution. I have not had the opportunity yet of approaching the Treasury, but I mean to make a further effort in that direction, when, perhaps, I may meet with a better fate than Mr. Ritchie when he made a similar application.

  MANCHESTER SHIP CANAL.
  MR. KNOWLES: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that the nuisance arising from the Manchester Ship Canal has become dangerous to the health of the inhabitants of the County Borough of Salford and the neighbourhood; and whether, as suggested by the Council, he will direct a Government inquiry to be held as to the best means of dealing with the subject?
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: This question appeared on the Paper only this morning. It will require some communication to take place between the Local Government Board and the Salford authorities,
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  and I must, therefore, ask the hon. Member to postpone it.

  DEER FOREST COMMISSION FEES.
  MR. DALZIEL: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland how is it that Mr. Gordon, a Member of the Royal Commission on Deer Forests, is remunerated to the extent of five guineas a day for his services; whether any other Member of the Commission is in receipt of any sum beyond an allowance of one guinea per day for expenses; whether the payment to Mr. Gordon was made at the request of the Commissioners; and is he aware that the exceptional treatment accorded to Mr. Gordon has caused great dissatisfaction both inside and outside of the ranks of the Commission?
  SIR G. TREVELYAN: Mr. Gordon is a land surveyor and valuator of great experience. As it is a usual custom in the case of professional men who serve on Commissions where their professional knowledge is made use of, the Treasury has granted Mr. Gordon professional remuneration. The other Members receive the usual subsistence allowance with their travelling expenses, and according to the regulations laid down by the Treasury they cannot receive more. The arrangement that Mr. Gordon should receive professional remuneration was made according to the usual practice, and not at the request of the Commissioners. I am aware that some of the Members of the Commission have been dissatisfied with the arrangement.
  MR. DALZIEL: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is aware that of the seven Commissioners four voted against payment, and that the proposal was only adopted by Mr. Gordon voting for the payment for himself, and the Chairman exercising two votes?
  SIR G. TREVELYAN: I can only take cognisance of the resolutions that are communicated to me by the Secretary of the Commission as coming from the Commission, and I could not make any inquiries as to what passed within the Royal Commission, perfectly independent of the Scotch Office.
  MR. WEIR: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether Mr. Gordon attends

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  most regularly on these days on which he receives a fee, and on the other days he seldom puts in an appearance?
  SIR H. MAXWELL (Wigton): I wish to ask whether it is true, as reported, that three Members of the Commission have sent in their resignation?
  SIR G. TREVELYAN: No; it is not true.
  MR. A. C. MORTON: I wish to ask whether it would not be advisable, in cases of this sort, that paid land surveyors should not be allowed to have a vote on the Commission?
  [No answer was given.]

  FATAL ACCIDENTS IN SCOTLAND.
  MR. PAUL: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether as the Fatal Accidents Inquiry (Scotland) Bill is not a contentious measure, as it has passed through the Standing Committee on Law, and as it affects the whole industrial population of Scotland, the Government will give an opportunity for passing it, either before the Adjournment or during the Autumn Sitting? I also desire to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is aware that the Bill was supported in the Grand Committee by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for St. Andrew's University, and also by the late Under Secretary of State for the Home Department?
  SIR W. HARCOURT: I answered this question yesterday, when I gave, as a reason for not including that measure in the list of Bills which we hope to be able to pass, that I was informed that alterations had been made in the Bill which rendered it controversial. I have no personal knowledge of this matter, but I obtained all the information I could on the subject.
  MR. PAUL: May I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman is aware that I moved in Committee an Amendment in favour of holding inquiries before a jury as well as before the Sheriff, and that I withdrew the Amendment because I was assured by the Representatives of the Government that that would make the measure controversial and prevent it passing?
  MR. HENEAGE: I desire to ask whether the House is to take the list of measures announced by
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  the Chancellor of the Exchequer as the definite and final list?
  SIR W. HARCOURT: I do not propose to add any other measures to that list. I got the fullest information I could upon the subject of the Bill, and I have given the House the result.
  MR. PAUL: Will the Government not consider the possibility of taking the Bill in the Autumn Session?
  SIR W. HARCOURT: I do not think I can add to the answer I gave.

  SEA FISHERIES.
  MR. ANSTRUTHER: I beg to ask the Patronage Secretary, as Chairman of the Select Committee on Sea Fisheries, when the Evidence given before that Committee will be printed and distributed; and if he can state whether the Government intend during the present Session of Parliament to give effect by legislation to the recommendations contained in the Report of that Committee?
  THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. MARJORIBANKS,): I have made inquiries of the printers, and they promise that the evidence shall be in the hands of Members not later than the end of this month. The Government do not intend to introduce any new measure, but it is their intention to pass the Scotch Fisheries Bill. The only thing necessary to secure the realisation of that good intention is the support and co-operation of the hon. Member in passing this entirely non-contentious and non-Party measure into law.
  MR. ANSTRUTHER: I desire to ask my right hon. Friend if it is not the case that between myself and the Secretary for Scotland there is no contention with regard to the Scotch Fisheries Bill, and that the Amendments which I have placed on the Paper are acceptable to the right hon. Gentleman?
  SIR H. MAXWELL: I desire to ask if it is possible to treat as a non-controversial measure a Bill in regard to which there are no less than seven pages of Amendments?
  MR. MARJORIBANKS: I cannot undertake to decide what is the contention between the Secretary for Scotland and the hon. Member for St. Andrews. In reply to the hon. Gentleman opposite,

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  I have reason to believe that the greater portion of the Amendments to the Bill will be withdrawn.

  POST OFFICE SAVINGS BANK DEPOSITS IN IRELAND.
  MR. SEXTON: I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether the number and amount of deposits in the Post Office Savings Banks in Ireland for the half-year ended 30th June last exceeded the number and amount of deposits for the corresponding period of 1892; and, if so, to what extent; and whether since the beginning of the current half-year the deposits have exceeded the withdrawals in number and amount?
  MR. A. MORLEY: The number of deposits in the Post Office Savings Banks in Ireland during the half-year ending 30th June last was 195,969, or 2,537 more than during the corresponding period of 1892. The amount deposited in the same period was about £601,000, or about £12,000 more than in 1892. During the first two months of the current half-year, that is, July and August, the deposits exceeded the withdrawals by about 36,000 in number and about £24,000 in amount.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I desire to ask whether the attention of the Postmaster General has been drawn to the Report just laid on the Table of the House, in which it is stated that the amount of deposits is £49,000 less than the amount estimated at the close of 1892; and whether this is the first occasion since the establishment of the Post Office Savings Banks in which the estimated balance was less by £49,000 than it was in the preceding half-year? I would also ask whether the Report stated that certain information is not favourable, and why this information is for the first time withheld; and whether the attention of the Postmaster General has been drawn to the paragraph which stated that for the first time in the history of these banks there was a decrease of £49,000?
  MR. A. MORLEY: That is a question which it is clearly impossible to answer without notice. My attention has been drawn to the Report, but not to the paragraph referred to. If the hon. Gentleman wishes for an answer I must ask him to put down a question.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I will do so.
  MR. SEXTON: I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is aware that the period of heavy withdrawals extended only from March to June, within which time speeches and letters were published advising the public to withdraw, and whether there has been a great increase of deposits and a great falling off in withdrawals since the public became acquainted with the provisions of the Home Rule Bill?
  MR. A. MORLEY: I do not say how far the speeches and letters affected the result, but the fact is as stated by the hon. Member.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: Was it not rather caused by the declaration that the House of Lords would throw out the Bill?
  SIR T. LEA: I desire to ask the right hon. Gentleman was not the advice to which the hon. Member for Kerry referred given in a letter addressed to the editor of a paper?
  MR. A. MORLEY: The hon. Gentleman referred to newspaper letters.

  THE RECENT DISASTER IN THE SHANNON.
  MR. SEXTON: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he proposes to take any action on the subject of a resolution of a public meeting held on the 4th instant in the Court House, Tarbert, County Kerry, in connection with the recent loss of 17 lives by an accident in the River Shannon, in which the attention of the Board of Trade is directed to the way the traffic to and from the steamer plying to Tarbert Island is conducted, passengers having to embark and disembark in all weathers in an open boat at serious risk, in consequence of the Steamship Company declining to come alongside the pier, and expresses an earnest request that an immediate inquiry be held; and whether he will comply with this request?
  MR. MUNDELLA: I have not seen the resolution to which the hon. Member refers; but I have requested the owners of the steamers which ply between Limerick and Tralee to furnish me with an explanation of the conditions under which passengers were embarked. The reply of the Steamship Company was that although the steamer itself has been surveyed and certified by the Board

  669
  of Trade, the method of receiving and discharging passengers is entirely under the control of the Local Authority.
  MR. SEXTON: I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman what is the Local Authority, and also whether the Board of Trade has any power to hold an inquiry to ascertain whether the system of embarking and disembarking passengers is dangerous to life?
  MR. MUNDELLA: The Local Authority would be the authority of the ports to which the vessel traded.

  THE ALLEGED CASE OF CHOLEEA AT THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.
  MR. KNOWLES: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Local Government Board whether he can make any statement with regard to the inquiry into the cause of the death of a female cleaner of the House of Commons referred to in the answer of the President of the Local Government Board to my question yesterday; and whether the cause of death was Asiatic cholera?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Sir W. FOSTER,): Yes, Sir; a very careful inquiry has hitherto failed to discover any connection, direct or indirect, between this case and any choleraic infection. Nevertheless, the scientific investigation made since yesterday gives a very unfavourable aspect to the case. There is evidence that the woman has for some time past suffered from diarrhœa, and was in a weak and unsatisfactory condition of health, and, moreover, that her home was in some respects in an insanitary condition. I may also add that since the reply given yesterday, one of the Board's Inspectors, Dr. Sweeting, has been instructed to communicate at once with the officers of the Vestry as to the measures to be immediately taken with regard to the sanitary condition of the premises which the woman occupied. If these measures have not already been taken and the premises put into a satisfactory sanitary condition this will be done forthwith.
  MR. GIBSON BOWLES: Has the hon. Gentleman observed a noxious
  670
  smell in the "Aye" Lobby at the present moment?
  [No answer was given.]

  COMPENSATION IN CASE OF RIOTS.
  MR. H. J. WILSON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, in cases where disturbances take place, and property is damaged, and the Riot Act read, who is responsible for the compensation to be paid to the sufferers?
  MR. ASQUITH: The Riot and Disturbance Act of 1886 provides that where property in a police district is injured by persons riotously and tumultuously assembled the compensation has to be paid out of the Police Rate of the district, and, therefore, the whole of the ratepayers suffer for the acts of a few.

  SATURDAY SITTINGS.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer a few questions with regard to Business. First, as to the Saturday Sittings. It was usual, in the time of the late Government, to make Saturday Sittings subject to the Wednesday Rule, and I wish the right hon. Gentleman to indicate whether or not it is the intention of the Government to prolong the Saturday Sitting to any important extent beyond the hour of adjournment on Wednesday? Then I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to take the Report on the Foreign Office Vote to-night at a rather earlier hour than usual to-night, as an important question about Armenia, which it was proposed to raise on that Vote, was shut out by the action of the right hon. Gentleman.
  SIR W. HARCOURT: We propose to follow the precedent set by the late Government, and not continue the Saturday Sitting after 7 o'clock. With regard to the other question of the right hon. Gentleman, I should not have moved the Closure on the Foreign Office Vote if I had not thought that the question was practically settled. But, as I understand there was some misapprehension on that point, we will take the Report at 12 o'clock.

MOTION.
  ADJOURNMENT.

    COLLIERY DISTURBANCES.
    MR. BRUNNER, Member for the Northwich Division of Cheshire, rose in his place, and asked leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a definite matter of urgent public importance—namely, the disturbances in the colliery districts in Leeds, Pontefract, and Dewsbury; but the pleasure of the House not having been signified, Mr. SPEAKER called on those Members who supported the Motion to rise in their places, and not less than 40 Members having accordingly risen:—
    MR. BRUNNERhoped that no Party advantage would be taken of his Motion. It needed no argument to prove to the House that this matter of the disturbances in the colliery districts was urgent and important. His most definite object in making the Motion was to urge upon the Government to press forward—and if need be for that purpose to suspend the Standing Orders—the three Bills providing for arbitration which were now before the House. It had been said that the Government Bill was not an effective Bill, because it did not provide for compulsion. The Bill might have its faults, and the other two Bills might have their faults; but he submitted that they could be amended and made good Bills, if put into the hands of a Select Committee of the House.
    MR. SPEAKERsaid, the hon. Member was not now discussing the question of the position of affairs in the colliery districts, but the nature of some Bills before the House. That would be quite irregular.
    MR. BRUNNERsaid, that for the last three days news had appeared in the papers, which to his mind was deplorable in the extreme, of disturbances in various parts of the country. Three days ago these disturbances began in South Wales; yesterday they were repeated in other parts of the country, and to-day they had news that disastrous riots, accompanied by arson and bloodshed, had occurred in the three districts he had named in the North of England. It was
    672
    no doubt right the Local Authorities in these districts should claim the protection of extra police and the presence of Her Majesty's troops, but he did not think it would be right for the House to go on with its ordinary business, content with putting down these riots by force without giving an expression of opinion in favour of settling disputes by reason instead of by force. His opinion was that if the House discussed these disturbances in a spirit of sympathy with those who suffered, especially those who suffered innocently on account of them, the result would be a calming of the public mind, and especially—this was what he particularly desired—a calming of the spirit of anger which now possessed the people in those districts. It was no use, he admitted, preaching patience to hungry men, but he was satisfied that if the House, who was no party to the quarrel, should express sympathy with the sufferers, they would be inclined to accept a reasonable settlement at the hands of whoever might offer it. The hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell) said yesterday, with a touch of austerity, that the working men had refused arbitration. They were perhaps to-day in consequence of those disturbances the less inclined to submit to arbitration.
    MR. SPEAKERsaid, he was sorry again to interfere; but the hon. Gentleman had obtained the leave of the House to move its Adjournment not for the purpose of discussing the general policy of arbitration, or any policy of that kind contained in Bills before the House, but for the purpose of discussing existing circumstances in the colliery districts.
    MR. BRUNNERregretted that he should have trespassed on the good order of the House, but he had no doubt the Speaker would recognise that his intentions, at any rate, were respectful to the Chair and to the House. He trusted that the Government, represented as it was by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, would at any rate advise the House what it ought to do under the sad circumstances he had brought under its notice, and that the result of the discussion would tend to the peace and good order of the country.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Mr. Brunner.)
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir W. HARCOURT,): If there is a reasonable prospect of proceeding with the Arbitration Bills before the House, there are no Bills that the Government would be more glad to proceed with than these. I have already stated the reason why it was found impossible to deal with those Bills. With reference to the unhappy events in question, there is no doubt that great sympathy is felt by the House for those who have suffered by them, and deep regret that such circumstances should occur. The House will feel, however, that it would not be expedient or wise at this moment to discuss the position of affairs with the imperfect information they have, and, therefore, I hope the matter will not be further proceeded with, and that my hon. Friend, having stated his feelings on the subject, will kindly withdraw his Motion.
    MR. JAMES LOWTHERwished to take the opportunity of addressing a question to the Home Secretary with regard to those most discreditable scenes which had been enacted during the last few days in different parts of the country. He could speak with more or less personal knowledge as to what was going on in the West Riding of Yorkshire. He was in that part of the country within the last two days, and in the very parish where he was resident a large mob, numbered literally by thousands, paraded the district to the terror of Her Majesty's peaceful subjects, brandishing formidable weapons, and conducting themselves in a manner which was absolutely inconsistent with a condition of civilised society. He had not been personally a witness of what occurred, but he was informed to that effect by persons upon whose word he could place the utmost reliance, and who had been witnesses of the scenes to which he referred. He certainly had no intention of making any attack upon the Home Secretary, who deserved the thanks of the community at large for the manner in which he had discharged his duty under circumstances like those he was alluding to, and had always placed at the disposal of the Local Authorities who had made application in due form such additional police force as, in his judgment, was necessitated by the requirements of the
    674
    case, while the Secretary of State for War had in like manner facilitated the despatch of troops to districts where their presence was required. He, however, asked the right hon. Gentleman to satisfy himself, before he gave his official sanction to the payment of the money of the British taxpayer to the Local Authorities, that they had been duly diligent in the discharge of the duty incumbent on them—namely, that of taking adequate steps for the preservation of the public peace. He wanted to know what steps the Local Authorities took to insure the termination of the disturbances and the prevention of the extension of the evils to neighbouring districts under their control, as he was informed the Chief Constable of the West Riding of Yorkshire, who either was, or should have been, perfectly cognisant of what was going on throughout the district, took no steps, or at any rate no adequate steps, to guard against the continuation and extension of the evils. It was 48 hours or more after those large crowds had been paraded in the manner to which he had referred that excesses took place in the same neighbourhood, and in adjoining parishes and other districts of the West Riding. He thought they were entitled to ask what the authorities of the West Riding were about to allow such a condition of affairs so long to prevail, and why they had not followed the example of the authorities in Wales and taken precautionary measures, by means of which such scandalous occurrences would have been averted. He hoped the Home Secretary would insist on a full inquiry into the conduct of the Chief Constable and of the local Magistracy.
    MR. CREMERsaid, the information given to the House by the right hon. Gentleman amounted to the fact that he saw, a few days ago, an enormous demonstration in one of the mining districts of the West Riding, and that the men were in a state of fierce excitement; but the right hon. Gentleman had not seen those men committing any turbulent or violent acts.
    MR. JAMES LOWTHERsaid, he had never said that he himself saw what he described, but he was credibly informed by persons on whose word he could rely that they saw the crowds who, he had further been informed, had

    675
    brutally assaulted men for no other crime than discharging an honest day's labour.
    MR. CREMERsaid, the right hon. Gentleman's information being of a secondhand character was still less reliable. He wished to ask the Home Secretary if the statement that a contingent of London police had been drafted into the mining districts was true, and if he was in a position to give the House any information which would lead it to conclude that the statements which had been made day by day by the public Press in regard to acts of violence and outrage committed by the miners were true, or whether he believed them to be exaggerated? He had seen it stated that the scenes of violence that were reported to have occurred had been grossly exaggerated.
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. ASQUITH,): The House must have observed, after listening to the speeches of the right hon. Gentleman opposite and my right hon. Friend, that it is altogether premature to discuss this question. The right hon. Gentleman opposite suggested that the Local Authorities had shown apathy in the matter, and my hon. Friend suggested that the statements published in the newspapers were untrue. It is, therefore, obvious that the House is not in a position at this moment to form any opinion. The course the Government have to take is a simple one. The Local Authorities are the persons who are by law responsible for the maintenance of order and peace, and if they fail in their duty they are liable to be indicted. If they feel that the resources at their command are inadequate for the preservation of order no Government could refuse them assistance. How far there may have been exaggeration in the statements published, and how far there may have been apathy on the part of the Local Authorities, are matters the House cannot discuss at present. I trust the House will be satisfied with my assurance that the Government have put at the disposal of the Local Authorities the force that is necessary for the maintenance of public order. I deprecate strongly the necessity for the use of force, and I earnestly trust that those who have influence with the miners will seize this opportunity of
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    using it. A few words spoken with authority might have far more tranquillising effect than the use of physical force.
    MR. WOOTTON ISAACSONsaid, he had just come from Wales. ["Order!"] Yesterday he addressed several bodies of miners with regard to their grievances. [Renewed cries of "Order!"]
    MR. SPEAKERcalled the hon. Member to Order, as the House was not discussing the position of affairs in Wales.
    MR. BRUNNERasked leave to withdraw his Motion, and thanked the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Home Secretary for what they had said.
    MR. WOOTTON ISAACSONsaid, that surely he might be permitted to state what he had been an eye-witness of. ["Order!"] He begged to say that men who were on strike in Wales were misled by those people of authority to whom the Home Secretary had referred ["Cries of" Order!"]
    MR. DILLONrose to Order. The hon. Member was referring to the strike in South Wales.
    MR. SPEAKERagain called the hon. Member to Order.
    MR. WOOTTON ISAACSONsaid, he bowed to the ruling of the Chair, but continued to refer to occurrences in Wales.
    MR. SPEAKER: Is it your pleasure that the Motion be withdrawn?
    Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE (SATURDAY).
  Resolved, That this House do meet To-morrow.—(The Chancellor of the Exchequer.)
ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  SUPPLY—COMMITTEE.
  SUPPLY—considered in Committee.
  CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS, 1893–4.

    CLASS II.
    1. £25,680, to complete the sum for Colonial Office.
    SIR J. GORSTdesired to express the extreme

    677
    pleasure with which he had heard the declaration of the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies that Her Majesty's Government had seen their way to stopping any forward movement against Lo Bengula for the present; that the South African Company had acquiesced in the advice; and that therefore the danger of a bloody war in South Africa between the European settlers and the natives was for the moment averted. He wished to impress upon Her Majesty's Government, however, that in order to preserve the peace in South Africa not only was great vigilance required on the part of the Colonial Office, but a most active and energetic policy was necessary. Nobody in this country knew the real cause of the quarrel between Lo Bengula and the British settlers. In all these quarrels between Europeans and natives one never heard more than one side of the question, and the natives' case was not stated. He was sorry to see signs of a desire in some quarters to get up a feeling in this country against Lo Bengula, and to hound the Government on and induce them to indulge in a disastrous war. Nobody knew what the causes of the quarrel with Lo Bengula were; but, reading between the lines and drawing upon one's experience in disputes of the kind, he felt sure that the Government would exercise the most wise and salutary influence if they turned a deaf ear to any proposal for an attack upon Lo Bengula. He could not help improving the occasion by pointing out the great dangers and difficulties of the policy which allowed of the existence of Chartered Companies. He had some right to speak on the subject, because he opposed most vehemently the first Charter of the kind ever granted, that to the North Borneo Company, and took the sense of the House against it. He had the support on that occasion of the present Leader of the Opposition (Mr. A. J. Balfour) and the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord R. Churchill). The affair in South Africa was an example of the serious dangers to which the granting of Charters to companies of this kind in uncivilised territories gave rise. The hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary had wisely refused to respond to a challenge thrown down by the right hon. Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Chamberlain), and to state the general policy of the Govern-
    678
    ment with regard to Chartered Companies. He (Sir J. Gorst) did not believe the Government had any policy on the subject, or that any Government ever had. British Governments had drifted into one Charter after another, and he had no doubt the granting of such Charters would continue until it landed Great Britain in some national disaster, when the country would wake up and the reign of Chartered Companies would come to an end. If a Chartered Company could be left entirely to itself and allowed to suffer the consequences of any injustice or unwise attack made upon the native races, it might, perhaps, govern as wisely as Her Majesty's Government. Every Chartered Company, however, knew that it had the Government at its back. The South African Company knew very well that if it made an attack on Lo Bengula, and he in retaliation slaughtered British settlers, the Government would have to interfere. The policy of Chartered Companies seemed to be one of drifting into national responsibilities which were sure to involve this country in the greatest difficulties whenever the affairs of any Company arrived at a critical position. The position of things in South Africa was an object lesson to this country. If the present strained relations resulted in war, this country would have to lavish its blood and treasure in bringing to a successful conclusion affairs in the initiation of which it had no hand whatever. The Government had not sufficient control over the Companies to prevent them quarrelling with native Chiefs, but the Companies had sufficient control over the Government to force them to come to their assistance and to save themselves from the consequence of their injustice or bad policy. He hoped that vigorous action on the part of the Government might avert the danger at present threatened in South Africa. There was nothing more important to the British settlers there than the maintenance of peace. He hoped the Government would lay the present peril to heart, and that either this or the next Government would arrive at a definite policy about Chartered Companies before a national disaster occurred.
    THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. S. BUXTON,): Per-

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    haps the right hon. Gentleman will allow me to thank him for the tone he has adopted in his speech. It compared very favourably with the big-drum beating we had from the hon. Member for Sheffield (Sir E. Ashmead-Bartlett) last night, and I think it will tend, as far as a speech can tend, towards the result we all have at heart—namely, the maintenance of peace in South Africa. I am afraid, however, I must not take quite such a sanguine view as the right hon. Gentleman in regard to the possibility of averting a war. I hope and believe that war will be averted, but at the present moment it is impossible for me to make any strong statement on the subject. Both the Government and those who are responsible for the work of the Chartered Company are at the present moment working in accord for the maintenance of peace, and I think the result will be to maintain peace. I quite agree with the right hon. Gentleman that what must be deprecated at the present moment are the excited, warlike, and bloodthirsty letters and speeches emanating, I am sorry to say, to a large extent from those who ought not to preach war—I mean missionaries in some parts of Africa. The danger we run at the present moment is that those who are on the spot, many of them being naturally in an excited state of mind, many of them being hot-headed and perhaps not under the proper control of those in charge of the country, may by some indiscreet act get us into war. Unfortunately there always has been, especially in South Africa, a party which has been in favour of these native wars, because unhappily a large number of the people obtain very great pecuniary advantages from such wars. I think it was Sir C. Warren's army in 1884 which was called the "Salvation Army," because nearly everybody in South Africa made a good thing out of that war. There are some who speak as if these raids were a new thing, and as if it were the duty of the Government and of the Company to carry out a crusade against Lo Bengula and the Matabele on account of their recent action. The right hon. Gentleman (Sir J, Gorst) says we only hear one side of the question. I am glad to know that in this case we have received through Sir Henry Loch a great deal of information from Lo Bengula himself, and also from Mr.
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    Collenbrander and others living at his kraal. I said last night, and repeat now, that the blame, as far as there is blame, is by no means all on one side, and that while I do not say there was justification for the raiding of Lo Bengula's impi, as far as Lo Bengula is personally concerned he is anxious to live in friendly terms with the whites, as far as we can judge, and that the officer in charge of the impi exceeded his orders in interfering with the white men. I say at present that there is no justification for an aggressive movement, and I am sure that those in charge for the Chartered Company are not in a position to make such a movement. The Government thought it their duty to step in and to say that, at the present moment at all events they would prohibit any aggressive action likely to lead to war in South Africa. As the right hon. Gentleman has truly said, a war if it takes place cannot be necessarily confined to Matabeleland and Mashonaland. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the position of Chartered Companies and their relations with the Imperial Government. I declined last night to discuss the general policy respecting Chartered Companies, because I did not think this a happy or appropriate occasion on which to do so. I may say, however, I agree very much with the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman. I agree that we have very much in the past drifted into these Chartered Companies, and the experience we have now had of their action is not so encouraging that it is likely any Government will give further Charters. There is, however, this to be said in discussing the question, and it certainly was brought before the Government of the day with regard to the British South Africa Company—namely, that if that Company had not undertaken at the moment the administration and opening up of Mashonaland possibly the Government was not in a position to undertake that responsibility, and the territory might have been lost to the United Kingdom and absorbed in the Transvaal. That we shall all admit would have been under the circumstances a great mistake. I am bound to say that the present position in these days of Chartered Companies, whose responsibility, as the right hon. Gentleman has pointed out, breaks down just when we want it to be effective, is a great anomaly.

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    As far as the British South Africa Company are concerned, they informed me that they are prepared to carry out their responsibility. I can only trust that, thanks to the moderate desires and actions of those responsible for the proceedings of the Company, and thanks I must say to the action of the Government supported by this House, the great danger may be averted, and that a war which would be a very serious one for South Africa will not take place.
    MR. E. H. BAYLEYwished to refer to a question relating to Gibraltar. In the first place, he must protest against the mistake that was usually made in referring to the people of Gibraltar as inhabitants of a fortress. As a matter of fact, the guns were placed on the top of the Rock of Gibraltar, and the Colony was at the foot of the hill. It was as inaccurate to say that the people were living in a fortress as to say that the people of the City of London were living in the Tower of London. In the Colony of Gibraltar about £60,000 a year of local taxation was raised, and up to two years ago the ratepayers had a voting power over the expenditure of their own money. Local affairs were managed by a mixed Sanitary Board, consisting of Commissioners partly appointed by the Governor, and partly selected by him from a list of names submitted by the Grand Jury. The ratepayers now complained that two years ago, by a stroke of the pen, they were deprived of their representation on the Board, which was made to consist entirely of the officials nominated by the Governor. The reason why this action was taken was that the ratepayers' representatives on the Board declined to be parties to a flagrant job, which was being forced upon them by the official members—namely, the spending of £50,000 on a scheme for driving a tunnel through the rock in search of water. This scheme had now been dropped. It was said in opposition to the proposal that no water would be found, that the cost would be enormous, that a better supply would be obtained by surface collection, and that the tunnel would render the rock no longer impregnable. The Government had now to some extent retraced their steps by giving the ratepayers a representation of four members, the remaining five being nominated by
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    the Governor. As the ratepayers paid two-thirds of the taxation, they were entitled to two-thirds of the members, or six out of the nine. As it was, however, they were in a minority, whilst the official members consisted of men not necessarily taxpayers or persons holding any stake in the Colony, and who might be here to-day and gone to-morrow. He contended that the principle that taxation and representation should go together, which the Liberal Party upheld in the House of Commons, should be made to apply to all the Colonies of the Empire.
    MR. S. BUXTON: I am obliged to my hon. Friend for his speech, because I am sure he has the same desire as we have to meet the views of the ratepayers of Gibraltar as far as is possible. I must, however, point out to him that when we came into Office, and considered the questions dealing with Gibraltar, there were five subjects in which the ratepayers seemed to be interested. The first was the question of the restoration to the Grand Jury of the privilege of nominating the panel from which the unofficial Commissioners were selected. That privilege we granted with great pleasure. The second was that the Commissioners should have the power of appointing their own Chairman. That was also conceded. The third was the separation of the office of Colonial Engineer from that of Engineer to the Sanitary Board and other offices, and giving the Commissioners power to appoint their own Engineer. That was conceded, as was also the fourth request—namely, that the power of the Governor to veto the construction of a work by the Board and of requiring the Board to defray from the rates the cost of public works now executed by the Commissioners should cease. Finally, it was asked that in future the Colonial Secretary should cease to be a Member of the Board. On that, as on the other points, we were able to meet the ratepayers. There was a further point in which they considered they had a grievance, and I am bound to say I think it was a very serious one. It related to the question of the water and drainage scheme. That is very much a question of engineering, as to the details of which we ourselves are hardly in a position to speak; but the conclusion we have come to is that a Committee should be appointed to inquire into the question

    683
    of the sanitation, and the water supply of Gibraltar, and that on that Commission the ratepayers should be directly represented, not only by their own Chairman, but by one of their non-official members. Finally, there is the question of proportional representation on the Sanitary Board. At this point I must draw attention to one fact, which I think my hon. Friend omitted—namely, that in the original proposal of the deputation of ratepayers it was stated that the question of representation might easily be solved in a manner satisfactory to Her Majesty's Government if the other matters they referred to were conceded to them. We have met them as regards the other matters; but Her Majesty's Government cannot give them a majority on the Board. Rightly or wrongly, we have felt hound to treat Gibraltar as a fortress rather than as an ordinary Colony. I agree with the general principle as to taxation and representation, but we say that the principle cannot be carried out fully here, for we are bound to treat Gibraltar as a fortress. We have no-desire and no intention to control the proceedings of the Sanitary Board by the official majority unless in matters which affect defence. There is perfect liberty in other matters—the official majority in all the cases can vote as they like, not being bound by any official view. The Police Magistrate the other day was put on to the Board temporarily to take the place of another official member on leave. This was done under a misapprehension of our desires. We certainly do not desire, in the case of a temporary absence of an official member, to show distrust of the Board by appointing another and a temporary member. I hope the hon. Gentleman will be satisfied that we have endeavoured to meet his views and those of the ratepayers on this question.
    ADMIRAL FIELDsaid, he had nothing to say in reply to the right hon. Gentleman who had just sat down. It was only right the Government should take care and look at the matter from the official point of view, but he did not think they would press their views further than were necessary. His object in rising was to know what steps had been taken to remedy the crying grievances existing in
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    the Crown Colony of St. Helena? He hoped something had been done in regard to these grievances. He did not think the decrease of the population was a matter for regret, but it had transpired that there was great disproportion in the number of women and children and that of men. His suggestion was that the Government should make use of the assistance of the Admiralty to carry off some of the surplus population to South Africa. There was another matter to which he wished to call the attention of the Under Secretary. It was with regard to the Bahamas, and the statements which had been made and circulated among Members by Chief Justice Yelverton, to the effect that the administration of justice was grossly corrupt, that the Members of the House of Assembly were influenced by bribes, and that only six out of the 29 Members in the House were not related to, on connected with, one another. He had had an interview with the Chief Justice, which he found to be extremely painful. He cared nothing for the Bahamas, but when such charges had been made by such a high legal officer it was right that a Commission of Inquiry should be appointed to investigate the accusations on the spot, as had been done in Jamaica in the case of Governor Eyre. The charges were certainly of a very grave character, and he need not recapitulate them, but they were certainly entitled to some reply on this question from the Government. He repeated, that the charges might be true or false; he did not know—he hoped they were false—but, at all events, there should be a proper inquiry into them. Either they were true or false—if true, then there should be a proper reform of administration; if false, then the Chief Justice should be dismissed. That, he thought, was a demand which the Government could not resist. The question was not a Party one; it was simply that it was alleged that a moral sewer existed; if that were the case, then they ought to cleanse it.
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: We have all listened with great interest, I am sure, to the speech which we have just heard. This is, Sir. an advantage, at least, we shall have in this discussion those who take an

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    interest in the circumstances. The matter would have come upon us by surprise. For some months past we have been deluged by letters, by questions, and by newspaper paragraphs with respect to the matters to which my hon. and gallant Friend has called attention. Although the questions came from different parts of the House, and the letters appeared under different signatures, and some with none, every one of them was due to the intervention of the person with whom my hon. and gallant Friend had that interview which he described as extremely painful. Unlike my hon. and gallant Friend, I feel a great interest in these Islands. A relative of mine happens to be there, and I have heard very much about them. Now, let me, in the first place, assure my hon. and gallant Friend that in spite of the insinuations which have been made there is no general discontent or dissatisfaction in the Bahamas. The feeling is general that the present Governor has performed his duty very much to the advantage of the islands. These are not charges, but very disgraceful calumnies and insinuations. A charge is made against the Legislative Council. Well, Sir, in the Legislative Council, which consists of nine Members, there is no such connection between the Members as has been alleged; but in the Legislative Assembly there are persons who are connected by relationship that did not lead to corruption. That, Sir, is natural. When the population is small it is not possible to obtain competent persons without taking some who may have some sort of relationship with one another. It is more likely that should occur in a place where the population is small than that it should happen here with us. There is a population of, I think, 45,000, only 12,000 of whom are whites. How can you select fit men for a Legislature in a community of this kind without running the risk of choosing from amongst those who are related? I say, Sir, it is not possible—we must take them as we find them, which is largely among those who have relationship one with another. It is only by cowardly insinuation that we are told that this relationship is a disadvantage. I say that the greatest advantage has accrued from the present system. What I complain especially of is the fact that
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    these cowardly insinuations should be made by a public officer—though on half-pay, he is that—at a time when the Governor was absent, at a time when no fair reply could be made. We have heard that this place is a moral sewer. I would like to read my hon. and gallant Friend the remarks made by Lord Herschell (Lord Chancellor of England) when these matters were before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Lord Herschell said—
    "With regard to the documents which you are about to refer to, headed 'Notes by the Chief Justice of the Colony.' They consist in large part of a number of scandalous allegations about a great number of people in the Colony, and have no possible bearing on the questions of law which have been referred to this Board. They cannot be allowed to remain here on record in this case, because it is impossible to allow a reference of this sort from Her Majesty to be made the vehicle of disseminating scandalous matter of that description."
    I hope, at all events, to take my part in preventing the Committee of this House being made the vehicle of disseminating without contradiction that same scandalous matter which, of course, the Privy Council refused to entertain. I want to say a word or two about the Governor of the Colony, who, I think, is the chief victim of these abominable allegations. I have only recently made the acquaintance of Sir Ambrose Shea, but in consequence of the interest I have in the Islands I have been able to learn a good deal about him. These Islands were of a most God-forsaken character until quite recently. At the time of the Civil War many of the people made considerable fortunes, but, like other fortunes easily acquired, they were not properly spent, and I think very little really permanent benefit accrued to the Islanders by the profits then made. Since that time the Islands had been going down, and only two industries were carried on. One was the sponge industry, which is very laborious and brings very little profit to those who undertook it. The other was the fruit industry, the profits of which vary considerably according to the climate. The inhabitants consist largely of people of colour, who are very good-tempered and contented people, and deserve a much better fate than they have met with. But for years past they have almost been starving in consequence of the trifling amount of

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    employment they have been able to obtain. Sir Ambrose Shea, unlike other Colonial officials, was a man of business before he became an official, and he entered the Colonial Service late in life. As soon as he became Governor he set to work to improve the condition of the inhabitants. He was struck by a plant which was regarded as little better than a weed, but which he thought would produce a very good fibre. I do not say he discovered the plant, but it is certainly owing entirely to his individual energy and action that the help of a number of capitalists, some from America and some from this country, has been secured for the purpose of experimenting with this plant. Thousands and tens of thousands of pounds are being spent, and it is certain that the experiment will be carried out on an adequate scale and with every chance of success. I am not so sanguine as the Governor himself is as to the result that will be obtained. The attempt is, in my opinion, a great speculation, but whatever its results, the benefit to the Islands of trying the experiment has been enormous. Even if the experiment fails large sums will have been spent and a large amount of employment given to the poor people, whereas if it succeeds much work will be provided, and no doubt the Colony will become one of the most prosperous in the West Indies. All this has been done by one man, and I say that, in the interests of the Public Service, when you find a man goes beyond the red tape of his office and initiates an industry for the purpose of benefiting the people he ought to have the sympathy and support of this House and the full confidence of his employers. He certainly ought not to be made the subject of scandalous and absolutely baseless insinuations.
    ADMIRAL FIELD: I never mentioned his name.
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I absolutely acquit my hon. and gallant friend of having acted unfairly. I am sure these circumstances were unknown to him, and I am certain that be will agree with me that a man who has done work of this kind deserves commendation and ought not to be made the subject of such attacks as Mr. Yelverton has published throughout the land. This Mr. Yelverton has made attacks on almost every person of position in the Colony.
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    Mr. Yelverton is Chief Justice of the Bahamas—that Colony has been most unfortunate in its Chief Justices. They are appointed by the Home Government, and I cannot help wondering what genius of discord presides over the appointments of Chief Justices of these small Colonies. The late Chief Justice—the gentleman of the murder case—has been alluded to. He got into hot water in reference to that case, and so great was the feeling of the Colonial Office with regard to his action that he was retired on a pension, which this unfortunate little Colony has to pay to this day. Thus you have a Chief Justice forced upon the Colony, or appointed without reference to the Colony, by this country, and when the Chief Justice misbehaves himself and the Colonial Office recognise that the appointment is a mistake, it is not this country which pays the cost, but the Colony. After this experience the Colony begged the Local Authorities to be very particular in the gentleman who was to succeed the late Chief Justice, and at the suggestion of the Colonial Office they raised the salary of the Chief Justice from £700 to £1,000, in order to have a really first-class man. Just a word about the title of Chief Justice. Chief Justice is a big word, but in the Bahamas it means a very small thing. The Chief Justice has no Judges sitting with him; he is the only Judge in the Colony, and not only is he Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, but he is the Supreme Court. There are a number of Magistrates who are paid astounding salaries, varying from £50 to £250 a year, and I believe they do justice quite as well as can be expected under the circumstances, and upon the whole their decisions have given satisfaction. The Chief Justice is required to review the decisions of these inferior Courts, and to take the more serious cases. I only regret that we should have to use the title of Chief Justice, because there are some people who are carried away and swelled out with the importance of the name that is given to them. I believe that if Mr. Yelverton had been called a Magistrate he never would have made such a fool of himself. It is only because this briefless barrister who was sent out there has been swaggering about ever since with the title of Chief Justice that he has been swelling

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    himself like the frog in the fable until he has gone very near to bursting. Mr. Yelverton was appointed by the late Government. When he went to the Colonies the first thing he did after being there 14 days was to ask for leave of absence, and he was absent for 4 months. Even the short period of 14 days was enough to show some of the peculiarities of this judicial authority. Ho is an eccentric person, and one of his eccentricities is that he has a terrible fear of anything in the nature of a contagions disorder. The mere report of a contagious disease within 100 miles of him fills his mind with terror. I do not say he fears for himself, but he is afraid because of his office. A Member of Parliament or any other ordinary person might die of disease; but if disease should attack a Chief Justice there is no knowing but that the constellations might fall. Accordingly during the 14 days of his first visit he wrote to the papers that there was going to be an exhibition in Jamaica, and that the passage of people to and fro might be the means of importing disease into the Colony. He therefore begged the authorities to take the utmost precautions against the importation of disease. I do not wonder that the colonials thought this was an extraordinary performance for this gentleman to indulge in. In 1891, the second year of his appointment, he again obtained leave of absence, and was absent for five months. I may say that the Colony does not object to his absence. What the Colony objects to is the presence of this gentleman, and I believe that, had he been away even longer, no complaints on that score would have come from the Colony. He returned, and again he exhibited a great number of peculiarities, which, in the opinion of the colonists, tended to lessen the dignity of the Bench he was supposed to adorn. He wrote letters to the newspapers, and engaged in controversy on every conceivable subject, and he took the opportunity given by his position to deliver allocutions from the Bench, which are extremely humorous performances. I must refer to two of them. On one occasion he delivered from the Bench a long speech, in which he said that on a recent occasion he had delivered a judgment in favour of a man of colour in the island; that thereupon the grateful
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    man of colour had attempted to corrupt the Bench by offering him a present of six pine-apples, and, with an expression of horror at the conception the man must have had of the character of the Chief Justice, he stated for the benefit of all whom it might concern that he had refused the gift, and he said it was necessary to call attention to the matter, so that the Resident Justices might understand that the Bench must be preserved pure and incorruptible. Well, this was thought to be a display of virtue which was quite unnecessary. It was thought that the Chief Justice might have refused six pine-apples without making such a fuss about it. Later on he wrote another letter to a newspaper. It appears that 500 tons of coal were being imported into the Bahamas for the use of the lighthouse service. The Chief Justice wrote to the local newspaper to say he had heard with alarm of the intention to import this coal. He had reason to believe that coal contained the germs of malarious disease. He did not think it beyond the bounds of possibility that this coal might contain the germs of yellow fever, and that the whole of the Colony might be affected. He therefore entered his solemn protest against the suggestion that 500 tons of coal should be stored at Nassau for the use of the lighthouse service. I do not know how my hon. Friend, if he had been living in the Colony, would have viewed these continual outbursts from this judicial authority. The colonists were not without a certain kind of rough humour, and after this display on the part of the Chief Justice there appeared an anonymous letter in a local paper signed "Colonist," of which I must read one or two paragraphs. The writer says—
    "Search the annals of the Bench of every country, of every age, and I defy creation to produce a more noble, more self-denying, and more virtuous exhibition of a tender conscience than was afforded by our Chief Justice in refusing to accept a gift of pine-apples! Some cynic has said, 'Every man has his price.' It is assuring to this community to know that the 'Fount of Justice' in this Colony is above the price of even one dozen pine-apples. Mr. Yelverton's noble words of scornful renunciation should be graven in letters of gold upon the walls of every Magisterial office in this Colony; then, and not till then, will sweet potatoes, pigeon peas, &c, cease to exert their baneful influence on the administration of justice in this Colony. But should we be selfish

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    and confine the influence of such virtue to the limited area of this Colony? No, Mr. Editor; 1 and others cherish the hope that this beautiful incident will become historical, and the whole world be benefited by this last and greatest proof of the purity of English justice."
    The letter goes on to say—
    "A great many people of this city are mean enough to say that he should risk his valuable life to attend to the duties of his office in summer as well as winter—they contend that the day of non-resident officialdom is over, and that a man should reside -in the Colony that pays him his salary—the law allows six weeks leave of absence, and Mr. Yelverton should be subservient to that law if to no other."
    It goes on with the following ironical remark:—
    "Fevers, like thunderstorms, have their uses in West Indian Colonies. Fever is regarded by the natives as a merciful provision of Providence to clear the atmosphere of the Civil Service of some officials who are exhaled and emanate from Downing Street."
    By those of us who are well acquainted with the humours of political life in this country, I think it will he agreed that, although we may not necessarily approve the good taste of this communication, it does not go nearly as far as our newspaper editors go every day of their lives. On the publication of the letter, the Chief Justice summoned the editor of the paper, Mr. Moseley, to his Court. He demanded that the editor should give up the name of the colonist who had written such an abominable letter. The editor refused, and the Chief Justice proceeded to find him guilty of contempt of Court and to deliver the judgment of the Court. I could not possibly read the whole of the judgment, which fills several pages of the pamphlet I have before me, but really it is a most noble allocution. He says—
    "You have grossly insulted this Court and the administration of justice. You talk of the combined wisdom of Governor Shea, Providence, the Board of Health, and the Chief Justice, whom you satirically describe in the second paragraph of your article, quoting from the judgment to which I have referred, as an 'English Barrister,' and to whom you mockingly allude as a 'luminary of the English Bar.'"
    He goes on—
    "This is your way of criticising the action of the Chief Justice with regard to the case for Eleuthera, to which I have referred. Comment is needless. Had it been the language of some idler from the Shambles I should not have been so astonished. And, then, in that language of mocking admiration which you demean yourself
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    into publishing, you go on to give the Chief Justice what you (or your vulgar correspondent) call words of warning."
    Continuing, Mr. Yelverton says—
    "Then comes a most horrible paragraph, the wish being evidently the father to the thought."
    And he goes on to quote the remark about fevers being like thunderstorms, and adds—
    "You go on to suggest that officials should be sent to live in unhealthy offices here, so as to expedite their deaths, and then, in a similar foul strain, in a Colony where it is essential that the law should he maintained and respected, and human life guarded, you wind up a letter which I forbear again to criticise by what you or your correspondents are evidently pleased to consider an insulting allusion to myself and others connected with the Government of the Colony. What is the universal opinion as to such a production? There is but one, and that is emphatic condemnation. This Court is glad to see that, notwithstanding insidious attempts (and the Court is alive to what goes on around it), the heart of the Colony as an integral part of the British Empire is sound."
    After the explanation of the circumstances the Chief Justice proceeded to sentence the editor of the paper, for contempt of Court, to be imprisoned during his pleasure, and then to pay two separate fines, and he was to be detained in custody until the fines had been paid. The editor accordingly went to gaol. There was, as may well be supposed, the greatest indignation in the Colony, and a very near approach to a public riot. A deputation, consisting of all the principal inhabitants of the Colony, including five ministers of religion, and a number of Magistrates and Members of the Legislative Assembly, waited upon the Governor, and asked him to release the editor. The Governor very properly telegraphed home to ask whether he had the power to exercise the clemency of the Crown, and thereupon he released the prisoner. There was great rejoicing in the Colony at his action, and flags were displayed in the streets in honour of the occasion. The Chief Justice, furious at the interference of the Governor, not only came home to England to raise before the Privy Council the question whether the Governor had power to release the editor, but, as circumstances have shown, endeavoured to calumniate the Governor and every man of influence in the Colony on account of the view they took of his very extraordinary proceeding. The matter came

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    before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and the view they took of it may be gathered from certain interlocutory observations made by some of the Members of that tribunal. The Lord Chancellor said—
    "The point to be considered was whether it was contempt to suggest that an occupant of the Bench was wanting in wisdom or was foolish."
    Lord Watson said—
    "He should be sorry if every person who happened to call him a fool, in respect of some judgment he had delivered, was to be held guilty of contempt. It would depend on the circumstances."
    The Lord Chancellor further said—
    " If a Judge stops into the arena of newspaper criticism, you cannot regard a letter written in the course of a newspaper controversy in the same light as what I may call a volunteered attack."
    In conclusion, after having heard all the arguments, both for and against, the Court came to the conclusion, firstly, that the letter signed "Colonist" was not, in the circumstances, calculated to obstruct or interfere with the course of justice or the due administration of the law, and, therefore, did not constitute a contempt of Court, and that Mr. Moseley was not guilty of contempt of Court in refusing to give up the name of the writer; and, lastly, that the Royal prerogative did extend to such cases. Therefore, the Judicial Committee gave their decision against the Chief Justice. Well, I think I have said enough to justify the Governor of the Colony in the action he has taken, and also to show the Committee the character of the person who now constitutes himself his traducer. I want, in conclusion, to ask some questions of my hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies. I have not one word of criticism or complaint to make use of respecting the action of the Colonial Office in this mater. They have treated the Chief Justice with consideration, but they have meted out complete justice to the parties. But I wish to point out that the situation at present is intolerable. This man has now been absent from the Colony since June in last year. During the whole of that time he has been receiving half-pay from the Colony. Formerly this payment was voted by the Legislative Assembly. That Assembly has given the Government distinctly to
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    understand that, whatever the circumstances, they will not pay another farthing. But the Colonial Office, who have no money at their disposal, have, until the Chief Justice is disposed of, to find half-pay. They have found it by charging it to the Crown funds of the Colony, so that it is exactly the same thing as though it were paid by a Vote of the Legislative Assembly, as the Crown funds belong to the Colony, and not to this country. We have no right to pay out of their money a Chief Justice whom they would not have at any price. I must say I think the time has come when this interregnum ought to be closed, and the Colony should be told what is in future to be the position of the Chief Justice; whether he is to be sent back or not, and whether they are to be called upon, in meal or in malt, to pay his salary. The Chief Justice, who is at present a public official, is writing to the newspapers letters containing these calumnious assertions. I wish to know whether this is in accordance with the Regulations of the Public Service? Then, Sir, I ask my hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, as far as he is aware, there is any foundation whatever for these exceedingly dishonouring charges which the Chief Justice has brought against the Governor of the Colony and against other responsible and respectable persons? I would only say, in conclusion, that I hope my hon. Friend will confirm the opinion I have formed that these charges are groundless, and that they have only been made as an afterthought in consequence of the difficulty into which the Chief Justice has got himself. I will ask the Under Secretary whether, in such circumstances, it can be contended for a moment that a man who has behaved in this way, who has provoked and insulted and libelled so many of the chief persons in the Colony, can possibly be allowed to return to the Colony in the important position of Chief Justice, and whether, under these circumstances, he is in a position to announce that some change will be made in respect of him?
    MR. LITTLEobserved that there was a question of principle underlying this case. The first point he desired to touch upon was in regard to Judges in the Colonies having unlimited

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    power of committing for contempt of Court. That was considered a very grave power, even in England, and within the last quarter of a century, even in the Supreme Courts in England, there had been cases in which there had been grave doubts as to whether that power had been rightly exercised. When they came to these small Crown Colonies, when men were appointed Chief Justices or Justices, some of whom had never had the conduct of a civil action of any kind whatever in the course of their practice at the Bar, and when they gave to these men the same power of committal for contempt of Court that was given to the Judges of the Supreme Court in England, he need hardly point out that grave injustice had been frequently done. Let any lawyer in this House take the Privy Council cases for the last 20 years, and, on consideration of the cases in regard to committals for contempt of Court, he would come to two conclusions: first, that in many of these cases the Judges in. these Crown Colonies had done substantial injustice in cases in which they had committed people for contempt of Court; and, secondly, that in some cases that substantial injustice could not be remedied. He mentioned the case of a newspaper editor, who was also a barrister, who was committed for contempt of Court, and imprisoned for a lengthened period, besides being fined. During the time of his | imprisonment his wife died; and when he came out, having been imprisoned in this not too healthy climate, he himself died within a short time after he had received the decision of the Privy Council that he ought never to have been committed at all. Ho could mention other instances not so serious, but which, at any rate, went to show that such a power ought not to be placed in the hands of men appointed in this way. This matter about committal for contempt of Court had been the subject of dispute for years between the Colonial Office and some of the Crown Colonies. One of the Crown Colonies passed a legislative Act and sent it home to the Colonial Office. This Act contained a number of very valuable provisions, giving a man a right to trial by jury, and, among other things, it limited the power of imprisonment for contempt. The Colonial Office, however, was, he believed, still
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    squabbling with that Colony over the question of whether the Act should be passed in the form it was sent over or not. He suggested to the Under Secretary that the time had come when they ought to have a general Act with regard to every Crown Colony providing against this arbitrary power of committal for contempt of Court, and he hoped the Committee would receive an assurance that the subject should be considered. He believed that the right hon. Member for West Birmingham had perfectly satisfied the Committee that there were no grounds for the charges made by the Chief Justice. He (Mr. Little) had friends in a neighbouring Colony, and the information he had received in regard to this matter convinced him on this point. Again, he was satisfied that if the Chief Justice had had a case at all he would have been able to have found amongst his brethren of the Bar in that House one who would have taken up his case and placed it before the Committee, and the worst possible point against the Chief Justice was that among the innumerable lawyers that overcrowded the House he had not been able to find one to put his case before the Committee. Dealing with the position of a Chief Justice in the Colonies, he pointed out that while the Chief Justice in a number of cases investigated was outside the Legislative Council, yet in some of the Colonies he had a most extraordinary way of having representatives inside the Legislative Council. For instance, he had the power of appointing men to be Receivers in Bankruptcy whose accounts he had to supervise, and the moment these men were appointed they were simply and purely the servants of the Chief Justice in the Legislative Assembly. The Colonial Office ought to purify the administration in these Crown Colonies by putting an end to such a state of things, which had often resulted in transactions not creditable. The hon. and gallant Admiral had referred to the Jamaica Commission. Within the last 12 months the Colonial Office had sent out a Commission composed of Sir William Markby and Sir Frederick Pollock, and that Commission with regard to another of our Crown Colonies recommended the retirement of two of the Judges, and another was transferred; and if there had been any reason for anything of that sort in this instance, the Colonial Office would

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    have acted in the same way. All who read the evidence given before the Commission to which he referred must come to the conclusion that more supervision was required in these Crown Colonies than the Colonial Office at present exercised in regard to Judges. In that case it was clear that the Chief Justice year after year had been acting in a way contrary to all ideas and all practice of justice, and that another Judge had acted in a way which made him practically the echo of the Chief Justice. But all this had gone on for years, and five years before the Commission was issued there had been complaints from the Chamber of Commerce of Tobago with regard to the administration of justice in that island. He would suggest that instead of having the expense of a Commission, with this long delay before these things could be properly investigated, it might be desirable to establish, in the case of these small Crown Colonies, something in the shape of a Judicial Visitor. That was to say, instead of the Colonial Office getting Reports at home, and endeavouring to form a judgment, a man of judicial experience should be sent out to the Colonies, not to investigate specific charges, but in order to supervise the administration of justice, by seeing that things were being conducted in a proper and orderly manner. From the Report of the Commission to which he had alluded, it was perfectly manifest that if anyone with the experience of the administration of justice had gone to the Colony and investigated the proceedings, the whole thing must at once have been put an end to, instead of having been a source of expense and trouble for a period of five years after the charges against the Chief Justice had been seriously made to the Foreign Office.
    MR. GODSON, as one who had practised at the Bar for a good many years with Mr. Yelverton, desired to say a few words for him. His statements might be accurate or inaccurate, but everyone who knew Mr. Yelverton would recognise that he would not have made the statements he did if he did not himself believe in the truth of every word of the charges he made. He (Mr. Godson) was sorry to hear the tone in which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham took up the other side of the question. He himself
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    was not going to weary the Committee by going into either one side or the other. He took a very serious view of the whole case. Certain facts had been alleged on the one side, and certain facts had been alleged on the other. They were totally inconsistent and contradictory, and that was the very best argument for the appointment of a Committee of Inquiry perfectly independent of all parties, and framed upon the precedent of the Commission to which the last speaker had referred. He did not think there was any foundation for one of the attacks made by the right hon. Member for West Birmingham upon Mr. Yelverton—namely, that these facts were not laid before the public by him or on his behalf until he had had this adverse decision in the Privy Council. In fact, Mr. Yelverton had, soon after his arrival in the Colony, laid these facts before the Governor, who had referred the matter to the very Attorney General whose conduct was impugned. The right hon. Gentleman had stated that Mr. Yelverton could not return to the Colony. Possibly, practically not. Of course, as the right hon. Gentleman had stated, the question of his right to commit for contempt for acts committed outside the Courts having been decided against him, it would make his return unpleasant; but there was, theoretically and technically, nothing whatever to prevent Mr. Yelverton taking up his position again. He admitted that Mr. Yelverton made a foolish mistake; but there was no imputation whatever against Mr. Yelverton's character in any way, professional or private; therefore the assertion made by the Member for West Birmingham was not strictly supported by the fact. It was most important that in all the Colonies, and more especially in a poor one, the Legal Advisers of the Government should be perfectly independent men, and there was nothing more injurious and likely to bring about a miscarriage of justice than that a man in any way connected with the island should be appointed to a responsible legal position. That was the objection he had to the gentleman who occupied the position of Attorney General in this case. He should be free from bias and local prejudice. The Attorney General in this Colony was closely connected with the leading citizens. In one

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    case he had to prosecute his wife's nephew. He could not imagine a case in which a man would be more likely to go astray. Again, take the case in which he prosecuted a man for stabbing another man. It was clear that it was a case of either murder or manslaughter, but the Attorney General, to whom the prisoner appeared to be somewhat distantly related, took good care he should be tried for neither of these offences, and presented a bill from the Grand Jury—which in that island was the Attorney General for the time being—for a very minor charge. The then Chief Justice (Mr. Austin) must have felt that the offence was a very grave and serious one, or he would never have imposed the sentence of two years' imprisonment, the highest sentence the law allowed. He was glad to hear that a gentleman had been sent over by the Colonial Office to take up a judicial position in this Colony who would be independent of any local feeling. He thought that was a very wise and judicious proceeding on the part of the Colonial Office. He would urge that this Attorney General should be removed from the position he occupied, for it was perfectly clear he could not do justice as between the Crown and friends and relations of his who might be brought into trouble. He trusted the Government would grant this Commission, and that they would also give it power to report generally upon the manner in which legal proceedings were conducted in that Colony.
    MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHYsaid, it was not often his fortune to agree with the right hon. Member for West Birmingham, but on this occasion he fully concurred with almost everything the right hon. Gentleman had said. He did not intend to go into this long controversy as to the Chief Justice's conduct and the various legal questions connected with it; he only wanted to bear his personal testimony to the integrity and high character of Sir Ambrose Shea. He was the only Colonial Governor he knew of under whose influence and care a Colony had grown up from something like bankruptcy to a condition of actual and increasing prosperity. This result had been brought about in a great measure because of the watchfulness, foresight, and the close
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    and strict business management of Sir Ambrose Shea, who was entitled to every consideration and respect from that House. He only rose to offer his humble testimony to the character which Sir Ambrose Shea bore, and the opinion which all those who knew him had long; formed of his integrity and abilities.
    MR. S. BUXTON: In regard to the question of the distress in St. Helena, to which the hon. and gallant Admiral referred in his opening remarks, I cordially sympathise with the view he has laid before the Committee. We deplore the falling-off in the trade of St. Helena, and the unfortunate distress which exists in that island. The hon. Gentleman called my attention to what had been done by the Admiralty, and asked whether we intended to take further steps in that direction. I think I have shown already that we have taken steps, and he will be glad to hear that the other day one of Her Majesty's troopships did take off four families—in all 22 souls—from the island to South Africa. This, I hope, is only an instalment; and I may tell him that, as far as we have any control in the matter, we shall take care that these persons taken by the Admiralty shall not be just the able-bodied ones of the family, but the family as a whole. That was, I understand, the case with those taken the. other day. With regard to the question as 1o the Bahamas, there are one or two points on which I should like to say a few words. My hon. Friend behind me (Mr. Little) spoke of the power which is given into the hands of Magistrates and of Judges in small Colonies of inflicting punishment for contempt of Court, and I am bound to say, from my short experience at the Colonial Office—quite apart from this particular case—it does seem to me there is often a monstrous abuse of this power on the part of the Judicial Authorities in our Colonies. If we can see our way to curtail that power—and we have already done something in that direction—I am sure it will meet with the approval of those who are interested in these matters. I quite agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for West Birmingham when he said that it is a great mistake in this case—as in others—that these Judges—and they are gentlemen, after all, of no great authority or position—should be

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    endowed with the title of Chief Justice. In this particular case, as well as in others, the Chief Justice is a mere name. He has really no Judge under him, and he is the supreme and sole Judge of that particular Colony. I think that in this, and in other cases, it has tended to give an undue idea of their powers and authority, and tends, to that extent, to do some harm. I do not know that I can agree with my hon. Friend behind me (Mr. Little), who, I understand, wants a sort of Inspector of Judges to go round the different islands examining judicial grievances. I think that would lead to great difficulty, and would result in making matters worse than they are at the present moment. I am bound to say in regard not only to the case before us, hut other cases, that I do think the Secretary of State ought to have much fuller power than he at present possesses of removing Judges on his own initiative if he thinks they have done anything wrong. It is quite right that in England the greatest possible sanctity and power should reside in the person of the Judge; but when it comes to the small Colonies and the class of men sent out there, I think there should be a much more expeditious way of getting rid of bad subjects than there is at the present moment. With reference to the particular case to which our attention has been called this afternoon, I cannot follow my right hon. Friend in regard to the position of Mr. Yelverton. He will easily understand that, his case being before the Privy Council at the present moment, it would not be right or expedient on my part to enter into the merits or demerits of Mr. Yelverton as a man or Chief Justice. In regard to one question he has raised in reference to his salary, I can only say I feel as much as he does, or as anyone interested in the Colonies can do, the very unfortunate position in which the Colony has been placed by the delay that has taken place in deciding this particular case of Mr. Yelverton. But I think he did give credit to the Colonial Office for having endeavoured to expedite matters. We were, however, confronted with difficulties; it was with the utmost possible difficulty we could make any progress; every step we have taken had to be taken under the advice of the Law Officers of the Crown, and such delay as
    702
    may have occurred has really been due to exceptional or necessary courses, and certainly in no sense has it been according to our desire or intention. I should like to see the question settled as soon as possible; but until it is settled I do not see how it can be taken otherwise than that the Colony should pay the salary. There is no fund from which it can be paid; but I hope the delay will not be long, and that the Privy Council will soon have come to a conclusion. As regards the speech of the hon. Member below the Gangway, he brought forward some cases of general administration. I am glad to be able to avail of this opportunity of paying tribute to the great ability which Sir Ambrose Shea has shown in the discharge of his duties as Governor of the Bahamas. I quite understand that the hon. and gallant Member (Admiral Field) has not fathered the charges which have been made, but it, is greatly to be regretted that the charges have been made.
    ADMIRAL FIELDsaid, he was most careful to guard against the possibility of fathering the charges. He only sought for information and inquiry.
    MR. S. BUXTON: Yes; I understood that, as I have said; but it is a pity these charges should have been made without inquiry. The hon. and gallant Member asks that we should grant an inquiry. I am bound to say that the Colonial Office has given the matter attention for a considerable time past; and we ask the Committee to leave the responsibility in the hands of the Colonial Office. No case has been made out for so serious a measure as a Committee of Inquiry. I deplore, Sir, that in the past judicial posts in these small Colonies have been filled up by relatives of those in power in particular Colonies. It is impossible, however, to remedy that just now. What would be the advantage of a Committee of Inquiry in that case? For the purpose of dealing with these posts on account of relationship? We intend in future to put in outsiders rather than those in the island, and I do not think we can go further than that. There would, therefore, be no advantage to be gained by a Royal Commission or any Special Committee. Well, now, Sir, reference has been made to the late Postmaster General of the Bahamas.

    703
    That is a lamentable case, but the evidence against Mr. Smith for seduction and abduction has not been held to be conclusive, Mr. Smith was ultimately aquitted of the charges made against him; but, Sir, the circumstances of the case rendered it impossible that he could be reinstated. Then, Sir, there are the charges made in connection with relatives of the Attorney General of the island. It has been conclusively proved that there is no foundation for those charges. That is all I need say. I now ask the Committee to leave the responsibility of the government of this Colony in the hands of the Colonial Office. Any specific accusation will always receive careful attention, and, while I do not think there is any difficulty to call for this inquiry that has been asked for, I am sure the House will acknowledge that we are doing our best to prevent a recurrence of these scandals, and I hope that the matter will be allowed to remain in our hands.
    ADMIRAL FIELDsaid, he must protest against the way in which the Under Secretary had censured him for not having inquired into the truth of the charges he had brought before the Committee. He had had no means of doing so. He had read the statements laid before him, and he had had an interview with the Chief Justice, and he only brought the matter before the House for the purpose of securing inquiry.
    MR. S. BUXTONsaid, he did not censure the hon. and gallant Gentleman. He merely expressed a desire, if he recollected aright, that there should have been inquiry before such serious matters were brought before the Committee in this form. He thought it was somewhat hard that accusations of this kind should be brought before the House, and that not even a primâ facie case should be made out in respect of them.
    MR. HENNIKER HEATONsaid, a considerable time had elapsed without having this matter dealt with, and he would express a hope that the Colonial Office would not delay much longer.
    MR. WADDYsaid, it was the bounden duty of the Chief Justice to have had these charges investigated at once by the Colonial
    704
    Office. Had he taken the proper steps they would not have remained over so long.
    MR. HANBURYsaid, he had just a few words to say about the large contribution for Imperial purposes of the Straits Settlements. These Settlements had to pay the whole of the cost of their defences, and he thought that was unjust. The contribution had recently been raised from £50,000 to £100,000. It seemed to him strange that because Singapore occupied a most important position it ought to have this exceptional charge thrown upon it. The Straits Settlements had recently spent £80,000 upon fortifications. They practically paid one-fifth of their revenue for these purposes, and in order to do so had to draw upon their fund which was reserved for sudden contingencies, and had also to stop public works. This was not fair treatment in the case of a Crown Colony. Even in proportion the Straits Settlements were not fairly treated. He fancied the War Office was the offender in the matter, and he should like to hear from the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether any remonstrance had been addressed to the War Office in respect of the grievous burdens which had been imposed upon these Crown Colonies? They should be able to find a fair solution. The position as it stood was not fair, and he hoped they would have information on the subject.
    SIR C. W. DILKEsaid, he wished to say in a few words that, in his opinion, no case had been made out for exempting this wealthy Colony from paying for its own expenses.
    SIR J. GORSTreplied, that the complaint of the hon. Member for Preston was that Singapore had not only to pay the cost of defending Singapore, but also to contribute a large portion of her Revenue to defending the British Empire.
    MR. S. BUXTONsaid, that the delay in the case of the appeal of the Chief Justice of the Bahamas being heard before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council was due to the length of the list of causes in that Court. The question as to the amount of the contribution of the Straits Settlements was under consideration. The contribution had been raised to £100,000, but it was

    705
    only to run for three years. The Colonial Office was very anxious to deal liberally with the Colonies. However, all questions of this kind had to be considered by the Colonial Office in consultation with the War Office, and the Treasury and the Colonial Office had to abide by the decision come to by these Departments.
    SIR R. TEMPLEsaid, the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies had not told the Committee what was the cost of the military charges against Singapore. It should be remembered that the troops were kept at Singapore not only to keep the native population in order, but to preserve a great Imperial strategical position. Nobody would deny that Singapore ought to pay her own military charges; but what the colonists complained of was that they should be made to pay also the cost of maintaining this strategical position, which was, of course, a purely Imperial matter. The real point was to ascertain what the amount of military charges at Singapore might be, including the coaling station, which must be Imperial. If the House knew this amount, then it could judge whether the sum of £100,000 imposed on Singapore was fair or not. This question was an extraordinary instance of the vicissitudes not only of human affairs, but of human sentiment. Singapore was once included in the Indian Empire, and it then had to pay no Imperial charges whatever. But the British merchants and traders residing there thought they ought to have the status of a Crown Colony. Their wishes were acceded to, and as a consequence they had to pay Crown Colony charges. They had now begun to lament the step they had taken, and with them it was a case of "out of the frying-pan into the fire," and they realised the proverb of King Stork and King Log. But that was no reason why they should not be protected and relieved of burdens which they were not justly called upon to bear.
    SIR M. HICKS-BEACH: I find myself entirely unable to agree with the views expressed on this matter on this side of the House. I have had occasion to go carefully into this matter, and I would appeal to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies
    706
    not to listen too favourably to these views.
    Vote agreed to.
    SIR J. T. HIBBERTsaid, that before the next Vote—the Vote for the Privy Council—was put, he wished to explain that it was the intention of the Government to move to reduce the Vote by £1,000 in respect of the salary of the Lord President of the Council. The full amount of the salary had been put down on the Votes, because it was impossible to say at the time they were prepared how long the present arrangement would last, or how long the present Government would remain in Office. But, as six months had now elapsed, the Government were able to reduce the Item for the salary of the Lord President of the Council by half.
    MR. HENEAGEasked whether, if the Secretary to the Treasury moved this reduction, he would be precluded from moving the Amendment of which he had given notice—namely, the rejection of the entire salary of the Lord President of the Council?
    THE CHAIRMAN: The Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman will be in Order.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That a sum, not exceeding £7,533, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1894, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Department of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council and for Quarantine Expenses."
    MR. HENEAGEsaid, his object was to abolish altogether the salary of the Lord President of the Council. At the time the Minister for Agriculture had been constituted, he objected altogether to any fresh taxes being put on the Votes on account of the new Offices, because he held that there were some sinecures that might be abolished, and the money paid in salaries for these sinecures devoted to the Agricultural Department. He held the opinion that the Office of the Lord President of the Council had become a sinecure, just like the Office of Lord Privy Seal. It was stated by the Secretary to the Treasury that although £2,000 was asked as salary for the Office, the money was not drawn

    707
    by Lord Kimberley, and would not be drawn by him so long as he also held the Office of Secretary for India. If Lord Kimberley could perform the duties of the Secretary of State for India and President of the Council, anybody else could perform the duties of the two Offices also; and if Lord Kimberley did not want to draw the salary, nobody else would require to draw the salary. He therefore objected to the salary altogether. He held that the Lord President of the Council was not required at all. He thought the Office should be abolished, and the duties attached to it transferred to some other Office. The Lord President of the Council a few years back was not only an officer of a very high rank, but he had important duties to perform. He was responsible for everything connected with agriculture and education. Now he was responsible for neither, for there were two separate Offices and Ministers for Agriculture and Education. In fact, now the only duty attached to the Office of Lord President of the Council was a ceremonial duty. It might be said that the Office was a very ancient Office, and that on that account it ought to be continued. The same thing was said when he proposed the abolition of the salary of the Lord Privy Seal; but after a time that salary was abolished, and the Office of Lord Privy Seal was now held by the Prime Minister in addition to other Offices. The outcry had also been raised against the abolition of the Office of Judge Advocate General. It was said that it was a high and ancient Office, and that they could not possibly get on without it. But the Office was abolished, and they had got on without a Judge Advocate General for years—or, at least, there was no one in Parliament held the Office. He did not want to take away all the salary of the Lord President of the Council. He would like to see a rearrangement of the salaries attached to the various Offices of the Government in accordance with the duties discharged by each Office. He thought it was monstrous and ridiculous that Ministers like the President of the Board of Trade and President of the Local Government Board should have only the same salary as the Chief Commissioner of Works, the Postmaster General, the Secretary
    708
    to the Admiralty, and the Secretary to the Treasury. He begged, in conclusion, to move the reduction of the Vote by £1,000 in respect of the salary of the Lord President of the Council.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Item A, Salaries, be reduced by £1,000" (Salary of the Lord President of the Council).—(Mr. Heneage.)
    SIR W. HARCOURT: I very much sympathise with my right hon. Friend as to the abolition of sinecures. The Office of Lord Privy Seal is a sinecure, but the Office of Lord President of the Council is not. Orders in Council are extremely numerous, and require a responsible Minister to answer for them. The fact of one Minister discharging two Offices and only drawing the salary of one, as in Lord Kimberley's case, is not a sufficient ground for abolishing this ancient Office. If the argument of my right hon. Friend were to hold good, it would follow that the Office of First Lord of the Treasury ought to be abolished, because it has sometimes been held by a Minister who at the same time was Chancellor of the Exchequer. Under these circumstances, the arrangement which has just been indicated by the Secretary to the Treasury is solely of a temporary character.
    SIR C. W. DILKEsaid, he would like to see the Office of the Lord President abolished and its duties distributed among various Departments. Each Head of a Department should, moreover, be answerable for all Orders in Council which were issued in relation to his special Department.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid, his sympathies were divided between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the right hon. Member for Great Grimsby. On the one hand, he could not help recollecting that the Lord President of the Council held an Office that was of the highest antiquity and of great importance. There was a time when no act was done by the Crown except with the consent of the Privy Council. At that time the Lord President of the Council was a person of great importance, but at present the Lord President of the Council was but a mere shadow of his former glory. Under these circumstances, it seemed to him that the time had

    709
    arrived to put an end to the Office. The Lord President of the Council had nothing to do, and in doing that he was assisted by a large number of other persons. Restricting his observations to the Lord President, he was unable to see what duties he could possibly perform. He could see no reason for the President, or for such Office, or for the messengers; and unless a better case were made out for this shadow of a name than had been made up to the present moment, he thought the Committee would be inclined to carry out the policy the Government were pledged to by reducing the salary as proposed by the right hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Heneage).
    SIR J. T. HIBBERTsaid, that oven if they took away the salary, they could not by that means abolish the Office of Lord President. They ought to look at the question in a broad spirit. The present Government had in its ranks the noble Lord who held the Office of Secretary of State for India, who had also undertaken the duties of Lord President of the Council, and who, therefore, did not require any salary in respect of the latter Office. But only six months of the present year had gone past, and supposing they reduced the salary as proposed, and then, before the other six months were over, another Government was to come into Office, or the present Government made a re-arrangement, it would create great difficulty in dealing with this question upon its own merits. To his mind, the chief objection to the proposal of his right hon. Friend was that it tied the hands of the present Government in case of a re-arrangement of Offices, and it also tied the hands of any other Government that might come into Office and might wish to have the Offices arranged in a different way. He thought there were strong reasons why the salary should not be taken away; and if the arrangement continued to the end of the next six months, of course the remainder of the salary would fall into the Exchequer. He did not say whether there should not be a general re-arrangement of Ministerial salaries. That was a large matter for the consideration of the Cabinet and, perhaps, for an inquiry by a Committee of that House; but he ventured to say they could not deal
    710
    with it on a Vote for the salary attaching to the Office.
    SIR J. FERGUSSONventured to think that while economy was perfectly right in practice—and many small economies would, in the aggregate, provide funds for some very useful purpose—still that economy might be carried too far. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had told the Committee that there were many and important, if not laborious, functions attached to the Office of Lord President of the Council. This Minister had frequently to attend Her Majesty on business which could not be performed without the functions of the Sovereign. He had to explain to Her Majesty very many important matters of State, and, moreover, there had been many Lord Presidents who had taken a very considerable share of the work of their own Department and done good and useful work in the administration of education. He would put it to the Committee whether it was not desirable there should be an Office in which a statesman of long experience and high standing should be placed without his being charged with very onerous functions? He was quite sure the Office of Lord President had generally been filled by a statesman whose counsels could not well be dispensed with in the Government, and who, perhaps, would no longer have undertaken an Office which was charged with heavy Departmental duties such as belonged to the Post Office. The noble Lord who at present acted as Lord President of the Council had such great experience that no doubt he might be able to conduct the duties of both Departments without being too great a tax upon him. But it might not always be convenient to place in the Office of Secretary of State for India a Minister who could perform the Offices of both Departments; and it might be readily conceived that there might be times when the duties of the Secretary of State for India would be so absorbing that it would be impossible to perform the functions of President of the Council in addition. For his part, he recognised the appropriateness of the views expressed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he thought it would be a great mistake to abolish the salary of the Office.
    SIR W. HARCOURTsaid, he had been asked what was the business of the President of the Council. The President of the Council was still the head of the Education Department, and represented it in the House of Lords. He was supreme in the Department if he thought it right to interfere. To practically revolutionise the organisation of the head of the Department was a matter that ought to be done with full consideration. It was an extremely important question. They could not, after a five minutes' conversation, knock off the head of the Department.
    SIR J. GORSTsaid, it was quite clear, from what had been said by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, that the post of Lord President of the Council was not a sinecure. He desired to call the attention of the Committee to quite a novel point, which he thought worthy the consideration of Committee of Supply. They had here a nobleman performing the functions of two important State officers—the Secretary of State for India and the Lord President of the Council. The salary of the Secretary of State for India was paid by the Indian taxpayer; the salary of the Lord President of the Council was paid by the British taxpayer. As the duties of the two Offices were discharged by the same individual, there was obviously an opening for economy. The whole of the economy was for the benefit of the English taxpayer, and no corresponding benefit whatever was to be derived from it bv the Indian taxpayer.
    MR. A. C. MORTONsaid, if he rightly understood the matter, the Government were not going to pay any of this salary during the current year; and if they could get an assurance from the Chancellor of the Exchequer that during the Recess, or at any other reasonable time, the Government would re-consider the whole question, they ought to be satisfied for the present. It appeared to him that if a Minister who had to lead the House of Lords and take charge of the whole affairs of India, with its 280 millions of people, was also able to undertake the duties of Lord President of the Council, there could not be much to do in the latter capacity. He wanted to see this Office done away with, and the Minister of Education, or whatever
    712
    Minister did the work, should get the salary, if it was necessary to pay any salary. The Lord President of the Council was one of the Offices created years ago for the purpose of giving the money of the taxpayer to some nobleman or other person belonging to the West End of London. Such Offices should be abolished, and the salaries given to those Ministers who had to do the work, and who were responsible to Parliament. He gathered that, although the Government were not going to pay this money, they were going to keep it on the Vote. This was a dangerous thing to do, because if the Prime Minister or the Chancellor of the Exchequer were over-influenced by somebody who wanted a good salary and nothing to do, he might be led astray. Again, if the Department had got the money to spare on one item, they might spend it on another about which Parliament would then know nothing, because they would not be asked to vote it, which was a very objectionable practice.
    MR. POWELL-WILLIAMSsaid, that as a reason for this Vote they had been told that the Lord President of the Council was really the head of the Education Department; but it would be interesting to know to what extent the Lord President of the Council had really, in later years, been accustomed to take upon himself any responsibility for the actual work of the Education Department, or had any active work in shaping its policy. All the real work was done by the Vice President.
    SIR W. HARCOURTsaid, there was no doubt that the Lord President exercised a most active influence, and really he might say he was almost the principal factor in the Education Department. The Education Department was a Committee of which the Lord President was the head.
    MR. POWELL-WILLIAMSasked, under the present Government, what part did the Lord President actually take in relation to the work of the Education Department? If he took little or no part in the work of the Education Department, it was evident that his services were not necessary. What would be the difficulty in making the Vice President President and giving him the full responsibility for the work of the Depart-

    713
    ment. The proposal of the Government was that the Committee, by its decision to-day, should leave attached to this Office a salary of at any rate £1,000 a year; but unless they could show more substantial reasons for this course, and could show that work was really performed in connection with the Office, the Committee would act wisely in declining to grant further salary to the Lord President.
    MR. BARTLEY MR. BARTLEY, who spoke from many years' service in the Department, said, it seemed to him that it would be altogether a mistake to leave the position of this matter as it was. The Lord President of the Council was nominally the head of the Department; but, as a rule, he did not take an active part in its administration, the educational work of the country being left to the Vice President under him, particularly if the Vice President happened to be a strong man. But the mischief came in here—the Lord President would want to interfere very often without knowing all the circumstances, and he very often did so interfere. The Vice President was the real head of the Education Department, to which his whole work was devoted; but instead of being; as he ought to be, the absolute head, he was only the second head, and the Lord President could now come down and interfere with the educational work as to the circumstances of which he might know nothing. This anomaly would have to be done away with, and the Vice President, who did the work, would have to be the head of the Education Department instead of having this sham head.
    MR. HENEAGEsaid, he never intended to abolish the Office of Lord President, because it was absolutely necessary that there should be that Office, as its occupants had certain statutory duties to perform; but what he did contend was that these duties were so few and occupied so little time that the Office could very well be combined with another Office; and, therefore, there was no necessity for giving two salaries to two men to do the work. The Secretary to the Treasury had told them that the Government wanted this £1,000 in case the present holder of the Office declined any longer to keep it, and they had to appoint someone else. If this contingency should occur, the
    714
    Government had a Minister at the present moment with absolutely nothing to do—namely, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who could hold the Office until the end of the year, so that the Government would not require the money. His idea had always been that the men who did the work should have the credit and also the power. If the Government did not want the money, why could they not accept his Motion? If they would not, then half a loaf was better than no bread; and if the Chancellor of the Exchequer would undertake to say the money should not be used, he would not put the Committee to the trouble of dividing.
    MR. NAOROJIpointed out that the Secretary of State for India performed certain other duties for which rich England saved £2,000, and made poor India pay him £5,000. What the Government ought to have done would have been to have given a corresponding relief to the people of India for utilising the Secretary of State for India, whose services belonged entirely to India. He hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer would take care that such an injustice should not be done.
    MR. A. C. MORTONasked for some pledge that the Government would consider this question.
    SIR W. HARCOURTsaid, he regarded the present arrangement as altogether temporary; but he could not give a pledge that this money should not be used. It was not intended to be used; but, supposing there was such a catastrophe as a change of Government, he could not give any undertaking which would bind the succeeding Government. All he could say was that there were many circumstances connected with this Office which required consideration.
    MR. HENEAGEsaid, he would not put the House to the trouble of a Division; but next Session he hoped to bring forward the question, with the view to having the whole of these subjects considered by a Committee.
    Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
    Original Question again proposed.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLESobjected to the item of £1,623 for quarantine expenses, which he characterised as one of the most indefensible abuses which

    715
    existed in this country. On the Motherbank in the Solent there were four old battleships, with a superintendent, a mate, and a small staff of seamen who cost £1,153. There was never anybody in these ships but six or seven ancient moss-grown mariners who had nothing to do except keep the ships clean. Nobody used them, and people wondered why on earth they were there! They were there because 1,000 years or so ago some foolish person conceived the idea of quarantine. In these days such a relic of barbarism should not be kept up. Quarantine was not only useless, but it was positively mischievous and dangerous. It was useless because, if they were going to have yellow fever and the plague or other evil things imported into this country, they would not come by the Motherbank, but by the Dover and Calais boats which ran four, five, or six times a day, and carried thousands of passengers. Therefore, if quarantine was a proper method, it would be quite useless to keep up this establishment at Motherbank. Quarantine was only kept up by foreign nations in order to furnish them with a cheap method of taxing foreigners by requiring fees to be paid to their Consuls by ships for visé-ing Bills of Health. He did not think any gentleman would get up and defend the system of quarantine at all, or this form of it represented at Motherbank. If there was to be any form of quarantine at all it was not the Privy Council that should undertake it, but the Local Government Board. At the present time the Local Government Board was stirring in the matter, for they were going down to different ports and ordering certain things to be done in order to carry out the system of quarantine, the expenses for which had to be borne by the Local Authorities. These particular four ships with the superintendent and moss-grown mariners, together with expenses for the hire of boats, &c, cost £1,623. He believed nobody could defend such an outlay, or show that it had ever been of the slightest use. He believed it was a mere survival from the time of George IV., which had been allowed to go on until now, when he hoped the Secretary to the Treasury would consent to the reduction of the Vote by this sum. He begged to move the reduction of the Vote by £1,623 for the quarantine expenses.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That £5,910 be granted for the said Services."—(Mr. Gibson Bowles.)
    SIR J. T. HIBBERTsaid, that the quarantine establishment to which the hon. Member had referred was set up under an Act of Parliament passed a considerable time ago. He admitted that public opinion had changed very much of late years with respect to quarantine, but this system at Motherbank only applied to two very serious diseases—namely, to yellow fever and the plague, and affected no vessels except those coming from the West Indies and Central and South America. There were Conventions with Poreign Powers in respect of this station, and it would be necessary to consult them before they could abolish it, and, moreover, legislation would be necessary. His hon. Friend said these four vessels were never used. He was sorry to say that was not the case. Five ships had been in quarantine for yellow fever from the year 1889 to 1892—which was coming very near to the present time. One ship was in quarantine in May, 1889; two in April, 1891; one in January, 1892, and one in February, 1892. Then, again, with respect to the cost of maintaining these vessels, he was informed that the Customs had the service of the men when they were not engaged in quarantine duties, so that they were in continuous occupation. That being so, it was not such an extravagant and wasteful matter as the hon. Gentleman seemed to think. Again, there was a provision in this Vote for the inspection at Liverpool, Southampton, and certain other ports, under stated conditions, of vessels coming from the countries he had named by a medical officer, which acted as a prevention against the admission of the two diseases. The service was kept up by Statute, and it would be impossible to alter it without legislation. If the hon. Gentleman wished to raise the question he would suggest he should do so next Session by bringing forward a Motion for a Committee of Inquiry.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLESwas quite disposed to adopt the course suggested. The right hon. Gentleman spoke as if it was compulsory by the Act of George IV. to keep these four ships going, but as he read the Act there was nothing whatever

    717
    in it to prevent this reduction being made. Moreover, such a system could not be effectual as a prevention of disease, as the enormous passenger traffic was left untouched by these quarantine arrangements. He would, however, acting on the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman, withdraw his Amendment.
    Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
    Original Question put, and agreed to.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That a sum, not exceeding £108,090, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1894, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Committee of Privy Council for Trade and Subordinate Departments.
    CAPTAIN NAYLOR-LEYLANDsaid, he had one or two matters to bring before the Committee in relation to this Vote. He would like to address, first of all, some observations with regard to the new Labour Department of the Board of Trade. This Department ought to be of the greatest use to the workmen of the country. He appreciated what had been done. But there had been sins of commission and omission. They had heard at the last Election of the appointment of a Minister for Labour—a Minister for dealing with labour questions alone? That would be the natural outcome of the creation of a Labour Department. What had been done in this direction? Nothing. All that the President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Mundella) had done was to change the name of the Commercial Department into that of the Department of Labour. After doing that the right hon. Gentleman came forward and said—"See what a good boy am I!" They ought to have a responsible Minister for Labour, but the right hon. Gentleman had practically done next to nothing. There was only one Department of State which was bound to look after labour as matters now stood, and, for his own part, he was grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for what had been done. There were four things which the Department did, and four things only, and it seemed to him that if nothing else was to be expected they had better not have such a Department. The first point was the issue of
    718
    The Labour Gazette, a monthly publication which no doubt contained a great deal of information, and which would be useful if circulated amongst trade centres. The other three points—and this was an extraordinary thing—were all matters of inquiry. It had been said that this was essentially "a Government of inquiry," and that was true. The Government forgot that the first duty of Parliament was to legislate, and whenever they were asked to do anything they always declined to legislate, and said—"We are going to inquire." The second point in the operations of the Department was to undertake special inquiries into important subjects bearing upon labour. It was not at all necessary to have a Department of the State to do that, for if there were subjects connected with labour that required inquiring into, a Select Committee, a Departmental Committee, or a Special Commission would be sufficient for the purpose. The third duty of the Department was to carry out such inquiries as might be ordered by Parliament from time to time, and the fourth duty was to issue a Report of its proceedings. If the President of the Board of Trade were to get up and tell the Committee that these four points covered all that the Department could do in the interest of the working classes, as a Member of the Opposition he was glad to hear it, but from the point of view of the labouring classes it was a circumstance to be regretted. If they wished to make this Department a reality and not a sham, they should take away whatever work connected with labour other Departments had to do, and place all the work under the jurisdiction of a responsible Minister. They should, for instance, take the factory legislation out of the hands of the Home Secretary, they should take the Board of Hygiene from the Local Government Board and the Labour Correspondence from the Board of Trade, and they should relieve the Colonial Office and the Foreign Office of all their labour business, and when they had done that they might be said to have a nucleus of the proper Labour Department. They would then have a Department which would have the confidence of the working class of the country, and that was one of the first things which a Minister for Labour ought to possess. He contended, there-

    719
    fore, that the right hon. Gentleman opposite was guilty of the sin of omission in not having set up a proper Department of Labour. All the right hon. Gentleman had done had been to take the Commercial and Statistical Department as it was and add to it four Inspectors. His next point against the right hon. Gentleman was his sin of commission. He had 25 Labour Correspondents, as to whose appointment he was to be congratulated, but he could not be congratulated on the method he had adopted of appointing these gentlemen. They were in every sense of the word Government officials, and they received Government pay of from £15 to £20 a year. The very first thing that ought to be demanded of them was that they should occupy the position of Government officials, and be non-political in every sense of the word. But what was the fact? Why, that 17 of them were without doubt Gladstonian Liberals. He could find out nothing about the other eight, but it was quite likely that they were of the same political complexion. In one case in his own district a man named Joseph Robinson took a van through the Harwich Division. He held meetings in every village, and said to the villagers—"You are going to have an election very soon. If you vote for the Gladstonian candidate you will get £1 a week wages, and a 3d. loaf for 1d. The rich will become poor, and the poor rich." Shortly after that—three days as a rule—the Radical candidate for the Division went into the village, and said—"Mr. Joseph Robinson was here a day or two ago, and told you about the Radical candidate, who was going to give you £1 a week in wages. I am the gentleman of whom he spoke." No doubt this was fair political warfare, but what he objected to was that after the General Election—directly the President of the Board of Trade came into Office—the first man he appointed as Local Labour Correspondent was this man Joseph Robinson. This was showing a regard for one's political friends, and an appreciation of their merits which was startling. But Mr. Joseph Robinson's case was only one out of 17. The abuse of which he complained had been 17 times repeated; and though he believed that Mr. Robinson had resigned, that did not get them away from the fact of his
    720
    appointment. Perhaps the President of the Board of Trade would be able to say, in the first place, why Mr. Robinson had been appointed, and, in the second place, why he had resigned. He did not wish to be hard on the President of the Board of Trade, for he believed that "evil communications corrupt good manners." He was very much afraid that the right hon. Gentleman had been associating lately with the Chancellor of the Duchy. If that was so, he would tell the right hon. Gentleman that he had a most dangerous associate, because, if there ever were flagrant cases of the appointment of political allies to Government offices, they had been perpetrated recently by the Chancellor of the Duchy. He begged to move that Item A be reduced by a sum of £1,000.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Item A, Salaries, be reduced by £1,000."—(Captain Naylor-Leyland.)
    MR. JESSE COLLINGSsaid, he agreed with the hon. and gallant Member who had last spoken with regard to the appointment of Labour Correspondents. Of course, the right hon. Gentleman was responsible for the appointments whoever actually made them; and they reflected anything but credit on the Department. In Birmingham a gentleman of great ability had been appointed, but a gentleman distinguished by extreme partisanship, who had brought serious accusations against the Small Arms Factory, every one of which had been disproved. This gentleman's reports would be read in connection with the individuality of the writer. This gentleman's great merit no doubt was that he had the honour of doing his best to defeat him (Mr. Jesse Collings) at the General Election. A hundred men could have been selected in Birmingham, each perfectly qualified to furnish the necessary information, but the appointment had been made as a reward for services rendered to the Gladstonian Party. Then as to The Labour Gazette. People who understood these subjects must laugh when reading the monthly reports of some of the Labour Correspondents He did not understand the majority of the Reports, but this was the sort of thing that was reported about Birmingham—

    721
    "Engineers and machinists are slack; there is an improved demand for bedsteads; galvanised iron makers are receiving good orders."
    These contributions to The Labour Gazette were little jerky paragraphs, which did not contain as much information as the daily papers of Birmingham, the latter obtaining their facts from merchants, manufacturers, and others—sources of information to which the Labour Correspondents, as a rule, were not admitted. To his mind the Department had been lowered through the way it had lent itself to political partisanship.
    MR. AUSTIN: What did your Party do?
    MR. JESSE COLLINGSsaid, it was not a question of what their Party did. If the hon. Member referred to the Unionists he would challenge him to bring any charge against them.
    THE CHAIRMAN: The Question before the Committee has reference to a reduction of Item A—the salary of the President of the Board of Trade.
    MR. JESSE COLLINGS: The reduction touching the administration of the Department.
    THE CHAIRMAN: Yes; but only so far as the present President of the Board of Trade is concerned.
    MR. JESSE COLLINGSsaid, the right hon. Gentleman was responsible for all appointments made, and every branch of the Administration came under review. He now wished to raise a question of great importance to the shopkeepers of the United Kingdom; he referred to the administration of the Weights and Measures Act of 1889. This might appear, at first sight, to be a matter which did not affect the general public, but really great inconvenience was occasioned by this administration, and great annoyance was given to shopkeepers and manufacturers. No doubt the President of the Board of Trade and the Board of Trade generally were anxious to do the best they could for the administration of the Act, but the complaint was that they took too much of an official view of the grievances complained of. This was not a question of securing just weights and scales and measures, for they were all agreed as to the necessity of that. Parliament had interested itself in the matter from the earliest times, and there were 40 or 50
    722
    measures on the Statute Book dealing with it. The Act of 1889 said that—
    "Weighing instruments shall be stamped and certified by an Inspector under this Act."
    Now, the grievance was that when a weighing instrument was stamped—at the place at which it was made or anywhere else—if it was taken into another locality that stamp was no longer of any use. The local Inspector insisted that he should put a stamp on, and, therefore, the weighing instrument was stamped for the second time, whether or not the balance were just. He had read the Act of 1889 carefully, and he did not think it required this second stamping. The difficulty arose, he thought, from the model regulations which the Board of Trade had issued, and that, he believed, was the opinion of the hon. Member for North Hackney, who had spoken some time ago on this subject, and who had given it most careful attention. The Act of 1878, which had not been repealed, was, he believed, referred to in the Act of 1889 as the principal Act—
    THE CHAIRMAN: The matter the right hon. Member is referring to comes under the Item I., K., or L., but the present reduction is moved on Item A.
    MR. JESSE COLLINGSsaid, they had pursued this matter up to the point of the President of the Board of Trade saying "aye" or "no" to the remedy proposed. Therefore, they were concerned with a pure act of administration, for which the President of the Local Government Board was responsible. The Act of 1878 said that the stamping of any weight or measure by an Inspector would hold good in any part of the United Kingdom until such weight or measure was found to be unjust, and that the weight or measure should not be liable to be restamped. He was aware that that applied to weights and measures, but would the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade say whether the non-extension of that to scales and weighing instruments was not an oversight? Was it deliberately intended that scales and weighing instruments should be excluded? If so, that opened up another question. But seeing the frequent reference to the Act of 1878 as the principal Act, it seemed to him

    723
    that the omission was accidental. Beams and scales were made in Birmingham, London, Bristol, Liverpool, but principally in Birmingham. In these cities the beams and scales were sent to the Inspectors—who were trained men having staffs under them—and were duly stamped and certified as correct. That might be on a Monday. They were sent on the Tuesday, say, into Dorsetshire. The moment they arrived at their destination, the Inspector there said—
    "I do not care whether they are just or unjust—they bear the stamp of the Inspector of the place of manufacture, a properly-qualified man, and therefore, presumably, the instruments are just, but I must put my stamp on them as well, and failing that being done you, the owner, are liable to fine and punishment."
    He would mention the two cases which happened near Birmingham. When the notice was sent out requiring tradesmen to have their scales seen to under the Act, one tradesman sent all his scales to the Birmingham Inspector to have them verified and stamped. That was done at the cost of 60s. Another tradesman sent his scales to a maker to have them adjusted who in his turn sent them to the Inspector's office to have them duly stamped. These two sets were returned and within a week the Inspector of Balsall Heath, just outside Birmingham, sent to these tradesmen to tell them they were liable to punishment unless he put his stamp on the instruments. That was the first case. The second occurred at a place called Sturchley, about three miles from the centre of Birmingham. A chemist desiring to have his scales accurately adjusted sent them to a manufacturer to get them put right and stamped at the Birmingham office. When they were returned he was told by the Inspector at King's Norton that he must send his scales there to be stamped, as the Birmingham stamp was no good. It was obvious that these tradespeople were subjected to serious delay, expense, and annoyance by the arbitrary action to which they were subjected. He had to-day asked a question as to whether the weighing instruments used in the Government offices, in the dockyards, and the Post Offices were liable to be stamped by local Inspectors, and the reply was no, they had an Inspector of their own. How would that work? If the dock-
    724
    yard authorities purchased goods in Portsmouth or Plymouth they would be weighed in scales bearing two stamps, but they would be weighed again in the dockyards to see if they were right in scales which did not bear a second stamp, and which, therefore, by the ordinary standard which applied to tradespeople, were illegal. The Act of 1889 aimed at doing away with anomalies, and he believed that to a large extent it did remove them, but the fault was with the administration.
    MR. MUNDELLA(interrupting) said, he had been most unwilling to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but the matter in question was one the Board of Trade had nothing to do with. It was under Statute. He should be most happy to consider what the right hon. Gentleman had to say, and he could assure him that he (Mr. Mundella) was the last person to put any obstacle in the way of trade. The Local Authorities made the bye-laws under which this re-stamping was required, and without altering the Statute it was impossible to change those bye-laws. The County Councils in the country districts were responsible for the bye-laws.
    MR. JESSE COLLINGSsaid, this statement brought him to the point. The bye-laws were revised by the Board of Trade, and rightly so, because the nearer they approached to uniformity in this matter of weights and scales the better it was for the trading community.
    MR. MUNDELLA: Hear, hear!
    MR. JESSE COLLINGSsaid, he complained that the right hon. Gentleman took an official view of the matter, and the object of this discussion was to try and induce him to look at it from a trader's point of view. When the right hon. Gentleman was convinced, he was sure no one would be more anxious to get rid of the difficulties which existed, and which referred not only to Birmingham manufacturers, but to the various trades in the United Kingdom. The right hon. Gentleman had pointed out on a previous occasion that scales and weighing machines were liable to injury in transit, and that, therefore, they should be examined and stamped in the district in which they were used as well as the district in which they were made. In reply to that it was only necessary to point

    725
    out that the greatest care was taken in 'packing them, the work being entrusted to none but the most experienced and skilful packers. There was considerable liability to injury, however, in sending the machines in the carriers' carts from the tradesmen's premises to the places of business of the local Inspectors. Weighbridges and platforms it was, of course, necessary to adjust and stamp after they were fixed, for they were machines that had to be sent away from the manufacturers in parts, and that required to be built up afterwards. No doubt the local Inspector was the proper person to stamp machines of that kind. Some definition should be adopted to separate the two classes of scales. It was not for him (Mr. Jesse Collings) to suggest a definition. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade had got over greater difficulties than that, and no doubt he would be able to provide a satisfactory definition if he took the matter in hand. But, certainly, these were matters which carried great annoyance to the traders throughout the country. The powers of the Inspectors varied, and the lives of the shopkeepers in many districts were made a burden to them, for they had to submit to the harassing regulations rather than incur that which would almost mean ruin to them—namely, a report that their scales were unjust. In a letter he had received on this subject from Birmingham the writer said—
    "Mr. Mundella does not appear to understand our grievance. Our contention is that there should be one fixed standard in testing weighing instruments, and that an instrument stamped by an Inspector in one district should not be rejected in another on account of its not having the local stamp."
    He went on to say—
    "It is an extortion and an injustice."
    The tradesmen of the country had other grievances. For instance, it was complained that the Inspector in Plymouth had refused to verify balances, saying, in the first place, that all scales should have the borough number on them; and, secondly, that the balances registered the weight in two places. Well, to his knowledge, for the past 40 years balances had always registered the weight in two places. Some of the Inspectors did not know their business. He was aware that
    726
    they had to pass an examination—those employed after the passing of the Act—but they were not all acquainted with the properties of different kinds of weighing instruments. This question was thought of far more importance in Germany, France, and other Continental countries, where they had a Commission of scientific men to determine the qualities and properties of different weighing instruments as they were invented. But in this country it was all left to the Inspector. Take an instance. There was a scale used in nearly all Post Offices—a modern invention, which was extremely nice in registering called the "accelerative scale." In some districts in Yorkshire and the North of England the Inspectors recommended that scale as being good; but there were other places in which the Inspectors warned the traders that if they used that sort of thing they would not stand it. His contention was that this matter should not be left to the Inspectors, or, at any rate, there should be some appeal to the Board of Trade. There was a scale borrowed from the French called the "vibrating scale," which was still more nice and accurate; but this, like the others, was subject to the opinion of the Inspectors whether it was good or not. As to the remark of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, that this was a question of Statute and not of administration, he would remind him that the Board of Trade had already, in answer to an appeal made to it, issued regulations putting an end to a grievance. The same thing should be done in regard to inspection. The right hon. Gentleman admitted that he had power over all the bye-laws and regulations that any Local Authority might choose to make. First of all, these regulations must be submitted to the Board of Trade to be amended or rescinded. If the Board of Trade would insist upon the rules all over the country being made uniform, the traders would know what they had to put up with. Most of the existing rules had been passed directly after the Act came into force, and when there had been little experience of its operation. No doubt the rules were as good as could be passed at the time. But since then there had been an enormous amount of experience

    727
    of the working of the Act, and he thought it the duty of the President of the Board of Trade to frame the regulations in accordance with that experience. The big towns from which the scales were issued in the first place, all possessed capable Inspectors, and the weighing instruments were stamped by those officials. The Inspector in a small district should not be allowed, for the sake of the fee, to say—"I do not care whether your scale is just or unjust; and even though it has been verified by a capable Inspector, I will test it again, and put a second stamp on it, and if you do not submit I will summon you before the Borough Justices, and have you punished for using an unjust scale." The last time this subject was raised he was asked—"Do not you want scales to be examined by Local Authorities at all?" Yes; when a scale got old it should be examined locally, re-adjusted, and stamped. But this was not a matter of adjustment; it was one of pettifogging and unnecessary interference with scales already adjusted and stamped.
    SIR M. HICKS-BEACH: I can quite understand that the right hon. Gentleman, representing as he does a great centre of industry where these weighing machines are made, should have thought it his duty to bring the matter at some length before the Committee; but I would express the hope that the question may not be much further pursued, because it is one of a far wider character than is covered by the Vote now before the Committee, and there are many other points in the Vote to which hon. Members desire to call attention. What the right hon. Gentleman has really done in his speech this evening is to reiterate the principle which deputations from Birmingham brought before me when I was President of the Board of Trade, which may be a good principle in itself, but which is quite contrary to the Weights and Measures Act of 1878 and the amending Act of 1889. The principle which the trade of Birmingham desire now to establish is the principle of the central administration of the Weights and Measures Act as against local administration. [Mr. JESSE COLLINGS: Not at all.] The right hon. Gentleman desires there should be, as in Germany, a Com-
    728
    mission which shall inspect these different weights and measures and weighing machines.
    MR. JESSE COLLINGS: When I referred to the Commission I referred only to the giving an opinion on any new invention, or new kind of scale which modern scientific and mechanical skill might have invented, and I argued that we should not leave it to these Inspectors to say—"This is a new thing; I do not want it." That is quite a different matter.
    SIR M. HICKS-BEACH: I really know; I have had it all before me. They desire there should be a central and not a local administration of these Acts. [Mr. JESSE COLLINGS: Not at all.] At any rate, he wishes that the stamp of the Inspector at Birmingham, which is the centre of the trade, should run throughout England. He wishes that the Inspectors in other parts of England should perform their duties in the same way as the Inspectors of Birmingham, and that they should be as competent as the Inspectors of Birmingham. He complains they are not so. The whole of his speech, I will venture to say, pointed to the administration of these Acts under central control. That is contrary to the Acts themselves. It might be a very good change, and I am not arguing whether it is or not, because this is not the time to do so. When I brought in the Amendment Act of 1889 I deliberately determined to base that Act on the system which I found in existence, because I was quite sure that if I had attempted to take from the Local Authorities the powers they possessed under the original Act I should have had no chance of passing that amending Act. Take this point of stamping weighing machines. The right hon. Gentleman proposes practically to deprive the Local Authority, say of my County of Wiltshire, of the power to stamp weighing machines in their county, although under the Act they are responsible for the administration of the Act, and for seeing, through their Inspectors, that the weighing machines are correct. That is what is suggested, and that they should take in all cases the stamp of the Inspector at Birmingham, where the weights are made. That is depriving them of the authority they

    729
    now possess. He wishes, as I have said, further control by a Central Authority over all these Local Authorities in the matter of their bye-laws—in the matter of their Inspectors and their qualifications. I do not desire to enter into this question of Central Authority, but I do hold very strongly that what the clients of the right hon. Gentleman really wish would not be attained; and even if it were possible to comply with their request as to stamping their machines, they would still press for a further approach towards central administration, and that could only be achieved by an entire alteration of the existing laws.
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I may say I have been asked by my constituents to support my right hon. Friend in his application to the Board of Trade. I think my right hon. Friend who has just spoken has somewhat misapprehended the intention and object of the right hon. Member for Bordesley. Certainly we do not desire that this system should be centralised in its character. What we desire is that the practical working of the system should not be changed from what it has been for a very long course of years. Within very recent times—in fact, the period during which my right hon. Friend has been at the head of the Board of Trade, the working of the system—I am not saying the law—appears to have been changed.
    MR. MUNDELLA: I can assure my right hon. Friend it has not been changed in the least. The regulations are just the same.
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I did not say the regulations had been changed. Perhaps if the right hon. Gentleman listens to what I say he will understand me. I said the working of the system appears to have been changed. I am not now talking of the Board of Trade, or any interference by the Board of Trade. As a matter of fact, until very recently, scales which had been stamped in Birmingham were not required to be stamped a second time at Plymouth. But now, under the existing working of the system, Birmingham and Plymouth are just as far apart, just as far separated, as France and England, and the stamp which has been put upon the scales in Birmingham by a qualified official is treated as abso-
    730
    lutely of no value whatever by another qualified official in Plymouth. That is calculated in a most serious way to interfere with trade. My right hon. Friend says—and I quite believe him—that it is not the object of the Board of Trade to interfere with commerce. Of course it is not. It is their business to facilitate commerce, and whenever any difficulty of this kind arises to find some practical way to overcome it. I do not know whether it is due to a change of opinion among the Local Authorities, or what, but undoubtedly there has been a change in the practice. There is no pretence, as my right hon. Friend opposite appears to imagine, on the part of Birmingham to say that the Local Authority at Plymouth is not to be allowed to examine a scale, and is to take for granted the correctness of a scale because it has the Birmingham mark. They may test the scales as often as they like, and if found to be incorrect they may see that an alteration is made. What we complain of is, that without going into the question whether the scale is correct or not, they insist upon putting a second mark upon it and obtaining a second fee. And if you can suppose the same set of scales, as might happen to be the case, in the course of one month went from the North of England to the South they might pass through the jurisdiction of five different Local Authorities and every Local Authority would affix a separate stamp and take a fee. That is perfectly ridiculous and absurd. There is no objection to any one Local Authority ascertaining that the stamp of a previous Local Authority has been correctly affixed, but then they ought not to demand when they find the scales correct either a fee or the right to stamp a second time. I hope I have made it clear what is the contention of the Birmingham trade, and I think it will be found to be the contention of every other locality in which this particular article is manufactured. The difficulty has only arisen of late. I am not complaining of the Board of Trade. It may have arisen from local circumstances, a sudden excess of zeal on the part of Local Authorities on finding out a field where they might gather fees. But whatever be the reason, it is the business of the Board of Trade to find a remedy. When I went to the Board of

    731
    Trade the present Lord Farrer told me that, although the Board of Trade was not the first titular office, it was the proud boast that everything they did was done on commercial principles and the principles of common sense. I hope that has not changed. Here is a common-sense view of the situation. Under existing circumstances trade is being seriously hampered; it was not hampered before. I admit there has been no alteration of the law, and, so far as I know, no alteration of the regulations of the Board of Trade. But if under the law an interference with trade has arisen, owing to new circumstances which did not arise before, it is the business of the Board of Trade to remove it. We do not want to centralise the matter or interfere in any way with the right of the Local Authority to deal with matters within their own province; but it is perfectly ridiculous to treat every Local Authority as if it were an absolutely separate Kingdom in itself, and as though a Local Authority in one place was competent to take absolutely no notice of what was done by a Local Authority in another place, especially when each of these Local Authorities is working under statutory regulations, which insure that the work shall be done by qualified officials. I hope my right hon. Friend will not give anything like an official answer to this, but will promise to look into the matter with a view to finding some remedy for what really is a considerable grievance.
    MR. MUNDELLA: I think I had better dispose of this matter at once, as there are other subjects which Members of the Committee are anxious to reach. I can only confirm what has been said by the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir M. Hicks-Beach). When the Act of 1889 was passed it gave powers to the Local Authorities to make bye-laws regulating both the use of scales and weights and measures. Weights and measures need not be re-stamped, but scales were specially omitted. My right hon. Friend (Mr. Jesse Collings) says that if I was familiar with what was done at Birmingham I should know that a scale always arrived in an accurate condition at its destination. I would remind him of a letter of complaint which
    732
    he sent to me not long ago in which these words occur—
    "Scales are made to such a nicety that they very easily get out of order."
    County Councils have almost invariably, under the Act passed by my right hon. Friend opposite, adopted this bye-law, which I am advised they have a statutory right to pass—
    "In any district where there is a properly certified Inspector, and where the offices are open to the public every week-day, the Local Authority may require that any weighing instrument lawful to be used for trade in their district shall be treated and stamped by their Inspector, although such weighing instrument may have been stamped in the district of another Local Authority."
    When the right hon. Gentleman a few weeks ago brought this matter under my notice I referred to what was done by the Local Authorities. And do let me point out to the right hon. Gentleman that they have a right to protect the consumer, and a very important duty is incumbent upon them in that respect. I took up the last Report of the London County Council with respect to this question of the Weights and Measures Act. They say—
    "The Acts require that all weights, measures, and weighing instruments shall, before being; used in trade, be verified and stamped by an Inspector of Weights and Measures, and during the year the numbers of these appliances dealt with by the Council's staff were as follow:—Number of weights verified and stamped, 228,628; number of measures verified and stamped, 456,280; number of weighing instruments verified and stamped. 22,684; number of weights rejected as unfit for stamping, 28,614; number of measures rejected as unfit for stamping, 171,913; number of weighing instruments rejected as unfit for stamping, 5,094."
    Twenty per cent. of the number, therefore, were rejected. Surely it is of the utmost importance to London that the County Council under this Act shall carry out that careful inspection which they have done hitherto, and which is so essential in the interests of the consumer. Let me point out to the right hon. Gentleman that even these figures I have quoted are much below the figures for the year before. Instead of being 22,000, as this year, the number last year was 53,577. The large number in the earlier year, as stated in the County Council's Report, was due to

    733
    the fact that the requirement for verifying and stamping weighing instruments had only recently come into force; and, as those appliances already in use are gradually verified and stamped, a reduction in the number must take place, as new scales only will require to be stamped. No doubt there has been some complaint, and I should be only too happy, if I could see my way without injuring the consumer, and without depriving the County Council of the duty they owe to their own constituents, to prevent, or relieve from, this necessity of re-stamping. I see some difficulties in the way, and I do not want to make promises I cannot fulfil. Suppose, for instance, that the Inspector examines a number of scales, say in an ordinary shop, and finds some accurate and some inaccurate, and gets the whole properly re-adjusted. What is the best way of testifying that they are re-adjusted so that when another Inspector comes round he may know they are in good condition? Why, that on such a date they were duly re-stamped by the Inspector, and surely there should be some mark upon them to show that they were accurate and in good condition. That is really what is practically being done. I am not in a position to break the law, however harsh it may be with respect to some of the manufacturers, but I am most anxious to relieve manufacturers of any difficulty in respect of the transmission of weighing instruments and scales, and, where accurate, to avoid the necessity and cost of having them re-stamped. I will submit the Act as it now stands to the Law Officers of the Crown, and ascertain whether the Local Authorities have the right to re-stamp or not. If they have, it will be my duty to inquire whether the re-stamping is considered by the Local Authority a matter of such importance that the Act must be adhered to or not. I respectfully say that, after all, this is not a matter of administration, but a matter of the construction of an Act of Parliament, and I do not think I can at once, on the demand of the right hon. Gentleman, reverse the practice of my predecessor in the working of the Act for the last four years. I can only promise my right hon. Friend to deal with the case in a reasonable
    734
    time, and after a proper investigation the whole matter shall receive attention.
    MR. JESSE COLLINGSasked where in the Act two stamps were required?
    MR. MUNDELLA: Two stamps are not required, but the Act gives power to make bye-laws requiring re-stamping.
    MR. POWELL-WILLIAMSsaid, the President of the Board of Trade did not quite realise what the right hon. Member for the Bordesley Division asked for. The right hon. Gentleman had spoken of the testing which took place, say by the London County Council, with a view to ascertain whether a consignment of scales from Birmingham were accurate or not. But, supposing one of these scales was sent to Croydon, the person endeavouring to sell it without the stamp of the Croydon Authorities was apparently liable to a penalty. That appeared to him to be perfectly ridiculous, and it was doing the work twice over. The right hon. Gentleman said the law required this to be done, that the Local Authorities had power to insist on it. But the bye-laws and regulations under which the Local Authorities acted required the assent of the Board of Trade, and that being so, this was a matter of administration by the Board of Trade, because the Board of Trade ought to have the power to prevent obnoxious legislation, having no practical utility, being insisted on in their bye-laws. It was not sought to do anything which would diminish the protection the consumer received in relation to the accuracy of the scales, hut what was contended was, that the necessity of insisting on these repeated tests was an unnecessary interference with the trade of the country, which the Board of Trade ought to stop.
    MR. M. AUSTINwished to make a few observations in reply to the hon. and gallant Member for Colchester (Captain Naylor-Leyland), and the Member for the Bordesley Division (Mr. Jesse Collings), as to the appointment of local labour correspondents. These appointments had been persistently attacked during the Session, but he, as a representative of the working population, heartily endorsed the action taken by the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, who had earned the gratitude of the workers

    735
    by appointing these correspondents to give an insight into the condition of the industrial population. He was inclined to think, if they went a little below the surface of this question, it would not be difficult to find the cause of the attacks on these appointments. He thought it was because there was not enough of the Birmingham mixture in them, rather than any desire to advocate the cause of the workers, which actuated the attacks of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen on these appointments. The right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Jesse Collings) had declared there was a good deal of political bias in these appointments, but he thought, if they only looked at the miserably small salaries of £15 or .£20 a year paid to these men, that the House had little right to raise the question of politics with regard to them. There were 25 correspondents in the United Kingdom, and the total income of the whole of them was only £500 a year. He thought the best answer to the attacks of gentlemen in the House of Commons was the fact that not a single complaint had been made by any single Trade Society in the United Kingdom against a single one of the correspondents appointed. They had met with the general approbation of the workers, and he would therefore deprecate altogether the attacks which had been made upon them. The Member for Bordesley Division talked as if these appointments almost threatened the Empire. If the correspondents were all sound Tories, he wondered would so much be heard about them. He did not think so, and he would only hope that the number would be extended, and that the salaries would also be taken into consideration by the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade. The Board of Trade, since the appointment of the right hon. Gentleman, and indeed all Departments of the Government, had done all in their power to further the interests of the workers in the United Kingdom, and he saw no cause for the complaints made by hon. Gentlemen in that House.
    MR. MUNDELLAsaid, that he had nothing whatever to do with the selection of the labour correspondents. A Committee of the Board of Trade, of which the Comptroller was Chairman, and of
    736
    which Mr. Burnett was also a member, made that selection, and the names, irrespective of Party politics, were then submitted en bloc to him for his approval. He had never heard of Mr. Joseph Robinson until he heard of his resignation. He could not understand what ground of complaint could be made against the labour correspondent at Birmingham, for Mr. Burnett had himself gone down there and selected him. It was monstrous to say that these appointments were flagrant political appointments, and he was certain that if his predecessor came back to Office he would not interfere with one of them. As to the permanent officials, there had been three additional labour correspondents appointed. One was a very able lady, who had taken University honours; another was Mr. Drummond, a well-known working-class leader and a Conservative; and the third was a gentleman about whose politics he knew nothing whatever. It had been said that 17 out of the 25 labour correspondents we're Gladstonians. That was very much the proportion of Gladstonians amongst working men generally; and he had no doubt that that proportion would go on increasing. But whatever the correspondents were, their appoinments were due to no action on his part. He would challenge any Member to say that The Labour Gazette had shown any tinge of partiality in respect of political or labour questions. Under these circumstances, he thought hon. Gentlemen opposite had no cause of complaint.
    ADMIRAL FIELDsaid, he thought the President of the Board of Trade had taken the criticisms about the payments of these labour correspondents somewhat too seriously. For his part, he would be the last to accuse the right hon. Gentleman of any Party feeling in the matter. He did not care twopence whether the labour correspondents were Radicals or Conservatives, so long as they were the best men for the posts, and he thought the right hon. Gentleman had used his patronage very well. He asked the right hon. Gentleman to turn his thoughts in another direction. The right hon. Gentleman was the father of the Mercantile Marine. The Mercantile Marine was not virtually under the guardianship

    737
    of the right hon. Gentleman, and he thought the right hon. Gentleman and all concerned with the Board of Trade ought to give their consideration as to how far the Mercantile Marine could be made serviceable to the nation in the crisis of a great war. The right hon. Gentleman had some able advisers. Above all, he had a distinguished naval officer in his service, and he wanted the right hon. Gentleman to put that officer into the Intelligence Department of the Admiralty with the view of settling, as it was suggested by Lord Charles Beresford in a recent address, the question of trade routes, and forming a plan of action for the merchant ships in the event of war. He wanted the right hon. Gentleman to direct the naval officer to consider this question in concert with the Admiralty. There was another important question to which he desired to direct the attention of the right hon. Gentleman. Lord Charles Beresford, in the address already referred to, had stated the signalling in the Mercantile Marine was deplorable. In fact, there was hardly anyone in the Service instructed in signalling. Lord Charles said that, in order to test the signalling of a Mercantile Marine, he signalled 32 merchant ships in the course of a voyage, and only seven of the 32 took the signal in and answered. In a time of war, if a cruiser could not make itself understood by the merchant ship, the result might be deplorable. Signalling was, in his (Admiral Field's) opinion, bad enough in the Navy, but in the Mercantile Marine it was very bad. He thought that one officer at least in every merchant ship should be educated in signalling, and should be able to pass an examination in signalling—
    MR. GIBSON BOWLES: So they are.
    ADMIRAL FIELDsaid, he could not accept the hon. Member as an authority on the subject. He thought a distinguished naval officer like Lord Charles Beresford a more competent judge. There was a Report on lighthouses and the inspection of lighthouses furnished to the House, in which it stated that the light on the Deal Pier Head and the lights on the Dover Admiralty Pier were insufficient, and he hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would see that the recommendations of the Report were
    738
    carried out. He also wished to know whether anything had been done to carry out the recommendations of the Light Commission upon lighthouses and lightships with regard to establishing electric communication between lighthouses and lightships from the shore?
    SIR M. HICKS-BEACHsaid there was no item in the Vote under consideration more important than the item relating to the inspection of ships' provisions under the Act of 1892. He wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether Inspectors had been appointed under the new Act, and what were the ports at which it was proposed to station them? He also wished to know what progress had been made with the building of the Patent Office?
    MR. MUNDELLAsaid, he could assure the hon. and gallant Member for Eastbourne that there was a most perfect understanding between the Admiralty and the Board of Trade on the subject of trade routes for merchant ships. He could also assure the hon. and gallant Gentleman that instructions were given and examinations held in signalling in the Mercantile Marine, and that all merchant vessels ought to be in a position to respond to signals. But he intended to make further inquiries in the matter. On the subject of lighthouses and lightships, the whole of the lightships were attended by Trinity House, and there was nothing in the Vote for that Department, while, as he had stated the previous day in answer to the question, a good deal of work had been done in establishing electrical communication between the shore and the lighthouses. It was intended to lay on the Table a Supplementary Estimate for the work. In reply to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bristol, on the subject of the inspection of ships' provisions, he had to say that as soon as he came into Office he gave his immediate attention to the Act which had just been passed. Steps were at once taken to obtain a competent class of Inspector in order that the Act might be put into proper operation. A staff of 14 Inspectors had been appointed, and they were stationed at the five principal ports of the country—London, Liverpool, Glasgow, Cardiff, and Shields, and they had definite instructions

    739
    that the inspection of the provisions of all ships were to be carried out. Between July 17 and September 2 of the present year 273 ships had been inspected, and in 96 cases provisions were condemned, while 13 ships had some slight defect in their provisions. When these defects were pointed out to the shipowners they were at once remedied, and indeed he hoped to be able to carry out this most important matter in connection with the comfort and well-being of seamen without making it burdensome or oppressive to the shipowners. Only one vessel had been detained, and that only for a short time?
    SIR M. HICKS-BEACHasked whether it was only proposed to appoint Inspectors for the ports mentioned?
    MR. MUNDELLAsaid, it was found to be very easy to send an Inspector to any port when necessary, and it was believed that the 14 Inspectors would be able to carry out the whole work. With regard to the Patent Office he had not the information required, but he would obtain it, and give it to the right hon. Gentleman on Monday.
    SIR M. HICKS-BEACHsaid he only wanted the right hon. Gentleman to give his attention to the matter.
    MR. JAMES LOWTHERsaid, it was somewhat difficult to follow the course of the Government in this matter. After listening to the right hon. Gentleman he had come to the conclusion that, at any rate, the appointment of Labour Correspondents had been handed over to a Committee the political convictions of which were pretty well known, and behind which the right hon. Gentleman sheltered himself.
    MR. MUNDELLA: It is very unfair to say that political opinions of the Government have never governed anything which they have had to do, and it is not fair to say that we have acted from political motives, or that I have endeavoured to screen myself behind them. As far as I am concerned, I do not know their political opinions. I am responsible for every officer in the Department, whatever his opinions may be.
    MR. JAMES LOWTHERsaid, he would refer the right hon. Gentleman to the case of Mr. Giffen. Did the right hon. Gentleman not know Mr. Giffen's politics? The right hon. Gentleman's
    740
    ignorance was sublime. He would not, however, pursue that subject, though he could not follow the gallant Admiral in dismissing so lightly the undoubtedly important question of the manner in which these Labour Correspondents had been appointed. He, however, desired to refer to the subject of electrical communication with lightships, and to the fact that in this matter a large number of the recommendations of the Royal Commission had not been acted upon. He would like to have an explanation of this. The right hon. Gentleman, not content with the Royal Commission appointed by the previous Government, nominated a Departmental Committee, apparently to whittle down, as far as possible, the recommendations of that Royal Commission. He did not think the subject had been properly considered. It was of the greatest importance that they should have proper facilities in every respect as to saving life. The whole subject relating to these lifeboats and lightships was of great importance, and he hoped the recommendations made on the subject would be thoroughly carried out. He need not refer to the well-known cases of the Enterprize and the Sea King, or to the many instances in which the absence of communication had led to lamentable loss of life and property. The Commissioners specified five vessels which they recommended should be immediately connected, but the Government proposed to ignore three-fifths of those recommendations.
    MR. MACARTNEYsaid, he wished to call the attention of the President of the Board of Trade to the great advantage derived by the steamers of the most important Steam-Packet Companies from the telegraphic communication which had been established between Tory Island and the mainland. He asked the right hon. Gentleman to undertake that, until the Royal Commission reported, if any accident should happen to the cable he would not allow the telegraphic communication to suffer. He thought his request in this matter was very reasonable. There were many great advantages gained by what had been done; and he thought the right hon. Gentleman would recognise the importance of this communication in such a way that it would

    741
    be possible for them to have it continued without possibility of interruption. He hoped the undertaking to which he referred would be carried out.
    MAJOR DARWINsaid, he would like to ask what were the difficulties which the Board of Trade experienced in bringing the Cheap Trains Act into operation? When he called the attention of the President of the Board of Trade to the fact that the fares on the underground railway between Earl's Court and the Mansion House were illegal, the right hon. Gentleman said he would have the case examined by a Committee of the House. That Committee never reported, and the illegal fares were still being charged. In reply to a second communication on the subject, he was told that the Board of Trade had no power to bring the matter before a Court of Law. He believed that the Board of Trade had the power, because the law declared that they "shall" undertake a prosecution in cases where it was needed. It was practically impossible for private persons to undertake these prosecutions. The first and second-class passengers were season-ticket holders, and the third-class passengers were not in a position to institute prosecutions of this sort, so that the Railway Companies could practically in the case of small fares defy the law unless the Board of Trade stepped in and saw that the law was properly enforced. Section 17 of the Act of 1844 provided that where a Railway Company was acting in excess of the power given by such Act, and if it should be to the public advantage that the Company should be restrained from so acting, the Board of Trade should certify the same to the Attorney General, who should take proceedings to restrain the Company from acting in an illegal manner. In 1864 certain maximum fares were laid down by the Company, but they were charging above these fares, and in all the correspondence no one had been able to point out under what powers the excess fares were being charged. The Company stated that in certain cases they were really charging under the fares, but that could not be an excuse for charging over the maximum in others, though it might be an excuse to come before a Committee and ask for a re-arrangement. He
    742
    thought it was evident it must be to the public advantage that the Board of Trade should interfere when illegal fares were being charged. Under the Act it was incumbent upon the Board of Trade to take action in such circumstances, and he should like to know why they had not done so?
    SIR A. ROLLITdesired to put a question to the President of the Board of Trade on a matter of some importance, and which the right hon. Gentleman would remember having been concerned with a short time ago, when a deputation waited upon the President of the Board of Trade in reference to an Amendment of the Trade Marks Department. The proper administration of that Department was a question of great moment to the trading community. He ventured to say that on the occasion of the visit of this deputation there was disclosed to the right hon. Gentleman an amount of delay, laxity, and confusion not altogether consistent with the proper management of the Department, and which was not completely explained by the head of the Department present at the time. The right hon. Gentleman gave his cordial assistance, and said he would take the earliest opportunity of going into the question. He hoped they might now receive the assurance that the Department had been put on a different and improved basis.
    MR. J. CHAMBERLAINdesired to ask a question on this Vote. He thought he was right in saying that the expenses of the Patent Office, as shown by the published Estimate, were calculated for the year at £59,861, and the receipts were shown at £183,000. Then there was a note to the effect that the Patent Office publications would add another £6,000 to that. That meant that while the expenditure was, roughly speaking, £60,000, the receipts from patents were expected to reach £189,000, and the difference was the profit derived by the State from inventors, which amounted to £130,000 a year. It was perfectly certain that public opinion would not allow that profit to go continuously into the Exchequer, and the question was what way should it be disposed of? He did not know what view his right hon. Friend took, but when he (Mr. J. Chamberlain) was at the Board

    743
    of Trade, a Patent Act was passed by which the sum for initiating a patent was most considerably reduced, so that at the present time a provisional specification could be obtained for £1, and a patent for one year for £5. That he entirely approved of, but he held then, and he had always held since, that it would be most undesirable largely to reduce the fees upon the later terms of a patent. The late President of the Board of Trade took a different view of the matter, and the subsequent payments were, under his management, very considerably reduced. He was of opinion that such a course tended to allow a number of useless patents to remain and interfere with further invention; and his own view was that while they should allow an invention to be secured for a short time for a very small sum, and afterwards, unless the patent proved itself to be of sufficient value to justify considerable further payments, it was very much in the interest of the community at large that the patent should lapse, and he would continue the higher payment for the later period. His interest in the matter was this: Having got this balance of £130,000, he was afraid great demands would be made upon it to reduce the subsequent payments which he thought the Government would be unable to resist. He would much rather that some of that money, at all events, should be spent on what, he believed, would be a much more valuable policy—namely, in proceeding more rapidly with the publication of specifications and abstracts. He shared any blame there was to be borne for it; and although they did something in his time at the Board of Trade to accelerate matters, he did not contend they did all that might be done, and successive Governments were somewhat to blame; but it was something like a public scandal that such publications had been so long delayed. He thought, with the enormous profit in the hands of the Treasury, something might very easily be done to secure a much earlier publication of these specifications.
    MR. MUNDELLA (who was very indistinctly heard in the Reporters' Gallery)was understood to say that he thought the change made by the Member for West Birmingham in the direction of reducing
    744
    the initial cost of a patent was extremely wise, as had been shown by the result. In consequence of that diminution of cost, there had been a great increase in the number of patents. He agreed, also, that the later patents were patents which ought to pay the full fees. This diminution had resulted in the receipts being something like £87,000 less last year. [Mr. J. CHAMBERLAIN: There is still a profit.] Yes, there was still a profit. Without pledging himself to any course, he might say he thought the patentees who had the advantage ought to pay some of the tax. He was quite anxious to facilitate as much as possible the use and introduction of inventions, but at the same time some benefit should go to the State. With regard to the early publication of specifications and abstracts he was entirely with his right hon. Friend. He also thought they should be a better quality of publication, those now issued having, in his opinion, become very shabby and quite unworthy of a country like England. He considered they ought to take steps to make the drawings and illustrations more creditable. With respect to the Royal Commission on Lighthouses they made certain recommendations, but it was impossible to carry out all these at once. The duty devolved on the Board of Trade and the Post Office to carry out these recommendations, and they appointed a small Committee to consider them and Report upon the best method of carrying them out. He had asked the members of the Committee not to wait for a formal Report in regard to the matter, but to make a Report as soon as possible, and then a decision would be at once arrived at. With respect to the question of illegal fares on the Metropolitan Railway, he had not been able to satisfy himself that the fares were illegal. Several Acts overlapped each other, and under these the Company claimed that the fares were legal. Care should be taken to look into the whole matter, so that it might be put on a satisfactory basis. His hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Islington (Sir A. Rollit) had asked as to the administration of the Trades Mark Department, and he could assure him that the matter was being vigorously taken in hand, and a searching inquiry made into

    745
    it. He hoped they should now be able to take this Vote.
    SIR M. HICKS-BEACHdesired to say a few words on the question connected with the electric communication of the shore with lightships, because he was responsible for the appointment of the Royal Commission. He understood from the right hon. Gentleman that although he could not, of course, carry out all the recommendations of the Commission at once, yet he would do what the Member for Thanet desired, and carry out this particular recommendation connected with regard to lightships as soon as possible.
    MR. MUNDELLA: Certainly.
    SIR M. HICKS-BEACH: With reference to the question of his hon. Friend (Mr. Macartney) as to Tory Island, her hoped the right hon. Gentle man would bear in mind that a great distinction existed between maintaining this communication for the purpose of light and for the purpose of sending messages. The cable on Tory Island was established by Lloyds purely for trade purposes, and he did not think the Government ought to impose on the general taxpayer the burden of retaining communication for trade purposes, and, therefore, as the Royal Commission was appointed merely to consider the question of communication of this kind for the saving of life and property, their Report on Tory Island would be from that point of view. Any communication for trade purposes should be paid for by the shipowners.
    SIR W. HARCOURTwas obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for the observations he had made on this subject. He could only say that as guardian of the public finances certainly there were circumstances at the present time which made him very unwilling to indulge in Supplementary Estimates, and one of the rare exceptions he had made had been in favour of these lightships. A Supplementary Estimate for £10,000 had been laid on the Table that day to establish communication with the lightship on the Goodwins. He would appeal to the Committee to allow the Vote which they had been discussing to pass, and he would then promise, at 12 o'clock, to report Progress and proceed with the Report of Supply.
    MAJOR RASCH, said, he had set down on the Notice Paper a Motion for the reduction of the Vote. He only wanted to call the particular attention of the President of the Board of Trade to the repeated omission of the Railway Department of the Board of Trade to put pressure on the London, Tilbury, and Southend Railway Company, to obviate a danger which existed in consequence of which several deaths had occurred at Tilbury Docks, one fatal accident occurring only last week. The Railway Company ran four lines of railway through the dock, which lines were absolutely open, there being no guard or fence, gate or watchman, and accidents were continually occurring. He and his constituents had not only memorialised the Board of Trade, but they had written continuously and memorialised the Tilbury and Southend Railway Company but without result. He hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would take steps to compel the Company to obviate this scandalous danger.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid, that as regarded signalling there was an admirable national code of signals which the Mercantile Marine used, and in the use of which they were fully competent. No doubt the electric communication with lighthouses was very advisable, but he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would not fix his whole attention on that and divert it from the rule of the road at sea.
    MR. MUNDELLAasked the hon. and gallant Member for South-East Essex to accept his assurance that the Board of Trade had again and again put pressure on the Tilbury Railway Company in respect to the matter he had mentioned, and they had done so only during the present week. He should be very happy to communicate the result to the hon. Member.
    Question put, and negatived.
    Original Question put, and agreed to.
    4. £16, to complete the sum for Bankruptcy Department of the Board of Trade, agreed to.
    Resolutions to be reported To-morrow; Committee to sit again To-morrow.

  SUPPLY—REPORT.
  Resolution [7th September] reported:—
  CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS, 1893–4.

    CLASS II.
    "That a sum, not exceeding £45,471, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 3lst day of March 1894, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Department of Her Majesty's Secretary of State for Foreign Affaire."
    MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid it was understood that his hon. Friend the Member for Preston (Mr. Hanbury) would raise the question of Armenia, but, as the hon. Member was not here, he thought it was right he should raise the question, and that they might have some statement from the Government in regard to it. Her Majesty's Government, he thought, must have something to say upon a question of this kind. He had no doubt the facts relating to that country were in the possession of Her Majesty's Government, and he trusted they would have an assurance from Her Majesty's Government that the various questions involved would be dealt with in a proper manner, and, above all, that Papers would be laid on the Table without delay.
    THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir E. GREY,): On this question, Sir, I should like to say I cannot promise that the Papers will be immediately laid on the Table of the House. They required much consideration. Very strong measures were taken by the Porte—not only strong, but somewhat indiscriminate, which culminated in the trial at Angora. The right hon. Gentleman is aware of the state of matters. The accused were not allowed to produce witnesses, and Her Majesty's Government considered whether they should not make representations to the Porte in the interests of justice and mercy. These representations were strictly limited to the case of persons as to whom there was no doubt in the mind of any reasonable man that they were innocent. In two cases the results, as is known, were eminently satisfactory. The practice of making representations at Constantinople under the
    748
    Treaty of Berlin does not invariably produce good results; and it is, I am sure it will be acknowledged, a practice which should be carefully guarded. Her Majesty's Government have taken care, as one of the Treaty Powers, to discharge their obligations. That is a fair statement of our position, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman and his friend will be satisfied that we have not been at fault.
    MR. GIBSON BOWLESsaid, he would point out that if Her Majesty's Government were required to interfere in Armenia by the Treaty of Berlin—the 61st Article—and he did not believe they were—if that was the case, however, surely they would be justified in interfering on the side of Turkey under the 11th Article. What had been done in that direction? He would like to know had anything been done? He had to complain that, with regard to the Pamirs, to Afghanistan, and to Siam they had not been able to obtain any information from Her Majesty's Government. He would like to point out that, in these matters, the strongest position this country could take up was to decline secret negotiations. He knew that was not the opinion all round; but it was his opinion, and he strongly urged it upon the Government. He was sorry they had not more information on these subjects—the subjects that had been mentioned—for it was his conviction that no Minister could carry on a worthy foreign policy unless he had the people of England behind him, and that could not happen unless the people were kept informed of what was going on. He would venture to express a hope that Papers on the various subjects would be laid on the Table without delay.
    SIR T. LEAsaid, there was a strong feeling in Madagascar, as well as in England, that the Slave Trade was increasing in consequence of the laxity on the part of the French Government in putting a stop to it. He thought Her Majesty's Government should be in a position to deal with a question of such serious importance, and he ventured to intervene merely for the purpose of asking them to do so. The question was a serious one, and, for his part, he should be very glad to have something done in regard to it.
    Resolution agreed to.

  MADRAS AND BOMBAY ARMIES BILL. [Lords.] (No. 413.)

    SECOND READING.
    Order for Second Reading read.
    THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. G. RUSSELL,): I rise to move the Second Reading of this Bill, and in view of the advanced period of the evening I will say as few words as possible in making the Motion. The measure is of the simplest possible character. Its object is to unite the Presidential Armies of India into one. To the civilian mind it seems obviously of enormous advantage that all those Armies should be commanded from one centre. The history of the Bill may be stated briefly thus: In the early days of our Empire in India three Armies sprang up in the course of nature. It was an almost inevitable growth—that there should be an Army in each Presidency. Bengal had a certain primacy, which was attributable to the fact that it was under the command of the head of the Bengal Army that the English troops in India served. This system of three Presidential Armies went on unimpaired until the Mutiny. It was then found in practical experience prejudicial to the military service that the three Armies should not be really as well as nominally under one control. After the Mutiny there was expressed on all hands a desire for a closer union of the three. The development of railways and telegraphs made that union easier and more natural. For years the history of the matter has been one long series of recommendations by the Government of India, met by successive concessions on the part of this country. In 1869 the three Military Accounts Departments were amalgamated; in 1876 the Remount Departments were amalgamated. Then came the Afghan War. In 1879 a Commission was appointed; in 1881 the Government of India reported in favour of the union of the three Armies, but it was refused on the ground of insufficient authority. In 1884 the three Ordnance Departments were amalgamated; in 1885 the Government of India reported again in favour of the
    750
    union, but it was declined, because of the difficulty of legislation; in 1886 the Punjab Frontier Force was transferred to the Commander-in-Chief. In 1888 the Government of India reported again, and then Lord Cross, at that time Secretary of State, though he said that the exigencies of Public Business would not enable him to propose legislation, suggested certain practical steps which conduced to the attainment of the end desired. In 1889–90 the Transport, Clothing, Military Works, Military Education, and the offices of Judge Advocate General were amalgamated. When that was done the amalgamation was practically complete. All that we now ask is that the House of Commons will join with the House of Lords in giving legislative sanction to an arrangement which by this time is pretty nearly established. We have by this time a vast amount of authority on our side. We have the authority of four Viceroys—Lord Lytton, Lord Ripon, Lord Dufferin, and Lord Lansdowne, and of the most distinguished Indian Generals, including Sir D. Stewart, Lord Roberts, and Sir G. White. In another place the illustrious Duke the Commander-in-Chief has expressed himself favourable to the change. The Bill has come here with the full sanction of everybody interested in Indian and military problems. I have said all that need be said about the essential parts of the Bill. There remains one question, accessory and ancillary—namely, whether or not the Commanders-in-Chief shall retain seats in Legislative Councils. On that point I am bound to say the authorities are not quite so unanimous as they are with regard to the main part of the change. The Government of India, reviewing all the circumstances and balancing the authorities were not in favour of these military officers retaining their seats, and my noble Friend the Secretary of State when he moved the Bill in another place moved it with the condition that the officer; should lose their seats on the Legislative Councils. However, he found that military opinion was Opposed to him, and he made a concession on the point which stands in the Bill. I am prepared to maintain that concession. It is not a light matter to disregard the wishes and advice of the Government of India on the point, but I feel that the main

    751
    purpose of the Bill is so important that it would be a pity to jeopardise it by making an alteration which would ensure the rejection of the measure in the House of Lords. I would ask the House to agree to the proposition I now make, with the added condition that the Generals commanding in Madras and Bombay shall retain their seats on the Legislative Councils.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. G. Russell.)
    MR. NAOROJI: Will the Legislative Councils oppose this clause, and will the Generals be paid?
    MR. G. RUSSELL: The Generals are not paid extra salaries in respect of their services on the Legislative Councils; therefore, their removal, if brought about, would not of necessity involve a saving; but it might be held by the authorities in India that when these Generals are relieved of certain duties they might also be relieved of salaries. That, however, is speculative, and I cannot say that that view will be taken.
    SIR M. HICKS BEACH: I only rise to say that I think my hon. Friend the Member for the Kingston Division of Surrey (Sir R. Temple) is very anxious to offer to the House some observations on the Bill. I think, in view of his great authority, the Committee stage might be postponed to Monday instead of being taken tomorrow.
    MR. G. RUSSELL: Hear, hear!
    Motion agreed to.
    Bill read a second time, and committed for Monday next.

  MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
  That they have agreed to,—Sheriff Courts Consignations (Scotland) Bill, without Amendment.
  Burghs Gas Supply (Scotland) Act (1876) Amendment Bill, Elementary Education (School Attendance) Bill, with one Amendment to each Bill.

  CONSOLIDATED FUND (No. 4) BILL.
  Considered in Committee, and reported, without Amendment; to be read the third time To-morrow.
  PISTOLS BILL.—(No. 425.)
  Read a second time, and committed for Monday next.
  NAVAL DEFENCE AMENDMENT BILL. (No. 450.)
  Read the third time, and passed.
  LIGHT RAILWAYS (IRELAND) BILL. (No. 454.)
  Read a second time, and committed for To-morrow.
  COUNTY SURVEYORS (IRELAND) BILL [Lords].—(No. 453.)
  As amended, considered; read the third time, and passed, with an Amendment.
  REFORMATORY SCHOOLS BILL [Lords]. (No. 457.)
  Considered in Committee, and reported, without Amendment; read the third time, and passed, without Amendment.
  COLLEGE CHARTER ACT, 1871 (COLLEGE OF ORGANISTS).
  Copy presented,—of a Petition of Sir Joseph Barnby and others praying Her Majesty in Council to grant, a Charter of Incorporation to the College of Organists, together with a Copy of the Draft of the Charter [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 411.]

  ADJOURNMENT.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."
  MR. R. G. WEBSTERasked at what hour to-morrow the Government proposed to take the Report stage of the Colonial Vote?
  THE PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. MARJORIBANKS,): After Supply—I suppose at about 7 o'clock.
  House adjourned at a quarter before One o'clock.

Preamble
Several Lords—Took the Oath.
SCIENCE EXAMINATIONS.

  QUESTION. OBSERVATIONS.
  THE BISHOP OF SALISBURYasked the Lord President of the Council whether the Science and Art Department would reconsider the exclusive system of payment by results of examination, in view of the recent effects of that system and the general dissatisfaction of science teachers, and would adopt that in use in the Education Department of fixed grants for scholars properly attending and instructed, supplemented by a system of rewards for those who show especial merit? He said, that the present system of the Science and Art Department—of payment by results for individual scholars—pressed very hardly on the teachers in the schools, who were not in that way adequately rewarded, because it, of course, cost as much to teach stupid boys as clever ones, and the Department always had the power to greatly raise the standard for passing, as he believed had been done this year.
  THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (The Earl of KIMBERLEY): The aid of the Department is not granted exclusively on a system of payment by results of examination. On the contrary, a capitation grant is made to both day and night organised science schools, provided that the scholar on whose account the grant is claimed has made 250 attendances in the case of the day school and 60 in the case of the night school, and passes in a subject of science or obtains a higher success in a subject in which he has already passed. But the Department is aware of the need of some modifications in the present system of aid, and it is hoped that as the Local Authorities under the Technical Instruction Act get their schools and work better organised the Department may be able after a time to extend its capitation and fixed grants in lieu in part of payments by results; but this must be
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  a work of time. I hope that answer will be satisfactory to the right rev. Prelate.
  THE BISHOP OF SALISBURYsaid, he wished to thank the noble Earl for the answer he had given; but, although the grant was called capitation, he would point out that it was really only given for the scholars who passed with success. They must pass in one science, and got nothing unless they succeeded in passing the examination. It was, therefore, a system exclusively of results. He begged to give notice that he would draw attention to the subject at an early day.

SHOP HOURS ACT (1892) AMENDMENT (No. 2) BILL.—(No. 256.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
  LORD PLAYFAIRsaid, this was a purely technical Bill. It had passed through the other House without opposition and without a single Amendment, and he hoped their Lordships would give it a Second Reading.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Lord Playfair.)
  Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed to a Committee of the whole House.

FERTILISERS AND FEEDING STUFFS BILL.—(No. 263.)

  THIRD READING.
  Bill read 3a (according to Order), with the Amendments.
  LORD RIBBLESDALE LORD RIBBLESDALE moved formal Amendments, which had been agreed to in Standing Committee.
  Bill passed, and returned to the Commons.

METROPOLIS MANAGEMENT (PLUMSTEAD AND HACKNET) BILL.

  SECOND READING.
  Order of the Day for the Second Reading, read.
  LORD MONKSWELLsaid, this Bill had passed through the House of Commons. It was not contentious, and merely proposed to make two united

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  parishes separate Local Government Districts, on the ground that they ought to have complete control and management of their own accounts.
  Moved, "That the Bill be now read 2a."—(The Lord Monkswell.)
  Motion agreed to; Bill read 2a accordingly, and committed for Tuesday next.

GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND BILL. (No. 265.)
  SECOND READING. [ADJOURNED DEBATE.]

    FOURTH NIGHT.
    Order of the Day for resuming the Debate on the Amendment to the Motion for the Second Reading, read.
    Debate resumed accordingly.
    THE EARL OF CRANBROOK: My Lords, when I see the serried ranks in this Assembly it is obvious that a great question is under discussion, and it is more obvious, when I see the crowded Benches on that side and on this, that this is no Party question, but a question which concerns the interests of the whole country, and on which every patriot is called upon and is bound to give an opinion. Much has been said upon the dispute which has taken place in the Liberal Party on the occasion of the introduction of this Bill. Far be it from me to impute motives of unconscientiousness to one side or the other; but there are circumstances connected with the change which I think invite attention. When people are converted in battalions and platoons it causes some suspicion; and therefore it is that it has not been for the first time that the name of the great magician who effected the wonderful transformation has been brought into a somewhat prominent position. And when it is complained that remarks are made with respect to that remarkable man, it may be said that he has been the one great central figure who has appeared throughout the whole of this controversy, working and continuing to work in circumstances which must excite our wonder as to his physical capacity, as well as his intellectual power. My Lords, he has been the Colossus, and though far be it from me to say anything as to those who have told us how they came to be converted from their own independent opinion, yet I cannot help
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    thinking that he was the Colossus who bestrode that narrow world, or that Liberal world elsewhere, and though it may be that a portion of his Party were not influenced by him, yet I think it is perfectly clear that, in the words of Shakspeare—
    "The petty men Walked under his huge legs and turned about To find themselves "—
    in a majority. I will not use the painful words with which that quotation ends. But, as a matter of fact, the change appeared to be coincident with the change of a minority into a majority and with the exclusion from Office into the possession of it. We have been taunted with taking a pessimistic view of the Irish character. I am not going to dispute whether the optimistic or the pessimistic view is the right one; but it is clear that you must take men upon their own statement as well as upon the statement which those who have been concerned with them have made of them; and after all, in all concerns and transactions of life, the question of character is one which is a matter of reputation, and which is entered into in every case in which you may put persons in a position of trust. The confessions which we have had have been very interesting. We had my noble Friend (Lord Ribblesdale) coming forward to give a most extraordinary account of his conversion. His was a conversion apparently not caused by repentance for his own sins, but the sins which he confessed for others. He made full confession of our sins, but he made small of his own. He said he was influenced by the fact that the majority of the Irish Members continued the same after the Government had had six years of power, and that, therefore, because in those six years no change took place all hope of proceeding was at an end, all hope of treating the Irish in any way but the one he now adopts, though there is no greater security for the remedy he proposes being operative. The other case is that of the noble Earl the First Lord of the Admiralty (Earl Spencer), who told us that he began to have doubts in 1885. I do not think that his conversion was complete at that time—that he had found salvation. But, though he began to have doubts, he was at that time an advocate, I will not say for

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    violent coercion, but for exceptional laws up to the beginning of 1886, within a few weeks of the time he took office. In May, 1884, at Belfast the noble Earl said that English statesmen and the English nation would face their enemy with a determination not to be beaten, and would not give up one point or idea in order to maintain the united Parliament of England and the Sovereignty of the Queen; "I say this," he continued, "not only to the English and Scottish nations, but to the Irish nation." Does the noble Earl mean to say that he had in his mind at that moment anything but the Repeal of the Union? He was dealing with men who were against the Sovereignty of England and of the Queen; he wag speaking of men who were Republicans, who were looking forward to a Fenian Republic in Ireland, and he knows that there is not one of the men whom he now proposes to put in trust who was not acting in combination with them and receiving their active encouragement and support. But even in 1886, within a few weeks of taking Office, he said that if the clauses against intimidation were given up the power of the National League and intimidation would increase to an enormous extent, and "the liberty of Her Majesty's subjects in Ireland would be destroyed." Which subjects? The liberty of those to whom you say now you are going to give unlimited liberty, or those whom you are going to put in the position of being oppressed by those to whom you give that liberty? He added, that it was essential for a policy to be pursued by which law and order would be restored and maintained in Ireland. Last night Lord Rosebery told us that he had then come to the conclusion that there ought to be no more exceptional laws, though Lord Spencer, who knew Ireland, felt that there must be such laws in order both to restore and maintain order; and said you could not rely on any ordinary jury in Leinster, Munster, or Connaught. These were the terms in which the noble Earl in charge of the Bill spoke at the beginning of 1886, within a few weeks of the time when we were called upon to deal with the Bill of that year. Now, the conversion was said to have taken place—in consequence of what? Because the Conservatives were in a minority
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    at a period when it was absolutely impossible for them to renew any Coercion Act, or any exceptional law, because there was no time to do it. But they went to the country, and when they came back in 1886 it is notorious that if there was that fear for a short time there was not only the intention to bring forward, but there was the preparation of measures, in order to take care that law and order should be preserved in Ireland. We have heard something to the effect that inducements were held out. Where is the proof? Who has been selected as the agent of the Tory Party? Who has been the person who is supposed to have combined with them? It has been denied by a man of the highest honour, one who has gone from among us, and no one I imagine will impeach the chivalrous truthfulness of the late Lord Carnarvon. It has been denied by Mr. Balfour in the other House in terms which should have convinced anyone, and even yet we find that the Prime Minister has taken upon himself more than once to repeat the insinuation, if he does not state it as a fact. The noble Earl (the Earl of Rosebery) who spoke last night with so much humour, and good humour and candour, said that he would not enter into the details of the Bill, but that he would examine the principle. What is the principle of this Bill? It is a separate Legislature for Ireland. I will not call it a Parliament if noble Lords opposite do not like; but do you suppose you are going to have a Legislature in Ireland with power to enact laws, and that it will not swell into a Parliament? It is a view that is too comical; it is too absurd. I, for my part, will never hesitate to express my opinion that, though it may be most important to examine the details of the Bill to show how insoluble the problem is, the very fact of establishing a separate Legislature in Ireland gives up everything, because it puts powers into the hands of men who, while they have been without a Parliament, have been endeavouring to put themselves into the possession of power for certain purposes, and who when they have a Parliament will, undoubtedly, make use of it for the extension of their schemes to the utmost—for the object which they have in view. Mr. John Stuart Mill said that an absolute or qualified separation of the

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    two countries would be a dishonour to the one and a serious misfortune to both. I hold that opinion very strongly. Then Mr. John Bright said (and I agree with him)—
    "It is not a question of more or less; I am against the establishment of a separate Legislature in Ireland, because all the consequences will follow, whatever restrictions you may put upon them."
    When we come to the Bill itself, it is the produce of the wit of man after seven years of incubation. It has been altered again and again while it has been before Parliament during this year. We were told that the Bill of 1886 was dead; that it had no life during the seven years. In the meantime, we have had no Bill before the country—only the question whether there should be a Legislature in Ireland or not, and that mixed up with a number of other questions. In its details this Bill, although it is the last, is, in my opinion, the worst that has been before us—the last and the worst. The great master and magician of finance, whose speeches on finance have been the admiration of the world, produced a scheme which, when it came to be examined, was found to be wrong in its calculations to the extent of £350,000. It was promised that there should be justice and equity in finance. I have heard no answer to the speech of my noble Friend (Viscount Cross) the other night, proving to demonstration that no less than £750,000 was handed over to the Irish to buy our own degradation and submission to them. It is difficult to talk of these things coolly, they are matters of serious import; and it has to be—if I may use a coarse expression—rubbed into the minds of the people of Great Britain that the Irish are not able to start on their career without putting their hands into our pockets, and being paid by us for the degradation of Great Britain. And then we were to get rid of friction. Why, the friction will be greater than ever. Anyone who has had much to do with the Treasury knows that it is not easy to get on with. When they have a Treasury in Ireland, will there not be friction between the two Treasuries in carrying out the terms of this Bill? Even although they might not be unjust in themselves, there may be a good deal to make the hair of
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    the Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer stand on end in dealing with the British Treasury, as that of English officials often does. There is no finality in the scheme of the Bill, as it is to be revised at the end of six years; and under what circumstances is it likely to be revised? With regard to the land, there is now an abandonment of the second Bill which was brought in in 1886, and of promises that were made by the noble Earl (Earl Spencer), by Mr. Morley, and in the most emphatic terms by Mr. Gladstone. The Prime Minister always guards himself in what he says, and when his attention was Killed to what he had said about obligations of honour, he said it was an obligation with respect to facts and circumstances which were then existing. I know he did say "the sands are running out"; but an obligation of honour depends upon its justice and equity, and not upon its acceptance or non-acceptance at a given time. The offer was founded on the strength of the claim that the Land Question should be dealt with here and should not be left to the Irish Legislature. I am told—but I have not been able to verify the statement by reference to Hansard—that in the other House the Attorney General said that if the Land Question were not settled by the Imperial Parliament in three years the Imperial Parliament "would be under an obligation to fix the terms and conditions under which it should be delegated to the Irish Legislature." We have heard nothing of that sort from the noble Earl; and I should like to know whether the statement I have cited is true or not. If the Government are in power, do they mean in three years to fulfil the obligation stated by the Attorney General on their behalf? The position in which the police are left seems to me to be one of the iniquities, and also one of the dangers of the Bill. It is admitted on all hands that the police have been the stay and safeguard of the nation. They have been an honest, well-contented, well-conducted, and well-disciplined force. Now you strike a blow at it. It is as if you had stunned a man with a blow and then expect him to fulfil the duties which he could only perform in a state of full health and strength. You are destroying the esprit of the police. They know that everything is to be taken from them, and that

    569
    they are to be deprived of their position upon poor and miserable terms. In the meantime they are supposed to work well under an Executive which is taking steps to cripple and destroy them. The Lord Lieutenant is to have the police under him; but I want to know to whom he is going to be responsible? I understand he is to be responsible to the Irish Executive, and, therefore, to the Irish Legislature; but he is also to act as representing Her Majesty, on the advice of her confidential advisers. How is he to exercise these two functions with decency and dignity? If he thwarts his Irish Cabinet they can stop the Supplies. What is he to do then? Change his Ministry? But suppose he has the same Ministry or one like it forced upon him? What a miserable position the Lord Lieutenant would occupy if a Vote of Censure were inflicted upon him! All these things do not seem to have been fully considered; and when a question was asked about them in the House of Commons there was no one to give a satisfactory answer. No doubt there is to be separation between the Irish Legislature and the military, which is to be under the command of the Lord Lieutenant; but if the interference of the military be required it will be asked for by the Local Authorities, and the Lord Lieutenant must consult his Irish advisers, because it will be impossible for the Lord Lieutenant to exercise his powers without reference to his Ministers and his Parliament. And the veto will have to be exercised under conditions similar to those in which the military will be employed. Then we come to the Exchequer Judges and the Judicial Committee. That, with all deference to my noble Friend (Lord Playfair), is a mere paper protection. Who is to initiate proceedings before the Judicial Committee, and who is to be the party to argue in these cases before it? And who ever heard of cases of abstract principle being referred to a Judicial Committee, to settle not a particular case, but large questions which are afterwards to be disputed in the Courts as to the extent of their meaning—what was meant by those who gave the judgments? We come to the other limitations and restrictions in the Bill. Limitations and
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    restrictions are imperfect bulwarks to set up when you have let out the flood. They are always swept away. The great stream carries with it everything, and these smaller things are soon swept away. The limitations and restrictions will be the subject of continual fret and irritation. My noble Friend (Lord Swansea), who at so early a period of his initiation to this House gave us so solemn a lecture last night, in tones which showed he was come from a domineering Assembly, told us that the Leaders of the Nationalist Party would hold high office, and that they were not such fools as to throw away their office. Suppose the people want some extension of power and you do not give it them, what becomes of your office? And are there to be no rival ambitions in this new Legislature, no rivals for supremacy and influence—things which men value more than most things in life? All Legislatures, we know, continually strive to increase their power, and do you suppose the Irish Legislature will not press on to get greater powers than it has? It is one of those things I should have thought were beyond argument. But there is a great deal more than that. Those gentlemen who are to hold high office have given pledges—pledges to evicted tenants, to people who entered into that criminal "Plan of Campaign," of which they were the instigators. I do not hesitate to say that they have demoralised the people of Ireland in making them believe they would have anything for the asking, all the more if they enforce their demands by outrage and crime. From the moment the Prime Minister declared that the Clerkenwell explosion brought the Irish Church within the sphere of practical politics Mr. Parnell saw his advantage. He said—"We know how to work upon the feelings of the Prime Minister;" and we all know how he brought him into his power. From that day the demoralisation of the people has ensued, which has in many instances been too much pandered to, and insatiable demands will be made when the time comes for those who made the promises to perform them. Do you suppose that, when these men have to choose between being traitors to the people which elect them and traitors to you, they will stand by you? Do you suppose that the Fenian organisation is extinguished in

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    Ireland, and that no pressure will be placed upon the Irish Ministers by that secret and earnest body? Do you suppose that the Irish Americans, the "Ireland of Retribution," the larger nation of Ireland which is in America, will stand still and allow these men who have been their agents to fall short of the promises they have made in order to get the money from America by which alone they could carry on their machinations? Of course, this Bill is accepted by the Nationalists. Did you ever know a case in which a man who wanted to defend himself or to commit a crime would not thank you for the weapon you have put into his hands? They know, as we know, that, having accepted this proposed Legislature, they will have accepted that which will give them every opportunity to treat it as provisional, and to proceed from step to step until there ensues, I do not say separation, but that which is worse than separation, a dominating Power ruling over us in Ireland and elsewhere and preventing us from doing justice to the subjects of Great Britain who are loyal to the Crown. My Lords, is there anything to prevent these people from enacting that the Plan of Campaign shall be a lawful thing for the future? An attempt was made in the House of Commons to get ex post facto laws excepted, but it was rejected under that dominating influence; and there is to be a power in this Legislature to make any ex post facto laws, a thing which is not allowed in any way under the American Constitution, which may bring degradation and ruin upon people who have simply done their duty in matters connected with the offices they hold. These, my Lords, are serious things; and you have to consider whether those people who make these pledges and who have given themselves over so absolutely to the Fenians and Irish Americans will be able to resist that powerful and enormous pressure which will be put upon them. And then the evicted tenants. My noble Friend (Lord Swansea) said he would be prepared to legislate anything which would protect and preserve property. "Ah!" said the noble Earl opposite, "too late." When you have given these powers you cannot resume them. It is all very well to talk of the supremacy of Parliament being reserved. My Lords, the supremacy of
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    Parliament has been parted with, absolute power has been given to the Irish Legislature to deal with all questions not specifically reserved, and the Parliament of England could not without dishonour take upon itself to legislate upon those subjects which it had delegated. It could legislate, no doubt, for the repeal of this measure. It could repeal it; but that, again, is one of those things that we cannot look forward to with much hope. We cannot suppose that those who had been induced to pass this Bill would be likely to repeal it, and so thrust themselves into difficulties and troubles which they are anxious to get out of. Now I come to another point, which I must dwell upon. The character of these men, as painted by themselves, I will not quote. Everybody knows what they have been. Everybody knows that many of them are filled with hostility to this country; that they wished success to the Mahdi, to the Afghans, to the Boers, when British regiments were commanded and constituted by their own brethren, and the blood that was shed was Irish blood. These are the men to whom you are going to give these enormous powers! These are the men you suppose you can ever make firm and constant friends of England! It has been said by the noble Earl that he did not charge the men who were asking for these great powers with being criminals, and I think it was the Prime Minister himself who said that though he charged Mr. Parnell he did not extend the charge. Were those 1,200 men whom you shut up in Ireland without trial—were they suspected of crime or not? If they were not, a gross violation of law was committed; if they were, how dare you now turn round and say you never suspected them? You cannot get out of the difficulty. You imprisoned them without trial, and, having done so, you have condemned them as guilty of crimes against their country, and yet you propose to give them these enormous powers. You are told—it has been repeated again and again—that this measure will give contentment to Ireland. We are charged with being pessimistic, but could anything be more optimistic than the different speeches which have been made promising contentment as the result of this Bill? We have had Memorials from vast numbers of Roman Catholics—those who are bold enough to

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    speak out—we have seen Presbyterians, Churchmen, and Nonconformists practically unanimous against this Bill, and yet the part of Ireland which is worst you are going to give mastery over the best, to put the living under the dead, and to assume that that state of things will bring about contentment. The noble Earl the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (the Earl of Rosebery) said at Paisley that the statesmen of England knew more about Ireland than any portion of the Irish people. Does the South know as much about the North of Ireland as we know about the whole of Ireland? Yet under the Bill the South is to exercise a sway to which it is not entitled. The Bill, in short, is an attempt to put an inferior Ireland over a superior Ireland—a faction over the nation—instead of leaving both to the mitigating influences of an Imperial Parliament which would do justice to each—an attempt to set one against the other, in continuance of the perpetual conflict which has gone on for many a long year, and would not be stopped by this most wretched measure. Mr. Parnell said the Irish had no right to ask for more than the restitution of Grattan's Parliament, but it is now proposed to give to them not only a Legislature, but an appendant Legislature. In the time of Grattan's Parliament you legislated for the Empire without any Members for Ireland sitting in your Parliament, excepting those returned by British constituencies. Now, for the first time, you propose that there shall be an addition to our Parliament. It was during Grattan's Parliament that Great Britain's influence and interest were at stake. Lord Rosebery last night, with great candour, acknowledged that Mr. Pitt had in the circumstances no course open to him but to call for the Union; and it is notorious that Lord Cornwallis—a most genial, benevolent man, and most anxious to conciliate the Irish if he could—came to the conclusion that nothing could save Great Britain unless a Union were established. The noble Earl has given the House his reasons, not why this Bill should be carried—because he never entered into that question of this Bill at all—but why something in the shape of Home Rule should be offered to the Irish people. He says he wants to give Ireland something that is worth defending.
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    Is it credible that my noble Friend can be a party to a Bill which would prevent the Irish from defending themselves or anybody else, because they are under this Bill prohibited from drilling—from availing themselves of naval and military resources, and how they are to defend themselves or anybody else under those circumstances I cannot imagine. Mr. Pitt felt that in a case of difficulty Great Britain ought to have every rein in its own hands, so that it should guide the coach, and manage the whole concern, so that every influence and power could be concentrated in this country, in order that there might be no danger from Ireland. The noble Earl assumed that, in the event of a European war, it was possible that those who were now striving to obtain this measure might, in case it were rejected, be so traitorous that they would welcome the French or any other nation; and he assumed that if this Bill were carried they would have something so well worth defending that they, would not. But it was under Grattan's Parliament, when the Irish had their own Legislature, that the Rebellion took place, and when disloyalty reached such a height that the French, it was supposed, would be welcome in different parts of Ireland. Whatever restrictions you may impose, do not tell me that in setting up a separate Legislature for Ireland you are not in substance repealing the Union. Up to 1886 we have had a consensus of statesmen who had no doubt whatever of the importance of the Union. I happened this morning to see a passage in a speech of Burke's with which I so entirely agree that I should like to quote it. Of course, I do not say this Bill is a separation; but it is the way, in my opinion, to what is worse than a separation. He says—
    "I think, indeed, Great Britain would be ruined by the separation of Ireland, but that as there are degrees even in ruin it would fall most heavily upon Ireland. Ireland would be the most completely undone country in the world, the most distressed, and in the end the most desolate country in the world. Many people in Ireland do not know how much depends upon her continued connection with this Kingdom."
    Now, I know we are told that this is no repeal of the Union. Do not, my Lords, deceive yourselves by words. Do not tell me that if you set up a separate Legislature, whatever restrictions you put upon it, that you are not repealing the Union. Daniel O'Connell

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    never spoke of separation; he always guarded himself against it, but what did Sir R. Peel say? In April, 1834, he said—
    "I want no array of figures; I want no official documents; I want no speeches of six hours to establish to my satisfaction the public policy of maintaining the Legislative Union. I feel and know that the Repeal of it must lead to the dismemberment of this great Empire, must make Great Britain a fourth-rate Power in Europe, and Ireland a savage wilderness; and I will, therefore, give at once and without hesitation an emphatic negative to the Motion for Repeal."
    I cannot forbear to recall to the noble Earl opposite (Earl Spencer) the words of one who in my youth exerted a potent influence in politics. What did Lord Althorp say, a man who was an honour to the Party with which he was connected—
    "He hoped and trusted that the advocates of the Repeal of the Union would never succeed in the attainment of their object. No man held civil war in greater detestation than he did, but he should even prefer that to the destruction and dismemberment of the Empire."
    By this measure the Government propose to give too much from the point of view of Great Britain and too little from the point of view of Ireland. Lord Playfair and other noble Lords who have spoken have expressed the opinion that the retention of the Irish Members was forced upon the Government by the Unionist Party. That view, however, has not been supported by any scrap of proof. For my own part, I have always said that the only good thing in the Bill of 1886 was the plan for excluding the Irish Members. They were excluded in the time of Grattan's Parliament, and why should they be included now? But the reduction of the Irish Representatives in the House of Commons to 80 is, in my opinion, tantamount to an admission that the present number of 103 is a disproportionate amount of representation to have given to the Irish. Why they should have 183 Representatives, for that is what it comes to, as I shall show presently, I do not understand. We were told, I think by the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, that Mr. Gladstone shares the objections which we feel to the retention of 80 Members.
    THE EARL OF ROSEBERY: I only said that Mr. Gladstone had indicated rather clearly his preference for the other plan.
    THE EARL OF CRANBROOK: I agree with the noble Earl. Mr. Gladstone has the most extraordinarily open mind respecting these matters that any-great statesman could have. In 1886 he certainly said that he would "never be a party" to the retention of the Irish. Members. He may have changed his mind on the point, but I doubt it. Howover, he has inflicted upon this country a plan which he himself admits to be "an anomaly," and which is an invitation "to intrigue" and "a great danger." Mr. Morley, at Newcastle, urged upon the people the importance of excluding the Irish Members from the British House of Commons, and yet he has now voted for the Third Reading of a Bill which contains the very provision which he then protested against. What did Mr. Morley say about this plan of retention?—
    "I do not care what precautions you take; I predict that there is no power on earth that can prevent the Irish Members in such circumstances from being in future Parliaments what they have been in the past, and what to some extent they are in the present—namely, the arbiters and masters of English policy and English legislative business, and of the rise and fall of British Administrations."
    Is it not atrocious that the two men who have condemned the plan of retention in, terms like these should have induced the House of Commons to pass a measure in which that very plan of retention is embodied? In passing, I would ask how the election business arising out of the return of these 80 Members is to be managed. You have made no provision in the Bill for the trial of Election Petitions. Then I should like to know whether the Irish Members are to be exempted from considering Private Bills in Committees, or are they to form part of Committees on Private Bills relating to England only? All these things must be considered. Consider what will happen if this plan of retention is preserved. The 80 Members will be returned, not by the same number of constituencies, but practically by the same voters as the 103. The 103 Members of the Irish Legislature will be reinforced by the 80 Representatives. The bulk of the 103 Members in the Irish Parliament, and the 80 Irish Members in the Imperial Parliament, will have one and the same Leader, and all the subjects which are excluded from the cogni-

    577
    sance of the 103 Members in Dublin will be raised by the 80 Members here. And this is the way in which you propose to get rid of the friction caused by Irish Business in the Imperial Parliament. You are going to create a power which will dominate you in that Parliament. The Government say that if these privileges are granted the Irish will be checked in their actions by a sense of responsibility. It is at this point that the question of the character of the men to whom you propose to entrust these powers becomes so important. Mr. Bryce, when writing philosophically about the American Constitution, said—
    "The chief lesson which a study of the more vicious among the State Legislatures teaches us is that power does not necessarily bring responsibility in its train."
    Now, to this proposed legislation Great Britain has not given its assent. The Union was a Treaty, and now you propose to repeal it, and to inflict degradation upon England. The Prime Minister, I know, boasts that he is a Scotchman; but I think that he, who was born and educated in England, and who owes so much politically to England, might have hesitated to declare that this country, which had resisted his imperious will, "required discipline." He writes to an American—not one of the chief and best of Americans, but a man who has written of this country in a hostile manner—and says that "England requires disciplining," and so he devises a plan under which he gives us the off-scouring of the Irish Parliament, such as they may choose to send, in order to extort further concessions to the Irish Nationalists. The Prime Minister has said that "Great Britain was entitled to a voice on this question." She has given utterance to that voice. In 1887 the right hon. Gentleman said that the retention of the Irish Members was "a British question," and not an Irish one; yet it has been carried by the Irish vote against the whole of Great Britain. Now, my Lords, in the final issue, we are told that we are 33,000,000 to 3,000,000, and that we can reconquer Ireland. Well, I think Mr. Gladstone is hardly the general who could undertake the reconquest of Ireland. After all, these concessions have been made to Ireland by a cowardly surrender: the idea of reconquering her is so preposterous and absurd that it does not require
    578
    discussion. I am told, my Lords, that statistics show that Ireland has been impoverished since the Union. There is abundant evidence that Ireland has grown in riches, and would grow in quiet if you would allow your own Acts to operate. You keep passing Acts of Parliament, and then, like children growing flowers, you take them up by the roots to see how they are going on. The remedy you have proposed is worse than the disease; it will poison the two countries, and bring about constant friction and constant animosity and struggle. Now, my Lords, I will say one word about this House, of which I have the honour to be a Member. It is a second House, and a part of the Parliament of this country. Your Lordships have your rights, as large, except in finance, as those enjoyed by the House of Commons. Though not a Representative Body, I admit, it is your Lordships' duty to examine all questions that come before you, in view, not only of your rights, but of the expediency and policy of your action. Unfortunately, there is no question in politics which comes before us in an abstract condition. It is always weighted with circumstances which you have to take into account. We are taunted in the other House for speaking of the proceedings of that House, as if it was not a question before us. But, my Lords, we are part of the Parliament of England, and we have a right and duty to see that that Parliament, so far as we are concerned, does its duty; and we have a right to look at and comment upon the action of the other House if it evades Parliamentary law and resorts to expedients which we believe to be false and fatal in themselves, injurious to Parliaments in all parts of the world, and to call forth a despotism in Parliaments, which is equally abhorrent as despotism in individuals. We are called upon to try this question as upon our honour and as men who are interested in a peaceful, happy, and contented Ireland; and I venture to say for myself and those who act with me that we are not less interested in a peaceful, happy, and contented Ireland than noble Lords opposite. I am, to a certain extent, deeply and personally interested in Ireland; but I do not think it right, because a child or a lunatic desire a torch or weapon, to put it into their hands.

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    This Bill is one which the Government themselves admit will not be final. It is a Bill provisional in many most important particulars, and if passed must come on for reconsideration. We agree that we have solemn duties in connection with Ireland. You despair; we hope. You have given up; we are faithful to our Imperial destiny, and believe, though it may take time, that we have the means to redress every grievance of which Ireland can complain. Now, my Lords, I will conclude by quoting some words of that great Tribune of the people, as he was called by the noble Earl (Lord Rosebery), Mr. Bright, as they exactly express my feelings—
    "Save its population (Ireland's) from the future conduct of the men who are answerable for much of its present sufferings and for all the disorder by which it is now afflicted and disgraced. There are 2,000,000 of loyal people in Ireland. Let us be firm in our resolve; and if it be possible—as I believe it is possible—save them for expulsion from the guardianship of the Crown of the United Kingdom and from the shelter and the justice of the Imperial Parliament."
    THE LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord HERSCHELL): My Lords, I have listened with interest and admiration to the speech of the noble Earl who has just sat down. I shall have some difficulty in following him, because I cannot but feel deeply conscious that, while he has been speaking the sentiments of vast multitudes of noble Lords within this House, I am going to advocate a cause which here has few friends, and I must necessarily come in conflict with the sentiments and opinions of many noble Lords present. I shall, at all events, endeavour so to conduct the argument which I have to put before your Lordships as to avoid saying a single word which may stir susceptibilities any further than is absolutely necessary. I have been struck with the constant repetitions throughout this Debate of the statement that no arguments have been adduced in favour of the measure now before your Lordships. I do not wonder that such expressions should come from noble Lords who come here from Ireland. I think it is not unnatural that a measure in which they are so deeply interested, and which must stir natural prejudices, should have been regarded by them mainly from one point of view; but I confess I am astonished that noble Lords who have been Liberals,
    580
    and who call themselves Liberals still, although they may deem the dangers of a measure of this description as being too weighty to be encountered, nevertheless fail to see how much there is in it, and must be in it, to commend it to those imbued with Liberal principles. I say there has been a failure to recognise this, because we have heard from more than one, in effect though not in words, this description of the measure:—That it is the mere offspring of the self-will of a fanatic who has lost his head, accepted by subservient Colleagues who have lost their principles. [Opposition cheers.] I accept those cheers as a proof that the minds of noble Lords calling themselves Liberals who can thus view this measure have not been addressed to the arguments which with all unprejudiced persons will weigh in the consideration of the question. The noble Duke who moved the rejection of the Bill said that it was the duty of statesmen to forecast the future effect of any measure that was proposed. I agree; but there is another condition just as rigorously required by statesmanship, and that is that before forecasting the future you shall have weighed the arguments on both sides, and that you shall have examined the arguments which are opposed to your natural prejudices and preconceived opinions or traditional policy with as much care and scrutiny, and give them as full and fair weight as the arguments that are on the other side. The noble Duke commenced his speech by sweeping on one side as wholly irrelevant the references made by Lord Spencer to the history of the connection between England and Ireland since the Union. I confess that when we consider what is the matter with which we are now dealing, it is a most astounding proceeding to treat that history as irrelevant. What is the question now before your Lordships but this—whether any arrangement concerning the Parliamentary relation of the two countries arrived at at the beginning of the century is to remain untouched, or whether events have shown that the time has come when it is expedient, in the interest of both countries, that a change should be made? Is it possible rationally to arrive at an answer to such a question as that without looking to see what have been the fruits of the measure whose continuation or alteration is now in ques-

    581
    tion? The Act of Union has been treated by many who have spoken in this Debate almost as if it were a divine institution and as if it were to be regarded with a reverence which made it almost blasphemy to say a word against or treason to suggest that it should be altered. And yet, after al1, it was an arrangement arrived at not so very long ago, and, although I do not for a moment question the great ability of the statesmen by whom that measure was advocated and passed, I do not think anyone will contend that they were infallible. I am not going into an inquiry how that measure came to be passed in Ireland. It undoubtedly was passed in this country in a time of great national emergency, and, indeed, of imminent crisis. Even at that time of danger and emergency there were not wanting noblemen in this House of experience and judgment who believed it to be a mistake. Lord Fitzwilliam, in the Debate in this House, contended that—
    "It would weaken instead of strengthening the means of resistance to the enemy."
    And he added another statement which is not without its interest and importance in relation to the Parliament of Ireland. He said—
    "The House had the experience of ages; that the dangers apprehended from a separate Legislature had not arisen."
    What were the objects in view at that time? For my part, I think that it is quite compatible with the belief that the circumstances of that time demanded that arrangement to believe now that the circumstances of our time may demand a modification of it. There is one most important circumstance in the relative positions of the two countries which must not be lost sight of. The closer means of communication to which the noble Earl who has just spoken has alluded have afforded facilities and powers which did not then exist in this country in relation to Ireland. Further than that, at that time the population of Ireland was one-third of the population of the United Kingdom. The population of Ireland is now only one-eighth of the population of the United Kingdom; and I am by no means sure that if the conditions which exist to-day had existed at the beginning of the century Mr. Pitt would have been in favour of the Act of
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    Union which he carried out. Therefore, is seems to me it is not in the slightest degree a slight on the memory or statemanship of Mr. Pitt that one should believe that the arrangement then arrived at was in need of modification. What were the expectations and anticipations held out to those who advocated that measure? They hoped and believed that it would weld the peoples of the two nations into one. It has become now a ground for sneering when there is any talk of the "union of hearts." But the idea is not a new one. The words almost were used in the discussions on the Act of Union. "United hearts" was what people were led to expect by some of the speakers as the effect of the Union. It was expected, too, that it would bring about a state of things without which good government does not exist. I should like to quote the words that were used by a noble Earl in this House as to what is essential to good government.
    "Good government," he said in these Debates, "should carry with it the confidence, affection, and ready zeal of the people."
    There were, no doubt, at that time those who doubted whether these hoped-for results could be achieved. We are able to-day to determine whether they have been. What is the condition of things we find? The Union under that Act has continued for 93 years, and to-day and during the last few days from almost every speaker in this Debate in opposition to the measure we have heard references to the loyal minority of Ireland. What is this but a confession that there is a disloyal majority? [Cheers and counter cheers.] Noble Lords cheer. I will deal with the question how this came about, and what is the cure for it. But are noble Lords satisfied with that condition of things? What does it mean—a disloyal majority? That there are some millions of our fellow-subjects in an island close beside us who have been subject to the Rule of Her Majesty and her predecessors for years, who are opposed to the rule under which they live, who desire its change, who resent the measures that are adopted towards them, and who believe that they are being wronged. I believe that that is the only spot within the broad dominions of the Queen, with the numberless forms of government under which her subjects

    583
    live, and with the myriads of which they consist, where such a state of things could be possibly found. [Cheers.] Is that not a momentous fact? Noble Lords cheered it as though they were rather pleased with it, as though it was not a thing to be ashamed of and bitterly repented. That is the condition of things which we find after all these years, I will not say as the fruit, but following upon and succeeding this Act of Union; and all I am contending for is this—that whatever else it has done it has not produced that condition of contentment, it has not secured those conditions of good government which we hoped for it, and anticipated for it, and for which in the main it was passed. I think that the British Parliament, as a piece of legislative machinery for Ireland, has been a failure. I think it has not quickly enough discerned Irish wants. It has turned a deaf ear to them often when they have been urged before Parliament. It has delayed too often, cruelly and wrongly, the redress of serious grievances, and it has naturally stirred up, and inevitably stirred up, a feeling of hostility to the institutions of this country. I should like, before I pass from that, to allude to one sentence of the noble Earl. He says—
    "You told us in 1870 this measure was to be a satisfactory solution; you told us in 1881 that that measure was to be a satisfactory solution. We find none of them a satisfactory solution"
    Just what I contend. We have never, in the British Parliament, sufficiently understood Ireland to secure a satisfactory solution, and consequently when the Irish have told us that what we believed was solving the question would not solve it, we passed the measure that suited our opinions, and that was consonant with our ideas, and we found by bitter experience that they were right and that we were wrong. These are the measures which have been from time to time passed. They have been varied by coercive legislation which became necessary and I admit always is necessary when you have discontent or to suppress revolt against your institutions of the description I have referred to. I know it has become the fashion nowadays to speak of Coercion Acts as though they were rather magnificent legislative achievements of which we have no reason to be ashamed. That was not the language used by the
    584
    statesmen of either Party until recently. We are reproved for expressing sometimes hostility to or dislike of Coercion Acts, and it has been suggested that you cannot be opposed to them unless you are in sympathy with criminals or crime. That was not the attitude of statesmen of either Party in the earlier generations of this century. Coercion Acts were always introduced under pressure of extreme urgency, to meet a condition of things which were very critical, and passed only for a time—avowedly only justifiable on account of the critical situation, avowedly to be repealed the moment the situation became no longer serious. Now, we have so far advanced that we have come within the last few years to pass a permanent Coercion Act for Ireland, and we consider that, circumstances having brought us to pass once for all a permanent Coercion Act for Ireland, it is really a triumph of legislative achievement for that country. I have been astonished at some of the language used with regard to this legislation. I admit that Coercion Acts often are necessary. I believe that whenever you do not or cannot satisfy the just aspirations of the people and make them content with the government under which they are living, Coercion Acts, or some form of coercion, are necessary; but I none the less hate the process, believing that the necessity for Coercion Acts proves that there is a disease which seeks a remedy. Coercion Acts are spoken of as light things. What do they mean? You take away in regard to Ireland some of the safeguards which the wisdom of our ancestors has placed on the administration of justice in England for the protection of the people from wrong, hardship, and unjust treatment. Are those safeguards of no concern here? Would we endure, is there an English Minister who would dare to propose for England a measure such as we passed for Ireland? An English Minister dared not do so, because he could not pass it. It would be impossible in the state of things existing here that such a Bill should ever become a law. It can be passed for Ireland because the British Parliament by British votes take away the safeguards in Ireland where we are not subject to the law. I do not say that it may not be necessary to do so; but I will never fail to utter my protest against the view that it is a

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    light matter or one of small moment. When it is said that these Acts are only passed against those who are not law-abiding and who will not conform to the law, has not that been made a justification of every tyrannous form of government and law? Are we not always told—"Keep within the law; say and do nothing to which the Government can object, and then these laws will not touch you"? That has never been considered a sufficient justification; and, moreover, I do not believe that those safeguards can be removed without the risk of injustice. My noble and learned Friend said that there had been no cases where people under the Coercion Acts had received injustice. I do not believe it. I am satisfied myself that there were cases in which injustice was done for want of those safeguards on which we here rely. I think it is established by these two circumstances with which I have dealt that there is a disease which has not been cured either by your bribes from time to time—for that has been the form of some legislation—or at another time by your Coercion Acts. The disease still exists. What has led to the discontent which exists? I think it is quite possible that if measures which were passed late had been passed earlier discontent might not have been what it is. But I think that this discontent, which has been caused by the consciousness that the legislation of the British Parliament has not succeeded in producing happiness and prosperity, has naturally united itself with national sentiments and aspirations. I do not see how it can be doubted that there does exist in Ireland among the majority of the people a desire for some distinct national life. Every circumstance to which I can look in the course of the present century seems to me to conclusively prove it. My noble Friend (Earl Cowper) said that the cry for Home Rule was a modern one, that it only began in 1870, that before that time it was Fenianism, and before that Repeal. I agree. It has taken many forms, and it would be a superficial view to treat these as separate things; the same principle underlays them all. Whether it be Home Rule, or Fenianism, or Repeal of the Union, it was the same cry and desire for a means of self-government which would enable the people to bring, as they believed they
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    could bring, to themselves the prosperity, contentment, and happiness which we have failed to bring to them. It is said—"How can you expect to satisfy the Irish with a plan of Home Rule when you say they have desired something so much more extensive than that—Fenianism, or it may be Repeal?" Have we not seen instances in which there has been a cry for a more extended form of national life which has yet been satisfied with a narrower? Did Hungary, when she agitated for years and fought, seek that arrangement which now prevails and under which she possesses he autonomy? She sought something more than that; and even when the present arrangement was entered into there were some holding extreme views who retired dissatisfied and disgusted because she had not got more. But, nevertheless, the arrangement has brought satisfaction, and contentment, and peace; and those who demanded and insisted that more ought to be obtained became diminished in numbers and less important as time went on. I see no reason to suppose in any instance that a smaller satisfaction of demands which have been made may not bring contentment. It is said that the tendency of the time is towards national consolidation, while this measure tends to separation. I do not for a moment deny that the tendency of time has been towards national consolidation; but there has been another principle, which side by side with this national principle has been more and more coming into force and operation, and that is the principle of decentralisation of local autonomy. Perhaps in the greatest instance of national consolidation which we have seen in our time—the Empire of Germany—that national consolidation has been found not inconsistent with the completest local autonomy. Is there anyone who believes that if another course had been taken, if the separate Parliamentary Governments of those portions of Germany which now form the Empire had been taken from them, and an attempt had been made to govern a united Germany, or administer its laws and legislate for it through a united Parliament, Germany would have been stronger to-day than she is? On the contrary, the national consolidation would never have taken place. Germany, which is an Empire not wanting in

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    strength, an Empire not disregarded by her foes, would not have been the Empire she is to-day. The conclusion to which these facts seem to me to point is that the only hopeful policy in regard to Ireland is a policy which shall seek to satisfy those desires and aspirations which she recognises, and which would enable Ireland to govern herself and manage her own internal affairs. I may be asked—Why do you think this is a hopeful policy? As far as I see, no other policy has been suggested which holds out the slightest hope. I say it is a hopeful policy because, as far as I know, wherever you have given to those who have been discontented and who have felt the yoke of Parliamentary Government under which they lived, a freer system, wherever you have recognised their desires and conceded them, you have brought contentment and peace. Now it is said that our conversion to these views has been very sudden. I do not know that it necessarily follows, because a conversion is sudden, it is therefore either mistaken or insincere. But if it were so, it would prove that Catholic Emancipation was a blunder, and that the policy of Free Trade was a mistake. Talk of sudden conversion! I was refreshing my recollection a day or two ago with reference to the passing of Catholic Emancipation, and I came across this passage in The Annual Register—
    "The Duke of Wellington in December had written in express words that he saw no prospect of a settlement of the question; that it was impossible to expect men to consider it dispassionately and to come to an ultimately satisfactory conclusion, and that it had better for a time be buried in oblivion."
    The writer proceeds—
    "When the Duke of Wellington thus declared on December 11 that he saw no prospect of a settlement, what man could imagine that he had already decided forthwith to force it to a settlement? When he expressed the opinion that it ought to be buried in oblivion, would it not be a deep insult to the understanding and honesty of his grace to imagine that he meant by that the instant agitation of the question before Parliament, and that, too, as a Government measure?"
    Your Lordships will recollect the language used in the other House, especially with respect to Sir Robert Peel's action on the Corn Laws. And yet these men live now in the admiration, esteem, and veneration of their countrymen; and I
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    prophesy that the time will come when those who now receive the same measure of abuse will not be regarded the worse for it by their countrymen, who will recognise the benefits of their action. I invite your Lordships' attention to the situation in 1885. A Franchise Bill had been passed, and there was about to be an election, and in the House of Commons this statement was made by the Leader of the House and of the Conservative Party, speaking on behalf of the Government—
    "You have now given this large measure of franchise. It is inconsistent with that measure to govern the people of Ireland by the old method of coercion."
    I think that was a momentous statement. It indicates to my mind, as it could only indicate, one thing—that at last there was a search being made to find some other method of governing Ireland. For inasmuch as Ireland needed to be governed, and you were not going to govern [her by coercion, how were you going to govern her? There was obviously an idea of some other policy, and that could only have been a policy of conciliation; and there could have been no policy of conciliation which did not take the direction of something in the nature of Home Rule. But that is not all. Do not let me be misunderstood. I am not for a moment using this argument as a charge against the Conservative Party that they intended to advocate Home Rule. My argument is that they themselves were looking, and announced to the country that they were looking—and were so understood by the country and by us—for some other means of governing Ireland. That was followed by another momentous event. There was an interview between Lord Carnarvon—the Viceroy of Ireland—and Mr. Parnell, of whose character and sayings we have heard a great deal during this discussion. Could anyone fail to see that, after such a declaration had been made and after such an interview had taken place, there were circumstances which must stir the thoughts of any man on this question and compel his attention to the inquiry—"Are we to go on with the old system of coercion, or are we to adopt some other means?" There were then 85 Nationalists returned to Parliament; there was an indication under this free franchise of the opinion of

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    the great majority of the Irish people. What was to be done? It is said that statesmen one after the other had approved the Union and defended it. Undoubtedly they did. I do not suppose that there is anybody who would not prefer to leave untouched the Act of Union, if that Act were regarded with equal affection and esteem by the whole of the British Islands. It has been one of the conditions of political life in this country that whenever measures have been passed, though they were distasteful to a large minority, they have been accepted and honestly acted upon. And so it would naturally be with the Union. No statesman would rashly or readily attempt to disturb a settlement so solemnly arrived at. But there often comes in national life, as in individual life, a crisis. You have trodden a path unquestioningly for years, until you are compelled to face the question—Are you taking the right road? It is easy to walk in the accustomed way; it is very unpleasant to face the questionings and difficulties that arise when you begin to doubt whether you are on the right road or not: It is much easier to dismiss the doubts. But there comes a time when you can dismiss them no longer, and you are obliged to face the problem. This was the case with many in 1885; and it was certainly the case with me. It is a great delusion to suppose that the minds of people in England were never stirred about Home Rule until Mr. Gladstone brought the matter forward. I do not know whether others had my experience; but I represented a constituency in which there were many working men; and I know that there were many who had misgivings, and more than misgivings, as to the policy of coercion in the Parliament of 1880–1884. I was asked at various times by one and another whether it would not be possible to give to the Irish Home Rule. They saw that you never could govern the Irish without coercion unless you made some concession, and the mind of the English democracy was turning in this direction—that there was no reason why you should not give the Irish some form of Home Rule instead of coercion. It is said that the change took place to buy the Irish vote. What was the situation? At that time the Conservative Party were in Office. There had been returned in the previous
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    autumn a Liberal majority of 86—a majority such as was only balanced if all the Irish Members, from Ulster and all parts, together voted with the Conservative Party. What had the Liberal Party with such a majority as that to fear? Why did they need to buy the Irish votes? They would only need them if they were unitedly thrown in support of the Conservative Party. If all the Irish Members did not support the Conservative Party, the Liberals would have an ample majority. Could we suspect that the Tory Party would attempt to buy the Irish vote, or that they would try to bring about such a combination of Irishmen of all Parties as to defeat the Government which had so large a majority from Great Britain? I admit that a change of this kind cannot be made without danger. I have never shut my eyes to the weight of the arguments which may be adduced against such a change. I have pondered and looked at them from every point of view; and I feel that they are of serious gravity, and that they well deserve to be considered. I do not regard it as a light thing. I think that any statesman or body of men who attempted to lead the country to a change of this description with a light heart and in any other spirit than one saturated with the conviction of the importance of the change would be very foolish—would be mad. But when I say that I fully realise all the dangers of such a change, I must ask—Is there no danger in leaving things as they are? We have had painted to us pictures of the dangers which may arise from a change such as this; but there has not seemed to be, in the mind of any single speaker who has addressed your Lordships, the dimmest consciousness of the dangers which exist in the present state of things. There is scarcely an instance you can bring to prove the gravity and danger of the change which does not equally prove the danger of leaving matters as they stand. The whole basis of the pictures which have been drawn by those who have preceded me rests upon this—that after this Bill passes Ireland will be discontented, and anxious to throw off the English yoke. But if things are left alone, will not the danger be then just as much? It would be there in its most serious form. I have spoken of the national aspirations and desires of a large

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    body of the Irish people; but I have not spoken of the sympathy with those feelings which exist in the tens of thousands of Irishmen scattered not only throughout Her Majesty's dominions, but in all parts of the world. Is there no danger in such a state of things?—a discontented people in Ireland, a multitude sympathising with them in America, gold passing freely between the two countries. Are there never times when our relations with America become critical? How can we shut our eyes to the danger, and pretend that all is peace when there is no peace? There is this added danger—that the full sympathies of vast multitudes of Americans who are not Irish, who have no connection with the Irish, and who in a sense may be said to have no love for them, are nevertheless strongly with them in their demand for autonomy. The existence of that sympathy, the belief that wrong is being done, and that a demand that might be conceded is being refused—these are most important factors in considering the situation. If a concession be made which is felt to be just and reasonable, and which is safe, you will remove this danger at all events, and instead of there being sympathy with Irish discontent and a desire to assist Irish discontent in Ireland the sympathy will be the other way. It is said, however desirable it may be to attempt to introduce a change of this description, no measure is possible; statesmanship is not equal to dealing with the question and creating a well-considered and workable scheme. I should be sorry if that were true. I admit that the task is one of enormous difficulty; I admit it is one in which we may well desire the aid of the best intellects in this country without regard to Party. I admit it is impossible to devise any scheme not involving great difficulties; but I cannot forget that, more than a century ago, a knot of men drawn from a very limited number, who, however, were sons of England, were capable of framing a scheme and Constitution which has stood the test of a century, and has been the admiration of the civilized world. And are we reduced to such intellectual or statesmanlike impotence that it is impossible for us to devise a scheme which shall settle upon a better footing than the present the relations between England
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    and Ireland. I, at all events, do not believe it. Now it is said that this. Bill, indeed, is not perfect—that it is full of imperfections. ["Hear, hear!"] Yes, my Lords, I quite admit it. But I say that there is no scheme which can be made perfect, there is no Constitution in the world which is perfect. If the same intellectual acuteness that is applied to this Bill were applied to the British Constitution you could prove that it is utterly unworkable, and that not many months or years could elapse before things would come to a dead-lock. But if this measure be desirable and right, are we, because a perfect scheme cannot be constructed, because no scheme can be devised that will be free from difficulty, to abandon the task? I confess I feel it is idle to argue with those who are opposed to us on the provisions of this Bill, and for this reason—because I admit that there are dangers and difficulties in the scheme. If your point of view is that no scheme at all is necessary and that there is no reason for attempting to give self-government to Ireland, why, of course, there is an end of the case; any scheme which is in any sense dangerous or perilous would prove to be undesirable. When you say that nothing at all is to be done, there is no use in discussing details, but I propose to allude to some of the points that have been raised. The proposition that the supremacy of Parliament is not maintained can only be established if you select your own meaning for the words, and that meaning one which has not hitherto been given to them. The legislative supremacy of Parliament is complete; Parliament will be able to legislate, and its laws will be as much in force in the Sister Country under this Bill as before. The enforcement of them is not generally included in Parliamentary supremacy. It has been said it would be a breach of honour for this Parliament to legislate upon subjects remitted to the Irish Parliament. It would be nothing of the kind. There remains the legitimate use of the provisions contained in the Preamble, and of the clause to which allusion has been made, which mean that you set up a subordinate Legislature without impairing the supremacy of this Parliament. It is this which explains and justifies the insertion of the words to which I allude; they could only serve

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    that purpose; neither the enactment nor the words in the Preamble can be said to serve any other purpose. You cannot get rid of the supremacy of Parliament; no words can preserve it more than it preserves itself; and the only object in inserting the words was to meet such an argument as the noble Earl has used. In answer to the noble Duke, I maintain that we have always drawn the distinction between a United Empire and a United Kingdom; the fallacy involved in not drawing the distinction has been on the other side. Everywhere speakers have denounced the disintegration of the Empire. I maintain the unity of the Kingdom is preserved when you have a common Parliament in which sit Members for every part of the United Kingdom, with power to deliberate and vote upon its affairs. You do not destroy the unity of the Kingdom by delegating certain functions to a subordinate Parliament. The noble Duke said that Parliament makes and unmakes Ministries. A more extraordinary and astounding proposition I never heard advanced. Does this House believe itself able to make or unmake a Ministry? Let it pass any Resolution it likes, and Ministers will remain. Let this House try whether a Resolution of Censure will drive a Ministry from Office. It is true that, by Constitutional practice, votes of the House of Commons make and unmake Ministries; but it is new to me to hear from a Whig politician, and a Leader of the Constitutional Party, that the House of Commons and Parliament are synonymous. Therefore, when it is said it is necessary to the supremacy of Parliament that there should be interference with the Executive, I say you are using the term "supremacy of Parliament" in a sense in which it has never been used before. I admit that there will not be the same control over the Irish Executive. If one thing is certain, it is that there has never been any concealment or question that it was part of the scheme that there should be an Irish Executive. The noble Earl asked why Irish Members, any more than Members for Australia or Canada, should sit in the House of Commons? There seems to be good reason why we should not include Representatives from Australia or Canada, while we include
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    those of Ireland, because we do not leave to the Irish Legislature matters over which the Legislatures of Australia and Canada have full control. The reason of this is obvious—it is that proximity renders it in the highest degree expedient that we should have, for example, a common system of currency. More than that, when you are giving with these reservations a subordinate Parliament, if you are to maintain the supremacy of this Parliament and its ultimate control in case of absolute necessity, it is impossible to do it with justice or propriety if you are to exclude Irish Members. More than that, when you are retaining in the British Parliament absolute control in matters so greatly affecting the interests of Ireland as do those named in the 3rd clause of the Bill, there are certainly strong reasons against excluding the Irish Members from the British Parliament. If there was one thing that was more clearly placed before the country than another it was that it was to be a part of the scheme of Home Rule that Irish Members should be retained in this Parliament. It is said that you now include them and permit them to vote on all questions. Now I agree at once that that is a matter of very great difficulty. I should prefer myself, I frankly admit, a scheme by which the Irish Members should only vote upon those reserved questions or Bills relating to Ireland. But the difficulties of such an arrangement will be obvious to anybody, and although I may not think those difficulties so serious as some do, although I might have desired some method of that description to be passed into law, yet the difference between that and the retention of the Irish Members for all purposes seems to me, when you are dealing with such a Bill, if it be a Bill at all necessary, a matter of detail. The noble Earl has suggested that by this scheme Great Britain will be in a worse position than she now is. I confess I look at the matter as a practical man, and although I would have desired their exclusion from voting except upon reserved matters it seems to me we shall be in a better position, and not in a worse, than we were. The noble Earl says—"But you retain to them a certain power of interfering in legislation which concerns you, while you cannot legislate

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    about local Irish affairs." Personally I confess that, put in that way, I at least have not the slightest desire to legislate or take any part in legislating in local Irish affairs. I regard it as a burden or a responsibility to be performed if there is no Body to whom it can be delegated. I treat it as a hardship upon me that whilst the Irish can meddle in my affairs I cannot meddle in theirs. I can understand the hardship so far as they can meddle with mine. Yes, my Lords, it is a hardship which exists now, and which you are seeking to perpetuate; but to say it is a hardship that we cannot interfere in their affairs is a thing which does not commend itself to my understanding. There is not a local English, Scotch, or Welsh matter upon which the Irish Members will be able to vote, and on which they could not vote and turn the scale, on which they will not vote and turn the scale now, if this Bill passes, upon which they could not turn the scale if this Bill had never been introduced. I look for an improvement in that respect. I believe, in the first place, you get an enormous advantage in regard to time which will become available for English, Scotch, and Welsh affairs which is now absorbed by Ireland. You will get rid of her and you will have more time to devote to your own affairs. In the next place, you will find that the Irish, when they are managing their own affairs, will become very keen and active in relation to them, and you will not find the same keen and constant attention to English, Scotch, or Welsh legislation which you have at the present time. As a practical man, taking that view and wishing what you wish, I say I get something under this Bill; I get nothing if you throw out the Bill and the present state of things prevails. With regard to the mode in which judgments are to be enforced, questions were asked me. In regard to the Judges of the Courts they will be enforced as they are now. The questions put assume a refusal on the part of those whose duty it is to enforce the law to do so. What now is the ultimate resort in such a case? Why, force, and nothing but force. But it does not follow that it will be necessary. But it will be certainly used to force the law if it is found to be so. It has been said that the Exchequer Judges are like
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    Aunt Sallies on the racecourse. I cannot see any such resemblance. The question put to me is a riddle which I am unable to solve, put in extremely enigmatical and picturesque language. I do not see what the difficulty is. It seems to me the position of the Exchequer Judges is made very clear under the Bill. The noble Lord who spoke before me, asked how the Exchequer Judges were to be appointed. If he looks at the Bill he will find they are to be appointed as they are now, and be removable in the same manner—a Motion in both Houses of Parliament. And matters after this Bill will be the same as before in that respect. With regard to the financial provisions with which I do not intend to deal except to say one word. The noble Viscount, Lord Cross, said that your Lordships have a right to know that the Bill embodies the convictions of the Government. I rather question that right. When a Bill comes from the other House it embodies the opinion of the House of Commons, and it does not matter whether they are the convictions of the Ministers or not. On any particular provision Ministers may have been overbalanced by a majority of the House of Commons, but to contend that every provision, except on a vital point, must express their convictions appears to me to be a novel doctrine invented for the occasion, and of which we have never heard before. In regard to the financial proposals I do not care to dwell at any length for this reason; there are very weighty arguments against Home Rule, and you may convince the Committee that this policy which we believe to be just and expedient is unjust and inexpedient; but of this I am certain—if you do not convince your countrymen against Home Rule by other arguments you will never convince them by any petty hucktering about a little more or less in regard to the financial arrangements. I believe this of the English people: those who think it just and right, will be glad to have it made in these terms; those who do not will object to it in any form. I turn to a part of the case which is undoubtedly of great importance, and that is the position of the loyal minority. I am not going to say a word disrespectful to the loyal minority, but this I must say. At the outset, I cannot subscribe to the

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    doctrine that either a minority or a majority would be justified in resisting the law as passed by Parliament and refusing obedience to it merely because they apprehended there might come to them some possible harm. I can understand men feeling that the state of government which has been created and under which they live has become so intolerable that any risk must be run rather than submit to it, but that must be an actual existing state of things, and not a mere guess which may come about. I should be most desirous of seeing any safeguards introduced for the protection of the loyal minority subject to one limitation, and that is that they be not such as to give a minority the rights of a majority. A majority must rule, and a minority cannot rule a majority. The position of the landlords and their agents has been a good deal mixed up with the fears of the Ulster or of the loyal minority. Now, they are two very different things. I do not mean for a moment to say that the interests of the landlords are to be disregarded. Far from it. But it is not about the interests of the landlords, about questions of rent and otherwise, that the loyal minority, the people of Ulster, are specially concerned. As I understand, their fears may be said to be threefold. They fear unfair religious treatment, unfair differential legislative treatment, or perhaps unfair treatment generally by the Legislature, and they fear unjust taxation. I believe myself those fears are enormously exaggerated. I do not believe there is any tendency to unfair religious treatment or unfair taxation to the minority, and I base that belief on experience; your belief is based upon speculation. All experience tends to show that this unfair treatment is never received. Take the Irish Municipalities, in some of which the Nationalists are in a majority. Take the Corporation of Dublin. The Corporation of Dublin administers its affairs as well as Corporations which are governed and controlled by the loyal minority, and deals with its political adversaries just as fairly as political adversaries are dealt with anywhere else. It has arranged its financial affairs with unusual success, and the men who have been doing this municipal work are the same class as the men who will have to
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    deal with those other affairs in the proposed Legislative Assembly. Therefore, looking at the acts done in the municipal life of Ireland, you have not only no reason for fear, but every reason to expect, that in the larger legislative life which you propose to give them you will find them actuated by the same motives. It is said you are going to hand over the government of Ireland—the fate of 3,000,000—people to these persons—to men whose characters have been spoken of in words of reprobation; but, looking to the men who now represent the Nationalist Party in the House of Commons, I believe you will be able to find men to fill the Executive offices with as much ability, public spirit, patriotism, and fairness as actuate men who fill positions of the same kind in this country. Let us look at it for a moment as a matter of self-interest. Those men will desire that their Government should be successful, and they will have every motive to deal with the North. It seems to me, in reality, the chance would be that the North would get something more than its due; and I will tell you why. Does anybody suppose when this Bill passes that you will have only one Party in Ireland? You will have two sides to a Chamber. One will have the same legislative desires as the other which is opposite them, and the Party on the other will be anxious to gain the alliance and support of the Representatives of Ulster; and there is not the slightest reason to fear that Ulster would suffer under such circumstances. I admit there is apprehension, but I am not prepared to accept the statement of bankers, merchants, and others as necessarily to be relied upon, because in times of great political excitement, and when animated by political feelings, they do not always state what is accurate any more than do the rest of mankind. My belief is that the experience of this Legislative Assembly would remove that apprehension, and that, when it was seen there was no injustice or unfairness in dealing with different parts of Ireland, it would go far to remove much of the bitterness which now exists and make Ulster better friends with the rest of Ireland, and would take but a short time to remove enmity which unfortunately at present exists. With regard to the landlords, we

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    have been told that 4–5ths of the landlords of Ireland have been able to collect their rents with greater ease than those of England. We have been asked why we had not introduced a Land Bill. I confess I should have liked long ago to have seen a measure of land purchase passed, eminently satisfactory to have obtained a settlement which would free an Irish Parliament from the responsibility of dealing with this matter. But I believe, myself, that might have been done in connection with the proposals of 1886 without any serious financial risk to this country, or serious loss; but that was not the view taken at the time of those who opposed the Government in 1886, and the Land Bill was used as a stick with which to beat the Home Rule Bill all over the country. The people of England were told it was a monstrous Bill, and one not to be passed. If now it is impossible, in the state of public feeling, to pass such a Bill, they are the persons who are responsible for the state of public feeling which has made that impossible, and it does not lie in their mouths to ask why we do not introduce a Bill which they have done their utmost to render difficult, if not impossible. It is said that the people of Great Britain are against this Bill, and that they have shown it by recent elections. I am not prepared to admit that as a matter of fact. My belief is that the majority of the electors of Great Britain voted in favour of the Bill. I admit that the majority of the Representatives returned were against it; therefore, there can be no doubt in a great many instances—and I have investigated some—that the scale of the elections was turned by the same persons voting in several places, and, therefore, the opinion of the people of Great Britain is not necessarily represented by the number of Members returned. It is next said that there was no mandate for this Bill in all its clauses. The noble Duke says the Bill, and every clause in the Bill, must be before the country. To what would that reduce our Legislative Assembly? I say nothing to a referendum ad hoc. The Representatives of the people meeting in Parliament would have to pass the Bill as it stood, because they had no mandate to mend it. It is also said that the Bill has not been discussed. Then why not take
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    your revenge on the other House? Pass the Second Reading, amend the Bill in every clause, and force the House of Commons to discuss it. It is said that the Bill was discussed with the object of educating the people. It took 86 days in the other House, and they were not enough, to educate the people as to the Bill, and your Lordships are going to make that education complete in four days. I, of course, know that this Bill will be rejected amidst tumultuous and enthusiastic cheers. I wonder if there are sounding in your Lordships' memories the echoes of cheers just as enthusiastic which were but the precursors of the victories of great reforms. We watch on the shore the flowing tide, and as we watch it we scarce can believe in its approach, but its approach is none the less certain. My Lords, if this measure is, as we believe, founded on principles of equity and justice, principles which in past times have borne precious fruit, your Lordships' action, though it may retard, cannot prevent or even long delay, the ultimate triumph of our policy.
    LORD HALSBURY: I must congratulate my noble and learned Friend upon his excellent speech, although there are some matters on which I am in controversy with him. I believe there has been a real effort to deal with some parts of the Bill which is before your Lordships' House. But I have noticed with some surprise that the Ministers who are responsible for the Bill have talked about anything but the Bill; and I must say, with a feeling of pride in my old profession, when it came to the turn of the Lord Chancellor, there was an effort, at all events, to deal with the arguments which were directed against the passing of the measure. Let me say a word on what I think is a misapprehension in the mind of my noble and learned Friend. I do not think anyone cares about the conversion of any person unless it is sincere, and to be a conversion it must be assumed to be sincere; a thing which makes the history of this Bill, and where it comes from, and how it comes, important. There is a more than half-implied right that you have no option but to pass the Bill which is now sent to this House by the House of Commons. I am not going at any length into that matter; but I suppose nobody would

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    gravely contend that a portion of the Legislature would have a right to put itself in conflict with the country by legislating on questions on which the country has never been consulted. We have heard from the noble and learned Lord something about the internal relations of the Party to which he belonged before the surrender of 1886. I think I am entitled to say that no responsible politician prominent in political warfare had ever pronounced before that year in favour of any measure of Home Rule whatsoever. In fact, up to that time there was a deliberate determination on the part of the Liberal Party to preserve the Union intact. The policy of this Bill was sprung upon the country as a surprise, for before 1886 it had not been adopted by any Party except the Nationalist Party. I do not think the words of the Duke of Devonshire could bear the interpretation my noble and learned Friend has placed upon them. What he did ask was what reference had been made by the noble Earl who had moved the Second Reading. With regard to the Bill itself no reference had been made to it. I think we are all agreed as to the great and serious importance of such a subject as this lam afraid I cannot think so, because I notice in the amusing speech of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs last night it seemed to me to be hardly appropriate to so grave an occasion. Rightly or wrongly many of our fellow-countrymen believe that their happiness, property, and even lives depend upon the decision of Parliament in this case. Such apprehensions are not likely to be allayed by the noble Earl's jocose observations. Upon the question really before us—namely, that "this Bill be read a second time," I am bound to say the noble Earl said not a word. I admit that during the interval between 1886 and 1892 we heard a great deal about Home Rule, but those who spoke about it never gave a satisfactory answer to the question—" What does Home Rule mean?" But now we have a Bill on the subject before us, and what does the noble Earl do? He repeats the vague and ambiguous statements about Home Rule which were made in the interval to which I have alluded. If the speech of the noble Earl opposite was intended as an exhibition of tactics and diplomacy it was a complete success,
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    because I will undertake to say that if at some future time the noble Earl were to say—"I spoke in favour of some measure of self-government for Ireland, but I never approved one single clause of this Bill," he would be perfectly within his rights. The noble Earl did not utter one single syllable in defence of the clauses of the Bill. In fact, he said very candidly that he would not, and he gave a reason—I was going to say not quite respectful, I will not say to your Lordships' House, but to Parliamentary Institutions. Suppose, my Lords, a Minister of the Crown, having a large majority who he knew would vote for him, came down to the House of Commons, and said to them—"This is a Bill I recommend, but I will not trouble you to discuss it." Would that be a Constitutional thing for him to do? Parliament consists of both Houses. Neither House is a Parliament without the other, and considering the interest taken in this measure, and the manner in which noble Lords had come from north, south, east, and west simply to give their approval to the measure, it all went to prove that it was part of a system of separate Assembly. It is hardly suggested, my Lords, that this Bill has been discussed. We have had from the other side of the House nothing pointing to what the Bill is going to effect. No speech has been directed to show that this or that particular clause will remedy this or that particular defect. We have nothing put before us but this general proposition—"Something must be done, because what has been done in. the past has not succeeded." That may be a very good reason for saying that something must be done, but how does it recommend the adoption of the principle of this Bill? And I have to remind you again that the question is that this Bill may be read a second time. Now, my Lords, I will say a word or two about the Bill itself. It does, in effect, repeal the Act of Union. I know that it has been said that it does not, but whether it does so or not may very easily be discovered by anyone who reads the Bill and the Act of Union. Does a thing assume a different aspect because you call it by a different name? I heard my noble and learned Friend continually use the phrase "subordinate Legislature." If the Irish Legislature is to be a subordinate Legislature, why does not the Bill say so?

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    When it was suggested that that word might be introduced to render that beyond doubt it was refused. It is the duty of the Government, I presume, in thus initiating a new Constitution, to see that justice is done both to Ireland and England, and I should have expected from the promoters of the Bill some effort to show that that has been done. But has it been done? It has been pointed out that the new form which the new Governing Body is to assume is one that will lend itself to the oppression of one section of the community by another. That apprehension is seriously entertained by a large number of people. Why, then, instead of a general lecture on the impropriety of indulging in pettiness, have we not had some practical description of the grounds on which the apprehension to which I have referred is said to be groundless? It is the old story. You are to trust everybody, and it is assumed that there will be an entire change of heart and disposition on the part of those you have hitherto looked upon as your bitterest enemies. Is there, my Lords, any indication of a kindly and generous feeling towards those of their! countrymen who are now in a minority I in the House of Commons on the part of those who in the future will be in a majority in the Irish Legislature if this Bill passes? I confess I certainly find no evidence of it. I do not want, if I can help it, to speak of individuals, but who are the people who are to be elected into this new Legislature? The noble Earl who moved the Second Reading of the Bill, though he did not say so in terms, inferred that in the formation of the Legislative Assembly and the Irish Ministry the best persons would be adopted, and that there would be a change of disposition in those who are to exercise authority there. But I observe that Lord Swansea was of opinion that the men now in the House of Commons would hold high office, and I would rather accept his judgment on the point than that of the noble Earl. It is impossible not to know that these men, who were the subjects of the investigations by the Special Commission, have not lost their popularity among their constituents in consequence of the finding of that Commission. What reason, then, is there to suppose that they will not retain that popularity in the future with the people who had
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    retained it to get Home Rule in the past? It is said that they would be contented, but would they be contented with much less than they originally demanded? We must not prophesy, but our opponents may. I have no wish to prophesy. I only draw an inference which everybody must draw from the evidence. It has been said, in language with which your Lordships are doubtless familiar, that "provisional" is stamped on every line of this Bill. I think I should he disposed to say that "vengeance" is stamped on every line of the Bill. The loyal minority, the Police, the Civil servants, all of them are in turn to come under the vengeance of those who have been their enemies in the past and will continue to-be their enemies in the future. I should just like to say one word upon that. A paper has just been handed to me containing a statement which I have not had time to verify myself, which is attributed to Mr. Grattan—"Give them the power and they give themselves your property." That strikes me as a motto to be placed just over the door of the new Irish Legislature. The extaordinary character of the Bill is well illustrated by the provision relating to the Exchequer Judges. They are appointed to determine certain questions, and the difficulty that presents itself tome is this. There is to be an ordinary Executive in Ireland, and therefore the Sheriff, by hypothesis, will not execute the process of the Exchequer Judges. The Exchequer Judges are to have the power to appoint a Sheriff of their own. Suppose what I may call the ordinary Sheriff, known to the law, is under the orders of the Executive Authority, and the new Sheriff—the Exchequer Judges' Sheriff—is ordered to do something which the proper Sheriff will not do, and the forces of the law are under the command of the ordinary authorities, what is to happen? The new Sheriff may call out the posse comitatus, and the ordinary Sheriff may take the same course. Who is to decide between the two? That is only one, illustration of the almost impossible theory of having an Irish Executive which is to be controlled by another Executive. There is still a further difficulty. The Exchquer Judges' Sheriff has no funds, no staff, no officers; he is to be "a person appointed." All I can say is that I should not like, under these

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    circumstances, to be a Sheriff of the Exchequer Judges. With reference to the Land Question, one would suppose, from the sort of argument that has been addressed to your Lordships, that this was a sort of game of chess between the two political Parties. The landlords are the persons whose property by the hypothesis is imperilled. In order to protect them it is suggested that some purchase or land scheme is to be put before the people. The Liberal Unionists and Tories between them proclaim all over the country that this is a wicked, an unworkable, and an improper scheme. Suppose it were entirely erroneous to entertain such a view, are we to be punished? No. It is the landlords that are to have their property taken from them. That is not the attitude of a responsible Government. The question before the Government is whether or not the effect of the Bill may be to inflict a grievous wrong, and to take away men's property without compensation. The answer given is—"Oh, you agitated so that we could not pass our Land Bill, and so we are going on without it." That is not the mode in which such a question should be dealt with. Principles of justice and right demand that you should protect the property you have put in peril. I now come to the vexed question of the retention of the 80 Members. I do not myself know exactly what position we are in on that subject. My difficulty is a conundrum much more difficult than my noble and learned Friend professed to be able to solve. One knows perfectly well that down to within a few hours of the determination everybody supposed that such a provision was not to be in the Bill as it now contains. Three of the Ministers in this House disapprove of it, and nobody debated it in the House of Commons. If ever there was a Bill introduced with an apology in this regard this is that Bill. Can anyone say anything for the provision or adduce any logical defence of it? Does anybody reasonably contend that when we are here precluded from the discussion of Irish affairs we are nevertheless to allow 80 Irish Members to come and discuss our local affairs? The Lord Chancellor said it was not a privilege to discuss local Irish affairs. But that is not the point. The presence in Parliament of these men,
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    their influence and power, the mode in which they could make their presence known and disagreeable, those are the real questions; and when the matter is passed over as a joke and not worthy of being discussed from that point of view, I confess it seems to me that of all the extraordinary things that one has seen in Parliamentary life, nothing is more extraordinary than to see a proposition which has been repudiated by everybody in the first instance, which is not supported by the Ministers in the House from which this Bill comes, nevertheless put forward for your Lordships' acceptance without a single word being said in respect of its reason or common sense. I really do not know but what I am disposed to emulate the language of King Lear—
    "Someone is going to do dreadful things; what they are now I know not, but they shall be the terror of the Earth."
    I am not going into abstract views as to the extent to which resistance to lawful authority is permissible or not. People must judge for themselves what degree of outrage of the human rights justifies such a resistance. I deprecate any discussion of this matter. But, at the same time, what statesman or man responsible for the government of his fellow-creatures will safely neglect the possibilities of insurrection and armed resistance to authority? My noble and learned Friend said that the Union had failed in this—that notwithstanding it had been in operation for 93 years there had been continual recrudescences of crime and outrage in Ireland. But was Ulster loyal at the time of the Union? If Ulster now speaks with a united voice against the Bill, it is the effect of the Union. Perhaps it hardly avails to say that the intelligence, education, and property of Ireland are opposed to the Bill; for it almost seems as though education were to be a disqualification for the exercise of the franchise. The most conspicuous example of that is that one of the most distinguished seats of learning in Europe—Trinity College—is to be disfranchised. This Bill is partly a disfranchising Bill. One would have supposed that justice would have been done in giving representation to all parts of Ireland. But I find this in the Schedule, though I do not know who

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    is responsible for it. The County of Meath has an electorate of 12,000 and a population of 86,937. The County of Armagh has an electorate of 25,146 and a population of 143,289—nearly double that of Meath. But they are both to have two Members. By the abolition of the divisions of the counties—which is contrary to the principle adopted in this country—every one of the Loyalist Representatives in the South of Ireland will be taken away. Has that been done deliberately or not? No discussion about this has taken place in the House of Commons. The Schedules were closured; and no explanation of all this was given. What Reform Bill or great measure of any kind has ever been passed where you had not a discussion, at all events, about the distribution of political power? Either you had Conferences between the two Parties, or you had Boundary Commissioners, who took every care to see that there should not be an arrangement of boroughs or districts which would produce injustice. In this case only has it happened that an English Minister has brought forward a Bill in which he has arranged the whole thing, and has not permitted any vote except that on the question—" Shall this Schedule as a whole become law, aye or no?" If this were to be drawn into a precedent hereafter, what would become of the liberty of the subject? You say that 76 days of discussion were devoted to the Bill. I do not care if there were 176, so that the subject-matter demanded it. I could find a clause which should consist only of one line, and which, nevertheless, would form proper matter for a discussion of several months. Suppose it were—"Let the English Common Law be repealed." The discussion of that clause might well take 76 days, for the one line comprehended the whole of the English Common Law, which was the growth of centuries. And here, where the Bill enters into the most complicated political relations, and has added to it a reform, it is idle to say that a discussion of 76 days is extravagant. I know that a solemn warning has been given to us in tones of dreadful note. But I have no disposition to assume the position of a martyr on this subject as yet. I do not believe that I shall suffer for the vote I am going to give. On the contrary, I believe that it will be a popular
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    vote. I believe that by voting against this Bill, so introduced, so sprung upon the country, so concealed up to the last moment as to its nature and contents, and passed in a totally different form from that which it had at the Second Reading—I believe that the democracy of this country will say that, if there is one thing which proves the absolute necessity of such an institution as the House of Lords, it is that that House has given them an opportunity of making their voices heard on a matter in respect of which they had been tricked out of their votes by these men. Have you given in the Bill adequate protection as promised? I have not found it. Have you restricted the Irish from legislating on any of those subjects which it might be perilous to leave to them? I do not believe it. Would it be lawful, for instance, for the Irish Legislature to prohibit marriage between Roman Catholics and Protestants? Lord Playfair said that there had never been a Christian martyr in Ireland. I do not know how he defines Christian martyr. The noble Lord should read the histories of 1641, or of what happened at Wexford Bridge in 1798. I have read that those who would not abjure their faith were tortured and killed; and surely they were Christians and martyrs. I do not wish to revive memories which had better be forgotten. I know that some of the most loyal and devoted subjects of the Crown are to be found in the ranks of the Roman Catholics. Is it not true, also, that there are some of those not without influence in Ireland who nurse and cherish with undying vitality the spirit of ancient persecution? And it is in these circumstances that you are going to leave without further protection the loyal inhabitants of the North of Ireland to the mercies of the new Legislature. You know what they have said, but you do not believe them; they were words of passion. I confess that I should rather look at what people did, whether they denounced crime and declined to associate with crime rather than look at the lamb-like professions of these men. I am prepared to vote against this Bill because I believe it is not in accordance with the will of the country. It has not been explained to the people, and it is not understood by them, while it has not been properly discussed in the House of Commons.
    THE BISHOP OF RIPONsaid, it was their duty to lay aside all prejudice of political faction in answering a question of this kind, and he thought he could claim to have done so when he stood before them to speak as he did on this occasion. It came to him with a sort of pain that for the first time since he entered their Lordships' House he should be compelled to go into a Lobby different from that which would be occupied by his noble Friends Lord Spencer and Lord Ripon. All his early life was associated with the Irish soil and climate; he had visited her shores since then, and even now he never set foot upon Irish land without feeling that nature re-asserted herself, and a new thrill of impulse stirred within him. He had drunk in with rapture the language of those great men. Flood, Grattan, and Curran; he lived in their lives: he spoke in their speeches; he rejoiced in their aspirations; and, as he walked through College Green, often and often his heart would throb at the thought once more that the bank might be transformed into the House of Parliament. But in looking at a question of this kind he was disposed to ask whether there was any reasonable ground for hesitation? Whatever their impulse might be, there still came the thought to pause and consider before they acted. Speaking for himself alone, he should say that there had not been given due consideration to this measure by the people of the country. He had listened to the speech of the noble Earl last night, and it appeared to him that it was like a man who had built you a house. You objected to the arrangements of the windows, and he altered them; and you objected to the colour of the bricks, and he altered them. Your objections were met, and everything was altered, until he was disposed to ask himself where was the house. He agreed with the noble Earl (Rosebery) that the Irish Question ought not to be considered from the Party standpoint. It ought not to be dealt with in the rivalries and wrangling of Parties, but by sober, wise, and deliberate conference of Englishmen determined to do their best for that which was dearest to them, while doing that which was best designed to meet legitimate aspirations. There were two ways in which great systems of States might be established—namely, federation, as in the
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    United States and Germany, and incorporation or unification, which was the method by which the British Empire had grown. In seeking to set up a separate Legislature in Ireland the Bill seemed like an attempt to put the clock back in English history. It might be that the time had come when we should seek henceforth to pursue the ideal of federation, and when this Parliament should include Representatives of the Colonies as well as of the British Isles, and if he saw in this Bill a nucleus which might afterwards be developed into Imperial federation it would have enormous fascination for him. But while, with regard to the ideal of unification, the Bill was a retrogression, with regard to the ideal of federation it was ill-advised, because it was incapable of indefinite application in other cases. A federation scheme should be great and generous in its conception and framed with a view to its adoption in the case of Scotland and Wales as well as Ireland. This was not the case with the Bill; it dealt with Ireland as an exceptional case; it did not work out the idea of unification; and it did not involve the idea of federation. For these reasons—he might say Constitutional reasons—he was not prepared to give his approval to the Bill, and hesitated to do so. They all knew the Irishmen; the finest gentlemen in the world; loved for their simplicity, their charming expressions and individuality, their honesty, hospitality, and fascinating indolence. He did not mean to say they were idle; but he must say-that out of all the races of the world they had rather a strong talent that way. When he said this, he said it with the utmost good temper, but they might have seen them as holiday travellers. But they were the most tenacious people on earth. There was no race under heaven so tenacious of their purpose and determination to have it. The religious feeling was much more deeply set in them than we had any idea of, and while we deplored religious differences we could not ignore them. It was said that ebullitions and outrages were seldom based on religious animosity; but he could not accept that view. Going back to 1798, what took place then? A number of men marched into Wexford to strike a blow for their freedom as they thought; 14,000 turned their hands against the Protestant

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    Party there and massacred them, and transformed what was intended to be a political movement into a religious one, the United Irishmen standing aloof in silent and sullen indignation. They might look forward to better times; but he did not think the time had come when they could risk the interests of the Empire under the scheme of this Bill. They could hardly understand the passionate attachment of the Irish to freedom. He made no apology for any strong language the Irish had used—everyone used strong language at times. They had all used words they were sorry for, and he thought it was an unfortunate incident of this great contest that the past had been so much raked in order to find the bitter phrases used on one side or the other. Not thus should the question be debated; if sometimes passionate words had been used on one side or the other, he remembered the words of Edmund Burke—"I pardon something to earnestness wherever I see it." Edmund Burke had said that the very Constitution laid down that when Representatives met in the House of Parliament they had no interests beyond the interests of the Empire, and local interests must of necessity be subordinated to the interests of the United Kingdom. He, therefore, must decline to accept the principle that any portion of the Empire under the dominion of Parliament was to be governed by the ideas which happened to prevail in particular localities. He made no apology for any strong language the Irish had used—we all used strong language at times. We had all used words we were sorry for, and he thought it was an unfortunate incident of this great contest that the past had been so much raked in order to find the bitter phrases used on one side or the other. Not thus should the question be debated; if sometimes passionate words had been used on one side or the other, he remembered the words of Edmund Burke—"I pardon something to earnestness wherever I see it." It was said that the apprehended dangers of the Bill were purely imaginary, and that the future was entirely safe. In 1869 he felt it his duty to work against the Disestablishment of the Irish Church, very largely on the ground that the principle on which the measure was advocated was not a sound one for the English people to act upon.
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    The doctrine was that Ireland ought to be governed according to Irish ideas, and that he felt to be so dangerous a principle that he ventured to say at the time—
    "As sure as that principle is allowed, the demand for Home Rule, or whatever they please to call it, could not in consistency be denied; for if the principle is true, then you must take it with all that follows";
    and that was exactly what had happened. If they accepted the principle that Ireland was to be governed by Irish ideas, then the day that Ireland asked for separation they were bound to give it her. There was no logical escape from that. But was it likely that the demand for separation would come? There was one item in the Bill which struck him as very strange—namely, the provision that the collection of the taxes, among other things, should for six years be in the hands of the Imperial Parliament. There was no more unpopular man in the world than the tax-collector; he was no more popular in Ireland than in England. He remembered that when a friend of his was discussing Home Rule with an Irish peasant he said—"But, you know, you will have to pay your taxes to Mr. This or That in Dublin." "Oh, dear, no!" was the reply. "Oh, but you will." "Oh, dear, no; they are every one of them far too much the gentleman to ask that." If the tax-collector was identified in the popular mind, not with the Irish Legislature sitting in Dublin, but with English rule, what chance had they of maintaining anything like the popularity of England among the people. It had been said this Bill did not change things; that under the Union Ireland had not prospered to the extent it was expected she would. Certainly the Union had had this result—that while 100 years ago the United Irishmen opposed to English rule were the men of Ulster, to-day those men were all that had been described as loyal. The statistics put forward by Lord Playfair proceeded on the old fallacy of post hoc propter hoc. The country had passed through bad and difficult times, and Ireland, so largely agricultural, had suffered greatly in her agriculture, though England had endeavoured to help her as much as she could. England had not been wanting in generosity or sympathy for Ireland, and was ready to help her in the future as in the past. But it

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    was another thing to say that these conditions had sprung from the operation of the Union. He claimed that the Union had done much for Ireland, especially in her manufacturing centres. Supposing this Bill passed the sympathy of those men would be alienated by their being placed at the mercy of the majority, and every Loyalist would be converted into a Separatist. Resolutions had been passed by the Presbyterian and other Bodies deprecating this Bill. There was some risk that this Bill would not be in any sense final, but must stir up certain jealousies, which might develop into further dangers. Therefore, he could not be one to rush forward without thought in such a matter as this, feeling that the Bill might not assuage, but might possibly accentuate difficulties, feeling the question ought not to be dealt with by one Party, but by both Parties in the State, feeling also that every step taken unwarily might land us deeper in the Serbonian bog; believing also that even though there was delay there was enough generosity and enough appreciation in the minds of Irishmen everywhere to know that there was nothing which we would not be ready to grant them in satisfaction of their legitimate aspirations so long as we kept whole that Union and that Empire which is so priceless to us and so indispensable to them.
    LORD MONKSWELLsaid, he wished he could think the right rev. Prelate was right when he spoke in his eloquent speech of the impartial judgment of that House upon the Bill. The speech seemed to him to lead to a lame and impotent conclusion. The right rev. Prelate said that matters were very bad indeed in Ireland, and that that country was hopelessly divided against itself, but he did not suggest a shadow of a remedy except that Ireland should wait. One of his arguments, indeed, was strongly in favour of Home Rule, when he talked of the passionate attachment of Ireland to freedom, and said that no people in the world were so tenacious of their opinions as the Irish people. In supporting the Second Reading of that Bill, he had no wish to make extravagant demands on noble Lords opposite who did not agree with him, and would not ask them, therefore, to share his views as to the merits of Home Rule. All he would urge upon them was that whether this Home Rule
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    policy was good or bad, it was, at all events, the best available under the circumstances, and the only one that had a chance of success. The only alternative policy suggested from the Opposition Benches was another 20 years' resolute government of Ireland. They said, no doubt with sincerity, they were eager to submit the question to the verdict of a General Election, but for that purpose they would have to put before the people this alternative policy of theirs, and they would never get a mandate to carry it out. That policy of "resolute government" had been tried and had failed. There was a time when the objections to that policy came home strongly to noble Lords on the Front Opposition Benches, though they had recanted their opinions in that respect. There was not the slightest doubt those objections would appear very serious to the democracy of England. A fatal obstacle to their obtaining such a mandate from the English people at the next General Election was the want of continuity in their Irish policy. After what happened in 1885, the people of England thoroughly disbelieved in the steadiness of their policy with regard to Ireland in any shape, and he did not think the events from 1886 to 1892 had altered their opinion. The Party opposite had not been steadfast either to Home Rule, Coercion, Revision of Judicial Rents, or Local Government for Ireland. By their own action the Party opposite had entirely cut away the ground from under their own feet, and the people would ask—"What guarantee have we that your resolute government which you ask a mandate for will be really a resolute government." He would ask those who advocated the sacred cause of the Union as against Home Rule why they had not always shown a firm front, and put aside the abhorred, detested, and accursed thing, and why they had made something like a compact or alliance with persons whom they denounced as ruffians of the deepest dye? He hoped to obtain the assent of some, at all events, of the noble Lords opposite to the statements he was about to make. Mr. Gladstone resigned on the 12th June, 1885. Three days afterwards Lord Salisbury began to form a Conservative Government, and the new Government began at once, as they were bound to do, to collect infor-

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    mation with a view to formulating a policy. The first step that the new Government took with a view of collecting that information was significant, and had given rise to a good deal of comment. On the very day after Lord Salisbury accepted Office there was sent out from the headquarters of the Conservative Party in London a circular marked private and confidential, asking how many Irish voters there were in the various constituencies where the Irish vote was strong, and whether that vote would be or not sufficiently strong to carry the election. That fact had never been denied from that day to this. The result of that Irish poll could not be announced to Parliament for nearly three weeks after the issue of the circular. Ministers met Parliament on the 6th July, presumably with the interesting information which they had obtained from the issue of that circular. The Lord Chancellor had gone fully into what followed. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach on that day announced that the Coercion Act was to lapse, and he made the statement that permanent coercion for Ireland was absolutely impossible under the circumstances. What was the next development? On July 17, in answer to an appeal from Mr. Parnell, there was a Debate on the Maamtrasna murder. In justice to the Party opposite it should be stated that many Conservative Members were thoroughly disgusted with the conduct of their Leaders in reference to the imputations they cast upon Lord Spencer and his administration of justice. The result was to persuade the Nationalist Party in Ireland that Home Rule was not so absolutely abhorrent to the Conservatives as people had supposed. That was not all. Another circumstance in connection with the Conservative policy was that on July 9, in the House of Commons, Lord Randolph Churchill was asked whether he adhered to certain opinions which he expressed in 1883 strongly denunciatory of the principle of Home Rule? His answer was—
    "Anything which I may have said at that time was perfectly justified by the special circumstances of that time, and by the amount of information I may have had in my possession."
    It might be supposed that in 1883 Lord Randolph Churchill had not the interest-
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    ing information at his disposal which had been subsequently obtained in the method indicated. Then a most important utterance was made by Lord Salisbury, at Newport, dealing with the question of Home Rule, and throwing doubts on the efficacy of coercion for putting down boycotting. He went on to say—
    "I have never seen any plan or suggestion which gives me the slightest indication that a solution of the problem had been found."
    He further said—
    "I wish it may be found, but I think we should be holding out false expectations if we avowed a belief which as yet, at all events, we cannot entertain."
    Mr. Goschen, on the 10th October, commenting on that speech said—
    "Does Lord Salisbury hope, then, that the solution of the Irish Question is to be found in the direction of federation, and that Ireland is to that extent to be separated from the United Kingdom."
    I cannot gather from this oracular sentence what the idea of the Prime Minister is upon the subject. The noble Marquess's Newport speech was followed, as was well known, on the 23rd November by the issue of the Parnellite Manifesto denouncing the Liberal Party. The Duke of Devonshire, at a dinner given to Lord Spencer on the 28th July, 1885, after saying he had no desire to dwell on the declarations made as to Irish policy by Government, said—
    "It may be the necessity of the present Government that they should rely on the Party of Mr. Parnell for the conduct of business during the present Session."
    And also that it might be their sole chance of securing a majority during the next election to co-operate with the Irish Nationalists. The noble Duke again at Belfast, on the 5th November, said—
    "We are of opinion that an offensive and defensive alliance has for some time past existed between the Conservative Party and the Party led by Mr. Parnell."
    Again, he said at Matlock—
    "He adhered to his opinion that the Conservative Party had set a bad example of political morality."
    And at a meeting of the Eighty Club, on the 5th March, 1886, the noble Duke spoke to the same effect. It might be said that a great deal had happened since 1885, and that the Leaders of the Party opposite had changed their minds—that their conduct with regard to coercion

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    from 1886 down to 1892 proved nothing as to their capacity. They knew their only chance of obtaining power was in their devotion to coercion and the Union. The steadfast action of the Government during those years showed that they had a fair share of that intelligence which kept people on the right side of the fence when they saw an infuriated bull on the other. The people could not be induced to believe in the steadfastness of the Conservative Party in any policy of Ireland. Had they any alternative course to Home Rule? Soft words could not turn away the wrath of the Irish people, who would be satisfied with nothing short of Home Rule. Would they refuse to yield to the aspirations of a high-spirited people upon whom they had lately conferred a largely-extended franchise? They had known for 700 years what it was to incur the animosity of the Irish people, and surely that experience had been long and bitter enough to justify them in doing what they could to conciliate and secure the friendship of a warm-hearted people.
    THE CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES (The Earl of MORLEY), though reluctant to trouble the House at that period of the Debate, when almost every form of argument had been used, was unwilling to give a silent vote on the question before their Lordships, especially as he was the only Member of that House who, in 1886, felt himself bound to leave the Government of that day. That was a step which no one could take with a light heart and without great sorrow, but it was a step which he had never regretted having taken. Subsequent events had confirmed the opinions upon which he acted at that time. The Bill of 1886, condemned as it was by Parliament and the country, had been condemned to a still greater degree by its authors themselves by the production of the new measure now on their Lordships' Table. He almost thought the Government might have expressed gratitude to the Unionist Party for saving them from the discredit of passing the Bill of 1886, which they had acknowledged to have been a bad Bill by their substitution of the present one. But was the measure before the House really an improvement on the former one? Did it comply with any of the tests which the Prime Minister him-
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    self and Earl Spencer had at different times laid down as the tests with which any Home Rule scheme ought to comply? The measure was not a real settlement of the question. They had been told that "provisional" was written across every page of it. In the public discussions of this subject, much had been said about giving the management of their own affairs to the Irish people. If that phrase had merely meant a delegation of definite powers to Ireland to manage her own local affairs under proper restrictions, and with adequate securities for the supremacy of Parliament, he probably should not vote as he intended to do that night. But the Bill meant far more than that. It meant giving, not a subordinate, but a coordinate Legislature and Executive to Ireland, and in doing that the scheme involved grave dangers to the Empire and jeopardised the integrity of the Constitution. There were British, and English, and Irish questions involved in this matter, and he was astonished that no stress had been laid on them by noble Lords opposite. He had listened in vain for any reference to them in the speech of the noble Earl the Secretary for Foreign Affairs, who gave but a lukewarm support, not to the Bill at all, but to the principle in the abstract; as to the principle in the concrete, he took very good care not to commit himself to a single word in it. What was the justification for the Bill? It was said that the Bill was demanded by the Representatives of the Irish people, and he did not deny it; but it was demanded by them as the right of a nation, and the noble Lord opposite who spoke last night stated in precise terms that Ireland was a nation. Why, then, were they denied national rights—for surely it was not contended that the Bill gave all that a nation was entitled to? The nationality was asserted, and, at the same time, the national aspirations had not been satisfied. If there were limits beyond which the demands of the majority should be restricted, they should be the limits of national morality and national expediency, and no Government responsible for the welfare of this realm ought to confer on any part of it rights that would endanger the safety of the Empire or the integrity of the Constitution. He would carry the argument one step further, and ask to

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    what area were these rights to be confined? Why, if these rights were granted to Ireland, should similar rights be refused to Scotland, Wales, and Yorkshire? Still more, why should the right to be maintained in union with England be refused to Ulster when she demanded it by her masses and her classes? Were their Lordships prepared to go against the experience of yesterday? Were they prepared to accept these doctrines for Scotland and Wales, and other parts of the Kingdom? As the right rev. Prelate (the Bishop of Ripon) had said, though in somewhat different form—
    "Federalism is surely a step forward, when it combines unconnected or semi-coherent communities; it is a step backward when you are disintegrating a United Kingdom."
    He would not deal with the other proposition advanced by the Government in bringing forward this Bill, that it was impossible for a British Parliament to deal fairly and justly with Irish problems. He was not there for a moment to deny that Ireland had been the victim of bad government in the past, but during the last 30 or 40 years our legislation had been just and generous towards Ireland, and he felt sure that if this unfortunate somersault had not been executed by noble Lords opposite seven years ago further liberal legislation would have been granted to Ireland in the shape for which the noble Earl (Lord Rosebery) said she had so passionate a desire—namely, local self-government. It takes generations to allay the animosities of centuries. But he would ask noble Lords opposite who talked of the impossibility of our doing justice to Ireland whether they were not somewhat to blame in fanning the flame of separation by encouraging the Irish Representatives in their hopes of getting absolute power in that country, and bribing the tenants by holding out to them that they would get their land for nothing or for prairie value? Was it by encouraging those political and pecuniary motives that the solution of the great problem of Irish difficulties would be facilitated? The noble Lord opposite last night gave the House some interesting statistics with regard to the failure of the Union. Among other things, he said that the failure of certain crops was a sign that the Union had failed. If the noble Lord examined the agricultural statistics of
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    this country he would find that the area under wheat had very much diminished. He thought that the reduction of the area under wheat might with equal logic be attributed to the Union—that the diminished yield per acre was just as much attributable to that event as the reduction of the area under potatoes. Even if the case of the Government was stronger as to Ireland, there would be the question, Would it be safe for the Empire to allow Ireland, geographically linked as she was to England, to have an independent position? He would ask the noble Earl the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to consult his naval and military advisers whether, under this Bill, the position of England would be as secure as it was now that she had the administration of Ireland. It had been said that the Act of Union was justified both by then existing external danger and by internal revolution. In the present state of Europe and of the world, was it impossible that England might be in as perilous a position at some future day as she was then? Then as to the Parliament constituted by this Bill, a question which vitally affected Great Britain. It was simply pedantry and cant to say that the voice of Great Britain was not to be consulted. When so vast a change was contemplated with regard to the retention of the Irish Members noble Lords opposite could never make up their minds what they would do. They first excluded them, then they included them for Imperial affairs, and then included them for all purposes. It seemed to him that having now nailed their weathercock to the mast they had adopted in the end the most dangerous of those proposals. No Irish matters would come before the Imperial Parliament, and yet a solid mass of Irish Members were brought there who had no local responsibilities. He would like to know what the electors of Great Britain would say when this clause was put before them, and they found that the irresponsible Members from Ireland would have larger powers in the management of Scotch affairs than Scotland herself. It would be remembered that the Reform Bill of 1884 added 500,000 to the Irish electorate, and one most important question raised on this Bill was that Ireland was very much over-represented at this present time

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    in Parliament, and that the loyal minority were very much under-represented. With regard to the loyal minority, they were in a perilous position scattered throughout the different parts of Ireland. He remembered that the Duke of Devonshire, who was then a Member of the Liberal Cabinet, used the argument that he was not inclined to attach too much importance to the exact numerical strength of the Loyalist Irishmen. In any case, he said that representation could not be very large, and the real Representatives of the loyal minority were to be found in the 550 Members for England and Scotland, the vast majority of whom agreed more closely with the minority in Ireland than with the majority. That statement had not been repudiated, and therefore he assumed that it was accepted by the Colleagues of the noble Duke; and he asked whether it was fair, now that the effect of that Reform Bill was beginning to be seen, that those men who said the Bill would expose them to spoliation and oppression, and who had stood by us in days gone by should be sacrificed? Had there been only one Chamber in the British Legislature he had some doubts as to whether the Bill would have passed it. In all the other Constitutions of the civilised world a distinction was drawn between Constitutional and fundamental laws and those which were not. We had no such distinction. The theory and practice of our Constitution was that Parliament was supreme. That being so, a very heavy responsibility rested on their Lordships. They were asked to try an experiment which they could not undo. That experiment involved surrender to the disloyal; it involved betrayal of the loyal. It involved dangers to the Empire and to the Constitution, and before it was passed their Lordships were bound to give the people of Great Britain an opportunity—the first opportunity they had had—of discussing the main lines on which the Bill was based and the manner in which it had been passed. Every effort would be made to discredit their Lordships' House; every device would be used to conceal the real effect of the measure, and to wrap it up in other measures which might make it more palatable; but, unless the flame of patriotism burned low in this country, unless our generation was oblivious of its
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    great Imperial and Constitutional traditions, he, for one, felt little doubt that the verdict of the country would support the vote their Lordships' House was going to give, and would with scorn and indignation reject this dangerous and unjust measure.
    THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY; My Lords, I feel that there is some satisfaction in occupying the position, which probably I hold, as that of the last person who will make a speech against Home Rule in the course of the present Session. But, although it is a position which has in it much of distinction and honour, it cannot be denied that there are inconveniences attaching to it. Many active and powerful minds have passed before on the path that I must follow. I am not only gleaning after gleaners, but gleaning after a long succession of gleaners who leave few ideas that I can venture to submit to your Lordships. But that consideration at least has this counterbalancing value—that, if not out of pity for your Lordships, if not out of a sense of the propriety of the situation, still out of mere poverty of ideas, it is impossible for me to detain your Lordships long upon this last critical night. I confess that throughout this Debate the one idea that has been present to my mind has been—Why have they introduced this Bill? I had hoped for some satisfaction from the various able speakers on the Government side, but, though their speeches were interesting and powerful and showed great intellectual resource, they showed that resource in nothing more remarkably than in the ingenuity with which every speaker avoided speaking of the Government Bill. The noble and learned Lord who spoke this evening made a few perfunctory remarks upon the Bill, but when he came to the matters of real conflict he was careful to point out that he did not agree with the Government on the subject. When he dealt with the retention of the Irish Members, which is an outrage upon England so enormous and so grotesque that I am surprised that it has ever found a place in any proposition emanating from a responsible Government—when he dealt with that he at once said he was not inclined to associate himself with so desperate a cause. He at once said he would have preferred some other arrangement very

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    much. Then, when he dealt with the abandonment of the landlords, with the certain ruin of a whole class to whom, if to anybody, the honour of this country is pledged that their diminished resources should be enjoyed in security and peace—when he dealt with that he said—"You did not support what we gave you in 1886, and although I think your present fate is very terrible, still you must acknowledge you have brought it on yourselves by resisting us." And the noble and learned Lord finished his account of his own intellectual position by protesting, with a vigour which I have no doubt was perfectly sincere, against anybody desiring to know what was the real opinion of any Cabinet Minister upon any Cabinet Bill. Well, the noble Lord the Foreign Secretary last night was even more instructive. I have no doubt that he had in his mind some grave important delivery worthy of the position which he occupies and of the esteem with which he is held, which should guide the Houses of Parliament along the difficult path which the perplexities of modern times have forced them to go over. But when he came to the Bill he did what I have often observed in speakers with a singular facility for the lighter and most humorous kinds of speech. He took refuge in that in order to save himself from the necessity of expressing a grave opinion upon any grave subject whatever. But I admired the skill with which the noble Lord avoided the burning subjects of the day. He was oppressed with the restrictions of the time within which his observations were compressed. He felt that it was impossible to press the House too far, and yet he gave us a full quarter of an hour discussing the tactics of the Opposition in the House of Commons, which I should have thought, of all possible subjects, was the least fitted for discussion within these walls. But the effect was such as to reduce the time at his disposal so much that when he came to the question of the Ulster objection to this Bill he simply turned over his leaves and said that time would not allow him to deal with the Ulster question. With respect to the question of the admission of 80 Members—foreigners—to take care of our English legislation, the noble Lord was equally
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    happy. He said that it was impossible for him, in view of the prejudice of the great numbers on this side, to do anything but discuss principles, and therefore he would not discuss details. And the admission of the Irish members was merely a question of detail, and therefore he would not discuss it at all. It must be admitted that we did not gain very much guidance from the speech of the Foreign Secretary. But I am not sure that in saying that I imply any derogation from the high esteem in which we hold his dexterity and skill. On the contrary, it seemed to me that the problem which he set himself to solve was, "How shall I get through an hour and a quarter's speech without undertaking any pledge which may be inconvenient to me in the future?" And if that was the problem which he set himself to solve, I am bound to say that he solved it with absolute success. There is not a word or a sentence in the noble Lord's speech which can be used against him on any future occasion, except that particularly precious remark about the dangerous character of the London County Council, to which we shall refer on future occasions. I will not speak of the noble Lord who introduced this Bill. He had a very painful position to reconcile. He had got himself, by his own confession—though one of the most chivalrous and honourable of human beings—into an admission that he had committed a very mean and treacherous act. I am quite sure that he has not intentionally committed any mean or treacherous act; but it is impossible to refuse one's sympathy to a man who by his own admission can find himself in a corner like that. But the noble Lord had a peculiar way of dealing with political opponents. Ha stated their case with great fairness; he said, "Noble Lords opposite say this and say that," and then he follows it with the formula, "I do not agree with them." Having got so far, he went no further, and he never offered any refutation of the position or arguments he impugned. With the help of that formula it was easy to construct a defence of the Government Bill, which could not be defended by any other formula whatever. I have omitted one remarkable observation of the Foreign Secretary which affects the position of the Government with which I was connected eight years ago. I

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    must say that this recalling of ancient history is rather hard on one; and it is difficult to carry one's memory back to all that happened in those times. My memory is simply prosaic, and possibly so far defective; but the noble Lord's memory is active and poetical, and it surrounded the history of the year 1885 with a brilliant atmosphere of legend, which I have no doubt will be the delight of poetical critics of the future. But I take this opportunity just to set the facts upon their true footing. The noble Lord represented that we, differing from the coercive policy of the Government of Lord Spencer, broke the continuity of that coercive policy, and thereby cut under the feet of the Liberal Party, and rendered it impossible for them to pursue a coercive policy in the future. I dislike the use of that word coercive. I dislike it, because coercion is usually used to describe the legislation which defends a Government against the political efforts of those who desire to overthrow it. That is the use which the word has obtained in every country in the world. But this is a case where the word is applied simply to the making more efficient of the Criminal Law for dealing with those criminals whom everybody condemns. There is, unfortunately, a small portion of the peasantry of Ireland who have formed this ideal for themselves—a general establishment and sanction of fraudulent insolvency, sustained by attempts at murder. And to prevent the application of that novel ethical code there is no doubt that from time to time the powers of the ordinary Courts have been increased and their efficiency in detecting and punishing crime augmented. If you like to call that coercive you may; but it is not coercive in the sense in which the word has been applied in every political disquisition during the last century in Europe. But, passing from that divergence, the noble Lord the Foreign Secretary stated or implied that in 1885 we had summarily interrupted the current of coercive legislation, as I have defined it, and that thus it was impossible for the Liberal Party to undertake such legislation again. What really happened was this. There was a terminable Crimes Act. It was an Act which was to terminate in 1885. It was an Act which was to terminate when the Session of 1885 terminated. It may have been the
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    intention of the Government of that day to renew it; but on the 6th of June, when the Division was taken by which their official existence was terminated, they had not produced upon the Table of Parliament a single clause in order to revive and perpetuate the law to which they were supposed to attach so much importance. If the Bill was not perpetuated it was their fault. They had a majority in Parliament. We had only this consideration to deal with; we had not the majority of Parliament. It was open to us to take the ordinary Constitutional resource and dissolve at once. That would not have given the Crimes Act to us immediately, but it would have given us that Act later. But the question was whether, in view of the Reform Bill which had just been passed, it being certain that another Dissolution would be necessary within a few mouths, it was justifiable to inflict on the people of this country and Members of Parliament that amount of inconvenience in order to accelerate the necessary strengthening of the provisions of the law by a few months. We thought, in view of the then position of Ireland, that the autumn might be safely passed without any such drastic measure which would have created such great inconvenience; and before we resigned, before our position was attacked, a Representative of our Government in the House of Commons had announced our intention to strengthen the Criminal Law. Those, therefore, who say that they changed their opinions because we had not been sufficiently prompt in reinforcing the Criminal Law forget that they did not change their opinions until after the declaration of Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, after that miserable excuse, such as it was, had been taken from them. But what would you think of any statesman who had announced his attachment to the great principle of union between the two countries, and was dependent on the question of whether his political opponents had revived or had not revived for two or three months certain provisions of the law? What would Mr. Pitt have thought if he could have foreseen that his distinguished relative in the present intended so to guide his political conduct that he was willing to shatter at a blow the whole edifice which Mr. Pitt had raised, because the Tories by delaying criminal legisla-

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    tion for a few months had cut the ground from under the feet of the Liberal Party. I confess that the excuse seems to me a sadder remark of the degeneracy of political opinion than all the tergiversation which has taken place during the lamentable eight years through which we have passed. There was yet another defender on the Government side, Lord Ribblesdale. His view, at all events, had the advantage of being so remarkable that I do not think that anybody else had taken it before, or that any one else will take it hereafter. He belongs to what may be called the noble army of confessors in this Debate. Confession is a very interesting element in literature. From St. Augustine to Rousseau, from Rousseau to Lord Ribblesdale, it is a most interesting record of the working of individual minds. But he seems to have conceived the idea that if there was anything in the Union, anything in the policy which Mr. Pitt had taken up 90 years ago after the experience of centuries, it ought to be established and proved by the popularity which it would win among Irish agitators within the space of six years, and when he found with inconceivable surprise that Mr. Healy and Mr. Sexton and their followers were not impressed with the advantages of resolute government in Ireland he at once concluded that Mr. Pitt was wrong, and turned round with all the vigour which a Gladstonian Peer might be expected to display. But I would represent to him that he must not commit the very ordinary mistake of imagining that all men are like himself. You cannot count on the maintainers of Nationalist or Fenian or Moonlighting opinion in Ireland changing their opinion with the rapidity which we have been happy to see Gladstonian Peers and commoners have been able to exercise during the last eight years. Alertness and agility are always admirable qualities. We always desire to see them exercised whether by mind or body, but the peculiar rapidity with which this exercise of turning Dervishes has been exerted by the Gladstonian Party is peculiar to itself, and cannot be paralleled in any portion of the annals of this country, or any other country of which I have ever heard. That was not the most remarkable part of Lord Ribblesdale's speech. The most remarkable part of Lord Ribblesdale's speech was that which it did
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    not contain. It did not contain one single reference to the Bill which he was put up to defend. Being a man of great ingenuity, and not shrinking evidently from intellectual paradox, it is very remarkable that he did not attempt to establish the value of one single clause in the Bill which had been committed to his care to recommend to the House. My Lords, I feel that we are in some difficulty owing to these peculiar tactics on the part of Her Majesty's Government. Of course, if they like to move that a Bill should be read a second time, and then say, in a half whisper, "But we cannot bear it" all the time; it places, I will not say the votes, but the arguments of the House in considerable difficulty, because, though our votes, as we are happy to believe, will entirely sustain the secret wishes of the supporters of the Government, it is very difficult for us to argue against them when we know they absolutely agree with us on every point. Well, my Lords, I ask myself again, "Why have they brought in this Bill?" We have obtained no information from the speeches which they have delivered. I am not surprised at it. But have we any information from earlier discussions? We used to hear something about the Colonies. We were told that there was the remarkable case of Quebec, where the grant of a Home Rule Bill had produced absolute agreement between classes that were formerly divided. I have some doubt as to the historical value of that illustration. I am told that Quebec is not that perfect Garden of Eden which some would induce us to imagine, but that the minority is being crowded out by the majority, and will very soon disappear altogether. I am told also that in Quebec alone of Her Majesty's Possessions on that Continent, a large Party has, through its Leader, avowed treasonable views with respect to the connection of the Colony with the Crown. I should not, therefore, be inclined to take Quebec for my example, even if it were in any degree relevant. But is it relevant? Is it possible to compare the position of a Constitutional Colony under the Crown with the position you propose to establish for Ireland under this Bill? Has there been for the last century any statesman so bold that he would propose to Parliament that a Colony should not only

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    enjoy autonomy such as the British Colonies enjoy, but should also have the privilege of sending 80 or 100 Members to the Imperial Parliament, representing no interests in England, bound by no attachment to England, lying under no responsibility with respect to the possible application of the laws passed here to the community they represent, and yet possessing an absolute vote, a vote as large as that of any of the Representatives of the country, on all questions which in the relations of life concern the people of this country often most deeply? My Lords, it is absurd. Such a proposition would not only have "counted out" a man; it would have sent him to Bedlam. The suggestion is inconceivable, that the interjection of 80 foreigners, who will suffer in no degree, and whose constituents will not suffer from anything they do, should have a special, isolated, and distinct privilege, due not to their character or their achievements in the past, of determining the position of the English Government. It is a matter of intense importance, for they attempt to tell you that this Home Rule is recommended by colonial experience. But colonial experience means that foreign affairs shall be given to England and domestic affairs shall be given to a colony. Never in any quarter of the world did the wildest theorist suggest that 80 Members for a Colony should have the power of legislating on English subjects and interests. That is one of the grounds on which we were told that Home Rule was desirable; but that is a theoretic ground. There was one practical ground which I used to hear in the past, I do not hear much of it now—namely, that we should get rid of all Irish questions and friction with Irish Members. I do not think there is any suggestion of that kind now. How are we to get rid of Irish questions? We have provided for 80 Irish Members, who must have something to talk about, and who must establish their position in the House of Commons in order to make themselves marketable wares in their negotiations with Ministers, and are we to expect that they will be treated as nothing less than foreign adjuncts to the British Parliament? Difficulty has undoubtedly arisen from many questions connected with Irish Government, but hitherto Irish questions have not included some of the matters which you have pro-
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    vided for discussion in the future Irish Legislature if it should exist. There is the religious question. You have provided that there is to be nothing in the nature of a religious establishment or of religious denominational education; these are put out of the power of the Irish Legislature. I am not discussing the wisdom or the unwisdom of such restrictions; but I do not imagine that that is the way to peace and quietness on Irish Questions. Your 80 Members sent mainly by Archbishop Walsh will not be quiet on the question of whether denominational education is to be allowed in Ireland, or whether the existing system is to be overset. They will not be silent on the question whether the Roman Catholic Church ought or ought not to be endowed. I am not saying whether it is wise or foolish, but you are merely deceiving yourselves if you imagine you can shut these things out from the Irish Parliament and allow 80 Irish Members to sit in the House of Commons, if you imagine that you can get rid of the Irish question by so contradictory a policy as that. Again, take the question of Free Trade. In this country we support free Trade on account of the benefits it has conferred on certain industries; but it has been a sentence of death to agriculture in many parts of the country. How will Ireland look at Free Trade? She has no manufactures; she is all agricultural, and if an Irish Parliament asks itself how it stands with regard to the question of Free Trade I am afraid the answer must be very similar to that which was made by an Irish juryman who, finding himself alone in his opinion in the box, said he had never before met with 11 men so obstinate. We are absolutely alone. I do not say we are wrong by any means; but do you imagine you will shut out the question of Free Trade from discussion by an Irish Legislature, and that, with 80 Members in the House of Commons, without employment and free to do as they like, you have made any provision for getting rid of Irish friction and preventing Irish waste of time? The Irish Question will be with you as it has been in the past, only more intensely than in the past; and it will be so as the result of the provisions you have deliberately adopted. In the speeches of noble Lords opposite I see no hope of

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    escape from Irish friction. I see nothing in the false, misleading, and wholly fallacious parallel instituted with the Colonies to explain the object and aim which the Government have in view in proposing this Bill to the House. But what appears to me to be visible through all their arguments is that it is a policy of despair. They say—"We have not known how to succeed, and we must try something nobody has tried before." That is the position in which their arguments stand. It is true they are proposing something nobody has tried before; but they have no right, in resorting to the policy of despair, to ask you to take a step which involves the existence of the happiness and prosperity of a very largo minority of the Irish people and of those who are distinguished by prosperity, by industry, by education, and by success. They have no right to ask you to make these things a subject of experiment, and to set them on the hazard, to be destroyed if they fail, in order to carry out a policy of despair because we have failed. Have we failed? Has the existing state of things failed? The state of things between England and Ireland is this. Ireland is a country which from the first has been deeply divided to the base by perpetual differences and conflicts. It is a society in which unity has never existed. When the English came seven centuries ago they did not diminish these divergencies, but they did not increase them; they existed as they had existed before. When the era of religious conflict arrived it was not true that the differences were caused by religion, but the differences assumed a religious character. They did not differ because they differed on religion, but their views upon religion lent themselves to the native constant, incurable differences and quarrelsomeness of the race. And so it passed through the era of religious dissension, and then came the period of representative Government. Representative Government is a splendid instrument of human happiness when the community is so homogeneous that division on one point shall not imply division on another; but that men will, according as each question is raised, range themselves according to their opinions, and give their voices for the benefit of themselves and of the community without passion,
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    antipathy, or prejudice. But when there is a deep division, a division of race or a division of religion, a division which no experience can efface, a division which men will not give up on account of any lower secular motive, a division which goes from father to son and lasts from generation to generation, a division which rests upon tradition and sentiment and not upon any mere pursuit of individual interest, then representative institutions, if they are applied without a corrective, are the most dangerous curse that can be inflicted upon such a community. They continue, they deepen, they intensify those divisions, and ascendency, on one side or the other as the circumstances of the age may give to cither side the predominance—ascendency and oppression are the results of representative government applied to a community so divided if there is no corrective. The only possible corrective is the fusion into a larger community in which such divisions have no influence. When the rebellion of '98 was over, and the miscarriage of that wild, chivalrous, but most unwise dream of Grattan had been exposed, Mr. Pitt had to consider, with the centuries behind him to guide him, how the peace of Ireland was to be insured. To do it with a strong hand was not possible; the date had passed for that. It might have been done a century or two centuries before, but in his day the thing was no longer possible, and no longer desirable if it had been possible. He felt that the only remedy was to fuse these conflicting parties, whom nothing could bring together, in the ranks of a larger community, where their peculiar subject of conflict was unknown, and where, therefore, in a, common assembly the issues that were raised upon them could be impartially and equitably judged. That was the philosophy of his policy. Has it failed? It was not fairly tried. There were no words in the speech of the noble Earl the Foreign Secretary that I so thoroughly agreed with as when he dwelt upon the fact that Mr. Pitt's experiment was never fairly tried. If Mr. Pitt could have repealed the Catholic disabilities, if he could have endowed the Roman Catholic priesthood, if he could have abolished or commuted the tithe in Ireland, I have no doubt that all the troubles which have haunted

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    the connection between England and Ireland would have been a mere matter of imagination and never passed into history. It was one of the most terrible blows in our history that fate has dealt us the decree that at that moment there should be a Sovereign whose disease was too far progressed to allow him to judge soundly of the circumstances of the moment, and whose disease was not far enough advanced to allow the decision to be placed in other hands. It was a fearful, fearful calamity, and we have staggered under it ever since. But when you judge whether the Union has succeeded you must ask yourselves how long has the true experiment of the Union been in force. The union which Mr. Pitt dreamt of was a union from which the thorn of religious bitterness should have been extracted. The first, the essential step, was not taken till '29; the next step, the commutation of tithe, was not taken till '35; the last step was taken in a manner which, to my mind, was the worst manner, and was not the manner intended by Mr. Pitt; I mean the establishment of equality between Catholics and Protestants—it was not taken in the manner intended by Mr. Pitt, but by that time the Liberal Party had passed under the control of one of its most pitiless and exacting masters, the Nonconformist conscience. I heartily wish concurrent endowment could have been adopted, but it was too late. But at all events, badly or wisely, the full scheme which Mr. Pitt had in view was not carried out till 1870. Therefore, when you judge his work, you must judge it, not as it passed from his hand, not as he intended it to operate; you must judge it as it was affected by the lamentable disturbing influences of the time through which it must needs pass, and yet, with all that deduction, will you tell me that Union has not been a success? I listened very carefully and with very great interest to the noble Lord, Lord Playfair. I was very much interested at his efforts to prove that the Union had not been a success; for I knew that if any man could do it he could. If anybody could have proved that it was the noble Lord, and with the figures and statistics and facts which he turned and waved in his hands he could produce any result or impression which he pleased,
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    according to the impulse which he gave them by his own deft manipulation. Yet all he proved was that Ireland had not improved so fast as England and Scotland, that is the whole proof he could give of the failure of the Union. I say, with national humiliation, that England has not improved so fast as Scotland during that period, but that is the result of that extreme superiority in respect of all money getting affairs which is shown by all those who are born north of the Tweed. So it is in Ireland, where undoubtedly nature has not gifted the people with those powers of rapid progress which are displayed both north and south of the Tweed; but the proof is this: Living is happier, houses are better, wages are higher, prosperity is greater, trade has risen, cultivation is more extended; and, if I may turn to the moral side, though we have dark spots like Clare, Kerry, and Limerick, there is no question that it is impossible to compare the Ireland of 1893 with the Ireland of 1801 in respect of order, of law, and of property. The Lord Chancellor himself admitted to-night that though much was said of the impossibility of landlords obtaining rent, and of the injury to landed property which has been caused, yet over five-sevenths of Ireland at this time, amid all the circumstances of depression which we know so well, amid falling markets and inclement skies, rent is better paid than it is in any part of England. Could you have said that at the beginning of the century, and if there is that change, have you not a right to say that the Union bears its part in the glory and the honour which that change demands? That being so, what reason have you for this experiment, whose details nobody will defend, whose results nobody can foresee? What reason have we for it? Lord Ribblesdale was very much struck with the fact that the result of our legislation was that all the Nationalist leaders did not at once fall into our arms. As far as I have read human history, I do not think that has been the way of insurrectionary leaders. My impression is that they have, generally speaking, stuck to their opinions, and that though facts may have left them, they have never left the facts. They have never given themselves up to their opponents so long as there was a shred to fight for. It is an utter blunder,

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    a blunder of the gravest character, to look at the contentment of the people as exhibited at the polls for a test of the success of your commercial, economical, or political legislation. It will be a test two generations hence. The grandsons will love you because you have been just to the grandfathers; but it takes long to change the opinion of a nation, of a people, or of a Party. Gladstonian Peers imagine that it takes only as long to change the opinions of a Party as it takes to change their own, but that is a lamentable error. The mass of mankind are much stauncher than that. Men hold to their beliefs and will not desert them, and a community changes its opinion not in any great degree by a change in the opinion of the individuals of which it is composed, as by the fact that the men who have grown up in one set of opinions and clung to thorn die off, and others who had no cause to form those opinions succeed and take their place. That is the history of a change in the opinion of a community; and to ask that within the limits of the Septennial Act results of a salutary policy shall be depicted in the change of opinion which local politicians may show, is to exhibit absolute ignorance of the working of human nature in the political world, whether in its highest or its lowest developments. Men do not change like that. I maintain, therefore, that the Union has not failed. It has had terrible difficulties to contend with. It has had the destruction of the food of the people, a destruction unparalleled in any nation, a destruction which has left in the mind of Lord Playfair the somewhat simple-minded wonder why there are not so many potatoes produced after the famine as there were before. He evidently thinks the aphis vastator was a mere agent of the British Government. Ireland has had to contend with a change of commercial policy. Free Trade has hit her very hard; yet in spite of these things, in spite of the utter destruction of the food of the people, in spite of the religious thorn which it has taken 70 years to extract, the Union is marked in all its progress in the moral, legal, social, economical, and commercial position of the people, which I should have thought would have warned the most careless and the most hasty from declaring that it was a failure. If it is not a failure,
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    what rashness it is to shatter this structure in order to plunge into new experiments of which you know nothing, and the result of which you have no means of predicting. I heard again and again the demand on the other side for some policy of ours. I will repeat it, and I will give the policy which we recommend in the language of two great men. One shall be the language of Mr. Gladstone—"Patient continuance in well-doing," and the other shall be the language of President Lincoln—"Keep on pegging away." Those are the lines you have to follow, and you will follow them more safely than these rash experiments with machinery which you have never tried, with theories which you have never tested, and by placing weapons in the hands of men who have always hated you. I am told by the Colonial Secretary that the first object of government is the satisfaction and contentment of the governed. That is a fine copy-book formula, but, like all copy-book formulas, it requires to be corrected in accordance with particular circumstances. There may be cases in which other people besides the governed have an interest in the condition of the country to which reference is made. But my first objection to this valuable formula is that it is physically incapable of being applied in the case of Ireland. I will defy you to devise any system of government that shall be in the true and literal sense to the satisfaction of the governed, for three-fifths of the governed will like it and two-fifths of the governed will detest it. It is an absurdity, because it is impossible. The mere existence of the loyalist minority, the mere existence of Ulster, would condemn that copy-book formula and make it impossible of application to Ireland. Do not, I entreat you, dismiss as a mere figment of the imagination, or as the mere outcome of a heated brain, the apprehensions which the Ulster people have of the government which is to be established in Ireland under this Bill. I am told that those who will form the Government will be the elected of the people of Ireland, but I know they will be the men, if this Bill passes, who have achieved the victory to which the Government will be due. Go to Belgium, Italy, Greece, America, you will find that wherever there has been a revolution the men who have made the revolu-

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    tion have been the great men after the revolution has been effected; they have been the men who have been placed in power. Well, do you really know who the men are who will be placed in power? Our recollections disappear somewhat rapidly in these times; but you know that a huge number of them have had their connection with crime investigated by a Special Commission, and that the exact nature of that connection has been recorded by Judges of the highest capacity and undoubted integrity, and no shred of evidence had ever been produced to negative the decision that was pronounced. This is the Report of the Special Commission—
    "We find that the respondents did not denounce the system of intimidation which led to crime and outrage, but persisted in it with knowledge of its effects."
    That is the judicial decision, given after months of investigation, and you know that among the leading men who are urging forward this Bill a large number were respondents in this examination. There were 38 men, whose names I have here, and who are now Members of Parliament, upon whose brows that condemnation was stamped—38 men, and remember, this Bill passed the Third Reading by 34 majority. It is a Bill which has not only been passed by a South-Irish majority, not only been passed by men elected by the carefully-watched illiterates, not only passed under the orders of Archbishop Walsh, but passed by men on whom this criminal brand had been placed by three of the highest Judges. Is not Ulster right to be afraid? Would you yourselves wish to submit to such domination? Would you not struggle against it to the last? Would you not make every effort in your power to prevent yourselves, your families, your fortunes, and your fame from being placed in such hands as these? And yet this is what you are invited to do by passing this Bill. My Lords, my time is running short, and the only other point to which I would draw your attention is the large Imperial character of this question. The Lord Chancellor said that this Bill would reconcile to us the people, the statesmen, of America, and that if we went to war we should not have to reckon with so hostile an America as we might otherwise expect. But is there not another possible view of the matter? Supposing
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    the effect of this Bill were to place Ireland in the hands of those who detested us, and that trouble arose with America, should we not then be in an infinitely worse position than any which a continuance of the present state of things could possibly put us into? Remember the great privilege of the position of Great Britain. On some sides our coasts lie against those of Continental Powers. But against the great mass of our coasts on the west and north-west we have our own territory in our own possession, and we are practically safe from any attack, and especially in these days when the neighbourhood of harbours is essential for naval action, if one has cause to anticipate it. That is our present strategical position, and it is one of the finest strategical positions in the world. Give over Ireland to your enemies, to those who hate you. Let the ordinary government of Ireland be conducted by those who are hostile to you—I do not say it need ever reach the point of civil war, let it be simply hatred and hostility—then all those harbours of Ireland which lie over against the harbours of this country would be at the mercy of the enemy who attacked you, and unless you chose to undertake the task of reconquering Ireland and shattering by mere military force the structure you are now so painfully building up, you would have no security from the sympathy which the Irish in command of their own harbours could give to the Navies or privateers or cruisers by whom your trade might be threatened. I have seen a paper by a very distinguished naval officer, who knows his work very well, and who says that in any future war the trade route of England could no longer pass along the Channel—the batteries of torpedoes that line the opposite coast would be too dangerous; that our trade route must be taken to the Western ports of England, to Liverpool and Glasgow and Bristol, and that as long as Ireland is ours and we can be sure that she will not join the enemy, so long will such transference be safe and right. I am not speaking of good will. I accept the proposition that we should in either case have Ireland's good will; but if we leave things as they are we should have the control of our coasts. If we pass this measure the control of the coasts would pass to those who wish nothing so much as our suffer-

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    ing and downfall. It is surely very rash, nothing can be rasher, than for mere imaginary objects to run such a risk. Nothing could be rasher than to sacrifice that which we deem our secular strength and privilege and to expect that on the other side of the Channel we shall be exposed to the attack of no enemy. That you are asked to give up with no other security for your well-being and safety than this wretched optimist trust in the good will of the people upon whom you have to depend, a trust that would be madness if they were ordinary men, because the incitement and suggestion of making a profit out of it would be too great—a trust that is something more than madness when you are dealing with a race of people and an organisation that for centuries has hated you and longed to obtain your downfall. Those are great concessions. My time is passed. I will not urge you further, but I will ask before I conclude to call back to you what the opinion in this country used to be before these terrible changes took place, when the Liberal Party was still in the hands of Liberal politicians, and not in the hands of deserters who had traversed every zone of political opinion. When the Liberal Party was in the hands of Liberal politicians we might distrust them and disagree with them as to local and interior questions, but we felt sure that in all Imperial questions their heart beat as true to the Empire of England as ours. Let me read to you what was said by a man who was no Orangeman, by a man who lost his own scat at the most critical period of his political life because he would befriend the Roman Catholics, by a man who was armed with every instrument of historical knowledge, and whose opinion was deeply pledged on the side of the Liberal Party, and against those who sit on this side of the House. I will read to you what he said upon the maintenance of the Union, and I will ask you on which side he would be sitting if he had now to take part in politics. When he uttered these words he was sitting on the Liberal side, and Mr. Gladstone was sitting on the Conservative side. Lord Macaulay said—
    "The repeal of the Union we regard as fatal to the Empire, and we will never consent to it—never, though the country should be surrounded by dangers as great as those which threatened her when her American Colonies and France and Spain and Holland were leagued
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    against her, or when the armed neutrality of the Baltic disputed her maritime rights—never, though another Buonaparte should pitch his camp in sight of Dover Castle, never till all has been staked and lost, never till the four quarters of the world have been convulsed by the last struggle of the great English people for their place among the nations."
    I read that as the motto which I hope the Unionist Party will adopt. If England withdraws her mandate; if England tells us she wishes that this horror should be consummated, I agree that a different state of things will have arisen. I believe that to be impossible, and that, as long as England is true to herself now or on any future occasion, if you allow this atrocious, this mean, this treacherous revolution to pass, you will be untrue to the duty which has descended to you from a splendid ancestry, you will be untrue to your highest traditions, you will be untrue to the trust that has been bequeathed to you from the past, you will be untrue to the Empire of England.
    THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (The Earl of KIMBERLEY): If the noble Marquess thought fit at the outset of his speech to make some apology to your Lordships for having to address you after so many speeches have been heard, not only here, but in the other House and all over the country, on this well-worn theme, I feel sure I shall have the sympathy of those whom I address in the task I have to perform. The noble Marquess commenced; with some criticism of the speeches which have been delivered from this side of the House; and he, as was very natural, directed his principal observations to the brilliant speech of my noble Friend the Foreign Secretary. My noble Friend is like one of those actors who possess in the highest degree both a tragic and comic vein, and if he commenced with a number of witty observations which, I am sure, delighted the House, he did not forget to turn in the latter part of his speech to the graver aspect of the subject. I do not think it is possible that any more impressive appeal could have been addressed to this House than was addressed to it on the general policy of the question by my noble Friend. The noble Marquess taunted the noble Earl with not going into the details of the Bill, and I am glad, as it relieves me of a great many observations upon it; but

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    the noble Marquess has followed his example, and he has confined himself almost exclusively to the question of the general policy on which this Bill is based. This is a question of principle. This House is about to divide on the question, Shall there be or shall there not be any measure of self-government for Ireland? [Opposition cries of "No, no!"] What do I hear? No, no! Is it, then, possible, after all, that the Conservative Party contemplates at some future time some system of self-government for Ireland? That is a precious cheer. The question which has been put to us in speech after speech is whether there shall be any measure of self-government for Ireland. The noble Marquess did not follow the example of the noble Duke who objected to the historical disquisitions of my noble Friend. I think historical disquisitions upon this Bill are not only useful and interesting, but are absolutely indispensable to the well understanding of the question before us. The noble Marquess referred to the taunts which have been addressed from this side of the House as to what we term the coquetting of the Conservative Party with the Home Rule Party in 1885. The noble Marquess said—and, of course, there is no higher authority—that it is an entire mistake to suppose that they gave up in principle what he objects to our terming the coercive policy. He said that circumstances created by the Government of Mr. Gladstone, of which I was a Member, rendered it impossible when he came into Office during that year to continue the Crimes Act. I will refer to what Lord Carnarvon said on the occasion when, as Lord Lieutenant, he took the unusual and inconvenient course of declaring the Irish policy of the Government instead of the Premier. Lord Carnarvon did not say one single word in his speech about the reason for not renewing the Crimes Act being the impossibility of passing it. He said—
    "I believe for my part that special legislation of this kind is inexpedient."
    That is a declaration of general policy and principle. The only other remark he made was curious when we remember what Lord Salisbury's Government actually did. He said—
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    "More than being undesirable, I hold that such legislation is practically impossible if it is to be continually and indefinitely enacted."
    Could the policy of Lord Salisbury's Government be described in words more accurate or condemned in words more explicit? At that moment Lord Carnarvon was recognised as the exponent of the policy of the Conservative Government, and therefore his must be the view which the Government took. The noble Marquess finds it convenient to forget all that has passed. Of course, I accept the statements made from that Bench that there was no compact with the Irish Party. When men of honour tell me that I am bound to believe it. But I say that the course they took was an extremely unfortunate one, and one which must have led to much misconstruction, because there was a combination of circumstances which showed that a change of policy was singularly adapted to conciliate the Irish Party and to bring about that support which would no doubt be very convenient to them. I do not attach much importance to the words used by the noble Marquess at Newport. I have often studied those words, and I think that it was a very carefully-guarded speech. But, besides Lord Carnarvon's declaration, there was something much more significant. I have no wish to use very hard words, though very hard words are used against us. But there was the Maamtrasna affair, and a meaner action than the course taken by the Opposition in connection with that affair was never taken by any political Party. Their conduct then was the main indication of what their wishes and intentions were. Now, I will turn to more ancient but very instructive history—that of the Act of Union. I cannot mention the Union without remembering what was said by the Duke of Argyll. He used an argument which, if it had not proceeded from his lips, I should have called grotesque. When he spoke of the Union having been carried by bribery and corruption, he said that Mr. Pitt was merely "buying out corruption." Did anyone ever hear such a ridiculous contention? What a pitiful excuse for Mr. Pitt! To think that a great statesman should be defended by the argument that it was a morally defensible and accountable position to bribe for the purpose of buying out bribery! Then the noble

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    Duke said that we were just as corrupt, because whenever a Party offered measures which were likely to conciliate votes, that Party was corrupt. In the same way, therefore, the Irish Land Act, and the Congested Districts Act, and the Light Railways Act were all attempts to bribe the Irish Members. These arguments only require to be mentioned for it to be seen that they have no weight. But the argument of the noble Marquess is this—that the Union failed because it was not accompanied by the measures with which Mr. Pitt desired it to be accompanied. It is impossible to be certain in such a matter; but as a defence of Mr. Pitt, that is a complete argument. That great statesman had a great policy, and only a part of that policy was allowed to be adopted. But we have not to deal with what would have happened if something had been done which was not done. It is no good saying what would be the state of things if Mr. Pitt had been allowed to carry Catholic Emancipation, the redemption of tithes, the endowment of the Catholic religion, and other measures. None of these things were done; and now we have to deal with things as they are. What are the facts? The facts are these, that the Union, though passed 93 years ago, leaves us in the position of having to consider the condition of Ireland. What is the test of the success of a policy? The test is, "Have you a contented nation; have you subjects of the Crown who accept the system of government under which they live cheerfully and loyally?" By that test the Union must be tried; but instead of this being the condition of affairs we are told that you have two hostile nations in Ireland. One of them is steeped in the old doctrine of ascendency. ["No!"] The noble Lord who says "No" has not studied the history and the condition of Ireland. The other nation, no doubt, has been frequently disloyal, always unquiet and frequently resorting to practices which we all condemn, because they do not respect the law, not looking upon the law as their defender but as their oppressor. Is that a satisfactory state of things, or a satisfactory result of the Union? How long are we to go on in this way? A noble Lord spoke of hope, but are we to go on listening to that flattering tale for the
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    next 100 years? I do not call that statesmanship; I call it an absolute neglect of the facts of the case, and a refusal to look at the facts as they are. What are our reasons for our change of policy? It is not pleasant, it is not agreeable, to stand up before your fellow-countrymen and say that you have changed your opinions; but I say that it requires much more courage to change your opinions than to remain consistent in your opinions; and frequently the truest statesmanship is not to persevere in that which experience has shown to be wrong, but to have the courage, as great statesmen have had the courage before, on looking at the facts as they are and to say—"No; we find that we were wrong, and we no longer can counsel our countrymen to go in a wrong direction, but we will tell you fairly and honourably what is the best for the nation." Everything that could possibly be held out to us would have persuaded us to take the opposite course. There was not only the loss of political friends, but great social dissensions were created in this country which place many men in a position of extreme unpleasantness. We have been told that we took this course because we sought Office; but if we did so we were not very successful in our efforts, because we passed six years in the cold shade of Opposition. Do noble Lords believe that instead of being actuated by motives to serve the nation to the best of our capacity we were actuated by a miserable petty feeling to get into some place in order to receive a salary. After long years of experience we saw that the system of Government had not succeeded in Ireland, and we saw, as we believed, new evidence that there is not contentment under our system. Election after election there was returned a very large majority of Members who held one opinion opposed to our system. In these circumstances, we thought it to be our duty to propose a change. But I may, perhaps, be permitted to say something based on my own experience. We are told that this change of policy is really impossible because of the character of the men to whom we should have to entrust the new system of government in Ireland. It is a long time ago, but when I was entrusted with the Government of Ireland I had to deal

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    with the Fenian conspiracy. I do not suppose that noble Lords think I sympathise with attempts at rebellion. I put those attempts down sternly and without the smallest hesitation; and so I would, if need be, again. But if you ask me whether I regard all those Fenians as criminals in the ordinary sense of the word, I say that it never entered into my mind so to regard them. I knew there were many desperate men among them, and I also knew that many of them were true Irish patriots who, though mistaken in their views, were not criminals in the ordinary sense. They were conspirators, as there have been conspirators before, and in other and more favourable circumstances these men might have served their country and their Crown with honour and success. We are told that Irish Members have been branded by the Parnell Commission. I know what pleasure it gives noble Lords to cite the Parnell Commission. I say of all unjust proceedings to crush a political Party that was the most unconstitutional that was ever adopted. I have never had but one opinion on the subject. Over and over again the majority of the people in Ireland have been spoken of as our enemies. Enemies! They are our fellow-countrymen, subjects of the Queen, and they are to be regarded as our enemies! The word is frequently used. ["No, no!"] It is of no use to say "No"; they have often been described as such in this House and out of it. You know perfectly well that speech after speech has been made, in which the Irish people have been spoken of as our enemies. I will not say you used, although I believe I could quote words that were used in this Debate, but, at all events, you used such words that showed you regarded the Irish as your enemies. Is it likely you will govern Ireland with success if you have such feelings towards a large portion of the Irish people? The Irish have been branded with crime and spoken of as men who would rob landlords, and who were not fit to be trusted with free government. Then why did you trust them with it? Why did you give them equal votes with their fellow-subjects? I remember when the Ballot Act was passed I said that for the first time you would know what the true opinion of the Irish people was, and you would find out
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    how strong the national feeling was You cannot now treat the Irish people as hostile without acknowledging that the government of Ireland is practically impossible except by force. Before referring to Ulster I wish to make an apology to the late Lord Chancellor of Ireland for referring to his speech as one of bluster and brag. On reflection, I am satisfied those words have no application to his speech, and I withdraw unreservedly what I said. When the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Londonderry) said that Ulster did not indulge in bluster and brag, I exclaimed "Oh!" which seemed to astonish him. I will read to the House one or two passages from the report of a meeting at Killyman, in the County of Tyrone. The Rev. Leslie Carter, of Armagh, said—
    "They, the Protestants of the North, would march to the House of Commons and compel their enemies to be silent while their Representatives were speaking. If Barrett was executed for blowing up a prison the time might not be far distant when, for attempting to blow up our venerable Protestant Constitution, Gladstone and his co-conspirators might be hanging as high as Haman."
    The Rev. H. Henderson said—
    "The Government were driving the Protestants into civil war, and if they pursued their present policy they would have another Derry and another Boyne."
    The Rev. R. C. Donnel said—
    "He knew they were perfectly ready to stand by their colours, and that there were men on the platform who were ready to lead them forth against the enemy."
    THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY: Will the noble Earl give the date?
    THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: These words were uttered on the 1st of June, 1869, in relation to the Disestablishment Bill.
    THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY: When I said Ulster never blustered or bragged I was alluding to the Union.
    THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: I have quoted this to show that on that occasion, at all events, Ulster did bluster, but did nothing whatever. I am not in the least dismayed by bluster, and I am certain that the noble Marquess (Londonderry) would be the first person to despise us if he thought we should be intimidated in the smallest degree in doing what we think is our duty by any threat that

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    100,000 or any other number of men were to meet together, although it may be unpleasant for the noble Marquess to be reminded of it. I think it was the Duke of Argyll who spoke of this measure as a revolutionary one. But I think the word revolutionary might be applied better in reference to another matter we have heard of. It is no doubt a very difficult and a very grave subject to speak of—the right of rebellion. Now, I am not one of those who will assert that in no circumstances whatever can there be a moral right to rebel, but it is a new thing to me at least that men who have been responsible Ministers of the Crown should use such language as that adopted by Mr. Arthur Balfour at Belfast on April 4 last, when he declared that no rational or sober-minded man would say that—
    "What is justifiable against tyrannical kings may not under certain circumstances be justifiable against a tyrannical majority."
    Do you think that language of that kind is calculated to maintain the peace and the order of Ireland, especially when it is spoken by one who has been a Minister of the Crown? I do not say that Ireland ought to be governed as a Colony; Ireland is too close to this country, and it is for that reason we do not propose in this Bill to govern Ireland as a Colony. I was surprised to hear the noble and learned Lord (Lord Halsbury) speak of paper securities as perfectly worthless.
    LORD HALSBURY: I think so, but I did not say so.
    THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: The Imperial supremacy may be called a paper security, but I maintain that it is the very foundation of the civil government of this country, and I say the supremacy over Ireland would be a real supremacy. Let me say one word about the much-contested question of the retention of the Irish Members. No doubt that is one of the great difficulties in the Bill, but the opinion of the country was clearly in favour of the proposal embodied in the Bill. The noble Duke who moved the rejection of the Bill has certainly changed his mind on this subject.
    THE DUKE OF DEVONSHIRE: I explained that the circumstances are different.
    THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: I was rather surprised the noble Marquess said nothing as to the want of
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    sufficient discussion before the Bill came here, or as to what has been called the concealment of our policy during the last six years, before the Bill was brought in. I was astonished to hear a noble Lord make this statement, because in the Manifesto which the noble Marquess issued to the electors he plainly told them that the contest was to take place upon the question whether there was to be a domestic Legislature in Ireland. I maintain that the question was fully before the country, and fully discussed in the country. We are told that a Bill ought to have been before the country, but what Bill? Ought we to have circulated a Bill while we were in Opposition, or ought the Government to have circulated a Bill? The fact is these are new-fangled ideas invented for the occasion. I am surprised that the Conservative Party should try to introduce new principles into our Constitution. The first of those principles is nothing less than the Referendum, which, if adopted, would effect a complete revolution in our Constitution. The other principle is that every measure must have a majority of the people of Great Britain in its favour. But why a majority of the people of Great Britain? Why not a majority of the people of England, and of Scotland, and of Wales, and of Ireland? This is the federal principle which noble Lords opposite wish to introduce, and the reason is that it is not convenient for them to deal with this measure in the old constitutional way. The noble Marquess said that there are strategic reasons for refusing to assent to the policy embodied in this Bill. He thinks that Ireland will be dangerous because, he says, we are to surrender our controlling force. But he is in error, for all military and naval forces are to be absolutely under the control of the Imperial Government. How, therefore, are we placing ourselves at a disadvantage strategically? But these arguments are merely the means by which you try to veil your ineradicable distrust of the Irish people. I ask your Lordships to recollect, now that you are about to throw out this measure by an immense majority, what has occurred on previous occasions, in connection with similar action on your part. In 1880 you threw out the Compensation for Disturbance

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    Bill by 282 against 51, but the very next year you consented to pass a far more drastic and far-reaching measure—namely, the Land Act of 1881.
    THE MARQUESS OF SALISBURY: That was not the same Bill at all; the other was much worse.
    THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY: The noble Marquess considers it was much worse; but I have heard him speak in terms of the strongest condemnation of the Act of 1881. Why cannot you bring yourselves to conceive that is a melancholy condition to have a country in the condition in which Ireland is after your vain attempts for a century to rule her on the present system? Why cannot you see that you ought not to rest your government of Ireland upon the paper foundations on which it has hitherto been founded, and that you should make up your minds to rest it upon the far firmer foundations—as the experience of the whole world has shown them to be—of giving to a people who are desirous of it the management of their own domestic affairs, when you can do so, as this Bill has shown that it can be done, consistently with the maintenance of the unity of the Empire and the supremacy of Parliament?
    Leave having been given to the Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells to vote in the House, on question whether the word ("now") shall stand part of the Motion.
    Their Lordships divided:—Contents 41; Not-Contents 419.
    Resolved in the negative.
    Bill to be read 2a this day six months.

  STATUTORY RULES PROCEDURE BILL. (No. 237.)
  Order of the Day for the Third Reading, read, and discharged.

  PUBLIC HEALTH (LONDON) ACT, 1891, AMENDMENT BILL.—(No. 260.)
  Read 3a (according to Order), and passed.
  House adjourned at a quarter before One o'clock a.m., to Monday next, half-past Eleven o'clock.